That Weekend

by Kara Thomas

  “Even as a kid, if I saw him outside, something told me to be on my best behavior,” Ben says. “And then when Kat went missing, seeing him crying on TV—I don’t know. He became a different person for the cameras. It didn’t seem real.”

  I turn the idea over in my head: Mr. Marcotte, the distraught father, was all an act for the cameras.

  The sip of hot chocolate I take is too big; it scalds my throat. “You think Kat’s dad is hiding something?”

  “I don’t know—there’s just something off about everything.” Ben’s fingers go still around the handle of his mug. “The night Mr. Marcotte got hit by the kidnapper—something weird happened at their house.”

  “What?” I ask. “What happened?”

  “The security alarm went off at Kat’s house,” he says, and shifts in the bean bag so he’s sitting straighter. “No one was home, so my mom went outside to talk to the village police that showed up.”

  My pulse accelerates. “Someone broke into the Marcottes’ house?”

  “No, that’s the weird thing. The cops said all the doors were locked. There weren’t any strange cars in the area so they told my mom one of the window sensors might have gotten triggered by the wind. It was probably nothing.” Ben shrugs. “Just weird, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Probably nothing.”

  * * *

  —

  By the time Ben walks me upstairs, a light snow is falling outside. He insists on driving me home, and I let him, because I’ve decided running is the fucking worst.

  And, I think, as I climb into his car, I’m not ready to close the door on whatever this is with Ben. Even if there are only a few weeks left before we go back to school and the door eventually slams shut, Brookport feels slightly more survivable with him next to me.

  Ben pulls into my driveway, coasting to a stop. I could be imagining it, hoping for it, but it feels like the five-minute drive took much longer, and maybe Ben wasn’t driving so slow because of the dusting of snow on the road.

  He cuts his engine and turns to me. “So—”

  “I usually get off work around ten,” I say.

  “Okay.” He blinks at me. “Text me?”

  I answer by brushing my lips over his. This is probably a bad idea, considering how he hurt me, how little time we have before whatever this is has to end—but the urgency in Ben’s body as he kisses me back makes it clear. This time, things will be on my terms.

  I am tired of letting things happen to me.

  * * *

  —

  Judging by all the empty tables in Stellato’s on Sunday night, everyone is keeping their New Year’s resolutions to eat healthy. I sold dozens of gift cards last week but I’m guessing no one will be in to use them until they’ve dropped the holiday pounds.

  As a result, Serg lets me go at nine. I draw my peacoat tight to my body as I navigate the icy parking lot, the wind nearly blowing my keys from my hand as I unlock my car.

  I give in to a full-body shiver, start my engine, and blast the heat. Something stops me from reaching for my phone to text Ben.

  My heartbeat picks up. I lower the force of the heat blasting in my face. Creep out of the Stellato’s parking lot, and make a right toward Idledale Road.

  I drive past Ben’s, keep going until I reach Kat’s house. I make a right and park next to the privacy shrubs lining the side of the property. I kill my engine and lights, hands trembling.

  I don’t know what I’m doing here.

  I know exactly what I’m doing here.

  The only reason I haven’t left my car is because I’m waiting for someone’s voice to pop in my head and talk me out of this. My therapist’s, maybe, asking me how I feel every time I go internet-diving for answers and come up empty-handed.

  Angry.

  I’m angry because there must be answers locked in my brain somewhere, memories I still can’t access after six months. The answer, the rest of the story, could still be in there.

  I know what my therapist would say: I need more to the story because the one I’ve been given sucks. Kat was kidnapped because her grandma was rich; she and Jesse were killed for no reason. How am I supposed to accept that the worst thing to ever happen to me has no meaning?

  The sound of barking jolts me in my seat. Elmo, I think, before remembering it can’t be Elmo; he’s in Westchester with Beth and Emma.

  Two summers ago, Kat’s family went to a Sullivan-Marcotte reunion for the weekend in Montauk. Elmo was not welcome at the hotel, so Kat’s mom paid me forty bucks a day to feed and walk him. She gave me a key to the house, told me to be mindful of the alarm. She wrote the code on a note on the fridge in case I forgot how to disable it: 11/13, Kat’s birthday.

  I’d forgotten to give the key back, and Kat’s mom must have forgotten too, because she’d never asked for it. It’s been sitting in my glove compartment ever since. When Ben told me about the alarm going off, I remembered my key.

  Anyone the Marcottes trusted enough to give a key to their home would have had the code for the alarm system too. Maybe the village cop was right, and the alarm had been triggered accidentally.

  I reach over and rifle through the debris in the glove compartment until my fingers meet cold metal. I fold my hand around the key, my pulse in my ears. I can get in—I have the key, and the alarm code.

  I slip out of the driver’s side and close the door gently, afraid the sound will draw the attention of the neighbors, even though their windows are dark, shades drawn. I pull my coat over my face to block the cold and slip through the Marcotte’s back gate.

  The pool is covered, the patio furniture packed away. The hedges lining the backyard fence are neatly trimmed, even though no one has lived here for months. Even empty, abandoned, the Marcottes’ backyard is still magical. The wooden arch gate, the artfully arranged stones Kat and I used to play hopscotch on.

