Page 38 of What Lies in the Woods

“Areyouall right?” I asked him.

He gave a choked laugh. “I make a living writing about murders and suicides. I read about all the gory details. Look at crime scene photos.”

“It’s not the same,” I said.

He met my eyes. His breath trembled out of him. I knew that look. Wanting to run without knowing what it was you should be running from. “No. It’s not,” he agreed. He raised his hand in an odd, abortive gesture, almost like he’d meant to touch my arm. I probably would have bitten a finger off if he tried. “I’m sorry about Olivia. She seemed like a lovely person.”

“She was,” I said. And then, “She was complicated.”

“The best people always are,” he replied. He looked away, toward the window. The blinds were shut, casting slashes of shadow across his face. “Is there someone I can call?” he asked.

Cass, I remembered. I’d promised to call her, and I hadn’t. She had to know about Liv by now. But I couldn’t face her. Anger and guilt tangled inside me. She’d left me on that trail. She’d turned away from me and from Liv, and she hadn’t been there when I needed her. WhenLivneeded her.

It was absurd. She’d been hurt. Of course she turned back. But I felt like I had when we fought all those years ago, desperate to hurt each other, desperate for the pain of being hurt.

“No. There’s no one,” I said. “You can go. I’ll be all right.”

“I’m two doors down if you change your mind,” he said. “Room four.”

“Is that some kind of come-on?” I asked him.

“What? No,” he said. “Jesus, you really don’t have a high opinion of humanity, do you?”

“At least I’m up-front about it,” I said with a one-shouldered shrug.

He looked like he wanted to say something more, but he only shook his head. He let himself out and shut the door behind him.

I let gravity pull me down onto the bed, not bothering to take off my shoes, and lay on my side staring at the wall. I felt like I was drifting. It was the same sensation as when I lay against that rotting log, dizzy from the lack of blood, listening to the birds call uncaringly overhead.

It was the feeling of waiting for the world to end.

I must have fallen asleep at some point, because I woke up an hour later, the exhaustion gone and the grief hardened into a knife’s edge, sliding across my tender skin. I sat up gingerly.

I needed to do something—staying still was suddenly impossible, nervous energy crackling through me. I needed to talk to Cass. We had to figure out what to do about what Liv had found. And I wanted to be with her. For all the fights and stumbles along the way, she was still one of the two people in the world who knew me best.

The only one now.

When I drove up to Cass’s house, she wasn’t alone. There was a truck out front, a brand-new monstrosity that could have hauled an elephant trailer. I almost turned around when I saw it, but as I hovered outside the door opened and Cass’s mother stepped out, waving to me. I couldn’t very well leave now.

I walked up the drive, tumbling backward through time with every step. Meredith Green was a tiny woman, like a twist of wire. Age had distilled her down to her essence, hard and sharp, and what vanity she displayed with her dyed-blond hair and understated makeup had a utility of its own. She was the mayor’s wife, and she played the role with efficiency and unwavering dedication.

“Naomi. I’m glad you’re here,” she said. She took both my hands in hers. She’d always had warm hands, but now they had that papery feel of age. The first time she’d held my hands like this, a soft and inescapable touch, I’d still been in the hospital. The woman who’d sighed like amartyr every time Cass brought me over had called mesweetheart, and she had promised that she and her husband would look after me.

“You heard,” I said. Of course they had. Jim was the mayor. He’d have known as soon as the police did.

“It’s terrible. Marcus and Kimiko must be utterly destroyed. Poor things,” she said. She hadn’t let me go. I tugged my hands from hers, and she offered no resistance.

“I was hoping to talk to Cass,” I said.

“I’m afraid she’s not up for visitors,” Meredith said. “Maybe later.”

“I need to speak with her,” I said more firmly.

Her lips pressed into a thin line. “I will not let you drag my daughter into this horror again,” she said.

I blinked, taken aback. “I’ve never dragged Cass into anything,” I said.

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