Murder Road (22 page)

He was wrong. Shannon hadn’t just given birth when she disappeared. She had a little boy, who had been taken away from her and put in foster care. I squinted at the photo, but it was too blurry, and the little boy was turning away. I couldn’t see his face.

A muffled thump came from upstairs. I shoved the photo in my back pocket, pushed the album back, and closed the door. We’d been here too long. We had to get out of this house.

Upstairs, Eddie was in the main bedroom, looking in the closet. His footprints were clear on the old carpet, and the items in the closet had fallen on the floor.

“Eddie!” I grabbed his elbow, trying to pull him. “Get out of there now!”

“I found her things.” He had pulled the lid from an old banker’s box and was going through it. I looked over his shoulder and saw a small stuffed baby toy, a few child’s drawings. The things that John Haller still had left to remind him of his daughter.

The photo I’d found burned in my back pocket. What would Eddie think if he saw it? Would he have false hope? I didn’t understand why he was acting like this. At the same time, if it was possible that Shannon Haller was Eddie’s mother, we needed to know. And we wouldn’t be able to do anything if we were arrested for breaking and entering.

Eddie’s big hands were moving quickly, going through the items. There was a high school diploma, a small silver ring. “It’s here somewhere,” he said.

“What? What is?” I grabbed his shoulders from behind, trying to shake him. “Please, Eddie. Let’s go.
Please.
”

He paused. He held a small Nikon camera in his hands. He ran his fingers over it, turned it over.

“Eddie!” I cried, not bothering to be quiet anymore.

He touched a button, and the camera made a whirring sound as the film wound. Then he touched a button on the top of the camera, opening the back. He took out the roll of film.

He dropped the camera and everything else back in the box, put the lid on, and shoved it in the back of the closet. Then we ran.

We were silent as we drove back to Coldlake Falls, the air in the car thick with tension. I stared out the window at the passing landscape, feeling sick. We’d come so close, taken too big of a risk. Eddie had behaved more like the man who had picked fights before being discharged from the army than the husband I knew. I didn’t recognize him.

We had broken into a man’s house, left evidence that we’d been there. If John Haller called the police to report the break-in, it could be traced back to us. Our car had been parked in front of Haller’s house. Kal Syed—a cop—had followed us there, talked to us. We had left footprints, fingerprints. It would take only a few phone calls before our names came up.

The panic oozed through my stomach, crawled up my back. The familiar feeling I’d had so many times in my life, every time
Mom said we had to pack and run yet again. The fear that had pulsed through my skull in every motel room and long stretch of highway as Mom and I stayed a step ahead of the police. It was so close I could practically hear her voice.
Relax, baby. Everything will be fine. We’ll just keep going. When we stop for gas, don’t let anyone see you and don’t use the bathroom. Try to sleep. The state line is just a few hours away.

The threat was as real as it had ever been. If we were arrested, we couldn’t afford lawyers. We had no defense. If we were convicted of robbing John Haller, we’d both have criminal records. We could do prison time, and then who would hire us? I might be finished at the bowling alley already, and there was no way Eddie’s boss would give him his job back if he was a convicted criminal.

One of the ways I’d survived this long was by never crossing the line into breaking the law. Staying invisible, especially to the police, was my best line of defense. Eddie had just smashed a hole through it.

I glanced at him. His jaw was set, his gaze fixed straight ahead on the road. There was no scrolling through the radio dial this time, no laughing at my stupid jokes. Sweat was beaded on Eddie’s temple, and his knuckles were white as he gripped the wheel. The silence was so suffocating it felt stuffed down my throat.

It wasn’t until we saw the first sign for the Coldlake Falls city limits that Eddie spoke. “If you want to leave, April—if you want to cut and run—I won’t hold it against you.”

I closed my eyes. It would be easy. I knew where the keys to the Pontiac were. When we got back to Rose’s, all I’d have to do was get in and drive. I knew how to get a new identity, start over.
I knew how to leave April Carter dead at the side of the road if I had to. I had done it so many times.

Think, April. Think.

