He looked into my eyes, smiling. “He asked me,” he said, thinking about the wrong thing, the very wrong thing. “Or he told me. You know Tyler. Said he wanted to marry you.”
I felt warmth flooding my face, my fingertips tingling, trying to imagine that conversation. I hadn’t known that, and the surprise caught me by the neck. “He did, huh? What did you say?”
“I said you were just kids, of course. I told him to see the world first. I told him about time . . .” His eyes drifted to the side, and I could sense his mind starting to drift as well.
“What about time?” I asked, pulling him back.
He refocused on me. “That it shows you things if you let it.”
I tilted my head to the side. “That’s what Mom used to say.” When she was sick and I was crying, and she said she could see me, me and Daniel both, the beautiful people we would become.
“Well, that’s what I told her. When she was pregnant with Daniel, she worried so much, and the same with you, so we used to make up these stories . . .” Dad was getting sucked into the memories. I’d lose him if I didn’t ground him in the now.
“What did Tyler say to that?” I asked. Maybe I just really wanted to know. To see the conversation, a fly on the wall, Tyler sitting on the couch, my dad in his chair.
“Hmm?” He looked up and shrugged. “He didn’t say anything. He wasn’t asking for my permission. So I told him: Don’t be mad when she says no.”
I smiled.
“I thought you should know that. It was the day the Prescott girl . . . Well. There were more important things after that, and then you left. But I wanted you to know about that. He’s good. He’s a good guy. I think he’s still mad at me, though. For not giving him your new number.”
“You’re a good dad,” I said. “You really are.”
“I’m a shitty dad, and I know it. But I tried to do the right thing when it counted. I’m not sure how that went.”
“Dad, look at me. It’s done,” I said. I stared at his eyes, willing him to remember this conversation. “Whatever happened back then, it’s over. It’s done. It’s time to put the house up for sale.”
He sliced into his biscuit, pointed the butter knife at my heart. “Eat your breakfast, sweetheart. You’re starting to disappear.”
* * *
I KNEW THAT THE answers to Annaleise’s disappearance hinged on what she saw ten years ago, even if the police weren’t quite there yet. I knew the answers were going to come all at once. That people wouldn’t find out what had happened to Annaleise without finding out what had happened to Corinne, and neither would I.
I had to go back in time.
I had to, while the investigation was still in the find her stage. Before it morphed into something more, something worse.
Hannah Pardot showed up from out of town ten years ago, with her stoic expression and bright red lipstick, on a mission. The investigation morphed from find the girl to solve the case. Those were two very different things. Two very different assumptions.
One week after Annaleise’s disappearance and I could feel the shift starting.
I had to understand how everything looked from Annaleise’s point of view—all of it—starting at the beginning of that night ten years ago. Starting with what she saw at the fair.
* * *
THE FAIR DOESN’T REALLY have an official entrance. It has a field that turns into a parking lot that funnels between the buildings that were stables, now used to sell ticket stubs for rides and games. There’s a storage shed of first-aid equipment off to the side of the stables/ticket booths, and past that, nothing but trees.
Through the old stables, the space opens up to fields where once a year, for two weeks, the booths come to life and the Ferris wheel looms, proud and majestic. In the fall, hot-air balloons rise up, tethered to the earth. It was the place we went to touch the sky.
The air tonight was full of noise: kids cheering or whining, parents laughing and shouting. Music from the rides, bells from the game booths. Teenagers calling to each other across the grounds—from a picnic table, from the front of the portable restrooms, from the top of the Ferris wheel. My breath caught, seeing it circle from the parking lot. Unlike most things that appeared smaller now that I’d grown, the Ferris wheel looked bigger. More untouchable. I tried to picture a girl hanging from the outside of the cart. I’d be panicked. I’d be sick. I’d be furious.
A girl in a skirt on the outside of the cart, her best friend whispering in her ear, her boyfriend watching from below. Maybe we did bring it on ourselves.
This right here was the closest I’d felt to Corinne in a long time. I could feel her cold hands at my elbows, hear her breath at my ear, smell the spearmint gum on her whisper. If I could just close my eyes and reach across time and hold her wrist. Wrap my arms around her for no reason at all. I wouldn’t dare. I never dared.
Someone slammed into my side—a little kid, maybe three years old, colliding with me before changing trajectory, running into someone else on his rush inside. His parents gave me a hurried sorry and chased after him. The sun was low, almost gone, and the field lights turned on as I stood there watching. The grounds were garish and exposed, my eyelids slamming closed in response.
I walked between the ticket booths. The grass had always been worn away here; it was mostly dirt with small patches of green. Right near the entrance, right here in this dirt, this was where I fell to my side. This was where Daniel hit me in full view of the Ferris wheel. I spun around, pictured Annaleise leaning against the side of this building, eating her strawberry ice cream. Watching us all.
Me running for Tyler.
Tyler waiting for me.
And Daniel grabbing me by the arm, hitting me across the face.
Tyler lunging, punching Daniel in the face, then crouching beside me. His hands pulling my twisted arm away from my body. “You okay? Nic, are you okay?”
“I don’t know. I don’t . . .” Frantically scrambling in the dirt, standing, leaning on Tyler, feeling everything realign, the burn of the hit, the sting of the moment. “I’m okay,” I said. His hands were everywhere. Pushing my hair aside, over my face, down my neck, my arms, my waist. He glanced over my shoulder, his jaw set, and I saw Corinne jogging toward us. Bailey was in the distance, weaving through the crowd.
I didn’t know if Annaleise was still there. I hadn’t looked again. Maybe she was just outside the entrance. Maybe she’d run behind the building, watching through the stable slats that I could see now, with her doelike eyes. Yes, she had confirmed our alibi, but I was wondering if she had also witnessed what came next.
Tyler had pulled me up, checked me again, asking over and over if I was okay. “Wait here,” he’d said. He stood over my brother, put a hand down, and leaned toward him, said something in his ear. Daniel looked straight at me, straight into me, so I had to look away. “Nic,” he pleaded from across the way, but by then Corinne was already there.
“Bailey, go find some ice,” Corinne had called as she approached, and I could feel her presence taking over, taking control.
I’d walked away. I’d left, taking Tyler with me, and we found the first-aid shed where a man sat in a folding chair, a lump of tobacco in the side of his mouth.
“You kids okay?” he asked, not standing.
“Do you have ice?” Tyler asked.
The man opened a blue cooler at his feet, used a plastic cup to scoop some ice into a Ziploc bag for me.
Tyler checked me over again, asked me if I was okay again, his hands running everywhere.
“Tyler,” I said. “Your hand.” Two knuckles were scraped, as if they’d hit the wrong angle on one of Daniel’s sharp edges, and his fingers were discolored. I asked the attendant for Band-Aids.
He eyed Tyler’s hand. “Might be broke,” he said.
“It’s fine,” Tyler said, pulling me away. “Come on.”
But I could see the man was right; it was swelling and red, and Tyler kept it hanging limply by his side.
“Tyler—”
“I’ll take a bag of ice, too,” he mumbled.
“At least go wash it off,” I said.