Chapter Six #2
“Some of Tia’s family have coordinated a search party tomorrow morning.”
“Oh.”
“I think Ray is coordinating it,” he says, a little uncomfortably. “I guess speak to him if you’d like to pitch in and help.”
“Yeah,” I say before hanging up the call. I feel a fist of pain in my chest and a wave of nausea as I immediately poke at
Ray’s number to call him. Being left out of the town goddamn search party will not be a good look, and he didn’t even tell
me.
“Hello?” he answers, and his voice is small and hollow, so I quickly remember he’s a victim and not a hated ex-husband in this immediate scenario.
As I’m about to reflexively yell at him about not including me in this event, it hits me like a punch to the throat that I’m the reason for it all—for the entire town searching for Tia, for Ray’s pain, for this whole sickening, devastating horror show.
“Ray, hi. I just— Um, I heard a group of volunteers are getting together tomorrow, and . . .”
“And what?” he says impatiently.
“I didn’t know about it. I’d like to help.”
I hear him scoff. “Well, you already are. I gave them permission to search our property, so expect a crowd tomorrow.” I’m
suddenly so lightheaded I have to sit down in the kitchen window seat.
“Sorry?” I croak out.
“Tia’s mom coordinated most of it. We’re meeting at the top of the lake in the town square. Half the folks will be combing
the woods down the west side. The plan is to search the mile of dense trees surrounding the lake all the way around and all
the properties in between. I’m heading up the search on the east side including our house, and everyone else in the area is
cooperating.”
I just sit in stunned silence, because how could I not “cooperate.” Even if I wanted to look like some pariah in the situation
and say no, I’d have no choice. Ray’s name is still on the house because of a long, drawn-out divorce that ended in him not
buying me out and waiting to cash out until I sell, like it’s an investment or something, because of course he doesn’t need
the money. He bought a house across the lake. It was better for me financially after it all shook out, but now he has a say,
and a mob of people will be digging around the property tomorrow. I could vomit.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know, Andi. I might be a little preoccupied. It’s not like they’re going inside, for God’s sake. Why? Do you have something you need a heads-up about? Anything to hide?”
“Jesus, Ray,” I say, standing, feeling tears prick my eyes.
“Sorry,” he says. “I’m just—”
“Of course, sorry,” I say, cutting him off. “How—how can I help? Is there anything else we can do to help?” I stutter. I hear
silence for a moment, then a sob that he stifles and tries to quickly recover from. He can’t speak.
“I’ll be there in the morning. I’m so sorry, Ray. I . . .”
“Yeah,” is all he manages and then the call ends. I have to hold my phone with two hands so I don’t drop it, my hands are
shaking so violently.
Then I see Roxie still lingering in the door frame. I want to scream and beat the walls with my fists, but I just stand there
like a statue and blink at her so I don’t snap or start bawling uncontrollably.
“You should head to bed,” I say in a measured tone.
“That was about Tia?” She comes in and sits on a stool at the breakfast counter. I nod. I’m still clenching every muscle and
trying to stay calm even though my mind is reeling.
“It’s so weird,” she says. “Like, she might really be missing. Are we gonna help look tomorrow?” I nod again and offer a tight
smile because it’s all I can muster.
“They’re doing a shoreline search tonight,” she says, and I feel a new rush of adrenaline course through me.
“What does that mean?” I ask, going to the fridge to rummage for a bottle of water so I can keep my back to her.
“Dad called a little bit ago. He and some other guys are going out on boats around the shoreline ’cause he thinks the only explanation is that Tia somehow slipped and fell like on a trail by the lake—some of the banks are kind of high and rocky in different places.
He says it’s the only thing that makes sense.
I guess maybe this is actually real,” she says, and I can see the fear in her eyes.
The usual snark she has when she talks about Tia is absent, and she looks scared.
“Well,” I say, “all we can do is pray and try to help out with the search.”
“Can I go out on the boat search tonight?” she asks.
