by David Bell
“What’s not?”
“That cave comment.” Her words came out in rhythmic bursts, like steel banging against steel. “It’s not funny.”
“It’s just an expression. Everybody says it.”
“I should go.” In one quick, fluid motion, she pushed herself away from the desk and grabbed her coat, moving to the door like someone rushing to catch a bus.
Jared barely had time to move. He walked a couple of steps behind her as she glided through the bedroom door, turning to the right and the front of the house. “Tabitha? Wait.”
He followed her, hurrying. The denim from her jeans made a sharp brushing noise as she walked away from him, and Jared had to jog to reach her before she made it to the living room.
“Wait. Please.”
She stopped. He started to reach out and touch her arm, but some instinct told him to back off, that no one as angry as Tabitha was wanted to be touched at a moment like this.
But she had stopped.
She kept her back to him, her shoulders moving as she breathed heavily with anger.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I was just . . . I didn’t mean anything.”
She didn’t respond. But she didn’t leave. He took that as a good sign, one that meant he still had a chance to keep her in the house for a little while longer.
“I didn’t mean to insult you or your dad. I don’t care where you live. I was just being a smart-ass. I do that sometimes.”
“It’s not . . . That’s not what I’m mad about.”
“What, then?”
“Forget it,” she said. “I should go.”
“No, I want you to stay. Please?” Jared decided to pull out all the stops, open up the way he wanted her to. If he was going to lay it all on the line, he figured this was the time to do it. “I want to tell you something else. About Celia. And my mom. About what I had to do with her disappearing.”
She turned to face him, her eyes open wide.
And she stayed.
CHAPTER THREE
Jenna wandered away from the reporters, her feet crunching over the cold, uneven ground. She shivered, and not just because of the rising wind and the thickening clouds that blocked out the already meager and distant sun. Tension rose inside her as she waited for something to happen, a growing pressure that made her bones and muscles so taut she thought she’d explode.
She couldn’t escape the feeling that the whole thing was a farce, a dog and pony show orchestrated by the media and the police. The police, who wanted to look as if they were still working on Celia’s case, and the media, who needed the ratings. Jenna just wasn’t sure whether she was the dog or the pony. Or both.
She pulled out her phone and texted Jared. He’d be out of school and heading home, and she didn’t want him to hear on the news or from social media that something related to Celia’s case was brewing. He’d never said much about Celia’s disappearance or the media storm that blew up in its aftermath. Jenna got the feeling he didn’t know what to say to her, and she understood the two of them already existed in a tricky, difficult-to-manage space. Single mother, teenage son. She tried not to lean on him too much, tried not to make him her confidant, her sounding board in the absence of a husband or a serious boyfriend, and that choice meant some distance had grown between them, a cautious boundary Jared respected but perhaps didn’t fully understand. He’d certainly been supportive of her in the months since Celia disappeared. He’d treated her with great kindness and deference, but that served only to make Jenna feel even worse. Wasn’t she supposed to be looking out for him?
Call me!!!
She studied the text for a moment. Were three exclamation marks too much? Or did they adequately convey her concern, her need to speak with him? She went ahead and hit SEND. Jared was a little secretive, a little private, but what teenager wasn’t? He possessed a good sense of humor, one that was less cutting and drier than hers. He was sensitive, every bit as likely to read a book as to camp in front of a football game on TV. She didn’t know what she’d do if he’d been a meathead jock. What would they talk about then?
Then she texted Ursula, Celia’s daughter. Her only child. She’d be out of school as well—she was the same age as Jared—and Jenna hated to think of her hearing about this on the news.
Can you give me a call?
She needed to talk to Ursula more, be more of a presence for the girl who hadn’t had a mother for several months.
A text came right back from Ursula: Dad warned me. Thx.
Jenna wondered once again how her life had ended up like this—having to tell her son and her best friend’s daughter she was at a crime scene where a part of a woman’s body had been found. But Jenna knew exactly how it had happened. She was the one who invited Celia to go out. She was the one who proposed they meet near the park. She was the one running late—
“Jenna?”
Becky’s voice—more cautious, less cheery—brought her back to the reality of the barn. And what—or who—might be resting inside. Jenna turned and saw Becky approaching, taking careful steps like someone walking through a minefield.
“Something’s going on over there,” she said.
Jenna looked beyond the reporter’s shellacked hair and saw a flurry of activity near the barn. More cops gathered at the opening, and more rushed to join them, their movements full of hustle and energy. A broad-shouldered man in a dark jacket with the word “Coroner” stitched across the back in gold letters joined the cops, his hand clutching the kind of black bag an old-time doctor brought on a house call.
Jenna started forward, her feet propelling her whether she wanted to move or not. The cold seemed to have departed her legs and torso, replaced by a flushing heat, something that spread through her body so quickly she reached up and undid the buttons of her coat, letting it swing open to the cool air. The reporters ignored her. They instructed their cameramen to heft their equipment back onto their shoulders, the lights glowing in the gray winter afternoon. She sensed Becky next to her, the reporter no different from the rest of them, caught up in the excitement and anticipation over what might be revealed from inside that barn.
