I nodded.
“You’ll have to come in to the station for further questioning.”
I nodded again.
When they left, the door clicked shut with finality.
36
“Man.” Kit let out a long breath. “I’m glad that’s over.” He yanked his T-shirt over his head in one swift stroke and pulled off his jeans. I turned away, but he seemed oblivious, throwing back the bedspread and sliding under the sheets. He closed his eyes. “I’m really tired,” he said.
I sat on the edge of the mattress, twisting my hair. The small digital clock on the nightstand read 1:00 a.m. “I don’t think I can sleep,” I said.
“Well, I can, so turn off the light.”
“But what’s going to happen now? All that stuff they said, about—”
“Shhh,” he mumbled. “Not now.”
“But—”
“Turn off the light.”
I frowned at him, but his face was already soft with sleep, his breathing slow. I flipped the light switch and went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. When I came out, Kit was asleep, so I changed into my nightshirt and crawled into the cool envelope of sheets. In the dark, I stared at the ceiling. I was thinking of all the things the sheriff had said, that long list of offenses. I tugged the sheets under my chin. I didn’t think I would be able to sleep, but when I closed my eyes, the blankness was a kind of refuge.
* * *
I shot upright, shaking all over. For a minute I couldn’t even tell where I was, and I whipped around, trying to make out something familiar in the blackness of the room. I’d dreamed about the girl again. This time, as she rose up in the middle of the wet road, she came flying toward me, her sad, dark eyes fixed on mine. I was afraid of her, afraid of what she wanted. I tried to run. Then I woke up.
Kit was still sound asleep, lying on his back, one arm flung over his head. Trembling, I crawled out of bed and groped my way to the bathroom for a drink of water. The white light burned my eyes, but I left it on, with the door cracked, so that the room wouldn’t be so dark. The cold water tasted rusty. I carried a glass back to the nightstand and looked down at Kit’s calm profile.
I found my sketch pad and took out my pencil. Sitting cross-legged on my bed, I began to sketch. There was just enough light to see his features—nothing sharp or distinct, only the vague contours of his face. I sketched the soft fall of his hair, the line of his forehead and nose. When I got to his eyes, I gently drew the lashes, painstakingly, as if it mattered that I capture every one. Faces looked different in sleep. They became more their true selves, relaxing into their old innocence, without any of the layers of disguise that people wore when they were awake.
Asleep, Kit could have been a saint or an angel. His face was all beautiful lines and curves. He didn’t stir the entire time I was drawing him, not even with the harsh light shining from the bathroom. By the time I finished, I knew his face by heart.
* * *
I slept so late in the morning that the room was bright when I opened my eyes. The phone was jangling angrily. Kit’s bed was empty, and I could hear the whining rush of the shower through the wall. I pushed my hair away from my face and fumbled for the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Miss Martinez?”
I sat up straighter. “Yes?”
“Sheriff Durrell here. We’re going to need you and Mr. Kitson to come in to the station and answer some questions.”
“Oh. Okay. But … did you talk to Wicker?”
“We’ve brought him in for questioning also.” I shivered. The “also” made it seem like there was no difference between us, like we were accomplices.
“I don’t know where the station is.”
“I would have Sergeant Henderson escort you, but I had to call on his services last night.”
I looked out the window. The other police car was gone.
“Why? What happened?”
“Miss Martinez.” His voice was cold.
“Sorry.”
“The station is in Quebrada. It’s about twenty miles west of Beth Osway’s place. She can direct you.”
The shower noise stopped abruptly and the bathroom door swung open. Kit stuck his head out. “Who are you talking to?” he whispered.
“Police,” I mouthed. I concentrated on the phone again. “Should we come right now?”
I could hear him pause, thinking. “You can go to Ms. Osway’s house for the time being. I’ll leave instructions for you. But you need to go there directly. Understand?”
Stupidly, I nodded, then I remembered to say, “Yes, sure, we’ll leave now.”
“I’ll speak with you later today, Miss Martinez.”
“Okay.”
Kit came out of the bathroom in his jeans, toweling his hair. “So what did he say?”
“They want to talk to us again,” I said glumly. “They’ve got Wicker at the police station.”
“Again?” Kit said. “Jesus Christ! We told them everything. I mean, we solved their frigging case for them. What do they want now?”
He looked so outraged, I almost smiled. “I don’t think they see it that way. But they said we can go back to Beth’s. They’ll call us there. So we need to leave.”
He frowned and wadded his clothing into a ball, shoving it back in his duffel bag.
We took a different road back to Beth’s, narrower and even less traveled, because we were both sick of that same highway. It looked like a short cut, but it seemed to take longer. Kit called and told them we were coming, and I listened to him avoid Beth’s frustrated questions with a vague “Yeah, yeah, we’ll tell you when we get there.”
I sat with my feet on the dashboard and my sketch pad in my lap, drawing a new line of mountains. These were smaller than the others, gentle rises covered in dark shrubs, nestling close to the road. “Do you think the police will charge us with anything?” I asked.
Kit shook his head. “No way. We didn’t do anything wrong.”
I glanced at him hopefully. “We didn’t?”
