You Can't Catch Me(24)

“Jess!”

I slipped down off my bunk and broke another rule. I climbed into Kiki’s bunk and hugged her close. “I’m not going to tell you anything else because I don’t want you to get into trouble, but if you want to leave, anytime, find a way to call this number.” I whispered it into her ear and then traced it on her palm over and over again until she nodded that she had it memorized. “It’s for Liam. He can save you.”

Kiki pushed me away and turned onto her side. I didn’t take it personally. She was afraid for me and for herself. Despite the nightgown, she wasn’t a pioneer. She wanted stability, rules, predictability. But those things were already slipping away. Todd wasn’t Todd anymore. Maybe he’d never been, and our parents had simply participated in some mass hallucination about sunshine and rainbows and good pot. When the smoke cleared, all that was left were weird rules and unhappy children and adults who looked like they wanted to talk in whispers while checking over their shoulders that they weren’t being spied on, but somehow never did.

Right before it started to get light outside, I dressed in a pair of Park Ranger pants and a heavy flannel shirt I’d lifted from the boys’ laundry and tucked my hair into a baseball cap. Then I scurried down the hill with my duffel bag on my back, on past the small sleeping houses, out to the road where Liam was waiting.

“Why did you bring me here?” I ask Liam when I step out of the cabin into the half light of the woods.

“Unfinished business.”

“We all have that.”

“Some more than most. I could sense it when we drove past here earlier . . .”

“I had a moment. That’s all.”

“Are you sure? Because it’s perfectly normal to have feelings about being raised in a place like this, and we’ve never talked about everything that happened after Todd died.”

I slap on a smile. Everything that happened after Todd died isn’t something I want to talk about with anyone, even Liam.

“I’m not . . . I’m not holding on to anything here, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Liam’s face is in shadow, but I know how he looks. “And yet, you stole that article.”

“I did.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

I can’t look Liam in the eye. “If I explained it, would it make a difference?”

“It might.”

“I doubt it,” I say.

Liam watches me for a moment. “Was that guy harassing you?”

“Of course he was. You think I faked the emails?”

“You never said.”

“I don’t tell you everything.”

“We’re supposed to share the big stuff.”

I feel a prick of anger. “I made a mistake, Liam. People make mistakes. And yeah, I was losing my job, and I was going to be left with nothing, so I played a card I’d been holding. And if it was wrong, I’m being punished for that, aren’t I? The money’s gone. That should make you happy.”

“It doesn’t.”

“So why are you accusing me of . . . what? Being like Todd? Taking my moral cues from a sociopath?”

“I never said—”

“You definitely implied.”

Liam runs his hands through his hair and looks away. It’s always so complicated between us. He’s too many things to me. Brother, mentor, father, savior, and not the thing I want most.

“I want you to be well,” he says.

“I’m working on it.”

I stand next to him and we turn to face the downslope of the hill. Schroon Lake glints at our feet.

“You don’t have to worry about me so much,” I say. “I’m doing okay.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

“Can I give you one piece of advice?” Liam asks.

“Sure.”

“Whatever you’re holding on to, and I know it’s something even if I don’t know what it is, let it go.”

I look out over the view. I remember too many things, but mostly I remember what I can’t forget.

“I will,” I say, the lie slipping easily through my teeth. “Thus endeth the lesson.”





Chapter 10

One More for Good Measure

When we get back to the motel, there’s a surprise waiting for us.

We’d stopped at the store to get food we could eat in the room for dinner, and then the liquor store because all I wanted for dinner was whiskey. I felt dirty after visiting the Land of Todd. Twenty minutes under a hot spray and then three fingers of Canadian Club sounded like a perfect evening.

These plans get put aside when I open the door to our room and find an envelope from Jessie.

“What’s that?” Liam asks as I pick up the manila envelope from the floor.

The words I FOUND THEM are written across the front. We’d told her where we were staying in case she located the pictures from the bank. She’d given me a funny look when I’d said the words our motel room. I’d quickly explained that Liam was cheap, and that since we’d known each other so long we were more like brother and sister. Liam had frowned at that, which, frankly, gave me a bit of hope.

I open the envelope and shake out a set of three photographs that are similar to the ones I got from the bank, only these are in color.