Jenna cursed herself for losing control of her emotions, for thinking something important and relevant was about to happen, but how could she stop the feelings from surging? She felt hot and sick, almost like a feverish child, as the events of that November night came back to her. She’d called Celia, yes, begging her to go out. The two women had drifted apart over the previous few years. They were both raising children, both working, and Jenna knew that happened to friends sometimes as time went by, even the best of friends. But they both had high hopes for that night, a chance to reconnect away from their kids, their jobs, their everyday lives. A chance to be free and even a little wild again just like when they were teenagers.
But Jenna blew it.
She’d shown up fifteen minutes late. Fifteen minutes Celia waited for her, standing near the entrance to Caldwell Park. Celia, who was always on time, and Jenna, who was always late. Didn’t that say so much about them? Celia the perfectly punctual one, and Jenna the straggler bringing up the rear?
If only she’d shown up on time for once . . . if only she’d gotten there when she was supposed to . . . would Celia still be alive?
The what-ifs played on a loop in her head like the trailer for a lousy movie.
And after Celia was gone and the cops were involved, Ian revealed that Celia once thought someone was following her. What if by being late, Jenna had led Celia right into the hands of some kind of stalker? Someone who had been planning to do her harm all along?
“Get that, Stan,” Becky said, her voice low and tense. “Are you getting that?”
“I’m on it.”
“What are they doing?” Becky asked. “Can you see?”
Jenna could see, but she didn’t understand.
One of the cops laughed and shook his head. And the guy in the coroner’s jacket started doing the same thing. He turned around, shrugging, the black bag still in his hand, and walked away, back toward his van. More of the cops were laughing, some of them leaving the barn with the coroner.
But most of them stayed, still lingering in their places as though something else was going to happen, something they didn’t want to miss.
Jenna turned. “What is it, Becky? What did they find?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Give it a . . . Wait.”
The cops at the barn door parted, creating a lane as though someone was about to emerge. A uniformed sheriff’s deputy appeared, and he held something in his hands, lifting it up above his head like a trophy.
The flush across Jenna’s face grew hotter, a trickle of sweat running down behind her ear. She felt sick as she tried to make out what the cop was holding.
Something jagged and gray, the color of old marble, and it made the other cops laugh.
“What is it, Becky?”
But even as she asked she understood. Bones. The cop was holding up bones. A rib cage or something.
How could he? How could they stand around, laughing and making light of somebody’s body? Somebody’s bones.
Maybe Celia’s bones.
“Becky, stop them,” Jenna said.
“Stop them?”
Then the cop lifted the bones and placed them on the top of his head.
Antlers. They were antlers.
“Oh, Jesus,” Jenna said, trying to breathe.
Her mouth was dry, and an ache grew in the pit of her stomach.
“Oh, shit,” Becky said. “It’s a deer. A deer’s bones.”
“Crap.” Stan lowered the camera. “Some hunter probably dragged the thing in there to dress it. Or maybe the deer just went in and croaked.”
“Oh, gosh.” Becky turned to Jenna, the cheer returning to her voice in full force. “Well, isn’t that fantastic, Jenna? It’s not a person at all. It’s just a deer. It’s not Celia. Aren’t you relieved?”
Jenna still felt hot. She fanned her face with her hand while the reporter smiled at her. The smile was so white and blinding that it hurt Jenna’s eyes, made them ache. It matched the ache in her stomach and the one forming in her head, just behind her left temple.
She took a couple of steps toward her car and leaned down by the side door. A hot stream of vomit shot out of her mouth, splattering the hard ground.
She spit a few times, wishing she had water, the remnants of the vomit stinging her cheeks. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then just remained there, hands on knees, making sure there was nothing more to come out.
Her sides ached and cramped, and the headache remained, as if someone had jammed a knitting needle into her brain.
“Oh,” Becky said behind her. “Oh, dear.”
“Damn,” Stan said. “Gross.”
“Stan,” Becky said as if she were correcting a naughty child. “Are you working or hanging out in a frat house?”
Jenna straightened up. She rested her right hand against the side of the car, bracing herself. She felt light-headed, and for a moment the world tilted, but then quickly settled. She heard a shuffling beside her, feet moving over the broken ground. A hand rubbed against her back.
Becky.
“Are you okay, hon?” she asked.
“Fine.”
“It’s been a crazy day, hasn’t it?”
“Not the craziest of the last few months,” Jenna said. “Unfortunately.” She turned around, intending to thank Becky for her concern. But Becky was right there, right in her face, microphone in hand. She nodded to Stan, who had the camera up on his shoulder again, the bright light rigging on top burning, the red dot glowing.
“What are you doing, Becky?” Jenna asked, her eyes darting between the camera’s eye and the made-up face of the reporter.
“You said we’d talk after we knew. Well, now it’s after. And we know. So just real quick give me your reaction to what happened here today. Just your own words about how relieved you are or how scared you are. Something like that. Maybe remind everyone how much you miss Celia.”
Jenna stood frozen, the sour taste of the vomit churning in her mouth.
