The Bachelorette Party, page 6
I go back to the family room to check the drawers one more time. Something sticks as I try to open one of them. Feeling in the back of the drawer, I grip the pointy corner of paper and manage to slide it out, revealing a rectangular map.
I open the accordion folds, the paper thin and ripping at the seams. Two regions around the lodge have been circled in red. I’m not sure of their significance, though they seem elevated on the topography. Hunting stands?
Squeezing my eyes closed, I try to visualize the drive up here, wishing I had paid attention instead of joking with Lainey and Melody the whole time. But no landmarks stick in my memory, just wafting snow and black ice roads. Trying to put myself back in that moment, I hear the scratchy sound of the AM radio, the weather alert, Melody’s musical laugh, and Lainey arguing with her. Then I remember one more thing: the frozen pond, with someone crossing it.
Maybe that was real, then. Maybe that was more than a shadow.
Or it could have been a damn bear for all I know. In any case, it doesn’t help me orient myself. There’s the gas station, of course, but that’s about ten miles away, if it’s even open.
“Then go there,” I say. “You need to find help. Call 911.”
Or call Jay at least. The thought soothes me. Jay can help me. Of all people, he will have a plan. He always knows what to do.
I’ll head for the gas station. Or if not, at least I can get to the street. The thought of the crazy long driveway disheartens me. I smack myself on the forehead again. I can’t give up before I have even started. I can do it. Of course I can do it. I just have to make it to the small country road. Not a thoroughfare by any means, but it’s a long road. Someone might be driving on it. And I’d get to a main road eventually. I examine the map, trying to locate the biggest road. I’m not good at reading paper maps though, spoiled with Google. I trace a line with my finger, which might be a road. Or maybe a river.
Disgusted with myself, I throw the map in my bag and step in the doorway to grab my hat and mittens, slipping on my boots. Melody and Lainey could be out there somewhere, freezing, bleeding out. And I’m playing with a stupid map.
I know I’m just procrastinating here, delaying the inevitable. Because I really don’t want to go out there into the cold. But any idiot knows I have about forty-eight hours here to find them. It’s the name of the damn television show. I can’t stay here.
And anyway, he could come back. Unless …
“No,” I tell myself. “That’s impossible. I couldn’t have done this.” Even with the guy who drove off and bludgeoned his in-laws. That was just one crazy case. That’s not me.
With my outer gear on, I feel dressed and ready for battle, or for the cold at least.
“Okay,” I say, slapping my hands together to ready myself. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JUNE
#The666Killer
Wokebro: Come on, dude. Of course he did it.
Alex33: There are discrepancies. That’s all I’m saying.
Wokebro: What discrepancies? Seriously.
Alex33: There are issues with the main witness, Leigh Jones. Cross-racial misidentification being one of them.
Daddy-oh: “Cross-racial misidentification being one of them.” LOL. Okay, you’re the smartest person alive, we get it.
Wokebro: LOLOLOL
Alex33: I’ve been communicating with him. He makes some valid points. None of his DNA was on the scene. And he was wearing a balaclava, another factor that brings the whole eyewitness testimony into question.
Wokebro: Communicating with him? Why would you be communicating with him? That’s not normal.
Alex33: It’s called research.
TNT: Nicole White was high off her ass on drugs. Play stupid games. Win stupid prizes.
Alex33: So … she deserved to be stabbed to death for getting high?
TNT: Just sayin’. If she didn’t do drugs, she would still be here today.
Alex33: Hmm … that reasoning seems flawed. There are lots of people who get high and yet nobody murders them.
Wokebro: Yeah. Alex has a point there. The guy is one messed-up individual. I mean, it’s one thing to have sex with that Nicole girl when she was a little wasted. But he didn’t even do that. Dude fucking stabbed her to death.
Alex33: Well, having sex with her when she was a little wasted would have been RAPE so, I guess it’s good he didn’t do that at least.
Wokebro: Dude, stop with the virtue signaling.
Daddy-oh: Yeah, who took your balls?
Alex33: I’m a woman. So no one took my balls.
Wokebro: That actually explains a lot.
Alex33: Like what?
TNT: Like why you’re such a bitch.
Alex33: Deeply original.
Wokebro: I bet this isn’t research at all. I bet you’re just pen pals. You’re probably one of those sicko weird girls who want to marry the guy.
Alex33: Or just find out the true answer.
Wokebro: Other than the ‘oops I tattooed myself with a 666’ thing. He CONFESSED. Let me say that again for the slower (Alex) people among us. He confessed.
Alex33: I just don’t think it’s that simple.
Wokebro: As simple as you are, you mean.
TNT: Maybe you should just marry the guy.
Daddy-oh: Have little psycho babies.
TNT: ROTFLOL.
Wokebro: Alex? Alex?
TNT: I don’t think Alex is playing anymore.
Wokebro: Ah, she went home crying because her feelings got hurt.
Daddy-oh: I hate it when girls come on here and then just leave when the going gets tough. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Daddy-oh: On second thought, she’s better off staying in the kitchen.
TNT: Hahaha. LMAO
Jay comes into the apartment, dropping his keys in the dish with a clink.
