by Jeff Abbott
“The sunlight hurts my head. Excuse me.” She walked across her front yard and up onto the porch.
She hesitated at the front door. She sensed the weight of Matteo Vasquez’s stare on her back. This was still her home, right? She shouldn’t have to ring the doorbell to go inside, although she knew that was what Mom would prefer. Mom would be annoyed with Jane if she just let herself in. But. But. This was Jane’s house, the one she had grown up in. She still had a key and she hoped it would work. She felt a brief terror that Mom might have changed the locks. She had threatened to before, saying, You’re living on the street, with a key and a driver’s license that could bring some street lunatic straight here? No! But the key worked. She opened the door. There was no ping-ping-ping of the alarm system; so Laurel Norton must be home. She glanced back at Vasquez, who stood by his car, digging through one of the duffel bags in the backseat, glancing up at her, watching her, hopeful.
Like a guy who needed a movie deal? What did “freelance” mean for him? He’d lost his job? She knew the guarded look of homelessness; was Matteo Vasquez living out of his car? He might be more desperate for a big story than ever.
She slammed the door.
“Mom?” She called. Loudly. “Mom?”
No answer.
“Mom?” she yelled up the stairs. No answer.
Jane wandered into the kitchen. She was thirsty. She poured herself a glass of water and drank it slowly. There wasn’t a lot of food in the refrigerator—half a casserole, a few half-full jars of condiments. Four bottles of white wine, chilled. That seemed a lot for a person living here on her own.
She spotted her mom’s Filofax on the kitchen counter. Laurel had always kept a paper calendar. She thought it more elegant than always tapping at a phone screen, “like a woodpecker,” as she once put it. Jane looked at today’s date. Mom had an appointment and she would be back in an hour. The handwriting was neat and small. She flipped through the previous few weeks and the approaching weeks. Her mother had a few business appointments, usually marked with initials of the person she was meeting. In addition to writing her mom blog, she had run a charity for the past several years, helping deserving students overseas get needed books and supplies. Jane wondered exactly how much money her mom had raised. When she had been a volunteer supreme at Lakehaven’s schools, she’d been very good at getting people to donate money.
She went into her mother’s home office. Once, before everything fell apart, when her blog was getting nearly two hundred thousand unique visitors a month, it had been featured in an Austin design magazine. The antique desk gleamed. Books filled the bookshelf. There were very few papers on the desk; before, it was always full of file folders related to her volunteer work for the school district. Or she volunteered to help other charities. But Laurel didn’t seem to volunteer anymore. There had not been a single such entry in her carefully maintained calendar. Now there was only her charity.
Of course not. No one wants her around. You made sure of that when you crashed the car.
Jane opened the elegant wooden file drawer (Laurel Norton never would have had a metal file drawer in the house). The top drawer was full of printouts of her blog postings; she liked having a paper copy to read through when she wanted to revisit an article. Jane went through the drawers, and in the bottom one, stuffed at the back, was a file labeled Accident. It needed no further explanation. She felt a sickening sense of relief that it had been so easy to find. Initial news clippings, sparse on details, then “The Girl Who Doesn’t Remember” pieces by Matteo Vasquez. There was a sheaf of notes from the lawyer her mother retained when the Halls temporarily sued the Nortons (Cal Hall then dropped the lawsuit, suddenly, and at his lawyer’s advice settled immediately for the proceeds from the Nortons’ insurance company, with no punitive damages) and a set of medical reports and photos.
There were no transcripts of police interviews with Jane, because her mother had refused to allow them. As a minor, and under the protection of the Fifth Amendment, Jane could not be compelled to talk to the police. Not that she knew anything helpful to say to them anyway. There was also a complete file of Jane’s social-media postings, presumably pulled by lawyers for both the Halls and the Nortons, to assess whether or not Jane was suicidal or violent or lying about her amnesia, even though she was hardly on social media after the crash. She read through her scant postings before the crash: chatting with Kamala (who kept encouraging her to find a boyfriend), a few postings with Trevor and David about falling behind on a school group assignment, a single post with David about “working on their secret project.” Whatever that was—something for school, she guessed. No sign of depression, no drunken posts or selfies. No venting, no anger. Nothing to indicate she was thinking of taking her own life, or felt a desire to kill David Hall.
Jane took a fresh piece of paper from the drawer.
She wrote out a time line for Kevin from what she had been told, from the investigator’s reports and phone records, from the newspaper reporters who had talked to students at the high school and at least two people who had seen them out in Lakehaven that evening, and from the investigator’s more detailed notes of how the evening unfolded.
3:00—During our entrepreneurship class, where we had to turn in our phones for the class period, David passed me a note via Amari Bowman, who sat between us. I read the note and did not write a note back to him, but Amari, who was watching, saw me nod at him. I don’t know where this note is. After the crash, Amari told this to her parents, who then contacted the Halls. (This according to a note in the investigator’s file.)
4:05—School ends.
