by Kara Thomas
I am Brenda’s new Lawrence Cowen.
Brenda looks right at the camera. “Thank you, Paul, and I’m very sorry to hear about the harassment you’ve been facing. When we return from the break—wild photos unearthed on social media spark even more questions about Claire Keough, best friend of missing lovebirds—”
I close the video window and yank my earbuds out. It doesn’t matter what she has to say about the drunken pictures of me. Her viewers have heard the only thing that will ever matter about me again:
I am a liar.
I scramble out of bed; when I swing my door open my parents are already on the other side, faces ashen. They saw it too.
“I think,” I say, “I need to talk to that lawyer.”
NOW
The office of Michelle Yardley, attorney-at-law, is in a four-story building, wedged between a Wells Fargo Financial Advisors and a gynecology practice.
Mom insists this is just a consultation. I don’t want to know how much Michelle Yardley is charging for an hour of legal advice, and thanks to the Ativan I popped before we left, I’m finding it hard to focus on anything coming out of her mouth. My gaze drifts from the framed degrees over her head—SUNY Binghamton for undergrad, Cardozo for law school—to the picture frame with Mickey Mouse ears on her desk.
In the photo, Michelle Yardley is posing with two vapid-eyed little girls in front of Cinderella’s castle. It’s obvious the photo was taken at least ten years and ten pounds ago because the Michelle Yardley in front of me is a busty older woman with neatly penciled eyebrows.
Mom pokes my arm from the seat next to me.
“Sorry, what?” I say.
“I said, I don’t love that the FBI jumped all over the chance to interview you without counsel present. Or at the very least, your parents.”
I don’t dare look at my mother, because I don’t want to relitigate the issue. Of course, as she has pointed out fifty thousand times since I came clean to her last night about finding Kat’s car keys, I should have called her the second I found them. I should have called her the second the goddamn FBI showed up at our front door.
But I didn’t. I screwed up, in more ways than I can count, and that’s why I’m here.
Michelle Yardley folds her hands together, studies me from behind her tortoiseshell Kate Spade frames. “But refusing to talk to them would have been problematic.”
I swallow. “It wasn’t a formal interview, I don’t think. They didn’t even write anything down.”
“It doesn’t really matter what it was. They left knowing your blood type.”
“Why would they want to know her blood type?” Mom murmurs. “If they found blood, but no bodies, can they somehow prosecute—”
I dig my fingers into the skin on my thigh, below the hem of my shorts, still refusing to look at my mom. I hate her right now. I hate her for entertaining the idea that I could have done this, and for thinking, on some level, I should get away with it even if I did.
I watch Michelle Yardley, who hasn’t looked up from studying the hospital papers in front of her. “If Kat’s and Jesse’s bodies are recovered from the base of Devil’s Peak, it will be hard to argue someone of Claire’s size could have overpowered both of them. If they don’t recover the bodies, it will be an even harder sell that she somehow dragged both bodies and concealed them in a location the searchers still have not been able to uncover.”
I let myself breathe a little. Of course, it makes no sense that I killed them. I wait for Michelle Yardley to point out the obvious: I had no reason to kill my friends—but she clicks her pen, circles something on one of my hospital forms.
“What about the car keys?” Mom puts her fingers to her lips. “What do we do with them?”
Michelle looks up at my mother, her forehead creasing. “You’re going to call the FBI and tell them you have them.”
When Mom opens her mouth to protest, Michelle holds up a hand, startling the Mickey Mouse frame on her desk. She sets it straight and looks right at me, as if Mom weren’t in the room at all.
“You’ll tell them exactly what you told me,” Michelle says. “You found them while doing laundry. You don’t know why you had them. Your position is you don’t know anything because you don’t remember what happened.”
My position? I blink at Michelle Yardley. “I don’t remember. It’s the truth.”
She shrugs. The truth is irrelevant to her. Her job is to keep me out of jail.
“Here’s what I suggest you do,” Michelle says, the razor edge gone from her voice. “Go dark. Absolutely no talking to the media until the frenzy dies down—and it will. If the FBI has further questions, tell them you’ve decided to retain my services in response to Brenda Dean’s smear campaign and that all communication has to run through me.”
“Won’t that look suspicious?” I ask.
Michelle Yardley gives me a look as if she feels sorry for me. Like she wants to say that train has already left the station, but she doesn’t want to miss out on the check in my mom’s hand.
* * *
—
We’re out the door and getting into the elevator, my mom staring straight ahead. She’s probably wondering where she went wrong with me. Her one rule was that I always had to be honest with her, and I couldn’t do it. I lied about where we were going last weekend and I ruined my life.
That’s what’s going on here, isn’t it? Even if I had nothing to do with Kat’s and Jesse’s disappearance, I’m over. Done. Canceled. I accused an innocent man of being involved in my friends’ disappearance.
People I don’t even know hate me. My own parents can barely look at me.
Kat and Jesse are dead. Everyone is thinking it, because it’s been over a week and there’s still no sign of them.
Mom’s cell begins to ring, nearly making me jump from my skin. The Who’s “Who Are You” blasts from her phone. The two men in suits and a pregnant lady sharing the elevator look over at us. Heat fills my cheeks as Mom scrambles to dig her phone out of her bag.
