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“There are three interviews,” I say. “Mina talked to Matt

Clarke, Jackie’s grandfather and her little sister Amy, all in

December. Mina dropped the case after talking to Amy,

because she got those threats. Something made her go after

it again in February, but I’m not sure what.”

“She was always bad at leaving things alone,” he mut-

ters. “She probably fi gured the risk was worth it.”

T E S S S H A R P E

217

It’s almost a relief, his frustration. It makes me feel less

guilty about my own.

“Did she ever mention Jackie to you?” I ask. “Even in

passing?”

“Not since you guys were freshmen. She was really into

fi guring it out back then. Remember? It was kind of creepy.”

“She wanted to know what happened. People were still

talking about it when I got out of the hospital and back to

school. She was curious,” I say.

“She was too curious,” Trev says, and his voice cracks on

the words. “She was fucking reckless.”

“You can’t blame her,” I say, and it comes out low and

shaky. “Yes, she was stupid not to tell anyone what was

going on. But it isn’t her fault. It’s
his
fault. He killed her,

whoever the hell is. And he’s going to pay. So are you going

to listen to these with me, or not?”

Trev looks at me with shiny eyes, and I can see it hap-

pen, the way he pulls himself together, seems to grow a

foot, his shoulders squaring. “Play Matt’s fi rst. We were

friends. Maybe I’ll catch something.”

I click on Matt’s interview, keying up my speakers.

There’s a bit of static, and then:

“Okay. You ready, Matt?”

The moment her voice fi lls the room, I’m fl ooded with

it, the pain and relief that comes from hearing her again.

Trev sinks onto the edge of the bed, his fi ngers knotted,

eyes closed.

Hearing her, it’s not the same.

But it’s all we have.

“How did you and Jackie meet?”
Mina asks.

218

F A R F R O M Y O U

I force myself to focus on Matt’s answer. He has a deep,

slow voice, and he pauses between his sentences, like

he’s thinking carefully about each word.
“Our moms were

friends,”
he says.
“She was always around, you know? Girl next

door. I asked her out in eighth grade, and that was it.”

“That’s a long time to be together,”
Mina says, and I can

almost hear the encouraging smile in her voice.

“Yeah,”
Matt agrees.
“She was special.”

“It must have been really hard for you when she went missing.”

There’s a long silence, only broken by rustles and a clink-

ing sound.
“Yeah. It was horrible for everyone. Everyone loved

Jackie.”

I look anywhere but at Trev as the recording contin-

ues. Mina asks Matt about school, about his and Jackie’s

friends, about Jackie’s involvement in youth group and soc-

cer; ordinary, unassuming questions that won’t make him

suspicious. Slowly but surely, she gets him to open up to

her, until she’s asking about the weeks before Jackie disap-

peared, about Detective James and how he’d treated Matt

during the questioning.

“That guy’s an ass,”
Matt scoffs, an edge in his voice.
“He

thought he had it all fi gured out. I wanted to let him search my

truck, but my uncle Rob kept saying they had to get a warrant.

Detective James spent so much time thinking I did it, he didn’t

look anywhere else, and the case got cold. Everyone always says

that the fi rst three days are the most important when someone

goes missing.”

“But he let you go.”

“He didn’t have anything on me,”
Matt says.

T E S S S H A R P E

219

On the recording, a phone rings.
“Just one more question

before you get that. You and Jackie—you guys were, you know,

intimate, right?”

There’s another long pause when the phone rings and

rings. I can picture Mina sitting there, baldly asking Matt if

he’d had sex with his girlfriend, that calm smile on her face,

like she wasn’t crossing some line.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business,”
Matt says.
“And I

think we’re done now.”

“Of course,”
Mina says. There’s a rustling sound, and

then the recording cuts off abruptly.

I look over at Trev, and my heart jackknifes in my chest

at the sheen in his eyes. “We don’t have to listen to any

more,” I say quickly.

His face hardens and he says quietly, “Play them.”

I press Play.

Mina’s interview with Jackie’s grandfather is focused on

Jackie’s childhood. She doesn’t ask any questions about the

case, but once Jack Dennings starts talking about Jackie’s

teen years, Mina keeps steering the interview back to her

relationship with Matt.

I can hear the whistle of the six o’clock train downtown

as I grit my teeth and click on the fi nal interview—the one

with Jackie’s sister, Amy. As it begins to play, I realize the

fi le’s less than a minute long. Both Matt’s and Jack’s inter-

views were more than fi fteen.

“What’s that?”
a girl’s voice asks.

“I was going to record the interview,”
Mina says.
“That

okay?”

220

F A R F R O M Y O U

“No,”
Amy says.
“I told you, I’m not supposed to talk to you.

Turn it off.”

“Okay,”
Mina says. There’s a shuffl ing sound, and then

the recording cuts off abruptly.

Trev frowns. “That’s it?”

“I guess.” I do a quick global search of Amy’s name

to see if Mina had transcribed the interview somewhere

instead of recording it, but all that comes up is the time line

document. “She didn’t put the interview in here.”

“What do you think they talked about?”

“Well, when I talk to Amy, I’ll ask her. She’s friends

with Kyle’s little brother, I’m gonna try to nail down her

schedule.”

“You do that, and I’ll call Matt,” Trev says.

“Are you still in touch?” Trev had never spent much

time with Mina or me at school. I knew who his friends

were, but I’d never been around them much.

