Page 83 of Come Find Me
—
Joe is the last person they’re waiting on.
Nolan and his parents were led inside the white tent, along with the man accompanying them. At times, I can see their shadows moving against the light, but the woods have gone silent, other than the occasional crackle of a walkie-talkie somewhere just out of sight.
“Kennedy?”
I turn to see Joe jogging from the parking lot. When he reaches me, he pulls me toward him in a panic.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “My phone was off when I was at the jail. I didn’t get the message.”
I throw my arms around his back, and he doesn’t let go.
He holds my face between his hands, like my mother might do; his fingers are rougher, and strong. I close my eyes then, no longer trying to hold back the emotion.
“Did you see Elliot?” I ask when I pull back.
“Yeah. I’m sorry, Kennedy.” He shakes his head. “His memory, it’s in fragments. He remembers the sound of the gun. The feel of the recoil. When we asked him more about that night, he shut down.” Joe closes his eyes, like he wants to block it out as well. “But he confirmed the details about where the gun was kept. Hearing what you believe happened, he’s agreed, at least, to try hypnosis, or other therapy. To try to get the pieces back. We’ll have to wait to see what the forensics team pulls from the house. It’s been a long time, Kennedy.”
I had been hoping for a big miracle. For Elliot to suddenly remember. For everyone to automatically believe. But at least it’s something. At least it’s a start.
Joe puts a hand on my back, leading me away. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
I stare at the white sheets of the makeshift tent, moving in the breeze. Joe starts to walk toward the parking lot, where there’s a single officer stationed.
I stop moving, and Joe turns around. “Wait. I need to check on Nolan before we leave,” I tell him.
Joe pauses, his hands in his pockets, looking toward the tent, where they all must be waiting. “He’ll want some time, Kennedy.”
But I think about that, about the time I was in the hospital, when no one came for hours. And then when I was alone in Joe’s house, and still, no one came. All I had was time and space, stretching forever, an endless echo.
“No, Joe,” I say. “You’re wrong.”
Inside that tent is a shadow house, a place of horrors Nolan can only imagine. He’s coming face-to-face with it now; I know he is. All the things that might’ve been. The way his brother might’ve fallen, the way he could’ve twisted. What he might’ve called out as he fell. What Nolan believes he could’ve done to prevent it. The what-ifs will run through his mind, over and over. He will close his eyes, and he will see it.
He won’t notice the rest. The things I shut out for months. The people I didn’t see, right there, on the other side.
“I need to stay,” I tell him. Even if he doesn’t see me yet. “Will you wait for me?”
“Of course, Kennedy.”
As I turn away, Joe calls after me, leans in close so he’s speaking into my ear. “How did you find him? Just between you and me. How did you know where to look?”
I pull back, looking him in the eye. “There were clues in the signal. I told you. It was meant for us.”
I can see it in him, how he wants to believe me. I think he’s trying. I hope it lets him see.
There isn’t enough room at the service. Every seat is taken, and there are people standing around the walls, in a sea of gray and black. So that after, even though people are trying to speak quietly, I still can’t escape the constant buzzing, and I can’t pick any one face from the masses of people here to pay their respects, even two years later.
All these people who missed him. Who miss him.
A shadow has fallen over the house during the last three days, since we found Liam. Since the end.
People have been in and out—police officers, detectives, Agent Lowell—trying to make a case against Mike, all while the news vans have lined the street outside. A new type of chaos. I’ve been asked, over and over, to explain, with my parents sitting beside me. To remember exactly what Mike said to me, what we might be able to use for proof. But their words seem to come through glass, like they’re on the other side of some great divide.
Instead, my mind keeps drifting to that day, over and over. That morning at the sink, with the cut, the drop of blood, the razor clattering.
Why didn’t he tell me? I wasright here.If something was on his mind, why didn’t he just say it?
