by Riley Sager
There’s very little Jeff’s allowed to tell me about his cases. Client confidentiality rules extend even to spouses. Or, in my case, eventual ones. It’s another reason Jeff and I are a good fit. He can’t talk about work. I don’t want to talk about my past. We get to hopscotch over two of the conversational traps that usually ensnare couples. Yet for the first time in months, I feel like we’re close to being caught in one and struggling mightily to avoid it.
“We should sleep,” I say. “Don’t you have to be in court early tomorrow?”
“I do,” Jeff says, looking not at me but at the ceiling. “And did you even stop to consider that’s why I can’t sleep?”
“I didn’t.” I drop onto my back again. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think you understand how big this case is.”
“It’s been on the news, Jeff. I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
Now it’s Jeff’s turn to sit up, lean on his elbow, look at me. “If this goes well, it could mean big things for me. For us. Do you think I want to be a public defender forever?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
“Of course not. Winning this case could be a huge stepping-stone. Hopefully to one of the big firms, where I can start making real money and not live in an apartment paid for by my girlfriend’s victim fund.”
I’m too hurt to respond, although I can tell Jeff instantly regrets saying it. His eyes go dead for a second and his mouth twists in distress.
“Quinn, I didn’t mean that.”
“I know.” I slide out of bed, still naked, feeling exposed and vulnerable by that fact. I grab the first article of clothing I can get my hands on—Jeff’s threadbare terry cloth robe—and slip it on. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” Jeff says. “I’m an asshole.”
“Get some sleep,” I tell him. “Tomorrow’s important.”
I pad into the living room, suddenly and irrevocably awake. My phone sits atop the coffee table, still turned off. I switch it on, the screen glowing ice-blue in the darkness. I have twenty-three missed calls, eighteen texts, and more than three dozen emails. Virtually all of them are from reporters.
Word of Lisa’s death has gotten out. The press is officially on the hunt.
I scroll through my email inbox, which has gone neglected since the previous evening. Buried beneath the wall of reporter inquiries are earlier, more benign missives from fans of the website and various makers of baking tools eager for me to give their wares a test-drive. One email address stands out from the flow of names and numbers, like a silver-scaled fish breaching the surface.
Lmilner75
My finger jumps off the screen. An involuntary recoil. I stare at the address until it sears itself onto my vision, the afterimage lingering when I blink.
I know of only one person who could have that address, and she’s been dead for more than a day. The realization forms a nervous tickle in my throat. I swallow hard before opening the email.
Quincy, I need to talk to you. It’s extremely important. Please, please don’t ignore this.
Beneath it is Lisa’s name and the same phone number written inside her book.
I read the email several times, the tickle in my throat transforming into a sensation that can only be described as fluttering. It feels like I’ve swallowed a hummingbird, its wings beating against my esophagus.
I check when the email was sent. Eleven p.m. Taking into account the several minutes it took for police to trace the 911 call and get to her house, it means that Lisa sent the email less than an hour before she killed herself.
I might have been the last person she ever tried to contact.
5.
Morning arrives gray and groggy. I awake to find Jeff already gone, off to meet his accused cop killer.
In the kitchen, a surprise awaits me: a vase filled not with flowers but baking tools. Wooden spoons and spatulas and a heavy-duty whisk with a handle as thick as my wrist. A red ribbon has been wrapped around the vase’s neck. Attached to it is a card.
I’m an idiot. And I’m sorry. You will always be my favorite sweet. Love, Jeff.
Next to the vase, the unfinished cupcakes resume staring at me. I ignore them as I take my morning Xanax with two swallows of grape soda. I then switch to coffee, mainlining it in the breakfast nook, trying to wake up.
My sleep had been plagued with nightmares, a phase I thought had passed. In the first few years after Pine Cottage, I couldn’t go a night without having one. They were the usual therapy fodder—running through the woods, Janelle stumbling from the trees, Him. Lately, though, I go weeks, even months, without having one.
