A Line in the Dark

by Malinda Lo

  “Thank you.” Cardoni finally looks at me, her expression bland but expectant. “And what’s your name, dear?”

  “Jessica Wong. I’m a junior at West Bedford High.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “You’re about the same age as the victim, we think,” Cardoni says. “Have you heard of any of your friends or classmates going missing lately?”

  Both detectives look at me now, and I drop my gaze to the floor. The detectives are still wearing their shoes, even though they left slush stains on the carpet. My parents only allow important white people to get away with that in our house. I answer, “Yeah, I’ve heard.”

  “You have?” Mom says, startled.

  “What have you heard?” Cardoni asks.

  I rub my palms over my jeans, and then I tuck my hands under my thighs to prevent them from moving. “Just that—that this girl from Pearson Brooke disappeared. People are looking for her.”

  “How did you hear about the girl?” Cardoni asks.

  “Um, on the news. It was before Christmas.”

  Cardoni nods. “Do you remember anything else about this girl? Her name?”

  I hesitate. I look up at Cardoni, whose face is blank. “Ryan,” I say. “Her name is Ryan Dupree. I talked to someone about this before—a police officer from East Bedford.”

  Griffin begins to flip back through his notes.

  Mom says in surprise, “You talked to a police officer? Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “It wasn’t a big deal,” I say. “He was just asking if I knew where she went. I didn’t.”

  Cardoni glances at Griffin, who is now scrolling quickly through something on his phone. Cardoni frowns.

  “Why would a police officer ask you?” Mom demands. “How do you know this girl?”

  “I don’t, not really,” I say. “We weren’t friends or anything. I just know her from Brooke. You know, that arts program.”

  Mom sighs in relief. “Oh, that program.”

  “What program?” Cardoni asks.

  Griffin puts down his phone and returns his attention to me. He seems a little frustrated.

  “She does an art program at Pearson Brooke,” Dad explains, also looking relieved. “Jessica draws pictures.”

  “Her teacher thinks she is very talented,” Mom says. “She makes very colorful pictures of monsters and superheroes. Like Superman?” She sounds almost apologetic.

  I shrink back into the couch.

  “It’s free—the arts program,” Dad adds. “It’s good for her to have some exposure to—to connections at that school, for college.”

  Cardoni smiles at me while Griffin writes something down. “That’s wonderful that you’re an artist,” she says.

  “She’s really good,” Justin says quietly.

  I glance at him in surprise, but he doesn’t acknowledge me.

  Griffin, who has been silent since he first introduced himself, finally speaks up. “You’re pretty close to the park here. I bet it’s a good place to hang out with your friends. When I was your age that’s the kind of stuff we’d do for fun, you know? Chill out, party a little. Do you or your friends ever do that?”

  Dad says immediately, “Jessica wouldn’t know. She doesn’t go into the park.”

  “Jessica is a good girl and isn’t friends with kids who do that,” Mom insists. “She studies at home. Does her—her art.”

  I wince. Cardoni is looking at Mom, but I’m sure she noticed my reaction. “Of course,” the detective says. Griffin opens his mouth, but before he can speak Cardoni continues, “Thank you for taking the time to talk to us tonight. You’ve been very helpful, and I just have one more question before we go. Have any of you been in Ellicott Park in the last two weeks?”

  “No,” Dad says dismissively. “It’s too cold to go to the park. None of us have gone to the park.”

  “I think so too, sir,” Cardoni says. “But I have to ask each one of you to speak for yourselves.”

  Mom shakes her head decisively. “No. I haven’t gone to the park.”

  Justin says, “No.” He cracks a smile at her and adds, “Plus, I hate nature.”

  Everybody laughs nervously, and then it’s my turn. “No, I haven’t been in the park.” My knee is bouncing, and I force it to stop moving.

  Cardoni reaches into her pocket and pulls out a business card, placing it on the scratched coffee table between us. She turns it around to face me, looking at me directly while she says, “This is my card. If you think of anything that might be of help, you give me a call or a text, okay? Anytime.”

