“They never searched the lake for her?” Sarah asked.
“They never had a reason to—everyone thought she had disappeared from down in the park, by where her bike was,” I told her.
She nodded. “Let’s go.” She took my hand, even though it was damp with sweat, and led me down the main trail. When the trail was wide enough to walk side by side, and the lake was no longer in view, she linked arms with me.
“What does Paula know?” she finally asked.
I shook my head. “She just said that she saw me.”
Sarah glanced over at me. “Saw you where—on your bike? Or in the park?”
I knew what she was asking. Did she see what happened to Sarah. Did she see the fight, the fall.
“I don’t know, all she said was that she saw me, she wrote it in an email.”
“What else did she say?” Sarah asked.
That’s not Sarah.
“Nothing,” I told her.
When we reached the bottom of the trail, Sarah led me over to our bikes at the rack. “She probably saw you here,” she said, standing by the rack and looking around. “Or riding back to the house.”
I nodded. That made sense. I didn’t want to think of what else she might have seen, maybe even more than I had. Did she see Sarah’s body hit the water? Did she watch her die?
“Why didn’t she just tell the cops then?” she asked.
“After Sarah went missing, Paula said she was home the whole time. She couldn’t change her story; the cops already suspected her. I guess she just thought it would all go away. And it did, for a while.”
I tried not to remember what it was like after Sarah first disappeared. The waiting, for someone to find out the truth. To be discovered. After two years, it felt like maybe there was hope. We were all going to be okay. But then, the reporter from the paper called, and all the terrible facts and speculations from that day reemerged. There was no escape from Sarah.
“There was this newspaper article, like two years ago. It made Paula look really bad, Max too. She started sending me emails after that. I just didn’t know they were from her, until now,” I said. “I guess she was hoping she could push me to confess, to admit something, to clear her name so that she wouldn’t have to say anything.”
I leaned over to unlock my bike and saw stars floating in front of my eyes when I stood up, blackness creeping in from the corners. Sarah grabbed my arm. “Nico?”
“I’m okay.” I blinked, and the blackness pulled back, the stars disappeared.
She held my arm firmly, and leaned in. “This stays here, all of it. Let it go. You understand?” Her face wasn’t mean, but serious. “This stays here,” she said again. When I nodded, she let go of my arm.
She looked at me thoughtfully and I could tell that she wasn’t worried about herself, about being found out as a fraud, as a fake. Sarah knew exactly what she was doing. She was worried about me. About how to protect me. “You need some lunch, and it’ll buy us more time, come on,” she finally said. “Are you okay to ride?” She motioned to my bike and I nodded. I could do it.
She climbed on Mom’s bike and rode toward the gates. And just like that, I followed her, leaving the park, leaving the picnic trail and Crystal Lake behind me, as if it had never happened.
I followed Sarah through the streets to a café near the park, letting the breeze dry the tears on my cheeks.
SARAH
MA HAD DECIDED TO take in another foster. She had done this before and it never really worked out. I could remember two kids she tried to take in, but we always ended up giving them back when she got arrested for something or we had to leave one town and set up in another. Why child services would even let her take in a foster kid was beyond me, with her record, but they did—again and again.
“It’s not going to be like when you were little, Libby,” she said. “I was still using then, I was out of my mind. Not to mention that—well, I won’t even call him a man, because a real man doesn’t put his hands on a little girl. Monster, more like it.”
That’s how Candice came to live with us. Adorable, about seven, her hair a light brownish-red halo over her freckled face. This kid should have been starring in movies, but she was living with me and Ma in north Florida. She started working her magic right away, when Ma took her to Toys “R” Us with a hot card that almost got rejected. When Candy started to cry, the clerk took one look at her and let Ma out of there with a new dollhouse (that really was for Candy) and a game system worth about six hundred dollars (that was for resale). And they gave Candy a huge swirly lollipop, for free. I sat in the back of the car feeling useless, while Candy played with her new dolls and Ma laughed her ass off.
“You should have seen her charming them! We’re ordering pizza tonight, Candy—anything you want on top,” Ma said.
“Can we get soda too?” Candy asked in her sweet little girl voice.
“All the soda you can drink, sweetheart.”
CHAPTER 26