The House in the Pines(13)

Her eyes stung with relief. He did believe her. “Thank you . . .” she whispered. She leaned her head against his, eyes closed. Grateful. She told him her plan: “I haven’t been able to find much online, so I thought I’d go to the diner. Talk to someone who was there when Cristina died—maybe the camera missed something. I could talk to her coworkers at the museum—they might know about her relationship with Frank.”

Maya could have gone on, but Dan’s eyebrows were halfway up his head. He wasn’t on board with this.

“If I don’t stop him,” she said, “he’s just going to keep doing it.”

“Doing what? I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand what you think he did.”

Maya deflated. She had misunderstood. Dan didn’t believe her; he was just being supportive. “I don’t know either,” she said. “That’s what I need to find out. I need to prove it so I can go to the police.”

“I’m worried, Maya.”

“What would you do,” she asked, “if someone killed Sean?” Sean was his closest friend, a hearty rock climber who it was impossible to imagine anyone killing.

“I’ll tell you what I wouldn’t do,” Dan said. “I wouldn’t go to the police, not based on anything you’ve told me, or anything we saw in the video.”

Maya’s head throbbed with wine and bitterness. “Okay, what do you think happened?”

Dan thought about it for a moment. When faced with an inexplicable death, everyone had a theory; no one was immune to the need to understand. He’d thought about it more since yesterday, when she told him, and his theory now was that Cristina had likely overdosed on something. The Berkshire Eagle article had said her death “wasn’t being treated as suspicious,” ruling out any evidence of foul play.

What hadn’t been ruled out—what seemed most likely, Dan said—was that Cristina had succumbed to the same fate that had claimed so many in towns like Pittsfield. OxyContin or heroin, maybe fentanyl. This would explain the look on her face. She wouldn’t be the first person to nod off in public: every gas station, bar, and public restroom in that part of the state posted signs for what to do if someone overdosed. The police carried Narcan.

What made it strange, he conceded, was the coincidence of both Cristina and Aubrey having died around Frank. Undeniably eerie—but then Aubrey’s death, though rare, hadn’t been suspicious either. Dan’s opinion—laid out, Maya thought, as if she were a jury—was that she should cancel her ticket, sleep on this plan for a few days, get over her stomach bug, take care of herself.

This would have been a good time for Maya to confess there was no stomach bug, that she had drunk too much to cope with running out of pills he hadn’t known she was on. But she had a bus to catch. And the last thing she needed was Dan questioning her mental health. “If Frank’s not dangerous,” she said, “what’s the harm in me going out there for a while? Seeing my mom? I’ll take a sick day at work. I haven’t taken one all year.”

Dan made a sad face.

And she remembered the dog. They had an appointment at a pet adoption center the day after Dan finished finals, and had been looking forward to it for weeks, spent hours talking about names. How could Maya have forgotten? Her shoulders sank. “I know the timing isn’t great,” she said, “but this is something I need to do. I should be back in time for our appointment.”

Dan sighed.

She glanced at the clock. 6:23 a.m.

“Take care of yourself,” he said, with a resigned quality to his voice that made her ache.

She held back tears just long enough to kiss him goodbye.



* * *



— Maya’s boss was understanding when she said that she was sick. She’d been working at the garden center for three years, after all, and was good with both plants and customers. She would have liked her job if she was paid enough and had insurance, but as it was, her boss was the one person Maya felt okay about lying to. She checked her bank balance and saw that she could afford to miss three days of work, four if she was frugal.

She spent the two-hour bus ride on her phone, searching for Frank. She drank water from a bottle she’d splurged on at the station, hangover in full swing, stomach lurching each time the driver braked. A muscle beneath her left eye twitched. Frank had somehow avoided leaving any digital trail.

The last time she saw him was when Aubrey died. It was later that day, just as Maya was leaving the police station after having been questioned for four hours. Frank had been released from questioning before she was—she saw him in the parking lot as he was getting into his car. A free man. Maya had frozen in terror. Her mother, who was walking beside her, asked what was wrong, but Frank had driven off by the time Maya found her voice. And to this day, Brenda hadn’t seen him.

For her, he existed as the object of her daughter’s delusional obsession, the human version of Silver Lake. But for Maya, he was real. Her stomach clenched every time she saw someone who looked like him, which was often. Frank was average-looking, slight of build with a small chin, dark hair, and pale skin. It seemed half the men in Boston could pass for Frank. And it would be so easy for him to kill her—he wouldn’t have to show up at her house in the middle of the night or lock her in his trunk.

He could kill her in public, in daylight, and get away with it. What happened to Cristina was exactly the fate Maya had feared, which was why she had to protect herself. She had to figure out his secret. She was smarter than she’d been at seventeen. Less vulnerable. She would keep her distance until she knew how to keep herself safe.