‘Gross.’
Everything she owned was gone, burned up. She had nothing left. She’d gone back and emptied her office of anything personal, the remains of her career fitting in a wastepaper basket and a legal box which she’d dumped on the dining table.
The table, well at least she didn’t have to deal with that anymore. She wouldn’t have to look at that ratty tablecloth, a poor attempt at hiding the scarred wood underneath.
Lori searched around the room, sure that Em would have a stash of clothes somewhere. All she could find were laundry bags of clean towels: boxes of brand new swimming caps and goggles: pairs of swimmers with the team, university, and sponsor logos on them: two socks that didn’t make a pair. Nothing useful.
She stood, hands on hips, racking her brain. The only other place she could think of were the big tubs in the equipment shed, where all the stuff went when they emptied out the lockers at the end of the year. Students more often than not forgot their lockers in the rush and relief of another year gone and done.
Lori laughed. In her own hurry after being fired, she’d forgotten to empty her locker. Surely there had to be a change of clothes in there. Clean or not, anything would be better than the ones she had on now. And a shower wouldn’t hurt.
68
LORI FELT A lurch of heavy unease when she opened her locker, remembering the last time she’d been there. A collared shirt hung from the hook on the door and there were neatly pressed pants folded onto a hanger, a belt looped onto the wire.
They were the work clothes she’d brought with her and then left behind on the day Addy had tried to drown her. Not wanting to dwell on the memory, Lori grabbed her shower bag and her towel, slamming the metal door shut.
In the shower stall, she turned the water on to warm up and sat on the little bench to undress. The water turned grey with soot and ash. Holding her bandaged arm out of the stream, awkwardly and in a hurry, she used her good arm to lather shampoo through her hair, rinsing and repeating until the stink of smoke had faded. After drying off, she wrapped the towel around her, dumped her old clothes in the bin and grabbed another towel off the rack to dry her hair as she walked to her locker.
Addy had been waiting, sitting on the bench at Lori’s locker. She lifted her head from her hands when the towel Lori had been using to squeeze dry the tips of her hair dropped to the floor.
‘What’re you doing here?’ Alarmed, Lori stepped backwards against the wall.
Addy got up in a rush, stopping only a few steps away. When Lori tightened her grip on the towel wrapped around her, Addy noticed the bandage. ‘Are you okay? I heard what happened—’ She took another step closer.
‘Stop.’ Lori slid away along the wall. ‘The police are here, looking for you.’
Addy held her hands up, a sign of surrender or an attempt to calm. ‘Lori, please. Jeremy, he warned me, he told—’ She cleared her throat. ‘He said something about a fire—’
‘I have nothing left, Addy. Isn’t that what you wanted?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You win, Addy. I have nothing left. You tore it all apart, burned it to the ground. My whole life. I don’t know what it was all for—’
‘All what?’
‘Don’t play dumb. All those times breaking into my house, moving things around in my office. Leaving things in my yard. All of it… And chasing me through the mountains. Now that was a real creepy way to fuck with my head, Addy. But all of that… none of that—’ Lori’s breath came in sobs. She wanted to slide down the wall, sit on the floor, but she stood her ground. ‘When you held me under the water, when you tried to drown me, when I realised it was you… And then you set my house on fire with me inside…’
Horror played over Addy’s face. ‘It wasn’t me. Lori, I swear. None of it. I would never hurt you. That detective guy told me to stay away, and I did, I swear.’
Lori found a spark of anger. ‘Don’t lie to me, Addy. I know it was you. I saw—’ Her throat burned as she took a ragged breath, exhaling her words as she slid down the wall to the comfort of the hard tiles. ‘I saw you.’ Lori could still see it. Addy’s black-clad figure standing in the doorway, house burning around them, just staring down at her.
Addy moved towards her again, but Lori held up a hand. ‘Don’t.’
So, Addy sat on the end of the bench, right on the edge. She leaned down, almost crouching. She tried to hold Lori’s gaze, tears running down her cheeks. ‘Lori. It wasn’t me.’
From the moment she saw her sitting there, Lori knew that Addy would try to convince her she didn’t do any of it.
What she didn’t expect was that she’d believe her. Her eyes, as cliched as it was, Lori could see it in Addy’s eyes that she was telling the truth. They were steady, worried.
And then Addy was being yanked up off the bench.
‘Leave her alone.’ Em had Addy by the back of her shirt and was pulling her around, almost throwing her towards the door.
Addy stumbled with the momentum, grabbing the bench to stop herself from sprawling across the tiles.
‘Get out!’ Em’s rage bounced off the walls, echoing between the lockers.
Addy stood up, straightened her shirt, but she didn’t move. Her gaze cut straight past Em and down at Lori on the ground, her eyes now pleading.
Em rushed at her. ‘Get out!’
Addy had no choice but to move. Even so, she paused in the doorway, taking one last look at Lori before leaving.
69
LORI STARED AT the spot Addy had just been, only half seeing Em, not feeling her hurried hands moving from her cheeks to her chin, squeezing her shoulders and moving down her arms. ‘Are you okay? Did she hurt you?’
