Only She Came Back, page 9
Pause. The smile doesn’t falter. “Not that I’d actually eat twice my share! We have strict portion sizes. We live mostly off the land and take only what we need! So anyway, I’m gonna eat some delicious rehydrated beet mush now. Nom nom. What’s your favorite restorative breakfast? Tell me in the comments!”
FROM KATIE DUNSMORE’S SENIOR-YEAR DIARY
September 12
I just had an ACTUAL DATE!!!!! Better late than never, right?
After Callum didn’t answer my first text, the one that just said Hi and that took me five days to work up the courage to send, I wiped him from my brain again. Tried, anyway. Then, this morning during calculus, he texted that he was coming to town for errands and suggested meeting at Panera on Shelburne Road at seven.
Mom says you should never accept a last-minute date. It shows the guy your time isn’t valuable, so you aren’t valuable. But I didn’t ask for her advice, so ha!
I did dress down, but then I felt bad because Callum was wearing a nice collared shirt, pressed and everything, like my dad. He jumped up from the table and shook my hand and blushed. It was so adorable that I almost forgot to be nervous.
It was so surreal being at Panera—especially that Panera, where it’s mostly moms and toddlers and middle-aged people playing board games. To me, everybody else was in black-and-white; he was in Technicolor.
It was also weird because Callum doesn’t drink coffee or tea or soda or anything but water! I was too shaky to eat, so I asked for a salted-caramel iced latte, and when I saw that he was just having water from a plastic cup, I felt weird.
He said I shouldn’t—it’s not that he disapproves of other drinks, just that he doesn’t “see the point.”
He wasn’t condescending about it. The whole time he was smiling and shooting me glances in a way that was totally flirty and at the same time like a little boy who just wants the grown-ups to notice him.
I teased him, asking him why a salted-caramel iced latte needs to have a “point,” and then he got more serious and said that when he was a kid, he was overweight and inactive and hated himself. So when he was my age, he decided to turn his life around and go to the gym, and he realized he could reshape his body and mind any way he wanted. Part of that is exercise, and part of it is being ultra-conscious of everything he puts in his body and making sure it contributes to making him stronger. (Which, God knows, he is! I was practically melting looking at his arms when he rolled up his sleeves.)
So now the iced latte was tasting sickly sweet, but I didn’t entirely like what he was saying, so I said, “There are different kinds of strength, though. You could be a lot heavier and still healthy”—basically quoting Coach Dever, who tells us not to fixate on our weight.
“Maybe,” he said. “But with my lifestyle, you kind of need to be fit. Like the pioneers were.” He told me how he has to build a fire in the woodstove to cook food, which means going out in the forest and cutting down trees and splitting them and stacking them.
I blinked away my visions of shirtless, sweaty Callum in the woods and asked why he couldn’t buy cords of wood the way my parents do.
He looked at me, still with the nicest eyes a person could have, and said, “Maybe I could, but I don’t want to live the way people live now. I want to live the way people will have to live in a hundred years.”
Then, at last, I got it. “Because of the climate crisis.”
He nodded—ding-ding-ding, I’d got something right! “I don’t want to bore you,” he said. “Or scare you.”
But he wasn’t boring or scaring me. I told him about my project last year in earth science, which involved reading all about how our civilization is unsustainable and headed for a collapse because we’re too selfish to make drastic changes in our lifestyle (like, um, no more iced lattes in plastic cups, Katie!!). Those books kept me awake at night, and when I told my dad—who’s CFO of a company that makes solar arrays!—he just shrugged and said the collapse wouldn’t happen till we were both dead, which is so fully missing the point.
I word-vomited all that, and Callum rested his chin on his palms and listened.
Then he said, “I don’t have to explain to you, then. The way I live now is because I have profound respect for the future. I don’t want to ignore what’s coming, whether I personally experience it or not.”
Respect for the future. YES. When I was trying to explain to my dad, that’s exactly what I should have said.
