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But within a half hour of that call, everything started to go to hell. Some guys from Rory Jordan’s company came by with Leanne’s car. They didn’t say much, just knocked on the door and handed over the keys, but while I was dealing with them I missed a call from Don Roberts. He left a voice mail. Don and his wife were building a weekend house over near Sugarbush. I’d had a meeting with them, and I’d sent them my quote for the work just the week before. They’d called me after and they’d been excited. We’d talked for nearly an hour. But the Don on the voice mail sounded like a different guy. He sounded angry. The message was short; he just said they’d decided to go in a different direction, then he hung up. I tried calling him, twice, but he didn’t answer. An hour after Don’s message I got an email from the state buildings and general services agency. I’ve had a contract to maintain the grounds of all public schools in the Waitsfield and Waterbury areas for coming up on six years. My contract was due to be renewed in eight weeks, but the agency wrote to tell me that they weren’t going to do it, that they’d be putting the work out for tender. Maybe I might have been able to put that down to coincidence, but the last line of the email said, “Please note that your contract is terminated as of today’s date. You will be paid out the remainder of your contract. Please do not attend any school properties. All licenses and authorities granted to you under your contract of service are hereby revoked.” I checked my other emails and saw two other cancellations.
So then I knew. Craig, my flaky little brother, had seen this coming, and I’d been kidding myself. Real people, people who knew me, now believed I was some kind of animal. All based on what? Some anonymous posts on the internet? I left my cell on the kitchen table and went outside. Rufus followed me. I walked around the yard, taking deep breaths, thinking about what Lee had said about our lives changing forever. I thought about the guys I worked with. My suppliers and my subcontractors. If they hadn’t already heard the rumors, they were going to. Jesus.
It felt like I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs. I’d left my jacket inside, and it was a cold day. I went to the barn and started splitting firewood. I had to do something. I couldn’t just sit or stand around and think about everything. I split logs until I ran out of blocks. Then I started fixing up the barn. Moving bags of cement and sorting scrap lumber. I lost track of time. When I went back into the house it was two o’clock, but Lee was still in bed.
“Aren’t you hungry, baby?”
“Not really.” Her voice was listless, and she didn’t look at me. I went downstairs and found some soup in the freezer. I defrosted it and warmed it up and brought a bowl to her. I had to help her to sit up, and then she looked at the soup like she didn’t even see it. I took the spoon and filled it and raised it to her lips. Her eyes met mine, and some of the blankness left her. She swallowed, and then she took the spoon from me.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
I went downstairs, feeling a little more hopeful. But when I came back to check on her, the bowl of soup was on her bedside table, more than half-full, and she was asleep again. I didn’t know what to do. I kissed her and took the bowl downstairs. I went looking for beer, but there was none in the fridge. No wine either. I poured myself a whiskey and took the bottle to the living room. I turned on the television. I was looking for sports, but I found a special report on Nina and Simon. The sound on the TV was muted, but I didn’t need it to be on to understand what was happening. The channel played a reel of Nina and Simon, culled from their social media and edited. But then the picture shifted, and I saw Simon, at home in his parents’ garden, walking with his head down, looking thoughtful and sad. The picture cut to Rory and Jamie, sitting side by side on the sofa in their living room. He was wearing a navy button-down with an open collar. She was wearing a white silk T-shirt. They looked like good people. They looked concerned. Rory held Jamie’s hand in his as he leaned forward to say something to the interviewer.
I turned up the sound, but the report moved on. This time the interviewer was talking to Cally Gabriel, the principal. She’d had her hair done for the interview and her makeup too. You could tell by the perfect waves and the red, red lips.
“Of course I know Simon and Nina well. Simon was one of our star pupils. Such a bright boy, from a loving family. Simon was very nearly valedictorian of his year, you know. He was a real presence around the school.”
“And Nina?” the interviewer asked.
Cally Gabriel paused. It was a very small hesitation, less than a second, but it was just long enough.
“Nina was very well liked also.”
I put my glass down on the table. My hands wanted to clench into fists. I forced them to relax. They played the clip of Nina pushing Simon into the pool. That fucking clip. The way she laughed. I heard it all the time now, inside my head. The interviewer moved on. This time she was talking to a young girl in a dorm room. I’d never seen the girl before in my life, but she claimed to be Nina’s best friend.
“I’m sure you’ve seen the rumors that have been widely discussed on social media,” the interviewer said, leaning forward and dropping her voice into a cozy, let’s-just-chat register.
“Oh my God, that Simon might have murdered Nina? Everyone’s talking about it.”
“Of course, those rumors are just allegations,” the interviewer said sweetly. “We have no evidence to suggest that they’re true.”
“Well, I can tell you for sure that they’re not true. I know Simon. I saw them together. He loved her. And he’s not the type, anyway. He’s a really gentle guy. That’s what I told the police.”
“Thank you, Olivia,” the interviewer said. “And is it true that you received a message from Nina the night she disappeared, telling you that she was on the way to Boston to see you?”
“That’s right,” Olivia said, eagerly. “But she never got here. I think something happened to her on the road.”
The interviewer turned to the camera. “We spoke to many people in Simon and Nina’s hometown of Waitsfield. Everyone we spoke to who knew them as a couple confirms that they seemed very happy together.” She drew her eyebrows together. “But there are darker rumors swirling around Waitsfield today.”
The picture shifted again. This time the interviewer was outside Mehuron’s supermarket. She was dressed for the weather, and she was holding out a microphone to Arlene Sugarman. Arlene had twin girls the same age as Grace. They used to be friendly but had grown apart over the years. Arlene looked nervous and excited.
“My girls used to stay over at that house all the time. When I heard, I was terrified, of course. What if he’d touched my daughters? It could easily have happened.”
“That’s a very serious allegation.”
“I’m not alleging anything, I’m sure. I don’t want to get sued. I’m just saying what I’ve read. I’m not saying it’s true because I don’t know, do I? But you read something like that online and any responsible parent is going to take action, aren’t they?”
The reporter started to turn away, like she was going to bring the interview to an end, but Arlene wasn’t finished.
“If there wasn’t anything in it, the younger girl wouldn’t have run away too, would she?”
“Excuse me?”
“The younger girl. Grace. She ran away today. Everyone at the school is talking about it.”
The reporter turned to the camera and raised an eyebrow, as if to say there you have it, folks. An exclusive.
