by Jeff Abbott
His mouth narrowed. “Have your memories returned?”
And then she decided to lie. What good had being the amnesiac done her? She was “the girl who doesn’t remember.” And she was so tired of it.
“Yes.” Not a lie; she had remembered talking Romeo and Juliet with David, and that was new, and the more she thought about it, maybe that was not a touch of confabulation. It was real. It had to be. “More has started to come back. Yes. I think there was much more to that night than people realize. And I’m starting to remember it. So. Rates? How does this work?” She would figure out the money later. There would probably be a retainer fee.
“I’m not going to work for you, Jane,” he said. “You wrote that note, you killed that boy trying to kill yourself.”
“No one ever thought I was suicidal,” she said.
“Your father…”
“An accident.” She made the words sharper than she intended.
“Your family has more than its fair share of accidents, then,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
She wouldn’t give up. “David passed me a note in class. That was in your report.”
He blinked, as if recalling the detail.
“I found that note. David wrote in it that he was in trouble. He was in danger. Real trouble. Maybe someone wanted to hurt him. Does that put a different spin on the case?”
He seemed to study her face for evidence she was lying. “Where is this other note?”
“Someplace safe, and if you work for me, I’ll tell you. I’m just thinking maybe you have some professional pride and you don’t want to be played. And you got played. That suicide note was a fake.”
He shook his head with a slight smile. “It wasn’t. We got a sample of your handwriting, had it analyzed and compared. You wrote the suicide note.”
Her heart jolted in her chest. “Analyzed? Why wasn’t that in my lawyer’s report?”
“Because Cal Hall dropped the lawsuit and settled for the insurance proceeds before we went to document exchange. So his lawyer didn’t have to tell you about the analysis of the note. And the police weren’t eager to tell you anything after you and your mother wouldn’t cooperate. Once the note was destroyed during the testing and they decided not to charge you, well, it didn’t matter to the cops. And the Halls had settled. End of story.”
Her hand clutched at her stomach as if she’d taken a punch. “But it makes no sense,” she said.
“You were in love with David Hall and he wasn’t in love with you. Simple.”
“He had had a girlfriend for two years. She and I had been best friends for most of our lives. If I was so eaten up with jealousy, why then? Why that night? What happened to make me crack?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care.” But he glanced away from her.
“You didn’t buy it. The suicide note. I mean, it’s awfully convenient.”
He sighed as if in pain, and kept explaining. “A note like that is only evidence if it is contemporaneous with the writer’s mental condition. You have to write it and then act immediately afterward for it to be a factor. The note wasn’t written immediately prior.”
“How do you know that?”
“Ask the Halls.”
“But the Halls let everyone think that I’d written it that night.” A storm of emotions surged through her. “Which is crazy. Who writes a note while driving? Or did I write it and convince him to get in the car and look for the nearest remote spot to kill us both?”
“People have actually done such things, Jane. You could have written the note, gotten him in the car, and then looked for the nearest place where the fall would kill you both.”
“Why did you tell me this?”
“The note analysis isn’t privileged information. Now, go get whatever help you need and put your life on track.”
Jane sank into the chair, and Franklin surprised her by getting her a glass of water. She drank it down. “Please. I have to know. This analysis. What did it say?”
“Your handwriting. The paper came from a Japanese notebook, a manufacturer called Tayami, known for very high-quality paper. And the ink was at least two years old.”
“You mean I wrote it long before, or the ink was old?”
“It was written at least two years before the crash.”
“How can they tell?”
“Some pen companies put chemical markers in the ink, so the forensic analysis can show how old the ink is if needed. But then Mr. Hall dropped the lawsuit.”
“If they had told people the note was that old, no one would have believed it.”
“That was about the time David Hall and Kamala Grayson started dating. You might have been on a slow, angry burn that whole time. Written the note then and only acted later.” He said this like it was a suggested theory.
“Let me guess. That’s what Perri Hall thought.”
He said nothing.
“A two-year-old note? I kept it on my person? In my schoolbag?” Someone left it, she thought. I wrote it long before the crash, I didn’t destroy it, someone else got hold of it and then they planted it at the scene. That’s one possible explanation. Stop dancing around whether you wrote it or not.
Franklin said, “It was your handwriting. The analysis doesn’t try to guess the motivations of an angry teenage girl.”
Someone framed you for this. Someone you trusted. Someone who could have known about that note, maybe written for another reason or out of context, and they decided to crucify you the morning after the crash.
Why? Why would you need to frame me? Why blame me?
Because it was murder.
The thought bolted through her brain.
“Thanks.” She got up and without further words she left. She walked past the counselors’ offices, and she hardly blinked at them, but then she saw one with a series of names and the unusual arrangement of letters jumped out at her: Dora Principe/Kevin Ngota/Michael Todd.
But…Kevin was a graduate student, working on his master’s. There was a master’s degree abbreviation following his name on the sign. How many Kevin Ngotas could there be in Austin, and how many of them worked as counselors?
And how many of them were a few doors down from the office of a man like Franklin, who was intimately involved in the investigation?
