Page 37 of What Lies in the Woods

“It was a game we played that summer. The Goddess Game,” I said, voice distant. I didn’t have to say what summer I meant. Dougherty nodded gravely.Tell them,I thought.Tell them the truth.But the words wouldn’t come. Twenty-two years of silence weren’t that easy to break.

“What did Liv lie about, Naomi?” Bishop asked. She gave me a steady look. Not angry, not suspicious. Not content.

“Monica, cut the girl some slack,” Dougherty said gruffly. “She probably just meant she was lying about being okay, something like that. We might never know. Let me get Naomi on out of here. Mayor Green wants a word with you anyway.”

Bishop’s look was brimming with irritation. “You might have started with that,” she said, standing. Big Jim didn’t like being kept waiting. The Chief served at the pleasure of the city council, which meant at Big Jim’s pleasure, and Bishop couldn’t afford to be on his bad side. She gave me one last considering look and then waved a hand. “See her out,” she said, and stalked from the room.

I stood, leaving the blanket puddled on the chair behind me. My borrowed shoes squeaked on the tile.

“I’m sorry about that,” Dougherty said, hand on my shoulder as he shepherded me toward the front lobby. It was all I could do not to shrug it off. “She’s not from here, you know how it is. She doesn’t know the way things ought to go.”

Not from here. Not one of us. That was all that mattered in Chester—who belonged and who didn’t. I’d been born here and I still ended up on the wrong side of that equation more often than not.

Ethan Schreiber was waiting in the lobby. He’d had time to change, apparently, because he was wearing fresh, dry clothes. He looked up with an expression of worry as we entered.

“Can I leave you here?” Dougherty asked.With himwent unspoken. I answered with a nod. Dougherty shifted his weight uncomfortably. “I’m real sorry about Liv. After all you girls have been through…”

“Thank you, Officer Dougherty,” I managed.

“Call me Bill,” he said. I just nodded again and walked toward Ethan, who watched with his hands in his pockets. We didn’t say anything as we headed outside. My car was waiting for us in the lot. Ethan pulled my keys out of his pocket.

“What about your car?” I asked him.

He looked at me curiously, and I realized I’d probably asked him the same question already. “An officer is going to bring it by the motel for me,” he said. “They gave me a ride back so I could change.”

“You didn’t have to answer questions?”

“I gave a statement, but I didn’t have much to offer,” Ethan said. He opened the passenger door for me, and I folded myself into the seat, hands clenched to stop their trembling. I didn’t look at him as he started up the engine. “Motel?” he asked. I nodded. He pulled onto the road.

There was a fist around my throat as we cut our way through the dismal strip of downtown. Liv was dead. She’d killed herself, but we’d killed her, too. We hadn’t listened to her. We’d wrapped our hands around our secrets like barbed wire, even when they cut into us. Even when there was no goddamn reason not to let go. I was still holding on.

Raw, animal grief consumed me. I bent to it, collapsing in on myself. I couldn’t tell if I was crying; I wasn’t in my body enough to know. I was in the woods.

“We’re here,” Ethan said. It took me a moment to remember howto unbuckle myself. When I fumbled with the room key, Ethan took it from me and opened the door, then stepped back to let me pass.

I collapsed onto the bed, my elbows on my knees, and stared at the wall. “This can’t be real,” I said.

“I wish I could tell you it wasn’t,” he replied. He shut the door and sat beside me, leaving plenty of room between us.

“You can go,” I said.

“I don’t have to.”

“If you think I’m going to give you a quote, or, or—”

“I’m not trying to get a story out of you right now. I just want to make sure you’re all right.”

“Why?” I demanded.

“Because I’m a fundamentally decent person, maybe?” he suggested.

“No such thing,” I told him. I ran my thumb along the scar on my wrist, back and forth. The one scar on my body that wasn’t from the attack. “If I’d answered when she called, I could have talked her down.”

“It’s not your fault,” Ethan said. It was what you were supposed to say, I guess. “She wanted to talk to me. Do you know why?”

“What happened to not trying to get a story out of me?” I asked.

“I’m just trying to understand,” he replied, and only then did I notice the way his hands were shaking.

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