Echo Bridge (27 page)

“I didn’t, I swear,” I gasped. “I did what you asked. I told her I did it, I told the story you wanted. But she didn’t believe me.”

The Students Against Drunk Driving kids who sold refreshments during intermission were still at the other end of the lobby, cleaning up their card table and banner. Keeping his arm around me, Ted guided me outside, to the edge of the yellow circle of light thrown by the floods on the front of the building.

“You know that if I go on trial, I won’t even have to release the videos, right? Charlie—the lawyer—will use you to create reasonable doubt. He’s already putting together evidence that you’re a borderline personality. Impulsive. Promiscuous. Prone to lying for attention.”

I don’t care anymore
, I thought. But it wasn’t true. And whatever happened, I knew that there was still no proof that Ted was anything other than a gross teenage boy. If he was convicted of something, I’d be a victim. And if he wasn’t, I’d be a manipulative whore. There was no way for me to win. Unless I took Ted down with me.

“You can fix this,” Ted said, and I almost laughed in his face, at the idea that anything that had happened over the past several months could be “fixed.” “A few weeks in court and it will be over, no videos, no public smear on your reputation. You’re still seventeen; it was self-defense. The records will probably be sealed. Come with me and talk to Charlie. He’ll walk you through it and tell you exactly what to say.”

“Okay,” I said. I had no intention of doing any such thing, but I wanted to keep Ted relaxed, thinking I was cooperating, until I could choose my moment. “Let me just get my stuff.”

Ted walked with me back to the janitor’s closet. I was still wearing my heavy, stiff Abigail Williams dress, but I didn’t want to stop and change, so I just scooped up the bag with my clothes and followed him out the door.

“Where’s this lawyer’s office?” I asked as we got into the Rover. I kept my voice tired and flat; I didn’t want him to know what I was thinking. This particular detail didn’t seem hard to pull off—everything I’d learned about Ted in the last week had shown me that he didn’t really believe I could think, or that what I thought mattered at all.

“Downtown, but he’s at my house right now,” said Ted, and he started the car.

I drew a map in my head of the route from campus to Ted’s house. I picked the right place to make a move. I pulled out my cell phone.

“What are you doing?” demanded Ted.

“Texting Melissa and Selena that the play went well and I’ll see them later.” I held up the phone so he could see the incoming texts there. “You don’t want them to worry about me, do you?”

“Go ahead,” Ted said. I texted Lexi instead:
echo bridge park. 10 min. stay in car
. Ted snatched the phone as soon as I was done and put it in his pocket. I gave a silent prayer of thanks that he hadn’t looked at the screen.

I did it at the stoplight on Bridge Street. There were no other cars around, and just as the light turned green and Ted hit the gas, I pulled the door handle and tumbled out of the car. Several feet away, Ted hit the breaks, and the passenger door flapped wildly. I heard him yell, “Dammit, Courtney!” and then I was running as fast as I could, gathering the long skirt of my Puritan costume around my waist. I ran into the woods, away from the road, toward the river, although the park was on the far side and I wasn’t sure how close I was to the bridge. Ted had left the car running, windows open, at the traffic light, and I could hear him crashing through the woods behind me. He was an athlete and I was an actress—he could outrun me easily. I didn’t have much time. I stopped worrying about the bridge and headed straight for the river.

In my panic, I had forgotten how high the river was, how it had suddenly developed a current overnight. Under normal circumstances, I could have waded across the Souhegan, but now I could see I would have to swim, and hope that I didn’t get dragged too far downstream. It was December 1
^st
, and I was dressed as a 17
^th
-Century village girl, but I was going to swim across the river. In old Salem, one of the trials of proving a woman a witch was dunking: if you didn’t drown, you burned at the stake. But Ted was getting closer behind me, and I couldn’t stand there and contemplate such poetic coincidences. I jumped.

