“Well, a few years ago she took me and Liz to the Spiritualist Church in Groton. My mom and I go there all the time. Liz almost never went with us, but that one instance—I don’t know, I guess she must have been bored, and it was just something to do on a Saturday. They had psychics there—a whole bunch of them.”
I step away from Richie, almost unable to bear the feeling of being so close to him. Richie rolls his eyes. He’s never believed in anything like the supernatural. He doesn’t believe in ghosts. He doesn’t believe in much, really.
“So, you guys talked to the psychics? Or what?”
Josie nods. “We all did, yeah. But here’s the interesting part. One of them—this guy—he seemed drawn to Liz. He kept glancing at her from all over the room, while he was giving other people readings. Finally, just as we were leaving, he came up to us and took her by the arm and said something really creepy.”
Richie licks the paper on the joint, rolls it shut. “Well? What did he say?”
“He told her to beware of the redhead in disguise. He said the redhead would put her in danger someday. And you know, he was so insistent upon it, like it was very serious that she listen to him and take what he was saying to heart.”
Richie holds the joint, staring at Josie. “Are you gonna smoke this or what?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to.” There’s a pause. “You don’t think that’s interesting?”
Richie swallows. “No. I think it was a dumb guy trying to get a few extra bucks out of a sweet girl. As far as I know, Liz didn’t even know any redheads. Did she?”
Josie gazes at him. “No.” She pauses. “Do you really want me to leave?”
“I’m sorry, Josie, it’s just really soon.” He hesitates. “Come back tomorrow, okay?”
“Tomorrow?” I blurt. “Today is too soon, but tomorrow he’ll be okay?” I stare hard at Richie. “He’s heard that story before. I told him that story right after it happened.”
Josie stands up. “Okay,” she says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And she leaves without—thank God—so much as a hug good-bye.
Once he’s alone in his room, Richie opens his back window. He lights the joint. He stares at the Elizabeth, resting so peacefully in the water now, showing no signs of the horror that took place just a few nights ago. As he’s exhaling, he says out loud, “I’d heard that story before. Liz told me that story right after it happened.”
Seven
Josie hasn’t been gone ten seconds when there’s a light knock on Richie’s door. He doesn’t seem happy that, presumably, she’s back. For a few seconds, he doesn’t say anything; he just sits, staring out his back window, smoking his joint.
Tap, tap, tap.
The joint crackles as a seed pops. Richie is unfazed, holding in a deep inhale, glancing warily at the door.
“Go away!” I shout. “He doesn’t want to see you!”
Alex seems uncomfortable, like he doesn’t know quite how to handle me. “You’re upset,” he says. “Try to calm down.”
Tap, tap, tap.
But there’s no way I can calm down, not right now. “He repeated what I just said, almost verbatim,” I tell him. “Do you think he can sense me?”
“I don’t know.” Alex appears to think about it. “It was weird. And you said you could feel him when you touched him?”
“Kind of. Almost. I think that I’ll be able to do it—maybe if I concentrate hard enough.”
Alex shakes his head. “I don’t know, Liz. That’s never happened to me before. There are some people who can see me—”
“What do you mean?” I almost scream the words. “Some people who can see you? Like who?”
“Babies,” he says. “Babies can see me. I have a cousin. When I died, he was almost two, and he could definitely see me. But when he got older—as soon as he started speaking in really clear sentences—it was obvious he couldn’t tell I was there anymore.” Alex pauses. “Animals can see me, too. My cat can see me.”
I gape at him. “You’re kidding. Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
He shrugs. “I didn’t think it was important.”
“Maybe not. But it’s definitely interesting.” I shake my head. “Anyway, you agree that Richie and I are still connected somehow, right?”
Alex nods. “Okay. You might be right about that. So what?”
Before I can answer, we hear the knock at the door again.
Tap, tap, tap.
Richie sighs. He stares at the joint for a second before tossing it out the open window. The room is thick with smoke. “Come in,” he says, coughing.