“It’s probably Dad,” she mutters.
One of the men is still staring; I tear my eyes away. Has he seen the pictures of me in Anna Markey’s kitchen? Does he know who I am and that this office shares a floor with a criminal defense attorney?
The elevator doors open to the parking garage; Mom and I let everyone else out first. She trails behind me, still unable to unearth her damn cell. It’s stopped ringing, but now her voice mail tone is trilling.
“I think it’s in the side pocket,” I say.
Mom doesn’t say thank you, just makes this strangled, sighing sound and slides her phone out of the pocket. I catch a glimpse of her screen and my thoughts go black.
Elizabeth Marcotte: (1) missed call
No. The word tears through my brain.
No, they cannot have found Kat’s and Jesse’s bodies. Even though Kat and Jesse being dead is the only outcome that makes sense, I refuse to accept it. Even if someone showed me their bodies I don’t think I could believe it, like I’m one of those people who thinks the earth is flat or some other crazy bullshit.
Mom is just still sort of staring at the phone in her hand like the sight of it makes her sick. The words tumble out of me: “Listen to it.”
“When we get to the car,” Mom says.
Her Civic is parked on the other side of the garage from where the elevator drops us off. Somehow my legs carry me there; I get myself into the passenger seat without them collapsing under me.
Mom buckles her seat belt before pressing play on Mrs. Marcotte’s message, holding her phone to her ear. I can’t hear any of it over the sound of my heart in my ears.
When Mom sets her phone down, fingers trembling, I force myself to speak. “Did they find Kat and Jesse?”
“No.” Mom pales. “It’s Mr. Marcotte.”
&
nbsp; * * *
—
Christine, it’s Beth—something’s happened with Johnathan. There’s been a terrible accident.
That’s all Mrs. Marcotte said in her message. I made Mom play it on speaker for me twice because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
When Mom calls back, Beth’s number goes straight to voice mail. I move my hand to my pocket, the thought almost automatic. I have to call Kat and see what happened.
But my pocket is empty—Mom confiscated my phone yesterday—and even if I could call Kat, she wouldn’t pick up.
“What’s happening?” I say.
“I don’t know.” Mom starts the engine, her eyes still on the phone in her cup holder. “I don’t know, Claire.”
* * *
—
The FBI is holding a press conference at 3:00 p.m. CNN has been teasing it all afternoon, promising a major update in the search for Katherine Marcotte and Jesse Salpietro.
I put on the TV at two. I’ve been lying on the living room couch since we got home, eavesdropping on Mom as she calls every person in her contacts, trying to get more information about Beth Marcotte’s cryptic message.
“Claire.”
I open my eyes as Mom perches on the couch beside me. “I got ahold of Kat’s aunt Erin,” she says.
Erin Fornier, Amos’s mother. My head feels too heavy to process the panic of my mother being one degree closer to Amos. I prop myself up on an elbow and look at Mom. Her eyelids shine with exhaustion and her hair is scraped into a stringy bun, as if she’d lived a thousand years since last night.
“What happened?” I ask.
“She only knows he was hit by a car in Sunfish Creek and airlifted to Columbia–Presbyterian for surgery. He’s been under for hours.” Mom’s voice warbles. “It’s not good.”
Mom wraps her hand around mine, squeezes. Something has shifted between us since last night. I’m being given a pass on my outburst, because Kat and Jesse are missing and Mr. Marcotte might die and nothing matters anymore.
* * *
—
At ten after, the news breaks for a live broadcast inside the FBI’s Long Island field office. Behind a podium flanked by an American flag and a justice department flag, a man—tall, thin, with mantis-like limbs—waits, eyes avoiding the cameras. Lined up beside the pea-soup-colored wall next to him are a bunch of interchangeable men and women in suits.
Among them are Agent Novak, his jaw stiff, as if he’s trying to hide that he’s got a piece of gum lodged there. Agent Cummings is next to him, hair blown out neatly to her shoulders, hoop earrings gone.
There is lots of shuffling, murmuring among the reporters off-screen, before the man—whom the chyron identifies as the head of the local FBI office—fusses with his tie and speaks. “Last night, at approximately 11:57 p.m., a suspect in the disappearance of Katherine Marcotte and Jesse Salpietro was killed while fleeing the scene of an automobile accident in Sunfish Creek, New York.”
Dozens of camera shutters go off at once. Suspect. The word knifes through my gut. Next to me, my mother’s hand moves to cover her mouth.
“Prior to the events of this accident, Johnathan Marcotte, Katherine’s father, was critically injured in a confrontation with the driver. He was airlifted to the ICU at Columbia–Presbyterian Hospital. Further details about the individual will be released in the coming days. For now, to protect the integrity of the investigation, we will not be answering any questions about the events of the accident.”
Noises of protest from the reporters; the director holds up a hand, like a teacher quieting an unruly class. Someone shouts: Was Mr. Marcotte paying a ransom to the suspect?
The word cuts off the oxygen to my brain. One thought rises to the surface: if they were kidnapped, they might still be alive.
