Somebody I Used to Know (6 page)

“I know.”

I reached over and pulled the paper toward me. I studied the girl’s face again.
Emily Russell’s face.
Even if she was related to Marissa’s family, which it didn’t appear she was, then what did that matter to me? Marissa’s family had moved on with their lives long ago. I knew they moved away from Hanfort shortly after the funeral. I assumed it was just too painful to see all the places that reminded them of their daughter—playgrounds, schools, parks, friends. I couldn’t blame them.

But then why did the girl have my name and address in her pocket? What was I supposed to do with that?

I doubted Heather could tell me.

“It’s jealousy, too,” Heather said.

“What is?”

“These feelings you have now. The fact that you’re hung up on Marissa after all these years. She was just your college love, but you’re stuck on her because she rejected you for someone else.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “She didn’t have—”

“My husband cheated on me,” Heather said, her face growing somber. “A younger girl.” She forced a laugh, and it sounded thin and brittle. “I know I’ve told you about this. What a stupid cliché he was. Some twenty-year-old who worked in his office, probably couldn’t even walk and chew gum at the same time, the little brat. And he turned me into a cliché as well. The bitter, spurned middle-aged mom who is left taking care of the kids.”

“I’m sorry, Heather. But what are you talking about with Marissa? She didn’t have anyone else. She broke up with me, and then she died. That was it.”

Yes, it had been twenty years, but I still felt a tangled knot of jealousy swelling in my gut. It felt like a living thing, a rapidly growing organism.

“I thought you knew,” she said.

“Knew what?” I asked.

“Oh, Nick. I fear this is just going to rip you wide-open again—”

“What?”

“People saw her that night,” Heather said. “The night of the fire. She was in a bar. Razer’s? Remember that place? Out on Grant Street?”

“I thought that was a dive for locals.”

“It was. But some of us went there sometimes. They didn’t card, and we could get cheap drinks. And no college boys breathed on us there. The locals were actually pretty nice.” Heather swallowed hard and pursed her lips. “Look, Nick, Marissa was there the night of the fire. And she was with an older man.”

“Was it her dad?” I asked.

“Not her dad. And not a professor. They were having a real intimate conversation, like they were emotionally entangled with each other. Nick, we all thought she broke up with you because she was involved with this older man.”

“You saw her?” I asked.

“Does it matter?”

I’d been kicked in the nuts once, during a high school soccer game, and Heather’s words hit me with the same force. A lung-emptying, heart-stabbing pain.

“She wouldn’t do that,” I said. “I would have known.”

“I guess people were protecting you after she died,” Heather said. “What point would there be to telling you about this man if Marissa was already gone? What did it matter at that point?”

“But she—”

I stopped myself. I remembered how Marissa had acted in the days leading up to the breakup and the fire. She was distant, cold. She wouldn’t talk to me or explain the sudden change in her mood. She always told me everything, but she’d suddenly gone silent. If she had been cheating on me, if her loyalties had been divided in some way, then isn’t that exactly how she would have acted? Wouldn’t she already have been pulling away and shutting me out?

“Don’t you think it’s better you know this now?” Heather asked. “Isn’t it better to know the truth about Marissa, even after all this time?”

“It doesn’t make me feel better,” I said.

“You will. Trust me. You can make a fresh start now.” She folded up the newspaper and handed it back to me. “You can stop seeing things that aren’t there.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

G
ina didn’t answer my texts. She almost always did, even when things were bad between us, which they kind of were since she’d called the police on me. Then, when I got to her house—the house she and I used to share—no one answered the door.

I should have left.

I knew to leave. But I didn’t.

Sometimes Andrew played in the backyard, and sometimes he went next door to hang out with the neighbors’ son. So I walked to the back of the house to look.

Andrew was nine and a great kid. He looked a lot like Gina. Dark hair, dark eyes. He was still small for his age, but I figured that would change soon enough. His father, Gina’s ex-boyfriend Phil, was tall, so the kid would eventually get some of that. Still, Andrew and I shared many interests. He liked sports of all kinds, and so did I. He was into monster movies, and he was curious about history. So was I. His father traveled a lot, so there was time for me to play the dad role while Gina and I were married. I’d always wanted to see him more often in the wake of the divorce, but Gina wasn’t ready to go along with that. She thought it would confuse Andrew, since Phil was back trying to play a larger role in his life. My brain told me she was right, at least in the short term. But I struggled to accept a logical argument when I cared so much about the kid.