The water was cold, much colder than I had imagined, and even with my head above water, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I struggled to stay afloat and keep from getting tangled in my dress as it billowed around my limbs. Ted was screaming my name behind me. I kicked my legs frantically and fought the dress, finally managing to swim out of it after ripping some of the seams. Underneath I was wearing a camisole and leggings, and swimming was much easier to do without the dress. My hand struck a rock beneath the water, and I realized that I had reached the far bank. Ted had fallen silent behind me, and I guessed that he had run back to the car, and was now driving the long way around to try to catch me on this side of the river.

I pulled myself up onto the rocks, out of the water. My lungs felt like they were on fire and my heart was pounding, but I couldn’t stop to catch my breath. I got to my feet and began to run again, upstream, toward where I thought the bridge and the park were. But my sense of direction was off, and I hit the road before I arrived at the park, exposed and obvious in my sopping, skimpy clothes. Before I could duck back into the woods, the Rover careened into sight and stopped in the middle of the road. Ted was too quick for me now; he hadn’t taken a dip in a freezing river or been running half as hard as I had been.

“I should kill you!” he screamed, and it was then that I finally saw the thing behind the mask that was Ted Parker: face red, spit flying, tendons standing out in his neck, hands squeezing and squeezing my arms. The psychopath. He took a few deep breaths. “I should throw you in the river and tell everyone it was a suicide. They already think you were screwing Hugh; it won’t be a big leap to convince them you were distraught with grief and guilt.”

Hadn’t I chosen that role myself, not two days earlier?
I guess I’m feeling pretty bleak these days
. I struggled against him, but Ted was much stronger than I was, and his arms were around me like a vice.

“Say another word,” came a voice in the darkness, “and I will shoot you in the head. Let go of her. Now.” Lexi emerged from the woods. She had her grandfather’s gun trained on Ted. And she was willing to use it, I could tell. She was dying to use it.

“Of course,” Ted sighed. He let go of me and took a step back, shaking his head. “Of course it’s you.” He snarled at her. “If it wasn’t for you, none of this would ever have happened.”

“Yeah,” Lexi said flatly. “This is all my fault.” She kept the gun on him and reached for me, pulling my shaking body against her coat. “Now get in your car and drive away.”

“Do you really think this is over?” Ted laughed.

“It is for you,” she said. “When Courtney doesn’t come home tonight, her parents are going to call the police. And they’re going to call you. And eventually they’re going to find Courtney’s clothes in the river and no sign of her. What do you think is going to happen to you then? I bet ten people just saw you two leave campus together. Everyone already thinks she was sleeping with Hugh. They’ll think you had nothing to lose after killing him.”

“What are you talking about?” Ted stared at us, at the gun in Lexi’s hand and me shivering beside her. I felt like my skin was freezing over.

Without wavering her eyes or the gun pointed at Ted’s face, Lexi slipped the thick scarf from around her neck and handed it to me. “Retribution.”

Two headlights slid around a bend in the road about a quarter of a mile away. I flinched, and Ted looked in their direction, his face showing fear for the first time. Lexi didn’t move, didn’t blink. Ted looked back at us, started to speak, and stopped. His shoulders sank, like he was resigning himself to something, and he swung himself into the open driver’s side door, and the Rover peeled out.

“Lexi!” I jumped onto the shoulder of the road, trying to pull her into the woods with me. I had no idea what we’d say if the car pulled over and someone saw us: me soaked through and barely dressed, Lexi clutching that gun and wound so tight she was practically giving off sparks.

She squinted at the car as it slowed, and I saw that it was her Caddie. The passenger door opened and Farah was inside, leaning across the seat, her eyes huge in the dark.

“Are you guys okay?” she asked.

Lexi pushed me into the passenger seat. “Crank up the heater,” she said. She walked around to the driver’s side, and Farah scrambled between the seats into the back. Lexi slid behind the wheel. “We need to make Miranda Wickendam’s travel arrangements a little sooner than expected.”