4:15—Trevor Blinn told police he saw David and me leave school together, in my car. He saw us walking to my car and he started to walk over to say hi to us but we appeared to be arguing or having an emotional discussion; this kept him at a distance. Before driving off in my car I apparently texted my mother from the car, telling her that I was studying with friends at the Lakehaven library and then going to a group study session for math, which I was having trouble with. These were both lies. Presumably whatever we were doing had to do with the note he passed me.
4:20—David texted his mother saying he was staying after school and playing basketball with a friend and then working with another friend on a science project, and would grab some dinner out. I don’t play basketball and we don’t have science together, so that was a lie.
4:30—Neither David nor I respond to after-school texts from Kamala Grayson. Kamala told the investigators that this was unusual.
6:00—David texted his mother that he was fine but might be late (not home until ten on a school night). He did not mention my name. Where we were for nearly the past two hours, I don’t know.
7:30—We ate dinner at Happy Taco off Old Travis, there was a cash receipt, time-stamped, found in my wallet. I paid for dinner. We ordered a taco plate, an enchilada plate, and two sodas. We sat in a back booth. Later the investigator got video from Happy Taco that showed us entering and then leaving shortly after 8 p.m. (Investigator took statement from HT manager Billy Sing.)
7:40—Kamala Grayson got a text from Amari Bowman (yes, same classmate from entrepreneurship) that David was with me at Happy Taco. The investigator had the texts in his report to the Halls:
David is here with Jane, they are sitting on the same side of the booth, whispering. Jane looks like she is crying. David is stroking her hair! WTH!
Kamala’s answer: I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation. They’re old friends.
7:55—Kamala texts David: Babe what’s up?
7:58—He responds to Kamala: Nothing. Helping a friend with a project.
8:00—She responds: Not what I heard.
8:03—He responds: I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
8:04—She responds: No, David, we’ll talk now. You, Jane, Happy Taco?
8:06—He responds: Tell Amari I can see her texting you. Good night. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
She attempted to phone him,
leaving seven voice mails (the last at 9:00 p.m., he never responded).
8:10—David gets a text from Trevor Blinn: Hey what’s up? Need to talk to you.
David never responded to Trevor’s text. Trevor did not call back or text him again.
8:15—I text my mother that library has closed but I am going to study at Kamala’s house.
8:43—In David’s pocket there is a cash receipt, stamped with this time, indicating that we bought a crowbar at Tool Depot in Lakehaven. Crowbar not found in car. Why did we buy a crowbar and where did it go?
10:12—9-1-1 receives call regarding car crash. Police and ambulance dispatched. No one saw the actual crash, but a man named James Marcolin living on ridge above High Oaks Road heard it, wasn’t sure at first if it was a crash, and after several minutes went across street down the hill and found the car. Only two other houses along ridge above road—one neighbor out of town, other neighbor did not hear. David died at the scene, half in, half out of the car. I was still in the car, buckled in, unconscious.
Ambulance arrived and crash investigation team arrived, I was taken to hospital. My mother and the Halls arrived separately at the scene, then Mom went on to hospital. I remained in a coma four days.
Six hours. What had we done? Where had we gone? Jane thought. According to the paperwork: Eaten a tearful dinner, bought a crowbar. That left a lot of time. An hour and a half later we were in the crash, heading away from home, heading to nowhere.
She kept writing, mostly from the investigator’s report:
Items found at the scene: My phone, just outside the car, screen broken. David’s phone, in his pocket, neither phone was making a call at the time of the crash. Also found: backpacks from school, a folding stadium seat, reusable shopping bags, empty bottled waters, library book. Found next day: suicide note that looked to be my handwriting, along with loose change from tray in car, this was down from the crash site, not noticed during the night.
She thought there would be more. There wasn’t.
The roads were dry; conditions were fine for driving. That said, thirty-nine percent of the fatal auto accidents in Texas involved only one car. Thirteen hundred dead a year. Jane’s accident was in that large group.
The suicide note pretty much sealed the deal in terms of Lakehaven opinion.
The suicide note also meant people might well slam doors in her face. People weren’t just going to open up to her after two years. The case was closed. She would have to think about how to find out what she wanted.
She finished making her list of people to talk to: witnesses like Trevor Blinn; the lawyer for the Halls, Kip Evander; and his investigator, Randy Franklin. Maybe they could help her. They would likely say no, but she had a sudden urge for action.
She paged through the rest of the file. There were mostly printed e-mails from her mother’s lawyer, strategizing before the Halls surprisingly dropped their case. At the back of the file was a plastic bag, taped to the inside of the heavy manila cardboard of the file. She froze: It looked like there was blood along the edge of the paper. Brownish now, not red, folded so she couldn’t read what was on the paper. She pulled it free of the file and carefully unfolded it. It was very fine, thin paper torn along one edge, but not from a spiral notebook:
Meet me after school in the main parking lot. Don’t tell anyone. I need your help but it concerns us both. I’m in bad trouble. Will you help me?
It was in a plain, blocky, noncursive handwriting; like most kids their age, Jane and David hadn’t learned cursive, because they were on keyboards and screens so much, and his printing wasn’t so different from the penmanship of their earlier school days. Or hers, for a matter of fact.
I’m in bad trouble.
For a moment she stared at the note as if it was a bizarre artifact. The note David had passed to her in class? It must be. And it had blood on it…from the crash? Her blood?
