Afterward we cuddled, using our clothes as blankets, finishing the last of the booze and a roach that Ryan handed me. Sleepy from the sex and the drugs and the warm fire, I closed my eyes, hearing Ryan already snoring beside me.
* * *
I woke suddenly, scared at the sudden blackness, my body freezing cold. The fire had died down but the moon gave off enough light for me to see one of Ryan’s arms up over his face, some scratches on his wrist. I tried to peer at my watch in the dark. Found Ryan’s lighter, flicked it on. One in the morning.
“Shit. Ryan, wake up.”
He opened his eyes and looked around, disoriented.
I was already standing, struggling to pull on my clothes. “Get up. My mom’s going to kill me.” I’d left a hastily scrawled note at home saying we’d gone to the lake and we’d be home by midnight, Nicole’s curfew.
We ran back through the trail, the branches slapping and scraping at our skin, searching for the main path. I fell, cutting my knee and my hand. Ryan helped me up. We finally stumbled into the clearing. The music was off. The truck quiet. I couldn’t see Nicole. Was she lying down?
Ryan opened the truck door, turned back to me, his face confused. “She’s not here.”
“Are you serious?” We didn’t have time for this crap.
He shone his lighter. The truck was empty.
I called out, “Nicole, hey, where are you?”
Silence.
Ryan raised his voice. “Nicole, we’re sorry, come on out.”
We heard a crack in the bush. Held our breath. Ryan turned the lighter off, letting our eyes adjust to the dark. We stared at that spot, the shadows. Was she playing a game now? Turning the tables? I felt myself starting to get mad.
“Maybe she’s looking for us,” Ryan said. “I’ll turn on the truck. If she hears the engine she might come back.”
“Okay.” I stood outside, looking into the dark trees while he flashed the engine. It started up with a roar. We waited a couple of moments. No sign of her. My anger had all turned to fear that something had happened to my sister. Had she gone hunting for us in the dark and gotten lost? We had to find her.
“Where could she have gone?” I said. “Should we just drive around? Look for her?”
“I don’t know.” He also looked worried. “She might have gone to hang out with those people partying at the end of the lake. Hop in and we’ll check down there.”
If she was with those other kids, I was going to kick her ass for freaking me out like this. I came around the front of the truck, blinded for a moment as Ryan turned on the headlights. Then he let out a yell.
I spun around, my heart jamming up into my chest at his fear. He’d jumped out of the truck, was running toward the lake. Then I saw what he’d seen.
My sister’s body, floating at the shore, lit up by the truck’s headlights.
We both rushed into the water. I was yelling, “Nicole, Nicole!” I could hear Ryan breathing hard.
She was naked, her skin freezing. We pulled her to shore and crouched over her. I lifted her hair back, to see the side of her face, and realized that part of her skull was smashed in, her hair coming loose in my hands. I looked down at the dark blood covering my hand, the clump of hair, then back at my sister’s face, barely recognizable. I screamed, a high-pitched wail that echoed over the lake.
Ryan was feeling her neck for a pulse. He reached over, grabbed my shoulder. “Stop, Toni. She’s dead. We’ve gotta get help.”
Dead. The word stole the breath from my lungs. I focused in on his face, my teeth chattering, gasping for air.
He said, “You have to calm down.” But his face was white and terrified, his voice also high and strangled.
“She can’t be dead.” I said it as a plea, begging.
He stood up. “Let’s go.” He grabbed my arm, tried to pull me up.
I leaned over my sister, pressed my face to her cold chest as I sobbed, “No, no. Oh, God, I’m so sorry.” I clutched one of her hands, noticed that a fingernail was torn off. “Nicole, wake up, please wake up.” I pulled at her hand uselessly, trying to tug her back into this world.
Ryan knelt beside me. He was also crying. His voice cracking as he said, “We’ve got to go, Toni.”
“I can’t leave her. I can’t.”
“We don’t know who hurt her—they could still be out here.”
I shook my head. “I’m not going.”
He lifted me up under my arms while I fought, biting and kicking. He dragged me to the truck, threw me inside. He backed out in a spray of gravel, shooting down the road. I barely registered that the other partiers were gone, the broad expanse of dark highway, the yellow line, the smell of stale pot and booze and lake water and fear rolling off of us. Ryan turned on the heat but I couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t stop crying.
Then we were at the police station. The harsh neon lights blinding. An officer was walking to his patrol car. Ryan and I got out. I collapsed onto the pavement, screaming that my sister needed help. Ryan was trying to explain what happened, but the cop was staring at his truck. I looked back and saw the bloody hand print smeared down the side. Like someone had been trying to get back in.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CAMPBELL RIVER
MAY 2013
I woke late, unsure of what to do with my day off. I’d told Mike I’d work an extra shift if he needed me—it was starting to get busy now that it was the middle of May and the tourists were coming—but he gave me hell, told me I needed a life. We both knew that since I left the halfway house, the restaurant was my life. I’d be forever grateful to him for giving me my job back. Sure, I had to work in the kitchen now, not up front where the diners could whisper and speculate about the woman who had killed her sister. But I preferred the noise of the kitchen anyway. Besides, a job was a job and when you have a record like mine, work was pretty hard to come by.
