Chapter Twenty-Nine
Twenty-Nine
It seemed the whole town had shown up at the diner to say goodbye to Johnny.
When we made it to Main Street, there wasn’t a single open spot to park, and Micah had to double up next to Sadie’s truck. The drive back to Six Rivers had been a quiet one, but I thought that maybe I could already feel it lifting—that heaviness that had plagued me since I’d gotten the call in San Francisco. That weight of Johnny in the air.
I got out of the truck, heart coming up into my throat as I stared at the colorful scene behind the large, foggy windows. The yellow painted script of Six Rivers Diner stretched across the smudged view of dozens of people standing and sitting inside.
Micah’s hand slipped into mine. This time, he didn’t ask if I was ready. We followed the sidewalk up to the door and he pulled it open, sucking a draft of cold air into the place. It was loud and hectic, with laughter and the sound of forks hitting plates. It was alive. No one seemed to notice us as Micah pulled me through the crowd, and that felt both good and worrisome. What did it mean if I wasn’t an outsider here anymore, folded into the landscape of Six Rivers like I’d never left?
Micah greeted those we passed with a nod, and when their eyes landed on me, they were warm, almost reverent. I tried not to think about the fact that so many of the people in this room had turned on Johnny, and in my heart, I knew I’d been close to doing the same. The brother I’d laid to rest deep in the heart of the forest only minutes before had been unraveled and inspected. Picked apart. And for the first time ever in my life, I felt like I really understood him. He was this forest. Vastly unknowable and enduringly steady. A persistent force at the center of my world. And maybe in that way, he would never really be gone.
When Sadie spotted us across the diner, she cut her conversation short, leaving the group of women gathered at the back. She wasn’t wearing her usual jeans and button-up with an apron. She’d put on a dress and her hair was even curled, showing that she’d made an effort for the occasion. Looking around the room, I realized a lot of people had. It was as if the forest had been dusted off of them, and even the diner looked dressed up, with bouquets of flowers scattered about and a framed picture of Johnny on the counter beside the register. I wondered if it would be crowned with dying flowers and hung as a tribute, like the one of Griffin Walker.
Sadie gave me a timid smile as she walked toward us. When she moved to give me a hug, I let her wrap her arms around me, but it took a few seconds for me to do the same. I set my chin on her shoulder as her hand moved in a small circle at my back. The feeling made me swallow hard.
“Thank you for letting me do this,” she said, pulling back to meet my eyes.
Beside me, Micah gave her a halfhearted smile. He hadn’t gotten over the fact that Sadie had hit me, and knowing him, it wasn’t likely he ever would.
A woman with a tray of wineglasses stopped at our side and Sadie picked two up, handing them to us before she grabbed one for herself. Then she turned toward the room, clinking the rim with a spoon she’d plucked from the counter. Slowly, the commotion died down, and one by one, every set of eyes drifted toward us.
Sadie hooked her arm in mine. “Hey, everyone!” She lifted her voice, waiting for the last of the room to quiet. Somewhere, someone turned off the music. “Hey, thanks for being here.”
The hush fell like a heavy blanket, and I instinctively reached behind me for Micah’s hand. He squeezed it.
“We’re here tonight to say goodbye to Johnny Golden,” Sadie began. “A soft soul with a wild heart.”
Already, I was swallowing down tears, and just when I thought it couldn’t get any quieter, it did. Again, Sadie met my gaze, a silent exchange passing between us. She’d cared about Johnny. Of course she had. For years, she’d loved him.
Those words— a soft soul with a wild heart —were the only kind of eulogy that made sense for my brother. It also made me hope that despite everything, maybe he wasn’t so misunderstood after all.
“I won’t say a bunch of mushy stuff that would have embarrassed him,” she continued, making a few laughs bubble up in the back. “Many of us knew Johnny his entire life, and I think we all know he wouldn’t have liked that much.”
I glanced back at Micah. He was smiling now, too.
“So, I’ll keep it simple.” Sadie lifted her glass and every person in the diner followed.
The silence deepened, as if the muted quiet of the forest had somehow gotten in. I could almost feel it climbing its way inside of me, making my bones feel heavy.
“To Johnny.” Sadie’s voice filled the air.
“To Johnny!”
