Nice Girls(84)

But as I rushed to the car, I could already hear the doubt echoing around me. Everything that I knew was based off hunch and hearsay. I had no concrete evidence to point to John Stack. And I’d been wrong before, about Kevin and Dwayne. I had nothing but a convoluted trail of details, and part of that was information obtained illegally from Charice and her brother.

The police wouldn’t take me seriously. If they interviewed John Stack, he would walk away free—I had no doubt.

Then there was Kevin, the son of the city council president and a member of the force. He would undermine my credibility. He would redirect everything back to me and what I had done to Ron.

No one would believe me.

I was cracked in too many places. My own past proved it: my expulsion from school, the altercation with Carly, my firing from Goodhue Groceries. It was easy for them to call me crazy—I had pills and a history to prove it.

And I was unreliable.

I had lied to Leticia Jackson. I’d conspired with Jayden and Charice. I’d gone after Ron.

Even Dad, if questioned, would take Kevin’s side.

I watched the warm lights inside the library.

Then I checked my phone.

Kevin hadn’t replied back. It was a bad sign. If he wasn’t responding, then it meant that he was planning something. He was possibly at the house already.

Once I got arrested for Ron’s assault, who would believe me?

I felt my insides squeeze together into a painful knot.

With Kevin after me, I was running out of time. I needed hard, direct evidence that John Stack had killed Olivia and DeMaria.

And most likely, I’d find it at the cabin.





41




My hands were taut on the steering wheel. In the winter, Mom’s car sometimes lurched on the ice as the back wheels suddenly shifted left or right. Those brief seconds were terrifying.

But as the car slipped now, I only felt numb, watching as my hands straightened it out on the road.

I drove slowly, like the rest of the drivers on the highway, everyone crawling along at a speed of forty or less. I’d already passed by one wreck, a truck that had somehow slipped and smashed into the concrete barrier in the middle of the road. A police car was already at the crash site. The cop, a puffy shadow in the snow, stood near the driver’s window. He shined a flashlight inside.

On the radio, I listened to a classic rock station. Each song was louder and gloomier than the last, an infinite loop. My head ached from the music, but I needed it. It kept me focused on the road.

As the snow continued to fall, I drove past the lake. It was big and gray and bleak beneath the white sky. In this type of weather, very few people would be outside.

The directions on my phone pointed down south in one straight shot, the same directions that would eventually lead to Ondaasagaam and Red Creek.

Before I knew it, I was climbing up the exit off the highway. Instead of taking a right turn toward the Sewers, I turned left and crossed the bridge over the highway. I continued past streets of worn homes and an abandoned church. I passed by a McDonald’s, a lone swing set in an empty lot, and a used-car dealership. The latter was illuminated by a white billboard on the side of the road: steve’s best auto deals.

All of it was covered in white, devoid of people.

Soon, there was nothing but wilderness—large empty plains that separated the road from the forest. In the distance, the oak trees and elm trees and basswoods looked as if they would stretch on for miles. I was on the outskirts of the city, where no cars or people seemed to exist. Out here, the road was slick and bumpy, and I slowed the car to a crawl.

The GPS on my phone suddenly buzzed, once, twice, and then on and on. I pulled over to the side of the road. The GPS was malfunctioning, the blue arrow quivering left and right and back again. It seemed that John Stack’s property was less than half a mile away in the woods. The GPS was confused about how to get there.

If John Stack’s cabin was secluded, then I doubted there was a public road to reach it. Only those familiar with the area would have known how to get there, especially in the snow.

I had to continue by foot.

My heart was hammering in my chest.

I was out of my mind.

And I wished I were at school. I wanted it more than anything.

Olivia would have been a passing blip in the news. Liberty Lake would be a mere memory. And Ivy League Mary would feel bad, but she wouldn’t dwell too long on the past. She had more important things to distract her: her friends, her thesis, her future.

Yet here I was.

I couldn’t turn back. That dream was gone. At home, I had only Kevin waiting for me. And I would have nothing but shame if I went so far for Olivia and DeMaria, only to run at the last second because I was afraid. I was a coward.

I realized that I was shaking my head.

And I slowly straightened up. I forced myself to turn off the radio, the high beams, the ignition. I slipped on my gloves and tightened up the laces on my snow boots. Then I climbed out of the car.

The snow was falling in soft, airy pieces, like wisps of cotton candy. The wind was little more than a breeze, but my face was already freezing from the cold. I crossed the road quickly, but when I got to a field, the snow was higher and stiffer, caked together in one unbroken surface. It reached my ankles.

I was alone in a white field beneath a white sky, on the edge of nowhere. In an odd way, it felt peaceful.