I looked at Callum, and it was like a current passed between our eyes. I understood him. He understood me.
“I want to see the way you live,” I said. “The woodstove. The woods. The cabin.”
“I want to show you,” he said. “But I’m not sure your parents would like you hanging out with a guy who’s a few years older than you.”
He was right about that, at least as far as Dad goes. (Mom would probably be happy to see me date any human person at this point.) But they’re both way too busy to notice—and anyway, thanks to them, I’ve got the Prius and can go where I want.
“Yeah, you’re so old,” I said. “Practically middle-aged.”
And I did something I’ve never dared to do with a guy before—I touched him. Just a tap on the back of his hand, but I felt the shock wave travel up my arm.
He didn’t touch me back, just sat there and looked at me, very serious. “You understand that you’re beautiful, don’t you?” he said. “I’m honestly not sure if you know that. It’s not the flashy, self-conscious kind of beauty. Your whole face—you glow.”
I blushed so hard tears came into my eyes. I’m blushing again just writing it down! I mean, I’ve gotten gross so-called “compliments” before, but this wasn’t like that. He sounded as if the words were being yanked from some cavern deep inside him.
We’re doing CrossFit together next week. I can’t wait!
8
AUGUST 10, 4:57 PM
The card was damp and creased from being clutched in my palm. I held it as I stood at the crosswalk waiting for the light to change, the bike beside me, a breeze from the Saturday afternoon tourist traffic tossing my sweaty hair.
It said Simon Westlake, Adventure Tours and Mountaineering Instruction, with an address and phone number in Colorado and the generic outline of a mountain.
I knew now that Colorado’s license plate has a mountain on it, too. It’s green and white like ours, but mostly white—the exact plate I’d seen on the SUV that followed me.
Simon Westlake: mountain climber, adventurer, bosom friend and possible abductor and/or murderer of Callum Massey. Someone who had “ambushed” Kiri and talked trash about his friend. And someone who was creepy with young girls, if the story Callum had told Kiri was true.
I might not know a lot about real journalism, but I knew that when one person throws out a bunch of accusations, you can’t just repeat them and act like you’ve done your job. You have to get a response from the person who’s been accused.
Warm wind blew from the south, damp against my cheeks. The sky had gone deep violet—more rain coming, maybe a thunderstorm this time. The crossing signal beeped, cars and trucks wheezing to a halt. I stuffed the card deep into my jeans, hopped on the bike, and pedaled across the four busy lanes to Panera.
There was always another option: Go to the cops and tell them everything Kiri had told me. That would mean accepting that I would probably never see her again. I’d be cut off. But I could still make that choice and step back inside my safe bubble of bad movies and a shitty job and surfing true-crime feeds for vicarious excitement.
You don’t have to do this. Maybe this fear is a gift from your gut. A few more steps, and I wouldn’t be able to turn back.
I locked the bike in the rack by the entrance, then stepped into the air-conditioned chill and the babble of voices. I could have walked here, but I liked knowing I had a slightly better getaway strategy than my own two feet.
Or, if I dared, a way to follow West and see where he was staying. There were cheap motels up and down this strip.
The dinner hour was starting. Just like Kiri said in her diary, a healthy crowd of moms, kids, office workers, and board gamers, which would make it tough to kidnap someone in broad daylight.
Be normal. Go to the counter. Giant, come-hither posters showed me bisected strawberries, glistening corn chowder, iced tea in happy rainbow colors. Photos staged in a studio with aggressively inedible props.
The milk foamer roared. The sound system warbled. Voices overlapped: “Apple, chips, or bread?”
My stomach lurched. I turned to face the dining area, and there he was.
Standing in a harvest-colored booth, raising his hand to get my attention and then letting it fall, like we were on one of those awkward first dates you see in rom-coms.
Kiri had described him grabbing her arm at the rest stop. He made me go sit in the food court. But he was letting me come to him.
Go. I made my legs take me across the room. My head was a balloon bobbing toward the ceiling; a gentle roar rose in my ears.
