What Lies in the Woods(11)

“That’s not what this is about,” I said. It hadn’t even entered in. I supposed I should have been worried about the impact it might have on my work, my sole source of income, but my reputation had always been made by things beyond my control. The idea that I had a say in any of it seemed faintly absurd.

“Then why?” Liv asked.

I took a left up the gravel road toward Liv’s place and didn’t answer at first. “That day, in the woods. The day I…”

“I know what day,” Olivia said gently, saving me from having to finish the sentence.

“You saw Stahl.” I said it like it wasn’t a question. Like I didn’t need the answer.

“So did you,” she said, a small line appearing between her brows.

“Right,” I replied, more sigh than sound. “Right. Of course.”

The fingers of her right hand dug into the biceps of her opposite arm. She stared out at the trees, grown wilder in my absence. The town of our youth was being swallowed up by the forest it had tried to tame. “We need to do this,” she whispered.

I pulled up in front of the metal gate that blocked the end of Marcus and Kimiko’s drive. Discreet solar panels perched on top of the posts, and there was a pad to enter the combination. Back when we were kids it had been a chain and a padlock holding the gate shut, and Marcus would sit up most nights in the front room with his gun on his lap. Things had calmed down since then, but the habit of paranoia remained.

Once that fear was in your body, that knowledge that someone wanted you dead, it never entirely left.

The car idled. I knew I should tell Liv that she was right. We’d kept this secret long enough. But I was exhausted—from the drive, from the argument, and from years of knowing that every time Liv’s name appeared on my phone there was a fifty-fifty chance of a crisis. She was stuck in this place where she needed me, but she wouldn’t let me be there for her.

There was nothing left in me to give. Not today.

I touched her wrist lightly. It was the only way I ever touched Liv—carefully, afraid that she would run. Afraid that we would break.

There was something dark and strange in her eyes, more like anger than sorrow but not properly either. “I’ll be here tomorrow,” I said, ritual words I’d spoken many times before.

“So will I,” she answered. We’d ended a thousand calls like that—with a promise. It wasn’t Never again, but it was Not today, and we could string those days along one after another, a procession of sunrises we’d held on long enough to see.

I withdrew my hand. She gave a little shiver, and we sat for a moment, silent. “You want me to drive you all the way up?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I could use the walk.” She opened the door and stepped out, unfolding her long limbs one by one, taking care with each movement like she didn’t quite know how to live in her own skin. She paused, her hand on the door. “I love you, Naomi,” she said, with the same deliberation.

“I love you, too,” I told her, hanging the words on a smile she didn’t return. She pushed the door shut and walked to the gate, slinging herself over it in a few practiced movements. I watched after her until she rounded the bend and disappeared among the trees.

The truth could hold until tomorrow, I told myself. We could have the questionable comfort of our secrets for a few more hours.



* * *



Dad lived outside of town, in the house where I’d grown up and where he’d grown up before me. It’d always been a wreck. My grandfather’s sole talents had been cutting down trees, collecting crap, and ignoring his kids. Dad ended up with two out of the three and not the one that brought in a paycheck, so the place had only gotten worse over the years, especially after Mom took off—fed up with him and with me and with a town too stubborn to realize it was already dead.

A rusted-out Chevy Impala had joined the herd in the front yard. The piles of scrap metal, busted string trimmers, cracked bathtubs, and bent bicycles—all things he was going to get around to fixing up and selling any day now—had crept out another foot or so toward the property line, but otherwise it was the same old house.

The police car parked in the drive was new, though: a black SUV with CHESTER POLICE DEPARTMENT emblazoned on the side. The Chester Police weren’t infrequent visitors to our place—they’d show up every few weeks after Dad got drunk and drove into a mailbox, or I got busted for shoplifting or fighting or minor acts of vandalism.

I parked off to the side as the front door opened. A short Black woman in a Chester PD jacket stepped out. When she spotted me she stepped off the porch and lifted a hand in a wave. I made my way over with a sinking sensation.

“Are you Naomi Shaw?” she asked as I got close. She was even shorter than I’d expected, but she looked like she could bench-press three of me.

“Cunningham,” I corrected her.

“I see,” she said, eyes tracking to my scar. “I’ve just been talking to your father.”

“My sympathies,” I said. “What’s going on? Did he do something?”

“More like he didn’t do anything,” she said. “This is the third time I’ve been up here and the third time he’s promised me he’s working on clearing this place out so that it’s habitable. I haven’t seen any progress, and it’s past the point where I can turn a blind eye. Things have got to improve. Rapidly.”