They All Had a Reason, page 17
“Order up,” the cook calls from the back, drawing my attention.
I’m still standing here, waiting for this gray-haired, crusty old man sitting in the booth in front of me to make up his mind and order. Finally he lowers his menu, revealing his clouded glasses, which remind me of the murky sky outside. I haven’t seen the sun, not once since I arrived in this sorry excuse of a town, Chehalis, Washington. The man’s glasses slide down lower on his hooked nose. “Yes, the waffles do sound good. I’ll have two.”
I retrieve his menu with a smile, which is forced, but he doesn’t realize this, because I know how to pour on the charm—when I want to. But I hate acting like I’m happy when I’m so mad at the world that I want to knock over, smash, and break everything and anything I can get my hands on.
My fingers squeeze the handle of the coffeepot much harder than necessary as I fill his dirty mug. I walk back to the counter, taking the long way, in order to avoid passing by the police officer sitting at a table by the door, fork in one hand, knife in the other, sawing at a half-eaten pancake swimming in syrup.
I asked the other waitress to serve him for me, even though he’s sitting at my assigned table, and I’ve only got one other customer. I made up an excuse as to why I couldn’t serve him. I told her that he had asked me out and I turned him down, but he keeps showing up here to flirt with me anyway. In reality, he has done nothing of the sort. The real reason I don’t want to serve him is because I don’t want him to recognize me.
I dyed my caramel-colored hair jet-black, and I wear green contacts to cover up my blue eyes now. But I still worry it’s not enough. I considered cutting my hair but couldn’t do it. There are some things that I just can’t get rid of. I love my long hair. It’s the part of me that still reminds me of who I used to be, Bellany Silverfield. But one thing I’ll never forget is what happened the night my life changed, the night I turned seventeen, the night I died.
My father had called me that night, warning me, once again, that I wasn’t to see Quentin. Ever. If I did, he was going to send me away to boarding school until I graduated, then he would cut me off financially, totally disowning me. He promised that he would find out if I saw Quentin behind his back—he would ask Bridger. He would ask my friends. He would ask Bridger’s friends. One way or another he would know.
So, I had to be extra careful. I couldn’t let anyone see me and Quentin together. We decided to meet in the woods behind my house. While I waited for him to get there, I knocked back several beers. I was feeling a bit self-destructive. I was upset at my father for being so controlling and manipulative. It was my birthday, after all. I was furious that I had to sneak around to see my boyfriend. What kind of birthday is that?
While I was waiting for Quentin to show up, my dad called again. I almost didn’t answer, but there was a small amount of hope inside me that maybe my dad’s heart had softened. Maybe he felt bad for yelling at me earlier and wanted to apologize and wish me a happy birthday.
How wrong was I? Well, the first words out of his mouth were, “Are you with Quentin?” Of course I said no. I actually wasn’t with Quentin, not yet anyway.
Then he went on to tell me what a disappointment I had been. He told me that my mother called him crying because I didn’t answer when she called to wish me a happy birthday. I couldn’t believe he was saying this to me. Of course I didn’t answer when she called. I didn’t want to speak to her. So I lied, hoping to defuse his temper. “She never called me,” I said. “She’s just trying to get me in trouble with you, yet again.”
My dad started yelling, telling me that he had never forgiven me for what I did to his wife (my mother). He blamed me for her leaving which was totally unfair. He said that I drove her to it with my endless mind games, my constant vicious insults, and my incessant manipulation. But it wasn’t my fault that she was this weak. He made her that way. I only called her the same names that he did: fat, ugly, stupid, pathetic. He was just as ashamed of her as I was.
Day after day, all my mom did was sit around the house in front of the TV. She’d eat and eat, and then she’d wash it all down with wine, beer, vodka, whatever she could get her hands on. My mother could’ve done something with her life, but she chose to be a fat, drunken slob with no ambition and no self-pride. What a wonderful role model.
