Page 21 of The Death Row Club
Apparently, that two-million-dollar bungalow wasn’t enough. And here I’ve been trying to avoid foreclosure. I suddenly want very badly to put my fist through the plate-glass window behind him.
“Well,” I say, desperate to change the subject, “since you have her phone, at least no one listened to all those voicemail messages I left.”
His eyes shift to the corner, just for a moment, before returning to mine. Great.
“You listened to them, didn’t you?”
“No, of course not.”
That’s a bullshit lie if ever I heard one. So now not only do I haveto worry about the club members believing I conspired with my father, I also have to worry about their cofounder recounting every drunken, rambling, pathetic voicemail I’ve left over the past few months. I should’ve just stayed home.
A knock. Zach leans against the doorframe, hands buried in his pockets. “Hey, they need you downstairs.”
Connor doesn’t need to be asked twice. “We’re glad you’re here, Nicola,” he mutters before fleeing the room.
Zach surveys my accommodations, probably comparing them to his own, before wandering over to a ceramic statue positioned on a pedestal in the corner. “There’s another one of these in my room. Wonder if they got a bulk discount.” He picks it up and turns it over in his hands, taking in the figure’s rotund buttocks. “Looks like my ex.” He’s started to place it back on the pedestal when the head half comes off, bobbing on a hinge at the back of its neck. He peers inside the hollow body before snapping it shut again.
“What did they need Connor for?”
“Fuck all. I just got the feeling you wanted him gone.”
He smiles conspiratorially, and I can’t help but smile back.
“What were you two talking about?” he asks.
“Greer.”
“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, but if you’d like someone to listen…” He crosses the room and sinks down next to me. “I’m not a licensed social worker or anything, but I’ve been told I’m pretty good at saying things like, ‘Oh, that bitch!’ and ‘No, she fucking didn’t!’ at the appropriate times.”
I shouldn’t trust anyone, not after what happened with the minister’s wife, but I want so desperately to share my problems. Zach watches me with powder-blue eyes not all that dissimilar from my dad’s, not all that dissimilar from mine. If I can’t trust him, someone who’s been through almost the exact same ordeal, then who can Itrust? I collapse back against the mattress, staring at the exposed rafters, and out come all the grievances that’ve been building up since the arrest, ending with how Greer abandoned me after cashing in on my familial trauma.
“The thing is, if she’d just texted me afterward, explained that we couldn’t talk because of her father’s hearing, I would’ve been frustrated, but I would’ve understood. Instead, she disappeared when I needed her the most.”
The mattress dips as he repositions himself. “Oh, that bitch.”
The corner of my mouth quirks up, but that’s all I can manage. “I assumed she’d be coming this weekend.”
“You really want to see her again?”
I grab the nearest pillow, clutch it against my chest. “I thought she was my friend.” The words come out pitifully small.
Zach stares out the window, deep in thought, before finally saying, “Look, I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, but if she shows up this weekend, I think you need to hold her accountable for what she’s done. Tell her how the show’s impacted your life, how being abandoned made you feel. Again, it’s up to you, and I’m more than happy to act as a human wall between the two of you if you want—” He extends his arms and shifts from side to side, demonstrating his wall potential. “But I really think you owe it to yourself. I haven’t known you for long, but I know you deserve better than all this.”
Do I? I recall the first interview I filmed forTo Catch a Killer, sitting at my kitchen table. “I keep coming back to the same conclusion,” I’d said. “If I hadn’t invited her to spend summer vacation with me, Claire never would’ve come here. She never would’ve left the house that night, never would’ve been snatched by the Ellicott Creek Ripper. Really—” Here, I swallowed, not wanting to say the next part in front of the camera but forcing myself to anyway. “Really, I’m the reason she’s dead.”
When I watched it on television, with the ominous soundtrack and immediate cut to black, it all seemed overly dramatic. But that didn’t make my statement any less true: If Claire Tenenbaum had never met me, she would still be alive.
I don’t have a chance to tell him any of this, though, because at that moment, Ros’s drawl comes booming up the stairs. “Let’s go, everyone! Bonfire ceremony’s starting!”
9NICOLA
OUTSIDE, ALL THEclub members have gathered in a circle around the bonfire. “Is that everyone?” Imogen asks, then does a quick head count, even though there are only seven of us, including her. She smiles with all of her too-large teeth and says, “Welcome back. A lot has happened since last year. We have a new member joining our family.” Zach bumps his shoulder against mine, and I smile, too.Family. “But we’re also remembering those who have moved on.” The mood in the circle subtly shifts as everyone sneaks sideways glances at Zach. What’s that about, I wonder? “However you came here today, honor that. Honor where you are in your life, honor what your dreams are for the future, honor what’s been left behind in the past.”
She opens a pouch and removes strips of paper and pre-sharpened golf pencils. “This bonfire ceremony is a way of cleansing our lives of any negativity that may have slipped in while we were apart.” She walks around, handing each of us paper and a pencil. When she reaches me, she shuffles through the strips of paper until she finds one with a red dot in the corner. I’m suddenly reminded of the end of “The Lottery.” I look up to make sure the others aren’t readying their stones, but they’re all jotting things down on their own papers.Relax, Nicola. You’re not in Oliante anymore. No one here’s out to get you.
“Take a few minutes to write down anything you want to let go of before this weekend begins. Anything that may be causing you distress or anger or fear.”
Zach scribbles something down before folding his paper into a tight accordion. I stare at my own blank strip, mulling over what I want to let go of. Greer Woods immediately comes to mind. My former coworkers. My father. But instead, I carefully write out a single word:
