With that, she starts for the hiking trail.
“Wait!” I vault to my feet, almost tipping over my easel in the process. I reach out to steady it. “Mind if I come with you? I forgot something back at the lodge.”
A blatant lie. She must know it, but still she says, “Yeah, sure, wouldn’t want you losing your way.”
“You’re stealing Nicola away, too?” Ros gripes, but Greer simply turns and starts climbing back up the embankment. I follow, but before the pines eclipse the view behind me, I take one final look at the still-empty chair across the circle.
18NICOLA
GREER REMAINS UNCHARACTERISTICALLY SILENTas we walk, probably thinking about what Ros said. It’s all well and good for Ros and Kemy to support the death penalty; their fathers were arrested, tried, and sentenced in states where it’s been abolished. They can only ever consider hypotheticals, whereas Greer’s dealing with the cold, hard reality of having a father whose execution has been scheduled.
Tom Woods only appeared onscreen once inTo Catch a Killer: in his pilot episode interview, arranged through the warden. However, each subsequent episode featured a collect call from Montana State Prison. Watching the show, he seemed nice enough, but we all know how misleading editing can be—and how charming sociopaths can make themselves when they know it’ll benefit them. I couldn’t say how accurately he was portrayed because I never had the chance to talk to him.
I wanted to, though.
He phoned once, while we were working in my kitchen, and I was disappointed when instead of putting him on speaker, Greer made her apologies, then fled upstairs. At first, I attributed my disappointment to missing out on a fleeting brush with fame. What a wild story—to say you’d once talked to Tom Woods, serial killer. ButI quickly realized that wasn’t what interested me. Was it the fact that I wanted Greer to introduce me to her father? To reassure me that I was important enough to warrant that kind of introduction? But no, that wasn’t it, either. So then what was it?
It wasn’t until she’d disappeared, taking her camera crew with her, that I understood. I’d wanted to listen to his voice. Turn up the volume, shut my eyes, and make believe he was right in front of me—the door to his car standing wide open. Would I have trusted him? Would I havelikedhim? Would I have climbed into the passenger seat, the same way Claire had with my father?
Would I have fallen into the same trap she had?
Greer and I veer onto a different trail from the one we hiked down before. “I thought we were going back to the lodge,” I say.
“Do you want to? We can, if that’s what you want.”
I don’t, not really, and so we keep walking until the pines start thinning out. That’s when the lake comes into view. Light catches on the surface, gleaming like a fresh coat of varnish; the choppy texture of the waves makes it look like someone took a palette knife to the water. Greer starts running for the shore.
“Wait!” I call as she shrugs off her jacket. “I don’t have a swimsuit with me.”
She grins before stripping off her T-shirt, revealing a sheer beige bralette underneath. I drop my gaze to avoid staring at her nipples.
“Private property. No swimsuit necessary.”
She unlaces her combat boots, toeing them off before unbuttoning her jeans and pushing those down as well. She hasn’t shaved her bikini line even though it’s summer, but she doesn’t seem to care. Tattoos cover most of her body: two full sleeves from shoulder to wrist, the entirety of her right hip all the way to her pelvis, two panels on the backs of her calves, and while it’s tough to see, a line of something running between her breasts. She takes off for the dock, feet poundingacross the weathered wooden planks, and then she leaps, limbs akimbo, flailing in midair, and splashes into the water.
Her head breaks the surface; she spits out a thin stream of water. Her curls are plastered to her forehead. “You coming?”
I didn’t plan for this, but neither did she if her mismatched underwear is any indication. So I unbuckle my overalls and start stripping. When I’m down to my bra and panties, I gingerly walk the length of the dock. Greer doggy-paddles out into the water before turning around to look at me. I suddenly feel exposed. Fighting the urge to wrap my arms around my flabby stomach, I start to lower myself onto the edge so I can slip into the water a little bit at a time.
“Oh god,” Greer says, “don’t do that. You’ll never get in if you do that.”
“Why?”
“Just jump.”
That means the water’s probably freezing. I think about telling her, “I’m fine here, thanks,” maybe dipping my toes in and leaving it at that, but something about the way she’s watching makes me want to throw caution to the wind. So, I take a few steps backward and run toward the end of the dock. For a moment, I’m airborne, arms stretching out to catch the misty clouds above, before I crash into the water.
The cold knocks the air right out of me, vacuum-sealing my lungs. All I can see is the white froth of bubbles in front of my face as water shoots up my nostrils. I surface, sputtering and hacking, to the sound of Greer’s laughter.
“It gets better,” she reassures me as I wipe the stinging water from my eyes.
“Thanks. Good to know.”
She kicks her legs up until she’s floating on her back, staring at the sky. “Remember the last time we went swimming?”
It was in Ellicott Creek, one of the sections where volunteers regularlyskim the surface free of bottle caps and beer cans. I don’t want to think about that, so instead I say, “I remember the last timeyouwent swimming: that dunk tank at the county fair.”
“And whose fault was that? Almost half an hour up there, and no one managed to knock me off the bench—”