“Well, I mean, we did … but it was for the right reasons, you know? That should make a difference.” He sounded like he was trying to convince both of us.
Up ahead, I saw a gas station, and on the side of the road, a hand-painted wooden sign with a woman’s face and puffs of smoke all around it. It read “Jinjee, Dream Interpreter—$10/ dream.”
“Kit!” I said. “Stop!”
“Why? We don’t need gas.”
“No!” We were zooming past it. I grabbed his arm. “For the other thing.”
He frowned and braked, turning into the gas-station lot. “What other thing?”
I looked away, embarrassed. “The dream interpreter. I want to talk to her.”
“Huh?”
I sighed, finally meeting his gaze. I leaned over the back seat and pointed to the sign. “Look. I’ve been having the same dream every night since the accident. It’s about the girl. I want to know what it means.”
“I’ll tell you what it means. You were totally freaked out when we found the girl, so now you’re dreaming about it. Big deal.”
“No, it’s more than that. In the dream, she always holds out her hands to me. She wants something from me, but I don’t know what it is.”
“And you think some kook at a gas station is going to give you the answer?”
“I just want to try it,” I said. It sounded pathetic even to me. “I mean, the Indians do dream interpretation, right? It’s part of their whole culture. Maybe she can help me figure it out.”
Kit ran his hands through his hair, looking annoyed. “Fine, do what you want. I’m getting a soda.” He opened the car door.
Inside the small gas-station office, a heavy man in an undershirt was organizing a rack of sunglasses. He looked up when we walked in.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“I saw the sign,” I said, gesturing.
“Oh, sure. Jinjee. I’ll get her for you.” He opened a door at the
back and yelled. A woman shuffled out, wearing a purple silk robe that was tied at the waist. She had lank jet-black hair hanging on either side of a face that was creased but not wrinkled. I couldn’t tell how old she was. She didn’t look Indian, more like she might be Chinese.
“Hi,” I said awkwardly. “Um, I wanted to have a dream interpreted.”
“Okay,” she said in choppy English. “Ten dollar.”
“Oh.” I turned to Kit. “My money’s in my backpack. Can you? I’ll pay you back.” He rolled his eyes and opened his wallet.
“This way,” the woman said, opening the back door into a hallway.
I tugged Kit’s arm. “You come, too,” I said softly.
“Oh, great,” Kit muttered.
* * *
We walked down the hallway to another door, and when she opened it, we were outside again, in the yard behind the building. There was a makeshift tent a few yards away, with the a cleaned patch of red-brown dirt all around. She strode toward it. Kit and I followed.
“She doesn’t even look Indian,” Kit whispered. “She’s probably just some New Age freak.”
“You think it’s a scam?” I asked.
He snorted. “Of course it’s a scam.” He made his voice somber. “You are going on a long journey. Stay away from the fish.”
“Stop,” I said. “She’s not a fortune-teller.”
“Oh, right. Sorry. Dream interpreter. That’s totally different. That’s, like, a science.”
I frowned at him. “Look, I want to be able to sleep again. I’m so tired. Maybe she can help.”
The tent looked completely fake on the outside, decorated with drawings of stars and flames. But it felt real on the inside. It was dark and stuffy, acrid with the smell of sweat. The woman squatted in the middle, leaving Kit and me to crowd together by the flap.
Kit coughed. “Can I leave this open?” he asked.
“No,” the woman said. “No light.”
“No air,” Kit whispered to me. “It reeks in here.”
The woman untied a leather pouch and emptied its contents on the ground in front of her. She sorted feathers, dry flower stalks, a small pile of sand.
“Maybe I should interpret a dream for her,” Kit whispered. “I’ll tell her I’m having a vision of deodorant.”
I elbowed him. “Cut it out,” I whispered.
“What’s all that junk for?” Kit asked her.
She didn’t answer. She started passing her hands back and forth over the piles.
Kit leaned close to my ear. “Oh, God. Here we go.”
The woman began to chant, something that was almost a song, off-key. But Kit was right. It didn’t sound Indian. Finally she handed me another small pouch. “Shake,” she said. I shook it. “More,” she said. I shook it again, listening to the dull clatter of whatever was inside. “Now,” she gestured for me to dump it out. A bunch of small colored pebbles scattered over the other things she’d arranged.
She studied them without expression and said, “Tell me the dream.”
So I told her about the car in the storm, the girl rising out of the road, her arms outstretched, wanting my help. I could see all of it while I talked, as if it were right in front of me: her pale pleading face in the rain.
The woman stared at me. She seemed bored. “She not asking for help. She helping you. She give you something.”
“What?” I asked. “What is she giving me?”
The woman shrugged indifferently. “It your dream,” she said.
“Well, that was worth the ten bucks,” Kit said as we walked back to the car. “Now it’s all clear.”
I sighed. “Maybe she’s right.”
Kit shook his head in disbelief. “You’re buying that?”
“This whole time, I thought the girl was asking for my help. But maybe she was helping me.”
“Oh, yeah? How? By waking you up every night?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Helping me see, really see things.”
“Like what?”
You, I was thinking. Jamie. Myself. But I didn’t say anything.
