Nearly Found (17 page)

“You look good,” Reece said.

Emily shrugged like she didn’t quite know how to respond. Like she wasn’t comfortable with compliments anymore.

“Sorry,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself. “I don’t get much company.”

“No one’s come to see you?” asked Reece casually.

“No one who isn’t too embarrassed to admit to it.”

Vince pitched a pebble into the trees.

Emily sat on the edge of her bed and tucked her legs to her chest. An ankle bracelet peeked out from under the hem of her pajama pants and she tugged the fabric to conceal it. She turned away from Reece, like she was embarrassed. Like maybe he’d been staring at it.

Because it wasn’t a bracelet. It was a tracker.

Jeremy’s head snapped to Vince. “Why didn’t you tell us she was LoJacked!”

“I told you she couldn’t go anywhere without the cops knowing! It’s the same damn thing.”

But no. It wasn’t the same thing at all. She couldn’t have been the one who’d left the notes. This was a game-changer. Reece knew it too.

“So why’d you come to see me?” Emily asked.

Reece hesitated.

“I thought you and Leigh were, like, a couple or something.”

I held a breath.

“We are,” Reece said.

“But I thought she hated me.”

“With good reason,” I muttered.

Reece exhaled. He sounded frustrated. “No one hates you. TJ manipulated you, just like he manipulated everyone else.”

She brushed her hair back roughly from her face. “I could have said no. I could have walked away, but I didn’t.”

“Do you think any of them would still be alive if you had? He would have killed you too. And after he was done, he would have found someone else to do his dirty work.”

Emily was quiet. She twisted her pant leg around her finger. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

“Truthfully?” He did a slow turn around the room, pausing long enough for the camera to capture each of her framed photos. He traced a finger down the spine of her yearbooks. Then trailed it over her desk. With his back to her, he shifted a small stack of loose papers—a newspaper article and some letters and envelopes, just enough to let the camera catch their reflection in the mirror.

“Do you see that?” Jeremy asked, zooming to focus on the headline.
Local Teen Testifies Against Boyfriend Accused of Multiple Murders in Exchange for Leniency.
It was a clipping from a local paper back in June, with perfect creases where it had once been folded. I wondered if Emily saved pieces of her past, the same way I saved mine.

“Zoom out again,” Eric said. “We don’t want to miss anything.” Jeremy adjusted the focus. Reece was still standing in front of Emily’s desk mirror. He scratched his head.

“Now that I’m here, I don’t really know why I came. I guess I just wanted to talk.”

“Why not talk to your girlfriend? Why come here? You don’t even know me.”

Reece frowned, fingering the edges of the clipping. “Leigh’s a good person. A really good person. Sometimes I feel like . . .” His eyes lifted to the mirror, deep into the camera. “Sometimes I feel like she expects me to be someone different. Someone more like her. Sometimes I think she can’t understand how it feels, to spend your whole life apologizing.”

My heart clenched.

“Apologizing for what?” Emily asked.

“You don’t want to know,” he muttered.

“I do.” Her voice was gentle, curious now. It pulled Reece’s attention from the mirror. From me.

He sat on the edge of her desk to look at her. “You remember the shooting at North Hampton last year?”

“The one where the narc got killed?”

“The narc was my brother.”

Emily untwined her fingers from her hem. She slowly lowered her feet to the floor. “Were you the one who . . . ?”

“I was the dealer who set the whole thing up. I scheduled the drop, knowing he would be there. I knew what he was, and I ratted him out. I didn’t know . . .” His voice grew jagged and thick. “I didn’t know the cops would be there. I didn’t expect it to get out of control, or for my brother to end up caught in the crossfire. I didn’t pull the trigger, but I may as well have. And I’ll live with that for the rest of my life.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jeremy, Eric, and Vince exchange looks.

Emily bit her lip. “What happened?”

“I was arrested. Did six months in juvie.”

