The Night Swim(74)
I moved off the dirt road, walking among the trees into the darkness as the foliage became denser. I darted around tree trunks and bent under unruly branches that scratched my arms. Deep in the forest, I saw the pickup. It had been parked hastily on the side of the road. A canvas cover lay in a heap on the back of the truck alongside a half-empty box of beer. I heard voices and laughter coming from a clearing. Cruel laughter. As I moved closer, I saw a boy lying on top of Jenny while two others stood by and watched. Jeering.
I was filled with rage. I instinctively picked up a rock to charge at the boy who was hurting Jenny. I raced toward him, the rock raised in my right hand. Before I reached the clearing, a hand slapped onto my face like a suction cup. I couldn’t scream or say a word as I was lifted off the ground. My feet hung in the air as I was carried through the forest, restrained by powerful arms. My sandals slipped off. I tried to kick and struggle free. It was impossible. His grip was crushing.
43
Rachel
Rachel ran against a lava-lamp sky of navy cut with orange. Dawn had broken by the time she’d reached the Morrison’s Point jetty. Her breathing was labored as she leaned over the rails and looked into the dark, impenetrable water.
Long gone were the wildflowers that Hannah had scattered in the waves a few days earlier to commemorate her sister’s death. That had been the last message that Rachel had received from her. Pete was checking the podcast inbox several times a day in case Hannah reached out again. There had been plenty of mail from fans and detractors alike. Nothing from Hannah. Rachel had repeatedly called the phone number for Hannah that Kitty had given her, but it went to an automated voice mail each time. She’d left several voice messages for Hannah, but she hadn’t received any response.
It may take time for me to get you the last letter. I keep starting it and stopping, Hannah had written at the end of the email. It will take all my strength to put into words what happened to Jenny that night. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you. Maybe I should leave the past alone. Let it die with me.
Hannah’s last words left Rachel deeply worried. Hannah had intimated a few times in her correspondence to Rachel that she’d contemplated death. Rachel wished there was a way for her to reach out to Hannah. To reassure her. To get her help if she needed it. But Rachel couldn’t help someone who was so determined to stay out of reach. It was almost as if Hannah wanted to keep Rachel at arm’s length. It was, Rachel thought as she watched the pink dawn drain from the sky, as if she was a pawn in a game, the rules of which only Hannah knew.
Pete had called Rachel late the previous night to share the results of the background check he’d run on Vince Knox. “Four years ago, a man by the name of Vince Knox died of a heart attack in prison,” Pete told her. Rachel had been drifting to sleep when he called, his voice filled with enough urgency to immediately wake her. “The character witness who testified about Scott Blair saving that drowning boy can’t possibly be Vince Knox, Rach. For one thing, all records of his existence date back to exactly a week to the day after the Vince Knox I mentioned died in prison. I believe the character witness took the name Vince Knox after the real Vince Knox died, but he wasn’t born with that name. He’s actually someone else. The question is who?”
“Maybe I should ask him,” said Rachel. “Do you have an address for him?”
“No fixed address. He’s a vagrant. Apparently, he sometimes sleeps on the beaches south of town in the summer.”
“That’s a big area,” said Rachel, yawning. “There are a lot of beaches south of town.”
“If it helps, I just got off the phone with a charity worker who works with the poor in Neapolis and she said that he’s been known to sleep in a boat shed near the marine reserve,” said Pete.
Rachel knew the beach Pete was referring to. Right next to the national park was a sheltered beach with a row of boat sheds and a ramp. On the map, it was called Anderson’s Beach. But Rachel knew it in another context. It was the beach where Scott Blair had taken Kelly Moore for pizza and then allegedly raped her.
After Rachel finished the call with Pete, she set her alarm to wake her before dawn. She wanted to run along the beach south of Morrison’s Point in case she stumbled across Vince Knox sleeping rough in one of his usual haunts.
After catching her breath on the jetty, Rachel continued running south to the national marine park, darting over clumps of glistening seaweed that had littered the beaches overnight. When she came around the last peninsula, she saw a row of boat sheds in the distance, painted in faded pastel hues. From across the beach, Rachel heard a repeated banging noise. It was coming from a boat-shed door, which was slamming open and closed in the wind. She ran across the sand to the shed to close the door. Otherwise it would tear off its hinges from the repeated banging.
As she approached, the door blew wide open in a fresh gust, giving Rachel a clear view inside. There was an old fiberglass boat with an outboard motor. Men’s work clothes hung off nails banged into the timber. On the concrete floor was a makeshift bed and a pile of blankets. On the walls, newspaper clippings fluttered in the early morning breeze.
Rachel stepped into the boat shed, her eyes drawn to the wall decorated with the newspaper clippings. She was shocked to see they were all about the Scott Blair case. They’d been carefully torn out and hammered into the timber walls with rusty nails. There were black-and-white photos of Scott Blair coming into court, and photos of Mitch Alkins and Dale Quinn walking down the courthouse stairs, their expressions blank.