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I remember his ex-girlfriend Lilith, shaking and fragile as a bird, testifying in court during the trial for Steph’s murder, about how Evan drugged and raped her, stabbed her in the abdomen, and left her to bleed to death. How his parents paid off her parents to get her to drop charges. I sat in the overwarm room, my stomach roiling, head pounding, staring at the back of Evan’s shaved head, realizing that everything my father said about him was true.
Now, heavy in my hand, Evan’s file is thick with complaints from teachers, a record that included grand theft auto, grand theft firearm, prescription fraud.
There’s a file for Barney Shaw, the man who took care of the Handy’s rental property back then. Police looked at him for a time. He had a record for assault, DUI, drunken disorderly. He had been on the property that night, and some thought he might have taken the girls since he was in possession of a large sky-blue van, which had been seen on the property, and then leaving that night. But no evidence was ever found and eventually he was cleared. I heard he died a few years back.
The next file I come across gives me pause. It’s a file for Badger.
“You were a suspect.”
Badger is holding a photograph, staring at it hard.
“Yeah,” he says. “The police had questions for me. Your dad. Detective Barnes.”
He must see the surprise on my face. He shrugs. “My timeline was off, according to them. Witnesses saw me there—or at least my dad’s truck—at a time when I had said I wasn’t. There was a theory that Sam and Ainsley couldn’t have been taken together. They were too athletic and strong, that they must have willingly gotten into the vehicle of their abductor. And they would have only done that with someone they trusted. Me.”
“But Evan drugged me, and Steph. He must have drugged them too.”
“Well, I spent a long night at the station answering questions. So, when Harley Granger says that police didn’t look for other suspects, he’s wrong. They looked. When Evan was still on the run, they thought maybe I’d colluded with him.”
“I don’t remember any of that.”
“You were out of it, Maddie. In the hospital, brutalized.”
I shake my head. That time, he’s right, it’s a blur. Even the night is disjointed and strange. Images without feelings. Feeling without images. Flashes—Evan with Steph, her screams, mine, running, bleeding. It was a fever dream, fractured, a horror show.
There’s one more file in the box. I’m even more surprised to see it than I am to see Badger. It’s a file on his brother Chet. I hold it up.
“And Chet?”
If he’s surprised that his brother was a suspect too, he doesn’t show it. How old was Chet then? Just eighteen months younger than Badger. Badger was nearly eighteen, so Chet was sixteen. Much bigger than his older brother, even then. Badger’s dad was busy with the shop and his mom worked too. So Badger was always responsible for Chet. He was the clown of the group. Badger was always annoyed with him, but we, the girls, all doted on him. He was tender, might randomly take one of our hands. He always wanted to make us laugh—silly jokes and prat falls, jump scares, Badger impressions. He felt like a little brother to us all.
“They looked at everyone whose story didn’t quite jibe with the timeline. Chet said he wasn’t there. But he had snuck in.”
“I never saw him there,” I say.
Badger holds up the picture he has in his hand.
The grainy photo is a selfie from the lake. Right after Evan moved here and before it got too cold to swim. The lake where I jumped from the ledge. In my memory it was just me, Badger, and Evan. But in the photo, it’s all of us. I’m holding the camera, smiling. Steph is vamping in her bikini. Sam and Ainsley in cutoff shorts and bathing suit tops stand with their arms around each other. Badger frowns, his permanent expression, leaning on the boulder. Chet, towering over us all, lingers behind his brother, holding up bunny ears with two fingers and cracking a goofy grin. And there’s Evan, looking somehow apart, elegant in black trunks, hair slicked back.
I know so much about each of us now that I didn’t know then. Steph and Evan were already fooling around. Badger was seething with jealousy. I was in love for the first time. Ainsley and Sam didn’t like Evan, thought he was creepy and weird. We were already spending less time together. In fact, that might have been the last group outing before the party that changed or ended each of our lives.
“Where did he get that photo?” I asked, thinking of my dad compiling all this data.
“Probably from your phone.”
I take my phone out of my pocket now, call up the pictures I took of the maps at Harley Granger’s place. The map of Little Valley and the surrounding towns. All the red dots of the missing women and girls. I show it to Badger, who takes the phone from me and stares a while, zooming in and out.
He’s about to say something when we both hear movement upstairs, a kind of thump, drag.
I freeze and listen; Badger does the same, gazing up at the ceiling. Silence. My father was in bed; no one should be up there. Did I lock the door? Probably not.
Again, a hard thump and a drag.
Badger gets to his feet agile and quick, and I follow him from the basement room, my throat going dry.
I grab a hammer from my dad’s rusty, dusty worktable and it’s heavy in my hand as we creep up the stairs, Badger taking the lead.
Something crashes, glass breaking. We both stop again, listening.
