Echo Bridge

When Anna Valance left the Channel 4 studio, she didn’t notice the tall, gangly black-haired boy who was following her. But then, Anna hadn’t noticed very much of her surroundings for almost a year. Not since her younger sister Courtney had been murdered by her boyfriend.
Allegedly
.

Though the boy sat next to her on the El, Anna had her eyes closed against the rush hour crowd. She didn’t even open them when he jostled her elbow as he stood to leave the train. It wasn’t until she reached her stop and hooked her arms through the shoulders of her leather tote bag that she saw what he’d left behind: a package—a large brown international mailer—with her name on it. Anna glanced around at the people in the train car, wondering where the package had come from and if it was safe to pick up. Her curiosity had always been far greater than her fear, and Anna grabbed the package and shoved it into her bag as she got off the train. In her apartment, she tossed it on the kitchen counter and poured herself a bowl of cereal, which served as dinner on nights like this one, when she came home too tired and too late to feel like cooking and too broke to order a pizza. In other words, Anna had cereal for dinner every night. She crunched her cornflakes and eyed the package, turning the day over in her mind.

Anna was a production assistant on “Heartland Headlines,” a tabloid show dedicated to salacious crimes and domestic scandals, and as an ambitious junior employee, she had been working her butt off. Until Courtney had disappeared into the Souhegan River one night just before last Christmas. Since then, Anna had checked out, doing the bare minimum of tasks to keep her job, which wasn’t hard, since her bosses gave her grief a lot of leeway. Anna spent most of her time reading articles about her sister and the boyfriend and legal briefs of cases where murder charges had been brought without a body. Technically, she could have called it research. Courtney’s murder was exactly the kind of story “Heartland Headlines” would cover.

Edward Parker, 19, was on trial for the murders of Courtney Valance and Hugh Marsden. The year before, all three had been popular, talented seniors at Belknap Country Day School in Belknap, Massachusetts—Anna’s own alma mater. Courtney and Ted, as he was called, were high school sweethearts. Anna had met him two Christmases ago. He’d seemed nice, if a little too jock-next-door for her taste. According to the DA, Courtney had been having an affair with Ted’s best friend, Hugh, and Ted had killed them both. Hugh’s broken neck was initially ruled an unfortunate accident, and for a few weeks, he was mourned by the Country Day community and served as a cautionary tale against partying too hard in the region’s private schools. But then Courtney’s clothes were found in the Souhegan River, just downstream from the Country Day campus. The police were already entertaining the idea that Ted had killed Hugh and that Courtney knew it—their accounts of the night he died didn’t match up. Ted was charged with both murders, but Courtney’s body had never been found. Popular opinion held that she’d been washed out to Boston Harbor by the heavy fall rains that had brought the level of the Souhegan and Charles Rivers to record highs. The thought made Anna shudder. That Courtney’s body had never been found left a question mark at the end of everything.

Anna had barely spoken to Courtney for weeks before she’d disappeared—she’d just started the PA job and had been lucky to find a few hours to sleep and shower. The last time they’d talked, Anna had known Courtney had wanted to tell her something—but she’d been exhausted and exasperated and just trying to get her mother on the phone for their obligatory alternate Tuesday night catch-up. Then she’d heard that a Country Day kid had died—Hugh Marsden. She’d meant to call Courtney and ask if she knew him, how weird school must be even if she didn’t, if she’d gone to the funeral. Their mother had left her voicemails telling her Courtney needed her. But Anna had thought such a long, involved conversation ought to wait until the weekend. On Sunday afternoon, maybe, she could afford to spend a couple of hours on the phone. And then Courtney was gone.

She rattled her spoon in her empty bowl—her apartment was too quiet, sometimes—and set the dish aside. Picking up the package, she slit open one end of the mailer with her thumbnail, and pulled out… a book. The dust jacket was from an old copy of
The Crucible
, the same edition that had sat on the shelf in her childhood bedroom back in Belknap since her junior year of high school. Anna felt as if a cold draft had slipped out of the envelope as well. The night that Courtney had disappeared, she had starred in Country Day’s production of the play. She’d used Anna’s copy of the book for her research. Anna flipped back the cover and saw to her surprise that her own name was written on the inside flap—it wasn’t just the same edition; it was actually her copy of
The Crucible
.

And inside the front cover, there was a note scrawled across the first page in her sister’s long, loopy handwriting:

Anna swallowed, her throat suddenly scratchy and dry. Her knuckles went white as she gripped the book. Courtney was alive.

But where had she gone?

Don’t come after me
.

Perhaps not downstream to Boston Harbor, after all.

