Page 74 of Fragments of the Lost
I realize I’m holding my breath, and I make myself exhale slowly. My bag is upstairs, with my car keys. I can’t just take off. But I don’t like the way she’s looking at me, like she suspects something.
She doesn’t answer, just tips her head to the side, looking between me and the garbage can.
Now I’m wondering why she asked me here in the first place. That day I saw her car—had she been about to knock, as she claimed? Or was she watching me, as she had been in the weeks after Caleb disappeared? And if she was watching me, what was she hoping to find?
—
I’m saved by Max coming through the swinging gate. He must see something on my face, because he switches to an indifferent smile toward Eve. “Saw you guys out here,” he says. “Can I help with any lifting?”
Her lips purse together. “No, honey. I’ve got movers coming tomorrow to take some things down to the dump or to consignment. Then we’ll list it.”
“Where are you going?” I ask.
She cuts her eyes to me. “I’m not going anywhere yet.”
I slip back inside, race up to the room to grab my bag. I peer out his window, where Max is standing, talking to Eve. And as if she can sense me, she tips her head slowly back, looking straight up at me.
I back away. I leave out the front door without saying goodbye to either of them.
I call Max once I get home, let him know I think Eve has been following me. That I found a notebook in the trash can, detailing my every move.
He doesn’t speak at first, and I wonder if maybe he thinks I’m cracking up—if maybe I really am. When eventually he says, “She has to know, right? I mean, if something happened to Sean, she has to know. She had that pocket watch.”
And now I have it instead. Oh God. I slide it out of the top drawer, the metal chain faintly chiming in the silence.
Why would she keep this if it’s a piece of evidence? Proof of something she’s been hiding, too?
And now it’s hidden inside my bedroom.
I’ll bring it to the police, I decide. I’ll drive to the station. Act like I don’t know what it is. I’ll hand it to them, sealed in plastic, and say I found it when I was packing up Caleb’s room. I’ll wash my hands of it.
But then I think of Caleb. What do I owe him? What do I really know of him? I owe him at least the truth. I need to know it, before I turn this in. If he ran, I need to know why. Whether it was because of Sean, or something else.
If his mother was watching me, I need to understand what she was after.
—
I spend the night looking through photos, trying to make sense of the different angles to the same events. I’ve plugged Caleb’s name into the search bar of the Internet program, but the only thing that comes up is the details of his memorial service, and a mention in the local paper, the named victim of the bridge flood.
I don’t know his father’s name. He never told me. Based on the letter opener with the initials, I know his grandfather’s first name begins with aD.Is that really all I know? The closest I can come to Caleb Evers?
I search for his last name, plusEve.Last name plusaccident.Last name plusobituary.But the last name is too common, the search absolutely fruitless. I could ask his mother, but I don’t trust anything about her. She makes me nervous, always watching, always following. She makes me want to lock the doors, and ask my parents to stay home with me.
But I can’t do any of that.
I feel, for the moment, that Caleb is in danger again. In a car, tipping over the bridge, the current raging. I picture myself standing on the road, screaming his name.Run!he screams.Run while you can!
I picture him again in his doorway, barring me from his life.Go.
Leave.
Don’t look back.
His words so cutting, so final.
The necklace in his jeans pocket, left on his floor, left behind.
Please hold this for me. Please be careful.