She wanted to storm off. She wanted to shove Becky to the ground.
“How the fuck do you think I feel, Becky? Jesus.”
Jenna turned away, her hands shaking as she pulled the car door open and climbed in. When she sped off, she hoped she hit them both—Becky and her juvenile sidekick—with the gravel the tires churned up.
CHAPTER FOUR
They moved toward the bedroom, Tabitha and Jared.
His gut burned as they held hands, walking down the hallway again, and the contact between his skin and hers, the intertwining of their fingers, sent surges of something close to electricity up his arm and into his chest. Jared guided her to the bed, where she sat down and slipped her hand out of his. He sat down next to her, studied her face in profile as he had so many times over the past few weeks.
Tabitha still seemed closed off but not exactly angry. They’d never had a fight or disagreement of any kind. But it was hard to fight when they were almost never really able to do anything. Tabitha’s father enforced a strict curfew, so their time together was limited to the moments after school before he came home from work. They’d never had a weekend night together. They’d never even gone on a real date to a movie or a basketball game or even a trip to McDonald’s. Jared kept hoping it would happen soon, that her old man would loosen up the longer they lived in Hawks Mill.
“Okay,” he said. “I told you how my mom’s friend disappeared.”
Tabitha looked him in the eye, her gaze piercing and intense. “I don’t know how that could be your fault.”
When Jared was seven, his appendix became inflamed. It felt as if someone had taken a blowtorch and lit it inside his body. He writhed in his bed, sweat pouring down his face.
He felt the same way inside when Celia’s story came up. Except he knew the feeling wasn’t his appendix. It was guilt. Burning, searing guilt. He tried not to think about it, tried to push it aside like the remnants of a bad dream. But it always came back. A burning in his gut. A sick taste in his mouth as if he was about to puke.
“My mom was supposed to meet Celia, like I said, but my mom ended up running late. My mom always runs late. She doesn’t do it for work, although she always cuts it close, but for everything else—going to meet a friend, going to a movie, whatever—she runs late. And it used to drive Celia nuts. Really nuts. It was the only thing they fought about. So Mom was determined to be on time that night. She told me she absolutely didn’t want Celia to have to wait. And she made it. She was ready to walk out the door right on time.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“Jesus, it’s so stupid.” He remembered the night well, felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment just thinking of it. “You know my friend Mike. He’s a little wild. He’s a jerk sometimes, to be honest. He got ahold of this bottle of whiskey. I think he stole it from his dad. He wanted us to drink it that coming weekend, me and him and our other friend Syd. But Mike couldn’t keep it in his house, so he gave it to me to hide.”
“And your mom found it?”
“She came in to say good night and the damn bottle was sitting out. I’d taken it out of my bag for just a minute, and I forgot to hide it. She saw it sitting there and started asking me a bunch of questions. You see, she can be cool about stuff like that. She trusts me. I told her the truth. I said it was Mike’s. She believed me, but we still had to have this talk about alcohol and responsibility. She wanted to cancel her plans with Celia, you know? She said she didn’t feel right running off with this hanging over us. But I told her to go, even though she was late.”
Tabitha nodded
, her gaze still locked on his. “You were holding something for your friend. It’s not a big deal.”
“I know, but I think . . . I think about it. She beats herself up over Celia, and it was me who caused it.”
Some of the burning in his gut eased. A little of the pressure lifted. Tabitha’s understanding washed over him like a cool rain.
“Have you talked to her about it?” Tabitha asked.
“I should, but I’m always afraid to bring up the whole thing. I don’t know if she wants to talk about it, or if she wants to pretend the whole thing isn’t happening. Even though it is.”
“It’s sweet that you worry about her like that,” she said. “It really is. But I’m sure she understands.”
“Do you know she never told the police about it? Nobody knows but her and me. I lied to Mike about it. I told him I got caught, but not that night.”
“And now I know.” She looked pleased.
“And now you. She figured it didn’t matter why she was late that night. Just that she was late. She protected me from having everyone know. She was afraid that the whole town would hear about Mike and me having the alcohol, and they’d judge us and they’d judge her. People talk a lot in a town like this. They lay into people for every little mistake. Mom figured none of us needed that hassle. She made me dump the booze out, and she told Mike’s parents. He was pretty pissed for a while.” Jared ran his hands through his hair, running against his scalp. “I wonder if I’ll ever be able to forget that. Or forgive myself.”
Tabitha looked lost in thought. Her eyes grew duller, and she raised her hand to her mouth and started nibbling on the nail on her index finger. He thought she was checked out, but she said, “Parents can be pretty sensitive sometimes. They go through a lot of stuff. We have to remember that.”
Jared saw the opening. He decided to jump.
“Is that what your parents are like?” he asked, feeling very much like a man sliding along potentially thin ice. “Your dad, I guess . . . or your mom when she was living with you?”
Tabitha’s eyes focused again. Jared worried that he’d pushed too hard, that she’d be angry again. He knew if she stormed off this time he wouldn’t be able to convince her to stay. And if she walked out the door of their house angry, he might never get this close to her again.
