Beneath Her Skin

by Gregg Olsen

  “You didn’t give her a copy?” Shania, who’d been mostly silent, asked. Savannah shook her head. “No, this is the only copy.”

  “Good,” Colton said, snatching the tape.

  “Hey!” Savannah called out, lunging at Colton.

  He held the tape from her, like a game of keep-away.

  “You care about these girls,” he said. “You said so yourself.”

  “Give it to me,” she said.

  Colton pushed her, and Savannah slumped back down onto the sofa. It wasn’t a hard shove, but the fact that he’d knocked down a stranger drew a gasp from his mother. What he did next, however, shocked everyone in the log house.

  “I don’t want to see this on Entertainment Tonight,” he said. Without another word, he spun around, opened the woodstove, and shoved the tape inside.

  “Don’t!” Savannah cried out.

  But it was too late. Too, too late.

  “Sorry about the carbon monoxide and the other toxins in the plastic,” Colton said.

  Savannah sat back down and buried her face in her hands. There was nothing she could do. In a very real way, deep down, she was glad that the tape was gone. It had been like a finger pointing at her for almost fifteen years. As she looked back up and watched it melt, then burn, a sense of relief came over her.

  Hayley hugged Colton. Taylor had wanted to do the same. Both understood his reasons for destroying it.

  It was for them. To protect them.

  “Who else has seen it?” Shania asked.

  “No one,” Savannah said. “Just you four, me and that reporter.”

  “Why didn’t you show it to the university?” Taylor asked.

  Tears came once more to Savannah’s sad eyes. “Because…”

  Shania sat down and put her hand on Savannah’s knee. “Why?” she asked.

  Although tears flowed, somehow Savannah pulled herself together and picked out the words she needed to say.

  “Because I was ashamed,” she began. “Guilty. My sister was dead, and anyone else probably would have heeded the warning. I was operating under the assumption that logic should rule the day, not emotions. I messed up. What was on that tape was real. It wasn’t some mumbo-jumbo carnival game. Somehow you two sensed what was going to happen to Serena. Have you done that since? I mean, of course you have.”

  Neither Hayley nor Taylor answered. They might have if Colton and Shania hadn’t been standing there.

  “My sister’s death is my shame, and it will be until the day I die,” Savannah said.

  “You couldn’t have known,” Hayley said.

  Savannah nodded. “But you knew. You were babies, and you knew.”

  “We were babies,” said Taylor. “We didn’t know anything.”

  Savannah didn’t seem convinced. Even in her shock and grief, she was able to process the past like the researcher she once had been.

  “Your age has nothing to do with it, then or now.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Taylor said.

  Savannah shook her head and dried her tears. “Of course you do. Everyone on the bus went into the water and died. But not you two.”

  “I don’t like where this is going,” Colton said, actually meaning every word.

  “Nothing like what happened with you when we were babies has ever happened since,” Taylor said.

  Savannah remained unconvinced. “Really? That surprises me.”

  “Be surprised then,” Taylor said.

  As they sat there, the tape dissolved into the red and orange coals of the woodstove. The only trace that it had burned was a ribbon of dark soot along the top of the glass panel that allowed a peek inside.

  “Really,” Hayley said, looking at Colton and hoping that he didn’t think she was some kind of freak, because she wasn’t. She and her sister did see things differently from others, but they figured they likely weren’t alone in that regard. Sure, they were special, but not any more so than anyone else who could pick up on the hidden hurt, the secret worries, and the dark plans that others foisted upon the unsuspecting.

  While the five of them huddled around the woodstove, all could agree that its contents shouldn’t be disclosed, but there was that reporter and her ceaseless need for attention and recognition.

  How in the world would they convince her to forget about it?

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  It was after 2:45 a.m. when Shania, Colton, Hayley and Taylor got back into the car. For the first few moments, no one said another word. Even after what they’d seen on the video and heard from Savannah Osteen with their own eyes and ears, it seemed as if there were no words to convey whatever anyone was thinking. Hayley caught Colton’s dark eyes in the rearview mirror. He’d protected her and her sister by getting rid of the tape.

