The Naturalist (The Naturalist #1)(40)

Footsteps sound from the top of the stairs, and I feel my heart skip a beat.

Afraid that she’ll see me and run, or worse, I turn away from the door and stare out at the street.

She reaches the bottom of the steps. “Yeah?”

I turn around, staring at the ground. “I just wanted to ask you about Chelsea.”

“What about her?” She’s studying me, trying to remember me. Suddenly it hits her. “What the fuck!”

She rushes to slam the door. I stick my foot in the way.

“I’m going to call the police if you don’t get the fuck away! And I’m going to tell them you tried to rape me,” she says, trying to close the door.

The guy on the couch watches with amusement.

“Call the police,” I bluff, then decide to double down. “I’ll call the state police. Let’s see what they say.”

She stops pushing on the door. “Fuck off.”

“Amber, I don’t care about yesterday. It was a case of mistaken identity. I met with you because I thought you might be able to tell me what happened to Chelsea. I wasn’t trying to hire you as a hooker.”

“I’m not a hooker, you fucker!” she screams at me through the gap in the door.

I try to keep my voice calm. “I don’t care. I just want to know what happened to your friend.” I pull my foot away and step back from the door, making a point to hold my hands up. “Please.”

She watches me through the narrow space. I step all the way to the brown grass.

“This isn’t some kind of payback?” she asks in a calmer voice.

“It’s not. Juniper Parsons, the girl they say got attacked by a bear, she was a student of mine. I was her professor.”

She opens the door a little wider. “For real?”

“For real.”

“Keep back.” She steps outside the house and takes a seat on the top of the steps leading from the porch, then pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from her sweatpants.

I lower my hands as she lights her cigarette. She keeps looking at me suspiciously, then scans the street. After a few calming puffs, she finally says, “Nobody believes me. Even Devon thinks I’m a joke.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO


BESTIES

Remembering something from a psychology class on body language, I take a seat below her on the dying grass. Amber puffs away. I give her a moment to calm down. She also looks a little glassy eyed and may still be high.

Finally, when both our pulses have dropped, I say, “Tell me about Chelsea.”

She frowns, then blows smoke out of the corner of her mouth. “I don’t know. We were best friends since forever. Always getting into trouble together.” She gives me a quick glance. “Not that kind of trouble, at first. Just usual kid stuff. Staying out late. Boys. Stealing beer.” She shrugs, takes another drag. Sends another plume of smoke into the air. “But yeah. When things got so boring around here, we got into other stuff.

“Her mom kicked her out of the house. I’d been in and out of mine. We knew some girls were making money doing stuff. And, well, we liked to party. There’s fuck-all nothing else to do up here. We weren’t like lot lizards or nothing like that.”

I make a mental note to look up “lot lizard” later.

“What about the night she went missing? What was going on then?”

“We were just going to get high. I had a strip of acid. We’d take it in the woods. Most people would be scared shitless. We loved it. You’d be out there on the ground listening to nature, staring at the stars. It was peaceful.”

“Is that what happened that night?”

She stabs out her cigarette and lights another. “That was the fucked-up part. We never even took it. We was walking along out there and we heard a noise. You get wild boar and such. We laughed, pretended it was a monster or something. I took off running. She ran after me, then fell back.

“I went to look for her. I thought she was playing hide-and-seek or something. But she wasn’t. I saw her standing there, like she was listening for something. I was starting to call to her, and then I saw it, past her. I screamed before she did. I thought it was a bear. There was this shadow.” Amber holds up her hands in an arch over her head. “I thought it was a bear on his hind paws. Only he starts moving like a man; then he runs toward Chelsea. She hears me scream; then she screams. Then there was nothing. I couldn’t see her in the shadows. Everything got real quiet.

“Something told me to run like hell. So I did.

“It was following me. I could hear it. Then I heard Chelsea hollering. I think it turned back to finish her. I just kept running.” She swallowed, licked her lips. “I know I shouldn’t have left her behind. She was my best friend.

“I’d parked on the roadside. I got in and just drove as fast as I could, straight to the police station.

“But I didn’t go in right away. I started panicking. Thinking maybe I was high. Maybe I imagined the whole thing. I know that sounds crazy.

“It was stupid of me, but I decided to try to sleep it off. When I woke up, the sun was shining. I was still in my car.

“I went inside the police station and told Charlie’s dad everything I remembered.”

“But they didn’t believe you?”