The Little Woods (22 page)

“Tell you what?”

“About your sister. About Clare.”

It came back to me in a strange flood—Clare, the bag, the
bones—and for a second I thought I might faint again, but I shook myself out of it.

“How did you know?”

She exhaled and shook her head. “I’ve been wondering what was up with you for a while. I knew there was something you were hiding, but God, I didn’t think for a second it was that. I saw you when Alex told you. I saw the look on your face, saw you go down like a load of bricks, and I just knew. I asked one of the policemen if Clare’s last name was Wood, and that settled it. God, Cally, I can’t even comprehend. I don’t even know what to say. I am so sorry.”

She squeezed my arm, and before I knew it, I was crying, and she held me there, my snotty, weeping face smashed against her like a child’s, and I thought this must be what it was like to have a sister. I told her everything after that. Well, not everything. I didn’t tell her about Jack, but I told her about finding the body, about the encryption, about the dragon. We went back to my room and I curled up on my bed, cold and too tired to cry.

“Poor thing,” she said, patting my leg. “I wish I could give you some brandy. That’s what they always do in the movies. Sucks being seventeen.”

She had a look at the dragon in my closet and shuddered.

“That can’t be good,” she said.

“Dragons are good luck in some cultures,” I muttered.

“Yeah, but still. This is disturbing.”

I shrugged and asked her if she was absolutely positive she couldn’t procure that brandy.

I had her take another look at the puzzle box and the note,
and humming to herself, eyebrows furrowed, she examined it while I closed my eyes, drifting into and out of sleep.

It took Sophie about five minutes to cover the cryptographic ground it had taken me weeks to attain, and I felt like an ass for not giving her the note in the first place. Sometimes the smartest people don’t make a big deal about how smart they are. Sophie was one of those people.

She tapped her finger against the paper. “This doesn’t look good.”

“You mean you can’t decipher it?”

“Not without knowing the starting point of the key text, no, but that’s not what I meant. I mean why did someone send this to you, the sister of one of the missing girls, right after the body of another girl was found?”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “I’ve thought about this. I realize the person who killed Iris could be the same person who took my sister, and I know the person who left me the box could be the same person, but it also could be someone else, someone who knows something and is trying to communicate with me. I just need to figure out what they’re trying to say.”

“Cally,” she said, fastening her eyes on me. “This isn’t a game.”

“I know it’s not a game.”

“The thing that worries me is if someone knows something about your sister, why come to you? Why not go to the police? Leaving this for you, it just seems really bad. Really creepy. You said someone left it for you?”

“With Ms. Sjursen.”

“Great. I’m sure that wasn’t an accident.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that her memory is notoriously bad. Even if she did remember someone, no one would believe her. That was planned. Whoever left this for you is smart. They’re thinking several steps ahead.”

“More than that, considering I don’t even know what the hell’s happening.”

“What do the police say?”

She looked at me with such guilelessness that I almost couldn’t bear to disappoint her. I shook my head, and her mouth fell open.

“You didn’t tell the police?”

“What are the police going to do?” I whined. “They’ll just take it all away from me and then I’ll never know what happened to her. I know there has to be more to solve with the box. I just have to figure it out. Whatever this person has to say to me, whether it’s the killer, or someone else, I know it has to do with my sister, and I can’t risk losing that chance.”

Sophie shook her head. “No. You have to hand it over. You might be in danger.”

“They’re not going to be able to protect me. They couldn’t protect Iris. They couldn’t protect Clare. They couldn’t even find her.”

“Cally,” she said, her voice low and soft, the kind of voice you’d use to talk to kittens. “This isn’t negotiable. You have to tell them. It’s not just about you. Other people might be in danger.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but how could I?

“Fine,” I sighed. “But let me make a copy of the note before I hand it away.”

When I’d finished, we walked up to the top of campus in search of Cryker.

“It’ll be okay,” she said, her arm around my shoulder. “Everything will be okay. And I’ll go in with you.”

But when we got to the teachers’ lounge, an officer told Sophie to head to her room, and he ushered me inside. She tried to protest, but he closed the door in her face.

