Somebody I Used to Know (35 page)

“I told them about it, but what good would it do?” she said. “I told them I thought someone was following me, but unless I tell them the whole story, they really aren’t going to listen to me. That’s why I belong at home, protecting my kids.” She shook her head. “I have to go.”

“You can’t do it alone,” I said. “Nobody could.”

She held out her hand, lifting her index finger and placing it against my lips. “When my kids are eighteen, I’m telling the truth. I’m going to the police in Hanfort. Everyone will know what I did. Jade and I agreed. When they’re eighteen, I’ll take whatever punishment is coming my way.”

“And for now?” I asked. “What are you doing now?”

She stood on tiptoes, and we kissed. Long and passionately. My hands slid down her back, below her waist. I gave in to it, lost myself. I pulled her back toward the bedroom. She resisted for a moment, and then finally came with me.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

I
slept deeply and soundly, like a child. I couldn’t say when the last time I’d slept that well was.

I was dimly aware of Marissa through the night. Our lips brushed each other’s. We nestled close together. I didn’t dream.

Before the sun was even up, Marissa stood over me, her hand resting gently on my shoulder.

“What is it?” I asked, coming up from my deep slumber.

“I have to go.”

“No,” I said. “You can’t.”

“I do,” she said. “You can stay in bed.”

“I’m not going back to sleep.”

I threw the covers off me and stood up. She was already dressed and held her purse in her hand. She hadn’t showered and she wore her hair pulled back off her face.

She smiled at me, a little exasperated. She reached up for a moment and pinched her bright red lips between her thumb and forefinger. Exactly like Emily in the store. Her niece. The young woman whose murder started everything.

“I told you this was only for a short time,” Marissa said. “I have to get back to my family. Today. It’s a long drive.”

“I’ll go with you,” I said. “You can’t go alone. It’s dangerous, and you’re tired and upset. I’ll come along.”

“You have a life here.”

“Not enough of one,” I said as I went to my dresser and grabbed fistfuls of clothes—underwear, T-shirts, socks. I looked around for a bag. “I can get another job. I can—”

Then I remembered Andrew. Could I just walk away from him when they needed me the most? No. But I could work something out. Weekend visits. Summer trips. Holidays.

“I’m not letting you walk away again,” I said. “Jesus, after twenty years, to get another chance.”

“Stop, Nick. Just stop.” She placed her hands on my arms, interrupting my attempts at packing. She gently guided my hands back over to the open dresser drawer and nodded at me. I released the clothing, letting it drop where I’d found it. “You can’t come with me.”

“I don’t understand.” I turned from the dresser and took Marissa in my arms. I pulled her closer to me. “Is it your ex-husband? Are you dating someone else? Why can’t I come?”

“It’s not about a man,” she said, almost laughing. She moved back. “Why do men always think it’s about another man? Jade told me you thought all of this was about me and Roger Kirby. And now . . . you still think it’s about a man.”

“I never . . . People told me those things,” I said. “I didn’t know what else to think. How else could I explain your behavior to myself?”

“I’d never do that to you.”

“So what
is
it about?” I asked.

She looked up at me, her eyes clear and determined. “I told you last night. It’s all just too much right now.” She let go of me, her hands slipping out of mine. “I can’t bring anyone else into this. I have to concentrate on my family and keeping them safe.”

“I
am
in this. I didn’t ask for it, but I am. Ever since that girl, your niece, showed up with my name in her pocket, I’ve been in it. And other people are too.”

“Don’t try to follow me,” she said.

I took a step toward her.

“Don’t,” she said. “Stay here. Take care of your life. Your stepson, your job, all of it. It’s good. Trust me, it’s very good here.”

“Not without you, it isn’t,” I said.

She stared at me for a moment, and I could see her wavering.

I turned and went to the closet. I dug into the box and brought out the watch, holding it in the air between us.

“Oh, Nick,” she said. “You kept that?”

“I kept it running. And the time’s still set to two different countries. I’m sure you know which ones.”

