Page 21 of What Lies in the Woods

I dismissed the notifications and rubbed my eyes. I was sobering up, and that was unacceptable. I lurched over to the mini-fridge, but it was empty. I didn’t want to go back to drink alone at the bar. I’d rather drink alone, period. But the Corner Store would still be open.

Marsha was still behind the counter, counting the day’s take. I gave her a curt wave and headed for the back. I grabbed the nearest, cheapest bottle of red and ambled up to the counter. She gave it A Look and I bounced one right back at her.

“That stuff is basically cold medicine cut with a little grape juice,” she told me.

“That suits the mood I’m in,” I replied blithely.

She looked amused. “Can’t blame you. But there are better ways to get where you’re going,” she said. She reached behind the counter, and plunked down a half-full bottle of bourbon. Not bad quality, either.

“Pretty sure you’re not allowed to sell the hard stuff, Marsha,” I said, feigning shock.

“On the house. Given the circumstances.” She pushed it toward me.

It was a Chester kind of gift. So much so I almost laughed.Here you go, kid, get drunk and puke on some spruces.I slapped down a twenty.

“I said on the house,” she grouched.

I grabbed a Snickers bar. “For the candy. Keep the change.” I left before she could object.

I should have gone back to my room. Back to the stiff motel sheetsandForensic Filesand the faint scent of mold. I got into my car instead. I tried not to think where I was heading, even though I knew before I started the engine. Outside of town the streetlights dropped to an occasional smudge of light. The forest had grown more wild and dense than it had ever been in my childhood. Everywhere else, nature was retreating. But here it was galloping back. From green to brown and back again, like a slow season turning.

I wasn’t sure how I knew when to pull off the road, only that this was the place. Twenty years ago, this stretch of road had been blocked by a dozen cars, an ambulance, police, a seething crowd of onlookers. This was where Cody Benham had stumbled out of the woods with a girl in his arms, most of the way to dead.

I parked. I kept the light on in the car, even though it left me blind to the outside. Itfeltsafer. I opened the bottle that Marsha had given me and took a swig. I winced. I wasn’t much for straight liquor. Wasn’t that big on drinking, all things considered, but when the occasion called for it…

It had happened right here. Well. Notrighthere. It ended here, though that was the part I remembered least of all. My brief consciousness while Cody was carrying me had failed before we reached the road. I had a memory of the ambulance and the commotion that followed the discovery of my broken little body, but I knew it wasn’t real, just an amalgam of all the stories I’d been told.

The reel always ran backward in my mind. Cody’s arms, and then the press of the rotting wood against my stomach, and then pulling myself along over evergreen needles and dirt, and then—

I shut my eyes. I wouldn’t let myself go back that far. Far enough to feel the first blow of the knife, like a punch to my back—the shallowest blow of all, but enough to send me sprawling. My face pressed against the ground and then I put all my strength into flopping over onto my back, which only meant I could see the knife as it came down. The next blow struck my face, and after that I didn’t see much of anything.

I remembered the trees and the pale sky. Cass shouting, Livscreaming, Cass telling me they’d go get help. Tiny fragments that I couldn’t stitch together into a whole, no matter how hard I tried.

I’d never gone back. Occasionally, people had suggested it—a documentary crew, Mitch (he also wanted to film it), a therapist who’d lasted four sessions. I’d always rejected the idea.

I took another swig. It spilled down my chin, spattering my clothes and the seat. I swore and reached over to fumble for the napkins I kept conveniently strewn on the passenger seat, along with whatever else I happened to be holding when I got in the car. The mail I’d grabbed from my dad’s house skittered away from my flailing hands. I snagged a napkin and blotted at my shirt, which only left little maggoty shreds of napkin clinging to the fabric. Everything reeked of bourbon now.

I contorted myself to pick up the mail. The hand-addressed letter was on top of the stack. I frowned at it. Almost certainly fan mail. I should just throw it away.

I slid my thumb under the flap. The envelope tore. I fumbled the letter out. It was a single lined page, folded into thirds, the handwriting sloppy.

Ms. Shaw or Cunningham or whatever your name is now—

I have thought a lot about what I would say to you if I got the chance, but now that I’m actually doing it I have trouble finding the words. You turned my whole reality upside down. I lost all my friends, my house, my life. My dad. The man I thought he was turned out not to be real at all. He wasn’t my loving father, he was a monster.

But the thing is, you lied. My father didn’t attack you. You lied on the stand and sent the wrong man to jail. What I want to know is: Why? Were you protecting someone? Are they still out there? Have they hurt other little girls because you covered for them?

I am trying to understand. I have been trying for years to put together the pieces of my childhood in a way that makesthem make sense, to comprehend what happened to the father I loved. I can’t comprehend your part in it.

If you’re ready to tell the truth, I’d like to hear it.

—AJ

I could barely read the words, my hands were trembling so much. AJ. Alan Stahl, Jr.

I’d almost forgotten that Stahl had a son. He’d never been in court. The only image I could summon up was a snapshot, a gangly kid in a striped shirt with Stahl’s arm around him. I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it.

He knows.

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