He closed Abby’s file and rested his palm on its cover.
“I am going to do you a great favor, Miss Rivers,” he said. “The Lang family has been an integral part of the Albemarle community for many years, and Frank Middleton is an active and generous alumnus of this institution. I have no wish to inconvenience them with your wild allegations, which I am assured by Mrs. Lang are baseless. I realize that attending Albemarle is a challenge for you, and while you have risen to face it in the past, that is no guarantee you will continue to do so in the future. This goes no further, but I have my eye on you, Miss Rivers.”
Abby couldn’t get enough air. She was stupid to think that she was smarter than Mrs. Lang. Of course she had called the school. Abby wanted to go back and start over, to do this differently, but it was too late. She had blown her chance.
“Get to class,” Major said. “I will not be writing you a late slip, and let us consider that your reprimand. Reflect on how you have repaid Miss Lang’s friendship. Faith and Honor, Miss Rivers. Do you have them?”
For the rest of the morning, Abby was wrapped in cotton, floating through her classes in a daze. Mrs. Erskine called on her and she didn’t know who wrote Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. In Biology, Mrs. Paul passed out permission slips for the upcoming tour of the medical university’s gross anatomy lab. She took one but didn’t hear a word about what they’d be seeing.
At lunch, she sat on the Lawn with Margaret and Glee out of habit and listened to Wallace Stoney go on about how he had ditched his band the Dukes of Neon (now on their third name change) and how they would never go anywhere without him because he was the glue that held them together. Then he segued seamlessly into a monologue about the gross anatomy field trip, which was a rite of passage for every tenth-grade class.
“It’s rad,” he said. “I wrote a song about it.”
“Is it really full of cadavers?” Glee asked.
“Dude,” he said, “it was gnarly. There’s all this nasty stuff like glass jars with two-headed babies in them, and there was even a pecker in a jar and the water was all green. It looked like pecker-flavored wine cooler.”
“Foul,” Glee said.
“Shut up,” Margaret said, “or I’ll never be able to drink wine coolers again.”
“Aw, sugarbear,” Wallace said, “the green stuff’s nasty. The red stuff is what’s righteous. You can drink ten bottles of that shit and never barf.”
Abby robotically ate her carrot sticks and drank her Snapple. Everyone felt very, very far away. She didn’t come to herself again until she was pulling out of the parking lot after school and found that she was turning left at the stoplight on Folly Road instead of right, headed toward Wadmalaw. She was driven by a powerful conviction: if the Langs didn’t believe her about Gretchen’s rape, if Major didn’t believe her about Gretchen’s rape, she’d make them believe. If something had happened to Gretchen, there might still be evidence at Margaret’s, at that blockhouse buried in the woods.
But forty-five minutes and a quarter tank of gas later, as she stood in front of that rancid outbuilding, Abby saw that it contained nothing but the same stupid garbage—a water-swollen copy of Oui, a charred pair of men’s tightie whities, a pile of Bartles and Jaymes Premium Blush empty bottles. It was covered with the same stupid graffiti—“Eat Fuk Preps” and “Dukes uf Neon world sexxx tour 88.” It was a waste of time.
She walked around the building again. One second she was crawling over the broken slabs of tabby, staring at the graffiti, trying to find a clue like they always did on TV but realizing that she had nothing, and the next second she knew.
Dukes uf Neon. That was the name of Wallace’s band, or it used to be, before they changed it for the third time. He’d just said so on the Lawn. All these empty bottles of Bartles and Jaymes (The Charleston Police Department calls it rape juice). In Abby’s imagination, a picture began to form: Wallace coming to visit Margaret, waiting in the woods, hiding in the blockhouse until she could sneak away from her friends. And instead finding Gretchen in the darkness, lost, afraid, naked.
Wallace Stoney.
“I wouldn’t,” a man’s voice said.
Abby jumped. Standing behind her was a big guy, cigarette burning in one hand, belly hanging out beneath a stained Polo shirt, wearing M. Dumas khakis frayed at the cuffs. His unbrushed blond hair stuck up, his nose was crooked, and his eyes were dull. Riley Middleton.
“I’m a friend of Margaret’s,” Abby said. She didn’t know what drugs he might be on. Then she wanted to laugh. The Langs thought she was some bigtime drug dealer, and here she was, scared of the real thing.
“I know,” he said. “You’re Glee.”
“Abby,” she said. “Glee’s our other friend. What wouldn’t you do?”
He took a step toward her and Abby stepped back. He had drugged girls. He had done things to them in the back of his car and no one knew she was out here. Riley stopped and took a showy drag off his cigarette.
“I wouldn’t go in there,” he said, exhaling a thick blue cloud of smoke. “If I were you.”
Abby tried to glimpse the Bunny through the woods and realized that all she could see was more trees. All she could hear was the sound of frogs. She was alone with Riley. A plug opened behind her belly button and her courage drained away.
“Why not?” she asked, playing for time, trying to keep him talking, looking for an opening.
“Heavy shit went down here,” he said. “Devil worship, slave torture, murder.” He paused and smiled. “Rape.”
Abby took another step backward and stumbled over a chunk of tabby. She could hear the telephone junction box humming in the silence, she could feel it hissing through the ground. Riley smiled again.
“You’ve got a nice body,” he said. “How old are you?”
“Thanks,” she said automatically. She wanted to run, but Gretchen needed her. She packed her panic down tight. “Riley,” she said, “do you know if anyone was out here on Labor Day weekend? Like any guys partying in the woods?”
“Probably,” he said. “Why don’t you ask Margaret?”
“I should do that,” she said. Then, before he could react. “My mom’s waiting for me. Bye.”
She was moving before “bye” had even left her lips, walking as fast as she could, away from the buzzing junction box, away from Riley, around tree trunks and bushes and tangles of undergrowth. She started running when she emerged from the woods and saw the Dust Bunny. She fumbled for her keys, slid in, locked the doors, and slammed into gear, pushing the petal to the floor, flying for Red Top.
When she got home it was almost eight. Abby closed her bedroom door and jammed her pink blanket against the crack at the bottom to keep the sound from leaking out. The last thing she wanted was her mom to hear anything she was about to say. Then she called Glee. It was impossible for her brain to make small talk, so she started in right off the bat.
“Do you remember the night with the acid? When Gretchen got lost?” she asked. “Do you think Wallace was there?”
“Why?” Glee asked.
“Because I need to know,” Abby said. “Do you think it’s possible he was out in the woods?”
“How should I know?” Glee asked.
“Glee,” Abby said. “I have to tell you something and you have to promise not to tell anyone, especially not Margaret. Do you promise?”
“Totally,” Glee said, and Abby could hear the excitement in her voice.
“A boy jumped Gretchen,” Abby said. “Like, he raped her. When we were out at Margaret’s. When Gretchen was lost in the woods.”
A long silence followed.
“And I think it was Wallace,” Abby said.
A shorter silence and then Glee said, “Let me call you right back. My sister’s home.”
Five minutes later Mickey Mouse chirped “I’m Mickey!” Abby snatched the receiver out of his hand.
“What took you so long?” she asked.