The teachers’ lounge had been turned into a kind of impromptu police headquarters. Cryker sat at a desk, examining an array of plastic bags. There was a strange energy to the room, a sense that something was about to happen.

“Good. You’re here. I just sent someone to find you. Nice hair, by the way.”

“Thanks.”

“Please, take a seat.”

“I’m fine standing,” I said. “It’s her, isn’t it?”

He looked up at me with a lifetime of sadness in his eyes.

“We have reason to believe it is.”

“How can you know?”

“Please sit down,” he said, and I did as he asked.

He cleared his throat, and then, with a pair of tweezers, he held up a plastic bag. I leaned in close and saw that it was Clare’s pink charm necklace. If someone had asked me about it the day before, I wouldn’t have remembered, but seeing it
there like that, I suddenly felt blind, eclipsed by Clare’s presence, her strawberry smell, her crisscrossed teeth as she leaned down, her face level with mine, offering her hand. God, how I missed her. I still missed her.

“Miss Wood, do you recognize this?”

I choked.

“Yeah,” I managed to say. “It’s Clare’s.”

He nodded. “We’re checking with dental records, but it’s looking like these bones belong to your sister and Laurel Snow.”

I tried to keep it together. “That necklace … it was just in the bag with the bones?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “I know this must be extremely difficult for you.”

“I’m okay.” I shrugged. “It’s not like I had some fantasy she was alive. I’m not stupid.”

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am for your loss. There are no words.”

He shifted around in his seat and cleared his throat. I looked at him, and for the first time, I saw a real person, the forehead inscribed with worry lines, the eyes possessed by the devotion to finding the person who had murdered my sister. That pain was his job, and for a moment I was overwhelmed with gratitude to him. I cleared my throat as if in solidarity with him and nodded.

“It’s the same person, isn’t it?” I asked. “The same person who killed Iris did this to my sister and Laurel, right?”

He sighed and massaged his pencil with yellow-tipped fingers. He looked at me for a second as if trying to decide how
much to tell me, then grimaced, showing finely demarcated canines. “This is confidential. I can’t have you spreading this around. This information doesn’t leave this office,
capisce
?”

I nodded.

“Iris was strangled, and it’s looking like at least one of the girls might have been strangled as well.”

“Strangled?” I managed to say. “So you’re sure, then. You’re sure they didn’t … they didn’t die in the fire?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. It’s looking like murder.”

“You’re sure they were strangled?”

“We can’t know for sure, but”—he cleared his throat—“but there’s evidence to suggest as much. I’m sorry.”

“You’re telling me my sister was strangled?” I said, my head spinning. “You can’t know that. How can you know that?”

“It’s not conclusive, but one of the hyoid bones is broken. That’s a flag for strangulation. It’s possible it could have happened postmortem, but it got our attention because of Iris.”

“And you’re sure Iris was strangled?” I asked, trying to keep my breath as even as possible. “Someone just strangled her with his bare hands?”

He shook his head. “The killer probably used an implement of some kind—a cord.”

“Okay, um, okay,” I said, stumbling over myself, trying not to make eye contact. “People are saying Iris was raped. I have to know.”

“Iris wasn’t raped,” he said, his gaze suddenly much sharper. “Who told you that?”

“I … I can’t remember,” I lied.

He shook his head. “Well, that’s not true. Listen, you’re going to hear all kinds of things. They’re rumors. If you don’t hear it from me, then it’s not true. You got it?”

“Yeah, okay.”

He leaned back and scratched his eyebrow. “Along those lines, there is something I want you to hear from me.” He looked for my consent to go on. “The bones. We don’t understand the significance, but it looks like the bones were bleached,” he said, his voice faltering.

“Bleached?”

“Bleached. Boiled, cleaned, and bleached.”

A rip cord of tension shot up my back, and I sat up to try to ease it.

“What? Why would someone do that?”

“I wish I knew. It’s possible someone was looking to preserve them. Sometimes … sometimes these people like to keep trophies.”