I’m not bad at faking chill—Reggie used to say so, anyway. It was why Tierney was always trying to get a rise out of me; he wanted to see me sweat, but I never let him.
I wiped damp palms on my jeans, forcing myself to notice the colors of the banquettes, the clatter of dishes, the laughter from the gamers’ table in the back. By the time I reached West’s table, I was under control. He had his elbows drawn in and gaze lowered, as if he weren’t looking forward to this conversation, either.
I sat down across from him. Sucked in a deep breath and said on the exhale, “You’re the one who followed me, night before last.”
“I’m sorry.” Those dark lashes dropped over his eyes. “I saw you leave her house that night, and I figured you were her friend. I wasn’t sure where else to start.”
“You were watching her house?” My sweaty palms went cold as I realized that the whole time we’d been discussing him in the basement, he could have been out there.
West nodded, ducking his head. Seen in better light, the scorpion tattoo wasn’t that sinister, the tail and pincers an almost whimsical series of curlicues. It wasn’t meant to intimidate; it was something an arty dude might choose, or someone who wanted people to think he was that type.
“When I saw the TV news camped out there, I knew I couldn’t just go up and ring the bell,” he said. “She never goes out by herself, does she?”
I started to shake my head, then caught myself. He was fishing for information.
He went on: “Her folks don’t let her see visitors—that’s why you come at night, isn’t it? They don’t even know you’re there.”
Goose bumps rose on my bare arms. “We’re friends from high school. We hang out at her place ’cause it’s bigger than mine. If you want to talk to her, why don’t you, I don’t know, text her?”
“I wouldn’t know which number to use.” His skin had a light sheen of sweat, too. “I’m guessing the feds took her phone.”
If I hadn’t been so nervous, playing clueless might have been kind of fun. “If you’re her friend”—I didn’t want to say Kiri’s name in public—“why hasn’t she mentioned you to me?”
“She didn’t? That’s hard to believe.” There was a new edge on his voice. “When I came up and spoke to you in the theater, you did a double take.”
Had he seen how scared I was? But he was clearly on guard, too, showing none of the smooth menace I’d expected. “You followed me. I recognized you,” I lied. “You keep asking questions. What do you actually want?”
West raised his eyes. Under the dark lashes, they were almost walnut colored. “Look,” he said, “I know this all seems pretty mysterious, and I’m sorry about that, too. But it would help me to know—what’s your name, by the way?”
“Sam.” He didn’t need to know my last name.
“Sam. I know this is a weird question, but can I trust you not to pass on what I tell you to anyone but… our mutual friend?”
My heart thumped. “What, you’re thinking I’d post it on all my socials?”
West flinched, and I said quickly, “She trusts me for a reason. If there’s something she should know, I’ll tell her and no one else.”
I’d make an exception if he confessed to something dire enough. But what were the chances he’d do that right here in Panera?
West seemed reassured. He leaned toward me again. “I’d like to see her,” he said. “It can be anywhere she wants, but I’d like to talk to her for a half hour, alone.”
So he didn’t want to tell me secrets at all. “I don’t know about that.” Sweat trickled down my neck as I tried to look as if I wasn’t instantly rejecting the idea. Alone with Kiri, somewhere like the park, West could pressure her to change her story. He could even hurt her. “She doesn’t like to leave the house.”
“Please just give her a message from me. The rest is up to her.” He looked wary again. “Will you do that?”
“I need to know something first.” The trick, I saw now, was not activating his defenses. Not saying no outright.
“What?”
I clenched a fist under the table, steadying myself. “Before, when I said she didn’t mention you, that wasn’t exactly true. She told me you were Callum’s best friend, and… that you didn’t want her to go to Lost Village National Monument with him in the first place.”
A muscle jumped in West’s jaw, but he kept his gaze on me. “That’s true.”