I’m fully expecting Josie again. But it’s not her; it’s the cop, Joe Wright. Any other boy might panic, but Richie isn’t any other boy. He’s never worried much about getting caught with drugs. He’s never worried much about anything. He is cool, calm, and always collected. When I was with Richie, I felt like things were under control. Looking at him now, though, I realize that he’s just a kid who didn’t have a clue how to keep me safe. After all, I died less than ten feet away from him, while he was sleeping. Why didn’t he wake up? Surely there was some kind of noise: a splash, a scream, something. But he was drunk. He was stoned. He was in too much of a stupor to wake up, even to save my life.
“Who let you into my house?” Richie asks Joe.
“Your girlfriend.” Joe waves a hand back and forth beneath his nose. “You might want to invest in a window fan, kiddo. I can smell that from the stairs.” Joe is still wearing his dress shirt and tie from my funeral earlier. Without his policeman’s uniform, he looks like any normal guy. He’s probably in his late thirties. He’s cute and fit, his dark hair short and neat, a sprinkling of freckles spread evenly across his tan face. He looks kind enough, nonthreatening, but I know Richie isn’t going to open up to him easily. As a rule, Richie does not trust adults—especially not authority figures.
Richie blinks at him. “Just so you understand, Josie is not my girlfriend. Liz was my girlfriend.”
“Okay. Sure.” Joe takes two steps closer to Richie and peers at his face. He takes his index finger and brushes it against Richie’s cheek. Then he holds up the finger for both of them to see. “Lipstick,” Joe says.
“Oh, that’s fabulous.” I effect a slow clap. “That’s some stellar police work right there.”
“What’s your point?” Richie asks, unfazed.
“My point is that Josie wouldn’t look me in the eye when she let me in.”
“So what? She’s upset. We were just at her sister’s funeral.” Richie stares at him. “What did you expect her to do? Give you a big smile? A high five?” He shakes his head. “Local cops, man.”
Joe ignores his comment. “I know you were at the funeral. I saw you. Did you see me?” He pulls out Richie’s desk chair. “Mind if I take a seat?” he asks. Before Richie can answer, Joe sits down.
“I shouldn’t be talking to you,” Richie says. “You can’t come into my house like this. I ought to call a lawyer.”
Joe raises an eyebrow. “You think you need a lawyer?”
“No. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Would Liz agree with that? You were just kissing her sister.”
“Her stepsister. Well—that’s complicated. Her half sister, maybe.”
“Her half sister?” Joe is obviously interested. “Why would you say that?”
“Because some people think Josie and Liz are half sisters. Lots of people think so.” He pauses. “But not Liz. She never believed it.” Richie pulls a piece of gum from his pocket, puts it into his mouth, and chews slowly, as though he’s reluctant to share the information with Joe. “See, there’s always been a lot of talk around town that maybe Liz’s dad and Josie’s mom had a … a thing, before Liz’s mom died. They were high school sweethearts. And some people—my parents, for one—think Josie looks a lot like Mr. Valchar.” Richie shakes his head, obviously uncomfortable with the topic. “I don’t know if it’s true or not. But it doesn’t matter. It??
?s totally irrelevant. And we might have been kissing a little bit, but you’ve gotta understand, it’s not like what you’re thinking.”
“Then what is it like? And you can cut the attitude, by the way. I could arrest you for possession right now, you know.”
Richie spreads his hands in a careless gesture. “Do it. I don’t care. I don’t have anything to lose.” I’m surprised he’s telling Joe so much about my family history. Maybe he just wants to talk about me.
“I’m sure you don’t. Where are your parents right now? I saw them at the funeral earlier.”
He nods. “Yeah, they managed to make an appearance.”
“But they aren’t home now?”
“They’re busy people.” He snorts. “They’re very dedicated to their art.”
