The Voice inside My Head (27 page)

Tracy’s mouth curves into a smile as she remembers this part. “I was so excited. I thought he’d killed her. But when he went into the office to call for help, I ran down and checked and she was still breathing.” She opens her eyes, glances at me and straightens up. “That’s when I thought of it. It just came to me, the solution to everything — and it was so easy. How could I resist? You have to understand; your sister was a royal bitch.”

My fists clench. “Then what happened?”

“I ran to the equipment room and got a weight belt, strapped it on her and rolled her off the dock. I was back in my room pretending to be asleep by the time Pete returned. He didn’t know what had happened. He came knocking on my door, sobbing out the whole story. What a loser!” She laughs.

“Did Pat struggle when she went in the water?” I don’t know why I ask this. The rage coiled within me is already
more than I can bear. I don’t want to know that my sister suffered. I don’t want to hear that she fought for her life. I’m not sure I can handle it. Yet, at the same time, I feel I owe it to Pat to hear it. All I can do for her now is bear witness to her story.

Tracy begins untying her sneakers. They’re sopping wet and the knots don’t come loose easily.

“Tracy, did my sister know what was happening?”

She shoots me a guilty look and resumes picking at her shoelace. In that glance, I have my answer. I leap across the bench that separates us. Before I know it, my hands are around her throat, squeezing tight. It’s like I’m watching myself but feeling every sensation at the same time — the softness of her skin, the resilience of her flesh as she struggles to draw breath, the panic in her eyes.

“Ook,” she sputters.

“Pat!?” I scream, sweeping the horizon in every direction.

Eventually, my gaze falls on Tracy, just Tracy, pale but still breathing, glaring up at me.

“You’re crazy,” she rasps.

I slump down on the nearest bench, struggling for breath myself.

“Tell me about the end,” I say quietly.

She rubs her throat, eyeing me reproachfully. I’m in the middle of the boat now, so she clambers forward to take the bench farthest from me, in the bow.

“I didn’t realize she was conscious until she hit the water,” she says, but I can tell by the way her eyes slide off me, she’s lying. “The water must have woken her up. She thrashed about. Maybe she was trying to get the weight belt off, I don’t know. It was dark. But the bitch just wouldn’t die. Even at the end, she had to be so goddamn perfect.”

She stops and looks past me, as if she’s seeing it all over again. Now I can see it, too. The harbor lights play across the water, sparkling on my sister’s hair as she breaches the surface, scrabbling at her waist, trying desperately to free herself. Blood pulses out of the wound on her head, clouding the water like the ink of an octopus. She goes under twice, three times, but still she doesn’t give up; she begins swimming for shore, hauling the extra weight. She’s weakened but still strong, and she’s in her element, her home.

“You finished her off,” I say flatly. I don’t know how she did it, but I know that much.

“I hit her with the anchor,” she says. “I had to. I’d already put the belt on her. There was no going back. She would have told. So I got the anchor out of the dinghy and slung it at her head. She went down after that … finally.”

E
veryone — Zach, Jamie, even Reesie with a bandaged head — is standing on the dock when we pull in after a long, wordless journey. Stunned into silence by Tracy’s confession, I want nothing more than to be out of her presence. It’s as if her malignance is infectious. I feel tainted just being close to her and can only be cleansed by seeing my sister. I know, in reality, there’s nothing of Pat in the remains I pulled from the sea, but it’s all I’ve got. Pat and I have unfinished business, one final conversation we need to have. I heard her voice out on the water. She, too, has been silent on the boat ride back, but perhaps if I can be alone with her one more time, she’ll say the words I need to hear.

The police are waiting on the shore with Dr. Jake. From the excitement with which they greet our arrival, they must have been told about Tracy. I toss out the bow rope to Jamie and he ties us up. I wait for Tracy to scramble up on the dock before I follow. I don’t know where she’d escape to, with so many observers, but I’m not taking any chances.

“She confessed,” I say, as I climb up beside my friends.

“You can’t prove it,” she says belligerently, though her voice cracks. “I’ll deny everything.”

“We’ll see about that,” says Reesie. “Patricia was one of us. We’re gonna make sure justice is done — one way or another.”

“Where’s Pat?” I ask.

“She’s still inside,” says Reesie. “The police have finished their examination, so we need to talk about arrangements. I imagine you’ll be wanting to take her home.”

I nod. I know I’m going to have to call my parents again. The prospect fills me with dread, though I hold on to a faint hope that at least getting Pat’s body back will give them some comfort. I’ve already resolved to do everything in my power to hide from them the full truth of her final moments. It’s enough that I have to live with it.

“You need to come to the station to give your statement,” says Jamie. “Do you want a minute with Pat first? I can hand Tracy over.” He already has a firm grip on her arm.

I nod again, not trusting myself to speak. The adrenaline that carried me through the past hour, chasing Tracy on the high seas and bringing her back, has dissipated, leaving me shaky and close to breaking down. Jamie precedes me off the dock, dragging Tracy along with him. Reesie and Zach follow me. I pause briefly at the end of the dock to exchange a few words with Dr. Jake, who seems overcome with emotion that so much evil has been perpetrated on his watch. I try to reassure him he’s not responsible, but I think he takes my obvious preoccupation for lack of conviction, not realizing that I’m thinking of my own guilt, not his.

