What Lies in the Woods(96)

“She wasn’t real to us. Not that way,” I said. “We didn’t know it was Jessi.”

“But when you asked me about her. You knew then.”

“I knew. Yes,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I wanted more answers first.”

He looked away. Silence held for three seconds, four. When he spoke his voice was hoarse. “We hadn’t been talking much. At all, really. Not for days. She was angry with me.”

“Why?”

“The guy she was seeing. I tried to get her to tell me who it was, but she’d just tease me with it. I knew he was bad news. I tried to get her to break it off. To be honest, I was more than a little in love with her. And because of that, I didn’t exactly go about it delicately. The things we said to each other … Well. It wasn’t surprising that she wouldn’t bother to say goodbye. But I never thought … You’re sure. You’re sure it’s her.”

“She had a bracelet with her niece’s name on it,” I said. “Everything matches up. The night she left, she never got out of Chester.”

“Ah.” He rubbed his hand over his mouth. “Ah. I see.”

“The person she was seeing was Big Jim,” I said, pushing on. “He told her he was going to leave Meredith for her. I think that they argued. I think that he killed her—or Oscar did, because he was jealous. Maybe it was an accident. I don’t know. But she died, and she’s in those woods.”

“You’re talking about the mayor. And his son. You’d better be sure before you go after them,” Cody said, looking at me.

“I’m as sure as I can get on my own,” I said. “I need to tell the police. About Jessi, and…” And the rest of it. A part of me still wished the rest could stay silent. No one would have to know what Liv had done. Or what I had done. But I knew that if I kept any piece of this silence, I would never be free of it.

“You have to be careful about how you approach this. Jim’s got a lot of power in this town. And yeah, you definitely want a good lawyer. Hiding a body…”

“I know it’s awful. We were awful. There was so much happening, and then before it seemed like it had been long enough that we could say something, it had turned into too late to say anything. But we should have told. We should have.”

Cody put his hand over mine, and I realized that I had been thumping my fist rhythmically against my thigh, over and over. “It’s going to be okay,” he promised me.

I looked at him helplessly. “I’m sorry to drag you into this,” I said. “You’ve done so much for me already, and all I’ve done is lie and…”

“Don’t,” Cody said. “You don’t need to apologize. I’m glad you came to me. We’re going to figure this out. You and me. Just sit tight, and I’ll make some calls.”

I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to speak. He shifted to put his arm around my shoulders and pressed his lips to my forehead, warm against the chill of my rain-slicked skin.

“I’m going to take care of this,” he said. And then he opened the door and stepped out of the car, pulling his phone from his pocket. I scrunched down in the seat as he paced away, already putting the phone to his ear. He should be home with his wife, not dredging up old tragedies and calling in favors to protect the fuck-up kid he used to know.

The effort to keep myself from crying had left my eyes blurry and my nose snotted up. I groped around for something I could use as a tissue, hoping for takeout napkins. Nothing. I tried the glove box, but all that was in there was the owner’s manual and a phone.

My phone.

The gray cover, cracked at the corner. The peony sticker I’d used to cover up the scorch mark where I’d accidentally held it too close to one of the thousand and one rose-pink candles a bride had insisted on. It was my phone, no question. The one that Jessup Consulting had stolen. And it was in Cody Benham’s glove box.

Cody had his back to me, talking intently. I couldn’t hear what he was saying from inside the car.

What was Cody doing with my phone? Jessup Consulting had it. He’d have to have gotten it from them.

Cody was starting to head back. I shoved the phone in my skirt pocket and closed the glove compartment with my knee. Cody got in, shaking rain from his hair. “I left a message with the law firm I work with. Their criminal defense attorneys are top-notch. They’ll be able to advise you. They’re sending someone up first thing tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I said automatically. My tears had dried, but my breath came sharp and quick. Why did Cody Benham have my phone? It didn’t make any sense. Unless.

It took effort to drag myself over the rocks of that unless. Unless I’d been wrong. Unless Cody had a reason for keeping an eye on someone who was digging into the past. Finding out exactly what I knew and what Liv might have told me.

“She’s really in there?” Cody asked, eyes on the woods.

“Yeah,” I said, barely a whisper. “She’s in there.”

“I always thought … I don’t know. I liked to imagine what kind of a life she was leading. She was so vibrant,” he said. “I guess part of me knew that she didn’t have a happy ending. But she was here the whole time?” He sounded lost. He sounded bereft. And I knew liars. He wasn’t faking that desolation.