She laughed coldly. “At least
you
don’t have to wear a bracelet. You can come and go, hang out with your friends, go to school . . .”

“Yeah, sure. With my parole officer breathing down my neck.” Reece laughed too, but it was a hopeless sound.

“What?” Emily asked. “What aren’t you saying?”

“Nothing.” Reece turned away. He fidgeted with something on her desk.

“But it gets better, doesn’t it? I mean, once you do your time, it’s not so bad, right?” Her throat sounded tight, her voice high and urgent.

Reece didn’t answer.

In the mirror, Emily’s eyes welled with tears. She curled in on herself, drawing her knees back to her chest. “So it’s always going to be like this?”

Reece went to her. He eased down close beside her. Close enough that there was hardly any space between them reflected in the mirror across the room. “This thing,” he said, hooking a finger in her tracker, his knuckle brushing her ankle. “It isn’t permanent.”

“Damn, he’s good,” whispered Jeremy. Eric nodded, his eyes glued to the screen.

Vince punched Jeremy in the shoulder.

“I know it’s not permanent.” A tear slipped down Emily’s cheek. “But maybe it should be.”

In the mirror, I could see something shift in Reece’s expression, the crinkle of concern as it took root. “What do you mean?”

“Those days I spent in jail, before my dad’s lawyers got me out. I felt like I was where I deserved to be. I knew exactly who I was. I knew what I had done to get there. I knew how to feel inside.” Emily’s voice was shaky. “But here. This thing—” She pulled at her ankle tracker. “I don’t know what this makes me. They tell me I’m free to go home, but this doesn’t feel like home. And I’m not free to go anywhere. They tell me I didn’t kill anyone. But that’s not how it feels when the people I love look at me.” She started to cry then. Really cry. The deep silent kind that shakes everything loose inside you. Tentatively, Reece opened his arms and she fell against him, sobbing into his shoulder.

Vince swore. Jeremy and Eric bumped knuckles.

Reece whispered to her. I watched as he stroked her hair, rested his lips against her forehead. A gnawing burn crept up from my heart, because everything I was seeing was sincere. This common ground he shared with Emily felt solid and important. As big as the ocean of differences that divided Reece and me. Lately, I had been the one who’d been looking at him like he was a stranger. Like he’d done something wrong. I had been the one who’d made him feel the way Emily was feeling now.

“I have to go,” I said, scrambling to my feet. I cut through the trees behind Emily’s house, fighting the brush and low branches that reached for my arms and grabbed at my face.

I emerged on the edge of the golf course, skidding to a halt before I could trip over the yellow perimeter of sagging police tape restricting access to the ninth green where Karl Miller’s body had been found. I stood over it, breathing hard, looking back through the cluster of trees I’d just run through. Emily’s house lights burned brightly, less than a hundred feet away, through the gaps between branches of dying autumn leaves.

Remember, you asked for this.

I put Reece in this position. Because Emily might know something that could prove my father wasn’t the one who put Karl Miller inside this hole. Maybe something that could prove a killer’s DNA didn’t run in my own blood. So I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life feeling guilty for something I didn’t do. So I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life apologizing for being someone I didn’t choose to be.

In that moment, I realized that I understood Reece Whelan better than he thought. And I didn’t want to be the person who treated him like a criminal. I didn’t want to be the one who made him feel guilty anymore. If I did, I would only manage to push him away. I marched back toward the lights of Emily’s bedroom window.

• • •

When I emerged through the trees, someone pulled me back into the shadows. I opened my mouth to shout, but Reece put a finger to my lips. He tasted like apologies, painful dry lumps that were hard to swallow. But not entirely like regret.

“I’m fine,” I said, trying to smile.

Jeremy cradled his laptop and the receiver in his arms. Eric stood beside him, clutching Jeremy’s laptop bag, cords and cables hanging from its open zipper as if they’d left Emily’s house in a hurry. Vince stood behind them, looking pissed off at everyone.

“What did you find out?” I asked.

