Chapter 20 Above #2
“Audrey. We’ve met. I’m Janie’s friend,” I told him.
I expected him to be angry, and he was. What I didn’t expect was the way he lost his footing. How he sank down onto the seat of the car and stared at me.
“Why?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, and it was the truth.
He offered me a cigarette. I hadn’t smoked before and haven’t since, but we stayed out there for one and then another.
I can’t remember what we talked about, other than a few fumbling attempts at questions that neither of us could really answer.
He’d already asked the only one that mattered, and there was never a clear why when it came to Janie.
I’d always known she broke it off with him, not the other way around.
What I hadn’t known was how deeply it affected him.
He didn’t say as much, of course. But I could tell.
Whatever happened to end things, it left a mark—-even after only a few weeks together, even years later.
Her name still hit him like a blow to the gut, and for the first time in my life, I had something in common with Andrew Hill.
What I can’t imagine is why it bothers him so much.
Parking lot sex is sleazy, sure, but it was entirely consensual.
What else had he said that night? It’s a blur now.
Maybe it is for him, too. I do remember the abrupt way he left, as if he couldn’t stand one moment longer of sitting still.
He drove off, and I remember thinking he’d be lucky to make it home in one piece.
Across the room, Andrew is watching me. And next to him is Emily. She’s wearing a silk blouse the color of moss, her hair twisted up on top of her head.
Has she told him I was at the house?
He keeps near her. All but interposing himself between her and everyone else, his stance protective but with a note of something else.
She stares at me, unblinking. He notices and bends slightly to say something in her ear, his face turned away.
The tiny sliver of expression I can see looks . . . unsettled.
She looks up at him and speaks. My eyes track her lips. I could swear she mouthed, What do you think I’m going to do?
I look away quickly. This is too much. Emily and the weirdness with Andrew and people flocking around to congratulate the volunteers. I’m suddenly remembering why I don’t come to these things.
I grab Dev’s sleeve. “Can we get out of here early?” I mutter to him.
“We just got here,” Dev says. I give him a pleading look. “But I hate it and we should leave immediately,” he corrects himself swiftly.
I slip over to Tamara, murmuring about a sudden headache. She gives me a knowing look; I know she’ll cover my escape. I linger long enough to give Paul a hug and promise to be at next weekend’s training, and then I’m gone.
Outside, people are still arriving. Dev and I give them stiff nods, smiles fixed in place, as we flee to the car. Inside, I bury my face in my hands and groan.
“Can I ask what that was about?” Dev ventures. “If it’s none of my business—-”
“It’s complicated,” I say.
“I’m good with complicated,” Dev says sincerely. “Look, you didn’t get to finish your drink. Let me take you out, and you can tell me about it—-or not.”
I nod wordlessly. Dev starts up the car. I put my seat belt on and slump back against the seat, chewing on the corner of my lip.
It feels significant that Emily was there. She never shows up to these things. Why would she start now? Because she’s getting involved before the big campaign launch?
Or maybe because they’re keeping an eye on her.
Dev pulls into the lot of the Hopper, the semi--hip bar that replaced the dive that used to sit on this corner.
It retains a selection of cheap beer for commuting college students and the regulars who refuse to acknowledge the change in management.
We snag a booth near the back and order a couple pints.
“So,” Dev says. “Does this sudden headache have anything to do with you getting sick in the middle of the day yesterday?” He raises his eyebrows, curious but carefully nonjudgmental.
“That was—-I had something to deal with and I lost track of time,” I say. “Just being flaky.”
“That doesn’t sound like you. I mean, not that we’ve known each other long, but flaky is not the word I would use to describe you,” he says, worry darkening his eyes. “What’s going on?”
I hunch over my drink protectively. I shouldn’t be putting this on him, but I can’t call Len. He’s a cop, and while I haven’t done anything illegal—-well, apart from taking the journal—-I’ve crossed lines I shouldn’t have.
“I’ve been looking into Meghan Vale,” I say.
“Trying to figure out what happened to her.” He listens as I tell him a bare--bones version of what I’ve been up to.