“Okay, so someone killed my sister ten years ago and buried her in that bag out there.…”

“Actually, they were recently buried.”

For a moment, I saw the impossible flit before my eyes: Clare grown, wild in the forest, having run feral for ten years, a silk dress of ruby red trailing behind her. I saw her standing behind me the day we hunted for salamanders, her feet caked with mud, her hair falling to her waist in thick black waves. I saw her perched in a tree, her scarlet lips swept into a smile as she watched me pose for Chelsea Vetiver.

“No,” he said, alarmed at the look I must have worn. “The bones are old. The burial is new. The killer must have had them
at a different location and buried them, well, we’re thinking he buried them after he killed Iris.”

“What?” I said, trying to get myself together. “Why would he do that?”

“My guess is the bones were somewhere close to him, and after he killed Iris, he wanted to distance himself from his past crimes.”

“No,” I said, shifting in my seat. “This is crazy. It doesn’t make sense. Did you … Does my mom know?”

He shook his head. “I can’t reach her. I spoke with your aunt. She said your mom goes off sometimes and no one knows where she is.”

“Yeah,” I said, avoiding eye contact.

“Do you know where she is?”

I fought the urge to laugh. “No. She never tells me anything.”

He nodded. “Your aunt wants you to come home. I gotta tell you, I’m of a similar mind. What about you? Do you want to go home?”

I thought for a moment and then shook my head. There had been a time when I might have wanted to leave, but that was before I knew for sure that my sister had been murdered, before I knew that her killer was so close I could almost feel it. I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay and finish this thing.

“Listen,” he said. “You probably want to talk to someone. A counselor. You want me to set that up for you?”

“No,” I started to say, but just then, the door swung open and an officer entered. Cryker practically jumped up from his desk when he saw him. The man’s eyes connected with Cryker’s, and a strange energy bounced between them. He handed
Cryker a note. Cryker’s eyes scanned the page, and color rose in his cheeks.

“Miss Wood,” he said, not bothering to look at me. “That’s all for now. I’ll contact you if we need anything else.”

He moved across the room quickly and handed the page to his partner, her blond curls bouncing as she nodded. I looked down into my bag and saw the puzzle box staring up at me like an abandoned child. I knew there had to be more to it. There was something about that logo that wasn’t right, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Detective,” I said, and he looked over, already lost in whatever he was reading.

He held up a hand. “Can it wait?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah it can.”

“Good,” he said. “We’ll talk later, then.”

He went back to whatever he was doing, and I walked out into the crisp air, my shoulders somehow a little lighter. Somewhere at the end of a very long thread was the answer to the question of what had happened to my sister, and I was certain that thread was somehow connected to the puzzle box. I couldn’t let it go. Not yet.

When I got back to my room, the air felt heavy, and everything looked gray, but I had a spark inside my chest, lifting me up, pushing me forward. I would need to let go of my fantasy now. There was no fairy-tale cottage in the woods. No more kindly stranger, but now, at least, I had the truth.

I was just returning from the shower when Helen came in.

“Whoa, right?” she said when she sat on her bed. “How’s Alex doing?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since early this morning.”

I’d forgotten about Alex. The day before, I’d been so sure that I needed to break up with him, but now I wasn’t. Now he seemed solid and good in a grotesque world.

“Really?” She looked at me, puzzled. “He had kind of a shock. You should really be supporting him through this. He hurt his leg too, tripping over a log on the way to tell the others.”

“Yeah, I’ll go see him in a bit.”

Helen nodded. “And Asta, oh my God. Can you imagine? It was her daughter. Noel’s over there comforting her. I heard her tell Harrison she needed a few days off to process or something, but that ultimately it was good to have closure. I mean, I can see what she means.”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “Closure.”

“They’re saying whoever did this probably also killed Iris,” she said, twisting her hair. “I mean, like, duh, right?”

“What’s going to happen?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

“What do you mean? We’re all going to be under crazy watch again.”

“What’s going to happen to the school? Aren’t people going to pull their kids out, like, left and right?”