Or we got sent back to prison.
“Maybe we should talk to Suzanne about getting a transfer out of Campbell River,” I said. “We shouldn’t have come back here.”
“I’m not going anywhere. This is no kind of life, being on parole. We still don’t have any freedom. I want to clear my name, I want my mom to be able to hold her head up high in this town, and I want Shauna to feel the pressure. If she did it, she’s never going to feel safe as long as we’re on the outside.” He looked at me steadily. “It doesn’t matter where we move. We’re a threat as long as we’re alive—especially now that she knows we’re not just going to go away quietly.”
He was right. We might be out of prison but we’d never be truly free unless we were cleared. I’d never be able to look into my parents’ eyes and see they finally believed I didn’t do this terrible thing to my sister.
“So what’s your plan?” I said.
“I’m going to keep talking to people, see what I can stir up. Something’s going to break, but it might just take some time.” He looked up and around, like he was sensing danger in the air. “I should go, just in case anybody’s watching.”
“I’ll go out the front with Captain, like I’m taking him for a pee. The back bedroom window’s open.”
I thought about all the nights Ryan and I had climbed out of windows to see each other. I knew he was thinking about that too because he gave me a rueful smile and said, “We thought we had it so hard, hey?”
This time the memories overtook me, and I reached out and touched his hand, then rested my palm on top of his for a moment, feeling his warmth, the substance. I thought about how many nights I’d lie awake in my cell, holding my own hand, imagining it was his. He flinched, stared down at our hands, his face a mixture of wonder and fear and sorrow. The moment built in my throat, until it scared me. I took my hand away and stood up. “I better get Captain outside.”
He nodded and got up. I put on Captain’s leash while Ryan moved toward the back of the cabin. At the last second he turned around.
“If we get questioned and our parole is suspended, stay alive, okay? Because when we get out again—and we will—we’re going to kick some ass.”
I tried to smile, but I couldn’t help thinking that this could be the last time I’d ever see him. I remembered a similar moment, all those years ago when I was being led away from him after the trial, how it felt like something was being ripped out of my body. He saw it in my eyes, my doubt and fear, and closed his own eyes for a moment, blocking it out, like he couldn’t bear to face that pain either. He turned quickly and climbed out the window, not looking back this time.
I took Captain out the front, thinking of Ryan making his way through the dark woods, then I thought about Cathy and breathed in the night air, wondering how much longer I’d be out. How much longer I’d be alive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CAMPBELL RIVER
JUNE 2013
The next morning the police called. They had some questions and wanted me to come into the station that afternoon. I had a suspicion that shit was going down and made a difficult call to my dad. I tried his cell first, but he didn’t answer, so I had to phone the house. My mother answered.
“Hi, it’s Toni. Can I talk to Dad, please?” She was quiet so long I worried that she might hang up on me. I held my breath, waiting for the click.
“Just a minute.” Sounds of a phone being passed. Urgent, angry whispers.
My dad finally got on the phone. “Toni? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, for now. I lost my job. There was a theft—but I didn’t do it.” There was no sense covering it up. If they hadn’t already heard the rumors, they would eventually. Dad was silent and I wondered if he was remembering when I was a teen, how we’d broken into the neighbors’, the stolen bottle of Percocet.
I said, “Someone is setting me up, and they might try to cause me more trouble. I just … I just want you to know that whatever you hear, it’s not true. When I was a kid, I didn’t give you any reason to trust me, but I’m not a bad person, Dad. I’m trying to do everything right.…” I was surprised to feel tears running down my face. I brushed them away. Captain watched me from the bed, his head on his paws, his brown eyes sad and worried.
“I know you’re trying to turn your life around,” Dad said. But his voice was quiet, muffled, like he was trying not to be overheard.
I pushed past the hurt. I had to focus on the goal. “If my parole gets suspended, can you take my dog? It would just be until I got out again.”
“I’m sure we can—” I heard Mom say something in the background. Dad answered, but it was muted, like he was covering part of the phone. More arguing.
Mom got back on the line. “I’m sorry, but we have a cat now. Your dog is going to have to go somewhere else. We can’t take him.”
“You mean you won’t.” I hated the bitter tone in my voice, the disappointment.
She didn’t answer.
“Thanks.” I hung up the phone.
* * *
Later, I called Stephanie at the shelter and told her there was a chance I might lose my parole even though I hadn’t done anything wrong. I had to stop a couple of times to fight back tears, feeling ashamed, wondering if she’d also heard about the theft at the restaurant, and struggling with an overwhelming sadness that I might have to let Captain go. Thankfully, Stephanie didn’t ask any questions.
“He can live at the shelter until we find a home,” she said, “but he’d have to go up for adoption.”
I didn’t want him living at the shelter, or with anyone else, but it was the best I could hope for. “Thanks, Stephanie.”
I climbed into bed, pulled Captain’s head against my chest, trying not to think of him back in that cage, how I’d promised to take care of him forever.
