“No. No one but Fauver.”
“Fauver? No wonder he talks to me like I’m the biggest moron he’s ever met. I am! So Fauver knows, and isn’t he just a paragon of trustworthiness.”
“I know, he’s scum. But he was working for us, in the beginning. He had the connections who could really sell. I didn’t mean for it to become this big thing. I just… there are these mushrooms that grow here. And I had read somewhere that the Lenape used to use them as a hallucinogenic. We weren’t making ends meet. Someone stole our kayaks out of the shed. Costs were going up. Opal wassix months old. Covid hit. We needed something else. Something reliable. I turned the mushrooms into powder, which made them easier to store and distribute, put into baked goods. And so, I started offering what we liked to call off-the-books hikes. They became popular. Bachelor parties. Even unofficial corporate retreats, finance guys coming down from the city in these big black Range Rovers looking for this magical trip that only we could give them, eager for stories about the Jersey Devil. Then, I don’t know how it happened, but some local kids got their hands on our stuff. We started dealing to people here. And demand got crazy. Everyone wanted in. People were coming by before weekends at the shore, driving here from Philly. We finally had some money. And Fauver could connect us to more people, so we cut him in. We could even save a little. I was doing something, Callie. Jesus Christ, I had some way to spend my time that wasn’t wiping someone’s ass or singing some dumb song or pureeing peaches or looking for the cheapest organic diaper cream online. I was dying, and then all of the sudden, I wasn’t. I had this thing that everyone wanted, that I created. I felt like I belonged in my own life. I didn’t feel like this… stranger to myself anymore.”
“You’re not still doing it, are you?”
Jane shakes her head. “Fauver is, but we’re out.”
“So the hard stuff—that’s all him? Not you guys?” Jenna. Layla Hart. All these people hurt by what was in those little green bags. If Jane has had anything to do with all that… Callie can only feel the edge of her anger, but knows it would be enough to make her whole life split in two.
“Yeah. But I don’t know who else he’s working with, or where it’s coming from. I promise I have nothing to do with it. I’ve been out since the accident. He made sure of that.”
“What are you talking about?” Callie’s voice is high, light, the way it gets before she starts to cry.
“Things got messy when Fauver started in on the heroin and whatever else. We didn’t want to be involved, wanted to part ways with him. He wasn’t ready for that.”
“So Fauver ran you down? That was your accident?”
Jane shakes her head. “No. One of his guys, we think. He’s not that stupid. But, I should have known something was up. He had someone pose as a buyer and I went out to meet them. And then, the next thing I know, I hear the car, and it’s right there…”
“I’m such an idiot.” Callie’s head throbs. “I’ve been out there stopping every fucking silver and white car that I can, sending pictures up to people I know at forensics, interrogating people, and you knew? You knew! And you didn’t tell me that? You said you were picking flowers. My god, Jane.”
“How could I, Cal? Not without telling you everything. And shit, I wanted to. I got close. That day we went for a drive.”
Callie rubs her palms into her eye sockets. So she had been right. There had been something Jane was about to say, that crackle of it in the air. It just wasn’t what she thought. She is so tired of this place, of its inscrutable woods, of the wrong turns she’s making at every moment, the way she feels like she’s never going to get a handle on any of it: Baby Doe, Annabelle, Jenna, the squad and their hazing, and now this, with Jane and Damien and the drugs. She doesn’t know who anyone is anymore. Not even herself.
Jane rubs hertemples. Callie wants to wrap her in a hug, and she wants to scream. She doesn’t know which impulse will win out. She stands, paces around the room while Jane watches her.
“What am I supposed to do, Janie? With my work? This is my job, finding this dealer. I go for Fauver on the heroin, he’s for sure going to implicate you for the mushrooms and we can’t just sweep that under the rug. It’s not the same as selling narcotics but sure as shit still illegal. And both you and Damien wrapped up in this? What happens to Opal? Maybe there would be some kind of deal for turning him in but I can’t guarantee that. I can’t protect you and I can’t know this and stay in my position, Jane. I’m totally, completely, fucked.”
Jane stares straight ahead, still and grave. She whispers, “I’m so sorry, Callie.”
“You asked me to come here. You must have known there was a chance I’d find out. Why did you let me take this job? Why would you bring me into all of this?”
“I needed you. I still need you.”
A creak of a door from down the hall. Opal, rubbing sleep from her eyes, hair tousled, a fistful of blanket in her right hand. Like a little girl in a storybook.
“I had a bad dream,” she says.
Callie is grateful for the interruption, even as it hurts to lay eyes on Opal right now. She checks her watch. “Damien should be back in forty-five minutes. As soon as he pulls up, I’m out.”
She gets Opal a snack and plays with her on the living room floor, before walking her back to her bedroom. Callie can feel Jane watching her but won’t look up to meet her eye. And as soon as she hears Damien in the driveway she gives Opal a hug, tucks her favorite stuffed dog under her arm, kisses her on the forehead, and leaves without saying goodbye to Jane. She glares at Damien in the driveway as he gets out of his truck and raises a hand to her, thinks of telling him off but is so overtaken by rage—at him, at Jane, at herself—that the words won’t come.
She drives toAdrian’s house that night. They drink wine on the porch underneath plaid blankets, watch the sun set over the water.
“I got you some new gloves for the trip. Neoprene. The good stuff.”
Callie sighs, sets down her glass. “I don’t know if I should go. Work just got… complicated.”
He turns toward her but she can’t meet his gaze. This was what she had been worried about, starting a relationship. She couldn’t have predicted this thing with Jane and the drugs, but something else would have interfered. Some other baggage she’d drag with her. Some other way she’d let this good man down.
“Do you not want to? Or—”
“No. No, I really do. But something came up today and it’s goingto be… it’s going to mean I need to shift a lot around.” Jane wasn’t dealing hard drugs, but in a way didn’t she open the door for all of these other things to happen? Fauver seizing his opportunity to spread dirty heroin around. To kids like Layla. To people struggling, like Jenna. But, look what happened when she was merciless with Jenna the night she pulled her over. Callie had thought she was doing what was right, imposing order. But what followed was turmoil, devastation. Can she be the cop she pledged to be and turn in her best friend? Can she bear to be the one who brings Jane to disgrace, ruin? And not just Jane. There’s Opal, who nearly lost her mother once already. Is Callie going to be the one who sends her away now?
Adrian sighs. “Okay. Well we’re meant to leave in two days. I guess just let me know if you’re going to be available.” He swallows the last of his wine and heads inside without saying anything else.
