One Step Too Far (Frankie Elkin #2)(82)

“Josh went in with Tim while he got stitched up,” Scott relates. “I called Tim’s parents. And two weeks later, we hit the swimming hole again. This time with much less bodily harm.”

“How old were you guys?”

“Twenty-six, twenty-seven. Old enough to know better, young enough not to care.”

Scott smiles and I catch it now, the bittersweet edge on even his carefree memories. For the longest time, I couldn’t think of Paul at all. I couldn’t say his name or I was back there, on the sticky floor of the liquor store, and he was smiling apologetically as the blood poured from his stomach and I screamed and screamed.

In the beginning the awful memories block out everything, a total eclipse of happiness. But, bit by bit, the good times sneak through again, and the pain becomes less a feral beast and more a wise companion. I don’t know if that’s peace, but it is progress.

“We would’ve worked it out,” Scott murmurs now, as if reading my mind. “We were all assholes. We’d all done stupid things. We would’ve fought a bit more, forgiven a lot more, then got on with it. Twelve years of friendship . . . You don’t just give up on that.”

“He would’ve married the woman who’s now your wife.”

“Yeah. And I would’ve lived with it. I was infatuated back then, captivated by the idea of Latisha. I didn’t truly know her, so I couldn’t really love her, not the way I do now. We became real to each other only in the past few years. We fell in love only in the past few years. I understand the difference.” He’s speaking more to Miggy and Neil now than to me. I let him have his speech. I let the three of them feel this joint memory, probably one of their first moments of solidarity since Tim’s disappearance.

Why do I do what I do? Because at the end of the day, the people left behind matter as much as the ones who are missing. We mourn the ones we’ve lost, but we agonize over the pieces of ourselves they took with them. The identities we’ll never have again. The emotions we’re certain we’ll never feel again. The sense of our own selves, becoming undone and disappearing just as completely and suddenly as those who vanished.

Now I present Scott with a bolstering smile.

“You’re a very considerate man,” I assure him.

“I like to think—”

I stab him in the chest.

And Miggy drops like a rock. While from the stream, Neil starts laughing.





CHAPTER 33





We’ve laughed, cried, and done everything short of weaving friendship bracelets by the time we hear approaching footsteps. We immediately hunker down behind the enormous felled pine. Miggy has his gun out, pointing straight up. The Charlie’s Angels pose strikes me as hysterically funny, and I have to duck even lower, my shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.

Maybe it’s low blood sugar or sleep deprivation or sheer terror, but we’ve all gone a little batty.

Bob appears in the middle of the encampment, holding a pack. One by one, we pop up like a row of prairie dogs. He looks at us, blue eyes widening.

“What happened to you?” he asks Miggy.

“Rock.”

“He fell,” I provide.

“He passed out cold,” Neil clarifies.

Scott giggles slightly.

Bob’s eyes widen further. He holds up the pack. I recognize it immediately. “That’s Luciana’s!”

Bob nods, taking a seat as we all scramble forward. “I didn’t find any bodies,” he states bluntly. “Or blood. But I found an area of disturbance and this.”

He digs around in his pocket, emerging with a thin piece of looped cord.

“A snare,” Miggy provides.

I’ve heard of them for hunting rabbits. While I don’t like to think about it, I imagine the same principles apply for targeting human prey. “You think they were ambushed?” I ask.

“Luciana made it one mile from camp, then set down her pack and simply walked away?” Bob shrugs.

I want to say that’s absolutely plausible, but of course I can’t. The truth is just so hard to take.

“Do you think . . . they’re still alive?” Neil asks.

“I didn’t find bodies,” Bob repeats. “Then again, given the chamber we stumbled upon yesterday . . . I’m not sure this person likes to leave his kills behind.”

I shiver now, rubbing my bare arms. Kills. Is that all we will be in the end? We enter life with such grand illusions, then exit as notches in some serial killer’s hunting belt?

“No blood?” I quiz.

“No. But if he used some kind of trap, such as a snare . . . maybe he didn’t have to shoot first.”

“Maybe he tied them up and left them tucked away someplace,” Neil brings up hopefully. “While Daisy ran off.”

Bob doesn’t say anything. Neil pretty much abandons his theory the moment it’s spoken out loud. The odds of a man who’d already killed eight people and laid out their bodies in an underground chamber simply tying up two more victims and walking away . . .

“How are you?” Bob asks Scott.

In reply, Scott raises the edge of his T-shirt to reveal a fresh white bandage. “Don’t let her fool you”—he points at me—“the lady loves her knife.”