Lori mumbled that she was fine, but Em’s grip on her arms was hurting, too close to her burn, twisting her skin as she pulled her up from the floor. Em led her over and sat her on the bench, sliding in next to her.
Only when Em put another towel around her and rubbed heat into her shoulders did Lori realise she was shivering, her wet hair dripping beads of cold water that ran down her neck.
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
Lori wasn’t sure of anything anymore. She nodded, then shook her head, then leaned forward to look around Em at the empty doorway. ‘Addy… she said it wasn’t her.’
‘What wasn’t?’
‘All of it. Everything,’ Lori blinked .
Em crouched in front of her, holding her gaze. ‘Don’t let her mess with your head any more than she already has, Lori. She saw a chance, and she took advantage of you. She got exactly what she wanted. She made you doubt yourself.’
‘But what if it really wasn’t?’
‘You said you saw her, right? In your house?’ Em tapped Lori’s chest, pinpointing her heart. ‘Lori, you know she’s lying.’
Lori couldn’t believe she’d forgotten the most important thing; she’d seen her, both in the house and the pool. But the look in Addy’s eyes. Lori couldn’t shake the sense of truth in Addy speaking those three simple words; it wasn’t me.
If it wasn’t Addy, then who? Who else would do all those things? And why?
Now that the moment had passed, Lori didn’t know what to feel or think or believe. Least of all, if her own memory was to be trusted.
70
FROM THE FOOTPATH, the house looked almost normal. Except there was no roof, and there were scorch marks and smoke stains around the windows. As normal as it looked, Lori couldn’t go in. Tape cordoned off the perimeter, a loose end flapping against the star picket. Even if she could, she probably wouldn’t.
She stood in the front yard, squinting through the glare to look in where the front door should have been. It lay crumpled on the skeletal frame of the porch, splintered in half from when the firefighters had rammed it down to get inside and pull her out.
It was just as bright inside without a roof or any ceilings, which meant that even from the outside, Lori could see just how little there was left of the internal structure
.
On both sides of the house, the bare branches of the trees were singed. Lori walked down the left side, peering in through glassless windows. Snow fell through where the roof used to be, filtering down through various pieces of the framework still standing.
It’d been snowing steadily since the day after the fire, and everything around the house was white. At first, the residual heat in the remains of the house had melted the snow before it even landed, but now it was settling, a thin layer covering the black charred mess inside.
Lori stopped in her tracks. The rear end of the house was entirely gone. She could see the interior all the way through to the front.
On the edge of the slab, the kitchen and laundry sinks lay a few metres apart, twisted hunks of metal. The back door was gone, just the three concrete steps down to the yard marking where it’d been. Lori kicked at the snow, revealing the ground underneath, black and burned into a crust of ashy mud.
Lori looked around for somewhere to sit. The table and chair were a mound under the snow. She used her bare hands to clear them, not feeling the bite and sting in her fingers until she sat, shoving them between her knees to warm.
Beanie stalked across the yard, all but blending into the snow except for the grey jellybean patch on his nose, his bright green eyes, and his black soot-stained feet. He weaved and rubbed through Lori’s legs and then jumped up onto the table, licking his lips as he stared at the house. He looked back at her with a meow.
‘Don’t suppose you saw who it was?’
Beanie meowed again.
‘Didn’t think so.’
She couldn’t think about that night any more, replayed it enough times in her dreams. The harder she tried to remember, the more everything warped, as if she had no control over what she saw.
Sometimes the figure in black wasn’t even there. Most times it wasn’t the figure in black but a cycle of everyone she knew, standing over her, shaking her to get up, to get out.
And that was when she usually woke to Em standing over her, shaking her out of her nightmare.
Lori rubbed the back of her hand against Beanie’s chest. A little too rough, she realised, when he pawed at her wrist, claws catching on the jacket she’d borrowed. Everything she wore was borrowed. The panic and grief at losing everything had passed quickly. She wasn’t afraid of having nothing.
As a kid she’d had even less, too proud to ask for help, and yet she’d made a life for herself. If she did it once, she could do it again. And she wouldn’t be doing it alone.
71
IT FELT STRANGE walking down the street to a house that looked almost the same, with the same layout, just a different colour scheme. That’s what happened when a town expanded too quickly; developers bought up whole suburbs and spat out replica housing.
There were neighbourhoods where every street looked the same, every house indiscernible except for the owners’ personal touches.
Despite the inside being similar, Em and Lena’s house was completely different. Lori had never realised how remarkable a home looked and felt when two people lived together.
Or used to; most of Lena’s stuff was still there, waiting to be packed. But she could still see it, the physical merging of two lives. It felt more… lived in. Or something like that.
Em called out from the kitchen as Lori shut the front door. She heard cupboards closing and the fridge opening as she walked down the hallway. She watched in silence for a moment, Em lost in the habit of laying out placemats and bowls and spoons and cereal and milk and fruit, the kitchen island becoming an altar to breakfast.
It was just like back in high school, except Lori was sleeping in Em’s spare room instead of her parents’ basement.
‘Did you sleep at all?’