Searching the woods with Emily, talking to Ethan, finding Meghan’s journal.
I tell him about Meghan seeing Emily. I leave out my history with Andrew.
“You got her address from school files and went to her house? Audrey, you could get in trouble for something like that,” Dev says, leaning in. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
I laugh bitterly. “Not even a little bit.”
“I say this as your friend and just your friend—-not the guy who would very much like to get a third date with you and is probably torpedoing his chances. But maybe you should talk to someone about this,” Dev says.
“I thought that was what I was doing.”
He winces. “Someone professional, I mean.”
“You think I need therapy?”
“It’s helped me a great deal,” he says. “It’s just .
. . I know how it is. I’ve had students I wanted to rescue so badly.
We watch these kids drowning and we’re standing on shore throwing things at them we hope will float, we hope they’ll grab, and all you want to do is dive in there with them.
But there’s too many of them, and you can get dragged under yourself.
” Dev’s eyes shine with tender intensity, and in his voice, I hear the echo of the stories all of us have.
“There are kids you can’t save,” I say. “And kids you don’t know how to save, and kids that will swim away from the life vest you’re throwing for them.
This is different. This is . . .” I don’t know how to finish the sentence.
I don’t know how to explain. “She wasn’t even my student.
I probably couldn’t have picked her out of a lineup.
But I get this feeling when I’m on a search.
I know when it’s time to give up, and I know when it isn’t. It isn’t time to give up yet.”
He drinks. The froth at the top of the glass sticks to his mustache. He clears it with a napkin, thinking. “So. Where do you go from here?” he asks.
“I’m not sure. This isn’t what I do,” I say with a helpless shrug.
“Maybe that’s why it isn’t working,” he observes.
I shake my head. “What I do isn’t helpful here. There isn’t a grid to search, there isn’t a trail to follow.”
“Isn’t there? You just said she was out there in those woods, right?” he asks.
“Months ago.”
He scratches his chin thoughtfully. “Could a dog still find a scent after that much time?”
“Scent trails last hours, maybe days,” I say. “We’re talking about months of weather.”
“I feel like I’ve seen dogs searching in areas where people have been missing longer than that,” Dev says with the faint edge of a question.
“Sure, but in those cases they’re not looking for someone who passed through eight weeks ago,” I say. “They’re looking for someone who’s still there.”
“As in . . .” he begins.
“As in a body,” I say. “Cadaver dogs can find a corpse even years after someone dies in some cases.”
“Is that a possibility?” he asks quietly. I look away. Of course it is. It’s the first thing I thought of, isn’t it? Meghan out beneath those beads, listening to them click in the wind. Not noticing the click of a gun being cocked.
“It’s possible.” I drain the last swallow of my drink. “I’m going to need another one of these.” I cast around for our server, but there’s no sign of her. From long experience, I know she’s likely not going to be back for a while. I tell Dev to hang tight while I go up to the bar.
The bartender tonight is a skinny guy who desperately needs both a haircut and a sense of urgency.
I manage to inconvenience him into pulling me a pint, and lean against the counter as I wait for the excruciatingly slow process to resolve.
It’s early in the evening yet, and the bar isn’t exactly hopping.
The only other person sitting at the bar is down at the end, head bent over a plate of fries that look like they went cold a while ago.
It takes me a moment to recognize him, and then my stomach drops.
The gray--haired, flannel--wearing man is Bill. Neighbor Terry’s gun--happy brother. He lifts his eyes like he can feel me looking, and his brow furrows briefly and then lifts, his own moment of recognition. “I know you,” he says.
“You pointed a gun at me,” I reply. The bartender shows his first glimmer of interest, his head coming up slow like a mildly startled tortoise.
“Yeah, I did,” Bill says. He tugs at the brim of his battered baseball cap. “Sorry about that.”
“Are you?” I ask.
“Guess I oughta be.”
The bartender slides the pint onto the counter between us, slopping foam. I dry the side with a bar napkin, still watching Bill. “Do you get lots of trespassers out there?”
“Not really,” he says. “I don’t go out there much myself, though. Just since Terry’s been in the hospital.”
