Forget Me Not Page 9

  “Those are good ones too,” I say. “Summer.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Summer. But more than that. Us summer. Our summers.”

  “Us summers are good.”

  “I’m scared this was our last. That we’ll never have a summer like this again.”

  I make a face at her, my nose burrowing into my forehead. “We’ll have as many of these summers as we goddamn please, Altman. There’s no contract you have to sign on enrolling into college that says you never get a great summer again. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s the opposite.”

  She sighs and sucks in a breath and then laughs, shrugging and turning her face toward the sky again. “What are you doing up anyway? I thought you fell asleep already.”

  I hunch my shoulders up to my ears and fold my arms across my chest to keep warm. It’s late September and it’s cold already, the frigid air seeping through the ineffective material of my sweatshirt and pajama pants. “Something must’ve woken me up.”

  “Me too,” Nora says, her eyes staring off into the dark. “I thought I heard a car coming up the road, but I guess I must have imagined it.”

  We look at each other and I feel nervous but also kind of hysterical suddenly, a tightness knotting up my chest and heart, even though we’ve sat out here until dawn a hundred, a thousand times. Even though the Altmans’ lake house is as familiar to me as my own home, even though there are three more girls sleeping peacefully in the house as we speak.

  “Let’s get inside,” Nora mutters, trying to dispel the unease that’s suddenly come over the two of us.

  Once inside, Nora turns the lock in the door for what must be the first time since the beginning of the summer. The metal cries out from lack of use, and Nora has to jiggle the door a couple times, sighing with annoyance as she does so, before finally we hear that comforting click as the lock slides home.

  A loud noise tore me from my reverie and I ran downstairs, my feet slipping on the stairs as I rushed to see if Noah was okay.

  “Everything all right?” I asked as I got to the hallway and looked in on the den where I’d left him. He was sitting up on the back of the couch, staring out the window and just turned to look at me and then back outside in answer. I joined him on the couch and watched as Gloria Lewis and her team set up their cameras and lights next to their bright blue van emblazoned with the WISNews 3 logo.

  “What do they want?” Noah asked.

  “They want to know what happened to Elle,” I said.

  “Then why aren’t they at the police station like my parents? We don’t know what happened to her.”

  But Noah’s logic meant little in the face of a tragic rolling news story, and I wondered how long it would be before Gloria was joined by other news channels determined to get to the bottom of another mystery that now surrounded the Altman family.

  I ignored Gloria Lewis and her colleagues as I left the Altman house just as Jonathan and Katherine had done when they returned, Nate still being interviewed down at the station. Noah and I had still been watching TV, but the sound of Jonathan’s SUV in the driveway made us sit up and peer through the window again, watching as Katherine’s already pale face blanched as Gloria Lewis shoved a microphone in her face.

  I walked quickly over to Cool’s, the local bar, where I had arranged to meet Ange for a drink, not just ready to get in out of the cold, but very, very ready for a drink. Ange’s paper had sent up a photographer to cover the case with her, and it was Jack, a friend of both of ours who had never been to Forest View but had heard a lot about it. It was relatively early still and the bar was quiet, so spotting them sitting in a corner booth wasn’t hard.

  “Hey,” I said, removing my coat and scarf and gloves.

  “Hey, Maddie,” Jack said, raising his hand half-heartedly and smiling thinly.

  I smiled back, throwing my stuff down in the furthest corner of the booth, and offered them both a drink, which, already having them, they declined.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” someone asked me as I stood waiting for the bartender to return with my beer at the bar.

  I squinted at him through the barroom lighting, trying to take him in. “Why?”

  I was wearing the same sweater I’d been wearing for the past two days, and jeans I hadn’t washed in … well, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d washed them.

  He laughed in response, but it wasn’t real. His right hand was wrapped around the halffinished bottle of beer he was clutching and I watched as his index finger tapped out a silent, nervous rhythm on the bottle neck. He wasn’t very good at this.

