Only She Came Back, page 25
“A jury won’t believe that,” Callum said. “She’s already told too many lies. People want to see her punished.”
Kiri knelt to unzip the backpack. I held my breath as she fumbled inside, knowing what was in there.
“If you go away with him now,” I said to Kiri in a low voice, “people might never know the truth. This is your last chance to tell it. It would be fairer to Natalie—to her family. They’d want to know.”
Kiri pulled out a tube of lip gloss. She rubbed it across her lips and put it back, leaving the backpack unzipped.
Disappointment crushed me, a wrecking ball to the chest. What had I expected—for her to casually whip out the gun and blow him away? But she wouldn’t have brought the gun if she hadn’t at least considered the possibility.
“That is an idea,” she said, not to me but to Callum. “We could use Sam to tell our story, the real story. She could post a video of us, so people will stop saying all those awful things, and then we could go home and turn ourselves in. Neither of us really ever hurt anybody, and people should know.”
“We’re not going home!” Callum snapped the words. “Are you wimping out on me again, Kiri? Hoping to crawl back to civilization and convince everybody you’re innocent? Sam can make us a video once we’re somewhere secure.”
“She’s got nothing to do with this!”
“Oh, really?” Callum stepped back, away from Kiri. He looped his arm through mine with that fluid strength of his. “A couple of days ago, she posted on a true-crime influencer’s feed that she’d seen my cabin in Vermont and knew things about our case no one else did. Things you probably told her.”
I didn’t feel the hateful warmth of his body anymore; my own had gone ice cold. “I didn’t tell anyone anything important.” The words came out like sawdust. “I swear I would never—”
“Oh, and another thing.” Callum marched me closer to the window, back into the sunlight. It shone right in my eyes. “She’s in love with you, or with the whole trending idea of you—I can’t tell which. When I told her our only option was to disappear, she begged to come with us.”
“I said that because you invited me to, you fucking narcissist!” His grip was hurting me now.
“I said let her go, Cal!” Kiri’s voice cut through the haze of shame and terror in my head. “She’s not a survivor like you—like us.”
“So you don’t want her tagging along to the doomsday cabin?” His fingers didn’t loosen.
“No!” Kiri drew a ragged breath. “You’re right—we can’t trust her. We’re the last people in the world, Cal.”
Callum’s fingers dug into my arm, immobilizing me. The cold spread outward from my gut toward my limbs.
“I dunno, Kiri,” he said. “I mean, technically there are a few billion people left in the world, and you might want some company where we’re going. This kid’s annoying, but she’s also kind of cute with the podcaster act. And she did volunteer.”
“Fuck you.” My muscles unlocked. I tried to donkey kick him, to loosen his grip, but he twisted my arm behind my back. Tears pricked my eyes. For an instant, it took all my strength not to scream.
This was how badly he could hurt someone when he wanted to.
“Stop it!” Kiri sounded alarmed now.
Callum relaxed his grip, but only so he could drag me sideways toward the opening. I tried to plant my feet, my arm throbbing where he’d pinned it. My knees buckled instantly.
“We’re wasting time here, Cal.” Kiri’s voice was a lash, more commanding than I’d ever heard it before.
“I know,” Callum said. His confidence was a python; it had its coils around me, squeezing and choking. “But,” he continued, giving me another yank toward the window, “I can’t trust you anymore, sweet Kiri. A few more swipes with that knife, and that would’ve been all she wrote. I do have that little video of you ranting at Natalie’s corpse, but I’m not sure that’s enough to keep you in line. Which is why—”
I didn’t hear the rest. Because then he was grabbing hold of me by the right armpit and left knee, as if I weighed no more than a doll, and lifting me off the floor and hauling my entire body through the opening.
I struggled at first, but once I grasped what was happening, I went tense and still in his grasp. Callum wasn’t bluffing. All he had to do was let go, and he would do it without a second thought, without regret. I knew it with every fiber of my being.
