Page 37 of The Death Row Club
Connor slumps down on the bench next to Greer, tablet in hand. He doesn’t look like he slept much last night, either. “I have some good news and some bad news.”
Greer seems wary. “Okay, let’s start with the good news first.”
“Steffani’s gone.”
Her fork slips, slicing deep into her stack of pancakes, syrup crawling across the plate. She quickly pulls herself back together. “Gone.”
“I knocked on her door this morning to offer her a ride, but she’d already left.”
“Connor, why am I getting the feeling I’m not going to like the bad news part of this game?”
“Because the Challenger’s gone, too.”
Greer’s fork clatters against the plate. She’s halfway across the lodge before either of us can get up from the bench. Connor and I race after her as she slams the screen door open and steps onto the porch. There’s nothing in the driveway—just a muddy stretch of road where the car should be.
“Are you serious?” She smacks her fist against the railing. “Are you fucking serious right now? She stole my car?”
“Maybe not,” Connor says. “Zach’s room is empty. Looks like he left with her.”
She walks over to the road and crouches down, examining the tire tracks. “They’re fresh. They must’ve left, what, a few hours ago?”
“Do you want me to call the police?”
She takes a few steps in the direction of the tracks, then abruptly wheels back toward us. “No, don’t call anyone. The members of this club expect privacy. That means no police stomping around, investigating a case of grand theft auto. Think about it. If the press gets a whiff of this, all our names will be on the nightly news. Not a big deal for me, but what about Ros and Kemy?” Her stare follows the road to where it disappears into the dusky pines. “Besides, Zach’ll bring the car back. He probably just wanted to stop in town.”
“Isn’t that more of a reason to track him down? He could drive back loaded up on alcohol, opiates, whatever else he’s using nowadays, and get into an accident. Nowthatwould bring us attention.”
Wait, what? What are they talking about?
“He wouldn’t do that.” He starts to object, but she doesn’t give him the chance. “I know you don’t trust him, but trust me. I’ve known Zach for a long time. He’s going through some shit, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to behave irresponsibly.”
“He’s an addict. He’s homeless. He—”
She shushes him with a sharp head tilt in my direction. Then she turns to me and repeats herself: “Zach’s going through some shit.”
Maybe it’s the hangover, but I’m having a hard time processing this. Did he say opiates? Claire’s brother, the one who was in business school, became addicted to painkillers after an ACL injury. No one had known at the time; there weren’t any obvious physicalindicators—nothing like the sores and dental decay associated with meth—and he’d been high-functioning for months before he started to falter. One day, he simply stopped showing up to classes, and the next thing you knew, he was taking a semester-long “sabbatical” to a rehab clinic. Claire assumed this meant she’d step into the role of golden child, that her father would finally start looking at her with approval; instead, she fell off the map entirely while all her family’s resources—including their time and attention—were funneled into her wayward sibling. When Claire disappeared, they hadn’t even bothered booking flights to Oliante because her brother’s sobriety took priority over whatever trouble she’d gotten herself into. It wasn’t until she washed up, dead, on the banks of Ellicott Creek that they finally decided to put their little girl first.
Claire had shown me photos of her brother on social media. He looked normal, just like how Zach had looked normal on the flight. Zach wouldn’t have shared something as personal as his substance abuse with a relative stranger, but still, I confessed what happened behind the scenes onTo Catch a Killer, told him things no one else knew about me. I can’t help feeling a little betrayed. What else was he hiding?
“We’ve all been through rough times,” Connor counters. “That’s no excuse for him dropping out of rehab.”
“You can’t force these things. The most we can do is offer to pay for the best clinic available. He’ll let us know when he’s ready—”
“The morgue’ll let us know when he’s dead.”
Greer stiffens. Jesus, is it really that bad?
“What happened to the car?”
We turn around to find the other club members filing onto the porch. Kemy leans against the railing, considering the empty space in the driveway.
“Steffani and Zach left this morning.”
Ros, still wearing her puffer vest and hiking boots, jogs down the stairs. “Please,” she says. “Pleasetell me you still have her phone.”
Connor and Greer exchange a look. “We’ll have to check,” she says, “but she didn’t record anything. We went through her photos and audio files last night.”
“That doesn’t mean she won’t tell anyone—”
