I drop back into a crouch. I do not need this right now.
In the distance, a Jake brake grumbles as a semi rolls into Crestview, the sound ratcheting up my nerves. I feel exposed, without options, too aware of the Hensley School’s isolation. If he comes my way, he’ll spot me. If I make a break for the Stiff or the school, he’ll just cut me off. As I recall, linebackers are fast—faster than apprentice morticians, anyway. I could try calling 911, but by the time help arrived, they might find a new client for Bouton.
What would the local worthies say if their football star outright murdered me? “Aw shucks, boys’ll be boys”? It’s not a question I want put to the test.
I lift my head and peek through the windows of Pride’s car. Landry is scanning the school grounds and the margins of the forest. The instant his head turns away, I dart across the gap between the little blue hybrid and the trail sign, and into the forest beyond.
TWENTY-SIX
Je Suis Désolé
My work boots are great for long hours on my feet, moving bodies from one flat surface to another. A headlong flight down a steep trail is something else. My heels skid out as I pass the trail marker, and I land hard on my ass, with a grunt. Startled, a magpie explodes from the brush near my head and screams off through the trees.
“Next time, send up a flare.”
I’d barely given the map a glance, so I have no idea where the trail goes. All I remember is it’s either seven and three-quarter or sixteen miles. But I can worry about where I’m going once I’ve put some distance between Landry and myself.
I scramble up, brushing gravel from my hands. The trail plunges to the left, with bends and dips that limit how far I can see to thirty or forty feet ahead and behind. The undergrowth and trees grow thicker on the uphill side, perhaps due to runoff from watering that big green lawn. Through gaps, I catch sight of an eave here, a window there, but mostly it’s all oak leaves or brushy pine boughs.
After a few hundred feet, I pause at some split-timber steps that descend into a narrow draw, dry this time of year. I follow the draw up the hill with my eyes, head cocked. I can’t see the school now. Or Landry. The only sound is an insectile hum—unless it’s my own trilling nerves.
My phone shows two bars. There’s a cell tower on the grounds of the assisted living facility, so I should be fine for some distance. As I drop the phone back into my purse, a voice sounds from above. Another answers, too faint for me make out the words. Male or female? I can’t tell. Could be teen moms strolling around the school grounds.
Or Landry calling a friend.
“You don’t even know if he saw you.”
Well, I don’t know if he didn’t, either.
I cross the draw over a dry bed of water-rounded stones and climb to a shoulder of the hillside. Beyond, the trail continues down and left, more gently now. The oaks end, leaving only ponderosa pines. The undergrowth gives way to patchy grass pushing up through carpets of pine needles. I keep moving, alert for the thump of pursuing feet. Soon, the magpie returns, raucously complaining. Unseen but near, a woodpecker hammers away at a tree trunk. Aside from the birds, nothing stirs in the forest. Whatever Landry was doing in the parking lot, he hasn’t followed me. Maybe he was sniffing after Hensley girls. Hell, maybe he’s a sperm donor. I wonder what Paulette would say about that.
A short way ahead, an inviting splash of sunlight falls across the trail. I continue on and come to a clearing above a long slope of dark, broken rock—an ancient lava bed feathering into the trees some distance below. Further still, another section of trail winds toward what can only be the Palmer River Valley.
I stop to catch my breath. The clearing above the lava is thirty feet across and half as deep, surrounded by smaller, younger pines. At the back of the clearing, a bench made from a split log is tucked under a lone white oak. The magpie has moved on, but from down the valley comes the distinctive whistle of a varied thrush—Uncle Rémy’s favorite bird. Suddenly lightheaded, I cross the clearing to the bench and sit, letting my hands dangle between my knees. A thread of blood, already crusted over, runs down my right palm. I must have cut myself when I fell.
“I didn’t know you could move that fast, Mellie.”
“So graceful too.”
I start gathering cigarette butts from the ground around the bench. On our many hikes, Uncle Rémy would pick up trash from the trails—a task rarely necessary. Most hikers, he said, were good about cleaning up after themselves. Leave only footprints, and all that. This clearing seems to be the exception.