“I see.” Joe takes a moment to look around the room. His gaze falls to all the pictures of me and Richie on his desk. “Look,” he says, “the case is technically closed. But I’ve got some free time—you know, we local cops always have time on our hands—and I’m gonna ask some questions about this one. The story you kids told me adds up, okay, but it’s all so … so circumstantial. There isn’t a lot of hard evidence. I want to find something that makes me certain of what happened. Besides, Liz is the second kid in twelve months to get killed in Noank.”
Richie sits down on his bed. “Who was the first?”
“He doesn’t even remember me,” Alex says. He seems genuinely bothered by the fact.
“Why do you care?” I ask.
He thinks about it for a moment. Then he says, “I don’t know. I just do.”
“Alex Berg,” Joe says. “Come on, you aren’t that high. He was the same age as you. Hit-and-run last August by the Mystic Market.”
“Oh, right.” Richie nods in slow recognition. “Sure, I remember. I’ve seen flyers up in town.” He appears to be thinking. “Liz and Caroline went to his funeral. I wouldn’t go with them. Funerals creep me out, you know? Anyway, what does that matter? It had nothing to do with any of us.”
“It matters,” Joe says, “because people are worried. First there’s a hit-and-run. Now this. Two healthy kids dying in less than a year. It’s a small town. Parents are concerned.”
“It was an accident,” Richie says. “Nobody killed Liz.”
Joe nods in agreement. “Probably not. I hope not. But you see, Richard—”
“Richie,” he corrects.
“You see,” Joe continues, “here you are, stoned, screwing around with your dead girlfriend’s stepsister, or half sister, or whatever she is. On the same day as Liz’s funeral. And I don’t know how to explain that, from a moral perspective. It seems pretty insensitive, wouldn’t you agree?”
Richie stares at the shiny hardwood floor of his bedroom. “Why can’t you just arrest me for possession?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Because I’m a loser.”
“Liz didn’t think so.”
Richie looks up. “Yes, she did.” He swallows. All of his characteristic confidence is gone; I barely recognize him. “She was cheating on me.” There are tears in his dark, bloodshot eyes. “It had been going on for months, and I never even realized. Not until Josie told me.”
“Ohhh.” Alex shakes his head at me. “You bad girl.”
My mouth falls open. “He’s wrong,” I say. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
“You were cheating on him,” Alex explains. “Listen.”
So I do.
“It was right after Christmas,” Richie says. “I’d been noticing for a while that Liz was disappearing, sometimes for long periods of time. She seemed different. I was worried. She was always skinny, but lately she’d been losing an awful lot of weight. I mean, that’s why they think she died, right? The hypoglycemia, combined with all the booze in her system? We did a body mass index on ourselves in health class last spring, and she was way underweight.” He appears to be thinking, remembering. “Anyway, it wasn’t just all the weight loss. I don’t think the two were connected. It was more than that. She’d become kind of distant with me. And at first I thought, okay, so she’s obsessed with running. She was always great at distance, but speed was never her thing. I figured she was trying to get faster. Maybe she was taking it a little bit too far. I mean, it wasn’t unusual for her to get up at five in the morning and go for a two-hour run before school.” He shakes his head. “Crazy. She was nuts about it.”
“What made you think it was something else?” Joe asks. “Something other than just an obsession with running? Josie told you?”
Richie nods. “Yeah, Josie told me. It was a couple of weeks before junior prom. I’d been trying to get in touch with Liz all day, but she wasn’t answering her phone. So I walked to her house—you know she’s only two doors down—but she wasn’t home. I got to talking with Josie. That’s when she told me.”
“He’s wrong,” I say firmly. “I never would have cheated on him. Never.”
“Think hard,” Alex says. “Can you remember anything at all?”
“No, but it doesn’t matter! I don’t have to remember to be sure. It’s impossible.”
Alex takes a long moment to study me. “I can’t believe you,” he says.
“What can’t you believe?”
