The Night Swim(78)

Rachel became even more unsettled a few miles later as they took the right fork of a gravel road that cut through a dense forested area. The bumpy road was so narrow that bushes brushed against the car. The road finally widened to reveal a Jeep parked in a small clearing.

“Where are we?” Rachel asked hesitantly as she climbed out of the car into the silent solitariness of the remote scrub.

“Follow me,” Detective Cooper said, leading her down a crude path hewn between overgrown bushes. Rachel swallowed hard, trying not to show how vulnerable she felt being taken to such an unexpectedly isolated place. As she walked through the brush, she thought to herself that it felt like a place where the Mafia would take someone to execute them and dump the body in a shallow grave. Rachel stopped walking the moment she saw the view between the gap in the trees.

Below them was a breathtaking beach in its own cove. Overlooking it was a house made of timber and mirrored glass that reflected its surroundings of ocean and forest.

“That’s Mitch’s house,” said Detective Cooper. He walked down the sloping pathway toward the house perched on the edge of a cliff. Rachel followed behind.

Mitch Alkins was standing by the steel rails on the balcony, looking out to sea. He wore jeans and a navy button-down shirt that flapped in the wind.

“I’m not supposed to talk with journalists about the trial,” Alkins told Rachel when she reached him. “The last thing I need is to be accused of colluding with an influential podcaster. So I’m not talking with you. This conversation isn’t happening. Do you understand?”

“Absolutely,” she said, turning around to look for Detective Cooper. Through the enormous glass windows of the house, she could see him walking through the minimalist living room down a floating staircase until he disappeared out of sight.

“You’ve been trying to talk to me for days. What did you want to discuss?” Alkins asked, his eyes fixed out on the blue expanse of sea.

“Jenny Stills. Do you remember her?”

“Of course I remember her,” he said. “Jenny was my first crush.”

“How old were you then?” she asked.

“I must have been around fourteen, fifteen. Jenny was two years below me at school. I spent what felt like years trying to pluck up the courage to talk with her. Eventually I did. We became friendly. Sometimes we’d hang out together at the beach. I still didn’t have the courage to ask her out, though.”

“What happened to Jenny the summer she died?” Rachel asked.

She found herself staring at her own reflection in the lenses of Alkins’s sunglasses as he turned away from the view to face her. He looked angry at her impertinence, but there was another emotion on his face. Rachel’s throat tightened in fear as it dawned on her that it was guilt.

“I know that you leave flowers for her every year. Asking her to forgive you,” Rachel said. “What terrible thing did you do all those years ago that you want Jenny to forgive?”

“You’re asking if I killed Jenny?”

Rachel swallowed hard and nodded. Mitch Alkins was a formidable man at the best of times. A man who was never lost for words. His stormy expression told Rachel that she had one hell of a nerve interrogating him. Yet he said nothing as he turned away and stared out to sea.

“Did you hurt Jenny Stills?” Rachel prompted.

“The answer is yes,” he admitted finally. “I did hurt Jenny.”

Rachel’s heart pounded as she realized that she was in perilous territory. She looked down at the precipice, more aware than ever before of the steep drop from the balcony where she stood to the bottom of the cliff.

“We had the beginning of something beautiful and I destroyed it with my stupidity. I heard rumors that she was sleeping around. That she’d sleep with any boy who asked her. So I figured I’d try my luck. It wasn’t rape. It didn’t get that far. But I think my one-track mind that night devastated her, nevertheless. Does that answer your question?”

Rachel nodded. Her mouth was dry. “You’re the boy that she met at the beach that summer. You took her out on a date. Pizza, I think.”

“Yes,” he said. “How do you know about that?”

“Hannah, her sister, wrote about it in a letter that she sent me. She didn’t know your name, but she clearly remembered the night you came to take Jenny on a date. She says you brought a bunch of wildflowers to give Jenny, but you were embarrassed and dropped the flowers on the ground before you went inside.”

“I was stupid and selfish and so influenced by rumors and my own hormones that I didn’t realize I was destroying something precious. Maybe I broke Jenny’s heart that night. But I never hurt her physically.”

“So who did it?” Rachel asked. “Who killed Jenny Stills?”

“They said she drowned herself,” said Alkins.

“Do you really believe that?”

“There was no reason to doubt it. Anyway, I wasn’t here when she died. I was so disgusted with myself and the way that I’d treated Jenny that I went to stay with my granddad up north before starting college,” he said. “Why are you so interested in Jenny Stills? That was a lifetime ago.”

“I think that Jenny was murdered,” said Rachel. “And I may have some evidence. I need your help. I need a copy of Jenny’s autopsy report and I’d like to speak to the cops who handled the investigation. I don’t have access to that information. You do.”