Lori smiled, stepped over to the stool Em pointed her to. ‘A little.’
To tell the truth, she’d been on edge, jumping out of her skin at the smallest sound. Even though it had all stopped, everything was far from normal.
Lori hadn’t gotten another chance to talk to Addy, to look her in the eyes again and see if what she thought she saw was real. Because Addy was gone. Cooper had been waiting outside the pool complex, Em having called him, but she never came out, or at least he hadn’t seen her when she did.
Later, when they gained access to her dorm room, they saw that the place was a mess but that most of her stuff had been left behind in her hurry. Her family hadn’t heard from her. The university reported that she hadn’t been to classes, and no one had seen her for days. She’d vanished.
Em read her mind and tried to reassure her. ‘They’ll find her. In the meantime, you’re safe here. I promise.’
But Lori knew it might not be a promise she could keep, as much as Em would like to think otherwise.
Em shovelled in mouthfuls of cereal, chewing as she flipped through the competition roster and made notes in the margins. Lori wasn’t hungry but she pretended to eat, swirling her spoon around the bowl, lifting it but only drinking the milk.
‘Where did you go this morning?’
‘To see the house.’
Em let the pages fall shut, dumping her pen and sliding back on her stool. ‘I thought we were all gonna do that together.’
Lori would have gone to see it earlier, but Em was worried about her going by herself, pleading for her to wait until things slowed down and they would all go, Olly and Matt too. Lori didn’t understand why it was such a big deal, even less now that she’d gone and seen it.
‘It’s just a house, Emmie.’ Or was.
‘Still…’ But Em let it go. ‘What’re you doing today?’
‘Olly’s taking me shopping, get a few things to keep me going until I hear from the insurance company.’ So far Lori had made do, buying multi-packs of underwear and socks from the supermarket and borrowing clothes from Em and Olly. But Olly was taller by a few good inches, and even though Em was the same height, her days spent training with her team meant she had more muscle mass. She had an athlete’s body with wide shoulders that filled out shirts that Lori swam in. Pants that were tight on Em were loose on Lori, and she had to hitch them up all the time.
‘That reminds me. I found some of Lena’s clothes that she left behind. She’s more your size and I’m sure she won’t mind you borrowing them. Left a pile on your bed for whenever you wanna go through them.’
Lori forgot sometimes that Lena was gone, for good it seemed. ‘You don’t think she’ll come back?’
Em shook her head, chewing a mouthful.
‘Have you talked to her?’
‘I called her sister.’ Em swallowed, spoon halfway to her mouth already. ‘But Lena won’t talk to me. Can’t say I blame her.’
Lori changed the subject. ‘Have you or anyone in the running group heard from Marina?’
‘I haven’t. No one else in the group has either. But I can ask around again?’
‘That’d be great, thanks.’
‘Are you worried about her?’
‘I rang her work. No one has seen her for a while. They said she emailed asking for time off but didn’t say why, just personal reasons.’
‘I’m sure she’s fine.’ Em tipped her bowl, drinking the last of the milk.
Lori cringed, even as she asked, ‘What if it was her?’
They’d been playing this game for the past couple of days. Lori would come up with a new person to name as her stalker. Em would look at Lori like she was unravelling, rolling her eyes as she listed every reason proving it wasn’t.
‘What if it was the mailman? Or maybe it’s one of your students? Didn’t like a grade you gave them and is out for revenge. Lori, come on—’
‘But what if it was?’
Em slipped off the stool, laughing. ‘Are you kidding?’
‘I’m serious.’
‘You two spent every moment together. You were practically inseparable—’
‘Exactly. All of that time together and I don’t even know where she lives. She practically lived in my hous
e because I was a basket case and afraid of every little thing. What if she wanted to be close, be there in person to see just how crazy and paranoid it all made me…’
The bowl clattered in the sink. Em turned and leaned back against the bench, wiping her hands with the tea towel. ‘Give me one good reason, a single sensible and irrefutable reason why Marina would do any of it, and we’ll call Cooper together right now.’
Lori thought about it. She couldn’t come up with a single reason. Not on the spot, at least. She followed Em through to the dining room.
Em packed her bag for work, shoving things in. ‘Addy’s the one who ran when the police came looking for her. Eventually, they’ll find her and it’ll all be over and we can all move on.’ She swung the bag onto her shoulder. ‘I have to go, so… no more theories. Try to have some fun today? Make Olly take you out for lunch, get some fresh air. Go to the park and build snow castles, do whatever, just… stop obsessing, okay?’
72
LORI WAS STARING into the soggy mess of cereal in her bowl when her phone rang. She didn’t recognise the number. ‘Hello?’
Background noise burst through over the huffing breath of someone in a rush. ‘Finally! I’ve been trying to find you. Addy has disappeared.’
‘Jeremy?’
He sounded frustrated at her slowness. ‘Addy’s gone.’
‘I know.’
‘No, you don’t understand—’ There was the thunk of a door closing, the background noise falling silent. His breathing slowed. ‘I think she was set up, and that who really did it has kidnapped her, made it look like Addy’s guilty and running.’
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