Mine First

by A. J. Marchant

  ‘Jeremy—’

  There was an urgency in his raised voice. ‘Addy didn't burn your house down.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Silence.

  Lori yelled into the phone, ‘How do you know?’

  He yelled back, ‘How do you think?’

  Of course. If anyone would know Addy’s movements…

  Lori heard the air rush out of him, defeat in his tone. Jeremy sighed. ‘Addy didn't do what the cops think she did. I can't believe you think she did any of that stuff.’

  Lori was so used to people telling her she was crazy for thinking Addy was innocent. It was strange to have the tables turned.

  ‘I don’t—’ Lori cleared her throat, forcing herself to speak louder than a whisper, ‘I don't think it was her.’

  Silence again.

  ‘I was looking through my photos, trying to figure it out, put together a timeline or something that proved it wasn’t her…’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I noticed someone in the photos. There was someone watching her.’

  ‘You mean, other than you?’

  ‘That’s not—’

  ‘I’m sorry, just…’ They were getting off track, and Lori was scared she’d say something else stupid and make Jeremy hang up on her. ‘Who was it?’

  There was a rustle, the flicker of paper corners, and Lori could picture him staring down at a photo. She sat on the edge of her stool, leaning forward as if they were in the same room, as if she’d be able to see who it was if she just got a little closer, needing to know, craving.

  ‘I don't want to say it over the phone. I have to show you.’

  It knocked the air out of her, pushing her back in her seat. She rubbed a hand over her face. ‘Why don’t you go to the police?’

  ‘You really think that’d go over well? Stalker gives another suspected stalker an alibi? Points the finger at—’ He stopped just short of saying anything that would stop Lori’s mind spiralling. ‘Just meet me. You’ll see why when I show you.’

  They organised to meet that afternoon at the clinic. As Lori hung up, Em rushed back in, out of breath. ‘Forgot the roster.’ She grabbed it off the bench, folded it in half and slid it into her bag. ‘You okay?’

  Lori stared at the phone in her hand.

  ‘Was that Marina?’

  Lori looked up. ‘Hmm?’

  Em nodded at the phone. ‘Who was it? You look weird.’

  After the way Em had reacted earlier, Lori wanted concrete proof before she tried to convince her again that it wasn't Addy. She wanted to point to the person in Jeremy’s photo, to have a whole list of irrefutable reasons that they could take to Detective Cooper.

  ‘Jeremy. Thinks he has something on Addy.’

  ‘He knows where she is?’

  Lori was fine for Em to jump to conclusions, keeping her own answer vague. ‘He’s not sure…’

  ‘Has he told the police?’

  Lori shook her head.

  ‘You’re not gonna let it go now, are you?’

  ‘Not until they find her.’

  ‘Then do me a favour? Let Coop and the police do their jobs, don’t go putting yourself in harm’s way.’ Em walked out of the kitchen, calling from the front door. ‘And I dare you to tell Olly you’re teaming up with a stalker to find the crazy who tried to burn you alive. Maybe she’ll put you on a psych hold or something, keep you out of trouble for a while.’

  73

  ‘MAYBE I SHOULD.’

  It turned out to be a mistake, telling Olly what Em had said about a psych hold. Lori hadn’t told her the real reason Jeremy had called either. Maybe if she had, they wouldn’t be so… Lori couldn’t put a name to it. Overprotective? Apprehensive? Worried? Either way, she had to keep it to herself a little longer.

  ‘So you think I’m crazy too?’

  ‘No.’ Olly pulled the handbrake, turned off the engine. ‘But I think it’s reckless, trying to find her yourself, trusting in someone you shouldn’t.’

  Lori ended the conversation by climbing out of the car, making note of the section they’d parked in. There was always a small ball of anxiety in her gut in underground carparks; too big, ceilings too low, walls too far apart, blinkers going wild and out of sync as the narrow lanes filled with lines of cars, inching and pushing with drivers impatient to find a park.