Captain, my gray-brindle pit bull, was still in my bed. The lazy-ass would sleep all morning if I let him, but I didn’t care. He was the best thing that had happened to me in a long time. Since I moved back I’d been helping at the shelter, walking the dogs. The shelter staff was glad for the assistance—they didn’t give a crap about my past. The manager, Stephanie, was a tough broad, somewhere in her late forties, lots of tattoos and piercings. We hit it off right away. She didn’t ask any questions; we just talked about the dogs. One day this sad-looking pit bull came in. He’d been beaten up and dragged behind a truck. They weren’t sure what to do with him, figured he’d have a hard time getting adopted because of his scars and mangled ears from a home cropping job—if I ever found out who did it, I’d return the favor. I took him home that day. He loves living on the boat. It’s just an old sailboat, not seaworthy anymore, but it was the first time I had a place of my own and I’d slowly been buying things for it, new curtains, covers for the cushions, a small microwave.
I took Captain off the boat and up the wharf for his morning constitutional. On the way we greeted a few people who were down on the docks, preparing for the day. They were used to me by now, but I was sure they had their suspicions and probably talked about me when I wasn’t around. After Captain was finished, I brewed some coffee and cleaned the boat, which didn’t take long. I sat on my upper deck for a bit, enjoying the sway of the boat, watching the gulls circle overhead, Captain sprawled out on the warm surface. I still couldn’t get used to how incredible the salt air smelled. It had been the first thing I noticed when the bus, which I’d taken up from Victoria, pulled into town. I wanted to run from window to window and suck it all in.
It had taken me a while to get used to this kind of outdoor space, to the freedom, and it still made me twitchy sometimes. I was glad for the hustle and bustle of the marina. In prison, you’re used to constant noise around you all the time, and even in the halfway house you heard people talking, eating, working, the staff doing counts, my roommate breathing or rolling over in her sleep. My first night on the boat I thought I might go insane fro
m the quiet. At least the smallness of the boat helped me feel safe. I was used to living in tight quarters.
I decided to take Captain for a walk on the beach—I walked miles every day now, sometimes I felt I could just keep walking—then head into town. I needed some new clothes, though I hated shopping. I got confused by all the options, so I lived in jeans, hiking boots, and white T-shirts, flannel shirts, or hoodies if it was cold. I still didn’t like drawing attention to myself.
When I got back to the boat, it was dusk. I parked my beater truck—a good deal I found online for eight hundred bucks, using a lot of my savings and the mechanic skills I’d picked up in the joint. I also bought a secondhand laptop when I was at the halfway house, and I had Wi-Fi at the marina. I was walking down to the wharf when Captain stopped, his body alert as he stared at one of the other vehicles, a low growl starting up in his throat. I paused, my own body tense.
A man got out of a truck, leaned against the side.
“Hey, Toni.” He smiled, the left side of his mouth lifting up as he took off his baseball cap.
It was Ryan.
I sucked in my breath. Was it really him? I stared at his face, his eyes, trying to take it all in, but my heart was beating so fast I couldn’t think straight. I looked around. Was anyone watching? The parking lot was quiet. I looked back at Ryan, who was staring at me, his head tilted to the side, the smile gone and his face now serious. Why was he here? I gripped Captain’s leash, pulling him closer. I’d figured Ryan would stick around Vancouver, not be stupid like me and move back to Campbell River. I felt his gaze lingering on different parts of my face. The last time I’d seen him was at court as I was dragged away by the sheriff, and now we were facing each other in a parking lot with twenty feet and fifteen years between us.
He was thirty-five now, and still good-looking but in a harder way, a dangerous way. His hair was still dark brown, no gray, but his face was lined, one cheek scarred. He was wearing faded jeans and a form-fitting white long-sleeved shirt, pulled up to his elbows. He was bigger and looked like he worked out a lot, with broad shoulders and bulging biceps. His forearms were covered in tattoos.
“You look good,” he said. “Little different, but you haven’t changed much. I like your hair.”
I used to be able to read his face so easily, but now I had no idea what he was feeling, if he was also trying to adjust to seeing me as an adult. I looked better than when I was first released. I’d gained a little weight now that I was eating healthier, just enough to give me a few curves. Assholes still seemed to think I was cute, but one look from me and they got the idea. I had no idea what Ryan had been expecting, though. The last time he’d seen me I was twenty years old.
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“We need to talk.” His face was still serious, remote. The look prisoners get after years in the joint, where survival depends on hiding your thoughts.
“You know we can’t talk to each other.”
He met my eyes, his sad for a moment, finally revealing a hint of what might be going on inside. “You stopped writing.”
He said it casually, but I noticed how he shifted into a tough-guy stance, his legs spread, his thumbs hooked into his belt loops, exactly how he’d stand in school when he was trying to hide that he was upset or hurt about something.
I struggled to think of a way to explain myself, still shocked that he was standing in front of me.
“It was the only way I could survive. I had to move on and try to forget everything—and everyone. It was just … easier.”
Now his face showed his old anger, the expression he’d get when someone would say “I know your father, kid,” and turn him down for something.
