The Night Swim(29)
Pete was right. The podcast needed to be Rachel’s sole focus. There wasn’t time to investigate Jenny Stills’s death. Maybe, Rachel thought, once the trial was over she’d stay in Neapolis for a few days longer and see what she could find out. In the meantime, she needed to give all her attention to the podcast. The last thing she needed was a distraction. There was too much at stake.
Rachel drove toward the hotel, where she’d planned to eat dinner at the lobby cafe while reading her files on the Blair family. Pete had managed to swing her an interview with Greg, Scott Blair’s father. She wanted to read all his press interviews again before she met him and his wife the next day. Rachel glanced at Hannah’s letter on the seat next to her. She was tempted to read it, but she couldn’t allow herself to be drawn in again. She didn’t have time to be Hannah’s savior, or Jenny’s avenger. She briefly considered tearing it up and tossing the pieces out of the window.
Rachel made it two blocks before pulling her car to an abrupt stop on the side of the road. She put on her hazard lights and ripped open the letter. When she was done reading Hannah’s wavy, sometimes barely legible handwriting, she tossed the pages back onto the front passenger seat and restarted the car engine.
Instinctively, Rachel made a furious U-turn and headed south in the direction of the Old Mill Road gas station. Rachel wondered if Rick still worked there and, if he did, if he remembered the driver and passengers of the pickup truck Hannah described in her letter. Rachel got the impression that the truck and its rowdy crew had been regulars at his gas station.
As Rachel drove down the coastal road, she spotted the Morrison’s Point jetty, a gray outline against a darkening sky. Again without thinking it through, Rachel turned off the road and into the beach parking lot. She pulled her car to a stop facing the ocean. It was twilight. Rachel figured she had enough time to quickly go down to the jetty to see if the sign warning swimmers not to jump into the water had been erected, just as the newspaper article she’d read at the archive said.
The evening coastal winds were so strong that Rachel struggled to get out of her car. As she walked across the beach, sand blew into her face, hitting her skin like pinpricks. Rachel spotted the sign. It was hung on a rusted pole stuck into a thick lump of concrete on the shoreline, just out of reach of the waves. Its faded warning to swimmers looked decades old. She hadn’t noticed it the last time she was there, but then, she hadn’t been looking for it.
Rachel stepped onto the jetty. It was unsteady under her feet. She had to hold the rail as she walked, pummeled by the wind and stung by salt sprays from unruly waves. The foamy water looked opaque in the waning light.
When Rachel reached the inscription that Hannah had carved in the timber, she squatted down to read it again: In loving memory of Jenny Stills, who was viciously murdered here when she was just 16. Justice will be done.
Rachel didn’t hear the jetty creak behind her over the loud rush of wind. Nor did she notice the looming outline of a man emerge from the dark behind her.
“Who are you?” His sudden, angry voice shocked Rachel to her feet.
She swung around to confront the intruder but was immediately blinded by a flashlight beam shining directly into her eyes. From what Rachel could make out, he was a heavyset man dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt soaked with sweat so strong she could smell it. His arms and neck were covered in tattoos, and the left side of his face was crisscrossed by the angry ridges of knife scars.
“I asked you a question,” he growled, stepping toward her. Rachel instinctively moved back until her spine was pressed into the timber rail. He pointed his flashlight down to where Rachel had been squatting and moved the beam across the inscription as he read it. He paused the light over the words viciously murdered.
“What do you know about this?” he asked.
“Not much,” said Rachel. “I heard she drowned here. Hit her head on some rocks when she jumped off the jetty.”
“People are stupid. They’ll believe anything,” he spat. “There ain’t no rocks to hit. The ocean floor is pure sand around here. And the water is deep. Real deep. If I remember correctly, she was a real good swimmer.”
“If it wasn’t an accident, then how did she die?” Rachel pressed. It was the first time someone had come close to confirming what she was starting to suspect—that Jenny’s drowning had been no accident at all.
“You need to scram,” he growled, taking another step closer. Rachel saw a flash of metal near his leg. It looked as if he was holding a switchblade. “Get out. And make sure I don’t see you around again.”
Rachel’s heart beat rapidly as she stepped away and left the jetty. She headed to her car, walking fast across the beach. She deliberately held back from a full-blown sprint, even though the roar of wind was too loud for her to know if he was behind her. Catching up. She resisted the temptation to look back over her shoulder. She had no intention of letting him think that he frightened her.
When Rachel reached her car, it took all her physical strength to open the driver’s door in the strong gusts. She slid inside and pulled it shut. The deafening howl of wind stopped immediately. Rachel took a moment to revel in the silence before turning on her car engine and driving away. As she did, she looked out toward the jetty. The man was leaning over the rail, watching her.
Rachel drove toward Old Mill Road, where she found the gas station at the corner, just as Hannah had described. Rachel filled up with fuel before going inside to pay. The convenience store was brightly lit, with a white-tiled floor and neatly packed shelves. Along the back of the store were self-service coffee and soft-drink machines. There was a cabinet with a heating rack that contained jelly doughnuts and burritos in silver-foil bags.