  They hurried to the exit, riding the escalator up into a shopping mall just as anxiety-triggering. On her own, Lori would have gone into a single shop and bought a bunch of the same basic shirt, a pair of jeans and a jacket; a habit from her earlier days on the street. But Olly was a let’s-see-what-else-there-is-first kind of shopper.

  Lori lost all sense of direction as they wandered. The only hint of the outside world came from huge sections of glass in the ceilings high above. They walked the length of one side, and then back the other, riding the escalators that went off in all directions. Lori kept a close eye on the time, counting the hours and minutes, needing to know what Jeremy had found.

  She was nearly jumping out of her skin when they stopped for coffee. They were waiting for their order when she saw the clock on the wall, and how little time there was until she needed to be out front of the clinic. Her mind raced, trying to figure out how to hurry things up and get away.

  Olly looked down at her own watch, no doubt calculating and scheduling the rest of the day in her head. ‘Wanna come with me to pick up Chase from the sitter?’ She laughed at the involuntary dread on Lori’s face. ‘It’s okay. You don’t have to. Probably a good call, he’s in a cowboy phase. You’d probably get stuck for hours playing shoot ‘em up. What is it with little boys and guns?’ Olly rattled on, not slowing as the barista called their names and pushed their takeaway cups across the counter.

  Lori knew that when Olly got on a conversational roll she became pliable, easy to guide. Taking advantage, she steered her in and out of the one store, having bought everything she needed to get by.

  Olly dropped her back at Em’s house. In a rush, Lori changed the dressing on her burn, which was healing and nowhere near as painful, and changed into her new clothes, collecting a pile of tags on the bedside table. Everything smelled new, starchy.

  She arrived outside the clinic with a little time to spare. Jeremy wasn’t there yet, so she pulled the hood of her jumper up against the cold and the probing eyes of passersby, stamping her feet to keep the feeling in her toes.

  The agreed meeting time passed. Jeremy was late. Another fifteen minutes went by and Lori didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know where he lived, only that he was in one of the dorms. She supposed she could ask around, but that would bring up more questions than she wanted to answer.

  Half an hour gone and Jeremy was a no-show. Lori wondered if he was just messing with her, not to be trusted. Maybe he was working with Addy, buying time, or getting her off track, pointing her in the wrong direction.

  She was about to give up and leave when flashing lights caught her attention. An ambulance pulled up outside the campus and a single whoop of the siren cleared the footpath. Police waved people out of the way as medics jogged a gurney through the gates. A string of people followed behind, Lori blending in and getting carried along with them.

  At the steps of a nearby building, a barricade of uniformed police officers were stopping students from entering. Lori talked her way in, telling one of the younger uniforms that she was a staff member, sent to supervise the students in the building.

  It was quiet inside. The entrance hall was empty. There was no way to tell what had happened, or where. Lori almost turned around and left, but then she saw the tail-end of the gurney around the corner, abandoned at the bottom of the stairs. She took them at a run, two at a time.

  74

  THE SECOND-FLOOR hallway was empty. The third floor wasn’t. There was a hive of activity around one door in particular. A student’s room. Lori had a sinking feeling in her gut, but she had to see, to know.

  Trying not to draw attention t
o herself, she snuck up to the door. A cop stood just inside, blocking her view. Bouncing up onto her toes, Lori could only just see over his shoulder, glimpses and flashes of movement.

  A limp body was being lowered, slowly coming into view piece by piece. The dirty and worn sole of a shoe, a long shin, a bent knee. A little strip of pale flesh at the hip where their shirt had ridden up.

  The body was sitting on the ground, then being laid back. The muscles in the medics’ arms straining to take the lifeless weight, reverent and gentle. Curled fingers touched the ground, the back of a hand laying flat, arm and elbow and shoulder bumping and rolling down.

  The medic crouched beside the body, obstructing her view of the face. Lori couldn’t tell who it was. A voice inside the room asked why they weren’t working on him. And all too calmly, another replied, ‘Too late.’

  The cop stepped out, talking into his radio. Distracted, he left the door wide open.