One time she showed up at my school to bring me some lunch money, and she was slurring her words, talking way too loud. Everybody in my class knew she was drunk, including my teacher. She was wearing this hideously tight outfit that only accentuated her bulging stomach and cottage-cheese thunder thighs. She humiliated me in front of my friends. I hated her for it.
My mom wasn’t the only embarrassment in my life, though. Quentin soon became the other one. I can’t believe I chose to place my entire future in his hands, but I kind of didn’t have a choice. I was the one who was driving his car the night of my party. I was totally wasted when I ran over that runaway girl. Quentin wanted to call the cops. He tried to give the girl CPR, but she was already dead.
I had to make him understand how serious the situation was, because he wasn’t getting it. We couldn’t call the police. They would arrest me, charge me with a DWI and manslaughter, and my life would be over. “We won’t ever see each other again,” I told him. “We’ll be separated for who knows how long.” I continued to paint the picture of a grim future for him, until he finally agreed to every single part of my plan.
I searched the girl’s pockets. No phone. No money. A Virginia driver’s license. It said she was twenty-one. It was probably a fake. I didn’t think she was a day over eighteen. She was also about my same height and weight. At first, I just wanted to get rid of the girl’s body so no one would know what happened, but when Charlotte showed up in the woods that night, I had to improvise. I was absolutely shocked to see her there. I thought she would still be locked in the basement, but somebody must have let her out. I knew if she caught me and Quentin with the dead girl, that would be it. We’d be going to jail for sure. I considered killing Charlotte right then, but knew Quentin wouldn’t go along with it. I had already pushed him far beyond what he was emotionally capable of handling at the time.
I came up with a plan on the spot. One that I hoped would keep me out of prison. Either way, my life as I knew it was already over. Before I ran toward the clearing in the brush, I told Quentin to duck down and hide. “Wait until a car drives by with bright headlights, then take some pictures of me and Charlotte.”
The dead girl’s blood was on my face and shirt. I smeared it around to make sure Charlotte couldn’t miss it. I positioned my body sitting against a rock. Then I closed my eyes, hoping Quentin would take pictures the way I told him to. I heard Charlotte freaking out when she saw me. I knew she thought I was dead.
After Charlotte ran off, I got up and returned to Quentin so we could finish getting rid of the dead girl. Quentin was afraid Charlotte would call the cops or an ambulance. I gambled on this part. I knew that Charlotte would be afraid to tell anyone that she saw my dead body. She was such a coward. “No she won’t,” I insisted to Quentin. “She’ll be too scared of being blamed.”
He stood there stunned. “What do you mean, blamed?”
Once again, I had to convince him to trust me and stop asking questions. This was the only way we could do it. Charlotte had just made herself a liability. “When this dead girl’s body is found, they’ll think it’s me. All I have to do is disappear.”
“No! Let’s bury the body so it won’t be found.”
“Do you have a shovel?” I snapped at him, tired of his stupidity. “All we have is this lighter. And after we burn her, we won’t be able to get rid of her bones. We won’t have enough time.”
He paused, considering this, which only aggravated me more. We needed to hurry.
“I’ll get rid of her bones,” he insisted.
“No, you can’t. You have got to get to the party so you’ll have an alibi!”
Then I remembered something he had told me earlier. He said that he had found one of Charlotte’s lost car keys. I immediately knew exactly what he should do. “Quentin. You’ve got to steal Charlotte’s Bronco. Drive it over to the spot where we hit the girl, park it there, leave the headlights on and take pictures of it. Make sure you take several pictures from different angles. Then drive it back to the party and pick up my car. Park my car at the intersection and then come and meet me here. I’ll take care of the girl’s body.”
Finally, Quentin quit trying to think and started doing what I told him.