  He coughed. “I just wanted to—well, buy you a drink.”

  “Why?” I said again. People rarely have an answer to that question. Regardless of context, the question of “why” hardly ever gets answered.

  I didn’t recognize him, but I’d noticed him alone in one of the smaller booths when I walked in to meet Ange. He’d been trying to subtly scour the room, gauge the atmosphere or whatever, but his subtlety left a little to be desired. There weren’t enough of him around yet to lend him invisibility. But they’d come. I was sure of it. Hell, he was sure of it. That’s why he was there now. Trying to get in early, get an exclusive.

  The bartender brought me my beer, finally, and I didn’t let the stranger pay despite his insistence.

  “Can I give you a little advice?” is what I ended up saying after taking an initial sip.

  He swallowed. “Sure.”

  “Don’t act like you’re hitting on someone when actually you want to interview them. It’s creepy and ineffective.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah. Sure.” His eyes boggled a bit, and I wondered how old he was, who he worked for, what he was doing here. “You are Madeline Fielder though, right? I thought I recognized you.”

  I didn’t have to answer him, I could have just returned to the booth with Ange and Jack but, instead I said: “Yeah. I’m Maddie.”

  “And you knew Noelle? The girl who just got murdered?”

  “I know who Noelle is. You don’t need to clarify.”

  “Right, right. So, do you think I could ask you a few questions?”

  “You just did.”

  “No, I mean a few more.”

  “I don’t think so, buddy.” I said, leaving him standing at the bar. I already knew what questions he wanted answering, and either I didn’t have them or I wasn’t prepared to give them.

  “Who was that?” Ange asked as soon as I sat back down.

  I glanced back over to the bar, but the guy had already slunk back to his own booth. “I’m thinking independent blogger trying to make a name for himself.”

  “Interesting. My first guess was BuzzFeed.”

  “He was a little too sweaty. And too young.”

  Ange let out a huff of unconvincing laughter. “I guess we should have expected this. They’ll be slithering in from all over the country soon enough.”

  “You’re taking a rather dim view of your fellow journalists there, Angie.”

  She sighed, expertly twirled her beer bottle between her hands and took a long drag from it. “We already know what to expect. No point sugarcoating it.”

  “I’ve already seen Lewis,” I said.

  “What? You didn’t say.”

  “There wasn’t time; she came by the Altmans’ this afternoon while I was with Noah. She’s still camped outside there with her camera crew.”

  “Jesus, she is such a snake.”

  “A snake who managed to secure a nice little TV job after capitalizing on Nora’s disappearance.”

  “She’s a terrible person, Mads,” Ange said in a quiet voice, “we all know that.”

  I shrugged, as if it was all the same to me; water off a duck’s back, no skin off my nose. But I don’t know why I even bothered. If anyone had known how much all this meant, it was Angie.

  “How you doing, Jack?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “Been better.”

  “I’ll bet. Ange given you a tour of our beautiful little
town here yet?”

  “Well, I’ve been to CJ’s and now here, so I guess I’m hitting up all the major spots.”

  “You forgot the Walgreens.”

  “I’ll make sure to stop by before I leave.”

  “Have you found out anything more about Elle?” I asked Ange.

  She didn’t answer immediately, her mind presumably elsewhere, her head tilted to the right and, at first, I thought perhaps she was lost in thought over Elle. It was easy sometimes to fall into pockets of everyday life, to find yourself laughing and talking, perhaps even enjoying yourself, only to then suddenly be dragged back out of it, and brought back to a reality you barely recognized. But she wasn’t lost in thought and her eyes were focused on someone or something that was coming up behind me.

  As I shifted in my seat to turn around I saw Leo and Bright walking towards our booth. Leo dumped himself down into the empty space next to me without even a “hello,” while Bright remained standing.

