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If you had told me a year earlier—heck, a month earlier—that something like this could happen to us, in this place, I would have thought you were crazy. I would have felt sorry for you, thinking that you’d never been a part of a community like ours. Little Valley was a peaceful place.
In the course of my interviews, this was a sentiment that I heard echoed again and again. That Little Valley was a good, safe place, somehow set apart from the rest of the world and all its crime, injustice, and unhappiness.
No one I have talked to has ever said similarly kind things about Evan Handy.
Harley drifts off to sleep thinking of Madeline Martin and the scar on her face.
5
That lake water was so cold and so deep. From the surface, it looked glittering and clear, the minerals from the granite in the lakebed turning the water to an inviting sea-glass green. But underneath it was silty, almost no visibility, light coming from above turning murky and strange, and everything below just a shadow. When I finally broke the surface, Evan was already up, smiling broadly.
“You did it. I didn’t think you would.”
I tried to think of something witty to say, but I was always tongue-tied with him.
“I was wrong about you,” he said. “You’re not fearless. You’re brave.”
He reached out a hand to push the wet hair away from my eyes. With Evan, I felt seen in a way I maybe hadn’t before. I had always just been Madeline Martin, the Sheriff’s kid. The skinny bookworm. That’s the thing about growing up in a small town; people rarely update the version of you they carry in their minds. I felt like Evan was seeing a version of me that even I didn’t recognize.
I looked back up to the ledge which seemed so high. Impossibly high. How had I done it? Badger stood, just a stick figure against the green. Would he jump? No. Even from the distance I could see that disapproving shake of his head. Then, he disappeared into the tree cover. He might leave us here. Ever since we were little, he was likely to get mad and go home when things didn’t go his way. The walk back to town would be long. I started swimming for the shore.
Evan looked up, breathless from treading water. “Your boyfriend is a tool.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said too quickly.
“Then what is he?” asked Evan, following me through the cold water. All around us the trees whispered in the breeze. The water was frigid, summer just a memory, lapping lazily against the shore.
“My friend,” I said. “My best friend.”
“Well, your best friend is a tool.”
My silence was a kind of betrayal; I knew that. But Badgerhadbeen acting like a jerk, ever since I started hanging out with Evan, invited him to some of our things—the lake, Friday night ice cream, Sunday matinee—things that we did with Steph, Ainsley, and Sam.The group, known to each other since kindergarten, four girls, one boy. All raised within a stone’s throw of one another—going to school together, riding bikes all summer, climbing trees, playing hide-and-seek and kickball in the road until our moms called us in for dinner. We’d grown apart some in high school—Ainsley and Sam, superjocks, always traveling with their field hockey team, while Badger and I were more artsy. He was into his cars; I had my writing. Steph had been getting into some trouble, hanging out with older kids from the community college. But we were still cool, hung out every so often. No drama between us or anything.
Later, after everything, Badger would tell me what the other girls at school were already saying about Evan, that back where he came from, he’d hurt someone. Badly. That if his family hadn’t been filthy rich, he’d have gone to jail.
“Why didn’t you tell me that—before?” I asked him.
“Would you have listened?”
“I’ll never know, will I?”
But maybe I wouldn’t have. Evan—I don’t know. It’s as if he emanated some type of odor, some energy, that drew me in and held me fast. He was a flower, and I was an insect drawn to him by my biology, instinct not intelligence.
Shivering on shore, I headed back to the path that would lead us up to the ledge. But Evan grabbed my wrist, and when I spun around, he pulled me in.
“You’re—beautiful,” he whispered. No one had ever said that to me.
And then his lips were on mine, warm even though we were freezing, his arm snaking around my waist pulling my body against his. I drowned in that kiss.
Now, the store’s entry bell rings and Mrs. Miller walks in, groaning as if the door is very heavy, which it is not. Mrs. Miller likes cozies, bloodless mysteries featuring cats, quirky bed-and-breakfast owners, or retired detectives drawn back to that haunting cold case. She knows everything there is to know about Agatha Christie and has read each of her sixty-six books and fourteen short-story collections multiple times. Shedoes notlike the retelling of Christie stories by contemporary writers. In fact, they make her angry.Some things were done right the first time and don’t need revision.
I have a stack of books for her behind the counter, novels I ordered especially for her. I put the stack on the counter.
“Good morning,” I say, trying for a cheerfulness I am not feeling. Harley’s visit, my father, my internet trawling last night, are all tugging me in different mental directions.