The voices of children screaming and laughing reached me, and when I came to the back of the house, Andrew saw me.

“Nick!” he shouted.

“Hey, buddy,” I said as he came running over to me. He gave me half of a hug. He was young enough to think it was okay to hug his . . . whatever I was. Father figure? Kind of. Stepdad? Sure.

“Is your mom around?” I asked. The other kids in the yard, four of them, kept up their game. They chased one another in circles and occasionally somebody threw a football.

“She’s at the store.” Andrew pointed behind him. “Candace is watching me.”

“Who?”

I looked up. A teenage girl with long blond hair stood on the neighbors’ deck. I knew the neighbors, the Yarrows. They had a son Andrew’s age, and the two of them played together all the time. But I didn’t know Candace.

“Candace,” Andrew said. “She’s the new babysitter.”

I waved to her. “Hi. I’m Nick. I’m Andrew’s . . . stepdad. I know Steve and Linda Yarrow. I used to live here.”

But Candace looked nervous. Her eyes narrowed, and she twirled the ends of her blond hair with greater ferocity.

“I came by to see Gina,” I said. “But she’s not home.”

Candace stepped back into the Yarrows’ house. I hoped she just heard the teakettle starting to boil or something like that.

“Are you staying for dinner?” Andrew asked. “They’re showing the Reds game on TV. It’s just spring training, though.”

“No, I can’t stay,” I said. “I just wanted to talk to your mom.” Through the Yarrows’ kitchen window, I saw Candace with a phone pressed to her ear. She was talking with a concerned look on her face, and her hair was being twirled within an inch of its life. “I should go if she’s not here. I’m really not supposed to be—”

“Let me just show you one thing.” Andrew reached up and took my hand. He started tugging me toward the Yarrows’ yard, where his friend Donal Yarrow stood holding a football. “We worked out a cool trick play.”

“I can’t, buddy.”

“It will only take a minute. Please? One minute.”

His small body managed to pull me toward the neighbors’ yard, and my feet followed along. I wanted to go. I wanted to lose myself in a silly trick play, the kind of thing that could only be dreamed up by a nine-year-old.

“You’ll like it,” Andrew said. “First you snap the ball. Then the quarterback fakes—”

I stopped. “I can’t. I have to go.”

“It’s only a minute. You never come around.”

“I know. But I will.” I looked at the house. Candace was off the phone, but she stood near the kitchen window, staring out at me. She’d stopped twirling her hair. “It’s a little complicated right now with me and your mom. But we’ll figure it out. That’s what I wanted to talk to her about tonight. I had kind of a long day, and I thought—”

“Are you moving back?” Andrew asked.

“Oh, buddy.” I sighed. “Jesus. I doubt it.”

Andrew looked crushed, like I’d dropped a ton of emotional weight on top of his soul. Tears welled up in his eyes.

I pulled my hand away from his, and then bent down closer to him. I sighed again. “It’s not about you. It’s about your mom and me. But I can’t just come here anymore whenever I want.”

“Or you’ll get arrested again?”

“I didn’t get arrested. But, yes, I could get in trouble.”

Andrew looked away from me, trying to hold back his tears. I remembered that feeling as a kid, those years between being young enough to feel hurt but also feeling too old to cry. “I just want to see you,” he said. “You and Mom don’t care.”

“Don’t say that.” My voice came out with a harshness I hadn’t intended. Andrew looked up at me, his chin quivering. “It’s not true,” I said, lowering my voice. “It’s not true of either of us. But I have to go.”

I gave him a quick kiss on the top of his head, and then walked off toward the car. Candace stood at the window, so I gave her a friendly wave. I wanted to let her know I was leaving, that everything was okay. Back to normal. Nothing to see here.

But when I reached the front of the house, Gina pulled into the driveway. She came out of the car quickly and walked around the front, her big, dark eyes wild. I suddenly knew who Candace was talking to on the phone.

