Page 45 of Forget Me Not
“Claire, you’re starting to worry me,” he says when I don’t answer, his voice softening into concern. “It sounds like you’re out of breath.”
“I’m fine,” I say, though it’s painfully obvious that I’m not.
“I picked up your mail,” he continues. “You got a letter from your mom.”
I freeze, a lump lodging itself in my throat, because whatever it was I was expecting Ryan to say, I know for a fact it wasn’t that.
“How do you—?”
“Her name was on the envelope along with a Claxton return address.”
“What does it say?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I didn’t read it, but why is your mom sending you mail if you’re staying with her in her house right now?”
I sigh, running my fingers through my wet hair.
“Claire, what is going on?” he asks as I glance out the window, the rain lashing hard on the glass. The storm is picking up quickly now and I can practically feel the chill in the air, the temperature dropping as the sky grows dark. The wall of gray clouds gathering in the distance offering no glimpse of imminent relief.
“I’m not at home, okay?” I say at last, finally deciding to just come clean. I’m too tired of the secrets, the lies—and besides, it’s starting to feel like I’m in way over my head here. It feels like I should tell Ryan about these things that I’ve found so maybe he can somehow help. He’s a journalist, too, after all. The two of us working together could get to the bottom of this, whateverthisis, in half the time. “I left right after I got there. After my first night back.”
“Then where are you?” he asks, his voice suddenly sounding afraid. “You’re not back in the city, are you? Where have you been living?”
“No,” I say, pulling the gun from my pocket before looking around, trying to decide where to put it. Then I walk over to the desk and place it inside the drawer, staring down silently like I’m afraid it might spring to life on its own. “I’m not in the city.”
The line is quiet as I try to decide how I should start, until Ieventually start at the beginning: turning into my neighborhood that very first night, all the odd feelings that reared up in my chest the second I stepped into my childhood home. The memories bashing me like a tidal wave, dragging me down, and the nightmare I had that scared me away. I tell him about the pictures of the vineyard I found in the shoebox, reminiscing about Natalie’s summer job. Overhearing my mother and the snap decision to come to Galloway before learning about their guesthouse, the two thousand dollars. The way it felt like a solution to all my problems until I found that diary pushed deep in the vent.
I tell him about how it’s consumed me slowly, a secret obsession I can’t understand. Marcia’s words like a parasite chewing away at my brain, keeping me awake well into the night.
“There’s something going on here,” I say when I’m finally finished, Ryan’s breath heavy on the other side of the line. Then I plop down in the chair, sliding the drawer shut as my pants drip water onto the hardwood floor. “I’ve been thinking it from the second I found all those articles, but just now, I snuck into their house—”
“Wait, wait, wait,” he says at last, stopping me mid-sentence. “You snuck into theirhouse?”
“I went inside to talk to Marcia, but she was asleep, so I started looking around.”
“Jesus, Claire.”
“I found a bag,” I continue, ignoring his tone. “A bag stuffed beneath the floorboards of their bedroom. It looksjustlike the bag Natalie took the night she disappeared.”
Ryan is quiet on the other side of the line, the silence stretching on for so long I look down at the phone, wondering if I lost him.
“What did it look like?” he asks at last, the weight of the information hanging over us both.
“It’s just a black duffel bag.”
“Did it have her name on it? Any identifying proof?”
“No,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck. “I’m not even sure if it’s hers, to be honest—I mean, I can’t rememberexactlywhat hers looked like—but the cops always thought Natalie left with a bag.”
“Claire—”
“Ablack duffel bag.”
“Everyone has a black duffel bag,” he argues. “Ihave a black duffel bag.”
“Hidden beneath the floorboards of your bedroom?”
“No,” he admits. “But what makes you think it could be Natalie’s? It could be anyone’s.”