“It wasn’t easier for me,” he said.
I tried to find some anger in myself, some sort of defense, but I just felt sad, remembering how hard it had been to ignore his letters, feeling like I was abandoning him. “After we were convicted, I lost my mind. I shut down, shut everyone out. I went kind of crazy in there for a few years.”
He looked away, out at the water. “Yeah, I get that. I did too.”
I wondered what he’d gone through, but I didn’t ask, didn’t know if I could bear to hear about his pain, not without breaking down over everything we’d lost.
“There’s nothing we can do about it now,” I said.
“What if there is?”
There was something in his voice, a resolute sound, like he was about to make some sort of declaration that I wasn’t ready to hear. I glanced around. The parking lot was still empty. “What are you talking about?”
Now he looked excited, hopeful. It made me even more nervous. Hope was a dangerous thing.
“Remember Cathy?”
“Of course.” Since I’d run into her in Victoria, I’d seen her a few times outside one of the bars at the waterfront when I was driving home late. She was always smoking and hanging on to some guy. I’d overheard Mike talking about her at the restaurant once—she’d worked there briefly before her addiction became a problem. He also knew her mother, who was raising Cathy’s kids now.
“I’ve heard from some people that she’s been crying at parties lately about that night, saying she knows what really happened—that we were innocent. I’m sure now that Shauna and the girls did it.”
Ryan was watching me, his eyes steady, waiting for my reaction. But I was so surprised and shocked by what he’d said I didn’t know how to react. My head was spinning, memories from that last year, the trial, all rushing back.
I finally found my voice. “I saw her in Victoria a few months ago.” I told him about my run-in with Cathy.
“That might’ve been the trigger. It was easier to forget when we were out of sight, but then she saw you and now the guilt’s getting to her.”
I thought about Cathy’s nervous apology, her pale face. All these years I’d wondered. All these years I’d had a feeling they were involved. Was I right?
“She was acting really weird—and they were awful in school. But do you think they could have actually killed Nicole? It was so violent.…” I remembered Nicole’s cold hand inside mine, her nail ripped off. She must’ve fought so hard.
“It had to be them,” Ryan said. “They didn’t lie at our trial for fun.”
“If Cathy really is blabbing, don’t you think the police would’ve pulled her in for questioning?”
“Even if someone reported it to the cops, they’re not going to follow up. They don’t want anyone to find out that they got the wrong people.”
“How do you know she wasn’t just stoned and talking smack?”
“Her brother, he’s also a crackhead, he told an old buddy of mine his sister confessed to him that she knew what really happened to Nicole, but she wouldn’t say anything else—she was too scared. Why would she say crap like that if she wasn’t involved? I think she’s been itching to tell people for a long time but it just comes out when she’s high. She’s agreed to meet me this week.”
“Shit, Ryan.”
Was it true? They really did it? But why would they have gone after Nicole? It was me they hated. I wanted to search out Cathy myself and force her to tell me what she knew, but I pulled myself back from the ledge. Nothing was going to change the facts. We would never get those years back, would never be able to prove anything she said anyway. The system had already failed us once.
“You better be careful,” I said. “If Suzanne finds out, she could suspend your parole.” I knew Ryan and I would have the same parole officer—she was the only one in the north end—and talking to a witness from our case was bad news. You could get accused of intimidation. It didn’t take much to get sent back.
“Cathy won’t tell anyone. She’s too scared of Shauna.”
I imagined the girls that night, maybe hunting for me and seeing Nicole alone in the truck. I saw Nicole’s face, felt a jolt of anger at the brutality of the attack, and tried to shake it off. I had to think this through, had to be careful. We still di
dn’t know for sure what Cathy knew—if anything. But Ryan was right about one thing. If Cathy wasn’t involved, why would she be admitting that the girls lied back then? It might be to get attention—I saw that a lot in the joint. But revealing that you knew the truth about an old murder was a dangerous game. One I couldn’t get involved in—not if I wanted to stay out of prison.
“Even if it’s true, even if she does know something, no one would believe it. There’s no point to any of this. Just stay away from them, Ryan. Cathy’s proved she talks about shit she’s not supposed to when she’s high. You’re out on parole now. Don’t fuck everything up for yourself.”
“Don’t you want the real murderers to pay? They killed your sister—and took years of our lives. They took everything.”
He held my gaze and I saw the words he wasn’t saying: They took you. The moment swelled between us, the emotions raw. I remembered the kids we were, how I would have gone over to him and thrown my arms around him, how he would smell and taste, but now I knew nothing about him. He was a stranger.
Captain whined at the end of the leash, breaking the moment as he tried to pull me toward the docks.
“Of course I want the right person to be punished.” I wanted it so bad I couldn’t even think about it. And beneath that was another need. I wanted to sit and talk to Ryan. I wanted to go for a drive with him, wanted to get a coffee and share everything that had happened to him over the years. I wanted to know him again, but I couldn’t. We couldn’t. “But I’m not screwing up my life now. Do what you have to do, but leave me out of it.”
“Toni—”
Before he could say anything else, before I started to cry, I turned and pulled on Captain’s leash. “Let’s go.”