Tess Sharpe - Far From You

I hang up, staring down at the phone, my suspicion confirmed.

“I was right, wasn’t I?” Rachel asks. “Jackie was pregnant.”

“Margaret Chase is an adoption counselor,” I say. “And in Mina’s interview with Matt, she asked about his and Jackie’s sex life. He got all offended.”

“Okay…” Rachel says, sitting down on the edge of one of the raised beds, gesturing for me to join her. I take the bed across from her, sitting on the ground with my back against the wood for support instead of trying to balance. “Let’s think about this. Say Jackie gets pregnant.…”

“And she wants to give the baby up for adoption,” I continue, looking down at Margaret Chase’s card. “She’s got college. She couldn’t play soccer with a baby. So, she tells Matt—and what then?”

“A few possibilities,” Rachel says. “Matt could have wanted her to get an abortion. She refuses, so he kills her. Though that seems kind of extreme, especially if she was gonna give the baby up. But a seventeen-year-old with a burgeoning drug problem probably doesn’t want a baby around. And he’s probably not making the most rational decisions.”

“What if he did want the baby, though?” I look down at the two notes sitting in the baggie in front of me. At the way the most important people in Mina’s life are there in black and white, a threat to the heart of her. The only kind that would’ve gotten her to really back off. “Family’s important. And Matt’s dad walked out on him and Adam. Maybe he freaked at the idea of giving the baby to strangers. Killing Jackie might not have been planned. It could’ve been an accident. They could’ve fought about the baby and things got out of hand. He pushed her and she hit her head or something like that.”

“Is he an angry guy? What was he like today when you talked to him?” Rachel asks.

“He seemed…tired,” I say. “Sad. He said that he believes Jackie’s still alive.”

Rachel raises an eyebrow.

“I wish I’d known all this stuff before I talked to him.” I look down at my phone. It’s almost six thirty.

I think about Matt in his apartment this morning, holding on to the six-month chip like it was a lifeline. David had given me a schedule of Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and I’d reluctantly keyed them into my phone’s calendar. I pull it up. The Wednesday meeting is at the Methodist church—it’ll be ending soon. I bet anything he’s there right now. Even if he’s using again, he might go just to keep up appearances.

“Hey,” I say to Rachel. “Want to take a drive?”

The meeting is letting out when Rachel and I pull into the church parking lot. People walk down the steps, mingling at the bottom, a few pulling out cigarettes as they chat.

“Stay close, okay?” I ask her. I’ll need some backup in case it gets ugly.

“Stick around where I can see you,” Rachel counters.

“Deal. Be right back.”

“Remember: subtlety!” she calls after me.

There’s a tall man with his back to me talking to Matt as I approach. When I get to the steps, I realize it’s his uncle. I remember what Adam had said, about family having to make sure Matt went to meetings. I can’t imagine it, sharing like that, and letting your family listen.

“Sophie.” Coach smiles at me. “Your dad is so happy to have you back. How are you feeling?”

“Hi, Coach, Matt.” I look up at the church. “I’m doing good. Feeling kind of stupid right now—I must’ve misread the meeting time. I thought it said seven.”

“No, it starts at six,” Matt says.

Coach’s cell phone rings. “I’ve got to get that,” he says, squeezing Matt’s shoulder. “Good job today,” he says in an undertone. “Sophie, it was great seeing you. Tell your dad I’ll get back to him about the game next Thursday.”

“I will,” I say as he steps away toward the parking lot to take his call.

Matt smiles down at me. “I’m sorry you missed the meeting, but there’s another one tomorrow at the Elks Lodge.”

If I were Mina, I’d smile back and twirl my hair. I’d ask innocuous questions, make him feel comfortable, lull him into my net.

But my edges are too sharp. I want this done.

“I’m actually not here for a meeting. I’m here to ask you if you got Jackie pregnant.”

Matt’s smile vanishes, along with most of the color in his face. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Look, I could be all nice like earlier, dodging around the questions, but you’re a tweeker. Lying is what you do. So—you…Jackie. Did you get her pregnant?”

I stare hard at his face, trying to see the answer in it because I know his words won’t tell me. But there’s only fury pulsing off him. He looks over his shoulder, where his uncle is standing just out of hearing distance.

“You need to get the hell out of here.” He steps toward me when he says it, and I hear a car horn blast from the parking lot—Rachel letting me know she has my back.

“Was Detective James right?” I ask, never taking my eyes away from him. He won’t meet them, and his shoulders shake underneath the baggy polo he’s wearing. “Did you do it? Did you take her? Kill her? Was the baby why?”

“You are so out of line,” he says. “Get out of here.”

“Or what?” I ask. “Are you going to hit me in the head with a piece of rebar again? Try to finish me off this time?”

He backs hastily away from me, all the fight suddenly gone. “You’re a crazy bitch,” he says. “And you need to leave me the hell alone.”

He stalks down the steps toward Coach Rob, and I stare at his retreating back, at the line of his shoulders, trying, trying to recognize something from that night—something, anything in the way he walks or sounds. Rachel comes running up to me, breathing hard.

“Are you okay? What happened?” she asks.

I keep staring after Matt until he turns the corner. “I wasn’t subtle,” I say.

ONE YEAR AGO (SIXTEEN YEARS OLD)

“Why are you so late?” Mina demands as I get out of my car. She’s perched in the back of Trev’s truck on a plaid blanket she’s spread carefully over the peeling paint. Her legs swing off the edge of the tailgate, a daisy flip-flop dangling from her foot. In front of us, the lake stretches out for miles, nothing but blue water reflecting sky and mountains. The sun’s starting to fade, and we have at least a half hour before the fireworks begin.