  But what did he think of her now?

  “How do we solve a problem like Moira?” Taylor asked.

  In another time and place, Hayley might have teased her sister with singing some corrupted lyrics from their mother’s all-time favorite movie, The Sound of Music.

  How do you crush a reporter with your hands?

  But not then. She resisted the temptation. She kept her mouth shut.

  “Let’s go talk to her,” Colton said, looking first at his mother before turning to face the girls.

  Shania didn’t answer. She merely looked at her son and nodded. Her eyes were focused and free of the shock of the others in the car.

  “When?” Taylor asked.

  “Now,” he said.

  “Now? It’s literally the middle of the night,” Hayley said, looking at her phone, grateful that their parents hadn’t discovered they’d slipped out of the house.

  Shania put the car in gear—the wrong gear—and it lurched forward into the fringy bank of cedar boughs.

  “Sorry,” she said, releasing a small laugh, a laugh that was almost a therapeutic exhale. “A little bit harder than riding a bike. I agree with Colton. We need to get to the reporter’s house.”

  “We don’t know where she lives,” Taylor said.

  Colton held up another Google Maps printout. “Oh, yes we do,” Colton said. “Moira must have left this at Savannah’s. We just have to follow it from here to her place in Paradise Bay.”

  “We have to reason with her and tell her to back off,” Hayley said.

  “That’s right,” Shania said.

  The Camry headed up the highway, on its way to the seemingly wrongly named Paradise Bay.

  Valerie Ryan’s eyelids popped open at 3:21 a.m. No sudden noise. No flash of light preceded it. Just the gentle and predictable unshuttering of her sleeping eyes as they had done countless times over the past decade.

  Valerie lay in bed looking at the big, fat digital numbers on her bedside clock: 3:21. March 21. The first day of spring, the day when her daughters and the others from the Daisy Troop plunged over the side of the bridge into the choppy waters of Hood Canal.

  Without waking Kevin, she got up and slipped on her bathrobe, a Christmas gift from her daughters the year before. That night, she felt a compulsion to check on the girls. It was as if she was being called to do so, quietly, maybe in the way that dogs can only hear certain whistles.

  Valerie crept up the stairs and turned the low knob on Hayley’s door. Moonlight flooded the room, and it was clear that the bed was empty. Racing to Taylor’s room across the narrow landing of the staircase, she saw that Taylor’s bed was empty too.

  Where on earth were they?

  Her brown eyes puddled, but Valerie Ryan didn’t cry. And then she felt it: a mother’s intuition. She touched Taylor’s pillow, still molded with an imprint of her head.

  Are my babies okay?

  Lights from a distant neighbor’s house sparkled against the black water of Paradise Bay as the tide slowly, sluggishly shifted in the stillness of the night. Shania cut the headlights and pulled into the driveway. No one in the car spoke—partly because there was no making real sense of what they’d seen, but also because they�
�d wanted to catch Moira off guard.

  “I’m calling her,” Taylor said, as she pressed her ear to her phone. “Ringing now.”

  “Moira Windsor? I know this is late. It’s Taylor Ryan,” she said.

  “Taylor Ryan? Really?”

  “Yes,” Taylor said. “You’ve been calling.”

  “Yes, I have. I want to talk to you.”

  Taylor delivered the understatement of her life. “You’ve really been a pain—like some kind of stalker. Stalking us! Leaving annoying messages! Bothering our friends. We’re kind of pissed off. But, yeah, my sister and I will talk to you.”

  “That’s great,” Moira said, indifferent to anything other than what she’d wanted. “When?”

  “How about now?”

  “Okay,” Moira said. “I’d rather do it in person, but fine. I’ll put you on speaker so I can take notes.”

  Taylor smiled; as nervous and tired as she was, she loved every moment of this.