“What the fuck is going on, Nick?” she asked.

“I came to see you.”

“And you tried to take Andrew?” she asked.

“What? No. He wanted to show me a football play. But I told him I couldn’t stay. Did that babysitter say . . .”

Gina slumped back against her car, lifting her hand to rub her forehead. Her body was trim and sleek from her years as a college swimmer, and a strand of brown hair fell across her face. “She just said my ex-husband was here, and he had Andrew by the hand.”

“Jesus, Gina. Do you trust me that little?” I asked.

“I was scared,” she said. “I thought . . . Oh, Nick, I’ve been trying so hard to keep Andrew from getting confused and hurt. Phil’s back, but he’s not always reliable. You’re reliable, but . . .”

“I’m not his dad.”

“I overreacted. I don’t know what I thought.”

“I just wanted to talk to you about Andrew. About me seeing him again. I had a long day, and I wanted something good to focus on.”

Then I heard the approaching sirens.

“Really, Gina? The police?”

I stared at her, raising my arms in disbelief. She turned away.

It looked like I was staying.

CHAPTER NINE

I
waited in the back of a cop car for close to an hour while the police spoke to Gina and Candace and, yes, even Andrew. I gritted my teeth at the thought of him facing questions from a police officer. I knew it was my fault. I should have gone home. I shouldn’t have taken his hand and walked farther into the yard.

But I wanted to heed Heather’s advice. I wanted to get on with my life. Forget Marissa and Emily and be normal: enjoy my job, spend time with my friends, play a basketball game here and there. I wanted to erase Heather’s story about Marissa and the man in the bar from my mind.

The car smelled like body odor and sweat socks. I saw Candace in the window of the neighbor’s house, twirling her hair again, and I quietly wished most of it would fall out, although I couldn’t really blame her either. Someone—Gina most likely, or maybe Linda and Steve—had told her to call if I came over unannounced. Candace followed directions well.

Finally a familiar face showed up outside the cruiser window. He wore an odd little smile, one that made his face seem tilted. Detective Reece then pulled the door open and leaned in.

“This is getting to be a habit,” he said. “We don’t like these kinds of habits in law enforcement, Mr. Hansen.”

“I was just trying to—”

He held up his hand, silencing me. “I spoke to your ex-wife. And your stepson. We’re all clear now. The kid, Andrew, really seems to like you.” Reece laughed a little. “He asked me if I was going to throw you in jail, and I told him no. He’s a bright kid.”

I let out some air. “Thanks.”

“It seems like your ex has a lot going on. I guess the boy’s father is back on the scene, and she wants to make sure everyone knows their boundaries.”

“Boundaries. Yes, I’ve heard that word before,” I said.

“But you’re not off the hook,” Reece said. “Can I trust you to meet me at your apartment in about thirty minutes? I’ve got something to show you.”

What could I say? Where would I go?

“I’ll be waiting,” I said.

*   *   *

Because of my trouble with the police I was later than usual, and Riley acted less happy to see me. He gave me a worried look when I walked in the door, something that said,
I don’t know what you’re up to, but it has me concerned.
He also had an iron bladder for a dog his age, so there were no accidents. I took him on a short walk, fed him when we returned to the apartment, and then waited.

Detective Reece showed up forty-five minutes later and turned down my offer of something to drink. He’d come alone, without the uniformed escort, and we sat at the table again in our same positions. I hoped his visits weren’t becoming part of my daily routine.

“Do I need to apologize to Gina?” I asked. “I know I shouldn’t have been over there.”

“It’s done,” he said. “Do you know how hard it is to be a single parent? My mom was a single parent. It’s stressful.” He took his phone out and scrolled through it again. Then he looked up. “By now I’m sure you’ve seen the identification of the girl in the motel.”

“Emily Russell,” I said.

“She was strangled. Manual strangulation.”

“It sounds awful.”

“It takes a lot of effort to strangle someone, you know. It’s not like the movies where they do it in, like, five seconds. You really have to hold someone down. You’re face-to-face with them.”

“So this was personal,” I said.

“Maybe.”

“Am I off the hook based on the fingerprints and the DNA?” I asked.