What Lies in the Woods(21)

I turned it off. Why did people always say it that way? The other murders. They weren’t the other murders, because I hadn’t been murdered. They were just “the murders.” It made me wonder if I’d died and no one had had the heart to tell me.

My phone buzzed. I checked it, hoping for Liv and getting Mitch. The screen was clotted up with notifications. Mitch had called. Seven times. Apparently he’d figured out I was ignoring his texts.

He wasn’t a bad guy, Mitch. The trouble was he’d mistaken drama for virtue and suffering for art, and felt impoverished by his own good fortune. I’d known from the start that he’d sought me out because my sad story was written on my face and he was hoping to borrow it, but for a while I hadn’t minded. It was as good a way to get laid as any.

But I wouldn’t bring him here to see this. To meet the people I grew up with. I wouldn’t let him get to know Naomi Shaw, because he couldn’t. He’d just turn her into a story that made sense to him.

I’d told him as much, though I might have phrased it less eloquently and with more swearing. If either of us had any self-respect we wouldn’t try to come back from the things we’d said to each other.

Self-respect wasn’t really something either of us was good at. I could go back. He’d never let me forget it, but he’d let me call a mulligan and retreat into our life of splitting the rent and the groceries and the dinner bill, but not the appetizers because he only ate the mozzarella sticks and they were three dollars cheaper.

I dismissed the notifications and rubbed my eyes. I was sobering up, and that was unacceptable. I lurched over to the mini-fridge, but it was empty. I didn’t want to go back to drink alone at the bar. I’d rather drink alone, period. But the Corner Store would still be open.

Marsha was still behind the counter, counting the day’s take. I gave her a curt wave and headed for the back. I grabbed the nearest, cheapest bottle of red and ambled up to the counter. She gave it A Look and I bounced one right back at her.

“That stuff is basically cold medicine cut with a little grape juice,” she told me.

“That suits the mood I’m in,” I replied blithely.

She looked amused. “Can’t blame you. But there are better ways to get where you’re going,” she said. She reached behind the counter, and plunked down a half-full bottle of bourbon. Not bad quality, either.

“Pretty sure you’re not allowed to sell the hard stuff, Marsha,” I said, feigning shock.

“On the house. Given the circumstances.” She pushed it toward me.

It was a Chester kind of gift. So much so I almost laughed. Here you go, kid, get drunk and puke on some spruces. I slapped down a twenty.

“I said on the house,” she grouched.

I grabbed a Snickers bar. “For the candy. Keep the change.” I left before she could object.

I should have gone back to my room. Back to the stiff motel sheets and Forensic Files and the faint scent of mold. I got into my car instead. I tried not to think where I was heading, even though I knew before I started the engine. Outside of town the streetlights dropped to an occasional smudge of light. The forest had grown more wild and dense than it had ever been in my childhood. Everywhere else, nature was retreating. But here it was galloping back. From green to brown and back again, like a slow season turning.

I wasn’t sure how I knew when to pull off the road, only that this was the place. Twenty years ago, this stretch of road had been blocked by a dozen cars, an ambulance, police, a seething crowd of onlookers. This was where Cody Benham had stumbled out of the woods with a girl in his arms, most of the way to dead.

I parked. I kept the light on in the car, even though it left me blind to the outside. It felt safer. I opened the bottle that Marsha had given me and took a swig. I winced. I wasn’t much for straight liquor. Wasn’t that big on drinking, all things considered, but when the occasion called for it …

It had happened right here. Well. Not right here. It ended here, though that was the part I remembered least of all. My brief consciousness while Cody was carrying me had failed before we reached the road. I had a memory of the ambulance and the commotion that followed the discovery of my broken little body, but I knew it wasn’t real, just an amalgam of all the stories I’d been told.

The reel always ran backward in my mind. Cody’s arms, and then the press of the rotting wood against my stomach, and then pulling myself along over evergreen needles and dirt, and then—

I shut my eyes. I wouldn’t let myself go back that far. Far enough to feel the first blow of the knife, like a punch to my back—the shallowest blow of all, but enough to send me sprawling. My face pressed against the ground and then I put all my strength into flopping over onto my back, which only meant I could see the knife as it came down. The next blow struck my face, and after that I didn’t see much of anything.

I remembered the trees and the pale sky. Cass shouting, Liv screaming, Cass telling me they’d go get help. Tiny fragments that I couldn’t stitch together into a whole, no matter how hard I tried.

I’d never gone back. Occasionally, people had suggested it—a documentary crew, Mitch (he also wanted to film it), a therapist who’d lasted four sessions. I’d always rejected the idea.

I took another swig. It spilled down my chin, spattering my clothes and the seat. I swore and reached over to fumble for the napkins I kept conveniently strewn on the passenger seat, along with whatever else I happened to be holding when I got in the car. The mail I’d grabbed from my dad’s house skittered away from my flailing hands. I snagged a napkin and blotted at my shirt, which only left little maggoty shreds of napkin clinging to the fabric. Everything reeked of bourbon now.