“Sure,” I say, though he’s nearly out of the room.
I don’t like this. My chest is tight, and it feels like I can’t take a full breath. For the first time since I’ve known Henry, I’m getting the feeling that he is lying to me.
***
Since two-thirds of the Abbott triplets dismissed me, I’m back at home, staring at the sparkling ocean on my laptop’s home screen. Something about Adam’s reaction to dating Kennedy isn’t sitting right with me. Adam has been known to get heated, to have a temper. But the way he nearly gloated about Dr. Russo’s grave misfortune was so cold it felt almost…inhuman.
Yes, Dr. Russo seems to be an unpleasant man who likely spurreda movement to get the Abbott boys expelled by the school board. But in the wake of Mariana’s accident, most of the town behaved similarly toward the brothers. And besides, Adam never wanted to go back to school. What about Dr. Russo made him react so strongly out in the garden?
Too bad Adam doesn’t seem like he’ll ever willingly answer that question, and most of what I’ve learned about the school board effort has been through word of mouth. That’s not exactly helpful right now.
At a dead end, I decide to go back and read the news stories about Mariana’s case, hoping it will spark something. Hoping it will remind me what I know to be true: Mariana’s death was accidental. Back in the mansion, the tension was completely normal, given the circumstances. The Abbott brothers were not killers then, and they aren’t killers now.
Though I read some of these publications before, back when we were all living through this, it was always from a position of guarded detachment. When journalists began to come after the triplets, I only absorbed what I needed to keep track of the gossip at school. To be on the defense. Now, I need to see what my brain couldn’t handle back then.
The bulk of the early articles feature the tragic accident of a sweet small-town girl. There are a few that focus on Adam, such as “Small-Town Hero Fights for Life as Tragic Car Explosion Leaves One Dead,” and another, titled “High School Football Star Risks It All in Failed Attempt to Save Girl.”
Then, about two weeks after those first articles were published, came the bad stories, the ones that mention how the explosion was caused by an exposed engine wire. I skim a few, refreshing my memory on the details. According to the articles, investigators concluded that the fire originated in the engine, likely a wire that sparked and ignited when Mariana started the car.
They could not, however, say exactly why Mariana failed to escape the vehicle in time. When the fire reached the fuel tank, the entire car exploded with her inside. Police weren’t ruling out foul play. Considering the brothers had been working on the car just minutes before the explosion, the detective on the case had stated that at the very least, they could be facing manslaughter.
The detective added, “At this moment, we have no reason to believe that Adam Abbott’s injuries were caused by anything other than an act of heroism.”
I clench my teeth. By saying this, the detective fed directly into people’s suspicions that Adam’s actionscould’vebeen something other than heroic. I read on to where the Abbotts’ now-retired dentist said, “The Abbott brothers always gave me a bad feeling. Just something about them.”
Real crackerjack journalism. And it’s only outdone by the next source, Dennis Riggs, the mechanic in Alton Woods, one town over from Silver Creek. “Unfortunately, this isn’t the only time the Abbotts have made catastrophic mistakes due to carelessness and insufficient automobile education and training. It’s just the first time the results were fatal. At my shop, every one of our employeesis certified through the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence.” My jaw starts to ache now. Dennis Riggs has been trying to poach auto repair jobs from the Abbotts for the past decade. When this story broke, he was more than happy to talk to journalists and post slander online.
Sebastian Moore, Mariana’s neighbor, then disagreed with Riggs, stating, “That family worked on countless cars for the members of Silver Creek. This was more than carelessness or lack ofeducation; it was sabotage. It was murder.”
My stomach tenses. Why didn’t Mr. and Mrs. Abbott ever sue this article’s author for libel? The article goes on to quote an anonymous source, who said, “Abbott Auto Repair has been bleeding money for years. It’s no surprise the boys would cut corners. Probably learned it from their father. And now, a young girl is dead.”
If this were a physical newspaper, I’d ball it up and throw it at the wall. The boys wouldn’t cut corners. They’re honest and hardworking. But this source’s words catch me off guard for another reason. Before Mariana’s death, the repair shop had been a highly successful operation. That accident and its subsequent rumors were the reason business began to tank. So why would anyone claim the shop has been bleeding money for years?
I click out of the article, making a mental note to ask Henry about it. Eventually, all online publications reach the same conclusion as the detectives—Mariana’s death was a horrible, tragic accident. The engine along with the wiring had sustained far too much damage to find any conclusive evidence of foul play.
I move on to Instagram next, scrolling back to the point when things started to take a turn, typingAdam AbbottandMariana Sanchezinto the search bar. Posts flood my feed, most featuring strangers talking to the camera, rehashing the same baseless rumors; the incident was somewhat of a viral phenomenon, at least in Vermont.
This was a space I avoided a year ago. If the journalism was sketchy, social media was a million times worse. The horrible things anonymous strangers said about my closest friends had me up at night in tears, worried for them. But if something in here can help them now, I have to face it. I narrow down my search by addingmurderinto the bar.
An image pops up at the top of my results—one that turns my stomach.
AdamLast October
“Why did I not die? More miserable than man ever was before, why did I not sink into forgetfulness and rest?… Of what materials was I made, that I could thus resist so many shocks, which, like the turning of the wheel, continually renewed the torture? But I was doomed to live.”
—Frankensteinby Mary Shelley
When Adam awoke at Central Springs Hospital, he learned he’d already been there for three days. He was told that, during the hour-long ambulance ride, he’d gone in and out of consciousness. The burns had penetrated enough layers of skin to put him past the point of pain, so that when his gurney was rolled through the hospital doors, he wasn’t crying or screaming. He only stared up at the ceiling as the medical team swept him into surgery, putting him into an induced coma.
Adam also learned that while he was under, having managed to stave off infection for two days, the team led by Dr. Arnold Russo deemed him ready for skin grafting. Apparently, his brothers had pushed back, wanting to wait for their parents to return from Paris before continuing with surgery; however, Dr. Russo warned them that the risk of mortality increased with every hour they put it off. Healthy skin was taken from other parts of Adam’s bodyand grafted onto the right side of his face and right hand—the areas that had been most affected by the explosion that occurred as Adam opened the door to the burning car and attempted to pull Mariana out.
At least, that’s what everyone assumed those first couple of weeks.
But when Adam woke up, groggy and confused—the pain excruciating now—he had no memory of what had happened the day of the accident. And when his parents and brothers told him about Mariana, it was as though the flames had reached deep inside his chest to scorch his heart.
When his family left the room, Adam looked at his bandaged hand, imagining what lay beneath the gauze. All he knew was that it hurt like hell, but he hadn’t wanted to bring up the pain in front of his parents. His face, including the right eye, was also bandaged, leaving him to wonder if he’d even see out of it again.
His mother had cried when she saw him, her beautiful, active son, bandaged and immobile.