One instant, you’re standing in the dimness of a cave, and the next, light is everywhere. The world lurches and swings. Up and down have no meaning. As a warm breeze rustles your hair, you know you’re about to die.
Except I didn’t fall, didn’t move. I remained suspended between the vastness of sky and earth, a puppet caught in the puppeteer’s grasp by an awkwardly splayed arm and leg. Callum was panting, his fingertips digging into my upper arm and knee, and I knew that if I budged he might lose his grip. He must be bracing his elbows on the sill, but even strong people have their limits.
The whole thing probably lasted less than a minute. I closed my eyes, and for a few endless instants I felt nothing, not even vertigo. In the distance, two voices were arguing, one higher-pitched than the other. Did she sound a little frightened now, or was I still a distraction? A waste of time?
Somewhere in there, a memory came to me: starlight glancing on the surface of the lake. The wild glint of Kiri’s eyes as she tossed her clothes away. I had landed safely at the bottom of that cliff, but this time—
Without warning, I was being lifted in great, panting heaves, by fingers slick with sweat, back through the opening.
My ankle caught on something sharp. Pain whited out my vision, but I didn’t make a sound.
When I hit the floor, I was free of his hands. I hadn’t even felt them release me. I rolled over and pressed my palms and cheek to the stone that stank of old dust.
A shadow above me. Long hair grazing the nape of my neck.
“Not now, Kiri,” Callum said, and she was gone.
It was like coming out of nitrous at the dentist’s. At first, my brain refused to get a solid grip on anything except You’re alive, and that thought was a straight shot of 100 proof vodka.
Then I realized they were arguing again. “We don’t have to take her, Cal! She doesn’t even know where the cabin is!”
“She knows enough! And if we let her go home, she’ll have every incentive to tell the whole damn internet.” His voice shook a little.
Maybe it was only from the effort of holding me suspended in midair. Or maybe Callum’s confidence had finally taken a hit. Maybe, while I was out there, Kiri had said something that made him think she might try to stab him again the next chance she got.
He was afraid of her, and he wanted me as a hostage.
I tasted blood. The pain in my ankle was fading, but it forced me to focus, certainty sharpening to a wicked point.
Kiri’s choice belonged to her, but I wasn’t going to let him take me prisoner.
They kept yelling back and forth. My legs were still too shaky from fright to stand, so I curled up, knees to chest, and breathed from my core. I could feel it, pulsing like a homing beacon on the floor just a foot or two from my right shoulder.
The backpack.
“You wouldn’t survive jail!” Callum was saying. “You’re not built for it. You need me!”
“I don’t need anyone who threatens me.” Her voice was steady now, and that gave me a burst of strength.
I opened my eyes. Crept silently toward the backpack.
Their voices sliced the air above me, but the words had lost their meaning. Only one thing mattered.
Callum had his back turned to me. He hovered over Kiri, extending his hands as if he wanted to touch her but still didn’t dare, giving her all his attention.
I snuck a hand through the open zipper and shoved aside soft clothing until I got my fingers around it, cold and solid and familiar. A revolver, like my dad’s.
I lifted it out in a single motion. My thumb found the safety and clicked it off.
They turned at the same time—close together but not touching. The window lit one side of her face, drawing a spark from her eyes.
They would always look so right together.
I’d startled Callum, but not for long. He broke away from Kiri and came at me fast.
But I was already aiming for the middle of his body, and I squeezed the trigger.
The recoil tipped me over onto my heels, but I managed to keep hold of the gun. The sharp clap ricocheted off the walls and drowned out the waterfall. Kiri cried out, and the two echoes mingled in the air.
The shot had made Callum stop dead in his tracks. He glanced down at his chest, no expression on his face. He was backlit, and given the color of his shirt, I couldn’t tell if he was bleeding.
At last, he laughed—with relief. He lunged toward me again.
I was too close to aim at him now, too unstable. I scrambled to my feet—ears ringing, ignoring the stab of pain in my ankle—and ran directly at him, slamming my whole body into his midsection like a battering ram.
