by Kara Thomas
And then what? If they find and arrest Amos, will it be enough then? If he leads the FBI to Kat’s and Jesse’s bodies, will that be enough for me to accept that they’re gone?
Or will nothing ever be enough as long as I can’t remember what happened in those hours I was hiding like a coward while Kat and Jesse were kidnapped and murdered?
I’m turning on my side, wishing I still had an Ativan stash, when my phone vibrates. I have a text from a number I don’t recognize.
hey can you call me?
this is Zo btw
Before we left Dunkin’ Donuts, I put my number in Zoe-Grace’s phone and told her to text me if she heard from Amos. My heart flip-flops as I select her number, hit call.
She answers the phone with, “Sorry, this was too long to text.”
I keep my voice hovering around a whisper, even though there’s no way my parents will hear me down the hall, if they’re even awake. “Don’t be sorry. What’s going on?”
“This is going to sound super weird, but a few times a week, I check my blog traffic,” Zoe-Grace says. “There’s this weird IP address that’s been visiting my site literally every day for months.”
My pulse quickens. “You can track who visits your website?”
“Yeah, I’ve been checking to see if anyone from the schools I applied to were checking out my work,” Zoe-Grace says. “I thought it was kind of weird this cell phone user in New York was visiting every day but then I talked to you…and I don’t know, I think it might be Amos?”
“Where in New York?”
“I looked the town up and it’s literally right on the border with Vermont.”
“Did the IP address give you any other information?”
“Yeah. An actual address.” Zoe-Grace is quiet for a beat. “Do you want it?”
“Yes. Please.”
“It’s Three Fifty-Two Townline Road, Timsbury, New York,” she says. “Are you going to call the FBI?”
“I don’t know. I mean, we don’t know if that IP is Amos’s, or if they’re even looking for him.”
If Amos is a suspect, the FBI hasn’t made that information public yet. If he’s not, they’ll probably take the tip about the IP address in Timsbury as seriously as they do the whack jobs calling to say they spotted Kat and Jesse in Costa Rica.
“I messed up big-time,” Zoe-Grace says. “I never should have said he was with me. What if everything that happened to Kat’s dad is my fault?”
“Don’t do that to yourself. I’ve been there, and it’s just…” I don’t know how to say it, or maybe I’m just afraid of it sounding stupid. But I know how dangerous it is to fixate on one small action, one wrong decision. You eventually start to think you have more control than you do.
“I could get into a shit ton of trouble for lying to the police,” Zoe-Grace says.
“Maybe,” I say. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Hey, Claire,” Zoe-Grace says, her voice trailing off. “Everything I told you…I know I need to own up. I just need to be ready.”
I nod, even though she can’t see me. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“Thanks,” she says quietly.
We end the call and I immediately Google 352 Townline Road in Timsbury and follow a link to a listing on a vacation home rental site.
We’re sorry. This property is no longer available.
According to the listing, 352 Townline Road is a three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath house. The pictures of it have been taken down, but there’s a phone number for the owner.
I input it into my phone, my heartbeat picking up with each ring. After four, a man picks up.
“Hello?”
“Hi—I was calling about your rental property in Timsbury?”
“What? Do you know what time it is—and how’d you get this number?”
“From VacationRentals-dot-com. I’m a representative for the site. I was calling to see if you wanted me to update the listing.”
The man shushes a dog barking in the background. “That house hasn’t been available since the summer.”
“Has the same person been renting it since then?” I ask.
The man goes quiet. “I don’t see how that’s anybody’s business but mine.”
“It’s just for our records, sir. Would you like me to take down the listing?”
“Yeah, and get rid of my number as well,” the man says.
Then the line goes dead.
* * *
—
Saturday morning. In the kitchen, my dad is facing the wall, still as a statue with one hand hooked behind his neck. It takes me a beat to see what he’s looking at: two swipes of orange paint, brushed over the yellow my mother has been wanting to change for months.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
Dad turns. Blinks at me. “Trying to decide between these two colors.”
“They look exactly the same.”
“One is Pumpkin Pie, and one is Harvest Moon.” He says this as if the difference should be obvious to me.
“I like Harvest Moon,” I say and drop myself into a chair, then add, “I think I should drive myself back to school.”
Dad turns to me. “That’s a long drive to do alone.”
“It’s a long drive for you to do when you can be painting the kitchen,” I point out.
Dad takes off his reading glasses and peers at me. “I don’t know, Claire. You should understand why I’m skittish about you traveling alone.”
“That’s not very feminist of you.”
“And that is manipulative of you,” Dad says. “Why don’t you want me to drive you?”
“It’s not that. If I have my car up there, I can actually do stuff off campus. Like find a job.”
“I don’t know…” Dad sighs. I can sense him cracking. Mom was always the one who pushed the free-range-parenting thing.