“No, it’s not safe. Try to get some sleep and we’ll go first thing with everyone else.” I walk over and kiss her on the head,
ever so briefly, so she doesn’t notice my trembling. She nods and puts her soda can in the sink before heading up to her room.
A red-hot panic sears through my entire body. The whole town will be poking around our property tomorrow morning and there’s
a group going out on the lake tonight. My plan is destroyed and I have no other plan. I’m done. I’m entirely fucked. Think.
I have to stay calm and make smart decisions right now. It’s not the time to fall apart.
Maybe I should just turn myself in right now. Maybe I should have not panicked to begin with, but it’s far too late now. If
they wouldn’t have believed it was an accident if I’d called 911 immediately, imagine where waiting over twenty-four hours
to confess will land me. I have no choice but to try, because if I’m found out, I am a goner either way. I have to try.
I think about the meat freezer in the garage.
It’s a crazy idea because it’s right next to our cars—the kids lean their bikes up against it—but since there’s never been meat in it, it just sits there.
For a while, Ray kept his handgun locked inside for lack of a better place to secure it, so there’s still an old padlock hanging from the metal clasp where it closes.
For a couple years we plugged it in for the kids and there were a couple boxes of freezer-burned Popsicles on the bottom, but it hasn’t run in years.
It just sits there, unplugged, dead, hiding in plain sight.
And that’s why it’s an option. An appalling and horrifying option, but nobody will look there. Certainly not the kids or Carson,
and it’s not like the police have a warrant to search the house. I just need to get Tia off the land and hidden away somewhere
they won’t find her. Nobody in the family will notice if the padlock is locked or not since it’s just been hanging there for
practically a decade. It’s a fixture we all look past. It’s the safest thing I can do right now even though I feel like an
absolute barbarian thinking of hiding a body close to my kids. What other choice is there?
I sit in the silent living room, waiting for when I’m certain the kids are asleep. It’s after eleven thirty when Roxie’s light
finally goes dark. I wait another half hour to be sure and then I pad softly up the stairs and crack her door open to check.
I whisper her name, no response. I walk across the hall to Dez’s room. He’s fallen asleep with his bedside lamp on and an
episode of Adventure Time playing on his phone. I turn off the video, click off the lamp and cover him up before tiptoeing back down the stairs.
There’s an old parka in the back of the closet I’ve been meaning to send to charity, and I pull it on. Then I take a pair
of winter gloves from the drawer in the mudroom and slip my feet into rain boots to navigate the wet ground, and I walk out
into the cold night air.
When I reach Tia’s body, I crouch down next to it and pull back the cloth.
A sob climbs up my throat as I see her pale skin in the moonlight and the dried blood covering the side of her head.
Why? I want to scream at her. Why were you here!
If you had just left things alone this would have never happened.
I feel like nothing less than a vile, immoral monster as I pull the blue tarp from the shed—the one Carson used to protect
the bed of his truck when he brought the Christmas tree home last year, and I wrap Tia and the paint cloth carefully inside.
I take duct tape from the workbench and tape up the edges so she is sealed as thoroughly as I can manage.
It’s too easy to drag her small body through the trees, into the clearing and across the woodsy side yard to the garage. I
pause, then walk up onto the back deck and listen for anyone, any movement from the kids, and when there is none, I pull her
inside the garage and close the automatic doors. The motor kicks on, and I watch the doors slowly slide down their rollers
and cables until they meet the concrete and I am safe inside. I exhale.
Tia’s wrapped body sits in front of the freezer, and I have to hug her to my own body and heft her up with all my strength.
I heave and use my knees and back to lift until I can force the weight of her over the lip of the freezer and then push the
rest of her body up with all my might until I hear a hideous crack against the ice chest interior and she falls inside. I
lean my hands on my knees and fight back tears.
I feel like I’ll hyperventilate, so I try to breathe.
Just stop and breathe. You didn’t do this on purpose.
This is just a terrible accident and you have no choice, I say to myself silently.
I look down at her body in the cooler, and then I hear something—the creak of a door opening.
