The next day an officer brought me to an interview room. Doug Hicks, the constable I’d met the first night, was waiting for me. I’d seen him around town before. Unlike Frank McKinney, who would let you off with a warning, he seemed to enjoy arresting kids. He was younger than McKinney, maybe late twenties, blond with pale eyelashes and light blue eyes, ruddy cheeks that always looked windburned, and walked like he thought he was tough shit, his shoulders back and chest out. When I’d seen him around before, I just thought he was a jerk, but now I was terrified of him, scared he might twist things and mess me up. I held on to what my lawyer had told me—I didn’t have to tell them anything. I looked around the room, remembering what else he’d told me, that everything was wired.
In a calm voice, Hicks started off by asking me again to go through the events of that night, but this time I said, “On the advice of my lawyer, I wish to remain silent.”
He looked annoyed, his cheeks flushing redder, but said, “You don’t have to tell us anything, but it would help us clear things up a lot faster if we heard your side of it again. We might even be able to let you go.”
Now I knew he was bullshitting. They wouldn’t have arrested me in the first place if a simple explanation from me would get me out of this mess.
He waited for a moment, but when it was obvious I wasn’t going to say anything, he said, “We’ve been talking to Ryan.”
Ryan. He was there. I felt my heart stop, my breath catch in my throat. What had he been saying? What had he told them?
“He says it was you, Toni. You wanted your sister gone and it was your plan to kill her at the lake.”
What the hell? I knew I shouldn’t talk, but I couldn’t help it. “Ryan would never say that—because it’s not true. And he loves me.”
“Does he? Strange things happen after people have been arrested for murder, they get a lot more honest. And according to Ryan, this was all your idea. But if you want to tell me your side of it, I’m more than happy to listen.”
I looked him straight in the eye. “On the advice of my lawyer, I wish to remain silent.”
He didn’t show any reaction, just glanced down at a file in front of him.
“We heard you’ve been carrying a knife around with you.”
I jerked back in my seat. How did he know about that? Nicole must have told someone, but who? Shauna? My face felt hot, and I fought the urge to explain how the girls had been harassing me. He was trying to trip me up, messing with my head. A knife didn’t mean anything—Nicole wasn’t even killed with a knife.
“And we know your sister had been making your life hell, coming into your work, flirting with your boyfriend at parties…” My heart was beating harder and harder with each word out of his mouth. Who had been telling them this stuff? What was he talking about, flirting with my boyfriend? I wanted to ask questions, wanted to explain and defend, but I kept my mouth shut.
Hicks continued, “We also know that you lied to your parents recently and snuck into your neighbors’ house and stole some alcohol. But that’s not the only thing you’ve stolen recently. You also took your father’s pills.”
This time I couldn’t stay quiet. “I didn’t do that. It was Nicole.” Had my parents told them I stole pills? I felt sick with fear now, with betrayal.
He leaned forward, excited that he’d provoked me. “You were angry with her for telling on you, weren’t you? You wanted to teach her a lesson.”
I was shaking my head. “No, no, no.”
He leaned back, stared at me, assessing, waiting. The pressure built. He was going to hit me with something else, something big. I could feel it.
“There are witnesses,” he said, “who saw you arguing with your sister the night she was murdered.”
The room closed in on me and I gasped for breath. “No, that’s not true!”
“We’ve got four girls who saw you at the lake with Ryan, fighting with Nicole before she was murdered. We know you did it, Toni.”
Four girls. It had to be Shauna and her friends. Why would they lie about something like that? My head was spinning, trying to understand what this meant.
This time I broke.
“They’re making it up. They hate me—they’ve made my life hell for the last year. Nicole was hanging out with them all the time, and she was sneaking out to see some guy, but I don’t know his name. They might know who really—”
“We also have DNA, yours and Ryan’s. You both had scratches on your arms and hands. There was no one else’s DNA or blood at the scene, not on Nicole’s body, not on the truck. You were the only people there.”
