Chapter 80
Then
nicky
He couldn’t stay on the beach. He had to hide now, while everyone was preoccupied with the rescue, before they realised he was missing.
Before his aunt told anyone what he and Finn had done.
Nicky threaded his way through the trees and up the mountain slope behind the marina, feeling dizzy and light-headed. There was a sharp pain between his shoulder blades, and he felt a wave of nausea rinse through him.
He needed to find Colt.
His grandfather would know what to do.
Colt hadn’t hesitated when he and Finn had called him in panic a week ago.
His grandfather had driven up the mountain and hiked out into the woods to find them, barely batting an eyelid when he’d seen Luke’s body on the ground.
He’d even brought a tarp with him, so they could move the body without leaving more evidence behind.
They’d rolled Luke onto the tarp, and the three of them had carried his body to the ridge, and then pitched him over the edge of a narrow cleft in the rocks about ten or twelve feet deep, the kind of place no one would ever look.
Nicky had wanted to throw up when he’d heard the sickening sound of the body hitting the rocks below, but his grandfather had coolly finished folding up his tarp and said, ‘We don’t leave evidence,’ and somehow Nicky had swallowed his nausea back down.
This last week had been hell on earth.
He hadn’t been able to eat or sleep. He’d been desperate to confide in his mom, but he hadn’t dared. He’d known she’d do almost anything for him, but she wouldn’t have helped him cover up murder.
Finn might not have meant to kill the man. But he had, and you could dress that up any way you liked, but it was still murder.
Rose had said he should tell his mom anyway, but he was too terrified to do that without speaking to Colt first, and his grandfather had said it was too late to come clean.
They’d tampered with evidence, Colt said, attempted to conceal the body; no one would believe it was an accident now. Both he and Finn would go to jail.
For a brief moment, Maggie’s way out had seemed like the only solution.
Except he didn’t want to die.
The pain between his shoulder blades was excruciating now. He was in agony as he scrambled up the slope through the woods.
He stopped and looked up at the ridge, shocked at how far he still had to go.
He’d been planning to get to his parents’ house and then take the bike trail down to his grandfather’s farm, but he was never going to make it.
His hands were shaking, and his vision was blurry.
His legs were so weak, he could barely put one foot in front of the other.
He didn’t even have the energy to go back the way he’d come.
He had to find somewhere to sit down, somewhere he could shelter for a while until he figured out what to do.
He stumbled along an overgrown deer path that ran parallel to the slope, too exhausted to keep climbing upwards.
He had no idea where the trail led, and was too tired to care.
The path grew stony and then narrowed into a gully, and he repeatedly tripped over rocks, his feet seeming to belong to someone else.
His head was pounding, and the pain in his back was so fierce it felt like something was boring into his bones.
It was only when he reached the foot of the cliff that he realised where he was.
Nicky sank to the ground, leaning back against the rock wall and gazing up at the narrow belt of star-studded sky visible from the bottom of the crevasse.
He didn’t know whether fate or instinct had brought him back to the scene of the crime, but it was fitting. He didn’t know exactly what was wrong with him, but he did know he was going to die.
There was a sudden movement, off to his left. He heard the scatter of stones shifting underfoot, and the rasp of something breathing. A raccoon, perhaps. Maybe even a bear.
He closed his eyes, not caring.
Something pawed at his clothes. Nicky thought of his mother, down at the lake right now, desperately searching for him.
He couldn’t remember why he’d been so angry with her.
He hoped she found him, after it was all over.
He didn’t like to think of her never knowing what’d happened to him, forever waiting for him to come home. He shouldn’t have left the beach.
He wanted his mom.
He was drifting in and out of consciousness now.
He felt as if he were floating, drifting along the ravine, except it wasn’t water that was carrying him, but the bear.
Only it wasn’t a bear, because it was talking to him, but the words were garbled and confused, and he couldn’t understand what the bear-that-wasn’t-a-bear was saying.
Water splashed his face, and he opened his eyes.
The dead man was staring at him. His face was all purple and bruised, and there were clotted lumps in his hair, like tar, except they were dark red, not black, and somewhere in the back of his brain Nicky realised it was dried blood.
The man seemed to be trying to help him. Only that couldn’t be right, either, because he was dead; they’d thrown his body into the ravine.
More water hit his face. He licked his lips, suddenly aware how thirsty he was.
‘Mom,’ he whispered.
The dead man shoved something into his hand. A photo: of Nicky himself, brandishing his cross-country gold medal, his parents beaming proudly on either side of him. He kept the picture in his wallet; the dead man must’ve found it.
Nicky looked at the dead man. He wanted to tell him he was sorry, that he hadn’t known he was alive when they’d thrown him into the ravine.
He wanted to say he’d do it all differently, if he had the chance.
He wanted to ask him to tell his mom he loved her.
But he couldn’t do any of those things, because he was already dead.