Last night, my dreams were filled with reporters scratching at the windows and leaving bloody claw marks on the glass. Pale and thin, they moaned my name, waiting like vampires for me to invite them in. Instead of fangs, their teeth were pencils narrowed to ice-pick sharpness. Glistening chunks of sinew stuck to the tips.
Lisa made an appearance in one of the nightmares, looking exactly like the picture on her book jacket. The well-practiced form of her lips never wavered. Not even when she grabbed a pencil from one of the reporters and dragged its point across her wrists.
Her email was the first thing I thought of upon waking, of course. It spent the night sitting in my mind like a spring-loaded trap, waiting for the smallest bit of consciousness to set it off. It remains gripped to my brain as I down one cup of coffee, then another.
Foremost in my thoughts is the unshakable idea that, other than her aborted 911 call, I truly had been the last person Lisa tried to contact. If that’s the case, why? Did she want me, of all people, to try to talk her off whatever mental ledge she had crawled onto? Did my failure to check my email make me in some way responsible for her death?
My first instinct is to call Coop and tell him about it. I have no doubt he’d drop everything and drive into Manhattan for the second day in a row just to assure me that nothing about this is my fault. But I’m not sure I want to see Coop on consecutive days. It would be the first time that happened since Pine Cottage and the morning after, and it’s not an experience I long to repeat.
I text him instead, trying to keep it casual.
Call me when you get a chance. No rush. Nothing important.
But my gut tells me it is important. Or at least it has the potential to be. If it wasn’t important, why did I wake up thinking about it? Why is my next thought to call Jeff just to hear his voice, even though I know he’s in court, his cell phone switched off and shoved into the depths of his briefcase?
I try not to think about it, although that proves to be impossible. According to my phone, I’ve missed a dozen more calls. My voicemail is a swamp of messages. I listen to only one of them—a surprise message from my mother, who called at an hour when she knew I’d still be asleep. The latest of her constantly evolving attempts to avoid actual conversation.
“Quincy, it’s your mother,” her message begins, as if she doesn’t trust me to recognize her nasal monotone. “I was just woken up by a reporter calling to see if I had a comment about what happened to that Lisa Milner girl you were friends with. I told him he should talk to you. Thought you’d like to know.”
I see no point in calling her back. That’s the last thing my mother wants. It’s been that way ever since I returned to college after Pine Cottage. As a new widow, she wanted me to commute from home. When I didn’t, she said I was abandoning her.
Ultimately, though, it was me who got abandoned. By the time I finally graduated, she had remarried a dentist named Fred who came with three adult children from a previous marriage. Three happy, bland, toothy children. Not a Final Girl in the bunch. They became her family. I became a barely tolerated remnant of her past. A blemish on her otherwise spotless new life.
I listen again to my mother’s message, searching for the slightest hint of interest or concern in her v
oice. Finding none, I delete the voicemail and move on to that morning’s copy of the Times.
To my surprise, an article about Lisa’s death rests at the bottom of the front page. I read it in one distasteful gulp.
MUNCIE, Ind.—Lisa Milner, a prominent child psychologist who was the lone survivor of a sorority-house massacre that shocked campuses nationwide, died at her home here, authorities confirmed yesterday. She was 42.
Most of the article focuses on the horrors Lisa witnessed that long-ago night. As if no other moments of her life mattered. Reading it gives me a glimpse of what my own obituary will be like. It churns my stomach.
Yet one sentence gives me pause. It’s near the bottom; almost like an afterthought.
Police are continuing their investigation.
Investigation of what? Lisa slit her wrists, which seems pretty straightforward to me. Then I remember what Coop said about the toxicology tests. To see if Lisa was on something at the time.
