Chapter 7
CHAPTER
I should go home. Or go for a run, or to the gym at least. Instead, I stare out at my empty classroom, folding and unfolding the piece of paper I’ve had for two days.
I fold it one way, and the details disappear—no name, no email.
I fold it the other, and they’re cut in half, the four in Ivy’s phone number becoming two little lines.
I give it a spin, a flick, let it float to the ground, where I’ll inevitably pick it up, because what else can I do?
There’s really only one option.
I push away from my desk, scoop up the scrap, and shove it in my pocket as I grab my jacket.
Outside, I stride to the nearest train and hop on, not bothering to check where it’s headed.
It doesn’t matter, anywhere distant will do.
The stops speed by. New Yorkers herd on and off like cattle.
The power flickers, someone turns their music on too loud, someone else speaks what I think is French into their cell on speakerphone.
I ignore it all. Being single-minded, goal-oriented, is what’s gotten me this far.
When the twelfth stop comes, I stand and step off as soon as the doors slide open, taking the staircase up to the street.
A bodega stands on the corner, and I go in, grab a prepaid cell at random, and slide cash across the counter. Credit cards are traceable.
Only when I’m back outside, in the fresh, warm air of late spring, do I pull out that slip of paper and squint at the numbers. I type them in, hit call, and take a quick look around me. Lots of people are hurrying one place or another, but no one too close, no one listening.
The phone rings twice before a vaguely familiar voice comes on.
It’s changed some—deepened over the years.
“Hello. You’ve reached Ivy Leighton at the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services.
If the reason you have reached out is not urgent, please leave me a message, and I’ll return your call as soon as possible.
If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 911 or contact the twenty-four-hour Child Protective Services Emergency Hotline at 337-555-0100.
” My heart sinks. I can’t leave a message.
I think the recording is about to end, that I’ll have to try again later, when she adds, “You may also reach me on my cell phone,” and gives another number.
I scramble in my purse for a pen and scribble it beneath her work number.
This one, I don’t call. Instead, I text the briefest of messages:
Call me at this number from an untraceable phone. —E
Then I wait, pacing up the street, getting a coffee from a street vendor, drinking as I alternate between checking the phone every few seconds and glancing around me—making sure no one’s watching.
I could try harder to find Jocelyn, too.
Google was a bust, but maybe Sam can do some digging and get me a phone number.
The police have access to that type of stuff, don’t they?
But even the thought of that makes me nauseated.
The fewer people I talk to about what happened, the better.
Plus, the IP address came from Louisiana, not far from Ivy, and I never heard Jocelyn came back to town.
After twenty minutes of my mind racing, a jolting realization hits me.
I’m not sure what took me so long to think of it, but what if Ivy doesn’t realize it’s me ?
We haven’ t spoken in twenty years. She might think it’s some weirdo whose name begins with the letter E , might delete the message without a second thought.
She works at CPS, for Christ’s sake, has gotten married, had kids .
There must be a million other things on her mind.
But no . . . she’ll know. Hopefully.
I hurry to the train and take it back toward home.
I would certainly know it was her if I got that text signed with an I .
I’m one glass of pinot grigio in when the phone rings—a strange, shrill jangle that confuses me until my gaze falls on the prepaid. That area code I’d recognize anywhere. I grab the phone, press it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Elizabeth—”
“Wait.” Words threaten to spill from my mouth, but first I have to be sure. “This is a safe line?”
“I borrowed my mother-in-law’s phone. She’s practically a saint.”
My blood pressure comes down a notch, but still, I reach across the table for my wine, take a swig.
“What happened? Why . . .” A pause. “ Why? ” she says. “We made a pact.”
I knock back another swallow of wine. Good thing I opened a fresh bottle. I steel my nerves and just say it. “Someone knows. Someone besides us.”
“Someone—” Her voice cuts off.
The silence between us feels heavy.
“That’s not possible,” she says. “You know it’s not. It was only me, you, and—well, he certainly can’t tell anyone.” In the background, a child yells—a reminder that she has a life. A life she wants to protect. Surely she wouldn’t have told anyone, right?
“I would have said the same thing until a couple weeks ago.” I give her the abbreviated version—that I’m teaching a class, that first chapters came in, that a Hannah Greer just happened to write the story of what happened all those years ago and all of the details are the same as what Jocelyn described, down to the yellow finch.
“It’s exactly the same. Exactly. And I looked up her IP address.
You can see where someone’s sending an email from, like their city.
It’s . . . it’s close. To where we lived. ”
More silence.
My wine is gone, and my eyes stray to the refrigerator, where the rest of the bottle awaits.
“I think . . .” Ivy stops, clears her throat. “I think your imagination is running wild. The details probably aren’t all the same. How can you even remember the specifics when it’s been more than twenty years?”
“Have you forgotten any of them, Ivy?”