Why was Kevin, who had an office down the walkway from the PI who had investigated her, saying that he was a graduate student and offering her free therapy?
Kevin. What was his game?
She knocked on the door. No answer. She tried the doorknob. It was locked.
She stepped back, and then she saw Randy Franklin hurrying out of his office, a cell phone pressed to his ear.
He’d told her all this, why? What did he have to gain? Hoping to scare her? Or did he have another reason?
She turned and she ran.
19
THERE’S A SECRET here. Something terrible happened that night.
Perri Hall, attacking her for even showing up at David’s grave. Cal Hall, suddenly dropping his lawsuit against her and her mother. Both of them, smothering the proof that could have cleared her of penning that suicide note on the night that David died. Kevin Ngota, misrepresenting himself to her. Trevor Blinn, holding back some truth of that night. Kamala Grayson and her unrelenting sugar-coated hatred—the girl who had once been her best friend. And her own mother, who had a note that showed David and Jane feared a danger and had apparently never bothered to show it to anyone, and seemed ready to commit her to a hospital.
She walked along Old Travis to the next name on her list.
Happy Taco’s customers, after the midday rush, were a few people working through their solitary lunches, chowing down a taco with one hand while tapping at tablet computers with the other. Another table held a woman writing on a laptop, a finished lunch plate pushed to one side.
At the counter, Jane ordered the cheapest taco they offered and a glass of water. She went to the back booth where she and David had allegedly sat and eaten D
avid’s last meal. A chill settled on her; she pressed her palms against the table. When the cheerful attendant brought her food, she said, “Is Mr. Sing here, by chance? It’s personal.”
“Let me check.”
She ate her taco. Four minutes later a spare young man, in his late twenties, with a goatee and a Happy Taco ball cap, came out. She stood. “I’m Jane Norton.”
“Billy Sing. I recognize you.”
“Really? You remember me?”
He nodded. “Sure. It was a weird night and then you hear about the car crash and I had to talk to the police and all the memories sort of get set in stone.” His eyes widened. “Oh, sorry, that was thoughtless. Do you still have amnesia?”
“Yes. But I’m so glad you remember. Can you tell me what you know about when we were here?”
“OK. You came in, you ordered, I saw the two of you sitting back there. You were upset. Crying even, once. He was trying to comfort you. He looked upset as well. I tend to notice anything that looks like it could lead to an argument or a disturbance. Because, we’re, well, Happy Taco.”
“Do you know what we were arguing about? My memory of that night is still gone.”
“I came toward you to see if you were all right. If you needed anything, but I was trying not to insert myself into whatever your drama was. So I cleaned the table next to you and eavesdropped.” He bit at his lip. “David Hall had his arm around you, and he was bent more toward you, trying to reassure you, and I heard him say something about getting out of town.”
She had no idea what that meant. “Leaving town?”
“Yes. He had a laptop open and he was showing you a travel site. Places you could go. I thought, it was odd, you know, like maybe teenagers eloping. But kids don’t elope these days, do they.”
“Where were we going to go?”
“He said Canada, because you both had passports, and maybe they wouldn’t make a fuss about you being minors. And you said, ‘What, sneak across the border?’” He coughed. “It was the weirdest conversation I ever overheard in the restaurant. But, I remember, because the police came the next day and I had to tell this to them.”
But their going to Canada was something she hadn’t heard. It must have been a story that withered in light of the discovery of the suicide note. It also seemed very out of character; she would never have left her mom alone like that. Would she?
Who had she been then?
While Billy Sing had talked, she’d pulled out her list of items recovered from the crash.
There was no laptop listed. So where had it gone? And why would they have been running to Canada? The police didn’t tell her any of this, confront her with it, because her mom shielded her. But had her mom known about this witness interview?
“I guess the police came and talked to you.”
“Yes, a couple of days later. I guess kids had told them that they had seen you and David here and they found a receipt on one of you. I didn’t know your names before this. They wanted to know if I thought you might have been suicidal, like that was something I could tell. I told them you were upset, but not in a loud or aggressive way, but you two were talking about running away, but I didn’t know if it was serious. I don’t know if they thought you talking about running away to Canada was a sign of, um, instability. Or being upset. They asked for the video when you were here. I gave it to them.”
“A security video? You don’t still have it, do you?”
He bit his lip again. “Before I turned it over, I made a copy of it. I also wanted to have my own proof that you hadn’t been served beer or wine here. We had a problem with that once before, one of our servers was a Lakehaven student serving beers to his buddies but ringing up sodas. I thought I better have a copy in case there were any further questions. But I might have thrown it out when I last cleaned my office.”
She felt a tickle of hope. “Can you show me that video, please?”
“You have to fill out a form for our downtown office…but I can give it to you if I still have a copy.”
She nodded. “Please.”
She waited. What did any of this mean? She was crying, they were planning on running away to Canada, it was insane.
He brought back the form, which she signed, and he slid a DVD to her. “I burned a spare one for you.”