The man goes red in the face. “I’m unable to comment on events preceding the accident. If you’ll let me finish—”
The protests quiet, and the director clears his throat. “Our primary focus is recovering Katherine and Jesse. In light of GPS data recovered from the suspect’s vehicle, we’ve shifted the focus of our search away from Bobcat Mountain.”
My heartbeat stalls. If the FBI doesn’t think their bodies are on the mountain, they had to have been kidnapped—they made it off the mountain alive—
A voice pipes up from the crowd—“Are you searching Blackstone Quarry?”
The floor seems to cave in beneath me. I grab the arm of the couch, a cold sweat pricking the back of my neck. No. They didn’t make it off that mountain alive just to be dumped into a quarry—
Above the collar of his shirt, the FBI director’s neck flashes red, as if he’s going to pop a blood vessel at the punchline of his press conference being snatched from him. “Yes. We have shifted our focus to Blackstone Quarry, located three miles west of Bobcat Mountain.”
At this, my mother takes my hand again. On the television, a woman’s voice echoes somewhere in the crowd. “Is it true an item belonging to Kat Marcotte was found in the quarry?”
Next to the director, Novak’s nostrils flare. He shakes his head.
“We recovered an item of clothing.” The FBI director wipes his forehead. “We’re working to confirm if it belongs to Katherine.”
“We’ll take one more question,” the director says.
Some shouting. The director points at someone off-screen.
A woman’s voice. “Assuming Johnathan Marcotte was in that parking lot to pay the suspect a ransom for his daughter, why haven’t you recovered Katherine or Jesse?”
The director swallows, his jaw set. “I’ll have no further comment on that until our search of the quarry is complete. But I have to caution you: This is a recovery mission, not a rescue.”
* * *
—
It’s morning when the doorbell rings, pulling me out of my Ativan stupor. I don’t know what time it is, or how I’m supposed to measure time now. The FBI director said a search of Blackstone Quarry is underway.
Blackstone Quarry is two hundred feet deep with zero visibility. According to the talking heads that appeared on CNN after the press conference, it could take the divers weeks to find anything at the bottom.
It could be weeks before we know for sure if Kat’s and Jesse’s bodies are in there.
My mother answers the door, because I haven’t budged from my blanket cocoon on the couch since the press conference. Murmured voices in the hall, then Agent Cummings and Novak are in my living room and I still can’t make myself move or speak.
Cummings takes the armchair while Novak stands in the corner behind her. He’s always standing, to the point where I wonder if he has a boil on his ass or something.
“Is there any word on Johnathan Marcotte?” Mom asks.
“He survived the first surgery and is scheduled for another today.” Cummings’s tone says there’s nothing more to tell. “Mrs. Keough, could I trouble you for a cup of coffee?”
“Not at all.” Mom’s hand is at her throat, and she looks like she’s on the verge of crying.
Something tells me Cummings asked for the coffee to get rid of my mother. Mom knows it too, because she watches from the kitchen archway.
Novak crosses his arms, studies me. “We hear you have an attorney, but I don’t think it’s necessary for her to be here for this.”
I nod. Because I’m not a suspect; they have a suspect. A dead suspect.
“Who was the man who hit Mr. Marcotte?” I ask.
Cummings opens the folder in her lap and hands me a printed photo. A driver’s license, or a mug shot, who can tell. The man’s bright blue eyes and half smile are youthful, but his craggy face suggests otherwise.
“Have you ever seen him before?” Cummings asks.
“I don’t recognize him.” I drop the picture like it’s on fire.
; “His name is Michael Vincent Dorsey. It doesn’t ring a bell?”
I shake my head. “Did he know Kat and Jesse?”
“We haven’t been able to establish a connection,” Cummings says. “Right now it looks like a crime of opportunity.”
“But he kidnapped them?” The words stick in my throat. The FBI director had said they don’t believe the suspect intended to return Kat and Jesse, which means he had them. He had them and now they’re gone, which means they’re dead.
My chest is stretched like a rubber band about to snap; I can’t breathe. I try to focus on the words coming out of Agent Novak’s mouth.
“We think the suspect went to the campsite looking for a robbery target,” he says. “Once he found out who Kat was, he changed his mind.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “I was alone when Paul Santangelo saw me on the trail that evening. If we were attacked and Kat was kidnapped, why was I so calm when I saw Santangelo? Why didn’t I tell him what happened?”
Cummings and Novak glance at each other.
“We don’t know,” Cummings finally says. “It’s possible you’d already hit your head and lost your memory. The hiker said you seemed scared.”
“It’s also possible you didn’t trust him,” Novak says. “You might have wanted to get to the parking lot to call the police.”
I swallow. “I found her car keys in my pocket. I think…she must have given them to me.”
My voice trails off, drowned out by the sound of Kat’s in my head. I know it’s not real, because I don’t remember, but I hear her. I know exactly what she would say, how she would plead for her life when she realized we were being robbed.
Please don’t kill me. My grandmother has money—she’ll pay.
She would have done anything to save us if she saw a gun. I close my eyes and I see her, slipping the car keys in my hand. Commanding me to run as she went with Michael Dorsey.