“How is he doing?” I ask casually.
Bill seems surprised that I’m still talking to him, but he straightens up and clears his throat. “He had surgery, but it didn’t go so great,” Bill says.
“Sorry to hear that.”
A roll of his shoulders. “It’s nothing new.
Had his first heart attack five years ago,” he says.
“I didn’t take it seriously then. He asked me to come around to help, but I was busy with my own life, and it took him going down last month for me to realize this might be my last chance to be a good brother.
So I might have been a bit—what’s the word—overzealous. ”
“That is the word for it,” I say mildly. “So how well do you know Emily Hill, then?”
His brow creases at this line of questioning. “I know her brother a bit better. He’s the one that’s looked after things for Terry when I wasn’t around.”
My head cocks. “Andrew Hill has been taking care of your brother’s land? I thought Terry didn’t want anyone out there.”
“He doesn’t. But he doesn’t have much choice,” Bill says. “He doesn’t get around like he used to, not after he got sick again last year. So Andrew offered to tend to things. Terry hates it, but what’s he going to do?”
So Terry wouldn’t—-couldn’t—-have been wandering out in the woods while Meghan was exploring. Emily hadn’t mentioned that little detail. Neither had Terry, for that matter, but it sounds like he wouldn’t. Pride and resentment explained his omission, but why would Emily lie?
Unless Emily is the one hiding something.
Dev catches my eye from the booth and gives me a questioning look. I raise my fingers in a quick wave. “I hope your brother recovers quickly,” I say, without conviction. He grunts and dips his head in what might be agreement or indigestion. I snag my beer and walk quickly back to the booth.
“Everything okay?” Dev asks. “That guy wasn’t being a creep, was he? Because I’m a man of peace, but I have kind of always wanted to get into a chivalrous bar fight.”
“Is that a thing?” I ask him.
“Probably not,” he acknowledges.
I chew the side of my thumb. “That’s the guy who almost shot me the other day. Turns out, that land where I found the beads? The Hills look after it for him. They’re the only ones out there.”
“I still don’t totally get what the deal with that family is,” Dev says. “They’re like . . . Franklin royalty?”
I give a little laugh. “Side effect of being kind of a nowhere town—-when people do make it big, we never shut up about them,” I say.
“Their mother, Elizabeth, was pretty beloved around here. She taught at the school, in fact. Melinda’s the oldest, and she was in Congress for a couple terms. There’s Liam, of course. ”
“Ah, yes. The heartthrob. My sister had a crush on him,” Dev says.
“Hell, I had a bit of a crush on him. Those soulful eyes? The leather jacket? He was the perfect bad boy. My sister sobbed for an embarrassingly long time after Kyle bit it in that drag race accident. You’d think someone had really died. ”
“He was actually really sweet,” I say. “Liam, I mean, not Kyle. Obviously.”
“You know him?”
“No. I mean, when we were kids, kind of,” I say.
I think of his hands cradling that box. How he let them lie limp in his lap afterwards, staring down at them.
A gentle boy in an ungentle world. “Then there’s Andrew, obviously.
Quarterback. A brief but glorious stint in the NFL before an injury took him out, which people will still tell you about like it’s the worst twist of fate the town’s ever seen.
Jackass, don’t ask me how I know. The point is, they’ve always been .
. . not prominent, exactly? But notable. ” Except for Emily.
And that’s striking, isn’t it? The Hills were always around in one way or another—-Melinda volunteering all over the place; Andrew at all the football events and constantly roaming with a pack of other student athletes; Liam starring in the school play, where he somehow made Our Town feel fresh the nineteenth straight year of its performance at Franklin High.
But Emily was kept cloistered. She suggested that was her father’s doing.
That he was paranoid and controlling. She was the one who looked exactly like her beloved mother.
So he built a tower to lock the princess into. But maybe it was more than that.
Emily is lying. She’s hiding something—-I’m certain of it.
And she and her older siblings are entirely occupied at the moment.
“What are you thinking?” Dev asks, sounding a touch nervous.
I run a finger along the rim of my glass. “I’m thinking of breaking some laws.”