You: “Okay, let’s stay quiet.”
Then I hear Maura say, “Holy shit, look! Just like last week.”
“My God.” You again. “You were right, Maura.”
There are lots of overlapping gasps and excited voices now. I try to make them out—you for sure, Maura, Rex, Hank . . . another female voice. Diana? Beth? I’ll have to back it up later and listen closer. I’m squinting at the screen, hoping to see what is taking them all by surprise.
Then I see it too, coming out of the sky, seemingly floating into view. I gasp along with them.
It’s a helicopter.
I try to up the volume so I can hear the rotors, but it’s already turned up all the way. As though reading my thoughts, Hank fills me in.
“Sikorsky Black Hawk,” Hank says. “Stealth copter. Barely makes a sound.”
“I can’t believe it.” That sounds like Beth.
The screen is tiny and even with the lights off in Bob’s workshop, it is hard to see exactly what is going on. But there is no question about it now. A helicopter is hovering above the old military base.
As the copter starts to descend, Maura whispers, “Let’s get closer.”
Rex: “They’ll spot us.”
Maura: “So?”
Beth: “I don’t know . . .”
Maura: “Come on, Hank.”
The camera grows shaky again as Hank moves, it seems, closer to the base. At one point he stumbles. The camera points to the ground. I see a hand reach out to help him up, and now . . . now I can see the white sleeve of my varsity jacket. As the camera comes back up, Hank lands the focus right on Maura’s face. My whole body jolts. Her dark hair is a perfectly tangled mess, her eyes lit with excitement, her killer smile just south of sane.
“Maura . . .”
I actually say this out loud.
From the tinny speaker, I hear you say, “Shh, stop.”
The copter lands. It is hard to see much, but the rotors are still spinning. I can’t believe how quiet they are. I’m still not sure what I’m seeing—it may be a door sliding open. There is a flash of bright orange. Could be a person. Not sure. Probably has to be.
The bright orange reminds me of prisoner garb.
There is a noise like someone stepping on a branch. Hank jerks the camera to the right. Rex shouts, “Let’s get the hell out of here!”
And the picture goes black.
I hit the fast-forward button. But that’s it. There is nothing else on the tape. I rewind and watch the scene with the helicopter again. Then a third time. It never gets easier to hear your voice or see Maura’s face.
During the fourth viewing something new occurs to me. I start putting myself into this timeline. Where was I that night? I wasn’t part of the Conspiracy Club. I didn’t really think much of it at the time—this “clandestine group” was somewhere between cute and childish, in my view, between harmless and (when I was unkind) pathetic. You had your games and secrets. I get that.
But how could you guys keep something like this secret from me?
You used to tell me everything.
I try to travel back in time. Where was I that night? It was, like the night you died, a Friday. Friday was hockey night. Who did we play that night? I don’t remember. Did we win? Did I see you when I got home? I don’t remember. I know I got together with Maura. We headed into the clearing in those woods. I can still see the tangled hair, the killer smile, the eyes lit with excitement, but something was different that night, something even more electrifying when we made love. I don’t think I wondered why back then—Maura liked the edge—but I probably selfishly chalked it up to my own wonderfulness. That’s how wrapped up I, the big jock senior, was in my own stuff.
And my twin brother?
I think back to that photograph in the attic. The four of us. The stoned, lost look on your face. Something was going on with you, Leo. Something big and probably obvious, and because I was a self-involved prick, I missed it and you died.
I unplug the camera. I’m sure that Bob won’t mind if I take it with me. But I need to think on it. I don’t want to act in haste. Hank hid this video because whatever issues he had, he knew this was big. He was paranoid and probably mentally unwell, and come hell or high water, I still want to honor his wishes.
So where do I go with this?
Do I take it to the authorities? Do I tell Muse or Manning? Do I tell Augie?
First things first. Make copies. Put the original in a safe place.
I run it through my head, try to see how this all fits together. The old Nike base stayed under government control. It pretended to be some kind of harmless agriculture center so as to hide its real purpose. Okay, I get all that. I even get that you guys saw something that night that could open the place up to public scrutiny.
I might even be able to take it a step further. I might even get why they—and by “they” I just mean the “bad guys” working at the base—would want to silence you and Diana, even though I didn’t hear Diana on the tape. Was she there? I don’t know. But either way, the two of you ended up dead.
Question: Why would the others still be alive?
Possible answer: “They” didn’t know about Rex, Hank, and Beth. “They” only knew about you and Diana. Okay, that makes a modicum of sense. Not much. But I’ll take a modicum. And I can add Maura into this equation. Somehow “they” knew about Maura too. That’s why she ran and hid. On the tape, you and Maura are clearly the leaders. So maybe you two went back and did something careless. You got caught. She ran.
That all makes some sense.
But again: What about the others? Rex and Hank and Beth continued their lives. None of them hid. Maybe after fifteen years they started looking again. Maybe something happened after fifteen years so that suddenly they did know.
Like what?
No idea. But maybe Augie was onto something when he wondered about Tom Stroud. Maybe I need to figure out when exactly Tom Stroud came back to Westbridge.
Enough speculating. I’m still missing something. And there is something else I need to do right now.
Confront Ellie.
It can’t be a coincidence that Maura’s mother came to me via Ellie. Ellie knows something. This realization is one I half want to ignore. I’ve taken enough blows today, thank you very much, but if I can’t trust Ellie—if Ellie lied to me and doesn’t have my back—then where am I?
I take a deep breath and open the workshop door. The first sounds I hear are Leah’s and Kelsi’s laughter. I realize I’m making this family seem somewhat unreal, a little too perfect, but this is what I see. I once asked Ellie how she and Bob did it, and she said, “We’ve both been through some wars, so now we fight to preserve this.” Maybe I understand, but I’m not sure. Ellie’s parents’ late-in-life divorce was hard on her. Maybe that’s part of it, I don’t know. Or maybe we don’t know anybody that well.
I look for the seams in Ellie and Bob’s life. Just because I can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there. And just because Ellie and Bob may hide them doesn’t make them any less wonderful or human.
Dad’s quote: Every person has hopes and dreams.
I head into the kitchen, but Ellie isn’t there. There is an open seat. Bob turns to me and says, “Ellie had to run out. She left you a plate.”
Out the window, I see Ellie heading to her car. I make a quick excuse and sprint after her. She’s opening her car door and readying to slide in when I shout, “Do you know where Maura is?”
That stops her. Ellie turns toward me. “No.”
I meet her eyes. “To reach me, her mother came through you.”
“Yes.”
“Why you, Ellie?”
“I promised her I wouldn’t say anything.”
“Who?”
“Maura.”
I know that name is coming, and it still punches me in the teeth. “You”—it takes me a second—“you promised Maura?”
My mobile rings. It’s Augie. I don’t answer. Whatever happens now—whatever Ellie tells me—I know nothing will be the same between us anymore. There is very little in my world that keeps me grounded. I have no family. I let very few people into my world.