  She said, if she ever got married, it would be in this backyard. And soon, it will belong to someone else.

  I swallow as I wiggle the key into the back door, slip inside the kitchen, and fumble in the dark for the keypad beside the door before realizing it’s too quiet. No warning sound emanating from the keypad prompting me to input the code.

  The alarm has been disabled. Probably for the realtors.

  Even in the dull glow of the half-moon coming through the window, the house looks the same as the last time I was here. It’s only when I stop to take everything in that I notice the missing pieces. No more dog bed in the corner, no shoes stacked neatly on the rack by the back door. And the temperature. Fifty degrees, according to the thermostat in the hallway.

  I head down the hallway, trying to make myself as weightless as possible. The house is old—like, nineteenth-century-farmhouse old—and every step, every opened door elicits a creak or a groan.

  I’m here hunting memories. Not just of Kat and me, crawling into the attic, declaring it our clubhouse, or of us dressing Elmo up with whatever doll hats he would tolerate. I’m hoping this house has some trace of her—her smell, a glimpse of something—that might send signals to that damaged piece of brain where my memories of June 23 are hiding.

  I push Kat’s bedroom door open. I shut my eyes, breathe in. Step across the threshold.

  The sight sucks the breath out of me, even though I knew it was a possibility.

  Kat is gone from this room. Her desk has been replaced with a chair artfully decorated with throw pillows. Her closet, empty. The room has been staged to sell; all trace of the girl who inhabited it is gone, anything that screams Kat Marcotte was here! a liability for skittish buyers.

  I glance under Kat’s bed, but there’s nothing but carpet, and the heating vent on the far wall.

  My body goes still at the sight of the vent. A flash of eight-year-old Kat, pencil to her chin, as we wrote in our diaries, side by side on her b
ed. I carried mine around because when your mother is a therapist you don’t have secrets; she always disappeared under her bed when it was time to hide her diary.

  I shimmy so I’m flush with the carpet, stick my arm under Kat’s bed. Reach until I make contact with the grate; I stick my hand through the slats, feeling around on the floor. My fingertips make contact with cold plastic.

  I grit my teeth and shove my hand between the grate. Curse under my breath—I’ve pushed the object out of reach. When I pull my hand out, I take the whole grate off with it.

  My heartbeat accelerates. That shouldn’t have happened—unless the grate wasn’t screwed on.

  I reach back in the empty space, fumbling for whatever is hidden there. Got it.

  I wipe the dust from my fingertips on my pants, turn over the object in my hand. It’s a flip phone, no bigger than a credit card. It’s ancient, and I don’t recognize it as one Kat ever owned.

  I flip the phone open and hold the power button down.

  The phone comes to life and blinks, alerting me that it has 10 percent battery left. In the bottom corner, a (1) hovers over the text inbox. I wipe a slick of sweat from my thumb and open the message.

  screw you answer my calls

  NOW

  Mom and Dad are in their bedroom when I get home, door closed, the laugh track of a sitcom the only indication they’re even awake. I’m still shaking when I shut myself in my room.

  I powered the phone down to conserve its battery on the drive home.

  Kat’s phone. Kat’s secret phone.

  I sit at my desk and power the phone back on. The whole drive home I had practically convinced myself I had imagined the text, but here it is, right in front of my eyes in the bright lights of my room.

  screw you answer my calls

  Sent on May 19, last year. Just a month before prom weekend.

  Even though it has a local 631 area code, I don’t recognize the number, and there are no contacts saved to the phone, no names. But there are dozens of incoming and outgoing calls in the log, dating back to over a year ago.

  I switch back to the text inbox, peruse the rest of the messages with the screw you person. The thread began April 24 last year, when the 631 number texted Kat:

  yoooo you there???

  yeah, sorry man. at my gf’s house

  Girlfriend. The idea of Kat Marcotte having a secret girlfriend is even wilder than Kat having a secret cell phone. Too wild to be true, even.

  Which means it wasn’t Kat texting from this phone—maybe it wasn’t her phone at all. I read on, my heartbeat quickening.

  Can u meet at brookport marina in ten?

  lol Yuppyville in broad daylight?? R u serious?

  I’ll be with my gf and her dog. No one will think anything of it.

  I set the phone down on my bed, my palms slick with sweat. This wasn’t Kat’s phone; she was simply hiding it.

  For him.

  With a wave of nausea, I see Jesse, hand-in-hand with Kat. She’s tugging at Elmo’s leash, dragging him away from the edge of the dock, muttering No, we’re not swimming now!

  Why would Jesse have a secret cell phone? I mean, there’s a pretty obvious explanation for why someone would be using a burner phone to meet up with people, but this is Jesse Salpietro.

  He wasn’t a fucking drug dealer.

  Jesse, who could frost a perfect buttercream rose, who could play “Sweet Child o’ Mine” on the guitar, who carried around a picture of his mother in his wallet—he wasn’t a drug dealer.