Tossing the newspaper aside, I reach for my laptop. Online, I skip the news sites and head straight for the true-crime blogs, an alarming number of which are solely devoted to Final Girls. The guys who run them—and they are all men, by the way; women have better things to do—still occasionally contact me through my website, trying to sweet-talk me into giving an interview. I never reply. The closest we’ve come to corresponding was after I received that threatening letter and Coop wrote them all asking if one of them had sent it. They all said no.
Normally I avoid these sites, fearful of what I might see written about me. Today, however, calls for an exception, and I find myself clicking through website after website. Nearly all of them have mentions of Lisa’s suicide. Like the article in the Times, there’s little to no new information. Most of them stress the irony of a world-famous survivor being responsible for her own death. One even has the gall to suggest other Final Girls could follow suit.
Disgusted, I close the browser window and slam the laptop shut. I then stand, trying to shake away some of the angry adrenaline scooting through my body. All that Xanax, caffeine, and misguided web surfing have left me antsy and aggravated. So much so that I change into workout clothes and lace up my running shoes. When I get like this, which is often, the only cure is to jog until it passes.
In the elevator, it dawns on me that there could be reporters outside. If they know my phone number and email address, there’s every reason to think they also know where I live. I make a plan to start running as soon as I hit the street, instead of taking my customary stroll to Central Park. I begin while still inside the building, busting out of the elevator at a light jog.
Once outside, though, I see there’s no need. Instead of a crush of reporters out front, I’m confronted by exactly one. He looks young, eager, and handsome in a nerdy way. Buddy Holly glasses. Great hair. More Clark Kent than Jimmy Olsen. He rushes toward me as I trot from the building, the pages of his notebook fluttering.
“Miss Carpenter.”
He tells me his name—Jonah Thompson. I recognize it. He’s one of the reporters who called, emailed, and texted. The nuisance trifecta. He then tells me the name of the paper he works for. One of the major daily tabloids. Judging by his age, it means he’s either very good at his job or else incredibly unscrupulous. I suspect it’s both.
“No comment,” I say, breaking into a full run.
He makes an attempt to keep up, the flat soles of his Oxfords clapping against the sidewalk. “I just have a few questions about Lisa Milner.”
“No comment,” I say again. “If you’re still here when I get back, I’m calling the police.”
Jonah Thompson falls back while I keep moving. I feel him watch my retreat, his gaze a sunburn on the back of my neck. I increase my pace, quickly navigating the cross-blocks to Central Park. Before entering, I glance over my shoulder, just in case he somehow managed to follow me there.
Not likely.
Not in those shoes.
• • •
In the park, I head north toward the reservoir. My preferred jogging spot. It’s flatter than other areas of the park, with better sight lines. No curving paths with God-knows-what waiting just around the bend. No pockets of trees thick with shadows. Just long stretches of gravel where I can clench my jaw, straighten my back, and run.
But on this crisp morning it’s hard to focus on running. My thoughts are elsewhere. I think about fresh-faced Jonah Thompson and his annoying tenacity. I think about the article on Lisa’s death and its refusal to acknowledge how what she went through messed her up so much she decided to sink a knife into both her wrists. Mostly, though, I dwell on Lisa herself and what possibly could have been going through her mind when she sent me that email. Was she sad? Desperate? Was the knife already gripped in her trembling hands?
It’s suddenly all too much, and the adrenaline drains from my limbs as quickly as it filled them. Other joggers continually pass me, the gravelly crunch of their footsteps warning of their approach. Giving up, I slow to a stroll, move to the path’s edge, and walk the rest of the way home.
Back at my building, I’m relieved to see that Jonah Thompson has departed. In his place, though, is another reporter, idling on the other side of the street. On second glance, I decide she’s not a traditional reporter. She looks too edgy for mainstream media, reminding me of those aging Riot Grrrls who roamed Williamsburg before the hipsters took over. A woman who doesn’t give a shit she’s dressed like someone half her age. Leather jacket sitting over a hip-hugging black dress. Fishnet stockings rising out of scuffed combat boots. Her raven hair is a parted curtain that provides only a partial view of eyes ringed with liner. She wears red lipstick as bright as blood. A blogger, I surmise. One with a far different readership from me.