Reece winced as he plucked the tape from his chest. He handed Jeremy the camera. “Nothing yet.”

Vince threw up his hands and headed back toward Emily’s street. “See, I told you. This was a complete waste of time. I’m going home.”

We all watched as Vince stormed off.

Jeremy and Eric knelt to wind up the cables and pack up the gear, leaves and brush crackling under their knees.

“You saw the ankle bracelet?” Reece asked, brushing a pine needle from my hair. His thumb stroked my jaw, and his touch smelled sweetly of concern. But I didn’t know if it was for me.

I nodded, trying to make sense of what he was feeling. “So she couldn’t have been the one to deliver the notes or dig up the body, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t involved.”

“I’m not so sure. What if we’re coming at this from the wrong angle? Emily’s a member of the poker kids club, the same as all of you. Who’s to say she hasn’t gotten some kind of a message too? Maybe that’s what TJ meant when he said she had the answers.” Reece had that sharp, determined look in his eyes. I reached for his hand, to talk him out of whatever goose chase he was considering. His curiosity was warm, plucking at my tongue like cinnamon candies.

“Yes, but—”

“I’m coming back tomorrow night,” Reece said.

I took a step back, letting go of his hand. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

He looked surprised. “Why not?”

“Because Emily’s sneaky and manipulative and really good at pretending she’s not. There has to be another way to figure out what she knows. She didn’t tell you anything tonight. What makes you think she’s going to tell you anything tomorrow?”

“She’s not going to just spill her guts to me the first time we talk.”

“Why not? You spilled all of yours.”

He cupped my cheek in his hand, dropping his head to look me in the eyes, until all I could taste was his sympathy. “I had to. This isn’t going to work unless she trusts me.”

“Maybe you’re trusting her a little more than she’s earned. Whose side were you on up there, Reece?”

His eyes clouded. “It wasn’t like that.”

I fought to keep my voice from shaking. “Then what was it like, Reece? Because it sure looked like you were connecting back there.”

“Of course we connected. What kind of creep do you think I am, Leigh? You think I can just use someone and not feel anything?”

“Isn’t that what you told me? Isn’t that how you said it was, with that girl I saw you with in lockup?”

He stepped back as if I’d slapped him. The rustling of cords stopped. Jeremy and Eric looked up with curious expressions. Reece’s eyes darted to Jeremy. “I wasn’t the one who wanted this.” Then he disappeared through the brush.

Jeremy and Eric zipped their packs without a word. I watched them crunch their way through the trees after Reece.

I buried my face in my hands, furious with myself for feeling this way. For doing exactly what I’d told myself I wouldn’t do again.

A twig snapped behind me. Dead leaves rustled in the breeze, like the trees were breathing. I looked over my shoulder, disquieted by the cloaking darkness and the odd feeling that we hadn’t been alone.

I
WAS CLINICAL THE NEXT NIGHT
as I taped up Reece’s wires. Careful not to touch his skin.

His brow was furrowed as he held his shirt open. “Do we really need to record this? It’s not like we’re looking for some kind of confession anymore. Maybe I should go without the camera this time.” I gritted my teeth and stuck the tape hard to his chest, letting him button his own shirt when I was finished. I’d spent all day in my room, waiting for him to call or text me. When he finally did, it was to tell me he had to work. But his hands didn’t smell like garlic or pizza cheese, and his shirt didn’t smell like oregano. Where he’d actually been working all day, I wasn’t really sure.

He leaned down to kiss me, but I moved before he could get close. I slid down the fence beside Eric and Jeremy, and stared at the screen, pretending to be engrossed in the business of spying. Reece threw his arms up as he walked away, and I had to bite my lip to keep from calling his name.

“Brilliant idea, trailer trash.” Vince sauntered up and sat in protest a few feet away.

“I didn’t hear you come up with a better one,” I mumbled. “Probably because you couldn’t be bothered to get here on time.”

“I had better things to do than hang out with you losers.”

