You Can't Catch Me(65)

“Can you hand it to me?”

“Oh, sure.” I keep one hand on my pack while I reach for the canteen. I take a sip of water to quell my dry mouth, then hand it to her.

I can feel her eyes on me. Am I behaving strangely? I can’t tell. Is Jessie looking at me oddly? Maybe, maybe she is.

“Well, this is a party,” JJ says, reappearing with her arms full of wood. She dumps it into the firepit, bends down, and makes short work of starting it with a lighter that she pulls from her pocket.

“What’s the fire for?” Jessie asks.

She shrugs. “Felt like making it. Who knows how long we’ll be here?”

“It doesn’t get dark till late, though.” Jessie looks at her watch. “It’s only four. We have plenty of time to rest, then get back.”

“Who doesn’t like a campfire?” JJ says by way of explanation, then walks over and sits next to me. She reaches into the pack and emerges with a beer. The pop of the tab opening sounds loud. Everything seems loud.

I think I’m losing my mind.

“What’s wrong with you two?” JJ asks.

Jessie rips open the beef jerky package with her teeth. “Nothing.”

“Yeah, nothing,” I say.

“Bullshit. You guys have a fight when I was gone?”

“Nope,” Jessie says, putting some beef jerky in her mouth. “But Jess doesn’t feel like talking.”

“It’s nothing,” I say. “I’m tired.”

I take one of the beers and open it. It’s lukewarm, but I need something to calm my nerves.

“So, that was a shitshow today,” JJ says, crushing up her beer can and tucking it into the pack. “Ooh, trail mix.” She pulls it out.

“You don’t say,” I answer, trying to keep my tone even.

“We should go home,” Jessie says.

“You sound like Liam,” I say, and Jessie makes a face.

“And what, give up?” JJ says.

“I guess.”

I take a long drink of the bitter beer and listen to the fire pop. Going home would be the easy thing to do. It would be the sensible thing to do. But it’s not what I’m going to do. Because I came here to catch a Jessica, and here she is, sitting next to me, like she’s been all along.

“No,” I say.

“What’s that?” Jessie says.

“I said no.”

“Why not?”

“You know why.”

I haven’t been looking at her directly. But now I do. I gather my courage and remember everything she’s done to me, and JJ, and the others. And then I imagine that she’s Todd, and I look her right in the eye like I wanted to look at him all those years. Like I did when I was twelve and we got sent to the Back Forest.

“What’s that?” she says again.

“I said, you know why.” I pause. “Molly.”

The beer can slips from her hand and splashes against the rocks.

“What did you just say?”

“I called you Molly.”

Jessie scrambles to her feet. JJ and I are not far behind.

“Catch me up,” JJ says.

“I went through her stuff while you guys were going to the beach.”

“You what?” Jessie says, her voice shaking.

“Shut it,” JJ says.

“I found her other ID.” I bend at the knees so I can keep my eyes on Jessie. I put my hand in my pack and pull out Jessie’s wallet. Her eyes narrow. “Here.” I stand and toss it to JJ. “Check the inner compartment.”

JJ opens the wallet and finds a second driver’s license with Jessie’s photo on it.

“There’s a boarding pass in there too,” I say. “The one she used to get into the airport today. She also had a bunch of other IDs in a pouch, bank cards, a few passports. Who knows which are real and which are fake.”

I’m explaining to JJ, but my eyes haven’t left Jessie. She hasn’t reacted beyond the first blip. She’s standing there, a stone. Only her eyes are moving slightly, as if she’s calculating the distance to the door. But there isn’t any door. There’s nowhere to go but the lake.

“I can explain,” Jessie says finally, her voice a squeak.

“I’m listening,” JJ says, but she takes a step toward Jessie. JJ’s body is tense, like it was last night at the washstand. As if violence isn’t far behind.

“It’s not what it looks like.”

“Of course it is,” I say as JJ takes another step.

“It’s not. I swear. Jess, come on. We’ve been together off and on all summer. I’m not . . . I’m not her.”

“You are.”

“No. I only have those IDs because of her. I needed to be someone else for a while. Someone she didn’t have a hold over, a connection to. You understand, don’t you, JJ? After everything she did to you, wouldn’t it be nice to be anonymous?”

“That’s a good story,” I say. “Tell me, have you had that ready for a while, or did you make it up on the spot?”

“It’s not a story.”

“It is, though. And I can prove it.” I reach into my pocket and take out my cell. I scroll through my texts until I find it. The thread with Jessica Two. The threats she’s sent me, including the one from today.