I wait for some kind of emotional reaction, and can’t yet decide how to interpret the lack of one.
Anna and Rachel used to be friends, but that was a very long time ago. Perhaps her lack of emotion is normal, to be expected. People our age are rarely still in touch with the friends they went to school with. There was no social media or e-mail back then; we didn’t even have the Internet or mobile phones. Hard to imagine a life like that now—it must have been so much quieter. We’re both from a generation that was better at moving on, rather than holding on to friendships that had run their course.
I regret telling her almost instantly.
I’ve gained nothing from doing so, and it was unprofessional. Next of kin haven’t even been informed yet. Besides, it isn’t as though I need Anna to confess to how much she hated Rachel Hopkins. I already know that.
My phone buzzes again, interrupting the silence that had parked itself between us.
“We’re going to have to pause this little reunion. I need to go,” I say, already rolling up my window.
“Why? Worried the whole town might find out that you’re stalking your ex-wife?”
I consider not telling her any more, but she’s going to find out soon enough.
“They’ve found something that might help identify the killer,” I say, starting the engine and driving away without looking back.
Her
Tuesday 11:00
I watch Jack drive away, and wonder what my face did when he told me that the dead woman was Rachel Hopkins. I hope I didn’t react at all, but it’s hard to tell, and Jack knows me a lot better than anyone else. He has always been able to see straight through me when I’m trying to hide something.
I saw his crappy car parked on the street as soon as I stepped outside Mum’s house. It’s a secondhand rust bucket, probably all he can afford, now that he’s living with a woman who is allergic to working for a living. Since leaving me, Jack has found himself a new home, along with a new mortgage to pay, and a new child to support. All on just the one salary. We were together for over fifteen years, and for a long time I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it. I think I understand now. It’s as though I’ve lived lots of different lives in one lifetime, and the one I shared with him was never meant to last forever. Sometimes we hold on too tight to the wrong people, until it hurts so much we have to let go.
I wait until his car has completely disappeared from view before taking the photo out of my pocket. Finding it inside the jewelry box in my old bedroom gave me goose bumps, and what Jack just told me made them return. It might have been a very long time since we were all at school together, but I still recognize every one of the faces in the picture. And I remember the night it was taken. When we all dressed up trying to look older than we were, getting ready to do something that we shouldn’t. An evening not all of us would live to regret.
I peer down at the face of Rachel Hopkins, a younger version of the dead woman in the woods staring back at me. We are standing next to each other in the photo. Her arm is wrapped around my bare shoulder, as though we were friends, but we were not. She’s smiling—I am too, but I can see mine isn’t real. If only I’d been more honest then, I might not have to hide behind a lifetime of lies now. I wish I’d never had to move to that awful school. We would never have met and it would never have happened.
* * *
I found out something was wrong during a double English lesson, a few months after my father had disappeared. The school secretary, with her unnaturally pale face and contrasting colorful clothes, knocked once then stuck her too-small head around the classroom door.
“Anna Andrews?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. The whole class turned to stare at me.
“The headmistress would like to see you.”
It made very little sense at the time; I’d never been in trouble before. I followed the secretary in obedient silence, then sat outside the office with no clue as to what I had done, or why I was there. The headmistress didn’t keep me waiting long, and as she beckoned me inside the warm room—which I remember smelled like jam—I saw all the books on her shelves and felt a little better. It looked like a library, and I thought nothing too terrible could ever happen inside one of those. I was wrong.
“Do you know why I’ve asked to see you?” she said.
The woman had short gray hair, styled in a way that made it look as though she was wearing rollers and had forgotten to take them out. She always wore twinsets, pearls, and pink lipstick, and had a large brown mole on her cheek that I struggled not to stare at. I thought she was prehistoric at the time, but she was probably no older than I am now. People my age seemed ancient back then.