“So they were lazy.”
“That’s not all. The pings indicated Donald Jessup was walking here, in the Middlesex Fells Reservation, nearly weekly from September to November. At minimum, that kind of suspicious behavior warranted checking up on him, seeing as his prior took place where women jogged or walked.”
The sun goes behind a cloud, or the tree canopy grows thick. Either way, I don’t like it. “Where did he walk?”
“Between the Sheepfold and the fire watchtower. Where we’re headed at this exact moment,” Paula tells me.
“Right,” I whisper, unsure if I said it to her or to myself.
“There’s more if you want it.”
I stare out in the direction of the tower.
“He drove down Wildwood Road, parking for ten to fifteen minutes at a time, multiple times.”
“Liv’s house.” I turn to face her. “So he was stalking us.”
“It appears that way. But if that’s what he was trying to do, he wasn’t successful. I’ve traced his movements on a timeline with Liv’s and yours, and they don’t match up.”
I make a face. “You know where Liv and I were every day last fall?”
“For the most part,” she says plainly, like it’s not unusual. “But here’s the thing. On the days Donald Jessup was hanging around Shiverton High, you and Liv were on a field trip, out sick, or it was a Jewish holiday and there was no school. Donald Jessup was at Shiverton High only on the days you and Liv were not.”
Far away, an owl screeches, or a person screams. I take off again, yelling over my shoulder, “So he had bad luck!”
She lets out a theatrical groan, then resumes her chase. “Cross-country training in the off-season,” she calls from a few feet behind. “You train differently on different days, is that right?”
“Hard and easy. Hills some days, speed work on others. Hard is hills, easy is flat, like grass and cement. We use the track, too, but not last November, with the Aberjona rising and the floods.” I glance backward; she’s really struggling. “Why?”
“Different routes on different days, correct?” she pants.
“Yep!” I call.
“Hill work was in the Fells, speed work was in a loop from the high school to downtown. Always the same?”
“For group practices, yeah, pretty much. What are you saying?”
“Donald Jessup’s monitor showed him at various points”—she pauses for breath—“on both of those routes”—she sniffs juicily—“but never on the days that the team was running them.” She yells in defeat, “Uncle!”
I jog back and around her in circles.
“Julia,” she says, her face pinched.
I keep circling her.
“Julia!” she repeats, clearly pissed.
I halt. “Whaaat?”
She says, “What are the odds he’d get it wrong every time?”
I rake my hand over my face. “Maybe he was staking the places out. Maybe he was working up his courage.” I should want this information. I need this information. Yet the urge to deflect is overwhelming. I pull out my phone. “I need to check in with my mom.” The phone goes to voice mail, and I hang up.
For a while the only sound is Paula breathing. She sits on a log and unlaces her boot, yanking it off to reveal blood seeping through her sock toe. “Ouch.”
“No one answering at her work?” she asks, looking up at me sideways.
“She didn’t go in to work today,” I reply. “I guess she’s still asleep.”
Paula pulls at the tip of her sock gingerly. “Asleep? It’s past noon.”
“She had too much wine last night. Company came over. A couple of guys. Guy friends. Both of ours,” I stammer. Somehow it all sounds so wrong.
She winces, in pain, or possibly at what I said.
“It’s not typical that she’s asleep. Usually she goes in to the lab on days when there’s no school.”
“Of course. You’re sixteen. Still, I’m sure your mother resents putting in so much time at the lab, away from you.” She shakes out her boot, whacking it on a rock before jamming it back on.
I smirk, which she interprets as psychological pain over my domestic situation, because Paula stands and places her hand on my shoulder. “You have every right to be angry at all the people who failed you,” she tells me.
I close my eyes against a second wave of unwelcome thoughts. Donald Jessup’s knob of a head behind a steering wheel in downtown Shiverton, buckles on his camouflage jacket clinking as he eases down on the brake, watching the backs of girls’ heads as they run. Maybe one head is blond, the other, brunette. I ought to be recording the facts Paula has spread before me. Yet it’s all too close. A dull throb starts at the top of my head.
“Julia, you don’t look well.”
Paula places her hand on my other shoulder. As her jacket swings open, the buckles shake and clink the way his buckles did. Snowy fuzz creeps into the corners of my eyes. Not a daymare, not here, not with her. A knot hardens at the base of my throat and my hand rises, filled with air, untethered.