The chorus of voices saying my brother’s name was more than I could bear. I watched as people took a drink in his honor and hugged one another. The sight was followed by voices striking back up and the music restarting.
“You okay?” Micah’s voice was low beside me.
I nodded.
The crowd parted as people made their way to the spread of food at the back, and I spotted Ben by the kitchen, standing with Amelia’s son. His gaze traveled over the room apprehensively, those dark circles under his eyes more pronounced than they’d been when I first met him. He still just looked like a kid, but I could see more clearly than ever that he had a lingering air of something shadowed about him. Just like his dad.
I let go of Micah’s hand. “I’ll be right back.”
I made my way across the room, and when Ben saw me coming, he stiffened a little.
“Hey, can we talk for a minute?” I said, eyes jumping to Amelia’s son.
He dismissed himself, giving me a polite nod, and Ben leaned against the wall, keeping his distance. “Is something wrong? I can get my mom if—”
“No,” I stopped him. “I just wanted to tell you…”
Ben stared at me, eyes intent as my words died out. That look—that glow beneath his expression—was like looking right into my brother’s face.
“I wanted to let you know that if you ever want that test,” I paused, “we can do it. You and me. It’s not too late.”
Ben’s eyes went past me, and I followed his gaze to where Sadie stood on the other side of the diner.
“If you decide you want to, Micah knows how to reach me,” I said.
He nodded, a shy smile lighting up his face just a little, and I thought, not for the first time, that I didn’t need a test to know. I wasn’t sure Ben did, either.
Micah was only a few steps away when I turned back into the crowd. “What was that about?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
I eyed the long counter stacked with food. There were already people making their plates, and for the first time in days, I was actually hungry.
We got in line behind Harold, and Micah stuck close to me as I said hello to familiar faces and accepted a string of condolences. When he set a plate into my hands and nudged me forward, I was grateful. I cradled the plate in one arm, leaning over the table so I could reach the bowls of salad and trays of lasagna. Everyone had brought something, and I couldn’t help but compare the entire scene to the ones I was used to now. Champagne fountains and cocktail dresses and twinkling votive candles. Six Rivers was a far cry from all of it. I wasn’t sure anymore which one felt like home.
Ahead of me, Harold took up a spoonful of mashed potatoes, roughly plopping them onto my plate.
“James,” he greeted me.
I grinned. “I’m starting to think you live here, Harold.”
“I don’t trust anyone to cook for me but Sadie.”
I glanced across the room again, to where she was tucked into a corner talking with two other women. The champagne glass was still dangling from her hand.
“?’Bout rioted when she closed up that one day a while back. Nearly starved to death.” He handed me a dinner roll.
“Thanks.”
Once Harold moved along, I cut into one of the lasagnas and served myself, then Micah. But when I looked up, Micah had a lost look on his face, eyes roaming over the table like he was thinking.
“What’s wrong?” I tapped him with my elbow.
“Wait,” Micah said, his attention jumping to Harold. “What day are you talking about, Harold?”
Harold scratched his beard, balancing his overfilled plate in one hand. “What now?”
“What day was that when the diner closed up?”
He frowned. “When the whole blame town was shut down for the tourney in Redding.”
The question was just beginning to thread together in my mind, but I was several beats behind Micah. Beside me, I watched as the color drained from his face.
“What is it?” I whispered.
His piercing gaze met mine. “That was the weekend Johnny died.”
Slowly, sickeningly, the circle of thought connected, like a snake eating its own tail. Sadie had told me that the reason she couldn’t leave town on game weekends was because she had to keep the diner open. That it never closed.
The weekend Johnny died, Six Rivers was in the middle of hunting season. But the town had been virtually emptied of its residents thanks to the high school soccer tournament in Redding. Even Amelia Travis, the only law enforcement they had, was gone.
“James?” I heard Micah’s voice beside me, but I couldn’t move.
Johnny had gone out to the gorge to work on November 10. He’d found the backpack, but then he’d come back to a ghost town. When he couldn’t get ahold of Amelia, what had he done? Exactly what I did. Johnny had come here, to the diner. He’d come to ask Ben if he’d heard from Autumn. Only, Ben wasn’t here. But Sadie was.