I tried to stay calm, but I had to fight to hold back tears. I knew we hadn’t killed her. Someone else had to have been there. I wanted to talk to my dad and to my lawyer. I wanted someone to explain all this. What was going to happen to us?
I met Hicks’s eyes. “On the advice of my lawyer, I wish to remain silent.”
He tried a few other tactics, telling me that Ryan was in the other room right now, spilling everything. That he didn’t believe I’d delivered the killing blows—I wasn’t strong enough—but I had to tell them what really happened. That he knew I wanted to come clean, wanted to spare my family the hardship of going through a lengthy trial. He went on and on. It was hot in the room, and I was thirsty and exhausted. His voice began to lull me, and I started to think maybe he was right, maybe it would be easier for everyone if I just confessed, but I snapped myself out of it. I didn’t kill my sister, and he was lying about Ryan.
“On the advice of my lawyer, I wish to remain silent.”
He gave me a cold smile and stood up. “I know you did it, Toni. You and your boyfriend are going away for a very long time.”
I stared at the table in front of me. He was wrong. He had to be wrong.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CAMPBELL RIVER
MAY 2013
The day after Ryan surprised me at the marina, I had a meeting with my parole officer. Her office was in Courtenay, about a half hour from Campbell River, so she either came up for a “walk and talk” or we got coffee at a restaurant. Suzanne was all right. I liked her a lot, which was amazing considering my general dislike of authority figures. She was an older woman, somewhere in her fifties, and heavy—she was always sucking back iced mochas, sugar candies, chocolates, told me I was too skinny. She liked Captain and let me bring him on our walks, sneaking him cookies, talking to him in funny voices, rubbing his big block head.
Suzanne was pretty tough on me at first, though, said she wanted me to do well, that none of her parolees had been sent back and she planned on keeping it that way. But I could tell that it was more than that. She genuinely gave a shit, made sure I was following my programs. She knew how hard it was for former inmates to transition, how institutionalized we could get. We’d started off with weekly meetings and phone check-ins. Now we were meeting twice a month, and eventually, if all went well, we’d be down to once a month.
That day we went through the usual questions. At the end she said, “Anything you want to talk about?”
“Nope. I’m good.”
She stared at me for a moment. I held my breath. She knew something. Had she heard that Ryan had come to the marina? Had someone seen us?
“I just want to remind you of your parole conditions and that you need to avoid known offenders.”
Okay. So she didn’t know he’d already seen me, but she knew Ryan was around and she was testing me. I decided to cut through the bullshit.
“If you’re talking about Ryan, I don’t want anything to do with him.”
She studied my face, her friendly expression now all business. She’d been doing this job for years. She could sniff out a lie in a heartbeat. But I’d also spent years in the system. I knew how to keep my feelings locked in.
She nodded, satisfied, but added, “Be careful.”
“Of course.”
It was the first time I’d kept something from her. It made me nervous, but I didn’t want her
to start keeping a closer eye on me. Just in case Ryan came back. Just in case he did have something I wanted to hear.
* * *
I was getting groceries on the way home when I saw my parents in the store. I stopped, my hands gripping the cart, and watched them making their way through the produce section. I hadn’t seen either of them for years, not even a photo. My father looked a little stooped in the shoulders and his brown hair was almost all gray now, but he was still tanned. I’d seen his truck around town a few times since I’d been on parole, so I knew he was still working, but I suspected he was managing the guys more than he was swinging a hammer. A couple of times I’d fought the urge to visit him at one of the job sites with his construction signs. It looked like Mom was dyeing her hair now, a soft brown she’d pulled back in a loose ponytail. She was still in shape, small like me, like Nicole had been—too small to fight off her attacker—but she looked healthy, not gaunt like the last time I’d seen her. She was wearing a scoop-necked pale blue shirt with jeans and white flip-flops. If I blurred my eyes for a moment, I could almost see Nicole.
