“I don’t even know why I’m spending so much time on this,” I said, scratching Winston behind his other ear as his eyes drifted closed in bliss. “It’s probably a dead end. What do I think I’m going to learn from her?”
“You won’t know until you talk to her,” Michael said. “I’m here to help, Shea. Just say the word and I’ll come to the meeting with you.”
Meet Michael in person, face-to-face? Panic twisted through my stomach. The stupid reaction I always had. Now, on top of my usual day-to-day paranoia, I had the fear that Michael in person wouldn’t live up to my imagination of him—and that I would disappoint him, too. Yet part of me wanted to see him at last, and part of me really did want his help. “I’ll think about it.” I looked Winston in the eyes as I said it, getting confidence from the calm way he watched me. Of course you can do it, his expression said to me. What’s the big deal?
“You think about it, Shea,” Michael said. “In the meantime, I’ll get back to work.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
September 2017
BETH
Sometimes, even now, Beth got the idea that she could leave. Why not? She had money, a car. There was nothing stopping her. She could simply go.
So she would get in her car and drive. She’d put her foot on the gas and form a plan in her mind, and yet somehow, no matter where she thought she was going, she always ended up at the lake. She’d find herself standing next to her parked car, looking out over the still water.
Not many people went to the lake. There were only a few spots where cars could park and people could come to enjoy the water. A sparse group of residents lived at the west end of the lake, but the east end, farther inland, was still thick and wild, the land cut only by small back roads. Beth would find herself in a stand of brush, her skin scratched and mosquitoes attacking her as she stared at the water, with no clear memory of exactly how she’d gotten here. She only knew that she’d simply showed up.
The fact that she couldn’t remember always made her queasy, so she’d get back in her car and go home.
And it was comforting, in a way. She had been honest when she’d told Shea about some places holding you like a fist. What she hadn’t said was that sometimes, when that fist was the only thing you knew, you didn’t really want it to let you go.
This time, it was raining. She hadn’t slept again, and she wanted a drink badly, and she was tired, so tired. She’d taken a garbage bag and thrown her parents’ belongings into it—her mother’s cold cream, the ashtray she hated so much, her father’s ties, the stack of magazines on the living room credenza. She’d put the trash at the curb and driven off in the rain.
She’d ended up at the lake, as always.
But something was changing. The last time she’d come here, she’d felt it, and now she felt it again. It wasn’t something she could grasp, but it was like a scent in the air or a breeze on the back of her neck. She wasn’t imagining it. Not this time. Change was coming, and she couldn’t stop it.
You’re not leaving.
You’re not talking.
She needed to talk to Shea again.
She got back into her car and drove home. At first, when she turned off the ignition in the driveway and stared at the curb where the garbage bag had vanished, she sagged in defeat. Then she got angry—that old ice-cold anger she’d had all her life, that had gotten her in so much trouble and still made her feel alive.
She got out of the car and started toward the house in the rain. She stared at the house as she walked, letting it see her gaze roaming over all of its ugly lines, hating it. She nearly snarled as she and the house stared each other down. Then she walked through the front door, which was open, and into the hushed darkness inside.