  “We will, Detective,” Dad says.

  Cardoni holds my gaze for another moment, then stands up. She turns to my parents. “Thank you for your time. We appreciate it.”

  Mom nods vigorously. “Of course, anything we can do to help.”

  Cardoni gives me one last glance. “Anything at all—it doesn’t have to be big. Sometimes we see things that don’t seem important at all, but it’s not your job to determine if it’s important. That’s what we’re for.”

  I LIE AWAKE LISTENING TO JAMIE’S BREATHING. SHE TOOK the news about the body in the woods pretty well, but Mom made it sound like no big deal. “Somebody died in the park,” she said, “so the police had to do some work there today. You stay away from the park.”

  Jamie went to sleep without a problem, but I can’t stop thinking about it. I want to know how the jogger found her. Did his dog smell it? Had some of the snow melted? What had the jogger seen first? A hand, fingers blue from the cold. Her hair, long strands like wet straw trampled in the snow. Maybe her necklace catching the light.

  I picture the girl on the ground, her body weighting down layers of damp, dead leaves as the snow falls in soft heavy flakes over her, covering her mouth, her eyes, drifting into her nostrils. If that jogger hadn’t found her today, she might have lain there beneath the drifts until spring came, undiscovered, frost spreading across her skin in blue veins, her lips turning purple. When spring finally arrived, the snowmelt would soak through her dress and dampen her hair, making her look as if she’d drowned, and the water would run down her cheeks like tears.

  THE FIRST DAY BACK AT SCHOOL, EVERYONE’S TALKING about the body in the park. Some people think she was a prostitute; others think she must have been a junkie. Nobody asks for my opinion, so I don’t mention that the cops came to my house.

  After school I meet Angie at her locker and wait while she packs up her stuff. She’s wearing a blue cable-knit sweater that I remember from last winter, cords, and waterproof boots. Her hair is pulled back in a simple ponytail, and the only makeup she has on is lip gloss. She looks like my friend again.

  We leave school together without saying anything, but before we’re out of the parking lot, a car honks behind us.

  Margot.

  As the Mini pulls up beside us, she unrolls the passenger side window and leans toward it. “Angie, is your phone dead?”

  Angie looks puzzled. “You tried—oh, I turned it off during last period. Sorry, I forgot to turn it on again.”

  Margot briefly scowls. “Well, I have to talk to you. Do you want a ride home?”

  Angie glances at me, causing Margot to look at me too.

  “Hey, Jess,” Margot says shortly.

  “Hey,” I answer.

  “Sure, we’ll take a ride,” Angie says. “Jess is coming over.”

  Margot doesn’t look pleased. I smile at her, which makes her look even more irritated.

  Angie opens the car door and flips up the front seat so I can climb in the back. I take off my backpack and slide it in, then crawl into the small space. Margot’s messenger bag is on the floor behind her seat. It looks a lot like the bag in the park that’s stuffed with Ryan’s love letters. Once Angie climbs in and shuts the door, Margot pulls into the stree
t with a rough jerk of the wheel. I’m thrown to one side and scramble to find the seat belt.

  “What’s going on?” Angie asks. “Is something wrong?”

  Margot accelerates down the quiet street, and I dig my fingers into the edge of the leather seat to hold on.

  “It’s all over the news,” Margot says tersely. “You didn’t see?”

  “No, I—I didn’t see.”

  Margot reaches for Angie’s hand, and their fingers intertwine, resting on Angie’s leg. I look outside as the wind knocks over a wooden reindeer, one of its thin cable tethers whipping through the air.

  “Ryan’s parents arrived today to identify the body,” Margot says.

  “Oh my God.” Angie sounds subdued. “This is . . . I feel so bad for them. Are you . . . How are you doing?”