His entrance surprises me, since it’s only 5:00 PM, early for him to come home. Standing there, he lets out a momentous sigh. “I am going to have a drink,” he announces.
“What happened?” I ask, closing down my computer at the table. I’m done reading the “Top Ten New York Serial Killers” article anyway. Babushka jumps off my lap.
“Nothing a Tooheys can’t fix,” he says, grabbing a schooner from the refrigerator. He opens the bottle with his hand, the metal cap skittering on the marble island. “Want one?”
“Nah.” I haven’t acquired a taste for Australian beer. “But I might just help myself to some merlot.” We have some left over from dinner last night. I pull a large wineglass from behind the frosted glass cabinets and give myself a generous pour.
We clink glass to beer bottle and each take a long sip, the rich plum taste coating my tongue.
Jay swallows, wipes his mouth off, and exhales. “That’s a start,” he says.
“Shit day?” I ask, leaning an elbow on the island. I circle the sharp rim of the wineglass with my finger.
“Shit day,” he agrees, taking another long sip. Then he moves closer to me, the smell of starch coming off his shirt. “How about you?” he asks. “Any more creepy letters?”
“Nah, I just got in a war with a bunch of misogynist Twitter bros. So that was fun.” Babushka tries to sip the wine, and I give her a little shove.
“Idiots,” Jay mutters, after another drink. “I don’t know why you even bother with them.”
“I’m not trying to bother with them,” I say, piqued. I smooth my hand on the marble island. “I was just plumbing the mines out there to get information.”
“On Twitter? Or X? Or whatever the hell you call it?” He snickers good-naturedly. “More like mining the cesspool.”
“Yeah, I suppose you have a point.” Babushka licks my knuckle with her sandpaper tongue, then darts in to attempt another taste, which I block. “And what irks me most is that they actually have a point. Eric Myers did confess.”
“Wait.” Jay makes a face. “He confessed? And you think the guy is innocent?”
“I think that I don’t know.” I grab Cabin in the Woods from the kitchen table, then crack it open to the page with his signed confession, which starts with a simple sentence.
I killed Nicole White.
“You want to hear it?” I ask.
He raps his knuckles on the island. “I’m assuming the correct answer is yes?”
I don’t bother to answer the moronic question, just clear my throat and start reading.
I killed Nicole White. I stabbed her multiple times at Hobbes Lodge. We were both high and started kissing, but then she told me that she had a boyfriend and did not want to date me. She laughed at me like it was a big joke and I got angry. I should not have got so mad but I did and then things got out of hand. I grabbed onto her heart necklace and broke it. She got upset and slapped me and that really set me off. There was a knife on the kitchen table and I grabbed it. Then I don’t even really remember what happened but I kept stabbing her. When I realized that she died, I got scared and wrote 666 on the wall. I thought someone would think it was some satanic thing and not suspect me. I threw the knife in Cooper’s Lake. I threw it really far, but you could try to find it. I admit to killing Nicole White.
I look up at Jay.
“And?” he asks, apparently waiting for more.
“And that’s it.”
“So, what’s the question?” he asks, taking another drink of beer. “The guy is guilty as sin.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
JUNE
“They made me write that,” Eric Myers says.
The next day, I decide to tackle the confession head on.
“Then why didn’t you tell anyone about that right away?” I straighten my chair, squeaking against the gray kitchen tile. Babushka is locked away in our bedroom for the moment, with her scratching post and fake mice to keep her company until I’m done with the interview. “Why wait until after the verdict?”
“I did tell people that,” he says. “I told my lawyer.” Out comes a bitter laugh then. “That guy was a waste of space.”
Having read the court transcripts, I can’t say that I disagree. “So you’re saying that your lawyer didn’t tell anyone? Make a complaint?”
“Nope,” he says, gravel in his voice. “Too much of a bother, I guess. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” The guard snorts in response, and Eric Myers glares at him, bristling. But there’s not much he can do about it.
“Okay, then. Tell me what happened,” I say, pulling up a new notebook page. “From the beginning.”
Eric Myers steeples his hands, resting them against his lips. He stays this way for a long moment. Then he asks a question. “Have you ever stayed up all night?”
I sit up in the chair, taken aback by the non sequitur. “Well … sure …”
I went to college. Of course I’ve stayed up all night.
“Okay.” He chews on his lip, pausing for another question, and unease glides through me.
I’m breaking a cardinal rule of journalism, letting the interviewee ask questions. As my college professor said, You own the interview. Once the subject takes over, the interview’s over. I’m about to speak again when he beats me to it.
“How about two nights?” he asks.
I think back to our family trip to Ireland, right before the divorce, which might have been a last-ditch attempt to save the marriage. I remember little about the trip, except waiting in a long line to kiss a stone, and my parents softly arguing in the next room every night. We were up nearly forty-eight hours coming over. So, the answer would be yes. I have been up two nights.
“Three nights?” he asks, without waiting for my answer.
I pause. “What are you trying to say, Eric?” I ask, trying to wrest the interview back.