  On the far wall was a photo, almost torn in half but held up by blu-tac on the corners. It was of a tree with the sun right behind it, a circular glow coming through the leaves. Lori knew that photo. And then she knew for sure who the room belonged to. Who it was laid out on the floor, unmoving. Who it was deemed too late to save. Jeremy

  The room had been trashed. The desk a mess. The bed tossed. Blankets and sheets and pillows strewn across the mattress. Pieces of his camera, broken and smashed. Photos and posters and books, all torn. Stuff all over the floor.

  The only clear space was where his body lay, cleared by the medics before they lowered him. Lori almost couldn’t bring herself to look at him. At his face. A glimpse was as much as she could handle. The rope was still around his neck, loosened and limp, ragged at the end where it’d been cut to get him down.

  Purple lips, pale cheeks. His eyes were closed, and Lori did the same for a moment, blinking back into the golden light of the low afternoon sun streaming through the window.

  For a while, nothing happened. Everyone in the room was silent, staring but seeing nothing, no one moving.

  Then Lori’s hood was being yanked back, rough hands turning her around. A cop stood behind her, outrage on his face as he took her for a gawker. He took hold of her arm and pulled her down the hallway.

  Lost for words, Lori went along with him until she saw Detective Cooper talking to a student wrapped in a blanket sitting on the floor. She called out to him and he turned, notepad in hand, pen frozen.

  His face morphed from sympathy into confusion and he whispered something to the student, touching their shoulder with a gentle comfort that Lori remembered from the day they’d first met.

  ‘Lori?’ He dismissed the officer by her side, replacing the tight grip with a soft guiding nudge. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Jeremy. He’s my student. He—This is all my fault. He’s dead because of me.’

  Her vision grew dark and tunnelled, her chest felt like it was being squeezed. The muscles in her neck strained, her throat tightened. She couldn’t breathe.

  The ground gave out beneath her and Cooper caught her, steadied her. He called someone over, each taking an arm. They half-carried her out a side door to a little paved area used to store bikes, sitting her on a little plastic tub upended as a stool.

  75

  COOPER ASKED IF Lori needed anything and then gave her a minute. When she could finally breathe, Lori looked up, noticed the guy standing next to him, arms crossed and a hard stare.

  ‘Who’s he?’

  The guy stepped forward, his hand out. ‘Detective King. Anthony.’

  His hand dropped when Lori didn’t take it, instead looking to Cooper to explain.

  ‘He’s my partner. He knows what’s been going on. He wants to help.’

  ‘Too late.’

  Cooper crouched in front of her. ‘You didn’t cause this, Lori. Jeremy committed suicide, he did it himself.’

  ‘No. He wouldn’t. He called me this morning, and he sounded fine. We were meant to meet, he had proof.’

  ‘Proof of what?’

  ‘That Addy is innocent. He said something about a photo, said it proved it wasn’t her. He thought someone took her, kidnapped her, that she wasn’t running away. Cooper, this wasn’t suicide, no matter what it looks like.’

  Detective King stepped forward. ‘You realise what you’re saying?’

  Cooper glanced up at him, then back at Lori with a frown. ‘You think someone killed him?’

  ‘I know someone killed him. And it’s the same person who took Addy. Shit, they probably took Marina too. What if it’s too late? If they killed Jeremy then, then what if…’ Lori couldn’t finish her sentence, couldn’t say the words. If Jeremy was dead, what did that mean for Addy and Marina? Were Em and Olly in danger, all because of her?

  ‘Okay, just calm down. Best thing to do now is to let us do our jobs. We’ll go through Jeremy’s things, see what we can find. You said he had a photo? Any ideas who was in it? Where it was taken? Or when?’

  ‘No. He wouldn’t say anything over the phone. Wanted me to see it.’

  ‘That’s fine. We’ll figure that out when we get to it. Right now though, I’m gonna call Em, get her to take you home. Is that okay?’

  Lori nodded, unable to talk. She stared at the ground, trying to empty her mind of the image of Jeremy laying on the floor. She rubbed the heels of her palms hard into her eyes until there were flashes and sparks and then nothing but black.

