The Woods
“What did Santiago say about me?”
“He said you lied about something.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know.”
I pushed ahead. “Who did he say it to?”
“A man. I don’t know his name. He also had clippings about you in his apartment.”
“His apartment? I thought you said you didn’t know where he lived.”
“That’s when I didn’t trust you.”
“And you do now?”
She did not reply to that one directly. “Pick me up at the restaurant in one hour,” Raya Singh said, “and I’ll show you where Manolo lived.”
CHAPTER 15
WHEN LUCY CAME BACK TO HER OFFICE, LONNIE WAS there, holding up sheets of paper.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“More of that journal.”
She tried hard not to snap the pages from his hand.
“Did you find Sylvia?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And she went crazy on me and won’t talk.”
Lonnie sat in the chair and threw his feet up on her desk. “You want me to try?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Lonnie gave her the winning smile. “I can be pretty persuasive.”
“You’re willing to put out just to help me?”
“If I must.”
“I would worry so about your reputation.” She sat back, gripping the pages. “Did you read this already?”
“Yep.”
She just nodded and started in for herself:
P broke our embrace and darted toward the scream.
I called after him, but he didn’t stop. Two seconds later, it was like the night had swallowed him whole. I tried to follow. But it was dark. I should have known these woods better than P. This was his first year here.
The screaming voice had been a girl’s. That much I could tell. I trekked through the woods. I didn’t call out anymore. For some reason I was scared to. I wanted to find P, but I didn’t want anyone to know where I was. I know that doesn’t make much sense, but that was how I felt.
I was scared.
There was moonlight. Moonlight in the woods changes the color of everything. It is like one of those poster lights my dad used to have. They called them black lights, even though they were more like purple. They changed the color of everything around them. So did the moon.
So when I finally found P and I saw the strange color on his shirt, I didn’t recognize what it was at first. I couldn’t tell the shade of crimson. It looked more like liquid blue. He looked at me. His eyes were wide.
“We have to go,” he said. “And we can’t tell anyone we were ever out here….”
That was it. Lucy read it two more times. Then she put the story down. Lonnie was watching her.
“So,” he said, dragging out the word, “I assume that you are the narrator of this little tale?”
“What?”
“I’ve been trying to figure this out, Lucy, and I’ve only come up with one possible explanation. You’re the girl in the story. Someone is writing about you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said.
“Come on, Luce. We have tales of incest in that pile, for crying out loud. We aren’t even searching those kids out. Yet you’re all uptight about this scream-in-the-woods story?”
“Let it go, Lonnie.”
He shook his head. “Sorry, sweetie, not my nature. Even if you weren’t superfine and I didn’t want to get in your pants.”
She didn’t bother with a retort.
“I’d like to help if I can.”
“You can’t.”
“I know more than you think.”
Lucy looked up at him.
“What are you talking about?”
“You, uh, you won’t get mad at me?”
She waited.
“I did a little research on you.”
Her stomach dropped, but she kept it off her face.
“Lucy Gold isn’t your real name. You changed it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Come on, Luce. You know how easy it is with a computer?”
She said nothing.
“Something about this journal kept bugging me,” he went on. “This stuff about a camp. I was young, but I remember hearing about the Summer Slasher. So I did a little more research.” He tried to give her the cocky smile. “You should go back to blond.”
“It was a tough time in my life.”
“I can imagine.”
“That’s why I changed my name.”
“Oh, I get that. Your family took a big hit. You wanted to get out from under that.”
“Yes.”
“And now, for some weird reason, it’s coming back.”
She nodded.
“Why?” Lonnie asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I’d like to help.”
“Like I said, I’m not sure how.”
“Can I ask you something?”
She shrugged.
“I did a little digging. You know that the Discovery Channel did a special on the murders a few years ago.”
“I know,” she said.
“They don’t talk about you being there. In the woods that night, I mean.”
She said nothing.
“So what gives?”
“I can’t talk about it.”
“Who is P? It’s Paul Copeland, right? You know he’s a DA or something now.”
She shook her head.
“You’re not making this easy,” he said.
She kept her mouth closed.
“Okay,” he said, standing. “I’ll help anyway.”
“How?”
“Sylvia Potter.”
“What about her?”
“I’ll get her to talk.”
“How?”
Lonnie headed for the door. “I got my ways.”
On the way back to the Indian restaurant, I took a detour and visited Jane’s grave.
I was not sure why. I did not do it that often—maybe three times a year. I don’t really feel my wife’s presence here. Her parents picked out the burial site with Jane. “It means a lot to them,” she’d explained on her deathbed. And it did. It distracted her parents, especially her mother, and made them feel as though they were doing something useful.
I didn’t much care. I was in denial about Jane’s ever dying—even when it got bad, really bad, I still thought she’d somehow pull through. And to me death is death—final, the end, nothing coming after, the finish line, no more. Fancy caskets and well-tended graveyards, even ones as well tended as Jane’s, don’t change that.