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “We’re here. At your house. Right now.”

  A curtain in the window by the front door parted a sliver, then widened. Moira peered out over the gravel driveway toward the idling Camry.

  “So you are,” she said. “Hang on. I’ll let you inside.”

  Colton got out, but his mom stayed in the car. A trail of exhaust curled from its tailpipe into the cold air.

  Moira, fully dressed even at that ridiculous hour, opened the door and came down the steps, squinting into the light from the car. She could see the teenagers silhouetted in the light. The scene was eerie and beautiful.

  Hayley immediately recognized Moira as the young woman who’d been arguing with their father at the pizza place.

  “I’ve seen you,” she said. “You were yelling at my dad.”

  “Actually, he was doing the yelling,” Moira said.

  Why hadn’t their father said something about Moira that night? What had she said to him if she wasn’t a fan wanting a free book?

  “Who’s that?” Moira said, indicating Colton.

  “My sister’s boyfriend,” Taylor said. For the first time, the words felt good instead of acid-reflux inducing. “His mom is here too.”

  She looked over at the car, still running. Shania had rolled down the window and moved her hand. It wasn’t a wave—just an indicator that a person was there.

  There was no need to be friendly. This wasn’t about that at all.

  “Just what do you want with them?” Colton asked, now standing slightly in front of both girls. He was clearly on their side of things.

  “This is between us,” Moira said, looking at the girls, bypassing Colton’s glaring stare. “And they know what I’m after.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, his warm, angry breath leaving puffs of white vapor in the air.

  “Do you mind? This has nothing to do with you.” She looked at Colton and then turned back to Hayley and Taylor. “I saw the tape,” she said.

  “So what?” Taylor said. “Tape’s gone.”

  Moira looked puzzled. “Gone? How so?”

  “I burned it up,” Colton said.

  “You’re a lot of trouble, aren’t you?” Moira stared hard at Colton, annoyed that she had to deal with anyone other than the twins. She took a breath and held out her phone. “Savannah’s tape might be gone. That is, if you were stupid enough to burn it. Doesn’t matter to me. I made a copy. Not the best quality, but good enough.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Hayley said. “Show me.”

  Moira looked down at her phone and pressed a button to start the video. The image was minuscule, but it was good enough to see the pasta message. “Then you’ll talk to me?” she asked.

  “If you have the video, what choice do we have?” Taylor asked. Taylor was stringing Moira along, of course. She would never talk to her. Never.

  Moira brightened a little, glad that things were going her way. “None. None that I can see. By the way, do you know what I’m thinking now?”

  Hayley wanted to say something about how there were no synapses firing in Moira’s head, but she actually did know what she was thinking.

  So did Taylor.

  “You need to leave us alone,” Hayley said.

  Shania tapped the horn, and the teens looked over at the car. Moira turned too, but the clouds blocked the moon and it was hard to see in the dim light.

  A dog started barking, or rather, yapping. It was a very familiar bark-yap.

  Hedda!

  Taylor lost it right then. “You’re the one who took our dog? You took our effing dog?”

  She pushed past Moira, nearly shoving her to the ground, and rushed up to the porch. Her eyes were darts of anger. Colton was at her heels.

  Stunned by being strong-armed, Moira steadied herself. “It wasn’t like that. I found her. I was going to bring her back to your place tomorrow.”

  “You are such a big liar,” Hayley said.

  Moira started to sputter. “I promise. I was. I was going to bring her back. I saw on your Facebook wall that she was missing.”

  Taylor opened the door, bent down and picked up the dog—the laziest, fattest, ugliest doxie in the history of the world was in her arms. At that moment, no one could have taken that dog from her.

  “What a liar!” Taylor repeated. “We’re getting out of here.”

  Hayley tugged at her sister. “Wait! What about the recording?”

  “I don’t care,” Taylor said. “I don’t deal with people like that.”

  “I’m sitting on the story of stories,” Moira said. “And I’m going to tell the world about you. About what you two can do.”