“Charitable of you to finally join us.”

Jeremy swatted the air and shushed us. I turned back to the screen. The camera swayed dizzyingly with Reece’s stride. Then focused on the familiar crisscross of the trellis beneath Emily’s window.

“Emily?” he called quietly. He paced the side of her house, trying to see into darkened windows, but the shades were drawn for the night. He called her name again.

“She’s not answering. I’m going up,” he whispered into the microphone. Her window came into view, then the lace curtains inside. A cool suspicion trickled into my veins. Reece paused, as if he felt it too. The curtains rustled, billowing into the room. The window was already open.

Reece said Emily’s name. He waited a moment, then crawled inside.

“She’s not here,” he whispered. Vince stiffened, craning his neck to see.

The camera panned the room. Paused over Emily’s unmade bed. Over the tracker nestled in the blankets.

“I knew it,” I whispered. I felt a rush of righteous indignation, until Reece took Emily’s ankle bracelet in his hand. “No, don’t touch it!” I said, even though he couldn’t hear me. He turned it around slowly, then carried it to the lamp on her desk and held it under the light. He scraped it with a fingernail.

“Blood,” he said softly. “She must have hurt herself trying to rip the damn thing off.”

“That’s impossible.” Vince scrambled over the grass to narrow his eyes at the screen. The tracker appeared to be intact. Slipping out of it couldn’t have been easy, but probably not impossible.

Reece turned a slow circle, letting the camera capture the room. Nothing out of place but the rumpled sheets. “I’m coming down.” He pulled a Kleenex from the box on Emily’s desk and wiped down the ankle bracelet. Then he carefully set it back in place on the bed.

I held my breath as Reece paused, straddling the windowsill. There would be no way to wipe away the handprints he was about to leave without jumping, and a jump from this height could break both his legs. He swore quietly, gripped the sill with both hands and lowered himself down the trellis.

When he hit the ground, I leaped up to my feet, brushing dirt from the back of my legs.

“I knew it,” I said as he came over the fence. “She was involved. She wouldn’t have run if she wasn’t.” Emily was guilty of something. She had to be.

“I don’t like it.” Reece shook his head, staring off into the trees. “Why would she run? It doesn’t make sense.”

It did make sense, because she was guilty, but clearly Reece thought . . . I took a step back, sick at the thought. “You still think she’s innocent? Reece, she helped TJ kill four people! She stood there and watched while he tried to kill me! Now she’s ditched her ankle bracelet and you still believe she didn’t have anything to do with this?”

“I never said that.” He reached under his shirt and tugged at the wire, tossing the camera to Jeremy. “But I never gave her a reason to run. I never even had a chance to ask her about the notes, or the club.” He put his hands on his hips and turned to her open window. “If she did run, then someone tipped her off.”

We all turned to Vince.

“Don’t look at me! I didn’t tell her anything!”

“Well, someone must have,” Jeremy said.

“What do you think I said to her? Hey, Emily. I was stalking your house last night with a druggie and a couple of dorks to see if you’ve been violating your house arrest—”

“The question is,” Reece said, silencing him, “where the hell is she?”

Vince’s jaw rocked back and forth. He stared defiantly at Reece.

“Come on. You know her best. Where would she go to get away if she thought she was in trouble? Where would she go if she didn’t want to be found?”

Vince lowered his head. He kicked the dirt. “There is one place she might go. We used to sneak out there to smoke weed sometimes.”

“Where?”

“Dyke Marsh Trail,” Vince said.

The marsh wasn’t far. A couple miles maybe. And it would be an easy place to hide.

“Okay, say we go, and she’s actually there. What are we supposed to do once we find her?” Jeremy asked.

“We turn her in,” I said.

“No,” Reece and Vince said in unison. They eyed each other. “We don’t know that she’s done anything wrong,” Reece added. “She’s probably just scared. I’ll convince her to come home before she does something stupid.”

