The Night Swim(91)

Hannah shrugged uncertainly. “We’ll find out soon enough. If he turns up, it will confirm that he did it. Only a guilty man would come here tonight. Let’s wait a little longer.”

“What are you hoping to get from him? And me?”

“I want him to confess. And I want you to be a witness to his confession. It might be the only evidence we ever get.” Hannah hesitated. “If you feel like it’s too dangerous, you can go. I’ll wait. I’ve waited a lifetime. I can wait a little longer.”

“I’ll stay,” said Rachel. “I’ll be your witness. I won’t let it be your word against his.” She crossed her shivering arms to stay warm as she looked out in the direction of the beach. The sweeping coastal landscape that had become so familiar to her had turned into a vast swath of impenetrable darkness in the night.

Minutes later, they saw two bright orbs moving along the coastal road. The orbs slowed down and turned toward the beach parking lot. They were car headlights. The headlights stopped moving, but they remained lit as they pointed toward the jetty on high beam. The driver had parked the car facing the ocean, looking for them. Eventually the lights turned off and everything was dark again.

Rachel and Hannah both knew that he was walking toward them, even though they couldn’t see him at all in the dark. Nor could they hear his footsteps over the howling wind. Rachel had retreated to the far corner of the jetty so that he wouldn’t realize that Hannah wasn’t alone.

It was only when he’d reached the end of the jetty and he was close enough for Rachel to see his face that she felt a coldness in the pit of her stomach. It couldn’t be him. It had to be a terrible mistake.

“I got your note. I came to say that I’m sorry,” he said to Hannah. “And to ask you to leave the past alone.”

He hadn’t yet noticed Rachel, who had blended into the thick fog of night in her dark clothes and upturned jacket hood and collar. She stayed silent as she listened to them talk, discreetly opening the voice recorder app on her phone in her pocket so that she could record the conversation.

“How have you lived with yourself all these years, after what you did?” Hannah asked.

“I was a different person in those days. A kid. Messed up on drugs and alcohol. I hated the world,” he said. “I’m ashamed of what I did. I hate who I was in those days. I’m nothing like that person anymore.” His voice cracked with emotion. “I’ve agonized over what happened every day since.”

“You raped and murdered my sister,” said Hannah.

“What makes you think I killed her?” he said. Hidden in the shadows, Rachel couldn’t help noticing that he hadn’t denied the first accusation.

“I know it was you. Why did you do it?”

Finally, he broke down as he spoke in a choking voice. “I didn’t plan to kill her. It just happened,” he said. “We left her lying on the sand while we carried Bobby to the truck to drive him to the hospital. I panicked and told my friend Lucas to pull over at the next beach. I realized that she was evidence of what we did. That we’d go to prison because of her. Either for her rape, or Bobby’s death if he didn’t make it. Or both. She was what my father called ‘a sloppy loose end.’ I carried her onto the jetty. Just over there.” He pointed to a side rail in the middle of the jetty, his face pained. “And I dropped her into the water and returned to my friends in the truck.”

“You’d already hurt her so much,” sobbed Hannah. “Why did you have to kill her? Why did you have to take her from me?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for all of it.”

“If you really are sorry, then you’ll tell the cops what you did,” said Hannah.

He rubbed his agonized face with his hands. Then slowly, as if fighting his worst instincts, he put his hand in the back of his jeans and removed a handgun from the waistband. He pointed it at Hannah with a hand as steady as his voice.

“I won’t be doing any confessing,” he said. “Why couldn’t you leave the past alone?”

“Because it’s time the truth came out. It’s time that everyone knew that Jenny didn’t drown. That she was gang-raped and murdered here. By you and your friends.”

He took the safety catch off the gun with his finger. “There’s no evidence that I did it. Nothing at all. He made sure of that.”

“Who made sure of that?” Rachel asked, stepping out of the shadows.



* * *



Rachel pulled off the hood of her jacket so that he could see her. They’d met enough times before that he recognized her voice even before he saw her distinctive auburn hair.

Dan Moore’s face turned pale. He turned toward Hannah in confusion, waving the gun unsteadily in her general direction.

“You told me it would just be the two of us,” he told Hannah.

“And you brought a gun,” she noted.

“I’ll do whatever is needed to protect my family,” he said. “It would crush Kelly if she knew what happened all those years ago. I was a kid then. Why can’t you both understand that I have changed? I was in a dark place. My father was abusive. All I ever knew was violence. It took what happened to Jenny to make me realize that I was becoming like my father. I’ve spent all these years making amends.”