My father was making his way around to a barrel of potatoes, motioning to Mom, who was putting some apples in a bag. I imagined them having some friends over for dinner, maybe clients. Or was it just the two of them? Sitting silent over their dinner, thinking about their daughters. My father looked up and caught my eye. I’d let myself muse too long. I was stuck. My mom had been saying something to him, but when he didn’t answer she followed the direction of his gaze. She startled, her cheeks flushing when she recognized me. Her eyes shot around, checking to see if anyone was watching, then she stared back at me. She didn’t look happy. I should have walked away, but Dad was wheeling the cart over now. Mom hesitated, then he glanced back at her and she followed, slowly, still carrying the bag of apples.
“Toni, how are you?” Dad said when he was closer. He gave me a tentative smile. His hand lifted slightly off the cart for a moment like he wanted to reach out, wanted to touch me, but then it dropped down.
“I’m good. Things are really good.” I wanted to say, I saw Ryan. He thinks he can prove we’re innocent. Would you believe him? Would you still hate me?
“I heard you were working at the restaurant,” Dad said.
“Yeah, Mike’s been great. I’ve got a boat too. Down at the marina.”
Mom didn’t know where to look. She was glancing at me, then at Dad, then around to the other shoppers.
I turned to her now. “Mom, you’re looking well.”
She startled again, then spoke hesitantly, like she was trying to think of something to say. “You … you too. You look good.” Her gaze flicked to my fauxhawk, the tattoos. And I was the one who was supposed to be the liar.
We were all quiet. I hated the heavy tension in the air, the moment stretching out like a live wire that I wanted to snap, even if it burned.
“It would be great to see you guys sometime.” My face felt hot. “I have a dog, and I help out at the shelter.” I knew I was almost babbling, my voice breathy from nerves, sensed that my dad knew how uncomfortable I was, that he wanted to make it better but didn’t know how. I kept talking, my gaze flitting to my mother, trying to think of something that might make her look at me, really look at me. “And I go to programs, for substance abuse.” She finally held my gaze, but I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. I said, “I’m not the same person. I’ve changed.”
My mom set down the apples she’d been holding in the cart with a thump. She stared down at them for a moment while Dad and I watched her. I knew she was going to say something, and so did Dad. He reached out to her. “Pam…”
She shook her head. “No.” She held her hand out in the air just in front of him, as if pushing him away. “I’m not doing this. I’m not pretending everything’s okay now.” She looked back at me. “I wish you well, Toni, I really do. But I can’t do this. I can’t see you or speak to you.” She rested her hand on her heart, her voice breaking as she said, “I can’t forget—what you did.” Then she shook her head again, quick movements that looked painful as she blinked back tears.
Tears were flooding my own eyes, my throat tight with words that I couldn’t get out, could never say. I didn’t do it. Why won’t you believe me? I just want you to love me. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.
Mom turned to Dad and said, “I’m going to get milk,” then quickly walked away. I saw her hand wipe across her face, erasing the tears, erasing me. Dad and I watched her for a moment, then he turned back to face me.
“Toni, I’m sorry, she just … can’t.”
“Yeah. That’s obvious.” My hurt turned to anger, my voice bitter. “She still hates me.”
“No.” He smiled sadly, studied his hands on the cart, then reached out and held my hand for a moment, gave it a squeeze. I almost pulled away, surprised by the unexpected human contact. “She hates what happened, and you remind her too much…” He didn’t have to say the rest. I reminded her of Nicole, I reminded her of everything that had happened that night.
I looked at my father’s hand on mine, saw the age there, in his skin, wondered how much time we had left, if I’d ever be able to put things right.
“I miss you, Dad. I’d like to see you, now that I’m out. Can we…”
I held my breath, scared that he’d say no like my mom or that he wouldn’t want to see me because of her. He looked in the direction she’d gone, and I felt the tears build in my throat again as I waited for the rejection.