I pile the butts on the bench. I wish I had something to put them in. Uncle Rémy always carried a trash bag. Pride has his Ziplocs. I suppose I can just scoop them up. The way back isn’t far. Besides, I suspect there’s a more direct route to the school, one the teen moms use when they sneak down here to smoke. No doubt Lydia Koenig would have an opinion on the matter if she knew. I laugh quietly. Not all habits can be changed by slogans on a wall.
“Were you scared?”
More than anything, I was fed up. “I’m just sick of Landry.”
“Je suis désolé.”
I recoil, scattering butts, as Landry MacElroy saunters around the bench. Almost languid, he sidles past me. His hands hang loose at his sides, and his gaze wanders as if he’s taking in the view.
Of all the things I thought might spill from Landry MacElroy’s mouth, a doleful phrase in a foreign tongue isn’t it. There’s no anger, no bluster or threat. I don’t know what he said, but his tone brings to mind Paulette’s desolate expression that night at the crossroad.
Seeing Landry now in his singlet and shorts, it’s clear how lucky I was when I dragged him off Paulette. If he’d known I was coming, he might have torn me in half. In the light of day, his shoulders and chest stand out in high definition, the flesh marred only by a peppering of zits. His biceps are so bulbous they force his arms away from his body.
I back away—matching him step for step until I glance over my shoulder to make sure I don’t stumble backward onto jagged lava. Landry stops before I’m forced to make a dangerous choice. His eyes flutter like someone coming out of anesthesia, the air between us thick with hormonal musk.
“My mom is making me take French for my language requirement.” His eyes fall onto my chest, but I’m not sure he sees me. “I flunked last semester, so I have to retake it in summer school if I want to play next season.” He looks at his hands and seems surprised to find them empty. “I guess some of it’s sinking in.”
“That’s good, I guess.”
The words feel stupid, but he just looks through me again. “Je ne pas …” His tongue darts over his lips. “Je ne vais pas …” He smacks his palm against his forehead. “Maybe it hasn’t sunk in that much.”
“Huh.”
His cheeks inflate with a sound like wet shoes crossing a tile floor. “I’m not going to hurt you. That’s what I was trying to say.” He looks me in the eye as his voice gains urgency. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
The words seem genuine, but for all I know his mother made him join the drama club too. “Okay.” I take half a cautious step to the side—a test. “How about you let me by then?”
“I said I wasn’t going to hurt you.” He spreads his arms, palms up. “Je ne vais pas te faire de mal.” The words spill out so suddenly his eyes bulge. “I don’t know if that was right.”
“It sounded fine.”
“Really?” He grins like a kid who just did his first cartwheel. “Do you speak French?”
Helene does, along with Russian and German. To keep herself linguistically limber, she also studied Mandarin while in law school. Before Geoffrey showed up, she was even teaching me to swear in different languages. I’ve forgotten it all, along with my high school Latin.
As if Landry would care. I shake my head.
He deflates a little. “How do you know it was right then?”
I swallow. “I just mean it sounded good.”
He seems to consider that.
“I don’t know why I have to take French. If I knew Spanish, I could yell at the illegals in their own language.”
I take another step to the left.
“Don’t go.” He reaches out for my arm, then seems to think better of it. “Please?”
My pulse pounds in time with the nearby drumbeat of the woodpecker. “Someone is waiting for me.” He obviously doesn’t believe me.
“I just want to talk.”
“Don’t you have friends for that?”
His head jerks as if I hit him. I hear that wet shoes sound again as his cheeks puff in and out, and realize he’s sucking spit between his teeth. His skin is sallow and drenched with sweat.
“Christ, Landry. What is going on with you?”
His gaze wanders back out over the valley. I have to stifle the paranoid urge to look behind me. “Pourquoi—” He drums his fingers against his damp thigh. “Pourquoi est—no. Damn it.” He balls his fist and strikes his leg hard enough to bruise. “I want to know why you’re so fucking important!”
