since the night Charlene disappeared. The thing she couldn’t quite remember.
A few days before Sarah disappeared, Maggie had stayed late after school to work on the yearbook. A senior girl on the project, Crystal James, someone her mother approved of, was supposed to give her a ride home. But as Maggie waited by the entrance to the building, the dusk deepened and Crystal was nowhere to be seen. Maggie walked around the back of the school to the parking lot, wondering if Crystal was waiting for her there. She came around the building to hear raised voices. Some boys had gathered around the bus yard where Tommy Delano was working.
She’d seen it too many times. It angered her, and she walked over to the group. Even now she couldn’t remember who it was-maybe Dennis and Larry, possibly Greg.
“Stop it, you guys. Just cut it out.” Her voice sounded weak and insubstantial, not at all strong and commanding like her mother’s voice.
The boys turned, ready to fling insults in her direction by the looks on their faces. But when they saw it was her, they all went quiet. There were some benefits to being the principal’s daughter.
“We’re just playing around, Maggie.”
“It’s not funny,” she said. She felt embarrassed suddenly, with so many eyes on her. “Go home.”
She remembered the look on Tommy Delano’s face, a kind of sheepish gratitude, and something else. After the boys had walked off, she stood awkwardly, looking into the distance for Crystal’s car, a yellow Volkswagen Bug.
“Thanks,” he said. “Thanks a lot. You’re a really nice girl. A lot like your mom.”
She bristled a little at that but knew he meant it as a compliment. “They shouldn’t hassle you,” she said. “It’s not cool.”
“I’m used to it.”
She turned to look at him, and something about the expression on his face made her back away. There was something needy and strange about his energy, and she felt uncomfortable being alone with him, even though a chain-link fence stood between them.
“What are you doing here so late?” he asked, moving closer to the fence.
“I’m waiting for Crystal.”
“I saw her leave a while ago,” he said, lacing his fingers into the fence. “Maybe she forgot she was supposed to give you a ride?”
Maggie felt her heart start to thump, for no reason she could name.
“I could give you a lift home, Maggie. I’m just finishing up here.” His tone was sweet and mild, but every nerve ending in her body started to tingle.
“I’ll just call my mom.”
He gave a nonchalant shrug that didn’t come off. “Your mom used to drive me home all the time when I went to school.”
“She did?”
Maggie relaxed a little then. If her mom liked Tommy Delano, he was probably okay. She couldn’t remember ever hearing her talk about him.
“Hey, Maggie.”
She looked over to see Travis Crosby in his beat-up old Dodge that was always breaking down.
“I just passed Crystal on Old Farmers Road.” He had his arm out the window. “Her car is dead. She was worried sick that you were standing here in the dark. She wanted me to drive you home.”
She didn’t even think about it for a second, started jogging toward his car.
“Thanks anyway, Tommy,” she called behind her.
She wasn’t allowed to ride in cars with boys, and her mother did
“Don’t worry,” Travis said as she got in the car. “I won’t tell your mom.”
“Thanks,” she said, surprised at her breathless relief to be away from Tommy.
“You shouldn’t be talking to that guy. He’s a weirdo, you know. He killed his mother.”
“That’s just a rumor,” she said, looking back. Tommy was still leaning on the fence looking after her.
“No,” said Travis. “It’s true. My dad told me. He pushed her down the stairs and sat on the top step to watch her die.”
Maggie felt a shudder move through her. Travis reached over and cranked the heat. “It’s still cold,” he said. “It doesn’t feel like spring.”
“No,” she said. “It doesn’t.”
Then, “Thanks for the ride, Travis.”
“No problem. Crystal is hot; maybe she’ll like me now.” He gave her a goofy smile, and she laughed. She remembered the smell of his cologne; Polo was what all the jocks wore then. She remembered the song on the radio, “Angel in Blue” by the J. Geils Band. There was a can of Pepsi wedged in between the seats; she could hear the liquid swishing around as the car moved.
“You’re a dog, Travis.”
“Bow, wow, wow,” he said.
They chatted all the way home, and she forgot that moment with Tommy Delano. Even in the days and weeks that followed, she didn’t think about that conversation with him again. It was buried deep, not available for examination until now. What would have happened to her if she had taken that ride home? Or if he hadn’t been in prison a few weeks later and died there? Tommy Delano had written to Eloise that he couldn’t have kept his appetites at bay much longer. How long would he have served for mutilating and violating the dead body of a girl if the whole truth of that night had been revealed? Would he have been out roaming The Hollows again while she still lived there?
As Travis pulled into her drive, the bottom of the car ground against the steep incline where the paved surface met the road. There was the unpleasant sound of metal on concrete, and then the car sputtered and died. Maggie and Travis exchanged a look.
“Shit,” he said.
They both looked toward the house to see Elizabeth standing in the doorway and then stepping onto the porch. Travis tried to start the car, but there was only a sad coughing noise. Elizabeth approached, arms folded around her middle, a scowl on her face.
“You’re dead,” said Travis. “Sorry.”
Maggie got out of the car, and Travis rolled down the window, both of them talking over each other to explain.
“Into the house, Maggie.”
“But, Mom-”
“Now, please.”
“Crystal’s car broke down,” she said. Maggie remembered that rush of angry frustration. It was something she still often felt with her mother, at Elizabeth’s unwillingness to listen, at her occasional arrogance.
“You don’t know how to use a phone?” Elizabeth asked. A question that didn’t require an answer. “Now, go. I’ll deal with you in a minute.”
There was no way to explain the energy of that moment with Tommy Delano, how she would have gotten into anyone’s car just to be away from him. She tried to explain to her later, but Elizabeth wasn’t listening, as usual, thought Maggie was just making excuses for breaking the rules. Her punishment was no television for a week.
“I expect more from you, Maggie.”
Now, as she sat in her office, all those feelings crashed over her, one wave after another, as though days, not decades, had passed. The implications were enormous, but at the same time almost too nebulous to contemplate. Maggie had always suffered through worry. Even as a kid, she’d fret about exams and projects, this or that drama at school. She’d turn problems-hers and others’-over and over in her mind. As an adult she was prone to a random dark dread, the occasional but powerful feeling of foreboding. It would wake her up at night sometimes, keep her wandering the house in the wee hours. She remembered her father’s advice as clearly as Elizabeth did, how he’d sit beside her on the bed and put his hand on her forehead, gently admonishing against worry.
But she knew that it was impossible to live a life that way. It was all woven together in one great tapestry-the
