Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
Marlowe fled the house before anyone could stop her. Snow started falling in light flurries as she passed the Gallagher barn.
Her trek the previous night had been painful and plodding, but the walk in the opposite direction, over the Rise and to the Flats and the river, seemed to pass in a blur. She continued upriver, away from the Bend and where Harmon had been killed, toward the swamp.
Marlowe stopped when she reached the stone wall, pausing to take it in. She had been content when it came up to her shins, but Nate had insisted on building it higher. It wasn’t like they were keeping livestock fenced in, she’d argued—so what was the point?
“Aesthetics,” Nate said.
Higher and higher it went as they carefully placed each rock—and shouted in frustration when a section caved in—until it reached Marlowe’s stomach and was a yard in width.
They had made sure to build it a few steps from the edge of the swamp, where the earth was solid.
Nate envisioned it stretching for forty yards or so before stopping where the river coursed out from the swamp.
Instead, it ended abruptly at less than half that length.
Still, nothing to sneer at. It was a monument of sorts.
Marlowe could remember the dull ache in her muscles, the sweat dripping from her brow at the end of a long day.
Now the stones looked like they’d been there for a century. It amazed her what time and harsh weather could do to something left untended. She reached out and skimmed her hand over a smooth length of the wall.
And then she set herself to the task of gently plucking rocks from the wall one by one and placing them on the ground behind her.
It felt like sacrilege to undo the work of that long-ago summer.
She remembered how hard they had all labored to arrange the stones just right.
All four of them had wanted to build something that would last.
Still, she persisted. She removed the top layer of rocks from a six-foot section at the center of the wall, the discarded stones forming a haphazard pile around her.
She had to be quick. If any of her family caught her in the act, she wasn’t sure what they would do, but she supposed their reactions would be telling.
An hour later, the section she was working on was down to her thighs, and she saw the sheen of black canvas.
Marlowe’s hands yanked at the rocks, and she didn’t flinch when a few stones tumbled onto her arm—she just hoisted them away.
There was something in the wall that Marlowe had not put there. She’d been present for every second of its creation, and none of them had included a black canvas tarp.
After another layer of rocks was gone, Marlowe could grip the canvas. She started to tug on it, and bit by bit it emerged. She had the strangest urge to be gentle, as if the thing in the tarp could still be hurt by rough handling.
Marlowe worried she would need a knife to cut through the tarp, but it turned out not to be wrapped very tightly.
Before she pulled it all the way out, she was able to unravel one side to reveal dust and debris surrounding frayed and faded denim.
Part of someone’s blue jeans. And a deteriorating black wellie that had once gone on a small foot.
And beneath that fragment of cloth, a bone.
She started to tremble. Tiny needles were pricking every inch of her skin.
It was Nora. It was Nora in the stone wall.
Marlowe always thought the attacker must have come from behind and hit Nora on the back of the head.
She would have had to be rendered unconscious right away, or else they would have heard her yell.
She always shrieked when she was startled.
Nora’s scream would have torn through the air with a vengeance. Everyone would have heard it.
But she hadn’t screamed that night, because she hadn’t been startled. Whoever was waiting for her at the trash cans had not surprised her.
Nora knew her killer.
Marlowe knelt at the ruined section of the wall, staring down at the partially exposed tarp for what felt like an eternity.
The snow started to fall harder, and she thought about staying still and letting herself get buried. She’d freeze to death, right next to Nora, as it always should have been.
She pulled at the tarp a bit more, revealing more bones and black muddy grime, which she realized with a flip of her stomach were the decomposed parts of her best friend. It didn’t take long for a body’s soft tissues to liquefy. She knew that from her anthropology classes too.
If the ground was too hard to dig, rocks did a good job of keeping a body protected. And, in some cases, hidden in plain sight. Whoever had done this had been careful. Nora was perfectly encased in stone.
The world fell silent, until the sudden sound of footsteps and heavy breathing echoed from behind her. She looked up to see Nate’s dark figure crossing the Flats, his head rising and falling as he approached her.
Marlowe had a small rock clutched in one hand. She didn’t know what she planned to do with it. Not that she was feeling up to any kind of physical altercation. Not after the previous day.
By the looks of him, Nate wasn’t prepared for a fight either.