The next night when he came to see me, I assured him once again that we would be fine, and we’d be together. Then I told him my plan about the money. “All you have to do is suggest to Bridger how helpful it would be to offer up some reward money. Trust me, Bridger will do anything to find the person who killed me. I know he will. Then Bridger will talk to my dad, and I know my dad will agree. He has a reputation to uphold in the community. He’ll see this as another opportunity to show off all his wealth.”
So while I stayed hidden in a hotel room, all Quentin had to do was to follow my precise instructions. We would frame Charlotte and collect the reward money. I made it simple for him, and he still botched it. He called me and told me that he had Charlotte in his car and that the cops were looking for her. “Great,” I told him. He could have turned her in right then and collected the reward money, just like we had planned.
But I sensed hesitation in his voice. Weakness. So I threatened to take off. I told him he’d never see me again if he didn’t go through with it. He had already messed up by bringing her to a section of train tracks near the hotel where I was staying. That wasn’t even the worst part. He then went on to inform me that Wade had been given the exact location. What an idiot!
“What are you going to do when he shows up?” I asked, practically screaming at him over the phone.
“The cops will arrest him. He won’t even make it here.” Quentin’s voice shuddered when he spoke. He didn’t even believe the words as he spoke them.
I knew I would have to intervene. I left the hotel room and ran to where he said he was parked. I told him if he was still there when I got there, I was going to take matters into my own hands.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Charlotte is going to commit suicide tonight.”
“No!” he shouted. “That wasn’t part of the plan. We don’t have to kill her.”
“Fine, then you better tie her up to restrain her somehow and drive her over to the police station, because you know she’s not going to go willingly.”
But Quentin failed again. Charlotte got away, and I had to hit Wade over the head with a rock to get him off Quentin.
Thanks to Quentin’s brilliant improvisation, we never got the hundred-thousand-dollar reward. The cops know everything, and they’re looking for us.
Ever since that night at the train tracks, Quentin and I had been living off of his meager savings. We learned real quick that hiding from the cops isn’t cheap, and we were down to our last five hundred dollars in no time.
“So what are we going to do now?” I asked.
That’s when Quentin had what he called his “brilliant idea.” He wanted us to enroll in high school somewhere so he could play basketball and maybe still get a college scholarship. “We’ll change our names,” he said. “No one will know it’s us. We’ll be far away from North Carolina.”
I had to break it to him that while bleached hair and contact lenses were technically a disguise, if he showed up on a basketball court, playing well enough to earn a scholarship, it would be no disguise at all. Even as a high school athlete, he had already become recognizable. How could he think this was a good idea, let alone a brilliant one?
I told him it was probably the dumbest thing I had ever heard. He wouldn’t let it go. He kept bringing it up over and over, no matter what I said to him. I couldn’t change his mind.
He had the nerve to tell me that I was crushing his dreams. Me? I was crushing his dreams? What about what he had done? What about the money he could have gotten for us?
We started yelling at each other. I told him that unless he wanted us to both be in jail, he was never going to play in the NBA, in college, or even in a pickup game in the park, ever again. When that finally sunk in, he lost it. Things got out of hand. I slapped him in the face, and he pushed me to the ground so hard, I hit my head.
He towered over me, waiting, like he was daring me to get back up. He picked up the stack of remaining cash and said he was done with me. He was done with me? In that instant, I decided I had to get rid of him.
So I did.
The bell on the door rings, ripping me from my thoughts. Another customer has just walked into the diner.
“He’s sitting at your table,” the other waitress says.
“I know, Sloan.”
Sloan leans back against the counter, a smirk on her pale, narrow face. She holds up a ten-dollar bill between two bony fingers and flicks her head. It is an attempt to move her fried blond hair out of her eyes, but a piece of it remains stuck in her silver hoop nose ring. “Look at the tip that cop just gave me,” she beams.
I say nothing.
She folds it in half, then extends both ends quickly to make it snap. “If you think I’m sharing it with you, you’re wrong, sweetie.”