“Of course. Did you ever get to New Zealand?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I told you I’ve never even been to Wisconsin.” I locked eyes with her, holding the gaze. “After the fire, I told myself I’d never go to New Zealand. I couldn’t imagine it. Not that it was likely to happen.”

She looked down. She lifted her hand and brushed her eye.

“Marissa . . .”

I waited, expecting at any moment she’d come back into my arms, hold me and embrace me and never let me go.

But she didn’t.

She turned and walked to the front of the apartment, unfastening the chain and lock.

I followed her. I called her name.

I wasn’t even dressed, but I went out the door as she slid into her car, starting the engine and turning on the lights. They caught me in their glow, blinding me.

“Marissa, wait!”

But she backed out, away from me. She swung around and drove off, giving me one last wave as she disappeared.

I didn’t even have my car. I couldn’t catch her.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

W
hen it was time for work, I called one of my friends from the basketball team for a ride, but he was in a meeting. So then I called Laurel. I hoped to leave her out of it so I wouldn’t be tempted to talk about Marissa, but I needed to get to work. Laurel came and picked me up, and then asked why my car was downtown. I said I’d stopped for a drink after work and had too many.

“I took a cab back home,” I said. I felt bad for lying after all she’d done for me.

“I’m glad you had fun,” she said.

“Yeah.”

But she had to know something was wrong. We didn’t talk much. I felt empty and defeated, like a black cloud infused my soul. I stared out the window at the sunshine, watching all the happy people go about their business. We arrived at my car, and I thanked her, reaching for the door handle.

“Did you hear about Lance Hillman?” she asked before I could get out.

“No, what about him?”

“You really didn’t hear?” she asked. “It was on the news last night.”

“I went to bed early.”

“He tried to kill himself in jail. He got ahold of a bedsheet or something and tried to hang himself.”

My body went cold. I dropped my hand from the door, and it fell against my lap like a deadweight. “Tried to? Is he okay?”

“He’s at the hospital. I guess he’s going to pull through. It’s a big deal when a prisoner tries something like this. Lawsuits, investigations. Everybody’s in an uproar.”

“But he’s innocent,” I said.

“He’s what?”

Laurel stared at me, her eyes narrowed.

“What if he’s innocent?” I asked. “He hasn’t even had a trial.”

“Maybe,” she said. “The suicide attempt . . . you could certainly see it as an admission of guilt. Nobody knows. He’s a disturbed guy.”

“Clearly.”

I checked out of the conversation. I replayed Jade’s words and then Marissa’s in my mind. If everything they’d said was true, then Lance Hillman was probably an innocent guy who almost ended his life over a false murder charge.

“Laurel, what would it take for Reece or the cops in Hanfort to investigate Bill Maberry further?”

“He has an alibi. Remember what Reece said? He has a suspect in jail, a guy who possessed something that belonged to Emily Russell. A guy who liked to break into motel rooms and once attacked a woman. It’s a lot stronger than hearsay.”

“True.” I stared out the window at the increasing bustle as Eastland woke up. “And those people . . . the Maberrys. I can’t imagine what they’ve been through. They saw their child run down in the street right in front of their house. I can’t even comprehend that.”

“I don’t want to comprehend it,” Laurel said. “Let’s face it, there are no winners here. Everybody’s taken a few body blows, the Maberrys most of all.” She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel. “My assistant looked into them a little. Kendra Maberry, the wife . . . she never did recover from that blow.”

“What happened to her?” I asked, although I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear.

“Substance abuse problems mostly. It’s a small town, and everyone knew about her downward spiral. I don’t know if that contributed to the end of her marriage, but I have to think it did. You know the stats on marriages breaking up after a couple loses a child.”

“I suspect the stats are worse for people whose child gets run over right in front of their house. I bet it’s worse for people who don’t find any real justice in the courts or anywhere else.”

“I suspect you’re right.” She stopped tapping. “Kendra Maberry seemed to be doing better for a while. She cleaned up. She went to work again. She looked to be moving on in a productive way, but she started to spiral again about a year ago. She started drinking again and who knows what else. She lost her job. Her friends, the ones she has left, are worried about her. They say she started talking more and more about her son, the one who died in that accident all those years ago.”