He taps his fingers on his table, not ceding an inch. “Have you ever been screamed at?” he asks. “Not yelled at, screamed at. Constant, nonstop, screaming, screaming, screaming.” His pitch rises with every word, and the guard throws him a warning glance. He lowers his volume again. “So you can’t hear your thoughts.”
I don’t answer. Maybe he thinks that represents a negative response. But, yes. I have been screamed at, by Chris. So loud, so furious, that I could barely hear my own thoughts. I fucking love you, don’t you understand that? I don’t exist without you. You don’t exist without me. So loud, so furious, that I needed a restraining order to keep that voice away. That I needed antidepressants to leave the house.
“So you are saying they kept you awake and screamed at you?” I ask. The question comes off as belittling, though I don’t mean it that way. Screaming at someone for three days may not be torture but at least falls under “enhanced interrogation techniques.” It could force a confession.
“Have you ever been smacked in the ears?” he asks, the question soft, almost a whisper. I have to lean toward the computer to hear it.
I shake my head, uncomfortable with somehow becoming the interviewee again.
“Doesn’t sound that bad, does it?” he asks, with a half smile.
I don’t answer, but no. Being kept up all night, screamed at, and having your ears hit doesn’t sound that bad. Not in comparison to being sliced and stabbed. Not in comparison to what Nicole White and Leigh Jones went through. And maybe Amelia and Angela as well.
“The first slap isn’t so bad,” he says, resting his elbows on the table. “Kind of a surprise that the cops are actually hitting you. But then, that’s not so surprising, is it?”
I don’t admit it but, no, it’s not all that surprising.
“The second one hurts a bit more though,” he says, his eyes glazing over. “And when you’re getting over it, they hit the other side. And the screaming gets louder.” His fingers play on the surface of the table. “The next time, the room starts spinning. So hard that you throw up. And they keep hammering you, screaming. You did it. You know you did it! But you keep saying that no, you didn’t do it. You swear on your mother’s life that you didn’t do it.”
Silence takes over the room, sucking in every sound except for his voice. I want to say something, even just an okay, or go on, but I can’t. It would be wrong somehow, like talking in the middle of a play. Or maybe I’m afraid to break the spell.
“At some point, you stop counting the blows.” He stares off in the distance, no longer looking at me, maybe not even talking to me. “The room won’t stop moving. The buzzing in your ears turns louder than the screams. And it hurts. It fucking hurts. Ringing, buzzing pain. And you just want them. To. Stop.”
His head drops into his hands for a second, then he looks back up. His eyes redden but shed no tears. “So finally I just said yes, I did it. Whatever they told me that I did, I agreed with them. I just copied whatever they said, word for word.” His voice sounds low, dejected. “I wrote it down, even though my eyes kept going double from being so off-balance. They had some story about how I got mad because she laughed at me or whatever.” He shakes his head. “And that’s it. I wrote it all down and signed my name.”
Now, outside noises seep in again. A horn beeps outside my window. From his room, keys rattle, a corrections officer making the rounds. The beefy guard coughs into his fist.
The spell has broken.
Eric rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. “By the time they were done, I didn’t even know what day it was. I remember looking out the window when the light came up and trying to figure out if the sun was coming up or setting. I barely even knew my own name.” He shrugs out of weariness, the gesture shorthand. He has no story left in him to tell. “Finally they let me sleep,” he says, in a dead voice. “And in the morning, I woke up, and I regretted taking that pen.” His jaw clenches. “And I will regret it for the rest of my life.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
NOW
My hand’s on the door when I notice it.
Lainey’s black and teal New York Liberty winter coat hangs on the rack.
I pause. It couldn’t be that easy, could it? Probably not, but there’s only one way to find out. I reach into the side pocket, without any hope of success, but my fingers recognize it right away. A miniature flip-flop. It was Ruby’s first gift, a silly beach-vacation souvenir, which has been on Lainey’s keychain ever since. I could kick myself for wasting all that time instead of looking there first, but better late than never. Keys gripped tight, I venture outside.
After the warmth of the fire, the sudden cold shocks my system.
Like walking into a freezing shower.
My scalp muscles tighten under my hat, cold air squealing against my face, needling into my skin. Awkwardly, I walk through the mounding snow toward the car and hit the remote. The thing doesn’t even chirp. I push the button over and over with the same result.
“Okay,” I grumble to myself. “So you just have to use the key.”
Stepping through the heavy snow to the car, I try the key in the door, my fingers cold and clumsy in my mittens. The key doesn’t go in. I jam it in a bit but don’t want to break it. The key seems to fit the slot, but it’s frozen over.
“Come fucking on,” I yell at no one, trying to scrape the ice out with my mitten, which doesn’t work. I bend down and blow hot air on it, which also doesn’t work. I doubt there’s deicer in the cabin and don’t want to waste any more time. In frustration, I start banging the iced-over driver window with my fisted hand. A chunk of ice flies off the window, but I’m not close to breaking it. I could find a hammer or something from the lodge, but that should be my last resort.
Then I have an idea. Taking the backpack off, I rest it in the snow and unzip the side pocket, rooting around for the box of matches. I finally nab them and am about to strike the first one when the match stick drops from my fingers into the snow.
