That creaked a board in Lila’s memory. A couple of years earlier, when Jared had gone out for track, Clint had mentioned the name in passing—had said that a friend named Shannon Parks was the person who convinced him to go out for track at the same age. Given the context, Lila had assumed that Shannon Parks was a male saddled with a rather preppy name. She remembered because her husband hardly ever talked about his childhood and teenage years, and the rare occasions when he did made an impression on Lila.
He had grown up in foster care. Lila didn’t know many details . . . and hey, who was she kidding? She didn’t know any details. What she knew was that it had been difficult. You could feel Clint’s temperature spike when the subject arose. If Lila ever brought up a case that involved a child being removed from its parents’ custody and put into care, Clint went quiet. He claimed it didn’t make him uncomfortable. “Just ruminative.” Lila, acutely conscious of the necessity of not being a cop in her marriage, let it go.
Not that it had been easy, or that she had never felt tempted. Her resources as a police officer could have gained her access to all manner of court records. She resisted, though. If you loved a person, didn’t you have to allow them their quiet places? The rooms they didn’t want to visit? Also, she believed that Clint would tell her someday, all of it.
But.
Sheila Norcross.
In the room he did not want to visit and where Lila had blithely assumed that he would someday invite her, was a woman—not a man but a woman—named Shannon, and a photograph of a teenage girl whose smile, sly and curled at the right corner, resembled not just one person that Lila knew well, but two—her husband and her son.
4
The rest was a simple two-part investigation.
In part one, Lila broke the law for the first time not only in her career but in her entire life. She contacted the principal of Coughlin High School and, sans warrant, requested a copy of Sheila Norcross’s records. The Coughlin principal had long been grateful for her help in putting a pin in the brief Margaret hullabaloo, and Lila reassured him that it was actually nothing about Sheila Norcross, and had to do rather with an identity theft ring. The principal faxed her the records without hesitation, his trust in Lila such that he was happy to break the law, too.
According to the records, Sheila Norcross was smart, strong in English, even stronger in math and science. She carried a 3.8 grade average. Her teachers described her as a little arrogant, but appealing, a natural leader. Shannon Parks, her mother, was listed as her sole guardian. Clinton Norcross was listed as her father. She had been born in 2002, making her a little over a year younger than Jared.
Until the AAU game on Wednesday night, Lila told herself she wasn’t sure. Uncertainty made no sense, of course, the truth was right there on the enrollment papers, and plain as the Norcross nose on the girl’s face, but she had to get through the days somehow. She told herself that she had to see the girl, see Sheila Norcross, standout point guard, slightly arrogant but likable 3.8 student, to be sure.
Lila pretended that she was undercover, that it was her job to convince Clint that she was still the woman he was married to.
“You seem preoccupied,” Clint said to her on Tuesday night.
“I’m sorry. It’s probably because I’m having an affair with someone at work,” she said, which was just the sort of thing that Lila would have said, if she was still the Lila he was married to. “It’s very distracting.”
“Ah. I understand,” Clint said, “It’s Linny, isn’t it?” and he pulled her close for a kiss, and she even kissed him back.
5
Then, the second step of the investigation: the stakeout.
Lila found a seat high up in the bleachers of the gymnasium and watched the Tri-Counties AAU team go through their warm-ups. Sheila Norcross was immediately identifiable, number 34, darting in to flick a lay-up off the corner of the backboard, then reversing on her heels, laughing. Lila studied the girl with a detective’s eye. Maybe 34 didn’t have Clint’s jaw, and maybe the way she held herself was different, too, but so what? Kids had two parents.
In the second row near the home team’s bench, several adults were standing, clapping along with the pre-game music. The players’ parents. Was the slim one in the cableknit sweater Shannon? Or was the girl’s mother the dyed blonde in the hip newsboy cap? Or some other woman? Lila couldn’t tell. How could she? She was the stranger at the party, after all, the uninvited. People talked about how their marriages fell apart, and they said, “It didn’t feel real.” Lila thought the game felt real enough, though—the crowd sounds, the gymnasium smells. No, it was her. She was what felt unreal.
The horn sounded. It was game time.
Sheila Norcross trotted to the huddle, and then did something that erased all doubt, all self-denial. It was awful and simple and convincing, so much more conclusive than any physical resemblance or any school record. Lila witnessed it from her place on the bleachers and understood that she and Clint were ruined.
6
As soon as Lila closed her eyes on the approaching animals, she felt the onset of true sleep—not padding, slithering, or bobbing, but rushing at her like a driverless sixteen-wheeler. Bright panic sparked her nerves, and she slapped herself. Hard. Her eyes flew open. There was no snake, no white tiger, no gabbling peacock. There was no gigantic banyan-esque tree. Where it had loomed in the center of the clearing was an oak, a fine old eighty-footer, magnificent in its own way but normal. A squirrel crouched on one of its lower limbs, chittering at her crossly.
“Hallucinating,” she said. “This is bad.”
She buttoned her shoulder mic. “Linny? Are you there? Come back.”
“Right here, Sheriff.” The voice was tinny, a little broken up, but there was no static. “What . . . do for you?”
The sound of the power lines—bzzz—was discernible again. Lila hadn’t realized it had disappeared. Had it disappeared? Boy, she was messed up.
“Never mind, Lins, I’ll get back to you when I’m in the clear.”
“You . . . right, Lila?”
“Fine. Talk soon.”
She took another look over her shoulder. Just an oak. A big one, but still just an oak. She started to turn away, and then another brilliant green bird exploded upward from the tree, heading west into the lowering sun. In the direction the other birds had gone.
Lila closed her eyes tight, then fought them open again. No bird. Of course not. She had imagined the whole thing.
But the tracks? They led me here.
Lila decided she would not let herself care about the tracks, or the tree, or the strange woman, or anything else. What she needed to do right now was get back to town without falling asleep. It might be time to visit one of Dooling’s fine pharmacies. And if all else failed, there was the evidence locker. And yet . . .
And yet what? She’d had a thought, but exhaustion had melted it away. Or almost. She caught it just before it could go completely. King Canute, that was the thought. King Canute commanding the tide to run backward.
Some things just couldn’t be done.
7
Lila’s son was also awake. He was lying in a muddy ditch on the far side of the road. He was wet, he was in pain, and something was digging into his back. It felt like a beer can. All that was bad enough, but he also had company.
“Norcross.”
That was Eric.