  The phone chirps at me, alerting me there’s now 3 percent battery left. My heart climbs into my throat. I pull up the call log and take a picture of the screen with my own phone. Three, four, five shots capture every call this phone made or received.

  I cross to my desk, rifle through the contents of my top drawer until I find Agent Cummings’s business card. I input her cell number into my phone.

  Two rings, three rings—I’m about to hang up when a breathy voice fills the line. “Agent Cummings. Who is this?”

  “Um, it’s Claire Keough. I’m not sure you remember me—it’s been a while.”

  “Claire, hey. Is everything all right?”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I’m not sure. I’m really sorry to call this late, but I found something and I don’t know. I think you should know about it.”

  “Where are you? Are you safe?” Cummings sounds wide-awake, despite the fact that it’s almost ten-thirty.

  “Yeah, of course. I’m home. Is there somewhere I can meet you so I can give it to you? I’m sorry, I know it’s crazy late.”

  “I don’t care what time it is. It’s just that I’m out of town for a few days.” A rustling sound, as if she’s unfolding a receipt or a piece of paper. “Hold on. I’m going to call Novak and see if he can meet you, okay?”

  “What if he’s asleep?” I ask.

  “Then I’ll wake his old ass up. He lives ten minutes from you.”

  “Wait.” I glance at my door, imagining my parents across the hall, having their sitcom interrupted by an FBI agent knocking at our door. “Could we not meet at my house? If he’s around.”

  Cummings pauses. “Let me call you back.”

  * * *

  —

  It’s almost eleven when I get to the McDonald’s on Montauk Highway. I told my parents I left my wallet at Stellato’s and needed to go back out and get it. Mom told me to be more careful and I said okay and ran out to my car before she could climb out of bed and see that my wallet was in my hand.

  Novak is seated at a two-person table, a cup of coffee in front of him. His eyebrows lift when he sees me. I slide into the seat across from him, hands shoved in my coat pockets.

  Novak pops a Rolaid and replaces the roll in his jacket pocket. “So, Ms. Keough. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  I set the phone on the table. “I found this in Kat’s room.”

  “Kat Marcotte?” he asks.

  I stare at him. “Yes?”

  Novak peers at the phone resting between us. I wedge my trembling hands between my thighs as he picks it up and flips it open. His brow creases as his fingers work the keys.

  He looks at me over the top of the phone. “It’s got no juice.”

  “I know.”

  Novak’s face is impassive. “Can I ask when you found this in Kat’s room?”

  “Earlier tonight.”

  “And how did you get in the Marcottes’ house?”

  “I had a key.” I swallow. “There’s a vent under her bed. The phone was hidden there.”

  I think Jesse was dealing drugs.

  “All right,” Novak says.

  That’s it? All right? I stare at Novak. “I broke into their house.”

  “I can arrest you, if it would make you feel better.”

  “Are you—” I chew the inside of my cheek. “Will you check the phone out? If she was hiding it, there might be something important on there….”

  “We’ll check it out.” Novak isn’t looking at the phone, which is now resting on the table. He folds his hands together over the belly of his fisherman’s cable sweater, eyes locked on me. “How are you, Claire?”

  It feels so weird, Novak asking me about my feelings, like I’m an actual human being, that I blurt: “What do you mean?”

  Novak’s eyebrows lift. “Are you okay?”

  Someone who is okay wouldn’t break into their dead best friend’s house. My fingers tighten around the edge of the table. No, I am not okay. I needed there to be a reason for what happened to us and now that I’ve potentially found one, I can’t handle it.

  I wipe away a tear with the back of my hand.

  Novak grabs a
napkin and extends it to me. When I refuse to take it, he rests it on the table between us. “Claire, you’re not always going to feel this way.”

  “Yes, I will, until I know for sure what happened to them.”

  Novak blinks. “Can I say something?”

  I finally reach for the napkin resting between us. When I’m done dabbing my eyes, Novak says, “I think that even if I had the answers you’re looking for, if I could tell you the who and the what and the why right now, it wouldn’t make you feel a damn bit better.”

  I crush the napkin in my fist. “That sounds like bullshit.”

  Novak shrugs, his whole body moving with his shoulders, as if he’s not made up of individual parts. There’s no way he’s not retired army or something. “Maybe it is, I don’t know you. But I do know that I’ve seen people wait years to find out what happened to their loved ones, and when they finally do, the answers aren’t enough. The emptiness is still there. Sometimes it’s even worse.”

  “So I should be grateful that I barely remember anything? That you still haven’t found their bodies?”

  “I didn’t say that. But it sounds like you’ve convinced yourself that having an answer will bring you peace, when it might do the opposite.”

  I return his stare, probing his face for some sort of clue there’s a hidden message in what he’s saying. Of course, Agent Novak knows more than everyone else does. Even in their absence, the FBI has more access to my friends’ lives than I ever did. If there’s a connection between what’s on that phone and what happened on June 23, he must know about it already.

  In any case, I’m tired of being a step behind everyone else in knowing what happened to me on that mountain. It ignites something in me. “Please, tell me something that hasn’t been made public. Anything.”

  Novak studies me for a beat, a rare expression of pity crossing his face. “Like what?”