“Dad,” I say. “You can’t protect me from everything because of what happened to my friends.”
I reach for his hand. He grabs it back, brings it to his lips. He closes his eyes for a beat, then says, “I’ll change your oil and put air in your tires today.”
* * *
—
I leave Sunday morning.
I have an audiobook to help pass the time—one of the titles on the syllabus for my contemporary fiction class this semester—but I turn it off after an hour when I realize I haven’t followed a single word of it.
My GPS is set for 352 Townline Road, Timsbury, New York. I mapped it out, and it’ll take me five hours to get there, as long as it takes to get to Geneseo.
It’ll take me another four hours to get to campus from Timsbury. It’s a ton of driving, a ton of wasted gas money, but I have to know if Amos is there.
The sky is the color of a bruise by the time I reach the New York–Vermont border. The GPS says I have half an hour left. I pull over at the last rest stop on the freeway and buy an overpriced coffee I don’t really want before I get back on the road.
By the time the coffee cools, the GPS is directing me to make a right onto Townline Road. There is no welcome to timsbury sign; the only indication I’m in the right town is the decreasing time left on my GPS. I pass a country store and a church. The latter has a sign that says honk if you love jesus / text and drive if you want to meet him!
The closest house to 352 Townline Road is a mile away. I slow to a crawl as I get closer.
The house is set up on a hill. The driveway is empty. I pass the house, keep driving as the GPS recalculates, alerting me I’ve passed my destination, prompting me to turn around.
Heart jackhammering, I back off the gas pedal, slow to a creep. A light snow has begun to fall. I flick my wipers on.
I pass by the house two, three more times before my heart starts to sin
k. I head back into town and park in the lot of the local post office.
It has been five and a half hours since I left home. I call my mother and get her voice mail.
“Hey.” I swallow, trying to blot the disappointment from my voice. “I’m here. Guess I’ll talk to you guys tomorrow.”
I end the call and set my GPS for Geneseo. It was foolish to come here; did I expect to find Amos Fornier on the front porch, eager to invite me in and admit how he got away with kidnapping and murder?
On the way out of the post office lot, I increase the speed on my wipers as the snow picks up. But instead of following the GPS and making a right, I make a left back toward Townline Road.
The farmhouse is still dark.
I shake my head and start a three-point turn to head back to the freeway.
I’m changing gears when my car lurches forward. My forehead knocks into the steering wheel.
I lift my hand to my brow in a daze. Someone rear-ended me; I’ll have to get out of the car and call the cops, who will report this to insurance and how the hell am I going to explain to my parents what I was doing here—
As I reach for my seat belt, my car lurches forward again. In the rear mirror I see a silver car ramming mine from behind—
A command breaks through the chaos in my brain. This is not an accident. Get out of here.
I hit the gas but it’s too late; I’m off the road. Someone yanks my door open. I fumble for the handle to slam it shut at the same moment a man, face obscured by the hood of his sweatshirt, pries the door open.
A scream catches in my throat as Amos Fornier pulls me from the car and throws me to the ground, my spine numbing as it hits snow and ice. I see the shovel in his hands at the same moment he brings it down on my head.
KAT
LAST YEAR
JUNE 23
I woke to golden light spilling through the blinds of the lake house master bedroom. I sat up straight, propelled by my sense of disorientation. Something was different. Aside from not being in my own bed, in my own home, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had forgotten something.
Beside me, Jesse stirred. He propped himself up on his hand, his elbow sinking into the mattress. “Is everything okay?”
I sank back down into the pillows, heart racing. The dream. That’s what was different—I hadn’t had the dream last night.
I’d been having the same dream for years, ever since we moved home from Italy. I’m watching the plane take off, and I know they’re on it. My mother and father and Emma are always on the plane, and I’m not.
I don’t know where I’m watching from, but when the plane explodes into a ball of fire and smoke I know they’re on it and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Last night, though, there was only darkness, peace. Jesse’s arms.
Is everything okay?
“Yes,” I said, curling back into Jesse.
Everything was more than okay. Everything was perfect.
Because by the end of the weekend, I would be dead.
* * *
—
Everyone will want to know why. How could this happen—why would this happen—to Kat Marcotte, the girl who had everything?
I know that’s what people thought of me secretly, bitterly. First chair in the clarinet section in band, volleyball captain, National Merit Scholarship, lead role in the fifth-grade play. My entire life, one long scorecard of wins.
In the locker room after volleyball practice in the fall, I overheard Shannon DiClemente and Anna Markey discussing the battle for valedictorian. Jamie Liu and me, fighting over it like a wishbone. It would come down to less than a point.
“I hope it’s Jamie,” Shannon said, toweling off her face, her neck. She didn’t have to say more; it was obvious what she was thinking. Shannon, who was technically better than me on the court, but always arguing with Coach, too hotheaded to be appointed captain.