“You believe I’d do that?” I asked him, unable to keep the hurt from my voice. “You believe I would just abandon you? Maybe Quentin got to you more than you think he did.”

“What are you thinking about me right now?” my husband shot back. “You think I’m crazy. The way I just acted was nuts. So Quentin got to you, too.”

I flinched at his words. “Tell me why we just risked getting arrested. Can you do that much?”

His voice was a roar that filled the car and made me flinch again despite myself. “
I don’t fucking know.
Okay? I can’t explain it. I am nuts. You know that. I always have been.”

“Don’t say that!” I shouted back at him, my feelings raw, my eyes stinging. “If you’re nuts, then so am I. We’ve been through too much, Eddie. Too much. So just man up and tell me what’s going on.”

It was his turn to flinch, but when he spoke, his words were shockingly calm. “She’s in my head.”

I stared at him. “Shannon?”

His hands gripped the wheel even tighter, and he looked tormented. “I don’t know how she got into my mind, but she’s there. I’m starting to think she’s been there since that first night, and it’s getting worse. Or maybe I’ve just completely lost my sanity after all this time. That wouldn’t surprise me. Either way, it’s probably better for you if you leave.”

Technically, he was right. I was good at cutting my losses.

But these murders were my fight. Shannon was my fight. My
life as April Carter was my fight. And most of all, Eddie was my fight.

“Why did she pick you?” I asked Eddie. “Why you, of all people?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

The stolen photo sat in my back pocket, practically screaming into the silence. I couldn’t show it to Eddie now, not when he was hanging by a thread. But he’d need to see it. We had to know.

I looked around and realized we were driving through downtown Coldlake Falls. “Where are we going?” I asked.

“I’m trying to find a one-hour photo place. There has to be one around here.”

We passed a pizza place, a strip mall with a tiny video store and a nail salon. It was late afternoon now, and everything would close soon. “What if there’s nothing on the film you took?” I asked.

“There’s something.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know it.”

The stress was throbbing in my temples, mixing with the heat. When was the last time I ate? I didn’t even know what day it was anymore. I had long ago lost track of this honeymoon.

I turned in my seat and looked out the back window. Was that a police car a few cars back? It was hard to tell. Was it a coincidence, or was the Coldlake Falls PD keeping tabs on Eddie and me? Had Kal made a report about seeing us in Midland? It was likely that John Haller had come home by now from wherever he’d been. He would see the removed back screen and he’d know that his home had been broken into. If he called the police in Midland, that wouldn’t necessarily connect to us in Coldlake Falls.

“Stop thinking, April,” Eddie said. “Everything is going to be fine.”

I gave a bitter laugh at that. “There was a police car behind us,” was my reply. “It just made a left.”

“Then it wasn’t following us. We aren’t doing anything wrong. We just have to find a way to get this done quick.”

I turned back around, but I kept looking in my rearview mirror. Cold sweat was sticky on the back of my neck. I was starting to panic. I never panicked—never.

And then I saw it in a parking lot up ahead—a familiar car. Blue and brand-new, gleaming in the late-afternoon sun.

“Turn right,” I told Eddie, pointing.

He saw the car, too, and for a second he hesitated. Then he signaled and pulled into the lot, parking a few cars away from Beatrice Snell’s shiny new car.

A minute later, Beatrice came out of the drugstore, carrying a small bag. She was wearing jean shorts, a camisole, and a black vest. Her hair was twisted on top of her head and she wore her silver sunglasses. Without seeming to notice us, she unlocked her car and got in.

I glanced back at the street, looking for another police car. I was probably being paranoid. Still, my hand was icy as I pulled the handle to get out of the car. I walked briskly to Beatrice’s car, which she hadn’t started yet. I could see through the window that she had taken a tube of lipstick from her shopping bag and was putting it on, looking at herself in her rearview mirror.

The sound of the driver’s door slamming behind me was my only indication that Eddie was following me. I opened Beatrice’s
car door and slid into her back seat. Eddie opened the other door and slid in, too.

