I examine the inside of my wrist. A rough, triangular patch of scar tissue marks where my dad once stamped it with a steam iron. I could hack through with a little effort. Hack through, right down to the vein, and that motherfucker would never be able to trap me again. The nail tip settles against my skin. It should be easy, and yet, my skin might as well be made out of steel for all I can bring myself to puncture it. I’m not a coward. I’m not afraid to die or anything; I just don’t want to go out like this.
Instead, I dig the nail into the nearest plank and start carving out my name. If anyone comes across this shack, and I’m, well, not here anymore, I want them to know that I once was. I’m just finishingSTEFFANIwhen a new sound fills the shack.
Metal scratching on metal.
And then something clanking to the ground. The chain. He’s opened the padlock, and the chain’s slipped off the door.
He’s out there. As I struggle upright, the floor tilts under my feet. Whatever he drugged me with hasn’t worked its way out of my system yet, which means fighting back will be tough, but I still palm that nail. It’s not much, but you know what? Fuck it. Everybody has a throat.
The door slowly creaks open. I get ready to charge him. Slam that nail straight through his jugular.
But as soon as he steps into the cabin, I forget all about escaping. Instead, a single thought blasts through my mind like the raw chill from a walk-in freezer:
That isn’t my father.
20NICOLA
“WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?”
We’re all standing around Zach’s body. A wool blanket has been draped over him—out of respect, yes, but also so no one’s forced to see what happened to him.
“We need to call the police,” I say, then to Connor: “You can make phone calls from your tablet, right? The nearest town isn’t that far away. If we call them now, they should be here in, what, a few hours? A few of us should stay here, with him, and the others should head back to the lodge, to meet them when they—”
“We can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
“Call the police.”
I expect the others to look just as confused as I am, but instead, they fiddle with their jackets, scratch their sneakers across the dirt, refuse to meet my eyes. “What do you mean? He’s dead.”
“And calling the police won’t make him any less dead,” Ros says.
I wait for someone to disagree, to protest that this—what she’s suggesting—is an actual crime, but no one does. “No,” I insist. “No, the medical examiner needs to look at him. The police need to open an investigation—”
“They don’t, Nic,” Greer says. Greer Woods: a licensed attorney who should know that concealing a crime could get her disbarred right before her father’s hearing. Jesus, has everyone here lost their minds?
“He’s been murdered!”
“He hasn’t.” Connor peels down the blanket. I force myself to watch, but Hannah, I notice, scrunches her eyes closed, and Ros peers over her shoulder toward the woods. “I’m not an expert,” he continues, “but I think it’s fairly obvious what happened here.” He roots around inside Zach’s jacket pockets. The left one’s empty, but in the right is a plastic baggie full of pills. He fishes one out, examines it. “OxyContin. He’s still wearing all his clothes; doesn’t look like he intended on taking a late-night swim.” He angles Zach’s head slightly, enough for me to catch the large gash on his scalp. “He was probably under the influence, stumbled off the dock, and knocked himself unconscious on the way down.”
“Are you serious?” I gesture to the bone-deep cuts across his face. “You’re trying to tell methosewere accidents?”
“They’re probably from the rocks at the bottom of the lake,” Greer says. “I’ve worked cases where bodies were discovered in water. It’s not uncommon for them to be all sliced up. Water’s not as gentle as you’d think.”
“So, he wasn’t…”
She shakes her head. Could she be right? It’s impossible not to catalogue the similarities between him and Claire; he looks just like the photos taken of her in the morgue. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he was murdered. If he mixed alcohol and opioids, then came out here alone, like they’re suggesting, he could’ve drowned. Maybe. Possibly. But even if that’s what happened, it doesn’t change the fact that we need to notify law enforcement.
“We still need to call someone. His family will be wondering what happened to him.”
Kemy shakes her head, but Greer’s the one who answers: “He doesn’t have anyone left, and besides,wewere his family. We were the ones who understood him, who cared about him. Even at his lowest, he still made the decision to come to this retreat. Hell, maybe he…” She glances back at the lake, at the ripples ghosting across its surface. “Maybe he knew what he was doing last night. Maybe he wanted to choose how he went out, and he knew there was nowhere better for it than right here.”
“And that’s why he should be buried on the property,” Ros adds. “We can do that for him. We don’t have to call anyone.”
Perhaps it’s Ros’s insistence, the frantic edge to her voice, that finally clicks everything into place. These club members have managed to keep their identities secret, but the moment the press catches wind of what happened—DEATH AT SERIAL KILLER KIDS’ CLUB—there will be no stopping them. Their names, their faces, will be uploaded to thousands of true crime websites. I think about Ros’s youngest daughter, grumpy in her cotton-ball sheep costume. About how giddily cruel my community was after discovering the truth about my father. Would it be the same for her? Would she stop getting invited to slumber parties, be struck from the chorus of the school musical?
Sometimes there’s no right choice to be made. If I stand firm on calling the police, I’ll be putting their futures, their families, in jeopardy. If I back down, that means betraying Zach. I try viewing my memories from that night through this new lens: Zach, sitting alone in the dark, all those empty bottles scattered across the table. He could’ve been suicidal—or, at least, there’s enough evidence to make the case that he was. Enough evidence for me to look the other way, without feeling too guilty.
