24
The police came two days later, in the morning, before Nicola left for work.
They didn’t knock on the door the way police do in movies.
No pounding. No shouting. No barking dogs.
None of the things that Hollywood had trained me to expect.
Instead, they came with a soft knock, a nice knock, the knock of a neighbor asking for a cupful of sugar.
There was something sadistic about that. It meant when Nicola opened the door, she did it with a curious smile, still holding her half-eaten unbuttered toast. She wasn’t prepared for a uniform, a badge, or papers with her name written on them.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” the first police officer said.
“We know this is a delicate matter,” the second added.
“We have to take you down to the station,” the first continued.
“We’re very sorry about this,” the second concluded.
I don’t know what happened to Nicola at the police station, but I do know what happened at her house while she was gone.
Police officers, some of them in uniform, some plainclothed, walked around, looked inside cupboards and drawers, unpacked her backpack, and unzipped all the sofa cushions.
They took photos of everything they found.
The spray paint, the missing-person posters, the small whiteboard with Plan B on it.
“It’s so sad.”
“I’ve read about cases like this.”
“Do you think she really believes this bullshit or is she just doing it for attention?”
“Does it matter?”
I was floppy with fear, my limbs loose as my anger fizzled and failed.
This wasn’t right. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t part of the plan.
A massive hand wrapped around my middle, picking me up off the ground. I managed to kick and flail, stabbing clumsily at the thick, calloused knuckles. The cop yelped and dropped me onto the hardwood, my head snapping back, one leg cracking as the glue gave way.
“Jesus Christ.”
“What’s wrong?”
“The doll moved.”
“The doll?”
“It moved.”
“You feeling all right, Kitcho?”
“Yeah . . . Sorry. It’s been a long shift.”
The cop with the camera snapped a photo of me, made a face at the display screen, and walked away.
I gathered together the watery dregs of my anger and used it to crawl under the sofa, pushing through a thick carpet of dust until I was wedged tightly beneath the wooden frame.
I was afraid. I was more afraid than I’d been since I’d died.
I was afraid of what would happen if the cops decided to take me into evidence.
I was afraid of what they were doing to Nicola down at the station.
But more than anything else, I was afraid that this was my fault.
I tried desperately to think of some reason this would be happening that wasn’t the message I’d sent Krissy. Perhaps there was a security camera somewhere that caught something. Maybe Nicola’s license plate had been recorded at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or perhaps it was Kyle.
It wasn’t Krissy. It couldn’t be.
She was my friend. She wouldn’t do that. Except what if she had?
I thought of the woman I’d seen at the park, the pitch of her voice, the way she’d jabbed a finger into Nicola’s chest. I thought of her Instagram page, transformed from someone I knew into someone I didn’t.
“Cannabis,” one of the cops called out from the kitchen.
I squeezed myself down as small as I would go, my insides crumbling, my glue aching, my one eye frozen open, staring.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t want to even think about it.
I just wanted them out. I wanted Nicola back.
I wanted none of this to ever have happened.
I threw myself into the time stream. It was slow and sluggish.
It took everything I had to drag it forward, faster and faster, until the police’s voices sounded like the screeching of alien birds and their footsteps like raindrops on a tin roof.
They slammed the door as they left.
The door slammed again when Nicola returned.
It was dark by then, the light from the streetlamp falling through the window, burnt orange and flickering.
I could see Nicola’s boots standing on the welcome mat.
They stayed there for a long time, black with white socks and frayed yellow laces, only half done up.
“Where are you?” Her voice sounded dry and damaged, like she’d been screaming.
I didn’t answer.
Her boots charged across the room, the heels thudding. The TV stand scraped against the floorboards as it was yanked out.
The boots didn’t stop there. They marched back across the room and out into the hallway, vanishing from view. I heard the kitchen cabinets open, then the drawers.
“Where. Are. You?”
I tried to push myself back into the time stream. It felt like molasses, sticky and slow, clumping onto me, weighing me down. I was too exhausted to fight it. Too wrung out, too small, too afraid.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” Nicola’s voice echoed through the house.
“Do you even care? They took my phone. They looked at Instagram.” Something crashed.
A bookcase collapsing. “Everyone already knows. They’re already talking about it.
The crazy girl. The stupid girl. The mad girl.
You’ve ruined my life. Fuck you. Fuck you. ” Another crash. “Where are you?!”
I imagined her finding me, taking me back out to the shed, and putting me back on the plywood table, palm flat against my torso, pinning me down.
I imagined the rusty hammer, raised aloft.
I imagined myself splintering, pieces of me tumbling away, shrinking down into a shard, a fragment.
I imagined slipping off that tiny piece, falling away into the darkness, into the nothingness.
“I wish I’d never found you,” Nicola rasped. “I wish I’d never bought you. I wish—”
I’m sorry, I whispered.
Her boots thumped back toward me, shaking the floorboards, like an earthquake. She stopped in the middle of the room, waiting to see if I said anything else. I didn’t. I stayed curled and crumpled beneath the sofa, staring at those boots.
A minute passed.
Then two.
Then ten.
“Fuck you, Lucy McQuinn.” She said the words quiet and slow, so slow I would’ve thought time was lagging if I couldn’t also hear the broken wobble caught in the back of her throat. “Fuck you and fuck your vengeance. You don’t deserve it.”