A thought occurred. “Thanks so much. Did anyone else ever ask for that video? Maybe the Halls’ lawyer, or my mom’s lawyer?”
“Hold on. I might still have the forms.” He left and returned with a folder. “Hey, how was your taco?”
“Very good, thank you.”
“OK. There was a request from Randy Franklin; my note here says he was the investigator for the Halls’ attorney. That reporter did. Matteo Vasquez. I gave him the video, but I didn’t do an interview with him. It seemed wrong to talk about your problems.” That was why none of this Canada detail had been in his articles.
“Thank you, Mr. Sing.” She slipped the DVD into her backpack.
“I hope you get your memories back. Is there any chance of that?”
“Maybe,” she said, and she gave him a smile. He smiled back.
She walked home—it took about forty minutes—and let herself in. Her mother wasn’t there. Jane was still hungry, so she ate a bowl of cereal and slipped the DVD into the player on the TV. The surveillance footage was in color—she had expected it to be in black and white. She took the remote and sped it up a bit. The video switched from the counter and the register to the various corners of the restaurant so that the whole room was covered. She thought of fast-forwarding through it, but then she thought, This is an actual record of something I don’t remember and it’s a memory laid out for me.
So she started again at the beginning and she watched. A slow but steady march of people—some she recognized from school, sometimes kids on their own, sometimes with their families—came up to the counter, sat at the tables and the booths, and ate and chatted. Ten minutes in she saw herself and David enter the restaurant.
He was carrying something, she couldn’t see what it was, until they got closer. It was a laptop, a thin black one. They used iPads and Macs at school and she could see it wasn’t a Mac. He tucked it under his arm. She looked distraught, like she was just holding it together.
Wait. Wasn’t he the one in danger? Wasn’t he the one asking her for help? They looked reversed. She looked troubled. He looked grim, but he also looked worried about her.
They ordered food. They sat across from each other at the back booth. The camera switched away from them for a few seconds. Then went back, her leaning over her plate.
David was holding her hand. He crossed and sat next to her.
Switch again.
David put his arm around her. Comforting her. He put his lips close to her hair.
In another corner, Jane saw a girl—that would be Amari Bowman—turn and look at them. Stare. She was the girl who texted Kamala.
They ate, David one-handed, keeping his arm around her, then him opening the laptop, showing her something.
She was shaking her head.
She saw Mr. Sing walk past them, glance at the laptop, hover near the conversation.
Jane got out of the booth and walked out of sight, toward the restroom. David pulled out a cell phone and made a call. He was on the phone for only ten seconds and then he hung up.
When Jane came back into the frame, David was standing by the table, ready to go. He hurried her out.
Jane didn’t stop the tape. She wanted to see what Amari Bowman did. Amari kept texting. Billy Sing walked past and went behind the counter.
Four minutes after she and David left, Adam Kessler entered. With Trevor Blinn. They walked in together.
She froze, watching, her fingertips suddenly reaching out to the screen. Why are they there together? Right after we were there? Adam, who knew nothing about that night, supposedly.
Adam. Who had given her shelter, gotten her off the streets. They had talked about everything. But not this. Nev
er had he mentioned this. She felt sick, cold, a shiver prickling her skin.
Then Trevor left, glancing back. Adam went to the counter and bought a drink, bringing his phone up to his face. Amari Bowman walked out a few moments after Trevor, oblivious to anything but her phone screen, perhaps still texting the scandal of Jane and David to Kamala and her gossipy friends.
The video ended.
She watched it again. Maybe Adam and Trevor were hanging around together that night. Maybe they got hungry. Maybe it meant nothing.
She went up to her room and looked at the yearbook, a document she never much cared to consult, finding Amari’s senior tribute card, which said she would be going to UT. Jane could call her.
She sat on the floor of her room, the photos from her life on the walls, and once again, nothing was as it seemed. Her mother, her friends, her counselor—they had all lied to her. Lies of omission. Go back to what Trevor had said about seeing her and David. A mention, from David, of her deceased father. David comforting her while she cried at the restaurant. Thinking about her father would have made her cry. And there was something else going on, something so bad they considered running away to Canada, which was lunacy.
But there was nothing to connect these thoughts or fears. Nothing to tie the events, these scraps of rumor, together. If she went around proclaiming what she’d learned, with no evidence to back it up, she was simply the damaged girl trying to avoid responsibility for her own recklessness.
She needed to figure out how to get to San Antonio and talk directly to Brenda Hobson. She wasn’t ready to confront Adam about why he had never told her he, too, had been at Happy Taco that night; if he threw her out, she had no place to stay (her mother, at the moment, felt like no improvement on the deal); and if he threw her out, she could learn nothing more.
When she had awoken in the hospital, and not known her own name, or any face around her, or where she was, she had felt like a shell with the soul ripped free. At first she felt almost numb with shock—she knew words, she could speak, she could feel fear—but when she realized she was a person with no past except what others told her, the dread and the terror had felt like a physical presence in her body, there as much as tissue, blood, and bone. The fear only started abating as her memories seeped back.
