I NO LONGER TRUSTED that I was the one to decide on innocence or guilt. Still, this was what I wanted to believe: She made a mistake, and it snowballed. She and Bethany had set out to burn down that house, knowing he was in it, or not. But targeting him for a personal reason. The reason she could see things in me. And then: running, thinking she could somehow outrun her past, with enough time or distance. Bethany getting caught and Emmy running some more. Flirting with the idea of setting me up as another suspect, reasonable doubt. But for some reason, she hadn’t done it. Maybe she realized it would drag her too close to the case, putting her at risk. Maybe Bethany had pleaded guilty before Emmy had the chance to set me up instead. Maybe it was because of me.
Whatever the reason, she kept on running. She missed the death of her mother, she’d told me. And for what? Eight years running. Eight years, scared to go home. Scared she’d be spotted. In case Bethany had given her name after all—afraid people might be looking for her still, after all this time.
And then Bethany got out. Time served. And what had Emmy been granted? Not freedom, not yet. She owed Bethany. She knew it, and she’d promised. Not realizing the rage simmering in the letters that she’d never received. Walking straight back into the flame. She’d just come for my things, never intending to bring me along. Never believing I’d really up and leave my life behind. She just needed my ID, my credit cards—something to give Bethany, to start over.
There wasn’t much else for a girl like Emmy to give.
There’s a voice in my head that begs, Leave it alone. That the answers might not be what I want them to be. But I never could let these things lie.
* * *
FALL TURNED TO WINTER. And the world went eerily silent.
Sometimes I thought if I were to go stand out in the middle of the woods and scream her name, she’d come to me. That she’d have to. That she was merely waiting for me to want it badly enough. But I never did.
I didn’t want to call her here. I didn’t want to call her back and face the truth.
I liked to believe that phone call I received that night, the blocked number, the breath in my ear, was her—just checking in. To make sure I was still alive, still all right. But maybe that was just me naively wanting to see the best in everyone.
* * *
SOMETIMES I DON’T KNOW what the truth is from the facts. I hear her breath on the other end of the phone line in the empty silence. I see her standing guard outside the house, protecting me—as she once had, with a knife in her hand. I think that she must’ve made a mistake and caught people along with her on the downswing, as I had once done. I had brought down my boss and Noah. I had taken Aaron down with a hammer, and so went Paige.
Of course, there’s the other option, too. That she lured Bethany to our home with purpose, not in my defense at all. Killed her there. Getting rid of the one person she was still running from. Cleaned up after herself. Brought her to the lake and left her in the place where she could blame the whole thing on Davis Cobb. Coming back home, standing on the porch, and pulling the necklace off herself, dropping it between the boards. Leaving everything behind, as she knew she must. Then placing the call that would lead back to me as the source. With the murder weapon in my house.
Sometimes I wondered if that picture I found in the box under my house was not a memento to look upon fondly, with regret, but the thing that fueled her anger, her drive. If she went looking for Bethany as I had gone looking for Aaron. To end this. To end her.
Maybe I was wrong about Emmy all along. I want to believe she chose me over everyone—that she defended me to the end in the only way she knew how.
But the sliver of doubt, it eats at me. And I cannot let her go.
* * *
SHE LEFT SOME THINGS behind for me, and me alone, whether she meant to or not.
Part of me thought that if she knew me at all, she should know: I would use this, and I could find her. But the other part of me thought that maybe, if she was a person who had preyed on my weakness, then she would be blinded to the rest. And maybe she didn’t know me at all.
Maybe she didn’t realize I would be the one to find her name. To call the high school and wait for the photocopied image of her black-and-white square to make it to my email, her name below—Melissa Kellerman—so I was sure.
Maybe she didn’t realize I would be willing to wait, as she had. That once I began, I would dig until I got there. She missed the death of her mother, she’d said. Another piece given. Another dot to connect.
It took a month to talk my way into family records. A credit card to see the old obituary. A search of the county records to find the property. A house on a plot of land owned outright by Andrea Kellerman in upstate New York. A piece of family land a few hours from the town of the high school. I could find no record of sale on the property since it was owned by Andrea Kellerman.
* * *
ALL THINGS RETURN WITH time. But you have to go looking for them. You’ve got to be ready for them. You’ve got to be willing to take the risk over and over again.
* * *
IT WAS WINTER BREAK, and the roads were snowy, salt and sand mixed into my tires. Kyle was still asleep in the hotel—a sleepy town on the way home for Christmas. My mother would be meeting him for the first time; Rebecca, the second. The joint trip was Kyle’s idea. The detour, though, was mine. “I’m stopping to see an old friend,” I’d said. And he had agreed.
I passed the mark on my GPS first, circled back around, and parked down the bend, at the dead end of the road—out of sight—then walked back up the semi-paved lane. Whatever animals inhabited these woods were silent. Pockets of ice lined the sides of the road, crunching under my feet. The house was somewhat visible through the trees, but I had to get closer to see it clearly. Weaving through the trees, ready for someone or something to sneak up behind me. Picturing her watching the woods.
She wasn’t. The house came into view, all alone. It was a one-story cape, clapboard-style, with weather-scorched shingles. A wind chime hung from the front porch. A gnome stood guard on the bottom step. A chill hung in the air with the breeze, faint music from the porch, from the chime.
There was no car out front, and the windows were dark. It was set out of the way, in its own section of woods, not unlike where I now lived.
Still, there were signs that it was not abandoned any longer, and I held my breath as I walked closer. Wondering whether I would find her here. A small hunch, a gut feeling, that suddenly seemed real.