“Like violating her house arrest?” I asked, incredulous. “Reece, you said it yourself, she hasn’t spent enough time with you to trust you. What makes you think she’ll listen?”

Reece ignored me. “Take Jeremy’s car.”

“I can drive myself,” Vince said.

“No, the pipes on the Camaro are too loud. She’ll hear it coming a mile away. We don’t want to spook her any more than she already is. Grab a couple flashlights. Park by the marina and walk to the trailhead. I’ll meet you there.”

“I’ll ride with . . .” I started to say. But Reece disappeared into the trees before I could finish. “. . . you.”

“Guess you’re riding with us,” Jeremy said.

I followed Jeremy, Eric, and Vince to Jeremy’s house. We all watched as Jeremy punched in the code to the garage. It was neatly organized, like everything else inside their home. All the tools mounted on pegs in descending order by size, garden rakes and golf clubs and expensive bicycles mounted on hooks.

“Wait here,” Jeremy said quietly. His father’s car was parked in the driveway. Cautiously, he opened the interior door and set his computer bag down on the floor of the mudroom. He disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later, he emerged carrying two flashlights. “Take this. Let’s go, before my dad realizes we’re here.” He gave one of the flashlights to Eric, and we all loaded into his Civic, Eric claiming shotgun and leaving me stuck with Vince in the backseat.

“Why do you think she ran?” I asked Vince.

“Couldn’t tell you.” He stared out the window. He was uncharacteristically quiet, but his fingers tapped a steady, anxious rhythm in the small space between us, and I let my hand graze his as if by accident. He tasted smoky and elusive, like he was hiding something. The taste of secrets was almost strong enough to disguise a lemon-sour twist of remorse.

• • •

Reece’s bike wasn’t in the parking lot of the marina.

Vince slammed the car door. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

“He said to meet him at the trailhead. Maybe he parked there.” I began walking that way. Reece might think Emily was innocent, but I didn’t, and I didn’t want to miss anything she said.

I walked faster.

Behind me, Jeremy and Vince bickered, their voices growing farther away.

The sign for the trail came into view. Reece’s bike was parked along the road beside it. I took the footpath to an elevated walkway of wooden planks. Reece wasn’t there. I kept going, following the trail to the end. Vince, Jeremy, and Eric thumped over the boards behind me. We rounded the turns, marsh grasses swaying in the breeze and licking up over the sides.

Reece leaned against a piling at the end of the point, waiting.

“She’s not anywhere on the trail. Where would she be?” Reece asked Vince.

Vince jerked his chin. “There’s a clearing, a few feet off the trail that way.”

Reece stepped off the boards, into the muddy grass.

“That’s where we stashed the boat.”

Reece stopped and looked over his shoulder at Vince. “What boat?”

“The one we used to get to the island.” Vince pointed out toward the water.

Reece shook his head, swearing quietly to himself, and swatted his way through the weeds. He emerged a minute later.

“The boat’s gone. Looks like someone dragged it to the water’s edge. She probably took it across.” Reece dropped his coat to the ground. He kicked off his boots and unbuttoned his shirt.

“What are you doing?” I sputtered as he peeled off his socks.

“It’s not far. It can’t be more than a hundred yards.” He stripped down to his boxer briefs and walked into the shallows.

“You’ll freeze to death! Don’t be stupid.”

“The water’s warmer than the air tonight. I’ll be fine.” He waded out to his waist, and dove in. “I’m going to try to talk some sense into her,” he said. Then he sliced through the river in smooth, cutting strokes toward the island.

Oh, hell no. This was not happening.

“What are you waiting for?” I shoved Vince toward the edge of the walkway. “Go with him!”

“Are you crazy?”

The sound of Reece’s kicks began to fade. I couldn’t make him out in the darkness anymore.

“Fine,” I said, ripping off my coat and shoes. I tossed my jeans to the ground and stripped down to my undershirt. I didn’t care who was watching. Then I stepped off the edge and splashed into the shallows.