In the front seat, Beatrice went still, her lipstick in midair. She pushed her sunglasses up, watched us get into her car, and her eyes went wide.

“Hi,” I said.

Beatrice twisted in her seat to look at us. Her expression was surprised, and then it warmed into a big smile. Her lips were cherry red.

Something about that smile made the tension ease from my temples for the first time in hours. I couldn’t have said why.

“Mr. and Mrs. Carter,” Beatrice said. “It’s so nice to see you. What are we up to? Whatever we’re doing, I’m in.”

I’m not saying you’re being followed by the police,” Beatrice Snell said. “But then again, I’m also not
not
saying it.”

“They could have put a tracking device on your car,” Gracie said. “It isn’t that hard to do. It gives off a radio signal. You were smart to come to us.”

We had picked up Gracie at the movie theater as she came out of an afternoon showing of
Dolores Claiborne
. (“Not bad,” was Gracie’s succinct review.) As we drove, I talked.

I told them everything—about the encounter with Shannon Haller’s ghost on Atticus Line, about going to John Haller’s house, about Kal seeing us there, about breaking in. As I spoke, Eddie stayed silent.

The Snell sisters listened intently to everything I said as
Beatrice drove through Coldlake Falls, making random left and right turns. Then we started talking about what to do.

“Okay,” Gracie said. “So you have this roll of film, right?”

I looked at Eddie. He spoke for the first time. “I have it.”

“And we don’t know what’s on it.”

“It could be nothing,” Beatrice said. She had put her sunglasses back on and was frowning as she drove. I hadn’t told them that Eddie believed that Shannon Haller might be in his head, but both sisters had accepted without question that we’d broken the law to steal a roll of film, as if it seemed logical to them. “What would Shannon have left behind on film that we need to see? If she was leaving home, she would have taken everything important with her.”

“Well, we won’t know until we develop it,” Gracie said. “Maybe it’s like the Zapruder film.”

“Where should we get it developed?” Beatrice asked.

“I was looking for a one-hour photo place,” Eddie said.

Gracie clucked her tongue. “The only one I know of is Bickle’s Photo.” She checked her watch, a thin band on her narrow wrist. “It closes in ten minutes.”

“Can we get in after hours?” Beatrice asked. “Who works there?”

“Mark Sankowicz.” Gracie made a face.

“Yuck,” Beatrice said. “I turned him down for homecoming last year. He probably won’t let us in after hours. Besides, I don’t trust him.”

“Me, neither,” Gracie agreed.

I was melted into my seat, oddly relaxed. It felt good to let
someone else take over, to stop making decisions for a little while. The Snell girls were only too happy to steer the ship. The tension had left Eddie, too, and while the sisters talked in the front seats, the distance between Eddie and me could be forgotten. We had a task to do, and for better or for worse, we were committed to it now. We would see it through.

“Did you get my magazine?” I asked.

“Got it,” Gracie said. “We’re on it. That’s why you wanted to find this Trish woman? Because she’s the one you met on the road last night.”

“I just want to make sure she’s okay,” I said.

Gracie nodded. “We’ll find her. If she was driving away from the interstate on Atticus Line, she’s probably local, because Atticus Line ends at Hunter Beach and there are no other towns along the way. There are less than a dozen dental offices here. I hope she’s all right.” She shuddered. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to have the Lost Girl inside you, making you do things.”

I grasped Eddie’s hand and curled my fingers around it, but he looked away.

Beatrice sat up in the driver’s seat. “I have an idea. We can develop the film ourselves at the high school. There’s a darkroom there for photography class.”

Gracie put a palm on her forehead. “Why didn’t I think of that? It’s perfect.”

“But it’s summer,” I said, “and it’s late. Isn’t the school closed?” I wasn’t sure I had the stomach for any more break-ins.

The sisters exchanged a look. “Okay, I
might
have an illegal key,” Gracie said. “I
may
have used the school newspaper’s ditto
machine after hours to make an anonymous pamphlet about UFO abduction cover-ups, but it was important. People need to know.”

“We found seventeen people in Coldlake Falls who say they were abducted,” Beatrice added. “Some of them weren’t even high.”