“Oh, come on. That was total b.s. She just threw in the chanting to make it seem spooky. Plus, I hate to break it to you, but she seemed completely bored by your dream.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know. That was bad. I mean, it’s like having a therapist be bored by your problems.”
Kit laughed. “You should have made something up. Something more interesting. You could have told her a dream about me.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t dream about you.”
He slid his hand under my hair, squeezing my shoulder. “Maybe you should. You’d sleep better.”
I pulled away, but I couldn’t help laughing at him.
Near where we’d parked, I saw a pile of old car parts next to a Dumpster: some shredded tires, a bent muffler, a white-crusted battery. “Hey, look,” I said. “Let’s take something for Beth.”
“Go wild,” Kit said, climbing into the car. I thought of the metal pieces in Beth’s sculpture. I picked up the rusted muffler and tossed it on the floor of the back seat.
“Kind of like a housewarming gift,” I told Kit.
“Freak,” he said.
37
It was early afternoon when we pulled off the highway onto Beth’s road. The car bumped into the yard, and the dogs came running from the shaded patch by the shed, barking crazily. They stopped, foolishly grinning, when we got out, and circled us, tails lashing our legs. Oscar shoved his head under my hand.
I felt shy suddenly, not wanting to see Beth, thinking of what I’d said to her that night in the kitchen. But it was too late. She and Jamie came out together, hurrying down the porch steps, and their faces seemed to show everything: not just what had happened to them but what had happened to us, and the resulting mix of wonder and panic and worry. When I looked at Jamie, I felt like I was seeing him as a person, separate from me and from our family, for the first time.
“Hey,” I said quietly.
“Hey,” Jamie said. “You’re finally back.”
“Are you okay?” Beth was looking at me closely.
“Yeah, we’re fine,” Kit said. “Just thirsty.” He pushed past them into the house, and I ran up the steps after him.
We ended up in the living room, with Kit pacing around, telling what happened, me sitting on the floor interjecting details, and Jamie and Beth on the couch, comfortably part of each other’s space. It was hard to explain everything. So much of it had seemed like the only thing to do at the time, but now it seemed like a random bunch of accidents and missteps. It was hard to believe we’d even done these things.
“You broke into his house?” Beth asked in surprise.
“You took one of the pills?” Jamie demanded.
And I could only nod, trying to remember our reasons. We were telling them about the knife when the phone rang. I knew from Beth’s voice that it was Sheriff Durrell.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, Stan, they’re here.” She moved slightly away from us, toward the kitchen, but we could hear the murmur from the phone and her concerned “Oh!” and “Really?” in response. Kit looked at me.
“He did?” Beth said. “Wow. Yeah, exactly.” There was a long pause, and I could see her back stiffen. “No. No, Stan, please don’t. I understand, but…” Now she turned to us, rubbing her forehead, her face pinched. “Stan, you can’t do that,” she said. “I know. Yes, I know. But they did call you. They told you everything. They’re the reason you’ve got him in custody.”
What was he saying? What was he going to do to us? Beth waited for a minute more, tense and serious, and then her eyes flickered toward Jamie. “Stan,” she said slowly. “Listen to me. They’re just kids.”
She stared at Jamie and I saw a scrim of sadness fall over her face. She looked older, resigned. “They’re just kids,” she repeated, gazing at Jamie.
She moved away from us, down the hallway, still talking. After a while, she came back into the room. “Okay.
Right. That seems fair. Thanks, Stan. Yes, here she is.”
Beth motioned to me, and I stood up slowly, taking the phone, my stomach tight. “Hello?”
“Miss Martinez.” The sheriff’s voice was brisk. “I’m going to speak to your parents about these latest … developments. Tell Mr. Kitson I’ll be contacting his parents as well.”
“Okay,” I said unhappily. “But please don’t scare my mom.”
“Miss Martinez, it’s not my intention to scare anyone. I’d like to inform your parents of what you’ve been up to the last few days.” He sounded irritated. “Especially since the department is not inclined to bring charges.”
I wasn’t sure I understood. “You mean you don’t have to talk to us again?”
“We have a confession,” he said.
“You do?” I felt my knees weakening. I leaned against the wall and slowly sank to the floor. “From Wicker?”
“That’s correct.”
“What did he say? Please … what happened to the girl?”
“I can’t discuss that with you, Miss Martinez.”
“But what did he do to her? Did he drug her? Was that how she died?”
“Miss Martinez,” he said curtly. “I can’t discuss it.”
“Please,” I said again.
He sighed. “The full toxicology screen will take a few more weeks, but we’re pretty confident about what we’ll find.”
“Do you know who she is?”
There was a pause. “We have a positive ID. Now I’d like you to put Mr. Kitson on the phone.”
I felt a wave of relief. Suddenly, I didn’t need to know who she was. It didn’t matter. All I’d wanted was to make sure that she wouldn’t vanish out here all alone, without anyone knowing, without a name or a home or a family. And now she wouldn’t.
Sometimes I’d felt alone like that—like I could disappear and no one would notice. But it wasn’t true. There were tiny connections everywhere you looked, ways that lives crossed into each other and changed: me taking the bracelet, Jamie kissing Beth’s hand.