* * *
At the station, they took me into the same interview room that they questioned me in after Nicole died. I flashed back to waiting huddled under a blanket, terrified, and wondered now if their choosing this room was deliberate. Sure enough, here came Doug Hicks walking into the room. He’d aged, had to be in his early forties by now, but was in good shape. His white-blond hair and pale eyelashes still creeped me out, and he still looked like a man who thought knocking some heads together was fun times and scaring the hell out of teenagers was just part of the job. When his ice-blue eyes met mine, I felt instant fear and dread. I could already see he’d made up his mind. He hadn’t believed me then and he wasn’t going to believe me now.
He pulled the chair close, leaned on the table. “It seems we have a problem, Toni. I’m hoping you can answer a few questions so we can eliminate you as a suspect, but you’re free to go at any time, okay?”
I was silent, waiting. I knew the drill. I wasn’t under arrest, yet, so he had to make sure he let me know I wasn’t being detained.
“You’ve probably heard that Cathy Schaeffer’s body was found yesterday,” he said. “It appears she was murdered.”
I knew that had to be the case or they wouldn’t have called me in, but the news still hit hard. I thought about Cathy crying at my trial, the lies falling out of her mouth. I’d hated her, but I hadn’t wanted her dead. “Sorry to hear that.”
“Are you?”
“Of course.”
He narrowed his eyes, stared at me hard. In prison you learn never to make eye contact with the guards, and it took all my strength now not to look away.
“I thought you might be happy she’s dead—after how she testified at your trial. That had to have really pissed you off.”
I kept my mouth shut.
He leaned so close I could smell his lunch on his skin, something Italian, basil and tomato sauce. I focused on that, not the fear.
“The way she died, the blows, it looks a lot like your sister’s murder,” he said. “Seems the weapon might have been a tire iron again.”
I tasted acid in my mouth, my stomach contents threatening to rise. I tried to block the mem
ory of Nicole’s body when we’d found her, how her skull had been crushed, her face mangled, but I couldn’t help the flashes that slapped into me, the image of a tire iron smashing down, Nicole trying to cover her head, cowering in terror. I didn’t want Hicks to know he was getting a reaction out of me, but I felt hot all over and beads of sweat were forming on my forehead. He was studying my face, his gaze lingering on the pulse beating frantically in my neck.
“Where were you last Wednesday night?” he said.
“Working late at the restaurant.” I let out my breath a little. I was relieved to hear it was that day. The night before that I’d been home alone, no alibi.
“What time did you get off?”
“It was midnight by the time I finished cleaning up.”
His face was speculative and I wondered what time they figured she had died, or if they knew.
“You go anywhere after?”
I thought back. “I stopped at the gas station for some dog cookies.”
“Got the receipt?”
“I’m not sure, maybe.” I sure as hell hoped so.
“You remember the clerk?”
“It was a young guy, blond hair, goatee.” We’d talked briefly about our dogs. I prayed he would remember me.
Hicks leaned back in his chair. Giving me that same look he had when I was eighteen, like he knew I was no good and was just trying to find out how deep the rot went. “Don’t suppose you know where Ryan was that night?”
I had to be careful now, not show even a flicker of fear in my eyes.
“No idea.”
“You see him since he’s been out?”
“We aren’t allowed any contact.”
“That’s not what I asked.” Bastard was as smart as I remembered.
“No. I haven’t seen him.”
“I heard he’s pretty pissed off about the girls testifying at the trial.”
“I wouldn’t know how he feels.”
“So how do you feel about it?”
I couldn’t help myself. “They were lying.”
“That’s what you said back then too.”
“Because it’s the truth.”
“So you must be pissed off at them.”
I recited what I’d learned to say in my parole hearings. “I’ve learned from my past mistakes and just want to become a productive member of society.”
He gave me a look that made it clear he knew I was really telling him to fuck off. I came close to saying it out loud, rolled the words around on my tongue, savored them. Then I thought of Captain and swallowed them whole.
“I’ve thought about your case, what happened that night,” he said. “Ryan, he was bad news, but up until you hooked up with him you were a pretty good kid. I’d hate to think of the same thing happening again.”
“It won’t.”
“Just in case you have seen your old friend, you should probably know that when he was inside, he got himself quite the reputation as a fighter with a violent temper, beat up some guards, spent a lot of time in segregation.”
I was surprised, remembering how Ryan had always tried to walk away from fights unless he was pushed to the limit, and wondered just how bad things had been for him in prison. It filled me with rage, thinking of him in segregation, knowing what it was like for me, neither of us deserving it. I kept my mouth shut.
“I’ve been talking to a few people you two used to pal around with,” Hicks said. “One of the guys said Ryan used to talk about Nicole, how sexy and hot she was.” He shook his head. “Apparently he used to have a fantasy about getting the two of you together for some action.” I knew he was just trying to get a rise out of me, but his lies were hard to listen to. Jesus, my sister was dead.
He leaned even closer, his leg brushing mine, his body language intimate, like we were close friends. I stared at the wall, refusing to look at him.
“That night, you say you were passed out the whole time, but how do you know your boy Ryan stayed passed out? How do you know he didn’t wake up and decide to try his luck with Nicole? He had some scratches on his arms.”
