The Accomplice(106)

Mason tried to remember where there were other pay phones on campus. His plan to call 911 and leave an anonymous message kept being thwarted. Maybe that was a sign. He’d already played out what would happen if he phoned the police and gave them his name.

The cops would bring him in for an interview. He’d be nervous and act suspicious, because that’s how he acted when he was nervous. They’d ask about Scarlet’s fall. Did he cause the fall? Maybe he did. What if they gave him a lie-detector test? If they asked him if he killed Scarlet Hayes, he couldn’t say no. He wouldn’t pass the test. What if the police pinned it on him? They’d probably charge him with manslaughter. Mason smoked more weed to calm down. A mistake, no doubt. The particular strain of weed that he’d gotten from his dealer in Kingston made him extra paranoid. He had given Scarlet a few buds just last week. What if she had it on her or they found it in her room?

He’d be sweating under the lights of a police interrogation. Feeling guilty and therefore looking guilty. Accusations. Charges. A trial. He wasn’t thinking clearly. He knew that. He needed sleep; then he’d be able to figure out what to do. He had a few Valium that he’d stolen from his mother’s medicine cabinet. He took two pills. He figured with all the pot he smoked, he had a high tolerance. That was not the case.

Mason slept for ten hours. When he finally woke, Scarlet had been missing all night. He heard Amber and Bobbi stalking the halls, asking if anyone had seen her. They knocked on his door. He answered.

“Have you seen Scarlet?” Amber asked.

Mason shook his head.

“Let us know if you see her,” Bobbi said.

“Okay,” Mason said.

They were staring at him, their eyes boring into his soul. He wanted to close the door, but he didn’t want to act odd or suspicious.

“Mason, can I be honest with you?” Amber said.

Mason braced himself for an accusation. “Uh, okay.”

“You need to smoke less weed,” Amber said.

Mason was so relieved he almost laughed.

“She’s right,” said Bobbi.

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Mason said.





November 2019


Mason thought he’d feel unburdened when he finally told Luna the thing they’d been keeping from her for years. Instead, he experienced an oppressive exhaustion.

“You watched Scarlet fall to her death and didn’t tell anyone?” Luna asked.

“Not the police,” said Mason. “I told Casey the next day. She went into town and made a call from a pay phone so they’d find Scarlet’s body.”

“Are you sure she was dead?”

“Yes. I swear, if I thought there was any chance she was alive, I would have…done something.”

“Didn’t you feel guilty?” Luna asked.

“Of course I did,” Mason said. “I would have gone to the police. Casey talked me out of it. She thought I’d do something stupid like confess. Maybe I would have. I couldn’t help but think that if I hadn’t gone to the bluff, if Scarlet hadn’t seen me, I wouldn’t have startled her and she wouldn’t have died. I’m sorry I never told you.”

“Casey has known this whole time?” Luna said.

Mason nodded. “She called 911 from town and told them there was a body.”

Luna had heard about the 911 call. The consensus at Markham was that she’d made it.

“You should tell Owen.”

Mason picked at a hangnail. After a long pause, he said, “Owen knows. I told him years ago.”

“When?”

“Remember when I went to visit him in London? We were at pubs every night. I was either drunk or hungover. Casey wasn’t there to stop me. The guilt had been eating away at me. I’m sure I told him what she was wearing. I guess it stuck with him and he slipped up. I kept talking because I was afraid of how angry he’d be. But when I finally stopped, he wasn’t upset. He was, but not that much. He was really cool about it. I think that’s when we actually became friends.”

“You all kept this from me. Why?”

“You know how Casey is with secrets. Steel trap. But, also, she said you wouldn’t be able to keep quiet. You’d have to come clean. After I told Owen, we thought about it again, whether to tell you. Owen agreed with Casey. He said it was better if you didn’t know.”

“Why are you telling me now?” Luna asked.

“Because you keep thinking Owen did something, and he didn’t.”

Luna finally understood that her current stance on Owen had to change, but she wasn’t yet ready to release all her pent-up anger. “The thing with Owen and me isn’t just about Scarlet,” Luna said. “He completely sabotaged my relationship with Griff.”

“Sure,” Mason said. “That was bad. But his own brother thought he was a murderer. You can’t destroy a friendship because of one small mistake.”

“It wasn’t a small mistake,” Luna said. “It changed everything.”

“He lied to the cop for you. That has to count for something.”

“What are you talking about?”

“After Scarlet was found and they brought him in. The detective saw Scarlet’s texts. He wanted to know what your secret was. Owen refused to tell.”