Page 84 of Come Find Me
It was Agent Lowell who finally explained, his words cutting through the haze.
“Nolan, I need you to understand, it’s all circumstantial,” he told me yesterday, after my parents left to handle some last-minute arrangements. “We’re holding Mike on an attempted murder charge against you, given your witness statement, alongside Kennedy’s. But is there anything else you can tell us? Something else he said to you about Liam?”
They have no proof. That’s what he was trying to tell me. That all we really have is a statement from me and Kennedy. Everything else is a connection we can see but not prove. The only one who knows for certain what happened that day is Mike.
Mike said Liam didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut, but that’s not true. Whatever was bothering Liam—his hand trembling over the sink—he kept it to himself. He came to the picnic. He must’ve run into Mike there.
We only have what we believe happened after: that Mike took Liam and Colby from the park, brought them to Old Granite Quarry, and pushed Liam over the edge. Then, noticing the video camera, he took the feed from it. And he kept it, for years, until he got word that a developer had bought the land. And then, to save himself, he sent that still-frame photo of Liam to his old girlfriend, Abby, in the hopes of nudging the investigation open again.
If he was trying to pin Liam’s death on me, the photo would have to be sent to someone else. He knew Abby from two years earlier—she had been a big part of the search the first time around.
Mike had worked with my parents in order to keep an eye on any information about Liam that came through. He always knew exactly what was happening in the case.
But they can’t try a case against him on belief alone. They need something solid. Something real.
“Something happened at the shelter,” I told Agent Lowell, but I was sure I’d already said it. We’d been at this for two days, in one form or another, but it all blurred together.
“I know,” he said. “And we’re interviewing everyone we can, taking statements. But there’s been a lot of turnover, and people aren’t always willing to talk.”
Or able to.
I closed my eyes and pictured Kennedy, peering into the bedroom window that night. Or Elliot, jarred from his desk, walking out into the hallway. The way some details stick and others fade; how time slips.
My phone buzzed beside me on the couch. Kennedy, I was sure. Each morning for the last three days, there’s been a message waiting for me. Throughout the day, too. I never know what to reply, how to balance both things: the grief overwhelming everything, alongside the rest. Even though I never respond, the notes keep coming. Little things, just to let me know she’s there. And that one, the one I read with Agent Lowell sitting across from me, said she would be here today. At the service.
—
Every time I think I catch a glimpse of her, the crowd shifts and I lose sight. Every few steps someone else stops me to see how I am, to offer their support, or a memory. It’s the memories, each time, that pull me back. Like they’re giving me something. Something new. Two years later, and a piece of Liam still catches me off guard.
I’m in the middle of a circle of his friends, home from college, when someone steps aside, making space for Abby. Her eyes lock with mine, then drift to the side.
My throat tightens. I remember the last words she spoke to me as well.You are so cruel.I wanted her to be lying. I wanted her to be wrong.
“Abby,” I say, stepping closer, even though it’s crowded. With the number of people around us, talking, it’s almost the same as being alone.
She waves a hand in front of her face. “It’s okay,” she says, like she can tell exactly what I’m trying to say.
I shake my head. “It’s not.”
She looks over her shoulder, to the pictures of Liam up at the front of the room. “No, you’re right,” she says. I can see her throat moving. “I just missed him so much,” she whispers, and it’s like she’s talking about something else. That day in the car, the one we’ve both tried desperately to forget.
“I know. Me too.”
A guy I’ve never seen before places a hand on her shoulder, and she looks up at him. “I’ll just be one moment,” she says, and then the pink rises up her neck.
I watch him go, but he doesn’t make it far. Just waits beside the wall, eyes scanning the crowd. Someone here not for me, or for Liam, but for her. “You have a boyfriend?” I ask. I can’t keep the surprise from my voice. But I don’t know what I expected—for life to just freeze for the rest of us?
She fidgets with her hair. “Yeah, yes. Five months now.”
I nod slowly, and she presses her lips together. “Oh. I mean, that’s good. He looks…” But I don’t know what to say. I don’t know anything about him, other than the fact that he’s not Liam. “I’m glad he came with you.”
“I’m sorry,” she adds, her eyes turning glassy. I want to tell her she doesn’t need to be sorry, that it’s a stupid thing to say to me. But then I think that maybe it’s not meant for me.
“He’d want you to be happy,” I say.
—
After Abby leaves, the crowd thins, and I’ve missed Kennedy. I drive home with my parents, feeling too cramped in the backseat, none of us sure what to say to one another.
