Follow Me Down Page 17

  How could I? You won’t let me.

  * * *

  Back at the apartment, Eric was walking down the hallway toward me, away from Lucas’s door. He had a tray of coffee with an oily looking brown-paper bag tucked between two paper cups. “I was just about to give up. I thought you were inside ignoring me.”

  I was already feeling the relaxed, slow-mo effects of the Klonopin, and so I could not think of anything witty to say in return.

  “Is this not a good time?” Eric gave me his best guidance-counselor furrowed brow, and I wanted to curl into him and sleep. Just sleep. Sleep until this all turned into a dream. No, now wasn’t a good time. I was never going to have a good time again; my brother was a murderer. It wasn’t a good time because I needed to see what was on this phone. I needed this Klonopin out of me.

  I shook my head. “No, no, sorry. I’m just tired.”

  “Well, aren’t you glad I brought coffee, then?”

  I glanced quick at the Scotch tape as I unlocked the door. Still intact. Was it Mimi coming into the suite? Was she headed here? She was certainly a strong contender for bourbon thief. But even if the nurse was lying and this wasn’t the first and only time Mimi had gotten out, I doubted she had a copy of Lucas’s keys, and then there was the practical matter that Mimi didn’t even have pockets on her nightgown, so how would she courier around a razor, cologne, gel, clothing, and a bottle? No. It was definitely the slobby caretaker.

  * * *

  Inside, I made a mad dash for the bathroom, ran the water, and threw up the Klonopin. I brushed my teeth and drank the water from the tap. In the mirror, my eyes were glassy and the bruise on my cheek was darkening. I was glad I hadn’t bothered to open the blinds before I left; the apartment lighting was so murky. I pulled my hair up and took several deep meditative breaths before going back out to Eric.

  Eric, who at any other time would have been heart-shatteringly adorable because he’d unpacked the coffee and some strudel-looking pastry and set it all out on the coffee table like it was a nice place to drink coffee and eat cake. The coffee table, where his note still lay between our dirty glasses, where my brother’s ball cap no longer lay. The coffee table that was next to the couch where I got laid, where my evil twin plotted how to get away with murder, the table that Joanna’s red hair was strewn across just last night. I needed to get hold of my muddy, muddy thoughts. I deeply regretted the Klonopin.

  Eric started to say something about not knowing what I took in my coffee and so he had cream and sugar and milk. I waved it away; it didn’t matter. I’d drink it black.

  “Tell me about Joanna?” I took the coffee he handed me and sunk into the couch. I needed to know what it was about her, about Joanna, that would have set my brother off, and yes, I knew this was an appalling thought. Laying blame with Joanna, but I was clearly still tripping out on denial.

  He gave me a wary look. “Like what?”

  “Just, tell me about her. I mean, my brother’s being accused of killing her, and I don’t know anything about her. You counseled her, right? I don’t think confidentiality extends after death.” I sounded a tad too callous. I tried again. “I just want to know what you think. Do you think my brother killed her?”

  “God, Mia. You’re putting me in a tough spot here.” If he’d been in a dress shirt, I would have seen him tugging at it, hot under the collar. “I don’t know. I really don’t. When I first heard Joanna was missing, I wasn’t even worried about it. I thought she just ran away. The girl had been heading toward a major rebellion for a while, and so I thought she just wanted to give her parents a scare.

  “Kathy was in the middle of making plans to move to New York with Joanna next year, and Joanna didn’t want to go. Her mom had her at the dance studio every afternoon after school and on weekends. She had a lot of trouble with the other girls there. They disliked her; she was always accused of getting special treatment because her mom owned it. Kathy made her a feature dancer in everything. There was probably a lot of jealousy there too because, from what I heard, Joanna was really talented.” He took a careful sip of his coffee. Swallowed.

  “She also had a falling out with her best friend over something dance related. Again the whole dealing drugs thing, the loser boyfriend. She told me she was—” He suddenly stopped talking. It was like he’d just dropped off a cliff. Pregnant. I mentally finished his sentence.