A year ago
. Around the time the car was found in that pond.

How did she even know?

I felt sick to my stomach. A dull nausea ate away at my insides. I so wanted to exonerate Marissa, to excuse what she and Jade did and grant them the second chance everyone deserved.
They were young. They were guided—poorly—by their father.

But a child died. A child. And the Maberrys lived with that in a much more intense and tragic way than any of the rest of us.

“Is something else on your mind?” Laurel asked.

“I was just thinking, and it seems shallow now. But what if someone like Jade told her story to the cops?”

“It would help. What is this about? You seem really distraught over this guy’s suicide attempt. Don’t you want to see him brought to justice?”

“Not if he’s innocent.” I lifted my hand again and opened the door. “Thanks, Laurel. Talk to you soon.”

“Nick?” she said.

But I was gone.

*   *   *

Fresh flowers sat on Emily’s grave in Richmond. The earth over her plot had started to settle, but no grass grew yet. They hadn’t placed the headstone either.

I took the flowers as a bad sign. Maybe she had already come once that day or the day before and didn’t intend to return. Maybe she was so far away I’d never find her again.

But I was prepared to wait.

I parked my car down the road a little ways and played the radio low. I hoped the chatter of talk or the jagged notes of jazz on the local public station would keep me alert. I’d stopped for coffee and a sandwich on the way down, but I didn’t think I’d need the fuel. My body felt energized, alive. I sensed I was coming to the end of something.

Around five fifteen my spirits started to flag. I tried to tell myself the trip hadn’t been a waste, that just trying to get some answers made the trip worthwhile. But I didn’t know what I’d do if I struck out. The way we’d all been living—in fear, in confusion, an apparently innocent man in jail and then the hospital—was no way to go on.

Something needed to change.

And then around five forty-five I saw her approaching from the same direction she had walked on the day of Emily’s funeral. She wore large round sunglasses and a belted raincoat and carried a bouquet of flowers. She stepped purposefully among the other headstones until she reached the one she sought.

She stood there for long minutes, and I waited. I didn’t want to rob her of the chance to say whatever she had come to say. After a while, she lifted her hand to her mouth, covering the lower half of her face. Her shoulders shook while she cried. I felt like an intruder. A spy.

She bent down and laid the flowers on the dirt-covered plot and then straightened up again.

I pushed the car door open and made the slow, careful walk to the grave.

When I was about ten feet away, I stopped.

Jade must have heard me. She spun around, but didn’t seem scared or nervous.

“It’s you,” she said. “Why are you here of all places? Do you want to wrestle me to the ground or something?”

“I’m sorry I startled you at my house,” I said. “I just needed to know where she was.” Jade stared at me, her eyes still obscured. “And I wanted to thank you. You told Marissa how to find me, and she did.”

“I’m glad,” she said.

“It was short,” I said.

“That’s life on the run,” she said. “I’m on my way out of here now.” She turned away from me and back toward her daughter’s headstone.

“Jade?” I said. “You can’t go.”

“Why can’t I?” she asked, her back still toward me.

“Because an innocent man is in jail for killing Emily. And he tried to hang himself last night.” She lifted her head a little, as though she’d heard something that caught her attention. “Jade, there are a lot of things going on here. Emily was killed. Someone tried to kidnap my stepson. Don’t you think it’s possible that it’s all related? Those people . . . the people who lost their son in that accident . . . they’re responsible for these things as well.”

“Based on what?” she asked.

“What else could it be?”

“And you want me to throw myself on the mercy of the cops on a hunch?” she asked.

“Andrew, my stepson, he’s only nine. He shouldn’t be paying any kind of price for this.”

“What happened to your stepson?” she asked.

“Someone tried to kidnap him, to hurt him.”

Her shoulders slumped a little, but she still didn’t turn around. “I’ve paid a higher price. The proof is right here. Hell, even Marissa didn’t pay that kind of toll. And she was driving the car that day. She’s on her way back to Wisconsin now, you know? Her kids. Her house. She still has all those things. I don’t.”