My gaze trailed the room until I spotted her again. She was smiling. Laughing.
I could see it, suddenly. Johnny standing at the counter. Telling Sadie what he’d found in the forest. How long would it have taken her to think back to that night when her son disappeared only to show back up in the morning wasted? How many minutes would have passed before she connected the dots to Ben’s depression that followed? To the moment he had tried to take his own life? She was a mother with a broken child. A mother who had been undeniably shocked when Amelia gave her the news that Ben had an alibi for that night.
I stared at Sadie, unblinking.
When she found out from Johnny that Autumn was missing, she’d believed the unthinkable. That her son was responsible. And if Sadie suspected that Ben had hurt Autumn, and that Johnny was about to unwittingly expose him, what would she have done? What lengths would she have gone to in order to protect her son?
“James.” Micah said my name again, but now my eyes were fixed on the wall of framed photographs that hung behind the bar.
The glow of the pendant lights reflected off the glass, and I set down my plate, moving toward them. I wasn’t sure I was walking, exactly. It felt like floating. Like drifting through space.
Dozens of smiling faces peered out from the photos. Children with balloons, an old woman with a walker, two men clinking together glasses of beer. It was a story, the tale of a town dropped in the middle of the wilderness, where things could easily disappear. People could disappear.
My eyes ran over the pictures, searching for one I’d seen before but hadn’t cared enough about to remember it clearly. When I found it, I reached up, taking it off the wall. Sadie Cross stood beneath a wide canopy of trees in her hunting gear, kneeling beside the carcass of a buck. The gun propped up beside her wasn’t totally clear, but I could guess that it was old. An heirloom, even. I could guess that it was the gun that shot the bullet that killed Johnny.
That’s why the diner was closed that day. While the rest of the town was in Redding and Johnny was looking for Autumn, Sadie had followed him to the gorge.
I couldn’t tear my gaze off that photo. Sadie’s sparkling blue eyes were like little shining jewels, her wide, genuine smile infectious. There was a warmth that emulated from her, even through the picture. I could almost feel it.
Micah’s hand finally came down on mine and I looked up to him, everything inside of me twisting.
“It was her,” I rasped.
His eyes trailed from the photo to the place across the room where Sadie stood. As if she could feel us watching her, her face slowly turned in our direction. In only a few seconds, she knew. That bloodless color returned to her face as her eyes dropped down to the picture in my hand.
When Micah was suddenly moving toward her, her eyes widened.
“Micah?” The smile returned to her lips, but it was wooden now. “Something wrong?”
Slowly, every head in the room turned, and I watched as Micah took hold of the collar of her dress, wrenching her toward him.
“What did you do?” he shouted.
A strange sound came from Sadie, and immediately, Amelia was pushing through the crowd. But Micah didn’t let go. There was more shouting. A tangle of voices that warped in my ears. But there was no denying that look of guilt in Sadie’s eyes.
“What the hell is going on?” Amelia’s voice rose above the others.
When Micah finally unclenched his fists from Sadie’s dress, she nearly fell backward. Her hand caught the table behind her and the wineglass fell, shattering on the floor.
“Where were you, Sadie?” Micah spat. “Where were you when Johnny died?”
Every soul in the diner fell silent, making the sound of the music twist eerily around us. No one appeared to so much as breathe, every eye on Sadie Cross. But no one looked more stricken than Ben. He stood across the room, staring blankly at his mother. He was putting it together, too.
Sadie swallowed, her mouth opening and closing. “I—I didn’t…” She gulped in a breath. “I don’t know how—” She was looking at Ben now.
Amelia took a careful step toward her.
“I thought I was protecting him.” Sadie faltered. “You can understand that, can’t you?” Her gaze swept the room, but no one answered.
“Sadie, let’s step outside,” Amelia said, lowly.
Sadie didn’t move. Her hands shook, dangling at her sides until Amelia took her arm, moving her toward the door. Then they were gone.
The photo was still clutched in my hands as everyone turned toward me. But my eyes were on the window, where a face I knew was visible behind the glass.
Johnny.
He stood in the falling snow, hands in his pockets. But this time, he was looking at me.
Everything blinked out, disappearing around me, and for those few seconds, it was just us. James and Johnny.
And then he turned and walked away.