  “She told you she was what?” Now I was just being masochistic. It was clearly something I didn’t want to know.

  At this, he blew out a heavy breath. “Mia.” He said my name in a way so bloated with sympathy that I flinched.

  “What?”

  “She told me she was seeing someone older that she didn’t want to get in trouble. All this time, I thought she meant Dylan, but maybe she meant Lucas. I’m sorry. I feel like an asshole telling you this.”

  “OK, so if that’s true, what I don’t understand is how did Joanna have a relationship with my brother if her mother kept her under twenty-four-hour surveillance?”

  “Kathy must be asking herself the same thing. But unless you keep your child in a locked room, you can’t be with them every second. I think in a way, Kathy’s possessiveness ironically made Joanna and Lucas very creative about coming up with ways to be together and not get caught. That’s why the police are having such a hard time tracing the trajectory of their relationship.”

  “So you do think Lucas did it.”

  Eric drummed his fingers against his black jeans. Getting grilled like this was probably not what he had in mind when he dropped by.

  “Nooo … not exactly. It doesn’t matter what I think, anyway. Whatever happened, the truth will come out. I believe that.” Eric wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pressed his lips to my temple. Easiest way to slip out of deep conversation? Tell someone everything happened for a reason. Any other day, this would have annoyed me, but today, now, it was all I wanted to hear. I wanted the easiest way out. “Do you want to get out of here? It’s kind of gloomy.”

  I was hours away from turning my brother in. I glanced at the phone that I wanted to charge. That I wanted to put off charging. Did I really want to see what was on it? I don’t know why I assumed it was Lucas’s phone, it could be Joanna’s; either way, the optimism I felt last night was gone. There could be nothing good on this phone. He hid it for a reason. And here something squirmed inside me, why wouldn’t he take it with him? Why did he leave the evidence behind? But then how did I make sense of a man who helped little old ladies get their groceries, and fucked sixteen-year-old girls?

  “Where would we go? I’m, like, the town pariah right now,” I answered, my throat sticky. It was gloomy in there.

  “I don’t know—for a drive? You can wear my helmet, put the visor down, and no one will know who you are. That way you can be an undercover pariah.” I appreciated how Eric was trying to cheer me up, even if it all felt askew. Like small talk at a funeral.

  “How did you bring coffee here, anyway, on a bike?” I sucked air in, and made my voice go light and easy. Fake it ’til you make it (to the police station). Now there’s a cliché I could get on board with right now.

  “With great talent. Like a circus bear on a unicycle, balancing plates.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

  “Funny.”

  “No. I parked it here. Walked down the street, bought the coffee, and walked back. C’mon let’s go.” He tapped my thigh, stood, held out his hands. I put my hands in his, gave him a limp smile, and let him draw me up.

  * * *

  Outside in the parking lot I straddled the bike feeling tangled and strange. The air was muggy and the sun was hazy and hot. Nothing felt real for a second, as Eric kick-started the engine. This was what I needed. A day to get lost. Just one more day being someone whose brother was not a killer (officially anyway). A few more hours of denial. (With any luck, the caretaker would come moseying into Lucas’s apartment and take the phone anyway, and then I wouldn’t have to include it. I should probably have left
the hair and journal out too, for Russ to pilfer.)

  I curled tight into Eric. His skinny rock-star waist. My helmeted head resting against his back, smelling his Bounce-infused T-shirt as he took me up and down Main Street.

  Eventually he parked at a bar called the Stagger Inn. “If you’re worried about the locals, keep your head down until I find us a nice dark spot.” It turned out I didn’t need to worry. It was only noon, and the place was pretty dead. I followed him to the neon-lit bar, staying behind him when he ordered up a pitcher of beer.

  We made our way to the pool tables, and played a couple of games. I was no good at pool, and Eric found this funny. He stood behind me and showed me how to properly hold the cue. When I made a side pocket, we clanged our mugs of beer together. I felt like I was in a pharmaceutical commercial, looking like I was having the time of my life as a cheerful voice-over listed all the dire side effects. Uncontrollable muscle movement, incontinence, heart failure, coma, sudden death.