  Cooper and Anthony were whispering over in the corner, same tone as the soft hush moving through the trees below.

  Something cold touched her neck, sending a shiver down her spine. She opened her eyes, leaning back to look up. It was snowing. A flurry quickly covering the dirty paving, creating the illusion of a clean slate. Lori dragged her foot across the ground, grinding the dirt and snow together.

  76

  LORI AND EM sat on the couch, staring at the blank television screen. They hadn’t moved since getting home, had hardly spoken since leaving Cooper. Lori was trying to remember everything Jeremy had said when he’d called, even the smallest clue. But all he’d known was that Addy hadn’t burned down her house. When Jeremy had told her, she’d been too distracted asking how he knew that she’d completely set aside the fact of Addy’s innocence, and what it meant. She hadn’t given it a second thought in her haste to find out who it was that Jeremy suspected.

  It felt like the more she knew, the more she didn’t know, and the longer the list of questions that crowded her mind. Did that mean that Addy had been telling her the truth in the locker room? If she really hadn’t burned down her house, did that mean she didn’t do any of the other things either? If it wasn’t Addy, then who was standing in the doorway, waiting for her to wake up? Who was stalking her, if it wasn’t Addy? Who was so angry at her they’d—

  ‘I can’t believe it.’ Em broke the silence, stilling Lori’s racing thoughts.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Jeremy…’

  ‘There’s nothing to believe.’

  ‘I know. But still, suicide?’

  ‘Apparent suicide.’

  Em shuffled around on the couch, turning to face Lori. ‘You don't think he killed himself?’

  Lori shook her head.

  ‘Do the police know? Does Cooper?’

  ‘I told Cooper it wasn’t—that someone had killed him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Don’t know.’ Lori shrugged.

  ‘Addy?’

  ‘No. I don't think so.’

  ‘I mean, who else could it be? It has to be Addy.’

  ‘There's no way Addy could do that. I know her.’

  ‘Lori, you don't know her at all.’ Em leaned forward, ‘Maybe she found out he was stalking her. Didn't like it. Killed him and staged it.’

  ‘No.’ Lori refused to believe Addy would do anything like that. ‘She's not capable.’

  But Em wasn’t convinced. She pushed up off the couch. Lori watched her reflection on the dark screen, pacing behind
the couch. Lori understood her restless agitation; she’d be pacing too if she had the energy.

  Em listed off all the major incidents. ‘She broke into your office, and then your house, tried to drown you, broke up you and Marina, got you fired, chased you around the mountain, and burned your house down. And then she disappeared off the face of the earth when she was found out. What’s stopping her from escalating to murder to cover her own ass?’

  ‘Jeremy broke into my office. Addy has an alibi for the house—’ Lori faltered. ‘Wait, you just said… I never told you—’

  ‘What?’ The look on Em’s face made Lori stand up; a mask of confusion, but it was like she couldn’t help the smile breaking through, almost sinister.

  ‘Drown, you said—No.’ Lori stepped back, bumping into the coffee table. ‘No. Tell me it wasn’t.’

  ‘What?’

  The room shifted. Everything in Lori’s world was suddenly turned upside down and inside out.

  ‘It was you.’

  The smile slipped from Em’s mouth, taken over by a silent fury. Her nostrils flared, eyes empty and hard.

  ‘It was you. The whole time. It was you. Why?’

  In a matter of seconds Em went from silent to yelling. ‘Because you were supposed to need me. You were supposed to come to me. The only person who’s ever been there for you, and I warned you. I told you Addison would tear apart everything you had—’

  ‘But you did that, not her.’

  Em stepped around the couch, finger pointing and punching the air, rough rage in her voice. ‘I told you to stop. But you didn’t listen. And as usual I had to fix everything.’

  Lori glanced down behind her to gauge where the end of the coffee table was and where to step so she’d be out of reach. But it was a glance too long. She looked up to a blur flying at her, a sharp pain, and everything faded, the floor rushing up to meet her as she fell.