What Lies in the Woods(2)

My phone started buzzing again. “Sorry about that,” I said, picking it up to check the caller ID. Liv. I declined the call again and tucked it into my purse. Whatever the latest crisis was, and it was always a crisis, she’d have to wait a few minutes more.

“It’s just,” the bride said again. She bit her lip. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to sound totally awful. Your photos are really, really—”

“Impressive,” I finished for her, smiling. When I smiled, only one side of my mouth went up. She flinched.

“Come on, Maddie,” Husband-to-Be said—I couldn’t remember his name. It was probably Jason. It was usually Jason, for some reason. The ones who trotted me out like a surprise, as if to shame their partners into hiring me. It had mostly stopped happening since I tripled my prices, which magically turned my scars from a pitiable flaw to part of my edgy appeal.

“It’s all right,” I assured him. “It’s your wedding day, Maddie. Everything should be perfect.”

“Right,” she said, relieved that I understood.

“And if anyone isn’t perfect, you shouldn’t have to have them there,” I added. Her smile faltered.

“Your prices are very high,” she snapped, turning pink. “Maybe you should consider lowering them. You might get more business.”

I sighed. “My prices are high because my work is really, really good,” I said, parroting her words back to her. “I make sure that my photo is front and center on my website because I don’t want anyone to waste their time or mine. And now we’ve done both.”

I stood, picking up the binder. My coffee sat untouched on the table, but I had only ordered it to kill time while I was waiting for them to show up twenty minutes late. “I hope you have the wedding of your dreams, Maddie. Jason, nice to meet you.”

“My name’s Jackson, actually,” he muttered, not lifting his eyes past my chin. As I walked away I heard him whispering furiously to her. Just as the door swung shut, she burst into tears. I stopped on the sidewalk and shut my eyes, letting out a breath and telling myself to relax the muscles that had slowly tightened throughout my body.

The only thing worse than brides like Maddie was getting to the meeting only to discover that the client was a “fan.” Not of my photos, of course. Of the dramatic story my life had become when I was eleven years old.

I pulled my phone out of my purse. Liv hadn’t left a message, but that wasn’t surprising. She hated being recorded. We’d spent enough time with cameras shoved in our faces, and the clips still lived on the internet under names like GIRLS FOIL SERIAL KILLER IN OLYMPIC FOREST and SURVIVORS OF “QUINAULT KILLER” ALAN MICHAEL STAHL SPEAK OUT.

Back then Liv had what her mom called “stubborn baby fat” and a round face made rounder by blunt bangs and a bob. In the years after, she’d sprouted up and slimmed down, and then she just kept vanishing by degrees, melting away until you could count the vertebrae through her shirt. She made sure there wasn’t enough of herself left to get recognized.

I didn’t have the option. The scar on my cheek, the nerve damage that kept the corner of my mouth tucked in a constant frown—those weren’t things I could hide. Changing my name had cut down on the number of people who found me, but I’d never get rid of the scars, and I refused to try to hide them. I kept my hair cut short and sharp, and I always photographed myself straight on. I described my style as unflinching. My most recent therapist had been known to suggest I was using honesty as armor.

As if on cue, the phone started buzzing again. This time I answered, bracing myself to talk Liv down from whatever crisis the day had brought. “Hey, Liv. What’s up?” I asked brightly, because pretending it could be anything else was part of what we did.

She was silent for a moment. I waited for her. It would come in little hiccup phrases at first, and then a flood. And at the end of it I would tell her that it was going to be okay, ask if she was taking her meds, and promise I didn’t mind at all that she’d called. And I didn’t. I was far more worried about the day she stopped calling.

“I’m trying to reach Naomi Cunningham,” a male voice said on the other end of the line, and I blinked in surprise.

“That’s me. Sorry, I thought you were someone else. Obviously,” I said, letting out a breath and sweeping windblown strands of hair back from my eyes. “Who’s calling?”

“My name is Gerald Watts, at the Office of Victim Services. I’m calling about Alan Michael Stahl.”

My mind went blank. Why would they be calling me now? It had been over twenty years, but— “Has he been released?” I asked. I remembered the word parole in the sentence. Possibility of parole after twenty years. But twenty years was eternity to a child. Panic bloomed through me like black mold. “Wait. You’re supposed to call us, aren’t you? We’re supposed to be allowed to testify, or—”

“Ma’am, Stahl has not been released,” Gerald Watts said quickly and calmly. “I’ve got better news than that. He’s dead.”

“I—” I stopped. Dead. He was dead, and that was it. It was over. “How?”

“Cancer. Beyond that, I’m not able to share private medical information.”

“Do the others know? Liv—I mean Olivia Barnes, and—”