  When a couple of guys came in that I recognized from high school, I tugged on Eric’s arm. We ducked back to our dim cavern of a table next to a House of the Dead pinball machine (its frantic, attract-mode music a perfect soundtrack to the tension crawling up and down my back) that made me think about Garrett. How he’d accept the envelope with Joanna’s hair and journal with grim-faced sympathy, saying things like You’re doing the right thing Mia—the family can have peace now, while his heart pounded with triumph. I didn’t want to think about him.

  I took another mouthful of flat beer.

  Eric and I spent another hour talking literally about nothing. He was either the most incurious guy I’d ever met (which was nice right now) or else he really was working hard at trying to take my mind off of things. He regaled me with witty stories from his days in Los Angeles, bands he’d played in, and his most clueless students, and I felt warm bewilderment. Here he is (again!)—Mr. Lowe. Full access. All mine.

  When Eric eventually went up to replenish our pitcher, I was starting to feel beer-blurry. Tired and drunk. Whatever Klonopin I still had in my system was giving the beer too much of a boost.

  I dug through my purse for an upper. “What are you taking?” Eric had crept up and dropped down across from me. Beer splashed over the edge. I was going to lie, but then realized I didn’t need to. I had the drunken confidence that Eric would understand. He was my counselor, after all, so I told him.

  “And what does that do?”

  “It keeps me awake.”

  “That’s it?” He made a face that said he didn’t believe me.

  “No. It makes everything come into sharp focus. Like you can feel all of your nerve endings humming along in perfect harmony. Like you’re a second away from unlocking all of the secrets to the universe.” God, I sounded like a dealer at a high school party. I smiled.

  “Hmm. Sounds cool. Can I have one?” His begging look gave me the feeling this wasn’t his first pharma dalliance.

  “Don’t you need to work tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow’s the first day of summer break. I’m officially released of all responsibility.” He put his arms up like a marathoner crossing the finish line.

  “Summer break already?” How the days had scrambled. Right now I could hardly think of how long I’d been in Wayoata. This time of year, I’d start doling out the passive-aggressive Must be nice remarks to my brother, and he’d wisecrack back, It is, it really is.

  “C’mon, I’m feeling adventurous.” Eric held his hand out.

  “Mm. In that case.” I tapped out a small white pill into his palm. He shook it around, like a fine wine swirl, and popped it into his mouth. “But remember, the first one’s free. After that, it’s gonna cost you.…” I eyed him up and down like a pimp.

  “Ha. Cute. But this won’t interfere with my bad heart, right?”

  “Don’t even joke.” I gave him a light punch in the arm.

  “How many did you take?”

  “Three.”

  “Three?” He mocked loose-jaw shock. “You’re not a beginner, then?”

  I shook my head, feeling a burst of relief that I’d finally told someone. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “I hope so. You’re the pharmacist.”

  * * *

  We finished our beers and left. Back on his bike, we kicked up gravel down a back road that took us near the Harold’s Grocers processing plants, then drove off to the outskirts of town. We motored alongside Dickson Park, a blur of shimmery green that went on for miles. I spotted a coyote skulking along the shoulder of the road, like it was hunting something down. When I blinked, it was gone. Eric sped up and we cut down the highway like a razor. I was, I guess, feeling self-destructive. Part of me wanted to let go of Eric’s waist and skid across the highway, my head bouncing off asphalt, knocking out what I knew. I wanted the bike to wobble out from underneath us in a fiery, drunken, doped-up bike wreck so I’d never have to turn my brother in. Maybe I’d join Mimi at the LightHouse care home, our cracked-up brains sitting loose between our ears like bath loofahs. We’d be even-Steven and the plastic bag with a dead girl’s English journal and lock of hair would get lost under the seat of an abandoned rented PT cruiser.