The chill of the wind needled my skin, but Reece was right. The water was warmer, and I bit my lip and trudged in.

Jeremy ran toward the edge of the walkway. “Leigh, what are you doing? You’re a terrible swimmer!”

I made it out to my waist, my toes pressing into the thick marsh bottom. I sucked in an anxious breath and stepped out a few more feet, but the depth of the water held just below my chest. “It’s just a marsh. I can walk it. It’s not deep. Reece said it’s not far. I can make it.” I’d be damned if I’d leave him mostly naked and hypothermic on a deserted island in the middle of the river with Emily Reinnert.

My steps came down firmly in the mud—three steps, then five—until the bottom fell away. The water pulled at me, dragging me under. I fought my way to the surface, sucked in a breath. Felt my toes stretch for the bottom and then I was under again. Under water as dark as the sky. An arm grabbed my waist, pulling me up. My face broke the surface, and I gasped, taking in a lungful of burning cold air.

“You’re an idiot!” Vince said, slinging me onto his back. I wrapped my legs around his waist and coughed, spitting water as Vince swam toward the island in uneven strokes, hindered by my weight. The beach came into shadowy view. Vince stopped swimming and stood in the waist-deep water.

A few feet ahead of us, Reece stood in the shallows, staring at the shore.

At the boat.

The river lapped at its hull, and the moonlight cast a blue glow on the worn wood. Over the white arms and legs draped over its sides. Over the silvery mop of wet hair that hung over Emily’s shoulders, and the dark empty space where her foot should have been.

Vince’s breathing became ragged and I scrambled off his back to Reece’s side. He was shaking, his chest heaving from exertion. I pulled at his shoulders. “Reece, we have to go!” The touch of his skin was choking. It left my tongue numb with terror. “We have to go now!”

I pulled him backward into the deeper water, until he finally turned toward the opposite shore and started swimming. I held on to his shoulders, letting him pull me through the water. Behind us, I could hear the splash of Vince’s strokes.

We all scrambled up the riverbank at the end of the trail.

Vince sat in the mud, his face pale and his lips trembling.

“Get up, Vince,” I said, frantically tugging on my jeans and shoes. “We need to get out of here.” My mind raced through the last two days, over every surface in Emily’s room Reece had touched. The tire marks in the gravel where he’d parked his bike. Impressions in the mud where he’d walked when he’d searched the clearing. I grabbed on to the fact that he hadn’t touched her body. He hadn’t even walked on shore at the island. The most they could do was trace him here. To the marsh. “Get up!” I shouted at Vince, desperate to shake him.

“Where’s Emily?” Jeremy asked.

“She’s dead.” Icy water trickled down my face, and I wiped it on my sleeve. My nose was numb, my fingers and toes tingling cold. “We have to get out of here now.”

Reece dressed quickly, and pulled Vince to his feet. He half carried him back to the trailhead. When we reached Reece’s bike, I took the flashlights and ordered Jeremy and Eric to help Vince to the car. “You have to leave,” I told Reece. “Just go. We’ll be fine.”

He reached for me, his body trembling. He started to ask me to come with him, then stopped at the calculating look he must have seen in my eyes. It was the only thing holding the tears back. He nodded.

“Take the bike somewhere,” I told him, remembering the advice he’d once given me. “Go somewhere with cameras. Someplace public. Then go to Gena’s. Don’t go home alone.”

“What are you going to do?” He gripped the handlebars to keep his hands from shaking. He was freezing and wet, and the wind was bitter. If he didn’t go now, he might not make it.

“I’ll check the tide tables,” I said. “I’ll wait until high tide to report it. The water will cover some of our tracks. I’ll make an anonymous call. Tomorrow, I’ll go to the crime lab to see if they know anything. Then we can all meet at—”

Reece took me by the shoulder. His whole body shivered and his teeth clattered against the words. “There’s something you should know. Something I didn’t tell you.”