Kat gets everything.
Anna and Shannon hadn’t seen me leaving Coach’s office while they were talking, massaging the tendons in my wrist. It had been acting up, and I couldn’t hide my discomfort anymore, not during serving drills, at least. Coach was worried, made me promise to see a doctor. Anna and Shannon didn’t realize I could hear them talking about valedictorian, their wish that it would go to someone other than me for no other reason than I had everything.
I slipped into the showers, pressing two fingers down on the spasming in my wrist.
She had everything, they’ll say when I’m gone. Everything, just thrown away.
How could this happen? they’ll ask, and the only thing that matters to me now is that that question is never answered.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Imagine New York City through the eyes of a little girl seeing it for the first time. The energy, the lights, the way the people who walk the streets seem like they just woke up one day and decided to be whoever the hell they wanted to be. You can be anyone and still, no one would look twice at you. Everyone in New York wants to be someone, but everyone is no one.
Imagine how that possibility felt to a little girl who had wanted—ever since she could remember—to disappear and be no one. After that little girl set foot in Manhattan the first time, mittened hand in her grandmother’s, outside the Russian Tea Room, that’s where she went whenever she wanted to disappear.
When the yelling started, spittle flying in her face, she imagined herself slipping through the subway doors. When she barricaded herself, and eventually, her younger sister alongside her, in her bedroom, she imagined living in an apartment in the Village no bigger than the closet they hid in.
Her father said New York City was dirty, filled with degenerates and broken people, but when she thought of escaping to New York City and letting it break her, it filled her with longing so powerful she felt like she would rather die than give up that dream.
Someday, she would slip away from him, from all of them, and become someone else in the city. She would make it happen; she just hadn’t realized, then, that New York City was not far away enough.
* * *
—
Imagine that girl, just turned seventeen, the November of her senior year, her birthday several months behind most of her classmates. That’s never stopped her from being smarter than them, better than them, according to her family.
She’s on the cusp of getting everything she’s spent the past several years working toward. Everything she deserves. Her father, who has been given everything, says no one deserves anything—but her grandmother, whose parents were born with nothing, feels differently.
Her grandmother tells the girl she is exceptional, that she deserves to go to one of the best colleges in the country. The same one she went to herself, almost fifty years ago. Boston College, five hours away from the grit and glitz of Manhattan, of those hippies at NYU. She’s applied to Columbia too, of course, because it holds the respectability of being an Ivy League, something her family cannot deny. But NYU has been her dream school since the eighth grade.
Yet her grandmother is so intent on her going to Boston College, she makes an offer. She’ll make some phone calls, ensure an interview happens, she’ll even pay every last line item on the bill; but only if every other school is off the table.
Including NYU. Especially NYU.
She knows she has no choice. She’s never had a choice: not what classes she takes; what sports she plays; not even the time she wakes up in the morning. She knows what happens when she defies him. She doesn’t want to know what will happen if she defies the woman who made him who he is.
So she trades everything she loves for that spot at Boston College: her dream of going to NYU; a future with the boy she has, against all her better judgment, let into her life.
Parts of it. He doesn’t know what goes on in her house because she h
asn’t told anyone, not even her best friend. He curls his body around hers in his bed, his warmth in the dead of winter, whispering in her ear about all the things they’ll do together when she goes to school in the city, fifteen minutes away from the apartment he’ll be renting with his bandmates in the fall. She promises it’ll happen, even though she knows it’s a fairy tale. He does not realize she has been lying to her family about them, downplaying how serious their relationship has gotten.
Only her mother has met him, only her mother knows how much time they actually spend together. Of course her father and grandmother will not approve of him—maybe they will even hate him because they hate everything that makes her happy.
So she lies to him, over and over. When the email arrives from NYU—Congratulations!—she deletes it and tells him she was rejected. As his face falls, she says she doesn’t understand it either, how it could happen. Because they’re both thinking it—she gets everything she puts her mind toward, and somehow, she didn’t get into NYU.
The thing about lying is that if you do it enough, it becomes something you don’t even have to think about. Just like breathing.
I would know. I’ve been doing it my whole life, for them.
My family.
KAT
LAST YEAR
MAY
It started—or ended, depending on how you look at it—two weeks before my grandmother’s birthday. Marian was at our house for Sunday coffee, a weekly expectation she had sprung upon my mother when we moved into the home on Idledale Road, her stitches not yet healed from giving birth to me.
Marian watched me from over the rim of her cup, waiting for a lull in my mother’s prattling about the upcoming celebration at the Brookport Country Club.
“Your mother says things are serious with this boy you’ve been spending time with.”
My mother added some more creamer to her coffee, eyes cast down. The only reason they dared to speak of it now was because my father was ten thousand feet in the air somewhere.