Page 57 of Nothing Ever Happens Here

I feel a presence before I even hear anything, and then a voice behind me cuts through the quiet house, stopping me cold.

“Florence. You shouldn’t be here.”

But it’s too late for me to run.

24

MACK

I identify Leo’s things inside a nondescript redbrick building with sterile hallways and bulletproof glass shielding the front desk. I walk out after I’ve finished with only his wedding ring in an evidence bag, because it’s all they could give back to me right now. They didn’t really need me for that since he was photographed in the clothes he disappeared in by his friends that night and his wallet was still with him, but I did it anyway, and I feel completely numb. His driver’s license was missing from his wallet, though. He had his other ID and cards, but why was that missing? I can’t stop thinking about any scenario where that makes sense.

It was him, though. I guess it’s not official until dental records come back, but there’s no doubt it’s him. I’m told it’s unlikely they will be able to know the cause of death because of how decomposed his remains were.I’ll never know. How is that possible?

When I get in my car, I sit and stare at the gray horizon in the distance and think about what Riley said about Shelby. Someone has done all of this with absolute precision. Someone has victimized her, and somehow made her look like the crazy one. It’s been planned and calculated. I’m sure Riley thinks I was second-guessing her when he spilled all of this news in front of me, but he’d be mistaken. I just worry that she can’t get herself out of this mess, and I’m concerned. I’ve called her a handful of times today with no response and I know she’s upset, and maybe I should leave her alone for a bit, but my gut tells me to find her.

First I call Clay, who sounds drunk over the phone, and he tells me she went to her mother’s to be with the girls. I guess her mom must have picked her up, but he tells me to just leave it…she doesn’t want to be bothered, and I think that’s an odd thing to say. Why would he not want me to try to contact her? Maybe she doesn’t want to be bothered byhim, but it feels like he’s hiding something…or maybe it’s just the general paranoia speaking.

I decide to drive out to her mother’s place anyway, because I want to see where Leo was. I want to understand why, how in the world he got all the way out here. How he died. I can’t accept that I’ll never know. He made mistakes. He got in over his head and tried to fix it and win the money back, and in moments where I wasn’t busy hating him, I could find a part of myself that felt so sorry for what he must have been going through too. He lost everything, failed his family, lived in a chronic state of stress trying to get it all back and keep it all a secret. And he wasn’t the one doing all of these terrible things since. More than anything, I hope he wasn’t the one who left Shelby in that freezer that night. His death has to be connected, but I have always prayed that he didn’t assault her that night,and that she didn’t somehow find him and kill him after. I wish finding him explained something—gave a clue of any kind, but it doesn’t do much.

It doesn’t even really give me closure, because I still don’t know what happened to him…or why. There’s still a maniac on the loose. Otis and Bernie are still dead. But I forgive him. Maybe I wouldn’t have been able to if it were discovered that he was the one behind all of these attacks, but he was just a man who got in too deep and probably got himself killed.

As I pass over snow-packed roads through miles of thick woods I try to call Billy again, in case I lose service out here. He doesn’t even know any of this yet, but I can’t reach him. I’m starting to feel like the rapture came and I was left behind. Where is he? Where is everyone?

When I arrive at the lake, I can see yellow caution tape wrapped around a few trees on the icy shore and I expect to see some police or forensic personnel there still, but nothing. Just the flapping of the plastic tape in the wind and a large cut out in the ice where they pulled him out, I guess. I choke down the sob trying to climb up my throat when I think about this.

There are tangles of tire prints in the snow, footprints from work boots and impressions from some sort of equipment I don’t recognize, but other than that it’s just the same old lake we used to swim in as kids, fish off the docks, canoe across in the summers. It’s almost like nothing ever happened. I crouch down and look across the ice to the pines on the other side. I miss him so much, it steals my breath. And I let myself cry because I know now that he’s gone, and I cry until my whole body aches, until my hands are so frozen that I can’t bear to be out here another minute, and then I drive up to the house to talk to Shelby, whether she wants to see me or not.

When I knock on the front door of their family home I practically grew up in myself, I’m surprised to see Celeste, Shelby’s mother,open the door. I figured Shelby would have seen my car and popped out. She invites me in, but I linger in the hallway.

“I have sugar cookies in the oven if you want to come and sit down. The girls helped, so they’re a little lopsided.”

“Oh, thanks, but I just wanted to chat with Shelby for a quick minute, if that’s okay,” I say, blowing onto my hands to thaw them and shivering near the drafty front door.

“Oh, she said she stayed the night at your place. Why would she be here? I’m babysitting.”

“Oh,” I say trying to quickly recover, because the last thing I need to do is to worry the girls and make Shelby’s mom hysterical, so I play it down. “She did stay over. But I just assumed she’d be out here, I guess. I came to see…” I stop and make a vague gesture with my hand, and she understands and pats my arm.

“I’m so, so sorry, love,” she says.

“Thank you. I’m sure she’s at work. I should have tried there first,” I say, making my way back to the door.

“You sure you don’t want anything, dear? Tea? Something to warm up?”

“Thanks, but I should get going.”

“Have her call me, please, when you see her. I told her I’d give her a little space, but still.”

“I will,” I say, and then I exit back out into the cold and sit, warming my car back up, shaking from the cold, or maybe from knowing something that feels very wrong. Either Shelby lied to Clay or Clay lied to me, but neither one is good right now. And this means she is vulnerable and unreachable and not at home, or here, or the Oleander’s, which I already tried before I drove out here. Shit.

I resist calling Billy again, although I could use his help. I could use a friend, if I’m honest. When I dug into things further today after the police left, I realized now that since he’s officially…passed, the life insurance will pay out and I can get an extension of payment based on the lump sum pending and I don’t need Billy’s money,even though I wasn’t going to take it anyway. But I have to tell him all of this. Of course I could just rip up the check and leave a message telling him how much I appreciate it, but that, in fact, he’s off the hook.

But since I’m looking for an excuse to see him without appearing to be a crazy stalker, I decide to grab the check and bring it to him personally—news that he doesn’t have to part with that much money is as good a reason as I can think of to show up unannounced, so that’s exactly what I do. Maybe he can help me look for Shelby.

I can’t go home and sit in that empty house tonight. I’ve kept Leo’s toothbrush in the cup on the sink next to mine all this time, and I’ve kept all of his clothes the way he left them in the closet—all of his shoes lined up in neat rows and his favorite mug in the cabinet. Now there is no chance he’ll return. Hope is gone, and it’s left in its place such white-hot anger that I feel like if I am left here alone I’ll lose my mind and rip the place to shreds with my bare hands just so I don’t see him in every corner of every room.

I put Linus’s and Nugget’s little knitted sweaters on them and pluck the check from the refrigerator door, and we all pile into the car for a drive and start toward Billy’s house. When I pull into his drive, the house is dark, and I tell the pups to stay here and begin to walk up to the door when my phone buzzes. I look down to see a number that I don’t recognize, but I answer it anyway.

The person on the other end is familiar and my heart pounds when I hear the quiet desperation in her voice. It’s Flor.

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