Spit sprays me as his voice rises. I stumble backward, my left heel catching a root or stone. I twist to find my footing. My right heel comes down on nothing. For a split second my mind flashes to the jagged lava below.
“Breathtaking view, Mellie!”
Eyes big, Landry lunges to grab my flailing right arm below the elbow. Then he rocks backward and catches my other arm at the wrist. The sudden change in motion slams my organs against my ribs. With surprising grace, he swings me around until my feet find purchase on solid ground. When I jerk free, he holds on a second too long.
“Damn, lady. I said I wasn’t going to hurt you.”
Without responding, I head for the bench and sit again, head down and fingers tingling. The ground is still covered with cigarette butts. Soon, my breathing steadies, and my heart rate settles back into double digits. I raise my head. Landry looms in front me, his face as red as a baboon’s ass. He opens his mouth but then stamps to the edge of the clearing. Pacing, his feet land perilously close to the drop-off.
“I’m no linebacker,” I say. “If you trip, you’re on your own.”
“Who cares?” He kicks a rock into the gulf. “She dumped me.”
“Paulette?” I grip the bench as if to keep from flying into space.
He spins toward me. “She got all pissy after dance team because she wanted to ride with Chelsea, but I always drive her home from dance team.” He says it like it’s his job. “And then, boom, like ten minutes later, she’s texting me to fuck off forever.”
Just yesterday—though it feels like another lifetime—Paulette seemed resigned to an existence in Landry’s sweaty grasp. I’d like to think I had something to do with whatever changed, but that’s probably too much to ask.
“When did this happen?”
“Right after you tried to T-bone me with your corpse wagon. I knew something was up, because she got all mad at me—like it was my fault.” He sags. “I guess you already knew.”
I shake my head. “Paulette doesn’t confide in me.”
“Then what were you talking about at Cuppa Jo?”
She’d gotten into his yellow pickup yesterday, but I hadn’t noticed how long it was there before she ran out of the café. He must have seen at least part of our talk. I force my expression to go blank. “She was only there for a few minutes. We barely had time to say hello.”
“You didn’t talk about me?”
His face is blotchy. He’s trying to work me for sympathy or pity. He deserves neither. If Paulette decided to scrape him off, despite the obvious pressure she’s getting from every football fan in the county, good for her.
“It’s not like Paulette and I are close.”
“Then why is she on about you all the time? Lately, you’re all she talks about.” His voice squeaks with wretchedness. “She was even thinking about calling the funeral home or whatever.”
My instinct to pull away gives way to a niggling thought. Yesterday, right before Landry interrupted us, Paulette had wanted to tell me something. Not about Landry, not about the rape. She’d already shut those topics down.
There’s only one other possibility.
“Was it about the crash?”
“What crash?”
“At the crossroad.” If she didn’t want to talk about what happened with Landry, what else was there? “Did she know something about those boys from the wreck?”
“The dead guys?” His tone grows sullen.
“Yes. The dead guys.”
“Who cares about some dumb fuckers that don’t know how to drive?”
They weren’t even in their car, dipshit. But Landry’s callous ignorance doesn’t matter. All that matters is Paulette. Is it possible she actually knew Nathan or Trae? If so, she might also know why they came to Barlow and why they stopped at the crossroad with Uriah Skeevis and Tucker Gill. Maybe even why someone would steal their bodies.
“Where does Paulette live?”
I know I sound overeager. He gets a cagey look in his eyes.
“If I tell you, will you talk to her for me?”
Unbelievable. “Forget it.” I’ll find her on my own.
“Wait.” He reaches out as if to grab me again. I jerk away, and he throws his hands up. With his chin, he points up the hill. “Just up there. I could see you at Long Grass from her porch. When she didn’t come to the door and I saw your van at the end of her street, I thought she was with you.”
So he hadn’t been looking for me or visiting Hensley. Landry had gone looking for Paulette—and found me instead. With this kind of luck, I should buy a lottery ticket.