I flashed briefly to the image of Ryan’s wrist over his face when we woke up that night, the bloody scratches. Was that what he was talking about?
“He got those from the bushes. He wouldn’t touch my sister.”
But Hicks wasn’t done. “Are you sure? Did you know he took Nicole into a bedroom at a party that summer? They didn’t come out for an hour.”
My head jerked back. I tried to recover quickly, but Hicks had picked up on my surprise.
“You didn’t know.”
“Because it’s bullshit.”
“There are witnesses.”
I laughed. “Right, probably the same ones who lied at our trial.”
He was shaking his head. “A few people saw them go off. Nicole was extremely drunk by all counts, who knows what happened?”
I stared at him, thinking back to that summer. What party? Was it when I was working at the restaurant? Was Hicks just making this up?
He continued, “See, Ryan was just starting to get in trouble, stealing gas, talking you into breaking into your neighbors’ place. His dad, he was a real bad character. I know he used to rough Ryan up, and Ryan had a lot of anger in him. Stuff like that, it comes out eventually. We have a dead girl seventeen years ago, now we have another one. So I ask myself, what do these two girls have in common? Ryan Walker. Maybe you protected him back then, but now? I don’t think you want to go back to prison. So if you know something else, something about your boy, you might want to start talking now.”
I kept my voice calm and controlled, but my blood was pumping hard in my ears, threatening to drown out common sense, making me want to slam his head into the table.
“I don’t know anything about Ryan now, but I do know he’s not stupid enough to kill a witness and make it look exactly the same as Nicole’s murder. Cathy was a crackhead. Wouldn’t it make more sense to get her to OD? We were problem kids, no doubt about it, but you can’t say we were stupid, and we never hurt anyone who didn’t mess with us first.”
“That’s my point, Toni.”
I could have kicked myself for saying so much, but I couldn’t stop now.
“And my point is that we aren’t killers. You guys fucked up back then. The killer is still out there and someone wants to make sure we look guilty as shit again, to get us out of the way. So while you’re messing around with us and your bullshit questions, that person is laughing at how fucking stupid the cops are.”
His face flushed red. He sat back up, finally giving me some space.
“I’m trying to help you out here, Toni. Give you a chance to come clean. There’s already the theft hanging over you, now this. It doesn’t look good.”
“I didn’t do the theft—and I didn’t do this. You aren’t trying to help me. You know that by even talking to me you’ve probably just fucked up my parole.”
“If we find out you had something to do with Cathy’s death, parole is the least of your problems.”
“I’m not saying anything else. You cops only see what you want and hear what you want. And as far as I’m concerned, you’re deaf and blind. If you’re going to ask anything more, I want my lawyer or you better arrest me.”
He nodded, acknowledging that he’d pushed me as far as I was going to go. He stood up. “Thanks for coming in today, Toni. We’ll be in touch.”
He walked me out of the station and down to my truck, watched me drive off. My heart rate didn’t settle until I got back to the campsite, then it jacked up again when I remembered I had to call Suzanne right away.
She answered on the first ring. “Hello?”
“Hi, Suzanne, it’s Toni. I just wanted to let you know the cops pulled me in for questioning.”
“What for?”
“Cathy Schaeffer, her body was found. She was murdered. They think she was hit with a tire iron.” Deafening silence on the other end of the phone. “I have an alibi for the night they ask
ed about—I was working until late, then I stopped at a store on my way home and talked to the clerk. When they check into it, they’ll see I couldn’t have been involved.”
“This isn’t good, Toni.”
“I know it doesn’t look good, but I didn’t do anything wrong. Someone is trying to screw with us.”
“Us?”
Shit. I almost let that slip. I had to be careful how I talked about Ryan.
“The cop was asking a bunch of questions about Ryan, too—but I haven’t seen or spoken with him.” And I was praying his alibi would also hold up.
“I’m going to have to talk to my supervisor and we’ll probably want you to come in for a review.” A review. I didn’t like the sound of that.
“Give it to me straight, Suzanne. Are you suspending me?”
“Just come in and we’ll talk.” She was walking the line, trying not to spook me, which meant I was probably screwed.
I clenched my fist, fighting the urge to throw the phone across the room. Stay cool, Toni. Don’t make things worse. “When do you want me?”
“I’ll get back to you.”
She hung up.
* * *
Too upset to hang around the cabin, I went to get some milk at the store and saw the newspaper right away. I stood frozen, staring at the headline: “Local Woman’s Body Found.” I kept my face down, bought the paper, then sat in my truck and read every terrible word. They mentioned Nicole’s murder, me and Ryan being on parole, the upcoming anniversary of Nicole’s death, Cathy’s having been a star witness at the trial. Every sentence insinuated that Cathy’s death was no coincidence. I thought of my parents and how this was going to rip everything open for them again. They were probably already getting calls. I stayed awake for hours that night, Captain beside me, trying to come up with a plan, going over everything that Hicks had said. I still couldn’t think what party Ryan and Nicole would have been at together. It had to be a lie.
There was a knock on the window at one in the morning. Captain and I both startled, Captain barking. I pulled back the curtains. It was Ryan. I slid the window open.