Nowhere Girl (36 page)

Emma had opened her car door. “Cady,” she called, “wait.” Then she approached us.

In what felt like an act of protection, Patrick put his arm around me. “What do you need, Emma?” I asked her.

“Don't you think it's time to stop bullshitting the world? One day, sooner or later, one of you is going to crack and spill the beans.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but she didn't give me a chance to ask. She spun on her pretty spiked heels and trotted away.

“What beans?” I yelled to her back. “What secret?”

I didn't think she'd heard me, but she suddenly stopped. A few seconds passed before she turned to face me. “You people are excellent actors.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Tell your parents and your sad brother that it's not working anymore.”

“For fuck's sake, Emma, what are you saying?”

Her voice got low. “Everyone knows your family knows who killed Savannah.”

 

CHAPTER

41

After my run-in with Emma at the pizza place, I told Patrick that I wasn't hungry anymore and I needed to get back to work. He dropped me off at the prison so I could get my car and told me to call him if I wanted to talk about what Emma had said or about Savannah and her mysterious boyfriend. I thanked him, but I wanted to be alone.

Every time I got to a scene about Isabelle, I couldn't make my fingers press on the keys of my computer. I was conflicted about her, because I knew how much she'd loved Susannah. Maybe Emma was right. Maybe someone knew something.

I wanted to ask my parents about it. Was there something they weren't telling me? Could they know who killed Savannah? And if they did, why wouldn't they come forward? The only possible answer I could come up with was that if they knew and hadn't said anything for almost twenty years, they were protecting whoever did it. That could only mean one thing. Someone they loved had murdered their daughter.

From that moment, everyone I knew became a suspect, even my parents. Had one of them murdered my sister, confessed to the other, and then they vowed each other to silence? Was it David? Is that why Emma had left him? Could I have possibly done something so unforgivable that I didn't remember it? I needed to talk to someone. I needed answers, but everyone terrified me. What if I confided in the wrong person?

Then there was Gabby and the horrible things she'd written about Savannah in the slam book. I couldn't make myself believe that she could harm another person, but still, I'd been weird around her. She'd invited me over to watch movies, out for coffee, and to the park to make fun of people. But until I figured out what the hell Emma was talking about, I didn't want to see anyone. I used my book binge as an excuse to avoid Gabby and skip Thursday dinners. I was writing nonstop, my own twisted therapy, trying to make sense of what was happening and what had happened.

I knew Gabby couldn't have been the one. She was just protective of me and sided with me all the times Savannah had ditched us for her new friends. Gabby and I were best friends. We always had been. But Savannah and I were inseparable—or we had been until those older girls took her away. Was it possible that my motorcycle-riding, book-loving substitute sister had been so jealous of Savannah that she'd killed her? I tried to remember where we all were when Savannah was attacked. Gabby had piano practice Thursday afternoons, but no one had ever thought to ask Mr. Hartnet if she was actually there. My parents were at the restaurant prepping for dinner. David was at Chandler's house. Would he have had time to kill our sister and then get to Chandler's? A friend who would not only alibi him but who was willing to lie for half their lives?

I couldn't make sense of what Emma had said, and short of asking her what she meant, I'd never know. I was running out of time before my deadline and before Greg came home, so I tried to ignore what I knew and went back to writing. But every time I'd get a sentence out, Emma's words came back to me.
Everyone knows your family knows who did it. Everyone knows. Everyone knows.
Emma was planted firmly in my head, and I couldn't get her out.

My cell rang, and I didn't bother to check the caller ID before I answered. “I can't talk now,” I barked into the phone. “I'll call you later.”

As I went to press the
END CALL
button, I heard Patrick's voice. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You sound frazzled.”

“Where does that bitch get off saying that we know who killed Savannah, that we've known all along?”

He let out a low whistle. “I was wondering when this was going to come back.”

“Do you think she knows? I mean, what if my brother told her something a year ago or ten years ago? What if my entire family knows, and they're not telling me?”

“Come on, Cady. Think about what you're saying. What reason would your parents or your brother or Gabby have to hide this from you?” I started to talk, but he cut me off. “I've known your family for a long time, and one thing is certain: you all want to know who killed your sister.”

“But that's the thing,” I said flatly. “What if they know and they're not telling me because it was one of them?”

“Jesus.” His tone was both angry and incredulous.

I expected him to give me a speech about me knowing my family could never do anything like this and how everyone loved Savannah. I hadn't expected him to be mad.

“Don't you think we know how to do our jobs?”

For some stupid reason, I held up my phone as if I'd be able to see him through it. “That's not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“I don't know. I guess I'm just trying to figure out what she was talking about. Why would she say those things?”

“I'm not a psychologist, but it seems pretty obvious that Emma feels guilty because of what her father did. I mean, think about it. This town was so angry at her father for closing Savannah's case, and now he's been forced to resign. She's just lashing out at you.”

I thought about the article I'd read a few months before and how it seemed to imply that half of the Stanwich police force was corrupt. “Do you really think that's all it is?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “I do. Besides, didn't you say that Emma was a mean girl in high school?”

“She wasn't so much mean as she thought she ruled the world.”

“Same thing, really. So would you really put it past her to screw with you just because she can?”

He had a good point. Emma spent more than a decade manipulating my brother, but still, the damage was done. She had me questioning everything I knew to be true. “Thanks for saying that, but I have to go. I need to call my parents.”

*   *   *

“Honey,” my mother said into the phone. “What a nice surprise. Your father and I have been thinking about you. We've been talking about coming up for your launch party
.
Do you have a—”

“Do you know who killed Savannah?”

My mother made a gurgling noise into the phone. “Cady!” Her tone was sharp. “How can you ask such a thing?”

I was expecting that question. “What would you do for me?”

