The Wreck (16 page)

Six-year-old Lilly was curled up in one
of her favorite places—Carly’s lap.

Carly tickled the girl and delighted in
the belly laugh she was rewarded with.

“There’s Auntie Caren,” Lilly cried, dashing
off to meet her cousins.

Looking frazzled, Caren made her way from
the parking lot with four-year-old Justin and two-year-old Julia in tow.

Carly watched Lilly take Julia’s hand and
lead her to the bleachers. Justin and Julia gunned for Carly’s lap, and she
wrapped her arms around them.

Lilly ceded her coveted spot to her
younger cousins and plopped down next to Carly with a long-suffering sigh.

Carly buried her nose in Julia’s fragrant
blond curls, wallowing in the sweet scent of baby shampoo.

“What’s the score?” Caren asked.

“Six nothing, us,” Cate replied. “You
just missed Zoë striking out the side.”

“Damn!” Caren said.

“Damn!” Julia repeated, and the adults
cracked up.

“She’s like a parrot lately.” Caren poked
her daughter’s ribs playfully. “She couldn’t decide what dress she wanted to
wear, which is why we’re late.”

“Pretty dress,” Julia said.

“Very pretty,” Carol agreed, reaching for
the child. “Tell Auntie Carly she has to share you with Grammy.”

Carly tightened her hold on Julia, and
the girl’s peals of laughter delighted her as she handed Julia over to her
grandmother.

“Look!” Justin cried. “Zoë’s up!”

“Come on, Zoë!” the others hollered.

Carly clapped Justin’s pudgy hands
together while they watched Zoë patiently wait for her pitch. She had worked
the pitcher to a full count when she finally connected, sending the ball deep
into left field. Two runs scored as she rounded the bases and barreled into the
second baseman, sliding in just ahead of the throw from left.

“
Mother of God
,” Cate groaned,
hiding behind her hands.

With a huge smile on her face, Zoë leaped
to her feet and shook a victorious fist at the dugout where her teammates were
celebrating. The other team’s second baseman was still flat on his back in the
dirt.

Watching Zoë, so tall and lovely, so full
of life, filled Carly’s heart to overflowing, and for once, she was perfectly
content.

Carly
was walking with her mother to Cate’s house for a cookout after the game when
her cell phone chimed to indicate a new text message. A week earlier, she had
finally caved in to pleas from Chief Westbury and her parents and had gotten
the phone, which included a GPS device. The thought that she might one day need
to be located was terrifying, so she tried not to think about it.

She flipped it open to read the latest
message from the chief.

“Where R U?” His use of teen message
lingo never failed to amuse her.

“With my mama,” she replied.

“Just checking.”

“Relax,” she wrote back.

“Is that Michael?” Carol asked.

Carly rolled her eyes and nodded.

“He’s worried about you. We all are.”

Carly hooked her arm through her
mother’s.

Carol stopped walking and turned to study
her daughter. “You’re not sleeping well, are you? You look tired.”

Carly shrugged in reply.

“I haven’t been sleeping too well myself.
Are you sure we can’t convince you to come home until this is over?”

With a smirk, Carly shook her head.

“I know, I know. We threatened to kick
you out, and now we’re begging you to come home. I see the irony, don’t worry.”

The party was in full swing by the time
they arrived at Cate’s house. Caren’s husband Neil had come straight from work
and was pushing Justin and Julia on the swings. He waved hello when Carly and
her mother came in through the back gate.

Carly’s dad joined them a short time
later after playing golf with some friends. With a cell phone pressed to her
ear, Zoë came bursting through the sliding glass door that led to the deck. She
had showered and changed into a denim skirt and tank top. Carly put her arm around
her niece, pressed a kiss to her wet curls, and was startled to notice the
mascara and eye shadow she was wearing.

Zoë closed her phone and caught Carly
looking at her eyes.

“How does it look?” Zoë asked in a
conspiratorial whisper.

Carly gave her a thumbs up.

Zoë kissed her aunt’s cheek and said,
“Don’t tell my mom.” As Zoë raced off, Carly decided Cate would be thrilled to
see her tomboy daughter wearing makeup.

They ate, played a cutthroat game of
croquet with the kids, and were toasting marshmallows over the outdoor
fireplace when a group of Zoë’s girlfriends came into the yard through the
gate.

“Mom!” she called. “Can I go to the
movies?”

“How’re you getting there?”

“Walking?”

“No way!” Tom bellowed. “I’ll drive you.”

“But Dad…”

“Nonnegotiable, Zoë Ann. We’ve talked
about this.”

Zoë kicked at the grass. “Sucks. I’m a
sophomore now, you know.”

“You’re not getting any help from us,
baby girl,” Steve Holbrook said, kissing his granddaughter’s forehead. “We’re
on your dad’s side.”

“It’s a conspiracy,” Zoë said with a
good-natured grin. She never stayed mad for long.

“Let me get my keys,” Tom said. “You
ladies tell your parents where you’re going and that I’m driving both ways.”

“Okay, Mr. Murphy,” they said in a
girlish chorus.

After Tom left with the girls, Caren
said, “I feel sorry for them.”

“We all do,” Carol said. “It’s a terrible
way for everyone to have to live.”

“Even after this guy is caught, we’ll all
be much more cautious than we used to be,” Caren’s husband Neil said. He had
kicked off the boots he wore to work at the construction company he co-owned
with his brothers. They had teased him earlier about his mid-shin tan line.

“Luckily the younger kids won’t know what
they’re missing out on because they’ll never have the freedom Zoë’s had,” Cate
said. “It’s been hard clipping her wings just as she was starting to spread
them.”

