“I hear you,” she responds. “Miss? Are you okay?”
Something’s happening. Something terrible.
“Help us. Please,” I say. Because Nolan needs something that no one can give him anymore. I don’t know how to help him. I think this must be how Joe felt, standing in the doorway of my hospital room, watching me sit there, staring off at the white curtains.
I give the woman our location and tell her it’s an emergency.
I tell her what we’ve found.
I’ve just hung up and am about to turn around and run back to Nolan when I catch another glimpse of color through the trees, in the parking lot. This time, a flash of blue.
I step closer, until I can make it out: the light reflecting off the blue of a car.
Someone else is here.
I turn in a circle, confused. I’m not sure whether this car belongs to the developer—someone who can help us. Or whether it belongs to someone who knew Liam was here and sent that picture. “Hello?” I call. I didn’t see anyone on the path on the way back, but they could’ve veered to the right at the cutoff, heading to the base of the quarry.
The car looks familiar, in a vague sort of way. It’s parked beside Nolan’s, and it reminds me of earlier today.
I walk closer until I’m out in the dirt lot and quietly step around it—until I see, on the back, the decal for the foundation Nolan’s family runs, and I know this belongs to that guy who works at his house, though I’ve never seen him before. Mike, I think he said.
I wonder if he knew what we were doing and followed us here. Nolan trusts him, and it’s possible he’s here to help. Though I don’t recall seeing another car behind us on the back roads, or when we arrived.
I stare back into the woods, remembering what Nolan said—that the picture of Liam was sent from the library. It could’ve been anyone. And yet, it could’ve been sent from the library to make it seem like Nolan. He used to pretend he had a job tutoring there. Mike would think he worked there. Nobody knew it was a lie.
In the pit of my stomach, there’s the feeling of wrong.
I try to open Nolan’s car door, but it’s locked. Thankfully he’s left the windows half down, because his air conditioning is always broken, so I reach my arm in until I can disengage the lock, stretching down until it clicks.
Then I open the door and pop the trunk. The noise cuts through the empty parking lot, and I pause, looking around—with the feeling that someone is watching me.
His baseball gear is still tucked in the corner of the trunk, the mitt beside the bat. I can feel his hands on my hands, his body pressed behind mine, his words, explaining how to get more power.
Don’t swing like you’re afraid, he said.
One more look over the lid of the trunk, into the trees.
I’m not afraid, I tell myself. My hands shake anyway.
I pick up the bat.
Everything sounds so far away: across an ocean, a void of empty space. When I look up, the branches move, and the sky shrinks, and it’s like I’m falling into a black hole.
This cannot be what had me coming out here—to find this? This nothingness?
What was the point? Of the signal, and the signs, leading me here?
All this, to find he’s been dead, all this time?
There are footsteps, slowly trudging up the path—the sound cutting its way through the fog, back to me. It must be Kennedy, but I don’t want to look at her. All I’ll see is her face when she told me not to look. Her expression, which said everything.
“Nolan?”
It’s a man’s voice. The footsteps pause for a moment and then continue.
“Nolan? Is that you? Is everything okay?”
I look up, and I’m disoriented. In the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere—it’s Mike. I shake my head. No, everything is not okay.
Did Kennedy call him somehow? Did he know how to find us? Did time slip from me just like Liam did, here and gone? I look beyond Mike, for Kennedy. For someone to make sense of things.
“Hey,” he says, coming into the clearing. “It’s okay.” He reaches a hand down for my shoulder, where I’m sitting on the stump of the tree.
“Mike? What are you doing here?” There are no police behind him. My parents aren’t here. No one is here.
His shadow falls over me, his feet braced apart, and my shoulders tense.
“Mike?” I ask again, except this time, I’m asking something else. Something tingling in the back of my mind. “Mike, did you know…” But what? What did he know? That there was a picture of my brother, taken from this location? That my brother had been here once? That my brother was dead?
“Oh, Nolan,” he says, crouching down. “I want you to know how sorry I am.” His hands are shaking on his knees, and I can see that he is. Sorry. Except I’m face-to-face with the thing that is wrong, that makes no sense.
It’s his hands. They’re covered. He’s wearing thin leather gloves, in June, in the middle of Virginia.
“What are you doing?” I ask, leaning away. And then I look around frantically—for the police, for my parents, for anyone.
Who is this person, who’s been in my house since the earliest days of my parents’ organization? This man who gave us his condolences, told us what a gift Liam had been to the shelter they worked at together. Did he ever really lose his sister? Or was it Liam, all along, that brought him to us?
“Did you do this?” I ask, fueled by anger instead of grief. I stand abruptly and my head spins. But my body is full of rage, and adrenaline, and everything’s on edge. I can’t tell which person is in front of me—the Mike I thought I knew, or the Mike I’m seeing now. I don’t know which instinct to trust.
He holds his hands up, palm out, and on instinct I step back, losing my balance over the stump, scrambling to stand again as Mike walks closer. I can tell now, this is not the expression of someone here to help me. His face has shifted, set and determined.