The purple half circles under his eyes and his rumpled appearance suggested he hadn’t gotten much sleep.
Part of her, the part that could somehow dismiss the bones beside her, was glad to see him.
She had missed him—and his composure, all his confidence—this past week.
When he reached the wall, his face was as rigid as the scattered stones.
“So, she was here.” Nate’s words fell heavy on Marlowe’s bent head.
“You knew.” Marlowe’s voice cracked. “You knew this whole time.”
“No, I didn’t.” Nate didn’t seem to care if she believed him or not. He seemed exhausted with it all. “Enzo never told me where he put her.”
“Why?” Marlowe dropped the rock. “Tell me why.”
“She said she was pregnant.”
“So you killed her?” Marlowe would have lunged at Nate if the wall hadn’t been between them.
“I didn’t kill her,” Nate snapped. “I was a kid, I asked for help.”
“You told Enzo—”
“I told Dad.”
Marlowe went still. She couldn’t picture it. She supposed everyone said that when someone they knew and loved committed a heinous act, but it was the truth.
At this point, she could imagine Nora and Nate in each other’s arms, up by that bonfire on Memorial Day. Nora creeping down the hall in the middle of the night to meet Nate in the spare room. Nora and Nate keeping their delicious secret until it turned too risky. Nate panicking.
But her father, a man of law and justice and logic, ending a teenage girl’s life—a girl he had watched grow up. The thought was more appalling, more unbelievable than the bones at her feet.
Marlowe glanced behind Nate’s shoulder, expecting her entire family to suddenly appear in a line. But the field behind Nate was empty.
“It’s just me,” Nate said. “I told them I needed to clear my head. Henry said you walked toward the Gallagher barn, so I followed you. I always knew you would figure it out one day.”
“Dad, he wouldn’t have.” Marlowe’s words came out in gasps. “It wasn’t her fault she was pregnant! She didn’t deserve to die for that!”
“She wasn’t an idiot, Marlowe!” He glared at her over the wall while white snow gathered on the top of his head. “She could’ve prevented it and she didn’t! She was manipulating us!”
“You could have prevented it!” Marlowe shrieked. “If it mattered that much to you. If you were smart!”
“I didn’t know.”
Marlowe turned away in disgust. “You knew you were having sex with her, and if you were going to do it, you should have been responsible.”
Nate was silent. A look of bewilderment filled his eyes.
“I thought you realized.” Nate blinked. “It wasn’t me. Nora and I—no. Marlowe, she was sleeping with Henry.”
The bottom dropped out of Marlowe’s world. She collapsed against the wall.
“I don’t know anything.” Marlowe sobbed. “Please, Nate, tell me what happened.”
Nate stepped over the wall and stood before her. “Open your coat. I know you left your phone at the house, but I want to make sure you’re not recording.”
Marlowe’s jaw dropped. “I’m not.”
“You don’t know what those detectives put me through,” Nate said. “The things they said about you. They said you had already figured it out and that you told them everything. That you were helping them gather the evidence they needed, so I might as well confess.” Nate hung his head at the thought.
In truth, Marlowe didn’t have any evidence, but she had given the detectives enough for Ariel to spin convincing lies.
Marlowe reached for her zipper and undid her coat. She flipped her pockets inside out. Then she stood up and lifted her sweater to reveal her pale stomach. She tugged at the neck to show her bra with no wires attached.
“I didn’t think you would.” Nate kicked at the ground before sitting down beside her. It was a poor excuse. “Why did you look here?”
“Enzo,” Marlowe said. “He was babbling about a cairn, which I knew was a pile of stones used in burials.”
“Jesus.” Nate ran his hand through his hair, his touch melting the snowflakes.
“I don’t think he said it to the detectives.” Marlowe zipped her coat back up to her chin. “He had a good lawyer.”
Marlowe stared straight ahead. She needed to know. She would get the information first, then decide who to hate. And how to be angry.
“Tell me, please.”
“You remember how she was, how easy it was to love her. She was funny and brave and alive.” Nate spoke softly. “And Henry had always been smitten. Since the moment they met. For years, he followed her around like a lovesick puppy.”
Marlowe shook her head. It still didn’t fit. Yes, Henry had trailed after Nora, but that was his way. He was always trying to tag along.
“He followed you too,” Marlowe said.