“Whatever it takes to keep her safe,”
Steve said.

Carly was saddened by the conversation.
Until the killer was caught, her nieces and nephews wouldn’t know the simple
pleasure of a walk on the beach in the moonlight or a kiss under the willow
tree. The man they were all afraid of had done much more than kill and
terrorize young people. He had forever altered Granville’s small-town fabric.

C
arly was working her final shift before
the Fourth of July weekend. Tony Russo, Luke McInnis, and Tommy Spellman were
in their usual booth, chugging water rather than coffee.

“Freaking stifling out there,” Tony said
as Carly delivered their lunch and refilled their glasses.

“Are you going to the reunion, Carly?”
Luke asked.

She shook her head.

“Why not?” Tommy asked. “It won’t be the
same without you.”

She shrugged, wondering what the point
would be. It wasn’t like she could talk to anyone or had anything exciting to
tell them, even if she could. Besides, the last thing in the world she felt
like doing was hearing how successful and happy her classmates were. She was
the one who should have been happily married with children she adored—Brian’s
children.

Until recently, very little of her time
or energy had been expended on bitterness about something she had no control
over. But living in fear of the man who’d taken so much from her and her
friends had stirred up old feelings she thought she’d long ago put away for
good.

The guys each tried a different tactic to
convince her to go to the reunion, but Carly just shook her head with amusement
at their campaign and moved on to other tables.

As her friends were preparing to leave,
Luke walked over to her. “Are you
sure
you won’t come to the reunion,
Carly? You, um, you can go with me if you want to. It would be fun.”

Startled, Carly looked up at him.
Is
he asking me out?
She was so out of practice with such things she couldn’t
be sure, but it certainly seemed like he was.

“Everyone would love to see you,” he
added.

The only person in their class she had
any interest in seeing wouldn’t be there, but she couldn’t very well tell Luke
that.

“Thanks for asking, Luke,” she wrote on
the back of her order pad. “But I’m going to pass.”

The disappointment on his handsome face
surprised her, but he recovered quickly. “You don’t know what you’ll be
missing,” he said with a cajoling grin.

She shook her head.

“All right. Have a good Fourth.”

“You, too,” she wrote.

She walked home from work, aware of the
subtle presence of a Granville police officer watching her and the activity on
Main Street. The stores and homes along the street were decked out in festive
bunting, and the stripes down the middle of the street had been painted red and
blue in preparation for the parade. For reasons she didn’t quite understand,
the festive atmosphere depressed Carly. When she got home, she sent her mother
a text message to let her know she had a headache and wouldn’t be going out again
that day.

The checking in was irritating for
someone so fiercely independent, but the alternative was much worse. Her
parents and Chief Westbury always knew where she was. She supposed it was a
small price to pay for staying safe.

After taking an Advil, she stretched out
on sofa and fixed her eyes on the jukebox that took up a whole wall in her
small living room. A few years ago, she had walked past Toby’s parents’ house
and found the jukebox by the curb with some other furniture they were getting
rid of. She had plopped herself down in an orange plaid chair she remembered
from the basement and waited.

Toby’s dad had been startled to find her
there when he got home from work. He’d aged significantly since Carly had last
seen him, and she noticed right away that, like Brian’s parents, Mr. Garrett
wore the pain of his loss in his eyes.

“Carly? What’re you doing here?”

She had rested a hand on the jukebox and
looked at him with what she hoped were imploring eyes.

“You want that?”

She nodded.

“Mrs. Garrett is redoing the basement,
and this old thing was taking up too much room. We don’t use it much anymore.
If you’d like to have it, it’s yours.”

She gave him a spontaneous hug that
seemed to take him by surprise.

Clearing his throat, he said, “Do you
have room for it in your place?”

With another nod, she clapped her hands
with delight.

Amused by her glee, Mr. Garrett said,
“I’ll get a couple of friends to help me bring it over on Saturday, okay?”

The jukebox had lived in her apartment
ever since. At first, the memories that came with it made her sad, and she
wondered if she’d done the right thing by asking Mr. Garrett for it. But over
time, the memories had softened, and now she was glad to have such an important
souvenir from the best years of her life.

Perhaps it was because she knew Brian was
thinking of her and worrying about her safety, or it could be all the talk of
the class reunion. Maybe it was the holiday, which was always tinged now with
melancholy, since the last time she made love with Brian had been on the Fourth
of July. But whatever the reason, she wanted to give herself permission to
think about him, to remember
them
, and the love they’d shared before
disaster stole their every hope and dream.

Getting up from the sofa, she went over
to the jukebox and turned it on. For the first time since she had owned it, she
selected D8 and then returned to the sofa to let the music transport her back
to that last exquisite moment a lifetime ago.

She could almost feel Brian’s arms around
her and smell the musty scent of Toby’s basement. Tears rolled down her cheeks,
but she made no move to brush them away as she listened for the soft giggles
that never came from the other couples dancing to Van Morrison’s “Tupelo
Honey.”

She ached for Brian. How long had it been
since she’d felt that particular ache? Not since the first couple of years had
passed, when she finally accepted he wasn’t coming back, had she allowed
herself to yearn for him the way she did right then. To have just a few minutes
with him, an afternoon maybe… What she wouldn’t give for an hour to do nothing
more than look at him. She told herself it would be enough.

The song ended, snapping her out of her
stupor. Wiping the tears from her face, she got up and got busy cleaning her
spotless apartment. There was no point in sitting around feeling sorry for
herself. She hadn’t often allowed herself that indulgence, and there was
nothing to be gained from it now. He had his life, and she had hers. Like she
had told his father, it was better this way.