The tall officer had tears in his eyes. He jerked his gaze away from Lena’s; she saw the clench of his jaw.
Lena’s last memory of her husband was him propped between the officers’ shoulders, messily objecting to being escorted out of the house, his eyes justifiably confused.
On her way upstairs to check on Rachel, Lena caught her reflection in the dark window.
What had she just done, with barely a thought, by the strength of something deep and ancient?
There were a million things that could go wrong, but Lena decided to stay focused on the details, not the big picture, no thoughts about the boy—oh god, the boy—or his parents, his parents, how she’d been on her way to Gary’s—
Stay focused.
When she received the early-morning call about Tim’s death, Lena’s first reaction was that this removed an entire set of complications.
Rachel presented a problem: she was hysterical, insistent on confessing. The girl could hardly sit still long enough for Lena to make her understand that coming clean would be an empty gesture.
It would be a pointless sacrifice, Lena scolded, completely self-indulgent. What made sense was to piece together the evening, determine who might know something, and then consider their options.
Bryce had invited Rachel to the party, Rachel said, and after Lena shut the door to her room, Rachel had slipped to the dark garage, driven herself down the hill in Tim’s car. It dawned on Rachel too late that she didn’t belong there.
It was older kids and they ignored her. She’d hung on the side, watched them play beer pong, gathered the courage to play two rounds, said goodbye to no one, walked to her car alone.
No one saw me, Rachel insisted. No one ever sees me.
Thank your lucky stars if that’s true, Lena snapped.
After months of nervous silence, Lena began to finally understand that those four hours were hers alone.
But in Lena’s mind, the two names will forever be fused: Bryce Neary and Rachel Meeker.
How many times will she be overcome at the thought of their young lives intersecting: passing each other at a playground, on the riverbank searching for clams, the invisible line connecting them: she will kill you, she will kill you, she will kill you.
And I will cover it up.
THE DAILY POST
August 5
The body of a Juniper County man was found in a creek by hikers at 3 P.M. on Sunday, August 8th.
According to County Coroner Gomez, David Ratzen, 25, a.k.a. Colin Williams, was discovered in a creek below the Lynx Hollow hiking trail. Mr. Ratzen had been reported missing on June 11th, after he failed to pick up a paycheck from the Kingdom School, where he was an employee. He was also a first-year graduate student in the master’s program at The Seminary of the Foothills, focusing on religious musical studies and education.
He was last seen on June 1, when he was a guest at a party in Cottonwood Estates, the subdivision that abuts Lynx Hollow trail. His car was later found on a deserted side road at the southeastern border of the neighborhood.
Since his disappearance, Ratzen has been the subject of an ongoing police investigation. The sheriff had been in communication with at least two Texas district attorneys in regards to outstanding warrants for Ratzen on charges of indecency with a child by contact and exposure, stemming from Ratzen’s employment at Music Beats Academy and Harker County Middle School’s theater department. “It’s a complex situation, to say the least,” a spokesperson said. “This guy was clearly on the run.”
Ratzen was declared dead at 3:30 P.M. on Sunday. His body was sent to the medical examiner for an autopsy to determine the exact cause of death. No foul play is suspected.
“I think it’s a sad but necessary reminder,” the spokesperson said. “We tend to get casual with nature, to think of the trails as our backyards, but precaution—proper footwear, knowledge of the weather—can be the difference between life and death.”
Jen Chun-Pagano knocked on my door today. She was selling raffle tickets for the Kingdom School. Before I could invite her in for tea, she launched right into her sales spiel—they were hiring a consultant and writing a charter school petition and putting together a board of trustees. From now on, everything would be by the book.
I bought twenty dollars’ worth of tickets, and Jen handed me the receipt with a big smile that faded when I asked how she and Abe were doing, in light of the article in last week’s paper.
I’ll never forgive myself, she told me, for bringing him into our neighborhood. I was totally fooled.
Don’t be silly, I said. No one blames you.