“Well, if I see her, I’ll tell her how terribly sad you are.” Maybe we could share a laugh, girl to girl.
His bottom lip starts to quiver. “Wait.”
“Jesus, now what?” My frayed patience is fast unraveling.
“Could you just remind her of this?”
He raises his left hand, palm out. A sharp white line runs at an angle across his palm.
“It’s our serment d’amour.” He turns his hand over and contemplates his palm almost reverently. “We did it together.”
It takes a moment for the words to sink in. He cut himself, and apparently so did Paulette.
Did she have a choice?
“I really need to go.”
But before I make it even one step, he reaches into his waist pack and pulls out a wooden-handled folding knife. “This is what we used.” With sure-handed grace, he flicks the blade open, tip pointed my way.
A liquid chill floods through me, and a tremor runs down my legs. Last fall, I was called out for a removal on a similar trail in the hills above Wilton. But when I arrived, they weren’t ready for me. “Wrongful death,” a deputy told me. “You can wait, but it’ll be awhile.” A woman had been a victim of multiple stab wounds.
As Landry’s blade sways in front of me, I can’t help but remember the wounds on the woman neck and chest, or the long slash through her coat and shirt that opened her stomach and exposed her intestines.
Someone screams, the sound an electric lance up my spine. Only when a second scream echoes the first do I realize it’s not me. Landry flails and spins, both arms flying. The blade passes below my chin as I catch sight of three girls, all in blue, crowded against the white oak behind the bench.
Teen moms. Hensley girls.
Landry’s eyes bulge. “Oh, fuck, I didn’t mean to—” He totters toward me, knife still in hand, shaking his head frantically. “I’m sorry. Je suis désolé. I’m sorry.” His eyes bulge and the color drains from his face. Behind him, the three girls are a frozen tableau of open mouths, their eyes fixed on my chest.
I look down as a sharp pain flares at my throat. My yellow shirt with its cartoonish printing is splashed with vivid red.
He cut me. The fucker actually cut me.
With Fitz’s laughter ringing in my ears, I kick Landry in the goddamn rape tackle.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Asylum
>
Somehow Landry manages to keep his feet, but his sudden tears and the howl in his throat tell me I’ve hit my target. I try to slip past him toward the screaming teen moms uphill, but he throws himself across my path. His long arms swing toward me, so quick all I can do is throw myself backward. I can’t tell if he’s trying to cut me again or tackle me, but I’m not sure it matters. When he lunges, I turn and bolt the other way.
Heedlessly, I hurl myself through the forest. The path cuts ever downward, first through pines, then across a second lava flow. About the time my lungs begin to burn, the trail zigzags at a switchback. Seconds later, I’m back at the lava field, maybe thirty yards below where I just crossed. Panting, I skid to a stop.
Somewhere above, Landry screams, “Fucking bitch!”
I want to scream too. I’ve evaded Landry, but now I’m cut off from the trailhead and the Stiff.
Farther down, the trail crosses the lava again, suggesting a second switchback ahead. From there, it disappears into the forest for good.
The lava field offers no cover. If he spots me, I’m sure Landry will have no problem angling down the broken slope to catch up.
And I’m already feeling spent.
I retrace my steps back through the forest, scanning downhill. At the switchback, I find what I’m looking for. A game track, half-carved by snowmelt, leads away from Landry and the exposed lava field. Without hesitating, I push through a clump of pine saplings and down the track.
Branches snap against my arms and face. I hurtle from tree to tree, catching myself on rough-barked trunks and half-sliding through dirt and pine needles. Sweat pours into my eyes, and a burning stitch shoots up my side. Somehow, I keep my feet, and before I know it, I blunder into a small clearing and skid to a stop, gasping.
Firs and larch grow among the red ponderosa. An ancient wooden sign nailed to a tree reads “DHA ½” with an arrow pointing out a path. Not the groomed Forest Service trail, but something rougher—perhaps an older track abandoned when the switchbacked route was built. Whatever DHA is, my guess is it’s half a mile ahead.
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