“That you’re still like this. Even after everything that’s happened to you, you’re still a nightmare of a human being. If he says you cheated on him, you probably did. At least, I believe him. You’re selfish. You’re superficial. If someone better than Richie came along and took an interest in you, I bet you’d cheat in a second.”
“I didn’t cheat on him!” I shout as loud as I possibly can. “I loved him, Alex. I might not have been that nice to you, but with Richie, things were different. And besides, if I had cheated on him—which I didn’t—why would I deny it now?” I demand. “Why would I possibly lie to you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you don’t remember yet. Or maybe you don’t want me to think you’re a bad person.”
My voice is shaky. “Alex, I am telling you the truth. Yes, I don’t remember everything from before I died, but there isn’t anything else to remember when it comes to this. I’ve known Richie since we were two years old. Something isn’t right. I never would have hurt him.”
And then, as if on cue, Richie says, “I don’t think she meant to hurt me. We’d been together so long, maybe she felt like she needed to … I don’t know, to see what else was out there.” He swallows. “Anyway, I didn’t believe Josie. I called her a liar and everything. But then she said she’d prove it to me. She drove me into Groton, to this apartment complex by the river. We found Liz’s car. It was outside the building of this guy I know.”
Richie is holding a corner of his bedspread, a maroon-and-navy-blue patchwork quilt, in his left fist. With his right hand, he tugs at the threads in the seam, working them into a fray. His eyes are still watery. As I listen to what he’s saying, I realize that I don’t remember any of it happening. Not only that, but—despite what Alex might think—it sounds completely unlike anything I would do. I don’t even know anyone who lives in Groton. It’s like someone has taken a cheese grater to my memory. The feeling is beyond frustrating.
But why would Richie lie? Looking at him as he picks nervously at the quilt, I know without a doubt that he believes he’s telling the truth.
“A guy you know,” Joe echoes. “What was his name? How do you know him?”
“It was this guy named Vince. Vince Aiello.” His voice cracks as he says the name out loud. “He was kind of a friend of mine. He’s older.”
“How much older?”
“I don’t know. Twenty-one? Twenty-two? Does it matter?”
“It matters if he was sleeping with Liz.”
Richie sucks in a sharp breath of air. For a moment, I expect him to defend me, to explain that I was a virgin, and that I couldn’t possibly have been sleeping with anyone. But he doesn’t.
“How did Liz know Vince?” Joe presses.
/>
“I introduced them.”
“And the day you saw her car parked outside his apartment, what happened? Did you confront her?”
“No. Well, sort of. We sat there for almost an hour, until Liz finally came out. I watched her leave his apartment and go to her car, and once she got home I waited a while before I called her. I asked her where she’d been all morning.” He looks down at the quilt, still clutched in his fist. Loose threads are scattered on the floor. “She told me she’d been out shopping at the mall. She lied.” Richie looks up at Joe again. His gaze is fierce and angry. “I want to kill him,” he says.
“Who?” Joe asks.
“Who do you think? Vince.” Richie nods, like he’s giving the idea some thought. “I really do. I really want to kill him.”
“Hey. Be careful what you say to me, buddy,” Joe says. He’s trying to keep his voice light, but I can tell he’s serious. Richie doesn’t say anything else; he just stares down at the quilt again, holding it tightly.
For the first time, I notice that Joe is wearing a wedding ring. It’s a thin silver band. With the tip of his thumb, he works it back and forth over the middle knuckle of his ring finger as he stares at Richie.
“When did things start to develop between you and Josie?”
“I don’t know. A few weeks later.” He stares out the window, at the rows of boats docked along the shore, his gaze narrowing in at the Elizabeth, where we’d spent such a happy evening together just a few days ago. Before I died. Back when life was gentle, easy, perfect. At least I thought so.
“What’s going on with Josie is nothing,” he says. “It’s just your normal, sordid teenage drama. I used to think Liz and I were different from all that, but I guess not. Anyway, it just happened with me and Josie. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Does Josie know that?” Joe asks.
“I think so.” Richie nods, still staring at the Elizabeth.