  Eventually Eric turned off near the sandpits, where limestone made the water glow like nuclear waste. I held on tight as we jolted down a sandy hill and circled back out. Wind whipped across my face and into my ears, suffocating all thought. I felt a weight sweeping off my chest at each passing mile out of town, and then returning, all at once, when our ride was over and we passed the welcome sign. By the time Eric took me home, the sun was setting. And the sky was a swirl of candy-floss pink as if a plug had been pulled and day was being flushed.

  It was my Fear and Loathing in Wayoata afternoon.

  * * *

  Back at the apartment, Eric stood by the door, leaning into the wall. He was drunker and more wired than me; his pupils were narrowed discs. “Is there anything more I can do for you right now?”

  He said it as if he’d just handed me a menu of sexual favors. Or maybe it only felt that way, because this entire day felt like a last meal before the shit-storm came hailing down on me.

  What more could he do for me? Give me an orgasm? Fuck me senseless so I’d forget about all of this for a little while longer?

  I started to undo his belt. Yes, I wanted to be fucked senseless. We stumbled toward the couch. I’d felt queasy sick about doing this the first time, and yet I couldn’t let myself think ahead to how I’d feel. Because maybe this would be the last nice thing I’d feel in a long time.

  He moved me onto his lap. Unhooked my bra and pulled off my shirt. His mouth was on my nipples, as his hands kneaded my back, traveled up my neck and into my hair. He pulled me back suddenly by my hair—it stung in a good way—then pressed his mouth hard against my lips. We shared an almost violent kiss; his teeth caught my bottom lip. I tasted blood. He peeled off my jeans, picked me back up onto him, then he gripped my hips and moved me back and forth. His mouth pressed into my ear, and I listened to him moan my name. Mia, you feel so good. It was over quickly.

  13

  DAY 6

  MONDAY

  Eric and I slept in and said an awkward, hungover good-bye at the door.

  From the window, I watched him leave. He crossed the parking lot toward his motorcycle, which glinted in the late-morning sun. Madison had already set herself up by the pool, and when she saw Eric, she yelled something. He stopped, moved his sunglasses to the top of his head. Walked over to the pool. A scowl on his face. He was probably wondering what the hell she was doing there. She looked like she was teasing him about something, then stood and went over to the fence. He said something, and her head dropped and she wiped her eye. Then Eric’s hands moved across the fence to her bare shoulders and stayed, I thought, a second too long before he got on his bike and drove off.

  * * *

  I couldn’t put it off any longer. I plugged in the phone and waited for its slow resurrection. I scrolled t
hrough the contacts first, thinking there’d just be one: Joanna or Lucas. It was a secret cell, after all. But there was a long list of contacts. I didn’t recognize any of the names. I wasn’t listed, neither was Wyatt. There was no contact info for Madison or her brother Ben or Dylan Yates.

  I’d been avoiding the camera icon. I took a breath, tapped the screen. There were at least a hundred pictures. I started sliding through them, the first few a blurry series of a hockey rink, then a couple of close-ups of a thick, bleeding steak, several teenage faces I didn’t recognize. Then a leg. It took me a second to fully grasp what I was looking at or, more accurately, who I was looking at. Legs bare, spread-eagled. A towel underneath her pelvis. Under the towel, a boy’s quilt decorated with fire engines. Panties half pulled to the side, a hand making a V gesture next to her crotch. I could tell from the angle that the hand did not belong to the person taking the picture. In the next picture, the fingers were inside her panties and another person was standing above the girl’s head, his hand resting near his groin. In the next, the panties were gone. In the next, her shirt was pulled up. Next a beer bottle was pressed against her inner thigh. It was Joanna Wilkes, her face slack, clearly unconscious.

  Then, jarringly, a can of SpaghettiOs. Then the can next to Joanna’s crotch, then the can being poured out on her vagina. Then three more pictures of the runny mess disappearing into folds, that unnaturally bright red-orange sauce spreading down her pale white thighs. I bit the inside of my mouth. Horrified at this bizarre act of degradation. What was this? A sexual assault, some kind of sick Internet thing that people posted and passed around?