  “You contaminated anymore crime scenes recently, Fielder?” Leo asked, grinning as a way to tell me that he was only joking, only teasing. The sight of his white teeth flashing against the dim of the dark bar jarred me, and my hand gripped a little too tightly around my nearempty bottle of beer.

  “Nope,” I said, practically through gritted teeth, “just the one for me so far.”

  “Good. That’s good.” He waved a finger between me and Ange. “You two need to be careful.”

  “Why?” Ange asked, her eyes flashing.

  Leo sighed, looking between us, his shoulders slumped a little. “Come on, Angela. Don’t be stupid about this. Someone’s been killed. Just be careful, okay?”

  “I’m a reporter, Leo, reporting the news is kind of my job,” Ange pointed out to him.

  “And that’s great; there’s just no need to go all Erin Brockovich on me. Just try and be careful, is all I’m saying.” He cut his eyes to me, they looked glacial in this light, and said: “Don’t go tramping around in the woods, maybe, that’s all I’m asking.”

  “You mean because we’re helpless little women?” Ange said.

  Leo rolled his eyes. “Jesus, do I really need to spell this out for you? Yes, you’re women. Whoever killed Noelle—killed a woman. Ergo, you need to be careful.” He said this all extra slowly, as if talking to children. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m going to be extra careful too. So’s Bright. And whoever your friend here is, too, I’d also advise him to be careful.”

  “I’m Jack,” Jack said, belatedly introducing himself while reaching across to shake Leo’s hand, who did so casually. “I’m a photographer, working with Ange.”

  “Good for you, man. Nice to meet you. Sorry it’s not under better circumstances,” Leo said.

  Jack nodded and tipped his beer bottle towards Leo in agreement before taking a sip.

  “Was there evidence that Elle was sexually assaulted?” I asked suddenly, the words running together as my heart turned to an overworked jackhammer inside my chest. I shifted in my seat a little so that I could see Leo better, but it wasn’t Leo who answered.

  “We can’t answer that.” I looked up at Bright, and he was staring right at me.

  “Because you don’t know?”

  “Because we can’t answer that.”

  “It’ll get out, Bright,” I said, thinking of Gloria Lewis while looking over at Ange.

  “If it gets out, it gets out. But it won’t be because of either me or Leo. Not that we know. Or can say.”

  “Sorry, champ. Looks like that’s all you’re getting.” Leo clapped his hand around my shoulder and got up to leave, looking over towards Ange. “You’ll have to find yourselves another source. See you guys around.”

  Bright didn’t make a move as Leo wandered away and we stayed staring at one another for a couple of beats before I said: “Bright, come on, this is us, just try and pretend you’re not a cop for a second, and Ange isn’t a reporter. Isn’t there anything else you can tell us?”

  Bright looked behind him, at Leo’s retreating back. His eyes flashed in the dim light of the bar, but his resolve didn’t flicker, not an inch. “You know I can’t do that, Maddie. Even if we did know anything. Which we don’t.”

  “Does that mean the state police have been called in already?” Ange asked.

  “Yeah, we’ve been benched,” Bright said stiffly. “Not that I’m complaining, rather them than me.”

  “Seriously?” I asked. “You don’t want to help with the case?”

  “Sure, I want to help. But there’s only so much you can stomach, you know? I’ve known Elle her whole life. I’m not sure I could deal with photos of her dead body coming across my desk.”

  His candor surprised me. I couldn’t quite align this confession with the perennially stoic Bright that I knew, but I was relieved to hear that the state police were investigating already. When Nora first went missing there’d been a flurry of police activity and interest until all their leads dried up, all the search parties returned home with nothing, and all their suspects, including Louden and Nate, came to nothing. Nora had vanished, and it may as well have been in a puff of smoke for all the good our police department did in trying to find her or find out what had happened to her.

