“How coincidental.”
“Albertson didn’t seem to think so. He said they were just waiting for the snow to melt and then they’d find it.”
Jack scoffed and shook his head.
“Good luck with that,” he said. “Well, it’s another reason it would be stupid of us to try and accuse him: he’s obviously covered himself pretty thoroughly.”
“Yeah.” I ran my hand through my hair uncertainly. “And we’re sure it’s Barker, right?”
“What? Of course we are.”
“Right, I know. It’s just ... doesn’t the plan seem a bit elaborate to you?”
“What’d you mean?”
“First with killing all those girls without anyone noticing, then killing Miss Mercier and getting away with it by planting evidence ...”
“He’s got the police in his hands, Nim. We know that.”
“I know, it’s just ...” It was difficult to explain where my doubt was coming from. Unlike Jack, I had borne witness to Barker’s temper on numerous occasions. If he couldn’t control his temper over my transgressions, it was hard to believe that he could keep his composure well enough to ward of suspicions of his crimes. “It’s Barker. He’s not that intelligent, is he?”
“He had the file hidden in his office,” Jack said. “That’s proof enough.”
“I guess.”
“Besides, it’s not like this has to do with intelligence: it has to do with power. Give the police some credit: they know they’re being played.”
“True. No one loses their keys so easily.”
As Jack took another drag from his cigarette, I opened my book to start my translation. I was too busy wondering how I would ever complete it by the deadline to notice how quiet he had become, and it was only when the room filled with smoke that I realized he had zoned out.
“Jack?”
He had paused in the middle of the room with an odd look on his face: the forgotten cigarette in his hand was skimming the side of his pants, and the ember was burning through the fabric.
“What’s wrong?”
He didn’t seem to hear me. His clenched hands had gone very pale and the knuckles jutted out sharply. I looked around the room for any sign of what had disturbed him.
“Jack?”
Dictionary crossed the room and circled him. Mewing lowly, she swatted at his leg with a paw. His unfocused eyes slowly scanned over her and found me.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
“You’re right.”
“About?”
“Barker. He’s not smart enough to plant evidence.”
“So you don’t think he did it?”
“No, I do.” The cigarette scorched his finger and he quickly shook it away before stomping it into the rug. “But he didn’t plant they keys as evidence – a student really did lose them.”
“How do you know that?”
His face had paled.
“Because – I was the one who lost them.”
“What?” I tossed aside the textbook and sat up on the bed. “When?”
“At the Foreign Language Meeting, when Peters and I got into that fight ...”
“Right, but that was in the school. They didn’t just fly out into the woods –”
“I dropped them in her room. I remember thinking that they must have fallen out of my pocket when Peters knocked me down, and ...”
“And what?”
“And Miss Mercier cleaned up the room, and she must have found them and pocketed them ...”
“But why was she carrying them that night? Why didn’t she return them to you the next day?”
He averted his eyes and didn’t answer.
“Jack,” I said as I remembered the events that had taken place that night, “that wasn’t the night you walked her home, was it? The night she was killed?”
He didn’t respond, nor did he need to. A numbness unlike any other set in over my bones and I stared at him in shock.
“That was the night she was murdered? But – did you know?”
“About the keys?”
“No! Did you know that the night she was killed was the same night you walked her home?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t say anything all this time?”
“It’s bad, Nim, I know.”
“It’s bad? Jack, it’s worse than that – what if someone finds out? What if Peters makes the connection? What if he tells Barker?”
“He won’t.”
“He might! Do you know what this looks like? You walked her home the night she was killed, and the next day you had bruises all over your face –”
“But it’s fine: no one will find out. Barker just wants to sweep the whole thing under the rug –”
“He won’t need to if you look guilty!” I said angrily. His passivity was wearing on my nerves, and the throbbing pain in my nose was shooting up into my skull and making it impossible to think. I couldn’t believe that he had kept something so important from me for all that time when he knew fully-well what it meant. “What if they think it’s you?”
“They won’t – I didn’t do it!”
“Everyone will think you did it – everyone knows you were in love with her!”
I regretted the words as soon as I said them. Jack’s face hardened and his expression turned sour, and when he spoke his low voice was venomous.
“Then everyone’s wrong.”
He turned from me to get another cigarette and took his time lighting it: his hands were shaking and the flame wouldn’t catch.
“Listen, Jack ... I didn’t mean that. I just ... I just don’t want Barker to use you as a scapegoat, that’s all.”
He stood at the window staring out into the night, and his reflection was just an outline against the black glass.
“You know why I didn’t tell you?” he said. I shook my head even though he couldn’t see me. “Because once I realized that it was the same night, I realized something else. I just couldn’t figure it out completely until now.”
“What’s that?”
“She was running back to Bickerby. We never figured out why.”
“So?”