  Margot’s jaw tenses. “I don’t know.” She turns into Angie’s driveway and leaves the engine running. “I need to talk to you,” she says to Angie. Her eyes flicker back to me. “Alone.”

  “Sure, of course,” Angie says. She opens the door and climbs out. “Jess, why don’t you go inside? I’ll be there in a minute.” She offers me the keys to the front door.

  I climb out of the Mini and take Angie’s keys. Margot gives me a cool look. “Thanks for the ride,” I tell her.

  Angie gets back in the car and shuts the door, turning to face Margot. I swallow the anger that rushes through me and head up the path to Angie’s front door, sliding the key into the lock with clumsy fingers. The house is silent and feels empty. I drop the keys on the hall table and go upstairs to Angie’s room. Her laptop is on her bed. I grab it and sit down on the floor, then open the computer and click on the internet. It doesn’t take long to find it. The Boston Globe has a story titled, PEARSON BROOKE STUDENT, 16, FOUND DEAD IN EAST BEDFORD WOODS. It’s accompanied by the same yearbook photo the news showed when Ryan was missing, her face frozen permanently in that fake smile.

  EAST BEDFORD—The body of a teen girl that was discovered by a jogger and his dog in Ellicott Park, a wooded area between West Bedford and East Bedford in Essex County, on January 2, has been identified. She was Ryan Dupree, a 16-year-old boarding student at Pearson Brooke Academy. The death is being investigated as a homicide, according to a statement released by the Essex County District Attorney. The cause of death has not yet been verified.

  Originally from Atlanta, Dupree was reported missing on December 17 after she failed to check into her flight home for the holidays. Dupree was initially presumed to be a runaway, because her luggage was missing from her dorm room and friends reported her as being upset the last time they saw her.

  Pearson Brooke Academy issued a statement early Wednesday morning, describing Dupree as “a bright and dedicated student, a valued member of the girls’ field hockey team, and a star on our Model UN.” A hotline for tips relating to Dupree’s disappearance and death has been established and police urge anyone with information to contact them.

  There are several other stories online, but very little additional information. Someone has already set up a Facebook memorial page for Ryan. Reading strangers’ theories about how they think she was killed is like sinking slowly into quicksand, but I can’t stop myself. I heard she was strangled. No, she was raped. She was raped and strangled. A couple of commenters are quick to link her death to the murders of other girls in New England over the past couple of years—a prostitute, a meth addict, a homeless teen—who were also found in wooded areas.

  When Angie enters the room, I look up guiltily. Her eyes are red, as if she’s been crying. She sits down on the floor beside me and leans her head on my shoulder.

  I hold my breath. She stays.

  I extricate my arm from between us and slide it around her. She shudders, inhaling deeply. I tentatively stroke her shoulder. She begins to cry, softly at first, but then the sobs seem to overflow out of her, making her body shake. I put both my arms around her and hold her, and her hair smells like her new peach shampoo and she’s warm and trembling, her face wet against my neck.

  “I’m sorry,” she mutters between sobs. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” I feel like I’ve been given a gift that I’ve wanted for years, but now that I have it, it’s nothing like I expected. Angie’s not supposed to be crying when I hold her.

  She reaches for the box of tissues on her nightstand and pulls out a bunch of them, wadding them up to wipe off her face. Her laptop has slid to the floor, and as I pick it up to move it out of the way, she stops me. “Wait,” she says. “Let me see that.”

  It’s still open to the Facebook memorial page. “You shouldn’t read that,” I warn her, but she grabs her computer and settles it onto her lap. I watch as she scans the page, then scrolls to read more of the comments. Her puffy eyes widen. I see the screen reflected in her irises.

  She closes Facebook deliberately. She blows her nose and throws the tissues toward the trash bin by her desk. They miss and land on the floor. She pulls her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. “Margot says they canceled school today at Brooke and brought in all these counselors to talk to people. She says the police will be there tomorrow to interview all of Ryan’s friends.”

  “Really?” I want to reach out to Angie, to touch her again, but she’s holding herself close now, shutting me out.