He wasn’t expecting that. But he adjusted quickly—pushing back, reaching for me. With my wrist bent sideways against his belly, I couldn’t get a good grip on the gun. If I tried another shot, I might hit Kiri or the wall.
Using all my momentum and the advantage of surprise, I heaved him toward the window. He seized hold of my wrist, his breath hissing as he twisted my gun hand, forcing it open.
And then Kiri came at him from the side, ramming her forehead straight into his breastbone. She screamed as she ran, a cry of pure fury.
Blue sky framed Callum. He grabbed at the masonry to keep himself from falling over the low sill, but his fingers gave way. A wild smile flashed on his face—as if he couldn’t believe this was happening.
“Kiri!” he cried.
The smile was gone as quickly as it had come.
“Go.” I pushed the word out between my teeth. I was on the edge now, too, sun in my eyes. Let him see how it felt.
“Damn!” A foot slipped out from under him. He lost his balance, the green woods swimming sickly in the background. His body fell backward, but his arms darted forward and snatched handfuls of my shirt. The woods lurched around me as I teetered over the sill, and then I was falling, too—
And then, somehow, I wasn’t. Someone had latched onto the back of my shirt with ferocious strength and was hauling me back inside.
As my center of gravity shifted, I watched Callum fall into the vastness below me, his hands still outstretched. He didn’t look angry, only surprised, as if he still expected the situation magically to correct itself.
I wouldn’t forget that expression.
I didn’t see him hit the water. I was back in the darkness, on the dusty floor. Kiri’s arms closed around me, and her hair covered me like a veil as she rocked me against her chest.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, her chin pressing down on the crown of my head. “The stuff I said—I didn’t mean it. I just had to make him think I didn’t care. I had to make him let you go.”
A wave of nausea washed over me, clashing with the thrill and relief of having her close. “You lied to me. About so much.” How can I believe anything you say now?
“I know.”
I was still holding the gun, but loosely. I didn’t like how close it was to her vital organs. “Let me up,” I said.
It took her a moment to comprehend the words, I think, but then she did it. I clicked the safety on again, put the gun into the backpack, and zipped it.
I didn’t want to look out the window, but I had to. I counted five steps to get there. Behind me, Kiri said, “No.”
I gripped both sides of the opening and looked down. Far below, the silvery cascade glittered in the sun. I searched for a dark spot on the rocks or in the water, something that hadn’t been there before.
Then I saw a tall man standing beside the falls, on the bank, looking directly up at me. Black hair, white shirt, a penetrating gaze I could feel from here.
He survived. The thought spread an icy blanket over me, and for an instant I couldn’t breathe. Then I remembered that Callum’s shirt was red.
“It’s West,” I told Kiri as the man called to me inaudibly through the roar of the falls, motioning for me to come down. “Callum was wrong—he came to find you.”
She wrapped an arm around my waist from behind, and I felt her trembling as violently as I was. “West’s message—”
“I know. When he said the footprints from the desert came here with him, he meant to tell you Callum was the one who wanted a meeting.” She nodded, and I went on, “But you already knew those footprints in the campsite were Callum’s, didn’t you? Did you ever think he was dead?”
Kiri released me and turned to face me. Her eyes had that distant look again. “I was so angry… I wanted to have done it. I thought I had until I saw those footprints, and even then, I tried to tell myself West killed Cal. There was the story I told people, and there were the versions I wanted to have happened, and there was the version I thought actually had—but that was just bits and pieces.”
She’d told me a little of each of those versions—assuming she was telling me the truth now. But I wasn’t ready to assume that, and I might never be again.
Before I could ask any more questions, she seized my hand. “We’ll tell West what Cal almost did to you. He’ll understand.”
29
AUGUST 14, 1:00 PM?
On the last flight of stairs, I paused to catch my breath. The light was different from when we’d come. And then I remembered Callum saying, I’m trying to figure out what Kiri likes about you, and the world spun and dipped around me, as if he were dangling me in midair again. The nausea was back, pressing the contents of my stomach up into my throat.
