The Drifter(91)

“Oh, Car,” Betsy said, “you have no idea. There are days when I just, I can’t.”

TEDDY WAS PLAYING Explosions in the Sky on his phone, the sad, lush music that Betsy identified with Friday Night Lights, the TV show that made her rethink how she felt about nostalgia, how she finally understood its value now that so much of her life was behind her. And even though the characters were Texan, the love and the loss and the beer and the football and the struggle to get out from under it all made her feel nineteen and lost again, driving the streets of Gainesville, the wind filling her ears in the backseat of Ginny’s car.

All of those years later, everything looked different, smaller, blurrier, a little desolate, and they finished the drive mostly in silence. When they finally pulled up to the hotel in Tampa, groggy and weak from the drinks, the heat, and the endless day, Betsy and Teddy said their goodbye. He parked the car and waited while Caroline walked her to the door. Betsy had nearly forgotten about the moths, the way they fought to get close to the burning bulb, jostling for position in the murky light.

“You know that I dream about her,” said Caroline.

“Me, too,” Betsy nearly whispered. “All the time.”

One of the waiters from the hotel restaurant was off to the side smoking a cigarette and Caroline bummed two.

“I never do this anymore,” she said.

“I know, me neither,” said Betsy. “It tastes like shit, but I like it. If I make it to eighty, I’m starting again. At that point, what’s to lose?”

Caroline lit their cigarettes and took the first, harsh drag.

“There’s one more thing that I have to tell you,” Betsy said, her voice shaky, her hands starting to vibrate from exhaustion, maybe from relief, or maybe from the onset of a hangover. It felt a lot like fear.

“Yeah?” Caroline asked. She saw Betsy’s hands trembling and took one in hers and gripped it, hard. “There’s literally nothing you could say that would surprise me.”

“I made Gavin swear never to tell a living soul,” said Betsy. “And I’ve said it only a handful of times since that night, the night Ginny was killed, twice to my shrink, and another couple of times to this kid, this guy who sold me pills for a while back in . . .”

“You were there,” said Caroline.

“What?” said Betsy, not hearing, or believing, what she said.

“You were there that night. In the apartment,” said Caroline, flatly.

Betsy felt the blood leave her face and rush to her stomach, which was churning wildly.

“How . . . how did you know?” The cigarette dangled in her hand, its ash growing long with neglect.

“When I got to the apartment that morning, the front door was unlocked, but the back door was opened by force. It didn’t make sense,” Caroline explained. “Scottie had a pattern. He would identify a victim, stalk her for a day or two, force his way into the apartment, and wait for her to come home. Mostly, he would just slide some glass panes of a window off of the track and pull himself in, or jam a screwdriver in the lock of a sliding glass door, like he did at our place. But the police found a loose key on the floor of the front hall.”

“Oh God, the key,” said Betsy. “Of course.”

“When the police were questioning me, they were all over the apartment looking for evidence. Ginny’s key was in her bag. Mine was on my keychain. The landlord still had his,” she said. “So the cops asked me if anyone had an extra. There was only one other spare when we rented the place. That’s when I figured it out. You were the one who unlocked the door and scattered the mail everywhere in a panic, not Ginny.”

“You knew that it was mine. You knew I was there.”

“I did.”

“And you didn’t say anything?”

“I told them that you stayed there sometimes and would use the key, but that we kept it under the potted plant on the stoop, and maybe you dropped it a few days before when you were staying with us,” she said.

“And they believed you?”

“Might I remind you that I’m a very skilled liar?”

“Why didn’t you tell them that I was the one who unlocked the door?” asked Betsy, bewildered, shocked. And something else: a weight lifting. A lightness, returning.

“I figured that if you’d wanted the police, or anyone else, to know that you’d been there, you’d have come forward and said something when they were questioning you, but you never did,” said Caroline. “I was still so pissed at you at Teddy’s wedding that I wasn’t interested in making you feel better. Then that time I saw you in New York, I wanted to talk to you about it. But I was nervous. I know you don’t think I have any typically human emotions, but it can happen. You were so mad at me. And I was mad at you for being angry. I guess I just changed my mind. I didn’t want to let you off the hook.”

Betsy stood shaking in the circle of light from the moth-swarmed bulb.

“I was there, Caroline,” said Betsy, hearing the sound the words made as she spoke them, but so shocked by the admission that she couldn’t believe it was happening. “I walked into the apartment and I heard a strange noise. The second I walked in, I knew something was off. I saw the light at the top of the stairwell, the overhead light was on, so obviously something was up.”