  “She says the police will want to talk to us too,” Angie says. “They want to talk to everyone who was at the party.”

  “But I’ve already talked to them.”

  “I know, but we have to talk to them again. Margot says the detectives are going to call our parents tonight. They’re doing all the interviews at Brooke because most of Ryan’s friends are there, and probably because none of the Brooke parents want their kids to go to the police station. So they think it’s easier if we just go there too.”

  I rub my hand over the back of my neck. “When are we supposed to go there?”

  Angie looks drained. “I don’t know. They’re calling our parents. You know what that means.”

  “What?”

  She gazes down at her knees with an expression that is part despair, part anger. “It means I have to tell my parents I lied about where we went. And when they ask why, I have to tell them I’ve been lying to them for years. I have to tell them about Margot.”

  THE CALL COMES WHILE MOM IS MAKING DINNER. I HEAR the phone ring from the living room, where I’m doing my homework on the couch. She answers the phone, then turns off the vent hood over the stove. There’s a long silence. Dad asks her what’s going on, and she says, “It’s the police,” and then my dad seems to take the phone from her because he says, “Hello? This is Peter Wong.”

  I put down my pencil and stop pretending like I’m doing math. I hunch over and listen to my dad’s side of the conversation.

  “What did she do?” he asks. “A party? When?”

  A pause. Someone pulls out a chair, scraping it over the floor.

  “This is just for information? What time?”

  I check my phone, but there’s no message from Angie. I wonder if the police called her parents before mine.

  “All right. Tomorrow at one. Yes, she will be there.”

  My mom exclaims in Chinese, “What happened? Why do they want to talk to her? They already talked to her!”

  “They have new questions,” my dad answers. I hear his footsteps across the kitchen floor, and a moment later they become muffled on the living room carpet. “Jessica,” he says.

  He stands in the doorway with my mom hovering beside him. She looks scared; he looks confused. “Yeah?” I say.

  “The police called,” Dad says. “They want to interview you tomorrow because they say you knew the girl who was in the park. They say you were at a party with her the night she disappeared.”

  “You told us you didn’t know her,” Mom says, bewildered.

  “I barely knew her,”
I say.

  “You lied to us,” Mom says. “Where was this party?”

  “We—Angie and I went to a party at Margot’s house.”

  “Who is Margot?” Dad asks.

  “She’s a friend of Angie’s. She goes to Pearson Brooke.”

  “A friend of Angie’s,” Mom mutters. “I told you, Angie is a bad influence on you. She makes you lie to your parents—”

  “Angie didn’t make me lie! I lied on my own, okay?” My face is hot now, and in the corner of my eye I see Jamie coming down the stairs.

  “What’s going on?” she asks in a small voice.

  “Go back to your room,” Dad orders her.

  Her face turns white, and she runs back upstairs.

  Dad lets out a long sigh. He rubs a hand through his hair and says, “Jessica, you can’t lie like this. You can’t lie to us.”

  “You’re grounded,” Mom says curtly. “No more going to Angie’s house.”

  “Mom—”

  “She’s a bad influence on you,” Mom insists. “She makes you do things. You are like a servant for her, not like a friend! Every time she calls you, you go and do what she wants.”

  “That’s not true—”

  “You think I don’t see?” Mom continues. “I see the way you act with her. I see every time. Jessica, you—you are my daughter. I want you to be happy. If you are lesbian, it’s okay. But you don’t lie to your parents. You don’t let your friend control you like that. You have to tell the truth.”

  I can’t breathe. Mom is looking at me like I’m someone to pity.

  “Tomorrow I will take you to the interview,” Dad says.

  “I can go by myself,” I choke out.

  “No,” Dad says, and for the first time he looks like he might explode. I shrink back into the couch. “I will take you,” he says again. “I will be there. You will tell the police the truth. No more lying.”

  PART

  TWO

  TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW OF MARGOT ADAMS

  Present: