The Edge of Nowhere (24 page)

She said sharply, “I don’t have secrets, Seth,” and of course this was an outright lie.

Their argument went on from there. It became about Derric. It went on to Seth’s dropping out of school for his music. It shifted to his grandfather taking Seth’s dog. Then it made its way to whether Seth had even
bothered
to get a tutor yet to help him study for the GED since he’d been out of school since the previous January. It was one of those arguments that turn out to have no real starting point and no real ending point, just a lot of pain generated and a lot of forgiveness needed to get past it.

But there was no time for forgiveness, because in the middle of their argument, Derric’s dad came into the hospital along with Jenn McDaniels. Jenn went over to the reception desk to check in on the list while the undersheriff came over to Hayley and Seth. He said hello to Hayley and he nodded to Seth, who mumbled something about being really sorry he hadn’t paid his speeding tickets on time. The undersheriff couldn’t have cared less about speeding tickets, and Hayley felt like telling Seth this, but then Jenn McDaniels came over to them, said, “That stupid list is
already
screwed up and I’ll have to fix it,” and then took the temperature of the Seth/Hayley/Undersheriff Mathieson moment and knew in that Jenn McDaniels way of hers that something somewhere was wrong. Jenn cast a shrewd look from Hayley to Seth to Hayley to Seth. For sure, she knew they’d had a fight. That could mean trouble, Hayley realized.

SETH PRETTY MUCH
disappeared after that, which was fine with Hayley. She didn’t want to talk to him any longer, since talking to him was pointless. Instead, she went with Undersheriff Mathieson to Derric’s room while Jenn went back over to the reception desk to rescue her all-important list of visitors and to figure out how it had gotten messed up.

In Derric’s room, the undersheriff approached the bed with something like reverence. Hayley held back respectfully. The undersheriff touched Derric’s forehead in a tender way and said, “Come on, little man. Time to wake up now,” and the term
little man
seemed strange to Hayley because Derric was not only over six feet tall, he was also taller than his father. Still, she could tell it was a term of affection and Dave Mathieson had probably called Derric that from the first moment he’d seen him.

Then the undersheriff bent and kissed Derric’s forehead, and he took up his hand to hold it. He uncurled Derric’s fingers and something fell out. From where she was standing not too far from the door, Hayley saw it was a piece of paper.

Dave Mathieson read the note aloud: “‘Give this back to me when you wake up. B.’” His lips curved and he said, “Ah, kids,” and he put the note back into Derric’s hand. What Hayley thought was that B would be Becca. Give
what
to Becca? was what she wondered.

Then Jenn McDaniels came into the room. She said, “Someone came here actually
pretending
to be me, if you can believe that. It was right after you, Hayley. Did you see anyone?” and she acted as if a crime had occurred.

Hayley figured that Becca had been the one to do the pretending. Once again, who else could it have been? But she wasn’t about to tell Jenn McDaniels that. She didn’t know what
any
of it meant, that Becca hadn’t signed her own name, that she’d come more or less on the sly, and that she’d put a strange note into Derric’s hand. But one thing was for sure: She intended to find out.

The undersheriff said to Jenn, “Sounds like the kids are enthusiastic about coming up to see him. Let’s hope they stay that way. Meantime . . . I’d like to talk to you girls about that day in the woods. Come with me, okay? Let’s have a Coke.”

“EITHER OF YOU
have a cell phone?” was what the undersheriff asked them. He’d taken them to the cafeteria where instead of Cokes he’d bought an enormous brownie for them to share, along with three small cartons of milk.

Hayley thought Dave Mathieson wanted to make a call. She knew that there was virtually no way Jenn would have a cell phone. Her family was so poor that they were lucky to have shoes. So she reached for her purse.

She said, “I have one. My mom just got it for me because—” But the
because
of it all couldn’t be spoken: the need to contact Hayley because something bad might happen on the farm. The undersheriff didn’t know that and he didn’t need to know.

“Where is it, Hayley?” The undersheriff sounded a little sharp and this took her by surprise, but Hayley dug the cell phone out of her purse. She said, “Mom decided she’d like to be able to get in touch,” which was not a lie. Lots of mothers liked to be able to keep tabs on their kids.

Undersheriff Mathieson took the cell phone from her and turned it over in his hands. He said, “This wouldn’t be a replacement phone, would it?”

She said. “No. Why?”

“Because we’re tracing a cell phone that was left in Saratoga Woods, in the information shelter at the edge of the meadow.”

“Someone must’ve lost it,” Jenn said.

“Someone hid it. Ralph Darrow found it. It’s a throwaway phone, but we’re on its trail. People don’t generally know how easy they are to trace.”

He was watching Hayley’s face as he spoke, but Hayley was stuck on
Ralph Darrow found it
and how Ralph Darrow led to Seth. Thinking this, she didn’t say anything but she didn’t have to because the undersheriff went on, his eyes plastered to her face.

“Those phones all have serial numbers, Hayley. Serial numbers lead to the stores that sold them. Stores that sold them lead to the days they were sold. Days they were sold lead to credit card receipts or to the closed-circuit films of buyers. It takes some research but it’s only a matter of time, which is all that police work is, really. A matter of time.” He cocked his head at them. Still, he kept his gaze fixed on Hayley. He said, “So eventually we’ll find out who bought the phone because that’s the girl who made the call to nine-one-one about Derric. She knows something about what happened. And what happened is what I want to know.”

What happened that day is Derric falling because he slipped somehow, was what Hayley wanted to say to the undersheriff. But she could tell that he thought it was something else. The only other thing it could be was Derric was pushed, shoved, or thrown from the path. She didn’t want their conversation to head in that direction.

Undersheriff Mathieson said, “What do you two know about that day in the woods? What were you doing there?”

Jenn went first. She said she’d been there for a run with some other kids who were getting ready for the South Whidbey triathlon. They’d been over in Putney Woods where there were more trails and a circuit had been marked, but when they heard the sirens they crossed over on Coral Root Link. She added that they’d parked on Lone Lake Road and started their run from there. It was easier because there was a parking lot there, whereas if they’d gone in another way, like on Keller Road, they’d have had to park on the shoulder, and since they liked to hang out after the run, the parking lot on Lone Lake Road was . . .

Hayley wondered if Jenn knew how guilty she sounded. She was determined not to sound the same way. She prepared herself mentally to respond to the question that came her way in about one minute: “What about you, Hayley?”

She’d taken her little sister Brooke to dance class in Langley, she said, and rather than drive all the way back to the farm, she’d just gone to the woods for a walk till the dance class was over. She could’ve walked around the village for ninety minutes, she supposed, but she’d been in the shops about a thousand times so she decided to go to the woods for a while.

The undersheriff said, “Were you there to meet Derric? You can tell me, Hayley. I understand how things are with boys and girls sometimes.”

She could feel the fire on her skin, turning her red. Her answer was the only one she could give without ending up unraveling most of her life. So she said, “I was alone because it was only ninety minutes,” which, of course, didn’t mean a thing at all. She just felt she had to add something more, and the only other thing to add would have been a full explanation. For Hayley, a full explanation was out of the question. No one knew what was going on, and she fully intended to keep things that way.

TWENTY-ONE

D
iana Kinsale drove Becca back into Langley in the kind of silence that old friends travel with. This felt good to Becca.

The ride wasn’t long. When they pulled up to the motel, Debbie came out of the office. But she did it so quickly that it was clear she’d been waiting.

She came off the porch just as Becca opened the pickup’s passenger door. Becca caught
what in God’s green earth
 . . .
this is how you repay
,
but she heard nothing else because Diana got out and spoke.

“I’ve brought your assistant back from Coupeville,” she said. “How are you, Debbie? I haven’t seen you for a while.”

Debbie didn’t answer Diana. Instead, she said to Becca, “You’ve been gone for hours. You said Seth was taking you to Coupeville just to show you the bus routes and the stops.”

“Yeah. He did. Only he got into a conversation with his old girlfriend and I could tell—”

“So he just
left
you to fend for yourself?”

This, Becca knew, was another black mark against Seth. She said, “It wasn’t like that. I saw Mrs. Kinsale while Seth was talking and she offered me a ride.”

“But you’ve been gone ages. I was worried about you. Anything could have happened,” and the whispers that came in a rush with this were
with him
 . . .
drop out
 . . .
happen when drugs are . . . pain takes such . . .

Becca wanted to cover her ears. She wanted to say to Debbie that she—Debbie—was not her mom, so she needed to stop worrying about her. She also wanted to say that Debbie didn’t really know Seth so she had to
stop thinking such bad stuff about him, but on the other hand the truth was that Becca didn’t really know Seth either.

“I’m awfully sorry,” Becca said. “I guess it was a little dumb of me.”

Diana said, “It’s part my fault, Debbie. We stopped at the cemetery so I could visit Charlie. I do apologize. Anyway, it’s good to see you. I’d love to get together with you sometime. Useless Bay Coffee, maybe? When you have the time?”

Debbie said, “Sure,” although
not a chance
was as obvious from her expression as it was from her whispers. As was
think
 . . .
bring her back
 . . .
oh right
, which came through the air like pellets from a BB gun.

It all made Becca very tired. She said thanks to Diana and took a few steps toward room 444. But Debbie’s words stopped her as Diana pulled out of the motel parking lot.

“I get that you didn’t bring dessert. But you forgot about the tacos, too? Chloe and Josh have been waiting for you.”

BECCA WENT BACK
with Debbie to her apartment. She found Chloe and Josh on the sofa, shoulder to shoulder, watching an old video of
Survivor
. “Grammer has them all on tape,” Chloe announced. “We like it best when they have to eat bugs.”