I didn’t realize that I was crying in harsh, hiccuping sobs until Kiri put her arms around me and said, “It’s okay, Sam. We couldn’t have done anything different.”
We were holding hands when we walked straight up to West, who stood in the main doorway. I’d managed to stop crying by then, but my eyes felt raw. Kiri’s were dry.
“Did you…?” she asked West, angling her head toward the river.
West nodded. His eyes were deeper and darker than ever. “Downstream,” he said. “Moving fast—I don’t think he’ll be found near here. But let’s get to my car before anyone else comes along.”
So we managed to communicate without ever saying the words Callum’s body. Kiri didn’t let go of my hand as we walked to the parking lot. The river rushed and burbled, and I tried not to think of the torrent sweeping him downstream.
If he’d dropped me, the body in the water would have been mine.
There were just three cars in the parking lot: Owen’s Legacy, Tierney’s Range Rover, and the black Grand Cherokee that had followed me home, so long ago.
When I saw it, my legs went floppy, and I didn’t want to get in. But Kiri squeezed my hand and said, “C’mon.”
We sat in the back seat, still holding hands, which left West alone in the front. My mind kept flitting off, like the white-gold sunlight in the corner of my eye. Only the pressure of Kiri’s hand kept me there. Without her, I would have been a swallow escaping into the panting blue sky, higher and higher. There was only one real thought in my head:
I killed someone. Because I didn’t want him to kill me.
West was talking about something, his brow urgently furrowed. Talking, talking. And then Kiri was clasping my hand tightly in both of hers and saying, “You’re right. I can’t go back.”
“No!” I said, yanked back to the present. “You can’t just disappear. Wasn’t that what you were telling Callum? You don’t have to!”
Kiri shook her head. Her eyes were so tired. “I don’t care about me. But if we told them the truth about Cal, you’d be in trouble, too. Unless maybe I lied and said I did the whole thing—”
“I’m not lying about it!” If she disappeared now, she would be doing what Callum had wanted. “I have to take responsibility.”
“Can you prove that you had to defend yourself?” West asked me. “Was Callum threatening your life?”
“He held her out the window.” Kiri’s nails dug into my skin. “He wanted to use her to control me, to kidnap her and take her with us as a hostage. He wouldn’t have stopped at anything. But you’re right—people might not believe that. His parents have a lot of power.”
“And then there’s the girl in the desert.” West spoke in slow motion. “Was that Cal, Kiri? Did he kill her?”
“Yes.” My voice was unnaturally loud. I brought my free hand down on top of our three clasped ones. “Callum killed Natalie.” That’s what we’d tell them.
“He didn’t,” Kiri said. “I can’t lie about that.”
“Fine. It was an accident, and you’ll explain that.”
“No,” she said. And something final in her tone told me I was going to lose her.
In the distance, down the road, a motor rumbled. “We gotta go,” West said, putting the car in gear.
Kiri said, “Not yet.”
She slid her hands out of my grip. Her eyes gleamed, tears pooling in the corners, as she reached across me with those long arms to unlock my door and shove it open.
“You have to go back to your friend’s car, Sam.” Her face was dead white. “You can’t be seen with me. You can’t get caught up in this.”
“I am caught up in it! I killed him!” I wasn’t afraid to say it in front of West. My chest ached, as if someone had lodged a tow hook there and was pulling. I couldn’t go back to Owen’s car alone. My place was with her—in an interrogation room, in a courtroom, anywhere. We belonged together.
Kiri shook her head. Her eyes were dark holes. “I’m not going back there, Sam. I have to go on.” A glance at West. “To that cabin in the middle of nowhere.”
“No!” I didn’t have logical arguments. I seized her hands again and clung to them. “If you’re going there, I’m going with you.”
Her gaze was far away, not focused on me. “You’re going to college, Sam. You’re going to have a life.”
