I’m confused. I don’t see what he has at all. “The body will still be discovered,” I say.
“Yes. And the person who sent the picture, who obviously knew more about what happened to Liam Chandler all this time but tried to hide it, has been overcome with guilt. He came out to the spot where he was responsible for his brother’s death.”
We’ve been shifting, slowly, as he leans closer and I lean back. Inch by inch. And then it dawns on me. The edge is behind us, and there’s nothing to stop his momentum—it’s just the granite below my feet, and then a cliff. “You’re going to frame me and then make it look like I killed myself?” He’s out of his mind. There’s no way I’m going down without a fight. I look all around me for something I can use.
I’m almost his size. I could strike first. But then I run the risk of being tossed over the edge, with or without him. There’s one way out, and he’s standing in front of it.
Oh God, Kennedy’s out here somewhere.
Either he found her and I’m too late, or he doesn’t know she’s here. And I don’t want him to figure it out.
“It’s a sad story, either way,” he continues. “One brother, missing for years. Another, suffering alone, overwhelmed with his grief and regret. It’s a story people will believe. This moment was inevitable, Nolan.”
I take a deep breath in, because I think I finally understand.
This moment was inevitable; he’s right. My brother was going to be found. That picture would be recognized by me. I would be out here, looking for him. Mike would find me.
All of this, I can see, a fall of dominoes set in motion—leading us to this moment, right here, right now.
I shake my head at him, but he doesn’t understand. He thinks I’m giving in. But I feel surrounded suddenly.
I look beyond him, into the trees, and everything is perfectly clear. Why the universe sent me to her, and her to me. It wasn’t to prove anything. It wasn’t for a picture, or a clue, or a sign.
It was for us.
Maybe it was my brother talking to me all along. Because this moment I’m facing was almost inevitable. Almost. But Mike has one part wrong. He doesn’t know I’m not out here alone.
Her shadow hovers just beyond Mike’s shoulder. She’s so quiet, moving like a ghost—easy to overlook if you’re not paying attention.
She’s got my bat in her hands. For a moment, everything is too bright. The sunlight escaping from between a gap of clouds. I close my eyes. She knows what to do. Don’t be afraid, I think.
She swings.
The man before me stumbles for a second, and I start to panic, thinking I’m going to have to hit him again, but my hands are already reverberating from the impact—and then he sinks to his knees before collapsing onto the ground, face-first. I swung just the way Nolan showed me—for power. My hands are still throbbing, my fingers trembling.
Nolan stands over him, his expression blank. This must be Mike, though I’ve never met him. All I know is he was trying to hurt Nolan. I heard him, everything he said—about Nolan, about Liam. This man was working for their parents. How often the danger lurks inside our own homes. How often we let it inside without realizing it.
Mike covers his head with one hand, then pushes himself onto his knees, but Nolan grabs his arm out from under him, sending him back to the dirt. Nolan’s got his arm in his grip still, and they’re inches from the edge.
“Nolan,” I say. He looks up, surprised, like I’m calling him back from some darker place. Like he’s forgotten himself, and then finds whatever he lost once more, as he places a knee on Mike’s back, holding his arm behind him.
Nolan looks up at me, like he’s asking me what to do. And I just stand with the bat in my hands, seeing every possibility play out before us. “The police are on their way,” I finally say.
Mike struggles against the ground, but Nolan’s stronger, and I still have the bat, just in case. I hope I don’t have to use it again. But I will if I have to.
Nolan digs his knee into Mike’s back until he winces and coughs.
Mike’s one blue eye, visible against the ground, is staring straight at me.
I wonder what he sees. I shake off the chill. The evil you think you can see behind the walls, through the window. So much closer than that.
Mike seems to lose all strength then, and his eyes keep drifting shut, and part of me feels sick, even in the relief—wondering what I have just done. Whether this will be something I can never come back from; some crack in the universe. A line that divides my life anew. Before. After.
And once again, all I can do is wait. I count in my head, like I did that night. Until it’s safe.
It feels like forever before we hear the voices down below. The crackle of static from a walkie-talkie.
“Up here!” I shout. “We’re here!” I call again, over and over, until finally, finally two officers come into view.
But they don’t bring relief. Instead, they have weapons drawn, and one of those weapons is pointing at me. Just like Elliot, that night, his eyes unseeing.
For protection, I realize, imagining Elliot as well. In case they need protection.
“Put down the bat!” one of the officers yells.
“Oh.” It drops from my grip, my hands rising over my head.
It makes sense, I guess, that they’re not sure about the scene in front of them—whether Nolan is the suspect here, or whether I am. There’s a man on the ground, Nolan is on top of him, and I still had that bat in my hands.
Nolan releases Mike and raises his hands over his head, but the two officers are still assessing the scene, moving slowly, yelling at us to back away, then to get on the ground.
“I called you,” I say, nearly breathless, as my knees hit the earth. “That man tried to push Nolan off the edge,” I explain, gesturing to Mike on the ground.
But it’s Nolan who finally says it, the reason we are all here: “He killed my brother.”
The finality of it. The answer. The truth.
Nolan gestures toward the edge, and I’m afraid he’s going to look. But it’s the first police officer who does it instead. He peers over the ledge and jerks back, making some hand signal to his partner.
He takes control of Mike on the ground, and several other officers emerge from the woods below, the scene filling with chaos. Nolan and I are quickly separated while the police assess the scene, setting up a perimeter, barking out orders. I can only watch from the distance.
Meanwhile, the officer in front of me keeps asking me questions, but they’re not the right ones.
Who are you—
What were you doing out here—
How did you know—
I give my name, and my statement, and he makes me wait some more. I’m to stay put beside the entrance ticket counter until Joe arrives.
* * *
—
They must be questioning Nolan somewhere else, because I haven’t seen him since.
By now, there’s some makeshift center of operations set up in the clearing behind the old ticket booth, a white tent with sheets for walls. I stand at the sound of several cars pulling into the lot, followed by the approaching footsteps. A police officer leads Nolan into view, but he doesn’t even look at me. He’s looking at the group of people heading from the parking lot. A man in a suit, and a man and a woman who must be Nolan’s parents.
I keep waiting for someone to speak, to make some noise, to start running. But the only thing I hear, carried across the expanse, is Nolan saying, “Mom,” before she reaches him. I watch the three of them, leaning into one another, his father with an arm around each. No one cries out. No one says a word. It ends like this, with silence.
* * *
—
Joe is the last person they’re waiting on.
Nolan and his parents were led inside the white tent, along with the man accompanying them. At times, I can see their shadows moving against the light, but the woods have gone silent, other than the occasional crackle of a walkie-talkie somewhere just out of sight.
“Kennedy?”
I turn to see Joe jogging from the parking lot. When he reaches me, he pulls me toward him in a panic.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “My phone was off when I was at the jail. I didn’t get the message.”
I throw my arms around his back, and he doesn’t let go.
He holds my face between his hands, like my mother might do; his fingers are rougher, and strong. I close my eyes then, no longer trying to hold back the emotion.
“Did you see Elliot?” I ask when I pull back.