He turned back to me. “I’d love to have a coffee with you. Why don’t you come by the job site sometime? You don’t have my cell…” He grabbed his wallet out of his pocket, pulled out a business card, and handed it to me.
“Thanks.” I stared at the card, the numbers blurring in front of my eyes. I hadn’t even known my own father’s cell number until now. I wondered if I should give him my number, if he would call, but he was glancing back toward where my mom had headed. I caught a glimpse of her hair, moving down another aisle.
“I better go,” he said.
I nodded, tried for a smile, but had to stare back down at that card so I didn’t cry at the look of sadness in his face.
“It’s been really hard on her lately with the anniversary coming up,” he said softly. “Maybe try again in a few months.”
It was hard on me too. That summer it had been seventeen years since my sister was murdered, seventeen years since someone stole all our lives, and I knew that my mom wasn’t going to change her mind about anything in a few months. But I was silent as my father walked away. I grabbed Captain a big bone from the meat section and waited until I got home to cry.
* * *
The night after I saw my parents in the store, I pulled into the marina parking lot after a late shift at the restaurant, Captain on the seat behind me. Mike let Captain hang out with his dog in the backyard of his house, which was across the street from the restaurant. I went over on my breaks and visited him, though I could tell it annoyed Mike’s wife, Patty, who didn’t really like me. I figured it was just because of my past and in time she’d trust me.
I was tired and looking forward to a shower, so I wasn’t paying attention when I parked the truck. I was about to get out when I saw something move behind the Dumpster. I stared at the spot. What the hell? Then I caught a glimpse of a baseball cap. It was Ryan again.
I let Captain out. He ran over to the Dumpster, body tense, hackles up, and a low growl leaking from his throat. I knew he wouldn’t do anything, not unless someone was attacking me, but I called out, “Captain. It’s okay.”
Ryan crouched down and turned his body to the side, not making eye contact as he let Captain sniff him, then he slowly tossed out a couple of dog cookies, which Captain gobbled up. Ryan glanced up at me and said, “He’s a beauty,” then started scratching Captain, who was leaning against him with one of his big pittie smiles, tongue lolling, trying to get more cookies.
I looked around the parking lot, the marina. It wa
s after midnight, no one in sight, but I still wasn’t comfortable talking to Ryan in the open.
“What are you doing here, Ryan?” I was angry, but mostly at my body’s reaction to seeing him. I’d been happy for a moment, excited even, before I remembered that speaking to him could cost me my freedom. He looked good, though, in a faded black denim shirt open over a fitted gray T-shirt, a silver chain at his neck. His baseball cap low, almost hiding his eyes.
“I met with Cathy,” he said. “She’s definitely covering up something. The whole time we were talking she was looking over her shoulder.”
“She was probably afraid you were going to slit her throat and steal all her drugs or something.”
“Funny.” He smiled at my gallows humor. We did always have that in common, the ability to make fun of our fucked-up families and fucked-up lives, but then everything got too fucked up. I hated him for reminding me, hated how much I wanted to smile back, wanted to make him laugh deep from his gut, like when we were kids and he’d throw his head back, one hand over his heart, his whole body getting into it. That was one of the things I’d loved about him, how physical he was, how loose and relaxed and easy he was with his body.
He took a step forward now, leaned against the side of the Dumpster, rubbed at his unshaven chin. His shirt rode up a bit, showing a black belt through his jeans, his waist still slim. I remembered wrapping my arms around him, the feel of my hands tucked into his back jeans pockets, him lifting his shirt up so our bare stomachs could touch. My face flushed and I stared down at Captain.
“It was more than that,” he said. “Every time I mentioned Shauna, that’s when she got nervous.”
I didn’t want to get pulled into this, didn’t want to know anything more about their lives now. Three of them still lived in town. That’s all I needed to know. But, despite myself, I said, “Are they still friends?”