Page 45 of What Lies in the Woods

From the moment I saw the numbers on Ethan’s screen, I knew I had to go back to Liv’s room. And from that moment, I constructed reasons I couldn’t. The police were there. Marcus and Kimiko wouldn’t want to be disturbed. The cops had probably cleared out everything anyway.

Liv had found her. I could do the same. I didn’t need to go back to that place—go back to where Liv wasn’t anymore. Face her parents.

Lie to them.

Keeping secrets from the police was one thing. But the idea of looking Kimiko in the eye and keeping silent about the thing that might explain what had happened to Liv…

I couldn’t hurt them like that, I told myself, and what I really meant was that I couldn’t bear the guilt.

For the next several days, I dug through missing-persons reports, checking for anything that might connect them to Chester or Stahl. I watched endless hours of TV as I skimmed the surface of a hundred tragedies, surfacing only to steal a few minutes of restless sleep, to shower.

And to eat, which I only remembered to do because Ethan kept turning up at my door. Sometimes I shut the door on him. A few times I let him in, and we sat together while we ate. We didn’t really talk—he managed to restrain himself from asking questions, somehow, and when he did speak it was to update me about what he knew. They’d searched the lake but not turned up the gun. The Barneses’ revolver was indeed missing, though, and probably lost in the silt among the abandoned bikewheels and random bits of junk that made metal detectors useless. Liv’s body had been shipped off so that a proper autopsy could be conducted, but no one was expecting to find anything but the obvious.

Even when we sat in silence, those few minutes that punctuated the day were easier than the hours that stretched on alone. I found myself listening toAftershocks, scrubbing past the descriptions of the crimes—which were mercifully brief—and listening to Ethan unfold the stories of what came after. It was his sincerity that sold it, I thought. During the interviews I could imagine those sincere eyes of his, inviting everyone from grieving mothers to remorseful killers to bare their souls for him.

He was good at his job. It was almost disappointing.

By the end of the week I was forced to admit that Ethan had been right. The task was too immense for me to figure out on my own with only the Doe Network profiles to go on. But Liv had known. Liv had found her.

I knew what I had to do, but I wasn’t looking forward to it.

I got myself cleaned up most of the way to respectable, even remembering to dab concealer over the dark circles under my eyes. My hair was getting shaggy at the back, but I finger-combed it into something resembling order and headed outside, my gait stiff.

As I unlocked the car I glanced across the street and paused, faint unease scratching at the back of my mind. There was a black Toyota Camry parked across the street. It had been there yesterday, too. And the day before.

It was just a car. Nothing weird.

I started up my engine. In the rearview mirror, I watched as a man crossed the parking lot from the small park near the Corner Store, where there were a few benches and picnic tables. All of which had a clear view of the motel.

I couldn’t make out much in the mirror. He was white, midthirties, with medium-brown hair cut a bit long and mirrored sunglasses. I’dseen him before, hadn’t I? The last few days, at the diner and the gas station. He’d been hanging around.

The image of the boy in the striped shirt popped into my mind again. AJ Stahl.

As I pulled out, he started up his car. I watched in the mirror as he turned out of the parking lot—following right behind me. My heart hammered. I reached for my phone, but stopped. Who would I call? What would I say that wouldn’t sound crazy?

Then, a minute out from the Barnes house, the Camry slowed and turned, pulling off to a trailhead. I let out a breath, sinking back against the seat.

You’re being paranoid,I scolded myself. I kept my eyes on the rearview, but the Camry never reappeared.

The gate to the Barnes house was open. When I pulled up in front of the house, there was a casserole sitting on the front porch, covered in foil. It didn’t seem right to step over it, so I picked it up and rang the bell. It took a couple minutes for Marcus Barnes to appear. He was a tall, solid man, but he seemed smaller under the weight of his grief. He looked dully down at the dish in my hands.

“You too?” he asked.

“It was on the porch,” I said apologetically.

Marcus Barnes was an unlikely man to have married Kimiko, to have fathered Liv. The two women were both quicksilver in their own way, and he was solid as the wooden beams of his house, but maybe that was why it all worked.

“You might as well bring it in,” he said. He turned and walked inside and I followed, still holding the casserole.

Marcus went into the kitchen, which was cluttered with more foil-covered dishes. That probably meant the freezer was already full. I remembered this part. I’d been pulling potpies and macaroni casserole out of the freezer a year after the attack. I set the latest offering down on a clear patch of counter.

“It’s kind of a mess,” Marcus said. He was wearing pajama pants and an ancient Nirvana T-shirt. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.

“I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now,” I said.

“Third time’s the charm, right?” he asked, voice rough.

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