“I’ve seen him a few times since I left for college. Playing

soccer with the old team, you know.”

“How bad was Matt into drugs?” I ask. “Are we talking

a little pot, or pills or . . .”

“Meth,” Trev says.

“Shit.”

“Yeah. But that didn’t happen until after Jackie disap-

peared. Or at least, none of our group knew about it. I mean,

he was defi nitely getting to a place where people were wor-

ried. His dad left when we were freshmen, and Matt got

into a lot of fi ghts after. The whole thing with Jackie just

kind of pushed him over the edge.”

T E S S S H A R P E

221

“Do you think he could’ve killed her?”

Trev gets up from my bed, walking over to my window

and pushing my blue curtains aside to look down at the

front yard. “Back then, I would’ve said no way.”

“What about now?”

Trev doesn’t say anything for a while, just stares out my

window, his jaw tense. “I have no idea,” he says. “Maybe

they were in love. Maybe she hated him. Maybe he killed

her. I’m not really trusting my ability to judge people right

now.”

I look away.

“I should go,” Trev says. “I’ll call Matt.”

“See if we can meet him tomorrow,” I say. “Maybe he

said something to Mina off the record or talked to someone

else about Mina’s interest in Jackie. Or maybe he did it.”

As I talk, I can lean forward on my desk so I can push

myself up and out of my chair. My back is killing me. After

the shots, it’s always worse for a day or two before it gets

better, and I can’t hide my sharp intake of breath when I get

to my feet too fast.

Trev turns at the sound, but I make it to my bed and ease

myself down belly-fi rst before he can move to help me.

“You okay?” he asks.

“I’ll fi nd Jack Dennings’s address,” I say, ignoring the

question. “We can go see him too.” I’m beginning to feel

desperate about all of this. I don’t even know how to solve

the murder I witnessed, let alone a three-year-old cold case.

I close my eyes. I’ve been staying up late rereading arti-

cles about Mina’s murder and Jackie’s disappearance. Every

222

F A R F R O M Y O U

time I make an effort to sleep, I’m back at Booker’s Point

with her, and I can’t think about that. So I don’t sleep. Not

when I can help it.

But I can’t fi ght it much longer.

There’s a hand. Warm against my shoulder.

Trev’s hand.

I tilt my head to the side so I can see him. He’s watching

me, sitting beside me, and I don’t look away.

There’s a realization that’s settling in him, something I

think he’s suspected but tried to deny for months, if not

years. An acceptance that’s not begrudging, but hesitant. I

can see it in his face, feel it when he touches me.

“Your back hurts?” he asks.

I tuck my hands underneath my chin and nod. He rests

his hand on my shoulder, and that constant pressure, that

bloom of heat, is another reminder of how present he is.

How gone she is.

“Need anything before I go?”

I shake my head. I’m afraid to speak. Afraid I’ll do some-

thing stupid, like press into his touch.

I can’t do that to him—to myself, to her.

I won’t.

“Do you think she’s up there?” I mumble. The words are

half-lost in the pillow, and he has to tilt forward to hear

them. “Watching us from heaven?”

“I do.” He brushes hair off my forehead with his free

hand, and the backs of his fi ngers graze my temple.

“Must be nice.”

“Sometimes.” Trev keeps stroking my hair, a light touch

T E S S S H A R P E

223

that spreads through me like a warm blanket. “Sometimes

it’s hell, thinking of her watching everything and not get-

ting to be a part of it.”

We stay like that for a while, with her memory wrapped

around us. I’m half-asleep, eyes closed, when he leans over

and presses his lips against my forehead.

His footsteps echo as he leaves my bedroom and I tell

myself I’m crying from the pain.

48

ONE YEAR AGO (SIXTEEN YEARS OLD)

“You know, the whole point of being on a sailboat is to sail,” Trev says.

Mina laughs, and I can feel the vibration of it through my skin.

She’s resting her head on my stomach, and the two of us are lying

out on the deck of the
Sweet Sorrow
, Trev at the helm. Both of them

are reading. Trev’s got some paperback mystery that he sticks in

his pocket when he needs to get up and man the sails. Mina’s been

absorbed in the same hardcover about Watergate for a week, taking

precise notes in her journal. She props it on her knees, highlighting

passages as she goes.

I am content to lie here and listen to them call back and forth to

each other, their familiar, good-natured bickering more soothing than

anything else could be. We’ve been dead in the water for an hour, Trev

too absorbed to chase what little wind there is.

“I don’t see you pulling the rope things to get us going,” Mina says.

“They’re called sails, Mina. And I’m at a really good part.” Trev

holds his book aloft .

She squints at the title. “I fi nished that last week. Want to know

who the murderer is?”

“Don’t ruin it for him,” I protest.

“See, Soph’s on my side. Two against one.”

Mina rolls her eyes and turns a page.

T E S S S H A R P E

225

I fall asleep eventually, lulled by the sun and the rocking of the

boat—and by the pills I took before I got in the car this morning.

When I wake up, the sun’s sinking fast, and Mina has moved up

to sit with Trev. I watch them for a moment, their dark heads bent

together, legs dangling off the side of the boat. And I catch the end

of Trev’s sentence, still half-asleep and hazy. “. . . worried about her?”

“It’s those stupid pills they have her on.”

I freeze. They’re talking about me.