“So it didn’t make sense. I tried to think of any reason why she would’ve, but then I started placing the events in my head: I walked her home, and then Barker came after her and killed her. He might’ve been waiting for her in the woods, but didn’t make his move because she wasn’t alone. So for a long time I thought that she might’ve run back through the woods to catch up to me – to see if I could help her.”
The guilt was heavy in his voice. It pushed us back from one another as it stretched between us, pressing us up against either wall.
“But that didn’t make sense, either,” he said, “because if someone came after her, the last thing she would ever do was put someone else in danger. So I thought that maybe you were right and he lured her, or dragged her, out there to avoid anyone hearing ... Until now.”
“Jack, I ...”
“No, it finally makes sense. I lost my keys, and she picked them up – but she forgot to give them to me until after I’d left, so she ran back to give them to me.”
Though he attempted to detach his tone from his emotions, the thought of what he had done cut into his voice with wretchedness.
“But – but Jack,” I said, “that’s probably not it, either. She ran out without her shoes – she wouldn’t have done that if –”
“She would have done that, Nim. She would’ve. She’d have been worried when she realized I didn’t have my keys and thought that I wouldn’t be able to get back inside my building, so she ran out without her shoes to catch up to me. Only she didn’t. She ran into Barker.”
“Jack, I didn’t mean ...”
“No, don’t apologize. It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”
“No, it’s Barker’s. He killed her, not you –”
“I lured her right to him. If they find that key and trace it to me, I’d deserve it. I helped him d
o it. I killed her.”
“Don’t say that,” I said quietly. “It’s not true.”
“Yes it is.” He smashed the cigarette into the window, snuffing out the ember in the center of his reflection. “I hope they find it sooner rather than later, too.”
“No, you don’t,” I said angrily. “And they won’t find it.”
“Sure they will. As soon as the snow melts –”
“They won’t find it,” I repeated, snatching up my jacket and putting it on. “I’m going to find it first.”
“Nim, don’t –”
“Are you coming?”
“It’s pointless.”
“Not to me, it isn’t.”
He sighed and stared at me with a deadened look in his eyes, shaking his head at the thought of all that had been done. When I didn’t yield, he heaved himself from his spot to join me at the door, only halfheartedly consenting to come.
Ch. 15
The campus was frigid at night, and the dark that settled over it only heightened it more. We circled around to find the edge of the woods and the feeble beam of light from Jack’s flashlight disappeared into the trees. As we hurried down the path, the light began to peter out.
“Great,” Jack muttered from somewhere in front of me when it died. He smacked it against his hand and a meager ray came back again. “Come on – let’s hurry.”
She had been killed in the large clearing on the route to town, but it was more difficult to find in the darkness. In the cold air, my hands felt like metal weights in my pockets and my feet had frozen stiffly in the ruined loafers. By the time that we reached the area, I was so cold that it hurt to move.
“So, how should we do this?”
“You mean, how should we find a key beneath three feet of snow? I’d suggest a snow-blower, but I’m not sure that’s an option.”
I couldn’t see him through the darkness, but given his contemptuous tone I could guess his expression. As I wrapped my arms around myself, it finally occurred to me that the key would be impossible to find, but I crouched down and began to push through the snow regardless. From my right, the sound of branches snapped and Jack swore to himself. The flashlight had gone out again.
“This is stupid, Nim. We’ll never find it.”
Despite agreeing with him, I continued to squint through the dark for any sign of the key, but the snow was so deep that it was even difficult to reveal the frozen dirt beneath it. The moonlight barely showed through the trees and the ground was darker than ever. As minutes tore by and I was still digging in the same spot, Jack sighed loudly.
“Nim – come on. This is ridiculous.”
“We’re already out here – we might as well look.”
“We might as well just announce it to everyone that I killed her.”
I ignored him and continued to push through the snow. It only took a moment before my hands began to throb in pain from the cold. From what I could see of them, the skin was bright red and the fingers were rattling against one another like bones. After an hour went by and I had barely covered any ground, I leaned back on my heels and wiped at my face with my sleeve. When I tried to move my hands I found that they were frozen in place. Jack had slumped down on the raised roots of a tree and had his head in his hands.
“Can you just forget it?” he called through the dark. “You’re not going to find anything.”
“I might if you’d actually help me.”
“This was your idea, not mine.”
“But it’s your fault for losing the keys in the first place!”
I angrily swiped my hand through the snow in the direction of his voice. His apathy was disconcerting as was his resolve to take the blame for the matter. I wanted to point out that it had been because of his insistence that we had started the ridiculous endeavor to find Miss Mercier’s killer, but my teeth were chattering too greatly to do so.
“I know it’s my fault! This is all my fault, so can we just accept it and get out of here?”
“No! We can leave when we find the damn key!”
“It doesn’t matter!” Jack shouted. “It doesn’t matter – alright? No one cares about her, or any of the other girls he killed! She’s dead, and finding the key won’t help anything!”
“It’ll help you stay out of prison!”
