Of the Trees(47)

“Her feet were a mess. Not the rest of her, just her feet. They were bloody and three times their normal size, and if I didn’t know that she was with you, last night, dancing, I would have sworn she was forced to walk a thousand miles barefoot and dropped dead from exhaustion. I’ve never seen anything like it. Her poor parents.”

“So there’s no cause of death? No stab wounds or … Did someone strangle her?” Cassie blurted out, aware that it was bizarre for her to want that, to assume that just because Jessica was dead it meant someone killed her. But ever since she heard she was dead, she had known—had felt that something happened last night, that something bad happened to her. She had assumed it would have been obvious; a man like Jude didn’t seem particularly concerned with subtly.

Her mother was shaking her head slowly. “She was found early this morning, out on the side of the road by a jogger. He called 911, the ambulance brought her here. There was nothing we could do. The autopsy should be able to tell us more.”

Cassie sank back into her seat as her mother pulled the car onto their road. For all the rage and anger, hurt and betrayal she had felt this morning, a large part of her now felt strangely hollow. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed.





“Do you want to stay home today?” Patrick Harris asked. “Your mother and I wouldn’t mind. She can take the day off.”

“No,” Cassie answered. She sat at the kitchen table, her bag propped by her feet. Her father regarded her over the corner of the paper he was reading. She noticed it was the sports section. She looked about the table, but the front page was already gone. Most likely dumped in the garbage first thing this morning before she could see it.

Jessica would be splashed all over it.

The thought made Cassie swallow hard. She reached for the piece of toast left on her father’s plate and chewed slowly.

The sun wasn’t up yet, but Cassie couldn’t sleep this morning. She couldn’t sleep all night, actually. It was Jessica’s murder, the guilt over leaving her there, the way she died, her feet, engorged and bloody. Cassie couldn’t get them out of her head. She hadn’t seen them, hadn’t seen Jessica’s body, maybe it would be better when she did. Not that, even at the wake, she’d be able to see her feet. Still, maybe seeing her face, still and silent, seeing her laying there, really and truly dead, maybe that would ease the nightmares. Because it still didn’t feel real.

Cassie had spent the rest of Sunday in her house. She hadn’t stepped out, not even to get the mail. The police had been on her street all day, the blaze of red and blue lights washing the walls of every room Cassie ventured into. They had pulled the shades, trying to block out the swoop of colored light, but it didn’t help much. The blue and red saturated the blinds, slanted through, a constant swirl of chaotic colors. Cassie could see a patch of the woods from the window in her room. She watched for a bit, seeing officers walk into and then out of the woods, heading in the direction of the clearing. There was a swath of yellow tape and ribbon attached to the trees, wavering a bit in the harsh sunlight. There was black lettering on it, but Cassie couldn’t read it from her room. She thought it read: Police. Caution. Stay Back.

She assumed mostly because that’s what it always read in the television shows and movies.

Her parents had given her hell after she got home from the hospital, yelling about responsibility, drinking, and poor decisions. There was a lot of anger, though Cassie thought it was mostly provoked by fear. Her mother had seen Jessica, had seen her feet, had thumped on her naked chest and had shot drugs into her in an attempt to get her heart beating again. It hadn’t worked. Cassie knew that at the hospital, her mother’s fear wouldn’t have shone through, but at home, with her daughter who was at that same party, her daughter who could have just as easily been on that emergency room gurney, her mother’s fear turned to blazing anger.

She shouted a lot. Cassie gritted her teeth and took it, knowing by the time her mother started crying and with the way her father wrapped his arms around her that it was almost over. Cassie had been pulled between them and held tightly. She didn’t mind.

It was scary that she was at the same party, that she could have just as easily stayed. Laney hadn’t been ready to leave, they only left because Cassie had freaked. Just as Laney had said.

Her betrayal hurt. Through a haze of anger and pain, Cassie could see why Laney said what she said. Corey blinded her. Cassie shouldn’t have even been surprised when Laney spoke like that at the hospital. She was diverting suspicion from her boyfriend. It was obvious now. What wasn’t obvious was how she could do that, how she could shred the trust between her and Cassie, the friendship that had spanned almost their entire lifetime, for a boy she had met not even a month ago. Cassie was furious with her. She blocked her on her phone, not even wanting to see her name pop up when she inevitably tried to text or call. She didn’t see when, or even how, they would patch this one up.

The thought left her cold.

As soon as she gave into it, Ryan’s face would creep up. He had been her Laney substitute, the person Cassie could always turn to, and a person who she was growing to value more and more each day. Now he was gone, too. As much as Cassie wished he would reach out to her, call or text or yell, he didn’t. Her phone was annoyingly quiet all weekend.

“Where is Mom?” Cassie asked. She had finished the toast. It settled like lead in her stomach. Her appetite had vanished. She watched as her father swallowed the sip of coffee he had just taken and thought about getting a cup herself. She dismissed it almost immediately, not wanting to feel more jittery than she already did.