“Stand up, Nolan,” he says. He reaches a hand down for me, but I push myself upright on my own. He steps closer, and I move back again, into the center of the clearing.
“You sent that picture,” I say, pointing my finger at his chest. “You knew he was here all along. You—”
He raises an eyebrow, not denying it.
The pieces start clicking together. “Is this why you work for my parents? You’ve known all along? Were you in my house to protect yourself?” After the first press conference, the police scanned those images from the television stations for potential suspects. They told my parents that suspects often like to insert themselves into the cases directly.
We didn’t look close enough, though. We didn’t check our own home. Mike gave us a story, and we believed it, because Liam knew him and my parents wanted answers.
Now I’m here, finally getting answers, only they’re not the ones I want. I’ve been racing toward the thing that would devastate us all, and for what? For this? One more betrayal?
“What did you do to him?” I ask, my thumb jutting over my shoulder, pointing to the edge of the quarry behind us. Needing to know, and needing desperately to be wrong about all of it.
Mike shakes his head. “He did it to himself. I’m so sorry. Your brother was good at a lot of things, but he didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.”
I picture Liam over the sink, the razor clattering, the drop of blood—his hand shaking. Something had been on his mind. Somehow, I knew, even then—something was wrong. But I said nothing. The thought was fleeting, barely registering. And in the chaos that followed, I’d all but forgotten it.
“I thought you…” Everything twists. I thought Mike was on our side. I thought Liam trusted him. And now I see that he did; I finally understand how Liam would disappear from the park, with a dog, without putting up a fight: only if it was someone he knew. Only
if he trusted that he would make it back unharmed. I remember, then, how Mike told my parents Liam probably ran away. Because it was unlikely someone would take and harm both Liam and the dog. Mike planted that seed, and it grew.
“Someone was spreading rumors,” Mike explains. “About me. It’s all so unimportant, such a small thing. All of this about people who don’t even matter. Who no one even misses. But someone confided in your brother. And he couldn’t let it go.” He shakes his head, like it’s all some big regrettable thing. Instead of something he had control over all along.
“But this, Nolan. I am truly sorry. I want you to believe that.”
I shake my head, not understanding. A step behind, as I’ve always been.
“Thing is, Nolan, this body is going to be found, one way or another now. The land was purchased. It’s unfortunate, really, but that’s the truth of it. Your brother’s case was going to be reopened, with or without that email. And I’m tired of trying to hide it. It’s time he was found, don’t you think?”
Yes, I do, except I also realize exactly how Mike wants Liam’s body to be uncovered. An email, with a photo, sent from me.
“So, what, you decided to blame it on me?” I say. It’s ridiculous. He couldn’t imagine this would work.
But he smiles, his lips pulling back, baring his teeth. It’s a look I’ve never seen on him before. “I didn’t realize you’d know the location, Nolan. Didn’t know it meant anything to you at all. But it was obvious you figured it out. Left it up on the computer screen right before you took off on this little excursion.” He shrugs. “You make do with what you get.” Then he smiles again. “Maybe it was a sign.”
I’m confused. I don’t see what he has at all. “The body will still be discovered,” I say.
“Yes. And the person who sent the picture, who obviously knew more about what happened to Liam Chandler all this time but tried to hide it, has been overcome with guilt. He came out to the spot where he was responsible for his brother’s death.”
We’ve been shifting, slowly, as he leans closer and I lean back. Inch by inch. And then it dawns on me. The edge is behind us, and there’s nothing to stop his momentum—it’s just the granite below my feet, and then a cliff. “You’re going to frame me and then make it look like I killed myself?” He’s out of his mind. There’s no way I’m going down without a fight. I look all around me for something I can use.
I’m almost his size. I could strike first. But then I run the risk of being tossed over the edge, with or without him. There’s one way out, and he’s standing in front of it.
Oh God, Kennedy’s out here somewhere.
Either he found her and I’m too late, or he doesn’t know she’s here. And I don’t want him to figure it out.
“It’s a sad story, either way,” he continues. “One brother, missing for years. Another, suffering alone, overwhelmed with his grief and regret. It’s a story people will believe. This moment was inevitable, Nolan.”
I take a deep breath in, because I think I finally understand.
This moment was inevitable; he’s right. My brother was going to be found. That picture would be recognized by me. I would be out here, looking for him. Mike would find me.
All of this, I can see, a fall of dominoes set in motion—leading us to this moment, right here, right now.
I shake my head at him, but he doesn’t understand. He thinks I’m giving in. But I feel surrounded suddenly.
I look beyond him, into the trees, and everything is perfectly clear. Why the universe sent me to her, and her to me. It wasn’t to prove anything. It wasn’t for a picture, or a clue, or a sign.
It was for us.
Maybe it was my brother talking to me all along. Because this moment I’m facing was almost inevitable. Almost. But Mike has one part wrong. He doesn’t know I’m not out here alone.
Her shadow hovers just beyond Mike’s shoulder. She’s so quiet, moving like a ghost—easy to overlook if you’re not paying attention.
She’s got my bat in her hands. For a moment, everything is too bright. The sunlight escaping from between a gap of clouds. I close my eyes. She knows what to do. Don’t be afraid, I think.
She swings.
The man before me stumbles for a second, and I start to panic, thinking I’m going to have to hit him again, but my hands are already reverberating from the impact—and then he sinks to his knees before collapsing onto the ground, face-first. I swung just the way Nolan showed me—for power. My hands are still throbbing, my fingers trembling.
Nolan stands over him, his expression blank. This must be Mike, though I’ve never met him. All I know is he was trying to hurt Nolan. I heard him, everything he said—about Nolan, about Liam. This man was working for their parents. How often the danger lurks inside our own homes. How often we let it inside without realizing it.
Mike covers his head with one hand, then pushes himself onto his knees, but Nolan grabs his arm out from under him, sending him back to the dirt. Nolan’s got his arm in his grip still, and they’re inches from the edge.
“Nolan,” I say. He looks up, surprised, like I’m calling him back from some darker place. Like he’s forgotten himself, and then finds whatever he lost once more, as he places a knee on Mike’s back, holding his arm behind him.
Nolan looks up at me, like he’s asking me what to do. And I just stand with the bat in my hands, seeing every possibility play out before us. “The police are on their way,” I finally say.
Mike struggles against the ground, but Nolan’s stronger, and I still have the bat, just in case. I hope I don’t have to use it again. But I will if I have to.
Nolan digs his knee into Mike’s back until he winces and coughs.
Mike’s one blue eye, visible against the ground, is staring straight at me.
I wonder what he sees. I shake off the chill. The evil you think you can see behind the walls, through the window. So much closer than that.
Mike seems to lose all strength then, and his eyes keep drifting shut, and part of me feels sick, even in the relief—wondering what I have just done. Whether this will be something I can never come back from; some crack in the universe. A line that divides my life anew. Before. After.
And once again, all I can do is wait. I count in my head, like I did that night. Until it’s safe.
It feels like forever before we hear the voices down below. The crackle of static from a walkie-talkie.
“Up here!” I shout. “We’re here!” I call again, over and over, until finally, finally two officers come into view.
But they don’t bring relief. Instead, they have weapons drawn, and one of those weapons is pointing at me. Just like Elliot, that night, his eyes unseeing.
For protection, I realize, imagining Elliot as well. In case they need protection.
“Put down the bat!” one of the officers yells.
“Oh.” It drops from my grip, my hands rising over my head.
It makes sense, I guess, that they’re not sure about the scene in front of them—whether Nolan is the suspect here, or whether I am. There’s a man on the ground, Nolan is on top of him, and I still had that bat in my hands.
Nolan releases Mike and raises his hands over his head, but the two officers are still assessing the scene, moving slowly, yelling at us to back away, then to get on the ground.
“I called you,” I say, nearly breathless, as my knees hit the earth. “That man tried to push Nolan off the edge,” I explain, gesturing to Mike on the ground.
But it’s Nolan who finally says it, the reason we are all here: “He killed my brother.”
The finality of it. The answer. The truth.
Nolan gestures toward the edge, and I’m afraid he’s going to look. But it’s the first police officer who does it instead. He peers over the ledge and jerks back, making some hand signal to his partner.
/>
He takes control of Mike on the ground, and several other officers emerge from the woods below, the scene filling with chaos. Nolan and I are quickly separated while the police assess the scene, setting up a perimeter, barking out orders. I can only watch from the distance.
Meanwhile, the officer in front of me keeps asking me questions, but they’re not the right ones.
Who are you—
What were you doing out here—
How did you know—
I give my name, and my statement, and he makes me wait some more. I’m to stay put beside the entrance ticket counter until Joe arrives.
* * *
—
They must be questioning Nolan somewhere else, because I haven’t seen him since.
By now, there’s some makeshift center of operations set up in the clearing behind the old ticket booth, a white tent with sheets for walls. I stand at the sound of several cars pulling into the lot, followed by the approaching footsteps. A police officer leads Nolan into view, but he doesn’t even look at me. He’s looking at the group of people heading from the parking lot. A man in a suit, and a man and a woman who must be Nolan’s parents.
I keep waiting for someone to speak, to make some noise, to start running. But the only thing I hear, carried across the expanse, is Nolan saying, “Mom,” before she reaches him. I watch the three of them, leaning into one another, his father with an arm around each. No one cries out. No one says a word. It ends like this, with silence.
* * *
—
Joe is the last person they’re waiting on.
Nolan and his parents were led inside the white tent, along with the man accompanying them. At times, I can see their shadows moving against the light, but the woods have gone silent, other than the occasional crackle of a walkie-talkie somewhere just out of sight.
“Kennedy?”
I turn to see Joe jogging from the parking lot. When he reaches me, he pulls me toward him in a panic.
Come Find Me Page 23