Yet there’s something familiar about her. I’ve seen her before. Maybe. My stomach flips with the sensation of not recognizing someone even when I know I should.
She recognizes me, though. Her raccoon eyes assess me through the dark drapes of her hair. I watch her watch me. She doesn’t even blink. She merely slouches against the building across the street, making no attempt to blend in with her surroundings. A cigarette juts from her ruby lips, smoke swirling. I’m about to head inside when she calls to me.
“Quincy.” It’s a statement, not a question. “Hey, Quincy Carpenter.”
I stop, do a half turn, frown in her direction. “No comment.”
She scowls—a storm cloud darkening the landscape of her face. “I don’t want a comment.”
“Then what do you want?” I say, facing her head-on, attempting to stare her down.
“I just want to talk.”
“About Lisa Milner?”
“Yeah,” she says. “And other stuff.”
“Which makes you a reporter. And I have no comment.”
She mutters “Jesus Christ” and tosses the cigarette into the street. She reaches for a large knapsack sitting at her feet. Heavy and full, whatever’s inside presses against the frayed seams when she lifts it. Soon she’s across the street, right in front of me, dropping the knapsack so close to me that it almost lands on my right foot.
“You don’t need to be such a bitch,” she says.
“Excuse me?”
“Listen, all I want to do is talk.” Up close, her voice sounds husky and seductive. Cigarettes and whiskey ride her breath. “After what happened to Lisa, I thought it might be a good idea.”
I suddenly realize who she is. She looks different from what I expected. A far cry from the yearbook photo that was printed everywhere one long-ago summer. Gone is the too-high hair, the ruddy cheeks, the double chin. She’s thinned out since then, shed the cherubic glow of youth. Time has made her a taut and weary version of her former self.
“Samantha Boyd,” I say.
She nods. “I prefer Sam.”
6.
Samantha Boyd.
The second Final Girl.
Of the three of us, she probably had it the worst.
She was two weeks out of high school when it happened. Just a girl trying to scrape together enough money to pay for community college. She got a job cleaning rooms at a highway motel outside Tampa called the Nightlight Inn. Because she was new, Samantha had to work the red-eye shift, fetching towels for exhausted truckers and changing sheets that reeked of sweat and semen in rooms occupied only half the night.
Two hours into her fourth shift, a man with a potato sack over his head showed up and all hell broke loose.
He was an itinerant handyman with a boner for the parts of the Bible few like to talk about. Whores of Babylon. Smiting the sinners. Eyes for eyes and teeth for teeth. His name was Calvin Whitmer. But after that summer, he would be forever known as the Sack Man.
The name fit, for he carried lots of things in sacks. The back of his pickup was full of them. Sacks of empty tin cans. Sacks of animal skins. Sacks of sand, salt, pebbles. Then there was the sack of tools he carried to the Nightlight Inn, filled with saw blades and chisels and masonry nails. Police found twenty-one tools in all, most of them crusted with blood.
Samantha personally met two of them. One was a sharpened drill bit that found its way into her back. Twice. The other was a hacksaw that caught her upper thigh, severing an artery. Her brush with the drill bit came before the Sack Man lashed her to a tree behind the motel with a loop of barbed wire. The hacksaw was after she had somehow managed to break free.
Six people died that night—four motel guests, a nighttime desk clerk named Troy, and Calvin Whitmer. That last one was Sam’s doing, once she freed herself and got her hands on the same drill bit that had entered her back. She leapt atop the Sack Man and plunged it into his chest again and again and again. The cops found her like that—trailing barbed wire, straddling a dead man, stabbing away.
I know all this because it was in Time magazine, which my parents assumed I never read. That issue I did, poring over the article under the covers, penlight clenched in my sweaty palm. I had nightmares for a week.
