Page 10 of Nothing Ever Happens Here

“Oh, yeah of course. Sorry. ’Course I have footage of that night,” he says matter-of-factly.

“All this time. Why didn’t you give it to the police? What’s on it?” I ask, my hands shaking, my heart speeding up. I can’t read the look on Billy’s face, but it’s a mix of discomfort and embarrassment, if I’m right.

“The police asked about my camera, and I said there was nothing on it. That was it,” he says, pushing his coffee aside with a curled lip and cracking open a Pepsi.

“What?” Billy asks, but he doesn’t seem totally shocked. Is that because Lou is sort of flaky in general and it doesn’t come as a surprise?

“So you told them you didn’t have footage?” I clarify.

“No, I looked through it all when I heard what happened and didn’t see anything on it, so when they came around, they didn’t press me. They just casually asked about my camera and I said I got nothin’.”

“And that was it?” I ask in disbelief. “This was Detective Riley, I guess, since he’s assigned the case.”

“Yeah, what’s the problem?” he asks, clicking on his Tetris game and then thinking better of it and turning back to me with his arms folded across his chest.

“Lou,” I say as gently as I’m able, although I would like to smack him again for his apathy right now. “Would it be okay if I take a look through it myself?” I ask.I feel like Billy is about to protest, and he passively does.

“If he says he didn’t see anything, are you sure you wanna—”

“Knock yourself out,” Lou interrupts, standing. “Linda’s got some Egg McMuffins she put in the glove box for me.” He gestures to his chair for me to sit. “Ain’t nothing there, though. I have hawk eyes.” With that, he heads out to his truck for his glove box breakfast. I look at Billy, who has an indiscernible look on his face. He gives me a tight smile resembling concern, and I sit in Lou’s chair and shakily hover the dusty mouse over the October–January file and click it open.

My breath catches when I see the date there, several rows down: October 19th. Each day is labeled. I click, and wait. The camera just sits there on the front of the Trout, mostly useless in general—just picking up cars passing, patrons coming in and out, hours of nothing.

“Why would he keep all of this—years back?” I ask Billy who’s perched on the edge of the desk, sipping his coffee.

“He doesn’t get rid of anything,” he says, looking around as if I should be able to tell that from the state of the place.

I continue to fast-forward through that day’s footage until I find 10:00 p.m., then I slow down and click frame by frame around the time Shelby was attacked. The camera sits on the front of the bar, and you can see my parking lot and front door, and I’m hoping for any clues—anything that shows someone breaking into the cafe. Maybe it’s so I can know once and for all it wasn’t Leo losing his mind and having some psychotic break that night the way people say—if nothing else, I’ll take that.

I know Lou didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but I still feel tears forming behind my eyes and hear my shallow breath. This was the moment my life fell apart—and there’s nothing there except a crow on a telephone line in the frame.

I sit back in my chair and sigh. I pick up Lou’s untouched coffee and take a sip and then look to Billy with wet eyes and palpable disappointment.He pulls up a file box and sits on it next to me.

“I’m sorry,” he says. But then I see movement out of the corner of my eye. I slam the coffee down and my hands flutter to the keyboard to rewind the frames.

“What was that?” I ask, breathlessly. “I thought Lou said he saw nothing.”

“Well, in all fairness he can’t see shit and this is the first I’m hearing about this.”

I replay it, frame by frame, and then stop cold when I see a figure. I gasp. I rewind again. Out of nowhere, someone steps into the frame of the parking lot. My lot. Jeans and a hoodie, and they are just too far away to make out much more than that—I can’t discern stature or age. They pull the hood of the sweatshirt over their head a fraction of a second after they walk fully into the frame and then disappear behind the cafe to the back door.

“Who the fuck is that?”

6

SHELBY

I don’t tell anyone about the note on my car. My instinct was to go right to the police, of course, but what will they say? It’s a handwritten note. There’s no way to connect anyone to it, and there’s absolutely nothing they can do about it. The idea of fingerprints left behind crosses my mind, but the notion that Riley would dust for them is far-fetched. Someone going out of their way to threaten me and be that careless is also unlikely, so I decide to keep it for now. I need to think. The police have done jack shit to protect me thus far, so I just need to figure out what to do myself. What’s the best way to proceed?

I thought it was over. The thing is, I never told anybody the whole story. They know an intruder locked me in…left me there, but they don’t know the part before that. The humiliation. I can’t even bear to tell my husband. I can’t think about it. I just wanted it to be over. Itwasover.

But now he’s back. Whoever it is, he’s the only person who would know those cruel words threatened that night. If I tell anyone about him, he would make the people I love pay. He must have really thought I knew who he was, and after all the time passed, realized I don’t, otherwise I would have had him arrested long ago. He thought I would die. To be fair, he didn’t do a good job killing me and I was found. But it doesn’t matter. He hasn’t been caught, so why now? After all this time, why torment me now? What the hell did I do? It’s pathetic to hear myself say why me, but really…why me?

I keep the note in my bag. I’ll tell Clay or Mack and see what they think I should do, but it brings everything back and I just can’t face it—I can’t comprehend why someone is after me. Wrong place, wrong time is the only thing that makes any sense. It’s hard to talk to Mack about it because of all the whispers about Leo. Did he have some mental breakdown? Was it him?

I walk the main hall of the Oleander’s. Lois is untaping garland from the door to her room, Arnie chuckles from the recliner in his room in front of an episode ofThree’s Company. Everyone is safe, I keep telling myself. Everyone is fine.I’mfine.

I have Heather showing Evan the ropes around the place. He’s agreed to a part-time evening shift, and I’m delighted. Heather does not have a reputation for being the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she’s sweet as pie…so I make sure to pop in a few times and ensure it’s all going smoothly.

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