I hate it when she calls me sweetie. It makes me want to rip that crusty, disgusting hoop right out of her crooked nose. The last thing I want is a handout from her. I’ve been more than patient with this chick for the past couple weeks— since I first started working here. But I’m over it. She needs to learn to respect me.
“Darling,” I reply, mimicking her syrupy sweet voice. “I don’t want your money.” My stare intensifies as I look directly into her eyes, shedding my carefully practiced nice and unassuming demeanor. “Get that out of my face and shut your mouth, or I’ll jam it down your throat.”
Her smirk disappears, and I watch as fear enters her bloodshot eyes. She looks away, chin lowered, and walks over to grab a plate of hot food for a customer, stuffing the money down the front of her shirt into her saggy bra.
From the corner of my eye, I see the cop rise to his feet. He’s clean-cut, young, looks like he works out—only his upper body. He has puny legs and about twenty extra pounds on him. I could probably outrun him.
He continues to stand there, and I suspect he’s looking at me, again, which is understandable. I tend to draw the eye of a lot of people, no matter what I’m doing. I have a certain appeal that resonates with people who are looking for a companion, but not a relationship, or so I’m told. Even though I’m wearing this pathetic waitress uniform, this cop has noticed me. I caught him staring more than once.
I turn my back to him and start refilling the saltshaker. When I hear the bell on the door ring, I turn around and watch him through the windows as he heads to his police cruiser. Even though I’m clear across the United States, thousands of miles away from North Carolina, I know I still need to be careful.
The owner of the diner walks through the door next. It’s forty-two degrees outside today, and he’s sweating from the short walk he made from his car. Carrying all that extra weight makes almost every movement a struggle for him.
“Jesse how are you today?” I ask with a smile as I pour him a cup of coffee.
“My back is killing me,” he groans. “The pills my doc prescribed don’t do nothin’ for the pain.”
I set the hot mug down next to the register for him then retrieve a maple doughnut. “Have you tried CBD oil?” I ask. “I’ve heard it works wonders for some people.”
Jesse continues to complain about his pain while I finish preparing his usual breakfast order. Sloan is staring daggers at me from across the diner. I know she’s jealous, because since I started, Jesse only wants me to serve him.
He agreed to pay me in cash, off the books. I told him that I had left an abusive boyfriend and couldn’t risk leaving a trail for him to track me down. I wasn’t sure if Jesse would believe my story or even consider breaking the law for me, but I figured it was worth a shot. So I poured on the charm and cried fake tears, and he bought it. Sometimes I’m able to manipulate people so easily, I surprise myself. Jesse had such compassion for me that he introduced me to Veronica Crawly. She owns a hotel nearby, and she gave me a deal on a room. I clean a couple hours a day after my shift at the diner, and she lets me stay there rent free.
When I stopped running, it wasn’t because I wanted to settle down in this town. I stayed here because I have a bigger prize in sight: Veronica’s grandson, Roy. I learned about him quite by accident. He’s a senior in high school, eighteen years old, and he’s going to inherit Veronica’s estate, which includes several rental houses, the enormous home she lives in, and the hotel.
Veronica’s not in the best of health, so I don’t expect her to live much longer. And Roy—sweet, trusting, kind Roy—will be an adequate companion for me, until I get tired of him. We can enjoy his future fortune together, probably much sooner than he’s anticipating, once I help Grandma along.
Maybe she’ll pass away suddenly in her sleep from a heart attack. Maybe she’ll die from tripping and falling down the stairs. Or maybe her death will be caused by carbon monoxide poisoning. I don’t know. I haven’t decided how it will happen yet. But she will die.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my husband, who asked me when we first started dating if I wanted to go on an “adventure” with him. He had no idea how deeply that resonated with me. I decided to chase my dreams and started writing my first novel.
I am very grateful to Meg Gibbons, who has helped make this one of my best adventures in life. Thank you to Harper Stewart for your insightful comments and expert suggestions on this edition, as well as the rest of the team behind the scenes at Sourcebooks.
