He sits at the counter and drinks a box of strawberry milk.
“You can’t sleep ’cause you’re worried about Dad. About Tia, huh?” he asks. I pick up the kettle I’m heating on the stove, pour myself a cup of tea and turn to him.
“Yes, I think everyone’s a little worried right now, but it’ll be okay,” I say.
“Jason’s mom said you killed her,” he says out of thin air, and I spit my sip of chamomile out involuntarily and gasp—to Dez’s shock, apparently, because he looks terrified. I put mymug down and stare at him, shaking off the tea that’s dripping down the front of my shirt.
“What did you just say?”
“I thought you would say that was stupid or call her a twat or something the way you do with Tia. I didn’t mean to make you mad,” he says, and I immediately console him.
“Honey, no, I’m not mad. It’s just—that’s a terrible thing for someone to say and of course... Tia’s probably... fine.” I force the last word out even though I feel like a psychopath telling my child this when I know the truth. It’s for his own protection, I tell myself.
“Jason told you his mom said that?”
“Kinda. When I messaged him not to come over, he said his mom wouldn’t let him anyway and that he heard her on the phone with one of her friends saying it had to be you who did something to Tia.” I stand in the dim kitchen with absolutely no idea how to respond to this—how to handle this. It’s already starting—the finger-pointing, the whispers, the blame I knew would lie on me before anyone even knew Tia was really gone. I had to do what I did and it’s even clearer now.
“His mom’s a twat anyway, though, right?” Dez asks innocently, and I’m ashamed at how freely I’ve used these words in front of him.
“No, baby, Mrs. Hillier is a very nice person. I’m sure Jason misunderstood the conversation. Look, let’s get you back to bed. We have an early morning tomorrow.”
“Okay.” He comes over and puts his arms around my waist. “Don’t worry. It’ll be okay,” he says. Then he turns and heads up the stairs to his room.
I don’t have time to waste. I feel like Detective Morrison could show up at my front door at any second if he wanted to,that Carson could pull up in the dirt drive at any moment, a fucking SWAT team could have the house surrounded for all I know and I just need to move. I throw my rain boots into a trash bag and carry it out to the garbage bin at the side of the house and push it down to the bottom, making sure regular house trash is on top. Then, back inside, I wrap the coat and gloves I was wearing as tightly as I can into a ball.
After I shower, I put the clothes I was wearing under my coat into the washing machine, just to be extra safe. I go out to the back deck and throw logs onto the fireplace. When I’m satisfied that the fire is strong, I take the wad of wrapped-up coat and gloves and place it on the flames. I stab at it with a fire poker until I see the edges catch, and then I sit on the sofa across from the fire, the exact place I was sitting when Carson talked me into shooting the goddamn stupid gun in the first place, and I watch it burn.
Chapter Seven
Regan
When I arrive at the meeting spot in the town square for the search, it’s a sea of venti macchiatos and Lululemon. Through the puffer coats and ponytails, I spot Sasha sitting on the concrete steps in front of the fountain, and as I get closer, I see Andi, standing next to her holding a cup of coffee and looking... shockingly pale and, frankly, terrible.
“Morning,” I say, knowing Sasha probably thinks I’ve lost it after running out of the theater, and Andi doesn’t understand whatever sick joke she thinks I was playing at with the selfie I sent her. They look surprised to see me. I don’t even know what I’m doing here. I should be in Windsor Locks pounding on every door looking for Jack, but really, where would I begin? Nobody will believe it was him. Do I even really believe it?
“How are you feeling?” Sasha asks, which is probably codefor, did you have to check yourself into a psych ward last night—or what stage are we in of your mental breakdown exactly?—but she’s far too nice to express any of that.
“Fine,” I say, then change the subject. “Is that Drew and Roxie?” I ask, nodding across the square where the two teens sit by the fountain—Drew is wearing a backpack, and Roxie is next to him, holding a folder of papers they seem to be going over together. That’s unusual. I know there was an attempt to shield the kids from this, but of course, by now, the whole tri-state area knows about Tia. There’s no more keeping the kids from it, but they certainly can’t be part of searching for... well, at this point, a body in the woods, because that’s really why we’re here. I guess if I had a teen, I wouldn’t know whether they should be involved or locked in their room until this was all figured out. I’d want to protect them from the trauma of it all. But it’s impossible to know how to handle any of this.
“They wanted to help,” Sasha says, and Andi just nods. She looks like she got hit by a Mack truck. I guess she’s taking all of this harder than I thought. I watch her eyes flick, almost manically, back and forth from a circle of women talking by the fountain to the Pilates girls handing out whistles and flashlights in case folks need them. I see what she’s seeing. She’s not just imagining the quiet accusations; they come in glances over shoulders and in the whispers between friends, but the message is loud. People wonder if she did something to Tia. If anyone knows what unspoken judgment feels like, it’s me.
But Andi doesn’t address it. She casts her bloodshot eyes to the ground, and I feel so much goddamn heartache for what she’s about to go through if Tia isn’t found safe—an innocent person guilty by the court of public opinion. She already knows it. Poor thing.
“So what the hell was with the photo you sent?” she asks, still looking down, poking at the gravel with the toe of her Burberry sneakers.
Sasha looks at me—a look that tells me she wants to know as well, but is too polite to ask. Instead, she offers a tight, sympathetic smile, but her eyes tell me that she’s worried about me. I know I scream “unstable” and need to explain.
“I’m sorry I left like that,” I tell Sasha. I pull the hood of my coat up against the crisp air and sit down on the steps in front of them.
“What happened?” Sasha asks, and I take a deep breath before I speak. I hesitate. I’ve thought about whether I would say anything, but I have to tell someone. I contemplated going to the cops last night. But there are a lot of reasons I can’t do that yet. It’s a small town and the police department is all-hands-on-deck with the missing person search. They also think I’m unstable and won’t take it seriously. Jack was friends with most of the department, and they all attended his funeral. His actual fucking funeral. Everyone was there, witness to it, so they know he’s not hanging around the back of a community theater in Cloverhill Lakes.
So I could report what I saw and appear wildly unhinged... and at the end of the day, what will they do? Whatcanthey really do? Jot down some notes on a form they call a police report between inner eye rolls? No. Not the route for me to take right now.
I did wonder about my meds. I know at least one of them can cause hallucinations, but I feel like I would know. I satup in bed last night looking at the names of each one and googling side effects. I told myself I would stop going down that rabbit hole, at least when Hallie is home, because it can send me into a full-blown panic attack. But I just feel like it’s not in my head.
I took acid in college once and saw six elephants having a tea party in my backyard. They morphed into giant anteaters and sucked up all the grass and trees and the house with their snouts and then they sucked me up and I was in their belly swimming around with all the living room furniture. It was a hoot. Never laughed so hard. But I was aware that I was hallucinating. I think I would know if I was just having an average day and out of nowhere started seeing things. I would know.
So I decide to say something, and if Sasha and Andi don’t believe me, I don’t know what the hell I’ll do next. The heaviness of the depression I can’t claw my way out from under feels so heavy and oppressive, I can’t bear this alone. So I blurt it out.
