River Bodies (Northampton County #1)(39)

“Is there anything else?” she asked.

“No, that’s it. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” Becca said and closed her eyes to make the dizziness in her head go away. “Yeah, I’m good.” She couldn’t make sense of it all, but in her gut she knew she had seen something and wished she hadn’t.





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Becca was sixteen years old. It was late July and her last summer in Portland, although she didn’t know it at the time.

She was hanging back from her friends as they crowded around Parker’s pickup truck. They were deciding where to go for a party that night. Chad’s older brother had hooked them up with a half keg, and it was just a matter of deciding whether they would park their trucks in a field for a good old-fashioned country tailgate or look for a less conspicuous spot.

“Max Headroom,” Parker said, picking a well-known hangout along the Appalachian Trail where someone had spray-painted a large rock with the faded caricature of the computer-generated TV host from the eighties. It was the perfect place for kids to drink, smoke, and engage in the kinds of activities their parents had warned them about.

Parker continued. “Otherwise, we’re going to have to pile everyone into pickups to get to the field.” He pointed to Chad and two other guys on the football team with trucks.

“What’s wrong with piling into pickups?” Chad asked.

“It will draw too much attention,” Parker said.

“But we’re with the police chief’s daughter,” Chad said. “No one’s going to question what we’re up to. Right, Becca?”

She didn’t answer.

Chad’s girlfriend, Krissy, clung to his arm. Her eyes were outlined in black, her lips shiny pink. “Let’s just go down to the river,” she said.

Becca folded her arms, tired of the same old debate, where to party, who was driving, who was hooking up with whom. She was sick to death with the routine of her life in the small town, sick to death with the same arguments with her high school friends, the same troubles with her father.

“Let’s just go to the river,” she said, jumping into the ongoing discussion, feeling the rebelliousness rise up whenever she thought about her father. She supposed her friends knew this about her, knew she’d take more chances with getting caught doing the things they shouldn’t be doing, if for no other reason than to shove it in her father’s face. They went along with it, of course, pushed her even, knowing in the end her father would bail them out.

Eventually, after some continued reluctance from the others, they agreed the river would be perfect. The moon was full. The air was thick with the heat of the day, the humidity, a typical night in July. It would be cooler by the water. Chad would meet them down by the pines, a place where the riverbank was wide and a row of hemlocks lined the backdrop to the woods. Couples would lie behind the pines on a blanket of needles, invisible to the others partying by the water. Girls in Becca’s class lost their virginity behind the trees.

Becca wasn’t one of them.

She and Parker were just friends. He’d made that pretty clear when he’d failed to kiss her that time in his pickup truck earlier that spring. Things between them had gotten weird after that. She was hurt. She was the girl the guys wanted to be friends with but no one wanted to date. She didn’t mind most of the time, but somewhere hidden beneath all those confusing feelings about love and sex, she wanted to be the girl who was desired, the girl who was capable of capturing Parker’s attention.

The keg was hidden in the woods, and they had to walk back and forth with their red plastic cups for refills. Someone made a circle of rocks to sit on. Music from a boom box blared Tim McGraw’s “Angry All the Time.” Parker had grown quiet, holding the same cup of beer for the last hour, skipping rocks across the river. He’d gone off on his own more and more as the summer had worn on, putting distance between them.

Becca herself had been moody, feeling out of sorts and bored. She’d started drinking one beer after another, losing count of how many she’d had and not caring. Mosquitoes buzzed around her legs, biting the skin on her calves and thighs. She didn’t bother batting them away. Nothing felt right. Tim McGraw’s wife was angry. She was angry. She wanted to leave, but where was she supposed to go? And now Jenna had joined Parker by the river. Parker had started talking to Jenna more and more lately, a girl a year behind them in school. Becca was angry about that too. Her thoughts were fuzzy, her arms heavy. The red plastic cup slipped from her hand, splattering beer onto her feet and ankles.

“Watch it,” Krissy complained, moved away.

Becca gazed in the direction of Parker. He was standing close to Jenna, moving her hair away from her face. It looked as though he was going to kiss her. And then he did kiss her. He kissed her. What did Jenna have that Becca didn’t? How could he have kissed Jenna and not her? She marched toward the keg to refill her cup to get stupid drunk, to numb the pain. But instead, she kept walking, winding her way up the riverbank and through the woods. She had to get away. She couldn’t watch him with another girl. It hurt too much. Several times her feet tangled in brush, and she had to rip the plants and vines away with her hands. She couldn’t find the path.

She came to the railroad tracks that ran through town. She followed them, tripping over the ties, the alcohol making her off-balance. Not far in the distance, Delaware Drive came into view, the streetlights illuminating the strip of town and the small shops that lined the street. Tourists walked up and down the block, their voices carrying in the night air. A large group of men and women holding cameras headed for the pedestrian bridge to take pictures of the moon on the river, the Delaware Water Gap as their backdrop.