“Mom?”
I slam the cooler closed and whip around to see Dez standing in the door frame that leads from the garage to the mudroom. He’s in his Avatar pajamas and hugging his arms around himself against the cold.
“What are you doing out here?” I snap, and I see his face fall. I try to control my tone—control my fear and terror—and start
again. “I mean, is anything wrong? Why are you up?” I ask, standing in front of the meat freezer as if my body can conceal
it.
“I heard a sound. I thought there was a robber,” he says.
“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry. It was just me. I’m getting some firewood for the fireplace.”
“It’s late. Why are you making a fire?”
“Oh, uh. I can’t sleep. But let’s get you back to bed, hon. Do you need something to drink? Will that help?” He nods and turns
to go inside. I quickly hook the padlock on the freezer clasp and click it locked. I have no idea what the code is and will
probably end up using wire cutters to get it back off, but I’ll figure that out later. It’s all I can do right now.
After he’s inside, I quickly take off my coat and gloves and drop them onto the extra sheet of painter’s cloth I brought in
from the shed. Then I pull my boots off and drop them onto the pile as well. I’ll leave it all there until after I get Dez
back to bed.
He sits at the counter and drinks a box of strawberry milk.
“You can’t sleep ’cause you’re worried about Dad. About Tia, huh?” he asks. I pick up the kettle I’m heating on the stove,
pour myself a cup of tea and turn to him.
“Yes, I think everyone’s a little worried right now, but it’ll be okay,” I say.
“Jason’s mom said you killed her,” he says out of thin air, and I spit my sip of chamomile out involuntarily and gasp—to Dez’s shock, apparently, because he looks terrified. I put my mug down and stare at him, shaking off the tea that’s dripping down the front of my shirt.
“What did you just say?”
“I thought you would say that was stupid or call her a twat or something the way you do with Tia. I didn’t mean to make you
mad,” he says, and I immediately console him.
“Honey, no, I’m not mad. It’s just—that’s a terrible thing for someone to say and of course . . . Tia’s probably . . . fine.”
I force the last word out even though I feel like a psychopath telling my child this when I know the truth. It’s for his own
protection, I tell myself.
“Jason told you his mom said that?”
“Kinda. When I messaged him not to come over, he said his mom wouldn’t let him anyway and that he heard her on the phone with
one of her friends saying it had to be you who did something to Tia.” I stand in the dim kitchen with absolutely no idea how
to respond to this—how to handle this. It’s already starting—the finger-pointing, the whispers, the blame I knew would lie
on me before anyone even knew Tia was really gone. I had to do what I did and it’s even clearer now.
“His mom’s a twat anyway, though, right?” Dez asks innocently, and I’m ashamed at how freely I’ve used these words in front
of him.
“No, baby, Mrs. Hillier is a very nice person. I’m sure Jason misunderstood the conversation. Look, let’s get you back to
bed. We have an early morning tomorrow.”
“Okay.” He comes over and puts his arms around my waist. “Don’t worry. It’ll be okay,” he says. Then he turns and heads up
the stairs to his room.
I don’t have time to waste. I feel like Detective Morrison could show up at my front door at any second if he wanted to, that Carson could pull up in the dirt drive at any moment, a fucking SWAT team could have the house surrounded for all I know and I just need to move.
I throw my rain boots into a trash bag and carry it out to the garbage bin at the side of the house and push it down to the bottom, making sure regular house trash is on top.
Then, back inside, I wrap the coat and gloves I was wearing as tightly as I can into a ball.
After I shower, I put the clothes I was wearing under my coat into the washing machine, just to be extra safe. I go out to
the back deck and throw logs onto the fireplace. When I’m satisfied that the fire is strong, I take the wad of wrapped-up
coat and gloves and place it on the flames. I stab at it with a fire poker until I see the edges catch, and then I sit on
the sofa across from the fire, the exact place I was sitting when Carson talked me into shooting the goddamn stupid gun in
the first place, and I watch it burn.