“Do either of you know how to develop film?” I asked.

“I got a B-plus in that class,” Gracie said.

“A-minus,” Beatrice added.

I looked at Eddie. He seemed to pull himself out of his thoughts. Reluctantly, he shrugged.

“It’s as good an idea as any,” he said. “I’m in.”

Coldlake Falls High School was a small, redbrick building, a perfect cube with a square of green lawn in front and a running track behind it. The parking lot was empty, and the building looked abandoned in the lengthening summer sun. Darkness wouldn’t fall for a while yet, but the long shadows made the school look lonely and sad, like every school does in summer.

Gracie had picked up her key at the Snell house while the rest of us waited in the car, parked out of sight. Now she unlocked the school’s side door and it swung open with a soft click. The experience was anticlimactic, to be honest. Still, my stomach turned as Eddie and I took part in our second break-in of the day.

The lights were off in the halls, and the only light was from the lowering sun through the windows. The air-conditioning was off, but the air wasn’t unbearably hot. I looked at the announcement board with curiosity as we walked past it, taking in the old notices of play auditions and student council meetings from last school
year. High school had been a very distant experience for me, as if I’d spent time on another planet. Mom and I had moved so much that it had been a struggle to graduate, and I’d never gotten involved in football or yearbooks or math clubs like other students. It went without saying that I had had no friends.

Beatrice led us down one hall, then another. In the dim light and the silence, my exhaustion nearly caught up with me, and I had the urge to lie down and take a nap. High schools in summer, it turned out, were strangely peaceful places.

“In here.” Beatrice whispered, even though there was no one else in the building to hear. Her hand was on the knob of a door labeled
photography lab
. She turned it experimentally, and it gave. The lab wasn’t locked.

We slipped inside, all of us moving like fugitives. Gracie flicked on the light, showing a classroom with several tables instead of desks, a chalkboard on the front wall. Gracie clicked the door shut behind us.

“Okay,” she said in her normal voice. “The darkroom is over here.”

As the girls opened the door labeled
darkroom
, I imagined years of students passing through this room, the happy ones and the miserable ones, the smart ones and the stupid ones, with their small rivalries and petty resentments, on their way toward a destiny they couldn’t see. Though we’d never talked about it in depth, I knew exactly what Eddie had been like in high school—big, shy, quiet, overlooked by most of the girls, doing his best to get good grades because he didn’t know any other way to be. I knew Eddie so well that I could see it, see
him
, his hair overgrown and his shoulders slouched at sixteen.

Our gazes caught, and a flicker of a smile touched his mouth. He guessed what I was thinking. For a second, everything fell away and it was just us—no secrets, lies, worries, or unsolvable problems. Just Eddie and me.

“Come on,” Gracie hissed, and Eddie gestured for me to precede him into the darkroom.

Eddie took the canister of film from his pocket. “Let’s do this fast,” he said.

The girls got to work, preparing the equipment and the chemicals. They whispered directions to each other. Eddie and I waited.

Somewhere outside, I heard the snap of a door closing. We all froze.

I put my hand on the doorknob. There was no mechanism to lock the door from inside—probably a measure to prevent teenagers from locking themselves in to fool around. Anyone could open the door and find us.

The four of us looked at one another. “You heard that, right?” Beatrice asked, her voice a whisper again.

Our faces said that we all had. We waited in silence for the sound to come again.

Ice-cold air crept up the back of my neck, like fingers. Somewhere down the hall was a thump, as if something heavy had been dropped.

“Do it,” I hissed at the girls, my voice coming out harsh. “Do it fast. Right now. Go.”

The girls blinked, and then they nodded. Gracie looked at Eddie, who was standing by the light switch. “We’re ready. You can turn out the light.”

My hand tightened on the doorknob. I didn’t know who—or
what—was outside this darkroom, but it wasn’t going to open this door. If the door opened, this would all be for nothing.

What did you take pictures of, Shannon?

I looked at Eddie, nodding to him that I was ready.

Eddie turned off the light.