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“A pickup truck. It was black.” Mitchell squinted into the distance, remembering. “I couldn’t see who was driving. Just taillights. But it stopped for Rhonda Jean. She opened the passenger door and said something, and the person driving responded. I think it was a man.” He shook his head. “I don’t know, really. I don’t remember hearing a woman. But it was a ways up the road, and I couldn’t hear very well. They were too far away. I don’t know what they said.”
“And then what?” Eddie asked.
Mitchell looked like he was going to be sick again. “And then Rhonda Jean got in,” he said. “I remember thinking, okay, that’s okay. She’s got a ride to the bus station. Because, you know, I was worried about her walking in the dark.”
There was another beat of silence. Then Todd said, “It’s not your fault, man.”
But it was. It was everyone’s fault. It was Todd’s for not offering a ride when he was the only one with a vehicle. It was Kay’s because she had never bothered to care. If there was one thing I knew, it was the feeling of carrying someone’s death on your hands. The knowledge that if you could rewind time, you could do something differently and that person would still be alive.
Sometimes you regret it, and sometimes you don’t. But you carry it either way.
There were more questions to be asked, but I let Eddie ask them. I got up and walked out of the cabin.
—
Gretchen was outside one of the tents, rolling up a sleeping bag and tucking it into its cloth sleeve. She had angry tears on her face. A couple of other kids milled about, watching us curiously, but I paid no attention to them.
“Hey,” I said, approaching her. “Are you leaving?”
“Leave me alone,” she snapped, leaning into the tent and pulling out an empty backpack.
I ignored that. “I’m sorry about Rhonda Jean. I liked her. She seemed like a sweet girl.”
“Whatever,” Gretchen said.
I glanced at the beach, where a boy and a girl were kicking a hacky sack back and forth with almost no skill whatsoever. “I want to know about the Lost Girl,” I said.
Gretchen put her backpack down and straightened. Her expression was a painful map of grief, fear, and raw pain. Adulthood, she was learning, completely sucked. I knew how she felt. “Forget it,” she said. “It’s just a stupid story, like Kay said.”
“Who was she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you seen her?”
“No.” Gretchen looked away, her fingers unconsciously touching the end of her braid. “I mean, I don’t think so.”
“What does that mean?”
She watched the kids on the beach and didn’t seem to hear my question. “There was a girl in the seventies, I think,” she said. “She was found by the side of the road on Atticus Line. They never figured out who she was or who had killed her. She was just a hitchhiker. She was—she’d been dead a long time when she was found. No one cared. She’s still on Atticus Line, or at least that’s how the story goes. You can feel her. You can hear her sometimes, calling to you. Or you see a light in the trees.”
I felt cold sweat on my neck. I’d seen that light in the trees, right before we picked up Rhonda Jean.
“That’s how the story goes, anyway.” Gretchen hadn’t noticed my reaction. “It’s one thing to see the lights, or to hear her. But if you actually see her, walking by the side of the road...” She trailed off.
“Then what?” I tried to keep my voice calm. I wanted to shake the answers out of her. I clenched my fists at my sides.
“People die sometimes.” Gretchen wiped at her face. “If you see her, you’ll be the next one found at the side of the road.”
“Do you know the name Katharine O’Connor?” I asked.
The girl shook her head. “Was she one of them? I’ve only been here since May.”
Of course. Everyone here was transient. No one would have been here long enough to know Katharine. “Someone left a memorial to her on the side of the road. Fake flowers with her name on them.”
“She was probably traveling with friends.”
We were both silent for a second, picturing it. Katharine’s friends, leaving a bouquet where her body had been found as they made their last trip to the Coldlake bus station. Whoever they were, they’d been scattered for years now, probably gone back to their lives.