How did her mother have this and why had she never shown it to her? Or to anyone?
It concerns us both. What did that mean? It was formal, but that was how David talked even when they were little, pleading his case to a teacher or coach. He was serious, thoughtful.
Jane folded the note back into the plastic sheeting.
She heard the garage door opening. Mom, home. She quickly tucked the plastic bag, with the note inside, into her front pocket and stuffed the file back into the drawer. She folded her time line and stuck it into her other front pocket.
She called, “Mom, I’m here,” as she walked from the office into the kitchen.
“Sweetheart!” Laurel Norton stood at the sink, tentatively sipping a glass of water. She was dressed in a stylish blouse and blazer and a pair of slacks, her hair immaculate, her makeup perfect. She set down the glass and hurried to Jane and gave her a gentle hug. Jane could hear the soft sniff of her mother, checking her for odor.
“I wanted to see you. Where were you?”
“I had a meeting for my charity. If you had called on that phone I pay for, I would have canceled it to be here.” Laurel intensified the hug, presumably to take the sting out of her words.
“Sorry,” Jane said. Laurel released her and studied her daughter’s face.
“Well,” Laurel said. “Are you here to stay?” She could hardly keep the tension, and the hope, out of her voice.
If Jane confronted her mother about this note, she might not get the car. And she needed the car. She wanted to ask, but she decided to play out the moment, see what happened, see if they could have a normal conversation. This would be good practice, she thought, for interrogating her witnesses.
“I told you I would call you if I didn’t have a safe place to sleep at night. But I do. OK?”
“OK. You appear to have a relationship with soap and shampoo, so I believe you.” Laurel ran a hand through her daughter’s hair.
“I agreed to help a psych grad student who is studying memory loss. He’s trying a more direct approach with me than the first therapists. I had a memory. One that I didn’t have before, of David and me walking home from high school. Maybe I’m starting to remember.” That was overselling it a bit, but there might be an advantage to her mother thinking she was getting better.
“Oh, honey.” Laurel sighed. “That’s wonderful.”
“That is not permission for you to write about it.”
Laurel managed to look hurt. “Baby, I’m taking a break from the blog. Who is this student?”
“His name is Kevin Ngota.”
“What kind of name is that?”
“He’s from England.”
“If you’re back in therapy, why not get an actual doctor instead of a student?”
“This is free. He’s writing a paper.”
“Just what we need, more articles written about you.” The irony was lost on the blogger. “But I hope he helps. Are you hungry?”
She was always hungry but a contrary tug in her chest made her say, “No.”
“You look skinny. Have you had lunch?”
“No.”
“Well, at least have a peanut butter sandwich.” Laurel turned to get the fixings from the pantry, not waiting for Jane to say yes or no to her offer.
“I can make my sandwich. I can make you one, too,” Jane said. It would be a nice thing to do, what with the lying she was doing right now.
“I’ll do it,” Laurel said. “Let Mama take care of you.”
Jane sat down. Laurel set down the sandwich and a glass of iced tea. Jane ate, and Laurel watched.
The price of the sandwich became clearer. “If you’re in therapy, then maybe you should consider, you know, a more permanent situation. With an assortment of actual doctors. And being off the street.”
“I don’t need a psychiatric hospital, Mom.”
“It’s not just the amnesia. It’s the depression. It’s the self-destructiveness.” Laurel raised a finger for each malady. Then she closed her hands and put them over Jane’s. “You could come home, be off the streets, or wherever on Sout
h Congress you are”—she had been monitoring the rideshares. “They could give you the help you need.” Jane waited for her to mention taking rideshares to the cemetery and High Oaks, but for once her mother decided not to say anything.
“I’m staying with a friend and you don’t need to worry about me.”
“Of course I worry. I want you home and safe, where I can watch you.”
The unsaid words: because you’re broken, damaged, aimless. Jane finished the sandwich. “You know my price.”
Laurel’s mouth twitched. “This is my home, our home, Jane, and I’m not selling it. The Halls can sell.” Jane could see her mother’s jaw shift into a teeth-gritting position.
There was nothing more to say. So Jane finished her sandwich. “When I was unconscious after the wreck and you were staying in the room with me, did I ever say anything, you know, while I was not conscious or asleep or anything?”
“Other than mentioning the deer?” The lie her mother would not let go of, even now.
“Anything about David being in danger?”
A pause. Laurel Norton’s mouth quivered slightly, then settled. “No, you said nothing more. Why do you ask?”
“For the new therapist. He asked me.” Little white lie number one.
“Well, I’m not sure what a good idea this grad-student therapy is.” Laurel air-quoted “grad student” and then folded her hands. “I want you to come home, please.”
I see a therapist, I make progress maybe, and suddenly she wants me home. Jane felt a shifting inside her chest.
“Mom. No. I can’t live next door to them. I don’t know how you bear it.”
“You don’t know what I’ve beared. Borne. Whatever the word is.”
“No, I guess I don’t,” Jane said. “Because I can’t live here with you while you stay here, and so I can’t be around you, and you don’t care about me enough to even find out where I’m living.”