  “Just shut up, you psycho dog-stealer!” It was Colton. “Shut it!”

  “Wait! We can work something out!” Moira said. Her voice was pleading, desperate. She didn’t want to lose this opportunity. She needed to talk to those girls. “You can trust me to do a good job!”

  “This isn’t about a news story, and you know it,” Taylor said.

  Moira was frantic, spinning around and trying to figure out a way to get them to stay. Her bright eyes flashed with fear. Everything she needed, wanted, had to have, was slipping away.

  “Don’t leave! You’ll be sorry if you do.”

  What came out of her mouth then were the words of truth. Whatever she wanted, it was important enough to threaten them.

  You’ll be sorry if you do.

  Just then, the headlights were adjusted to the bright setting and the Camry’s engine revved. Hayley, Colton and Taylor turned to face the car.

  It started across the driveway, gaining speed.

  Moira opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. It was just that quick. She was over the hood, then down on the ground and finally, over the embankment to the water below.

  What had Shania done?

  “Mom!” Colton said, nearly crying at the shock of what had happened. “Mom, what did you do?”

  “Get her phone and get her laptop out of the house. Don’t touch anything else.”

  Colton locked eyes with his mother and nodded.

  Shania had just done the unthinkable, but it was apparent that she had, in fact, thought of everything.

  It took only a second and Colton found the laptop on the dining table amid a nest of empty sparkling water bottles and a half-empty bottle of wine. He snatched up the computer, yanking it from its power cord as he hurried back to the car. While Colton was inside, Hayley recovered Moira’s phone in the gravel of the parking area. She shoved it into her pocket.

  Instinct told her to look for Moira, but when she scanned the water below the bulkhead, she saw nothing—not even a shore bird. Just the ripples of the tide. Moira was dead and gone, and Hayley, scared and worried, felt relief.

  And that bothered her. Deeply.

  It happened so fast. Like gas poured on a bonfire. Whoosh! In less than a minute after Moira was pitched into the black waters of Paradise Bay, the stunned teenagers had piled into the backse
at of the car. Hedda was safely in Taylor’s arms, already asleep despite the horrific turn of events that had just occurred. Hayley leaned into Colton, breathing hard, scared and unsure. He took her hand and gripped it.

  Shania looked in the mirror, her sad, dark eyes assessing each of the kids.

  “Take a deep breath,” she said. “All of you. It had to be done.” Her voice was full of emotion. “I had no choice. I protected what had to be protected. There are things she should not know… or repeat to anyone. I made a promise to Valerie all those years ago…”

  The teenagers looked at each other, unable—or unwilling—to speak. Each knew what the other was feeling inside. They were breathing hard, their eyes wide with shock. All three were scared to death over what they’d done, but deep down they were glad that Moira was gone. As Shania James had said, there was no choice.

  It had to be done.

  Postmortem

  After the flurry of police activity that had marked the weeks following the winter holidays had finally died down, Port Gamble began to return to its more sedate (at least on the surface) and familiar mode. To outsiders, it once more appeared to be the pretty town on the water with the happy faces of visitors and residents, all enjoying views of a stunning bay as spring took over the ice and snow.

  Most who lived there, however, wouldn’t really say that it was quite the same as it had been before Katelyn Berkley’s unfortunate double-tall-skinny death in the bathtub. For many, things were very, very different.

  Harper and Sandra Berkley sublet the remainder of the lease on the Timberline and made plans to start over in a place where there weren’t as many memories. It wasn’t thoughts of their beloved daughter they were running from, but the recollections of living next door to the hurt and hate that had caused her death. They knew that Katelyn’s resentment of Starla had been the spark of the tragedy, but it was easy to lay the blame squarely on the occupants of house number 21. The hatred Sandra had for Mindee, Starla and Teagan had a strange effect on her. She was able to use that emotion to replace the other that had marked her life since she stood on the Hood Canal Bridge, saving only her own child.