“I don’t care! What don’t you get about that? I don’t care. I just want this to be over – it was stupid to do this! It was stupid to think we could get Barker – he’s going to get away with it and everything else!”
“He won’t!”
“He already has! So just forget the keys, Nim! Forget everything!”
It was much too cold for either of us to think rationally, and the pain shooting through my head wasn’t helping anything. Everything that had happened that year seemed to press down upon us, forcing us into the frozen ground. Jack was right: no one cared about the dead girls, no one cared about Miss Mercier, and there was no way that we were going to find his keys.
He turned and fled through the trees. I shakily got to my feet, cradling my hands to my chest, and moved to go after him. The failing light from the flashlight disappeared from sight. I wished that I had never agreed to help him look for the killer; perhaps if I hadn’t, he would have left it alone and moved on.
I was fumbling through a snow-covered branch when something cracked in the branches behind me. Turning around, I stared into the darkness. It sounded as though someone was walking towards me, but I was certain that Jack had gone the other way. I took a step back as I tried to see anything in the blackness.
“Who’s – who’s there?” I called.
There was no response, but the footsteps had started up again. They were crunching slowly as they came through the snow towards me. I hastened backwards as my mind reeled between rational and baseless thoughts. It’s your imagination. There’s no one there, you’re just being stupid …
A figure stood before me in the darkness, barely visible but for the bright outline ignited by the moonlight. It revealed someone very large who was coming towards me –
I turned and fled from the clearing as fast as I could. Drowned in the darkness, I swiped at trees as their branches flung at me and gashed my skin. My running steps were too noisy to be able to hear if the person was following me, but I didn’t dare stop to find out. I couldn’t fathom how, but I was sure that Barker had somehow found us in the woods. He must have known that we were onto him. I couldn’t breathe in the ice-cold air.
I slammed into a tree and fell back, dazed but unhurt, and only then did I hear the sounds of heavily-following footsteps. There was a pinpoint of light coming from a flashlight better than the one Jack and I had been using. Barker would be able to find me in no time if he scanned the area. Scrambling back to my feet, I tried to get back on the main path so that I wouldn’t lose my way but everything around me was black and I had no idea which way to run.
A crunch some yards behind me sent me in the other direction. I covered my face with my arms as I went to keep the icicle-spiked branches out of my face. You can outrun him, I told myself. You just have to get to the school. You just have to make it back to the campus and he’ll back off. But my throat stung as I tried to reassure myself: a similar sentiment must have gone through Miss Mercier’s head as she ran from him, as well.
I broke out of the thick trees and leapt down an incline. As I landed, my foot sank down on top of something long and sharp: it shot through the sole of my loafer and up through my foot, pooling the shoe with hot blood and throwing me to the ground. I cried out in pain and grabbed my leg, rolling onto my back in the cold snow, and my nose seemed to break once again as my face contorted in pain. The shadow following me appeared in the distant trees. It halted upon seeing me lying there, relieved that I had stopped running, but my eyes rolled back before I could see more. My leg jerked and I convulsed in pain, sure that it was over, sure that I was about to die –
“Nim? Nim!”
I heard Jack’s voice from the opposi
te side of the trees. He scuffled through branches as he left the path to come towards me, dropping to my side as he tried to see what had caused me to cry out. He let out an odd noise as he looked at my foot. The flashlight that he dropped at my side flickered in and out of the dark.
As he reached to help me, I pushed him away.
“No, Jack –”
“Stop it, Nim – I’m trying to help you –”
“No, Jack – Barker!”
He let go of me and wheeled about. The figure in the trees had paused a distance away from us. My eyesight came and went. Barker and Jack were rigid as they faced one another, unsure of how to proceed with the other’s presence. As I clutched my leg in agony, I realized that Barker would kill Jack first given that I was injured, but when I opened my mouth to tell him to run, my voice was strangled from pain.
And then, quite suddenly, Barker turned and ran away. For a moment Jack stood in surprise as though considering running after him, but changed his mind as I let out a moan of pain. Stooping down, he picked up the flashlight to shine at my feet.
“What ... happened?” I asked shakily.
“It … it looks like you stepped on a broken bottle.”
“Yeah?”
“I think the glass went through your foot.”
I turned to my side and vomited. I was shaking so violently that Jack had to wrap his arms around me to keep me still. When I had settled a bit, he dragged me up into a half-carrying position.
“Come on, I’ve got you,” he said. “Don’t – don’t worry. I … it’s not so bad. We’ll get you to the Health Center. It’s not so bad …”
He managed to pull me down the path, though not without difficulty. I could feel myself going in and out of consciousness all the while.
“Jack …” I said when I came to minutes later. “I … I can’t ... can’t go to ... Health … the Health Center.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get you there.”
“No, I … I can’t go. We’ll get into trouble.”
I had slipped down to the ground and Jack paused to heave me back up.
“Nim, that doesn’t matter right now. I lied – your foot’s bad.”
None Shall Sleep (Damnatio Memoriae Book 1) Page 26