“She said you told her some things about Callum—‘bad’ things.” My voice shook, but that was okay. I wanted him to think I was an innocent kid who was worried about Kiri, my good friend who had been through a trauma. “She wouldn’t say what. She just keeps protecting him, talking about how much she loves him, and… I don’t think it’s that simple. I want to know what she went through out there in the desert.”
“I wasn’t in the desert with them.”
“But she said you knew things about Callum.”
West plucked a raisin from his scone and placed it on the table. “Cal and I went through thick and thin. We saved each other’s lives a dozen times. And, because I know him so well, I know what he puts his friends through. He likes to be the person they look up to, the person with the power to make them happy or sad or frightened.” He broke off, his eyes searching me. “But you know that already, don’t you?”
I did—Kiri had told me enough, even if she didn’t want to dwell on Callum’s manipulativeness. “You told her something else, though. Something that shocked her.”
“And you’re dying to know what it was?” He arched a brow. “Maybe you’re wondering if I decided to blackmail my friend? Or worse?”
Yes. If West had stolen the phone from the campsite, he could so easily have sent the text Callum’s parents had received, the text Kiri couldn’t have sent. The supposed suicide note.
But I’d pushed him too far, and now his hackles were up. “Of course not!” I said, backpedaling. “I guess I’m just wondering why I should trust you alone with my friend when she’s already under huge emotional stress. You know what else she said? That Callum told her you got creepy with an underage girl.”
West’s cheeks flushed hard. “I never…” Then something shifted in his face, a recognition, and he said, “Wait, you mean Arianna? But Kiri knows that wasn’t…”
“She didn’t mention a name.” I tried for an icy demeanor, like one of the DAs on my grandma’s favorite cop show when they cross-examine pedophiles.
“Well, if that’s who she meant, it wasn’t like that.” He still wasn’t meeting my eyes. “I was seventeen and Arianna was thirteen, but nothing ‘creepy’ actually happened. She had a crush, that’s all. Her dad was high up in Homeland Security. I was hoping he could write me a college recommendation.”
“So you encouraged this thirteen-year-old’s crush?”
West’s mouth twisted. “I needed the help. I’m not from a background like Cal’s. I went to prep school on a scholarship, and I got a couple Cs.”
I gave him a look that said Cry me a river, though I understood too well the fear of screwing up all your chances in life. “And none of this seems creepy to you?”
He sighed, conceding that it did now. “We exchanged a few cards—Arianna was learning calligraphy and liked to show it off. I was a kid then, too—a clueless, inappropriate kid. But that’s all that happened. I swear to you, your friend is safe with me.”
He didn’t read like a sleazebag to me, but that didn’t mean he was being honest. “I don’t know. If I were her, I wouldn’t risk some secret meeting without knowing why you want to talk to her. Can’t you give me a clue?”
West sat silent, hands tightly clasped. From the gamers’ table came shouts and laughter. A child whined, demanding a cookie. Outside, eighteen-wheelers roared by with remorseless speed.
My thirty was probably over. Soon people would be trickling in for the 5:45 show, but I didn’t budge. I couldn’t.
West spread his hands palm down on the table and stared at them fiercely, as if inspecting his nails for dirt. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll tell you exactly what I told her when I asked her not to disappear into the park with Callum.”
My breath caught. Finally, he was going to reveal something.
“When I saw Cal in DC, he was in one of his weird, paranoid moods. He talked about wanting to leave the country and live like a nomad, and he seemed to assume his girlfriend would give up all her college plans to come with him. I wasn’t sure she was up for that. So I found her at the rest stop in New Mexico, and I warned her.” He clasped his hands again and pulled them to his chest. “That’s all.”
I could tell it wasn’t. “And what did she say when you told her?”
West’s mouth tightened. “That she already knew Cal’s plan. She was fine with giving up her future to be with him. Being out there on the road with him, I think she lost track of what’s real.”
There was a look in his eyes that I didn’t like: a weary, sad certainty. As if he thought he could guess what had happened in the desert, even if he hadn’t been there.