“No. But—”
“I’m not imagining anything. Even the names of the characters are the same—Ivy, Mr. Sawyer, Jocelyn, all of it. Someone knows. ”
“But that’s impossible.” She sighs. “Wait. Hold on a second.” Again, a child’s voice whines in the background, this time closer.
There’s the sound of a door shutting, other noises fading into the background.
“If the #MeToo movement showed us anything, it’s that basically all women have been harassed or assaulted or—”
“These chapters have more than that. They have details. A lot of details.”
“But . . . who would do something like this after twenty years? And why? And how would they have found out? It doesn’t make any sense. Why would they enroll in your class and send it as a story? Why not just call the police?”
My mouth goes dry. Her questions are valid, and I do probably sound paranoid. Who would go to all that trouble?
Someone who wants revenge.
The words streak through my mind so fast, I gasp.
“What? What happened?”
“Nothing.” I get to my feet, cross to the kitchen, retrieve the wine bottle from the fridge. It makes a glugging sound as I fill my glass and stare out the window, lost in thought. I’m sure something more is happening here, and I feel the need to convince her.
“It’s not a coincidence,” I say. I’m still staring out the window.
But in my mind, I’m picturing something else.
Something small that would fit in the palm of my hand, something that my friend wore every day during senior year.
“It was the same story, Ivy—not just a student-teacher fantasy that plenty of people probably have. I’m telling you, there were details.
Even the . . .” I inhale. “Even the silver pendant he gave Jocelyn.”
It’s her turn to gasp. “Saint Agnes?”
“Yes.” I chew my lip. “Ivy?”
“What?” Her voice sounds distant, like she’s now grappling with what I’ve dealt with for these past weeks.
“Is it you?”
A beat passes.
“ What? Why would you ask me that? Why would I do that to you? Do that to us ?”
“No one else knew. Who could it be, then?”
“Is it you ?” she counters.
“Of course not!”
“Then who the hell is it?” Her voice goes up a notch, filled with fear. “I have as much to lose as you do. I have a family , a life , a career .”
I press my lips together and don’t point out that I have a life and a career, too.
And my life isn’t worth less just because I chose to not have a family.
“There’s no statute of limitations on mur—” I start to remind her why I’m so freaked out, what’s at stake here.
But the word gets stuck in my throat. I can’ t say it.
“Oh God.”
“We need to think, Ivy,” I say. “Who else was there?”
“I don’t know.” She’s upset. Even through the phone, I can tell tears have streaked down her cheeks. Ivy was the last person I really cared about, really loved, and it makes my chest clench to hurt her.
“What about Wendell Unger?” I say. “Is he still around?”
“The police chief?”
“He investigated what happened. Maybe he found something we don’t know about?”
“They never even questioned us twenty years ago. And why would the chief of police not arrest you, not arrest us? Instead, he pretends to be a student? That makes no sense.”
She has a point. “You never told anyone? At all?”
Silence. A silence that means something. Anxiety spirals through me. Anger, too. We promised . We swore up and down we’d never tell a soul.
“ Who? ” I demand before she can answer. “Who did you tell?”
Ivy’s shuddering breath comes through the line. “I told Father Preston. Not details! I just . . . I confessed my sins a year later.”
“Are you freaking kidding me? Why would you do that, Ivy? It’s our lives !” I clench the phone so hard the plastic shifts. I bang my fist on the table, making the wineglass jump, creating tiny ripples in the liquid. Then I’m on my feet again, pacing. “What did you say? What did you tell him?”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t tell him who or any details of what happened—just that . . . that a friend of mine had done something bad, and I’d helped cover it up. I didn’t even say why we did it.”
I scrub my hand over my face and force slow, deep breaths. She didn’t tell him details. That’s good. That means he doesn’t really know, right?
“Did you mention the Saint Agnes pendant? Jocelyn? Mr. Sawyer?”
“No, definitely not.”
“How can you be so sure? It was twenty years ago, Ivy!”
“Because I was careful. And I remember every detail of that conversation. I swear, I didn’t tell him anything specific. No name, no location, I never even said what the bad thing I’d covered up was.”
She’s sobbing now, and it hurts my heart.
I wouldn’t have gotten through that day if it weren’t for Ivy.
I’d dragged her into the mess. “Okay, okay. Just . . . don’t do anything strange now, like go see Father Preston and ask him about it.
Don’t talk to anyone about it. Okay? I’ll . . . I’ll figure this out. I have to.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll be in touch again soon.”
I hang up, set the phone down, and stare at it. I think I believe Ivy. But if she only told one person—a priest who’s taken a sacred oath to not reveal what is said in confessions—and she didn’t tell him any details, it must be someone else.
There’s Sam, a man who has been quietly poking around my life. I need to dig a little deeper there. And the only other person I can think of is the one person I’ve refused to let myself consider would do something like this. But maybe I have to.
I lied to Ivy. She isn’t the only person who told someone what happened twenty years ago.