Page 13 of Murder Road

Every year, without fail, when the cicadas started screaming and the pavement got hot beneath the soles of my sandals, I remembered that summer. It had changed my life. It had made me who I was, April Delray, the pretty girl who was an expert in moving through life unnoticed when she wanted to. Until Eddie had noticed me.

I told him about that summer on our fourth date, as we sat on the run-down sofa in his apartment. He’d cooked for me on that date—spaghetti and meatballs, a meal I later learned he considered the best in his repertoire. It was the first time he’d cooked for me, the first time I’d been to his apartment. Normally, the big question of a date like this—to end up in bed or not?—would have hung over us, but with Eddie I didn’t obsess about it. Instead, I told him the worst thing that had ever happened to me.

We’d already eaten the spaghetti and washed the dishes. I watched a muscle in Eddie’s jaw tick as I spoke, and I watched his handsome eyes darken with shadows.

When I’d finished, he’d taken my hand and kissed the back of it without saying a word. I had felt his breath on my skin. His big hand had encompassed mine.

My heart had cracked when he did that, and my heart never cracked. Not for anyone, ever.

Now the memory of that summer was crossed with the memory of Eddie kissing my hand in his kitchen. I wondered if that was how marriage worked, if the memories you made with the person you married started taking over the ones that had come before, like a radio station that fades out on the dial as another one comes in.

As it happened, we didn’t go to bed together that night—that came later. Sitting on his sofa, my stomach full of spaghetti and meatballs, I’d still had the idea that Eddie Carter was too nice for me to sleep with. I was still in the well-worn habit of assuming I’d live my life all alone. I’d had no idea I was already falling.

Now we stepped out of the back of the police cruiser. The sun was blazing hot already, the sky burning blue, the wind nothing but a tired breath. Sweat trickled beneath my shirt between my shoulder blades.

We were in the parking lot of a grocery store that hadn’t opened yet, and to my surprise, I realized I knew where I was for the first time since last night. We were next to the turnoff Eddie and I had taken from Atticus Line into town, when we’d been speeding away from the truck behind us.

There were two other cars in the parking lot besides the cruiser we had pulled up in, one of them another police cruiser, one of them an unmarked car. The cars were all parked with their noses together, like the circle of an old wagon train. Kyle and the other cop who had driven us stood by Eddie and me. Two other uniforms had exited the other cruiser, and I realized that one of them was Officer Syed from last night. He looked at Eddie and me, then looked away.

The third car was a Cutlass, and standing alongside it were Detectives Quentin and Beam. Quentin had traded his warm-up suit for a pair of suit pants and a dress shirt unbuttoned at the throat, with no jacket and no tie. Like the warm-up suit, the look was casual, yet it was strangely formal on him. Beam was in a full suit, and he already looked sweaty and a little bit mad.

“Thank you, Officers,” Quentin said to Kyle and his partner. “You may go.”

Kyle’s fake-jovial face went hard, but he didn’t argue. His partner was already turning back toward their car. Kyle looked at Eddie and me; his type could never resist a parting shot. “Have fun, kids,” he said. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“You may go,” Detective Quentin repeated, and in that moment I could see that Kyle hated him. I could also see that Quentin didn’t care.

The two cops got back in their cruiser and left.

Detective Beam, meanwhile, had pulled out a map and unfolded it over the hood of the Cutlass. He smoothed the squares of folds out, pinning the edges as the hot, faint breeze worked under the paper. Detective Quentin gestured for us to come closer.

“Mr.Carter,” he said to Eddie. “You were driving last night, correct?”

“Yes,” Eddie said.

“Please show me the route you took.”

Eddie stood over the map, looking down at it through his sunglasses. “Here,” he said, pointing to the paper. “We were on the interstate. I remember passing a sign for Greendale. I must have turned off somewhere around here.” He pointed.

“You don’t recall exactly where?” Quentin asked.

“It was dark and late. We were lost.”

Quentin nodded. “Why did you exit the interstate?”

“I thought I was going the right way.”

“There’s no sign that says anything about Five Pines Resort, which you say is where you were going.” Quentin’s expression was blank, impossible to read, even though he wasn’t wearing sunglasses. “So why did you exit?”

“I thought I was going the right way,” Eddie said again.

“Based on what? Have you been to this area before?”

“No.” Eddie stood back from the map. “Have other people died? Is that what this is about?”

Detective Beam said, “What makes you say that?”

Eddie looked pointedly at the police surrounding us. “Just a hunch.”

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