I get the plastic bag I’ve stashed in my backseat. “Fourth of July traffic,” I say. “Is Trev here?”

“No, I borrowed the truck,” Mina says. “What’s in the bag?” She makes a grab for it, and I step back so she can’t get it. She pouts, her strawberry-red lips sticking out. “Mean.”

I just smile and set the bag out of her reach before boosting myself up beside her.

Mina sinks down, lying on her back in the truck bed, and I follow suit. We pass a bottle of Boone’s Farm back and forth, the fruity sweetness clinging to the back of my throat as Mina traces clouds with her fingers, rings glimmering in the dying sun. She describes shapes to me, each more fantastic than the next.

“Soph, do you ever think about what’s going to happen when we leave?” she asks.

I tilt my head to the right so I can look at her. My hair and hers, blond and brown, are twined together on the blanket, and she’s careful not to meet my eyes.

“You mean for college and stuff?”

Mina nods, still staring up at the darkening sky. The crickets are starting to sing, and their chirps echo across the water, blending with the frogs and some distant laughter from a houseboat out past the harbor.

“It’ll be weird, right?” Mina asks. “Not to see each other?” When I don’t answer, she turns to look at me, rolling from her back to her side, our faces inches apart. “Won’t it be?”

“I don’t like thinking about it,” I say.

Mina bites her lip; I’m close enough that I can smell the strawberry gloss. “Sometimes it’s all I think about,” she says, so quiet I almost don’t hear her. She sighs and reaches out, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. Her hand lingers for a moment on my skin, settling into the little crook under my jaw where my pulse thumps.

There’s a pop-pop-pop in the air, breaking the spell. Sparks light up the night sky in a dazzling cascade of red, white, and blue. The reflection of the fireworks on the water stretches out until it feels like we’re surrounded by light.

“It’s starting!” Mina sits straight up and hops out of the truck, clapping her hands like a kid, and I smile as she watches the show, as transfixed as I am by her.

After the final firework has been shot off, the night settling into hints of smoke and ash, Mina stands there, eyes fixed on the sky, waiting, like there’ll be one more just for her.

While her attention is on the sky, I reach back and pull out the plastic bag I stashed earlier. When she turns around, I’m sitting on the edge of the tailgate, a lit sparkler in hand, my offering to her.

She beams at me, and I beam back.

Instead of taking it, she wraps both hands around mine, and we stay there, me sitting on the tailgate and her standing in front of me, the sparkler showering light between us, popping and hissing in the air. Shadows play across her face, the light illuminating her in fits and starts, and I’ve never felt more sure, and she’s never looked more beautiful.

Long after the sparkler’s fizzled out, Mina’s ash-smeared hands hold mine between her palms.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she whispers.

I hook my thumb around hers, and our matching rings click against each other, the unspoken promise of forever…someday.

NOW (JUNE)

When I get home, I page through Mina’s notes, trying to find any mention of Jackie’s possible pregnancy. But either she hadn’t had the time to write it down or she hadn’t finished figuring it out, because there’s nothing in the time line or her notes to suggest she even suspected it.

I close my laptop after I’ve searched all the files. I’m almost positive an unplanned pregnancy is the reason Jackie disappeared. I wish it were July, so Margaret Chase was back from vacation. I don’t have much hope that she’ll confirm my suspicions—­there are rules about sharing that kind of stuff—but maybe if I go into the clinic and talk to her, I’d be able to tell from her reaction. Just to be sure.

“Sophie?” My mom taps on my door before opening it.

I jerk in surprise, and the notebook in my lap falls to the floor. “Yeah?”

“Just checking on you. I made dinner, if you want some.”

“Thanks, but I already ate.”

“With Trev?” she asks.

“No, I went to Angry Burger with Rachel.”

“Your father said Trev was here earlier.”

“He dropped me off after we were done hanging out,” I say, and her lips pinch together.

“I see. Well, then, good night.”

“Night.”

As the door closes behind her, I open the notebook in my lap again. The plastic bag containing the warning notes is pressed between the pages.

I’m scraping up on the edges of something…something that will make all this clear. It buzzes underneath my skin, makes me want to pace, to keep moving, forward, upward, no matter what.

Is this how she felt? This tantalizing reach for answers that had her addicted and reckless?

I can almost understand it. It’s just another kind of high.

I press my hand over the notes, safely enclosed in the plastic. What would Detective James do if I brought them to him now? Would he think I wrote them myself? Would he laugh in my face?

Tomorrow, I have to ask Trev what we should do. After we talk to Amy Dennings. Maybe it’ll be enough, the threats coupled with Mina’s notes about the case. Detective James would have to listen to Trev. He’ll have to pay attention to new evidence, even if it messes with his drug deal theory. And he’d worked Jackie’s case—he might be able to draw connections that none of us could see.

I close the notebook, tucking it carefully in my desk drawer before shutting off my light.

I sleep, but all I dream about is chasing after Mina, her laughing, and me never quite catching up.

The next day, I drive to the soccer field at quarter to six and sit on the hood of my car, waiting for Trev. He shows up five minutes later, and we walk across the wide green lawn, the summer sun beating down on our shoulders. The girls are still out on the field, with some parents watching on the sidelines as Coach paces, shouting encouragement or correction.