“I was still out on the patio, couldn’t sleep. Why are you walking into the woods with a container of gasoline? You don’t seem like the kind of girl who starts forest fires for attention, Sawyer.” Even in the dark I can sense the smug smirk on his face.
“It’s empty. I’m just tossing it out. Trying to make room in my trunk.” It’s the best I can come up with when someone catches me trying to get rid of evidence in the middle of the night.
“So throw it away in the garbage can?” In the low light of the garage lamp I see him motion to the large trash bin that’s outside the garage door. But I’ve gotten three hours of sleep since yesterday and I’m irritable.
“Will you just go inside and leave me alone?”
He’s quiet for a minute, and I hear the crunch of the leaves under his feet as he walks toward me. “I do find it odd that here you are, trying to toss an empty gas container in the woods, the day after a fire burned down your ex-boyfriend’s restaurant.”
I open my mouth, then close it. The container shakes violently in my hands. I need to explain myself, but what do I even say?Where do I start? “I’m going to tell you something, Asher, and you better promise meon your lifethat you will not repeat it.”
Out of pure desperation I fill him in on my current predicament, down to every last detail. The journal entries, the conversation with Grange, how it very much feels like I’m being set up for a murder and I can’t hide the panic and fear in my voice when I finally say it all aloud. It feels good to get it off my chest, but I can’t help but wonder if he’s the wrong person to tell.
“And how do you know I won’t turn around and call this Detective Grange to tell him that you tossed an empty gas can into the woods and took the note from the crime scene?”
Wrong person, definitely the wrong person to tell. I throw the gas container at his chest so quick that he has no choice but to catch it.
“Because now your fingerprints are on the evidence, asshole.”
I hear him huff a laugh. “Well played, Sawyer.” He holds it up. “Let’s toss out some evidence, then, shall we?” I can only blink at his willingness to go along with this plan. We walk into the woods together to dispose of the thing when he starts to talk again. “Now that I have another secret of yours to keep, I’m going to have to think of what I want in return.”
With each day that passes I have a stronger and stronger urge to call up Detective Grange and tell him everything. I wonder if it would help me to get ahead of it, but then I probably shouldn’t have gotten rid of the gas container and the copy of the eulogy, both of which are buried in a shallow grave in the woods behind my house. Asher hasn’t said a word since Sunday, when we all came back to Pembroke and went our separate ways, but I’vebeen sending him long-worded ramblings multiple times a day. I even tried calling him in the middle of the night last night when I couldn’t sleep, but he didn’t pick up. I start to feel paranoid that he did turn me in, but when I get back to campus late Wednesday night, Asher is in my room sprawled across my bed reading a book.
“How’d you get in here?” I demand.
He sits up casually. “Adrienne let me in. Where have you been? I’ve been waiting here for two hours. Adrienne said you only have one class on Wednesdays in the afternoon.”
“Where was I? Where were you? I’ve been freaking out, texting and calling you for three days! I tell you that I think I’m being set up for murder and then you ghost me?”
He stands from my bed, putting the book on my nightstand and adjusting his hoodie. “You need to calm down. I’ve been doing research.”
“Research? Research on what?” I feel like some crazy girlfriend needing to know exactly why he hasn’t been replying to me. I almost want to ask if I can go through his phone.
“I’ve watched moreCriminal Mindsand serial killer documentaries in the past three days than I think some people do in a lifetime. I’ve also learned that the only crime you’ve really committed so far is destroying evidence, which will earn you a hefty fine, but no jail time. And that’s assuming the container was even used for the fire. All three of these deaths could truly have been accidents and someone’s playing a cruel prank on you.”
“You’re suggesting that Ryan and Marco both died accidentally, and someone just happened to be around with my printed journal pages to drop them off as a joke?”
Asher only crosses his arms. “You didn’t answer my question: Where were you today?”
“I didn’t answer because it’s not your business.”
“If you want my help, you’ll have to make it my business.”
“Fine. I was in North Winwick, looking around the restaurant to see if any more copies of the journal page were out there.”
His hands fall to his sides. “You went to the scene of the crime? You never go back to the scene of the crime. You know who does? The criminal.”
“Except I’m not a criminal!” I realize I’m yelling and Adrienne is in her room so I tone it down. “Which you know, because I told you everything.”
“I actually don’t know that. I’m just choosing to believe it.” He walks over to the wall, making an effort to struggle stepping over all my clothes, books, and shoes, to my closet, where there used to be a shelf with books on it. In its place is a giant corkboard with printed names and red string.
I look from the board to him. “Asher, what the fuck.”
“This is how they figure it out in the movies.” He points around the board. “We have Jonah’s, Ryan’s, and Marco’s names all up here. I didn’t think you’d want to have to look at them every day so I didn’t print their pictures. And the thing that ties them all together.” His hand traces over the red string attached to each name and where it leads. “You.” He printed my mug shot and pinned it below the names. “And as we get more suspects, we add them to the board.”
“I can’t have a fucking murder suspect board in my bedroom.” I walk over to it and try to take it from the wall but it won’t budge.
“It’s screwed into the wall,” he says.
