Down By The Water

by Cruise, Anna

  My dad nodded. His dark hair was the same shade as mine. It had started thinning on top, a bald spot the size of a quarter on the back of his skull. He didn't do the comb-over and he didn't shave, either, so it was always on display, this shiny spot of skin on the top of his head.

  “And what about the girl?” he asked quietly. “The girl at the river?”

  Ty walked into the living room. He'd thrown a shirt on, a white Adidas t-shirt, and his baseball cap was back on his head.

  “Am I interrupting?” he asked.

  “No,” I told him. I was still standing and I sat down on the couch across from my dad. “Not at all.” I glanced at my father. “Were you guys introduced?”

  My dad nodded. “Yes. But I didn't need one. I remember Ty.”

  I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “You do?”

  My dad rested the visor back on his leg. “He did rounds with his dad back then. Came by our campsite daily. Usually twice, if I remember correctly.”

  “Yes, sir.” Ty smiled. “Still do the same thing now. Except I don't need a chaperone anymore.”

  His comment earned a small answering smile from my dad.

  Ty pulled his cell phone from his shorts pocket and glanced at it. “I'm actually gonna head out right now. A family was having problem with some of the hook-ups earlier. Pretty sure we got it taken care of but I should probably go check.” He looked at me. “You guys okay staying here or do you want to come along?”

  I shook my head no just as my dad spoke. “Lily and I have some things we need to discuss,” he said.

  Ty nodded, his gaze bouncing from me to my dad and back again. “Okay.” He shoved his phone back into his pocket. “So I'll see you in a little while, then.”

  I watched him leave, listened for the front door to close. As soon as it did, I turned to my dad.

  “You didn't need to come.”

  He fixed me with a steely stare. “Tell me about the girl.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. “Sounds like Jenna already told you everything.”

  My dad nodded. “Maybe. She said a girl went missing. A girl around Rosie's age.”

  I took a deep breath and said nothing.

  “She said you found her.” He hesitated. “In the river.”

  The silence in the room was deafening.

  “Lily.” I lifted my eyes and looked at him. His eyes looked tired. And worried. “Tell me what happened. She said the sheriff—”

  I cut him off. “The sheriff is an asshole out to get me.”

  He lifted his eyebrows in surprise.

  “Fine. You wanna know what happened? I'll tell you.” I unfolded my arms and scooted to the edge of the couch, my fingers digging into the cushions. “A little girl wandered away from her campsite. Just like Rosie. A search party started looking for her. Just like Rosie. And I found her. Just like I found Rosie.”

  He watched me intently. If I hadn't looked down, I would never have noticed his hands trembling in his lap.

  “She was fine.” I gave a short laugh. “Not like Rosie. End of story.”

  He blinked a few times and I wondered if he was as close to tears as I was. He cleared his throat. “And the sheriff?”

  “The sheriff has it in his head that I had something to do with it. It's the same thing he thought with Rosie.” I shook my head in disgust. “But I have an alibi. I was with Ty and his family the entire morning. And, more importantly, I didn't do anything.”

  My dad nodded. He lifted one of his shaking hands and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay. So where do you stand now? What's happening with the sheriff?”

  “I have no fucking clue,” I said. He winced at my choice of words but I didn't care. I was pissed. Pissed at the situation and pissed that my sister had decided to bring in unnecessary reinforcements. “I mean, I know what I'm planning to do. Get my car tomorrow when it's done and continue on my way. To school.”

  I looked at him. “But the sheriff? He's got this hair-brained idea that I did this. And he's doing his best to pin it on me. Asking questions, talking to people and telling him about what he thinks happened the last time I was in town.”

  “It sounds like your sister made the right decision after all. By calling me.”

  I snorted. “How do you figure?”

  His hand dropped to his chin and he rubbed it, his fingers catching in the soft gray stubble that lined his face. “The sheriff?”

  I sighed. “No, Dad. He has nothing. He's trying but there's nothing he can do. It's this whole petty thing because Rosie's case is the only one he hasn't solved. At least, according to Ty's dad.”

  “Colin? Colin Reilly?” My dad's eyebrows shot up. “What did he have to say?”

  “Why don't you ask him yourself?” a familiar voice asked.

  I whirled around. Colin stood in the entrance of the living room. I turned back around to gauge my dad's expression. I had to give him credit; he looked decidedly calm and cool.

  He stood up and crossed the living room, offering his hand to Ty's father. They shook.

  “Peter,” Colin said. “It's been a long time.”

  “Ten years,” my dad responded.

  They dropped hands and my dad joined me on the couch I was sitting on. Colin took my dad's place on the loveseat across from us.

  “Lily was just bringing me up to speed with what's been going on.”

  Colin tugged at the hem of the white polo shirt he wore, pulling it loose from the waistband of his navy blue shorts. “Is that so?”

  My dad nodded. “Sounds like a bit of a misunderstanding. Similar to what happened the last time we were here.”

  “There definitely are similarities,” Colin remarked. A pair of sunglasses sat on top of his head and he lifted them off and folded them, setting them on the side table next to the loveseat.

  “Lily mentioned that the sheriff has been asking questions.”

  “That's his job.”

  My dad frowned. “Sure. About this new case. This girl recently. I don't know what her name is.” He looked to me for help.

  “Annie.”

  “Annie,” he repeated. “But he shouldn't be asking questions about Rosie. That was ten years ago. We know what happened.”

  Colin stared down at his lap for so long that I had to fight the urge to look, too. I wondered if there was a stain, or a bug, or something else that had totally captured his attention.

  “The sheriff thinks otherwise,” he finally said.

  “Look, the sheriff is an idiot,” my dad snapped. “He was back then and it sounds like he still is now.” He glanced at me before turning his attention back to Mr. Reilly. “Lily has never done anything wrong in her life.”

  I felt the heat rise in my cheeks. I might not be as big of a fuck-up as my middle sister but that didn't mean I was on the road to sainthood.

  “She loved Rosie, took care of her. Do you have any idea what it was like, having that man come out to our home and fling accusations around? We'd just buried our daughter.” I could hear the tears in his voice. “We'd just buried our baby and he came to our home and tried to take another daughter of ours. Of mine.”

  I was torn between wanting to burst into tears and wanting to roll my eyes. I'd only been twelve years old and my memory wasn't the greatest when it came to stuff about Rosie but I knew I'd never been in any danger of being hauled off to juvie or anything. But I understood his sentiment. I knew what he meant. He'd sprung to my defense the minute the sheriff began insinuating that things weren't as cut and dried as they appeared to be.

  “I'm not interested in debating your daughter's guilt or innocence,” Colin responded. “But I hope you understand the situation my family is in. We'd like to help with the investigations in whatever way we can. But we'd also like for life to return to normal. For both our family and our guests.”

  I couldn't take it any more. They were talking about me like I wasn't there and Colin's cool, detached demeanor was more than I could bear.

  “I'm leav
ing tomorrow.”

  Both men turned to look at me.

  “My car. It will be ready tomorrow.” I met Mr. Reilly's gaze. “And then I'll be out of here. For good.”

  FORTY TWO

  Ty wasn't hard to find. I followed the gravel road that wound through the top tier of camp sites, the sites closest to the Reilly house and the pool. The RV sites were all full, fifth wheels and motorhomes parked in the sand and gravel driveways, but there weren't many people out and about. The afternoon heat ensured most campers were either at the pool, the river or, more than likely, locked away in their air-conditioned campers.

  I thought back to the trips my family had taken when I was a kid, when we'd pack up tents and coolers and our little portable propane stove and head out for a weekend—or longer—of camping. Our time was as much about being in the outdoors as it was togetherness as a family. I could remember countless summers where the heat had been oppressive, the bugs just as bad, and we'd never even commented on it, just made do. Dad would drench us with bug spray and sunscreen and hand us thermoses of water and send us on our way. We'd never wander far but we'd hang out outside, tossing sticks into the campfire we never seemed to extinguish, planning a scavenger hunt, or making friends with kids in the neighboring sites. I couldn't imagine sitting in a camper as a kid, glued to the TV or some other electronic device, huddled under a blanket because the AC was blasting too cold.

  Even on our last trip, the trip that had ended with the death of my sister, we'd spent the bulk of our time outside. The only reason we'd been in tents that day was because our parents had gone to the store. And, while they'd always trusted me to babysit, they didn't want us wandering the campground without adult supervision. They'd been worried about us getting in trouble, about the campground managers frowning upon unsupervised kids. They thought we'd be safe, reading and playing games in our tents.

  But they'd been wrong.

  I physically shook away the memory, shaking my head back and forth, and looked down the road.

  Ty was walking toward me, a smile on his face.

  “Should I be flattered?” he asked, crossing the short distance between us.

  “Flattered?”

  He cocked his head. “Oh. Maybe not. Here I thought you were out here looking for me.”

  “I am.”

  His grin widened. “Good. I like that.” He slipped his hand into mine. “Everything cool with your dad?”

  His hand felt so warm, so right, wrapped in mine. I wanted to clutch it tight, hang on to it like I might a life preserver, but I forced my hand slack, to just barely grip the space between his fingers.

  “I don't know.”

  Ty gave me a puzzled look. “How do you not know?”

  “I left.”

  He turned so he was fully facing me. “You walked out on your dad?”

  I shook my head. “No. I walked out on my dad and your dad.”

  He closed his eyes and groaned. “Shit. Did they go at it?”

  It was my turn to be confused. “Go at it? Like, fight?”

  Ty nodded.

  I thought back to their interaction. The tension had been palpable but the conversation had been civil. Mostly.

  “No,” I said. “They were fine.” It wasn't the total truth and he knew it.

  He lifted his hand out of mine and shoved both hands in his pockets. He stared at me. “Tell me what happened.”

  I sighed. “My dad stuck up for me. Your dad said he wanted life to go back to normal. That was pretty much it.”

  “I didn't know my dad was around,” Ty said.

  “Yeah, seems like they've sort of disappeared these past couple of days.”

  “They haven't,” he said. “You've just been a little distracted.”

  That was an understatement. Distracted and distressed and a whole hell of a lot of other things.

  “What exactly did my dad have to say?” Ty asked.

  It was awkward, standing in the middle of the road. I wanted to sit down, to fiddle with something as I talked, not just stand there and talk about what our parents had said to each other. He must have sensed this because he grabbed my hand again and led me down a mulched path between two campers, into a small grove of trees.

  “Where are we going?” I asked. I'd never fully explored this section of the campground. We'd been tent campers when my family had visited ten years earlier, in the spots closer to the river. There'd been no need to go exploring by the campers.

  The path opened into a small clearing, a little park-like setting with a small patch of grass and a wooden park bench. Large boulder encircled the grass area, patches of clover and goldenrod growing through the cracks.

  “We're going here.” Ty sat down on the bench and pulled me down with him. I didn't land in his lap but it was close.

  He twisted on the bench so he was facing me, his arm looped over the back of the bench.

  “Talk,” he said.

  I thought about protesting but, the truth was, I wanted him to know. He'd answered the door when my dad had arrived but he'd given us time on our own. He didn't know why he'd showed up. And he didn't know that Jenna had called him. It wasn't like I expected him to do or say anything about it, but I needed to vent. I needed an outlet.

  I needed him.

  I took a deep breath and told him what had happened. About my sister calling him, about the conversation we had and the details of my dad's talk with his own dad. He listened, not speaking, nodding his head several times as I relayed what had happened.

  “Okay,” he said when I finished. “So Jenna called daddy to come and fix things.”

  I frowned. “No.”

  “Sure she did.” He drummed his fingers on the back of the bench. “She called in reinforcements.”

  “But my dad can't do anything,” I pointed out. “And Jenna knows that. And, more importantly, I told her not to call him.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Since when does your sister do everything you tell her?” he asked dryly.

  “Not hardly ever,” I admitted. “But this was important.”

  It was. She knew how weirded out I was about being back in Pelican Lake. She'd felt the same way when she'd followed me out.

  “I know,” he said. “And calling him was a stupid move. You guys are out of here tomorrow, as long as Sven gets your car up and running. There was really no reason for her to get him involved.”

  I nodded. At least he understood.

  “Except for one thing,” he said.

  I looked at him and waited.

  “The sheriff.”

  I looked away. There was no breeze in the small clearing, the trees serving as a barrier to both wind and sun. It was oddly cool and I shivered but I knew it wasn't because of the temperature.

  “And I know he doesn't have shit on you,” Ty said. His fingers stilled and he shifted his hand so it was on my shoulder. He squeezed gently. “But I could see how your sister would be concerned.”

  “Well, her concern hasn't done anything but cause more trouble,” I said bitterly.

  I didn't want my dad there. I didn't want him to be reminded of what we'd all had and what we'd lost. He lived with a constant reminder of it. Like we all did. There was a permanent hole in our lives, one that could never be filled.

  “I'm sure it's hard for your dad to be back here,” Ty said. “The same way it is for you, I mean.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And I'm sorry if my dad made things worse.” He sighed. “He's not the most tactful when it comes to this kind of stuff. When it comes to anything, really.”

  “I wouldn't say that.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “You don't know him. One of the reasons I started tagging along with him on rounds and stuff was because of it. You've seen him in action. He can be a little abrasive.”

  I did know this. I thought about the limited conversations we'd had after he'd found out my history, who I was. But, before that? He'd been perfectly civil. Friendly, even.

&
nbsp; “He was fine when I first came to stay,” I pointed out. And he had been. He'd been the picture of a perfect host, asking questions, making sure I knew I was welcome.

  “Well, yeah,” Ty said. “He's fine when everything is cool. When there aren't problems. But the minute something goes wrong? He loses it. Not like he starts screaming and fighting or anything, but he gets agitated, you know? Definitely not good when your main job is customer service.”

  “So you're like his buffer?”

  “Kind of. I mean, nothing major has happened.” His eyes shot to mine and he quickly amended his statement. “I mean, your sister excluded. But the other stuff has been mostly minor. A mix-up with payments. Hook ups not working. Rowdy guests. Things like that. I remember the first time I noticed. There was this family reunion. Three adjacent sites. Party got a little loud and went a little long and some of the other guests complained. I think I was nine, maybe ten at the time. Dad lost it. Had a few words with the people making all the noise, was all defensive with the guests who'd complained. And I just remember thinking, this isn't good.”

  I didn't say anything, just nodded. I don't know if I would have had the ability to pick up on that, if I'd been in his shoes. I knew what I'd been like at age twelve. I was responsible enough but it was always done sort of grudgingly, more out of obligation than desire. I watched my sisters because I was told to do it. I did the most chores and helped with meals and took care of our ornery old cat because it was expected of me.

  “So, anyway, I can imagine how uncomfortable sitting there might have been.” He smiled apologetically. “I wouldn't have left if I'd known my dad was coming around. But I also wanted to get down to the site that was having problems. Because, again...if I hadn't dealt with it, my dad would have.”

  “It's okay. I walked out before they started throwing punches.”

  He smiled and I felt my heart somersault. He was so sweet and so hot and I hated the thought of having to say goodbye, knowing it was only a matter of hours before I'd leave.