At last.
But there is still a dead girl. An unnamed dead girl who shows up in her dreams, asking to be known. There is still that bloodied face, beseeching Ruby when she closes her eyes. This is not something she can ignore.
Ruby knows how to be sad. She knows what to do with her sorrow. But what about happiness? What about joy creeping up on despair, disorienting it with laughter and light. What do you do with that contradiction?
In other words: How do you hold your pain close and let it go at the very same time.
It is Tammy who finally makes the call.
Of everyone, she has been the least able to keep me from niggling at her thoughts, though it took time for her to acknowledge things were not quite right. Unlike Mr Jackson, Tammy did not subscribe to any of the national papers; my friend seldom paid attention to the news in general, so for a while there, she had no idea about the murder over in New York. She really was too busy monitoring her father’s sobriety and keeping Rye out of trouble, both men increasingly using her strength and even temper as their leaning post. Days were full, and nights made up for the days, until she’d let a few weeks, and then a few more go by without checking in with me. Back then, she still thought I was with Mr Jackson, remembered me practically hanging up on her when he came through the door, and if she’s honest, this last phone call had bothered her a little. The way I had seemed so consumed by him. It wasn’t enough to make her angry at me, but it was enough to stop her from messaging on my birthday （though she would say she simply forgot）， and enough to keep her attention focused elsewhere.
She’ll reach out if she needs me, she told herself, and that’s it, isn’t it.
That’s how a person slips out of your life so easily. Sometimes forgetting is simply waiting too long.
Time ticked on until one day, as she scrolled through an online fashion magazine, Tammy came across a story about a recent spate of unsolved murders across the country—Is There a Serial Killer on the Loose?—and there was my face. Or a face enough like mine, so that if she closed her eyes and laid the sketch from the article on top of her memories, she could recognise the eyes, and the nose, and my mouth （though she thought at the time: Alice would never look so prissy）。 Still, she tried to argue the worry away. This was some random girl in New York, and Alice was back in town with Mr Jackson, still fawning over him, no doubt. The niggle was enough, however, for Tammy to call my cell phone. A month ago, she’d missed a call from me; there had been no further contact since then. When she tried my number after seeing that sketch, it went straight to voicemail.
Hi, you’ve reached Alice Lee. But you probably already know that. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!
She thought, then and there, about going to the cops. But what would she say? Oh, hey. That picture of a dead girl looks a lot like my best friend. Where does she live? Um … I guess I don’t know these days. Maybe New York City? She was always talking about moving there. Besides, what if the cops came over? There were a lot of things her dad, not to mention her boyfriend and his brothers, would want to keep hidden from someone in uniform. It was easier to believe that some friendships simply run their course.
But last week, as the temperature got higher, and the grey sky pushed down on the lake, Tammy drove back to town. Told Rye she wanted to collect some cash from her mother. Pulling into the gas station on the edge of town, she saw Mr Jackson standing at one of the pumps, looking at his phone. She rolled down her window.
‘Hey, Mr Jac–Jamie. How’s Alice doing?’
Later, in the telling of it, she’ll swear he jumped at the sound of my name. ‘You should have seen the guilty look on his face,’ she’ll say. ‘The way he said I don’t know what you’re talking about! and got out of there as fast as he could.’ But the truth is, it was fear she saw and recognised. She was the one to drive home as fast as she could.
Walking into her old bedroom, she went straight to her collection of silly portraits we’d taken together over the years. And looking at those laughing, oblivious faces, she knew. That Alice Lee would always get back to her. She would never disappear for good.
Not if she had any choice in the matter.
‘Mom!’ Tammy went and lay down in bed with her mother and brought up the story about my murder on her phone. ‘Mom, I think something bad happened to Alice.’
Tammy told her mother everything she knew.
The truth, at that moment, began to unfurl.
I am on my way to being found.
So is he.