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November 21, 2018
9:00 a.m.
Marble Lake Staging Area
The heat in the com van is stifling. The silence deafening as Silas’s thoughts ricochet between the past and the present, his mantra nowJessica. Cameron. Jessica. Spencer.
Sheriff Walters looks at him, eyes sharp in his face. Nothing gets past him; Silas knows he’s remembering Jessica’s pendant necklace. Knows he’s drawn the same conclusion as the rest of them.
Across the small space, Santos voices what everyone else is thinking. “It’s her, isn’t it,” he breathes. “It must be.”
The rain pounds above them, deafening on the metal roof, and the temperature in the com van seems to increase by at least ten more degrees as Silas braces for Walters to confirm this.Say her name, just say it,he thinks grimly, even as his own mind is still settled like a rock onCameron.
And then there it is: “Jessica Howard,” Walters says, “after all these years.”
Against the wall, Meg makes a pained sound in the back of her throat. Her gaze seeks out Silas’s, and in it—finally—is the collision of past and present they’ve both been bracing for. The impact threatens to bring Silas to his knees: he sees her at eighteen, in fear and in guilt, and now, here with him again and yet just as impossible to reach. He sees his sons as he saw them just two days before, young and whole, and then cold and alone, this storm howling at their door. Multifaceted tragedy is refracted like light from a prism off every surface of the van, originating with every terrible decision Silas has ever made. Meg, Jessica, Spencer, Cameron, even Danny ... what they all have in common ishim.
“Touch nothing,” Walters barks into the radio to his ground crew, and everything picks up speed again. “Mark the area with evidence tape.” He lowers the receiver to confer with Santos. “The wilderness EMT with Team Eight is thinking a broken neck, the result of a fall, based on preliminary assessment.”
A broken neck.The words come crashing down on Silas like so much rubble, and he suspects that not knowing this missing piece of information may have been the only thing propping up the house of cards that has been his life for the last decade and a half. Hearing the probable cause of death has the finality of a sentencing. But it’s his boys who are paying the price. Right this very minute.
“Please,” he begs Walters. “Cameron. What about Cameron?”
The sheriff nods. “Team Eight has already been released to resume the search.”
It’s something, but it’s not enough. Silas grabs his jacket and turns for the door. “I’m going to help.”
“Wait.”It’s Meg’s voice, and Silas turns back with surprise. He expected further impediment, sure, but not from this corner. He’s about to say as much when the look on her face stops him. She’s visibly troubled as she works through something in her mind, and though learninghow Jessica died must have gutted her as much as it gutted him, Silas can see it’s more than that. Meg has peeled back another layer to all this, and it’s a tragic one. His gut tightens anew.Please, please, not about my boy.
But it’s Danny she addresses. “You know something,” she tells him. “What you just said, outside—”
“What Iknowis about you two!” Danny shoots back, flinging an arm wildly between Meg and Silas. He seems to enjoy the startled look on Silas’s face as this roller coaster of a conversation takes a new and abrupt turn. “Yeah, that’s right. All that summer, you were both plotting together, weren’t you? Hooking up behind my back—”
“That’s crazy,” Silas interjects. Because this cannot be happening. Not right now. “Please,” he implores Danny. “Let’s not do this.” He searches Danny’s face, but instead of reason, or even some shred of sympathy, he sees only deep-seated resentment. He looks for the man—the boy—he knows lurks somewhere behind the cold, confident expression. “Dan, please ... think of my son.”
But Danny’s too far gone. “They were together that night!” he shouts to the com van at large. He looks away from Silas and Meg, like he can’t bear to lay eyes on them. He homes in on Walters instead. “Those footprints you interrogated us about? They weretheirs! Silas’s and Meg’s!”
Silas rocks back on his heels with a moan. Is there a statute of limitations on lies of omission?
Walters scrambles to maintain some semblance of authority, turning his attention to Danny. “How do you know this?”
Meg answers for him, her voice ringing in the metallic space. “Because Jessica told you, didn’t she, Danny? She found you again, on the ridge, didn’t she?”
Danny goes mute.
“The night Jessica died,” she says steadily, eyes never leaving Danny’s face, “Silas and I were together, yes.” There’s an audible intakeof breath—from Darcy, Silas thinks—but Meg doesn’t falter. “Thoseweremy footprints, found during the Howard search. Not Jessica’s.Mine.With Silas’s.”
Tears flow freely down her cheeks upon this confession, and an answering stab of sorrow slices through Silas. “We wanted to be alone together,” she adds, and Silas closes his eyes on the memory. He can still feel the weight of those stones in his palm. “Silas never hurt her, but we knew how it would look, with us—”
“Cheating!” Danny shouts. “You see? It had to have been them!” He sounds more out of control, more immature, than he ever sounded as a teenager. Santos steps in, ready to grab Danny by the shoulders should he advance any farther toward Meg in the tiny space, but Danny doesn’t even seem to notice.
Walters remains stoic, poker face in place. “But by your own admission, this happened nowhere near where Jessica has just been found.” He consults the topographical map. “The footprints in 2003 were near the trail between the ridge and the lodge,” he confirms.
“Even if that’s true,” Danny insists, pushing forward to grab the map himself, “he had time to get to the cliff and push her off!” His finger beats a staccato drumbeat on the topographical lines indicating the ravine. His nail pulses pink with each jab, he’s hitting the desk with such vigor. “He was young”—jab!—“and fast”—jab!—“and he could easily have been in Meg’s pants one minute and shoving Jessica the next!”
A second wave of silence greets this outburst, and in this vacuum of reaction it’s entirely possible it is Danny himself who realizes the gravity of his error first. His face goes from red with fury to white with fear in an instant.
Walters breaks the silence first. “No one told you Jessica’s body was found in a ravine,” he says carefully, his tone so icy Silas shivers. Across from him, Meg just looks numb. “Let alone this exact geographical waypoint.” He punctures each point with his own jab at the map. “You were outside, as I recall, when the rappelling team called in.” He turns to hiscolleagues, who nod in agreement, Santos first, then Darcy. “Explain yourself,” Walters orders.
