14. Ben #3
“So, like I said, it was a pretty chill night, nothing out of the ordinary. I mean, Trevor’s parties can get pretty wild, and this one was definitely on its way there, but it was still a little early.
But then, around ten o’clock, I saw Jayne walk in.
And I remember that, because I’d gone to get Sadie a drink maybe ten minutes before, and then when I came back to where we’d been standing, she was gone.
I caught sight of her and Liz outside, heading toward the bonfire, and I was just about to follow them when Jayne came in.
It was kind of wild for a second, actually, because she and Sadie were dressed exactly alike.
I had to do a double take, and while I was doing that, I saw Mason Vreeland walk up to her at one of the jungle juice trash cans. ”
“Sorry, the what?”
Detective Budd has been taking notes.
“Oh, the, uh, the jungle juice trash cans. It’s this mix of Everclear and Kool-Aid and some other stuff, and then Trevor just puts it in these big cans—”
She looks genuinely horrified. “Got it. No more details needed there, thanks.”
“So, anyway, Mason and Jayne talked for a minute or so, and it was clear she was super uncomfortable with whatever he was saying to her. She seemed to dodge her way out of the conversation as fast as possible. It was a major red flag to me that she was there, because Sadie had mentioned that Jayne had been calling and texting her earlier in the night with some story that their parents were coming home early and Sadie had to leave. We thought Jayne was just trying to ruin the fun, but when she actually walked through the door, I knew she was serious. So I figured I should find Sadie and Liz ASAP.”
“Interesting. Miss Cooper did mention being cornered by Mason Vreeland last night.”
I nodded. Our stories were lining up. That helped me relax a little.
“I’m not surprised. Like I said, I don’t know what they were talking about, but she was clearly put off by the whole exchange. If she hadn’t been able to get away from him, I would have stepped in, but she seemed to be able to handle herself. Jayne is like that.”
“Yes, I’ve gathered as much. So, you went outside…?”
“Oh yeah.” I can feel myself gaining momentum as I’m telling the story.
I have Detective Budd’s undivided attention, and I find myself thinking again that she’s still pretty hot, even though she must be close to my dad’s age.
Maybe a few years younger. But it feels good to have her staring at me like this, closer to how I’m used to being treated by women her age.
I bet this is how she looked at my dad back when she was interrogating him.
“So, I went outside to find Liz and Sadie and let them know Jayne was there. It was a little bit of a relief, honestly, because I was already thinking I’d have to call an Uber to get the two of them back to Sadie’s place.
Jayne was doing her thing in the house, and as far as I could tell, Mason had wandered off to go creep out someone else.
When I got to the bonfire, I found Liz pretty easily, but she said that Sadie had gone back inside to get us more drinks.
That’s when I got this knot in the pit of my stomach, like I just knew something was really wrong.
I’m not going to lie to you, Detective, I’d had a few drinks by then, and I’d downed another beer on my walk to the bonfire. ”
“You had time to down a whole beer just going from inside to outside?”
I shake my head. She doesn’t know how Trevor’s works.
“You probably haven’t been out to the McClain property, Detective, but it’s huge.
A walk from the house down to the old field where Trevor usually has a bonfire going is nearly five minutes.
It takes a long time, and it takes a long time going back to the house too.
But that’s what I was doing—heading to the house, because that’s where Liz said Sadie had gone.
Sadie was drinking a lot that night, probably because Liz was pouring and not just me, and I was a little worried about her wandering up to the house on her own.
I just assumed I’d catch up with her somewhere along the way, and I could help her back, and get her into a car and safely home before the Coopers got back. ”
“Okay, so you were on your way back up to the house—”
God, can this woman let me finish a sentence?
“Yeah,” I cut in quickly. “Yeah. I was on my way back up to the house, and there’s this old stone barn that the McClains don’t use anymore kind of off to the right if you’re heading back toward the house.
It’s kind of the place you go to at his parties if you want to hook up.
No one bugs anybody they see walking over there.
And for some reason, I thought I caught sight of Mason heading in that direction. ”
I pause for dramatic effect.
“I’ll never forgive myself for not following him in that very minute.
But how could I have known that he wasn’t alone?
That he’d already somehow tricked Sadie into going in there to meet him?
I can’t guess what was going on in that psycho’s head, Detective.
I have no idea if he thought Sadie was Jayne, and somehow thought she was the one he got into the barn.
I’ll never know how he got her there in the first place.
You can’t know a thing like that; it’s impossible. It’s—”
“Mr. Carrera, I know how upsetting it must be to relive this, but please try to stay on track. Just speak clearly and plainly. You were heading back to the house to find Sadie, and you saw Mason Vreeland heading for the barn. But you kept going back up to the house?”
I nod, feeling my leg starting to shake under the table.
“Right. Yeah. I just kept thinking I’d find Sadie somewhere along the way.
But when I got back to the house, the only person I saw was Jayne.
I asked her if she’d seen Sadie, and she said that Sadie had come back inside briefly, but before Jayne could get to her, she’d walked out the door again.
Jayne didn’t look good. I asked her if she was feeling okay and that’s when she said that she had this horrible feeling in her stomach.
It hit her after she saw Sadie leave. She told me we had to get out to the barn right away. ”
“So the two of you went to the barn together?”
“Yes. We ran at full speed, Detective. I swear to God. Jayne started running, and I followed her. I kept asking her why we were sprinting, but I don’t think she answered me. I think we both just had a feeling… like we had to get to the barn to see if Sadie was there with Mason.”
I pause for another moment and meet Detective Budd’s eyes, willing myself not to blink.
“Have you ever had your worst fear come true?” I ask. My goal is to disarm her, and it works, if just for a split second.
“I can’t say that I have,” she replies.
“Well, then.” I shrug. “I can’t really expect you to understand what I did once I got inside that barn. Because something way worse than my worst fear was there, right in front of me.”
“Can you describe to me exactly what you saw?”
I take a deep breath. My leg needs to stop shaking.
I focus again on the green tape on the floor.
I am here. Now. I may be recounting what happened last night, but I do not live in last night.
That’s the past. I live in the now. That’s what leaders do.
They live in the present; they don’t get stuck in the past or bogged down by the future.
They make decisions for the now. It’s the job of the followers to clean up after them.
“I thought I was going to walk in on them hooking up. I don’t know why I thought that, but that’s what I was afraid of.
Sadie was the kind of girl every guy in school wanted, you know?
So I was always looking over my shoulder in a way, wondering if some other guy was trying to steal her away.
Sometimes I got a little jealous—not that Sadie ever gave me a real reason to be…
just the usual high school bullshit, you know?
So, anyway, I thought I’d walk in on a hookup.
What I saw was so much worse. I saw Mason standing over Sadie.
He was standing over her, and he had this knife in his hand—I don’t know where he got it, but I could see it even though there was almost no light in the barn, and I could see…
” Get it together, Carrera. This is the important part.
“I could see that there was blood on it.”
My voice catches in my throat.
“I’d call red light,” I say finally, “but I need to keep going.”
Detective Budd nods. “Just get it out however you need to, Mr. Carrera.”
I put my head in my hands. I can’t even look at her for the next part.
“I could see that there was blood on it,” I repeat.
“And for a second, I just couldn’t understand it.
I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing, because how was it possible?
But then I realized it was Sadie on the floor of the barn.
That old, dusty, shitty floor. It’s where barn animals used to stay, and she was just lying there…
and she was bloody too. So I put it together, and I just—I attacked him. ”
Detective Budd nods. She isn’t taking notes now. I know because even though I haven’t looked up, I can’t hear her pen scratching.
“There was a struggle?”