My father had picked up another extension. “Anything. You know that. We'd do anything for you and your brother.”

“Would you lie for me?”

My mother spoke. “To protect you, yes, we would.”

“Would you lie for David?”

She answered again. “Why are you asking such questions? Have we done something to make you doubt our loyalty, our love?”

I hated it when she got all martyr on me. “On the contrary. I think you'd do anything for us, and I want to know if that includes covering up a murder.”

There. I said it. I said what I couldn't help thinking since that bitch Emma had cornered me at Iano's. Too many pieces were adding up to a nonsensical picture of someone killing their daughter, sister, niece, godchild, friend.

“How dare you!” she roared through the phone. “You can call us back when you're ready to apologize.”

I sat there, my stomach leaden. I felt as stunned as if she had slapped me. “You can't be serious,” I said calmly. “Don't you even want to know why I'd ask such a ludicrous question?”

“There's not one good reason you could ever insinuate that someone who loved Savannah would end her life. The fact that you'd even ask such a question is—” She stopped speaking. “I don't even know what it is,” she finally said, and then she hung up.

 

CHAPTER

42

“Zippy,” Deanna said when I finally, finally answered the house phone after it had been ringing for days. “Just giving you a time check. You have three days to deliver the manuscript.”

“It's done.”

“What?”

“It's done.”

Greg was coming home in a few days, and I'd done nothing but write since he was gone. I looked like hell, my eyes had deep circles underneath them, and I was still wearing pajamas even though it was six in the evening.

“Well,” Deanna said, “my God, that's wonderful. It's not due till Monday. Do you want to hang on to it in case there are any last-minute changes?”

“No,” I said. By now, I was so tired of it. I never wanted to hear about any of the characters or that poor murdered girl under the ice again. I especially did not want to have anything to do with Isabelle, whom I still loved but who had betrayed me, committing the murder “by accident” and then at the end running away. I'd found on the Internet that there existed an underground system of people falsely accused of murder who helped each other disappear. “I'll send it today. I hope the powers that be don't hate it.” I was already pressing
SEND
. “Let me know as soon as you get any news.”

I heard her assistant calling her name, and then something dinged in the background. “Hallelujah,” she said. “It's already here. Ta-ta.”

“Toodle-doo,” I said.

I had seventeen texts. Eight of them were from Brady; five were from Gabby; three were a group message from Chandler to me, David, and Gabby, saying that Odion's citizenship test scores had arrived; and one was from Greg. I was sitting up in bed when I read them, and the next thing I knew, it was ten in the morning, and the sun was streaming through my window. I'd slept for fifteen hours straight, and the landline was ringing.

“Are you coming?” Chandler said.

“Yeah,” I said, not quite awake. “I mean where?”

“What happened to you? Did you get abducted by aliens?”

“I was on a writing binge.”

“Oh, well, we're all at Cookies. Odion got the results of his citizenship test, and he's waiting for all of us to be here before he opens them.”

The conversation I'd had with my parents lingered like a bad dream I couldn't shake. I didn't really think anyone who loved Savannah could have hurt her. Larry Cauchek was a master manipulator. I was sure he was trying to fuck with my head. He'd done a spectacular job.

I had no idea what day it was, but I jumped in the shower, then pulled on a pair of jeans and an old Sotto Sopra T-shirt, put my hair in an elastic, and drove into town while dialing Greg on speakerphone. “It's delivered,” I told him when it went to voice mail. “Hope you're having fun.” I didn't call Brady. His first four texts said I should call him when my binge was over, but I didn't know what to say to any of my friends. I'd only agreed to go to Cookies because Odion hadn't even lived in New Jersey when Savannah died.

“It's here,” Gabby told me when I came through the door. “It's finally here.” Chandler, David, Odion, Madelyn, and Gabby had commandeered the big corner table, and spread before them was a feast of Cookies' pastries.

Odion was grinning wide, his straight, beautiful teeth shining. I went to him and hugged him hard.

“Well, open it,” I told him. “What do you think it says? Did you pass?” I picked up a croissant and sat down next to Chandler.

Madelyn had Odion's flash cards on her lap, and she held them up so I could see them. She was missing a tooth, and she looked so adorable I had the mad thought I'd pick her up and run away with her. I'd come to believe the only way I'd have a baby was if it came from another woman's womb. “Who was the president during World War I?” she asked me.

“Wilson?”

Her face broke into a big grin. “Cady can be a citizenship too,” she said to Odion. The next card read, “What's the longest river in the US?” But I didn't know that one.

“Where you been, little sister?” David asked me. He and Gabby were on the other side of the table with a plate of brownies between them.

“I finished the book.”

“What?” Gabby's eyes got round. “Have you been writing since you called me? The day Greg left? But that was weeks ago.”

Chandler lifted his hand for a high five. “Holy crap, that's fabulous! If it wasn't breakfast time, I'd order champagne.”

Gabby popped up from her seat and came around to hug me, plying my face with kisses, and David grinned, his hair like a tumbleweed, and it seemed like he might have crawled out of bed, but he was handsome in his messy, discombobulated way. I could feel myself relaxing, cursing Emma for making me doubt the people I loved most.

The croissant I'd bitten into was still warm, and I felt like I'd woken up in heaven. “Would you please forget about me? Odion, open the damn”—I saw Mads cover her ears—“I mean
darn
. Open the darn envelope.”

“In a minute,” Odion told me. “Too many nerves right now.”

I took another bite of the croissant, and I felt all happy again, my friends around me, relishing in my accomplishment like it was theirs too, and I guess it was. I made myself push out my suspicions. I couldn't let Larry Cauchek and Emma control me like this. Patrick was right. The police knew how to do their jobs, and they must have ruled all of us out. “Gabby,” I said when she was done mauling me, “how's training going for Hoka Hey?”