The Last Thing She Ever Did(4)
And that was it.
Nothing after that.
Nothing except what had been told to her and what she’d read in the paper when she was in high school and the Bend Bulletin went online.
Local Boy Drowns in Flash Flood
An outing turned into tragedy yesterday morning when a nine-year-old Bend boy drowned on a canyon road off US Highway 97 near Diamond Lake. The boy, his father, and two other children were caught in a flash flood.
“The father managed to save the other two children but, despite valiant efforts, not his son,” said Oregon State Police lieutenant Wilson Donaldson, who led the rescue and recovery team.
The driver told police that the group was on the way to a day of fishing at the popular lake when a flash flood hit.
“The car they were driving was carried more than fifty yards by the floodwaters. It got caught on some rocks, and the driver proceeded to evacuate the children to higher ground,” Donaldson said.
After the man retrieved two children, the car apparently dislodged, sweeping both the man and his son away with it.
The father was found unconscious downstream, where an off-duty firefighter from Redmond rescued him. The deceased boy was found in the vehicle. All involved were taken to the hospital and are expected to be released shortly.
Officers also reported one other fatality: a horse. The animal’s owners and another young woman in a separate car were recovered without injury.
The names were withheld until the Tuesday paper. That article was brief and indicated that the police had conducted an investigation and found that there had been no wrongdoing on the part of the driver. The last mention of the incident was the funeral notice.
And yet, to all of those who were there, and both families, the incident clung like a mark that could never be washed away. Dan and Miranda retreated from Liz’s family. Liz and her brother were reminders of what they’d lost.
Only once did Liz ever hear her parents directly talk about Dan Miller and the accident that had claimed his son’s life. They were grateful, of course, that their own children had survived. More than grateful: overjoyed. But instead of sympathy for another’s loss, Liz’s mother took an approach that would define her in her daughter’s eyes. Her mother could be a selfish and spiteful woman, always looking to blame others in an effort to boost her own mood. It seemed at times that being negative fueled her sense of joy.
“I don’t know,” she said. “You don’t know. Dan might have been drinking that morning. He might have been impaired—seriously so, for all we know. I mean, honestly, you have no idea what happened and neither do I.”
Brian Camden immediately dismissed Bonnie’s unkind and judgmental remarks. “His drinking early in the day started after the accident, honey. You know that, Bon. Be fair.”
“I don’t trust him,” she said as she swirled the last few sips of a martini in her glass. “Letting Seth die. Killing your own kid like that.”
Liz’s father was used to his wife’s cruel streak and often just let it roll off him. Not this time. This time he just couldn’t.
“He didn’t kill him. It was an accident. A terrible tragedy.” Brian stopped and regarded Bonnie. “Honestly, what’s wrong with you? He saved our son and daughter. Are you really forgetting that?”
She motioned for another drink. “Of course I’m not. Get a grip. I don’t like it when you dismiss what I have to say out of hand. It’s demeaning. Really, think about it. You can’t say that he doesn’t have blood on his hands.”
“It was an accident,” he insisted.
“That’s going to follow him for the rest of his life.”
“Only because people like you keep reminding everyone and twisting it into something it wasn’t.”
“I’m only saying what others think.”
That last line was so typical of her mother. Liz thought that her mom somehow derived a perverse sense of dignity from dispensing a mean remark. She managed to do it with a smile on those Elizabeth Arden–pink lips of hers.
“Others don’t think that,” Liz said.
“They do,” she said. “They always will. Whenever he’s out and about in town, all of them think it. They all remember what happened. No amount of drinking will ever erase what happened. Nothing that he did that day will ever go away.”
PART ONE
BLAME
Where did the blood come from, Carole?
—David Franklin
CHAPTER ONE
JUST BEFORE
Liz Jarrett lifted her head from her grandparents’ old dining table. A spiky jolt of adrenaline traveled through her body. Her fingers found her cell phone, and she looked at the time. It was a little after 10:00 a.m. Shit! Liz peeled herself from the chair and went for the shower. As fast as she could, she stripped off her T-shirt and sweats, not even waiting for the water to warm before jumping in. A blast of cold was what she needed. Ice ran down her spinal column as she steadied herself in the stall. Liz needed to shock herself into alertness. She had been up all night, mixing coffee with Adderall, poring over books and her laptop for the most important test of her life.
Her second attempt at it.
I can’t screw this up again. The thought of the exam she’d taken three months before contracted her stomach into a tight, burning nut. I have to pass. As the cold water rushed over her, her internal monologue shifted. I will pass. I’m smart. I can do this.