Zach and Reesie come with me into the Shark Center. They wait just outside the office, letting me go in alone.

I sit down on the edge of the sofa, next to my sister, and take her hand.

“I caught Tracy,” I tell her, listening for her response with every ounce of my being. But catching Tracy doesn’t give Pat her life back. I can hardly expect gratitude.

“I’m sorry I wrote the letter applying for the job at the Shark Center.” I thought it would be a relief to finally admit this out loud but, in the end, it just seems superfluous, like catching Tracy; it doesn’t change anything. “You must have known I wrote it. It wasn’t easy sending it from your e-mail account. It took more than my usual tricks to figure out your password. But pretending to be you, actually writing the application, was effortless. In fact, once I started writing about your passion for the sea, everything you’d done and achieved seemed to build naturally to you working at the Shark Center. I’m surprised you didn’t think of it yourself. But that was the problem. You weren’t thinking about what was best for you anymore. You’d stopped dreaming about your future. It felt like my fear had finally infected you. I need you to forgive me, Pat.”

“She knew it was you, Luke,” says Jamie. I jump and whip round. How long has he been standing there?

“You were right,” he continues. “When your mom took the pills, Trish got scared. She’d decided to stick around and look after your mom, but you changed her mind. When she got the reply from the Shark Center, she read the letter you wrote pretending to be her. She saw herself through your eyes and realized how much you wanted her to fulfill her dream. But she saw something else, too.”

“Yeah, what was that?”

“You didn’t need her anymore. Maybe you never had. It took a lot of courage to let her go.”

“But I got her killed. If I’d been the brother she needed, she never would have thought of staying home in the first place. She would have trusted me to pick up the slack when she went off to college. It turned out to be a bad idea, but the whale shark research program was the only thing I could find that sounded tempting enough to lure her away.”

“You see, that’s where you’re wrong,” says Zach, squeezing past Jamie to enter the room. It makes me wonder if Reesie’s out there eavesdropping as well. Seconds after, she follows Zach in and plops down on the floor at my feet.

“Tricia belonged here,” Zach continues. “The internship and this island weren’t a consolation prize. They were everything she’d ever wanted, and you made it happen. You can’t let Tracy’s actions make you doubt the really wonderful thing you did. Tracy’s twisted stuff could have happened anywhere. Life’s just risky, man, and there are a lot of cold people out there. Don’t get down on yourself. I may not have much family experience, but you’re the first person I’ve ever met who I wished was my family.”

I look away in embarrassment, but when I turn back, he’s watching me intently. I stand up and pull him into a hug before pushing him away and punching him in the arm. He grins.

“What’s this shit you’re talking?” I say gruffly. “We’ve already established we’re brothers. You don’t think you’re getting out of that, do you? In fact, I’ve been thinking maybe you’d help me take Pat home.”

“Really?” A gleam of hope springs into his eyes so I know I’m on the right track, even though I don’t know what the
heck my parents are going to do when I show up with a new sibling.

“Absolutely,” I say. “You could stay with us for a while. We could finish high school together, maybe even go to college. I could use a study buddy. I’m not sure I have a great track record for deciding what’s best for people, but I think it’s where
you
belong.”

He grins so big now, he’s nothing but teeth.

“Cosmic,” he says and holds out his knuckles so I can rap them with my own.

I turn back to my sister.

I
secure the container under the gunwale and clamber to the back of the boat to start the motor.

The whale sharks are on the north side of the island, the side opposite from the town and harbor. The water is much deeper there and rougher, though it’s the depth that appeals to the sharks. I’ve been many times in the month that I’ve been working at the Whale Shark Research Center, but this is the first time I’m going on my own. Jamie’s dory is a lot smaller than the research boat I’m used to, so a ripple of apprehension surges through me. Still, I’ve gotten good at facing my fears in the year since Pat’s death. It’s a lot harder than drowning them in booze.

I round the bend of the island where the sea grass goes out right to the drop-off. Then I’m off the North Shore, with its steep volcanic cliffs and crashing waves drowning out even the sound of the motor. I angle the boat away from shore, heading for indigo water. A shark can attack in less than two feet of water, so it’s pointless panicking just because it’s deep. Floating atop miles of ocean still freaks me out, though. I scan the horizon, looking for the cluster of seabirds that will give
away the location of a boil of fish that means whale shark.

I’m lucky. After thirty minutes of motoring straight out into ever deeper water, I spot a flock of birds circling and diving. I head for them at full speed. I’m worried there won’t be a shark and equally nervous there will be. Even after a month of chasing them, I can’t get used to their size and power. I debate whether I actually need to find a whale shark. I don’t want to run out of gas and get stuck out here. Maybe the open ocean would be good enough. But Pat loved the sharks, and this is her journey. I know what she’d want. I know what I have to do.