  It was normal for cops to keep things close to their chest, of course. I wasn’t stupid enough to think that if Bright and Leo actually knew anything they were going to tell us over beers and a soundtrack of AOR but that didn’t make any of it any easier. Back at the Altmans’ I’d promised Noah that I’d find out what had happened to Elle, and I realized now that I’d meant it: It wasn’t just the police who had to redeem themselves here; I had to, too. I’d let myself disappear when Nora went missing, but if the last ten years had taught me anything it was that I hadn’t managed to stay any closer to her by keeping myself away from everybody else.

  Even Elle I’d kept at arm’s length, only calling when it suited me, answering emails after months had gone by when I should have been putting her at the top of my list. I liked to think we’d remained close, or at least as close as possible with me away from home, but the truth was I hadn’t done nearly enough. She was a kid, barely even seventeen, and she’d already seen so much, been through the worst when she’d found out one snowy night in January that however bad it gets, there’s always worse to come.

  Maybe that had been my biggest mistake, of thinking that just because I’d lived through one nightmare, that another one couldn’t possibly come along and wake us all again screaming. Words like resolution, redemption—revenge even—have such a solid, sincere certainty to them that they’re easily mocked and discarded. But sometimes you have to grab hold of something solid to keep yourself afloat, and I grabbed hold of them as if they were my one last lifeline.

  I couldn’t wait and see what happened this time, not with Elle. If anyone should have made it out of this town alive, it was her, but we—I—had let Nora hang like a question mark, a mystery over everything and now she’d been the one to pay the price.

  My phone buzzed on the table next to me, and I looked down, surprised to find a message from Nate. He hadn’t been with his parents when they returned earlier in the afternoon, so we still hadn’t really talked. I stared down at my phone where the words

  Where are you?

  had appeared. I replied, telling him I was at the bar, and was even more surprised when he wrote back:

  I’ll be there in 5.

  In the end it took him much longer to reach us at our corner booth. I’d watched him work his way through the crowd that had built up while we’d been sitting there, trying as hard as he could to keep his dark head down, eyes to the floor, praying not be noticed or recognized. But of course he was. He stopped to have his shoulder clapped and his hand grabbed, his arm squeezed in futile attempts at solidarity and sympathy. But there were also sidelong glances and whispered conversations that stopped as he passed, only to start up again once he was presumed to be out of earshot. It was all so skin-crawlingly familiar from
ten years before, I had to grit my teeth against it.

  ***

  “Oh my God,” someone says and soon I can hear it everywhere, the gathered crowd of students all collectively saying, “Oh my God,” as they turn as one towards whatever has caught their attention.

  I’m staring down at the turned earth, waiting for this to be over, for the damn maple tree to be planted, for some kind words to be spoken by someone—probably by my dad—so that I can just go home. But the ripple of whispers continue, rolling through the assembled crowd, and Ange nudges me, hissing, “Mads, it’s Nate.”

  I look up instinctively, my eyes locking on Nate’s almost automatically. He’s standing at the edge of the crowd, his shoulders rigid, a makeshift, futile shield against the buzz of whispers and staring faces.

  “I can’t believe he’s here,” someone says behind me.

  “Chill out,” another voice says, “it’s not like he actually killed her. He wasn’t ever charged, remember?”

  “Still. Can you imagine having the balls to show up here, like this?”

  “She’s his fucking sister,” I spit out, turning around to face them. “Where else do you expect him to be?”

  It’s two juniors I recognize from the hockey team, one square-jawed and thick-necked, the other tall, thin, fast. They would’ve been playing with Nate just last year, but all that’s forgotten now as they speculate on his guilt.

  Ange tugs on my arm, turning me away as she says in a low voice: “Come on, Mads, they’re not worth it.”

  But the moment’s ruined, if there ever was a moment to save, and when I look back towards Nate, he’s gone.

  Eventually, Nate found his way over to us and sat down next to me, two bottles of beer in hand. He placed one next to my almost-empty one and smiled, a small, almost-empty smile, at Jack and Ange.

  “Hey, Nate,” Ange said softly, her voice almost lost in the now-fevered energy of the bar. “How you doing?”