Up until the very end, I’d always thought of Ted as one of the golden seniors at Belknap Country Day: broad, blond, captain of the soccer and lacrosse teams, keeper of a 3.7 GPA, and generally well-liked and admired. He drove a Range Rover handed down from his older brother, and his dress code button-downs came from Pink and Ralph Lauren. At first glance, you’d think he must be that same rich jock you’ve seen since Hollywood discovered the youth market and started making movies about high school. But he wasn’t. He was funny and generous and kind. He looked after his younger teammates and helped teachers rearrange their classrooms. In the movie of my life that used to play in my head at all times, where age and era were no object, Ted was played by Brad Pitt, circa
Legends of the Fall
. And at the end of our sophomore year, he’d dumped Elaine Winslow—lean, blond, blue-eyed, All-American gorgeous; nationally ranked golfer; widely recognized as the most beautiful girl in school, even by some of our teachers—to go out with me. So you knew he had taste.

From a distance, Ted and Elaine had seemed like a natural fit, with their matching coloring and the easy, modest way they each handled their athletic accomplishments. But the way Ted told it, when he and Elaine went to the school production of
Othello
and I emerged in my white accordion-pleated chiffon gown and began professing loyalty and duty to my husband and father, that was it for Ted. There could be no one else for him but me. If a boy ever tells you it was your Desdemona that got him, you should probably think long and hard about that before you start blushing and giggling, even if he does have broad shoulders and a smile like a spotlight. He showed up backstage after curtain call on the third and final night of the performance with a dozen of those red-tipped white roses, and I completely forgot whatever ideas I’d had about Paul Patterson, who played Othello and had put word out that he wanted to hook up with me at the cast party.

Ted had only broken up with Elaine the day before. Supposedly, she was devastated. She retreated from the crowd of friends she shared with Ted after that, hanging out mostly with her younger sister and acquiring a new boyfriend, Marshall Rye. He was on the ski team and part of no single clique, but he was friendly with everybody and so was a lock for the “Citizenship Award” at the end of the year, when we would all vote for who was basically the nicest person in our class. Even so, Elaine and I avoided each other, and on occasions when we couldn’t, we each caught the other giving the side-eye. We were both so different, it was impossible not to make comparisons. She was Grace Kelly and I was Sophia Loren.

But the role of Ted Parker’s paramour had been re-cast, and I’d gotten the part. He came to every single performance of all of my plays junior year. The unspoken trade-off was that I went to all his games and cheered like a good girlfriend. I could not have cared less about Belknap Country Day’s athletic record, but I did care about Ted. He took it hard when the team lost, which meant he’d be distracted and edgy until the next game. He was much more fun coming off a victory, clapping younger players on the back and accepting congratulations and compliments with a modest duck of his blond head and an adorable blush creeping up his perfect jaw. So out of my love for him, it was “go get ’em, BCD soccer!”

They beat Charles River Academy one Friday, late September of senior year. It was a blue and gold afternoon that, as Ted drove us to the victory party, was slipping into one of those crisp, starlit New England nights that I still miss, in spite of what happened on that particular one. The party was at Melissa Lewis’ house, which was in one of the newer developments in town, where the houses were large but lacking in character, and there were rules about holiday décor and yard maintenance. Belknap is on the border between metro Boston’s suburban sprawl and farm country. As a result, the town is an odd mishmash of strip malls and split-levels with quaint mom-and-pop shops and historic homes featuring plaques noting the pre-Revolution dates of construction. As far as setting a mood, Belknap posed a problem: were we in a John Hughes movie or a Thornton Wilder play? Granted, this was not a concern plaguing my friends as we gathered around the keg on Melissa’s deck, but I was an actress and film connoisseur; atmosphere was important to me. I never got to choose the soundtrack in Ted’s car, though—he drummed the wheel in time with John Mayer. Live.

“Coach thinks we have a good chance to make the state championships,” he said, putting his right arm up on my shoulder while he made a turn. “Some of this year’s rookies are seriously talented.”

“That’s great,” I said.

“And the Cornell recruiter is coming to the Middlesex game in two weeks.”

“You must be psyched,” I said. “You beat Middlesex last year, right?”

“Well, they have some seriously talented rooks, too. But the same scout saw me against St. Paul’s last year, when I scored three goals in a single half. So my prospects are good. At least, that’s what I’m told.” Ted was looking at me out of the corners of his eyes. College wasn’t a conversation we’d had yet, exactly.

“Well, I’m sure that’s a load off, with the college app frenzy coming up.”

“Listen, Court. It’s a four-hour drive from Ithaca to the city.”

“I know, Ted,” I said. “But you won’t exactly have your weekends free, with two varsity sports. And I haven’t gotten into Tisch yet.” I sighed. I loved Ted—I mean, I certainly thought I did then. But I had three older siblings; I had been schooled in long-distance relationships, and what happened to high school sweethearts who tried to keep it going in college.

“They’d have to be crazy not to take you. You’re a star.” He pulled up in front of Melissa’s house and pulled me into his big arms, burying his face in my black curls. “I’m not going to let a few miles get in our way. We’ll work it out.” He brushed my hair behind my ear.