Only The Trees Know, page 1
Only The Trees Know
Heather Hansen
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2024 by Heather Hansen
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Book cover design by Elizabeth Mackey
Created with Vellum
Contents
Only The Trees Know
Chapter 1
THEN…
Chapter 2
NOW…
Chapter 3
THEN…
Chapter 4
NOW…
Chapter 5
THEN…
Chapter 6
NOW…
Chapter 7
THEN…
Chapter 8
NOW…
Chapter 9
THEN…
Chapter 10
NOW…
Chapter 11
THEN…
Chapter 12
NOW…
Chapter 13
THEN…
Chapter 14
NOW…
Chapter 15
THEN…
Chapter 16
NOW…
Chapter 17
THEN…
Chapter 18
NOW…
Chapter 19
THEN…
Chapter 20
NOW…
Chapter 21
THEN…
Chapter 22
NOW…
Chapter 23
THEN…
Chapter 24
NOW…
Chapter 25
THEN…
Chapter 26
NOW…
Chapter 27
THEN…
Chapter 28
NOW…
Chapter 29
THEN…
Chapter 30
NOW…
Chapter 31
BEFORE THEN…
Chapter 32
NOW…
Chapter 33
THEN…
Chapter 34
NOW…
Chapter 35
THEN….
Chapter 36
NOW…
Chapter 37
THEN…
Chapter 38
NOW…
Chapter 39
DURING THEN…
Chapter 40
NOW…
Chapter 41
THEN…
Also by Heather Hansen
About the Author
Four went in, one came out.
It was meant to be their last hurrah. Four friends spend their senior Spring Break of high school hiking the Yosemite forest. Alone for one week where they can prove that, despite their cracked relationships, they’re still a team. And maybe recapture some of the magic that brought them together in the first place.
But something went wrong.
One by one they’re murdered, until only one survivor emerges from the forest. He says he’s innocent. The evidence says he’s not.
Now he’s on trial for the deaths of his friends, fighting for his life and freedom. It doesn’t matter that he loved them fiercely, one as a friend, one as an ex, and one that still tangles his soul. The only thing that matters is his final words weren’t “I love you,” they were “I’m sorry.”
Told from past/present perspective, ONLY THE TREES KNOW is a story of untangling friendships: lies, misunderstandings, broken promises, and twisted love.
Triggers include: child abuse, implied SA, self-harm, violence, mental illness, drug use, alcohol abuse, suicidal ideations, and homophobia.
For my son, who inspires me to try for the impossible. There is no greater gift than to be your mom.
Chapter One
THEN…
IN THE FOREST
The cloying sweet, pungent tang of copper hung in the air. Until that moment I hadn’t realized blood had a smell. Now I’d never forget. It would be forever imprinted on my soul, just like the boy it spilled from.
“Josiah, don’t—” Liam whispered as blood gurgled from his mouth. It stained his skin making his lips shiny. His hand weakly gripped mine.
I squeezed it with reassurance and lied, “It’s going to be okay. I won’t leave you.”
The red, tacky fluid was everywhere. It coated my hands where I pressed against the cool skin of Liam’s chest and slipped between our woven fingers. I couldn’t stop the flow, no matter how hard I pushed against him. There were too many injuries. His body was an open, gaping wound. I wore more of Liam’s blood than could possibly be inside his body. The ground was wet with it. A river of life soaked up by the parched earth.
Tears dripped from my eyes to my mouth as I sobbed. Licking my cracked lips, the salt tasted bitter on my tongue. My hands shook as I hiccupped and wheezed while my body convulsed, not able to stop the tremors.
No, no, no, this wasn’t happening.
I couldn’t fully acknowledge that Liam was dying and that this was the last time I’d speak with him. It seemed too dreamlike, as if I were a spectator and this horror was happening to someone else. I could see the blood, feel it wet and sticky between my fingers, and yet I refused to accept that this was real.
Liam made desperate little gasps, inhaling shallowly, exhaling rapidly. Still alive, though he stared unblinking at the open blue sky. Could he still hear me? I wanted to keep spinning pretty stories of comfort. Even when I knew that any reassurance I offered at this point was for myself.
Leaning down, I pressed my mouth close to his ear and whispered, “We’ll get help. It’s gonna be okay.” Even I didn’t believe my own words as the lie slipped easily from my mouth. If what he needed was a promise from me, then so be it. I needed it too.
Liam had changed my life. I’d never be the same after him. I understood the impact of our friendship, maybe for the first time. How was my life supposed to move forward without him?
“I love you.” I whispered my truth so that he’d know. If I hadn’t been so blinded by my own shit, I would have told him before. All he had ever wanted was my love. I’d been stubborn to refuse him that one tiny thing.
The woods rustled to my left. A snap of a branch crunching under foot and the swish of leaves being pushed aside. The sounds alerted me that my time was nearly up.
Still hunched awkwardly over Liam, I brushed my lips to his mouth, allowing myself one last taste of him. I tried to forget that someone or something lurked just beyond the brush. Instead I forced myself to stay when I wanted to run and hide. It was hard to keep still. The need to protect myself screamed inside me colliding with the reality playing out in front of me. For a moment I considered living in the forest forever where I’d never have to face what had happened.
I gripped Liam tighter, needing to stay until he took his last breath. It was devastating to realize now how much he meant to me. That we were meant to be together. If I’d known before, would he be lying here dying? That I couldn’t answer. Didn’t want to answer. Refused to even think about the possibility.
Instead I looked up and turned, ready to challenge whatever awaited me beyond the brush.
A ranger wearing a grey button-down shirt, green pants, and Smokey hat stepped into the clearing. He stood with his hand on his belt as he assessed the situation. His gaze swept over me, narrowed and calculating. It didn’t take him long to step forward and kneel down on the other side of Liam. Seconds maybe, though it felt like forever as I pressed my hands against Liam’s bloody chest. The man’s hand reached to Liam’s neck checking for a pulse.
“What’s your name?” he asked me, his voice steady, projecting calm.
My mouth had gone dry long minutes ago, the tears and the anguish having wrung me clean. I licked my lips, needing the saliva to loosen my tongue. “Josiah Harrison.”
He clicked on the radio attached to his shoulder. The microphone crackled before he said, “I found two.” He rattled off our location along with a bunch of other things. Words I didn’t hear because I didn’t have the space in my head to worry about them.
I focused on Liam. He was the only thing that mattered.
“Hang on, man. Hang on,” I said. My tears kept flowing. I couldn’t stop them now, audience be damned. “Help is coming.”
Others arrived.
I didn’t notice them until they surrounded me, physically trying to move me. I grabbed onto Liam, not wanting to let go. Fighting against the insistent grip that pulled at me. A scream rose in my raw throat. I didn’t want them to take my last moments with Liam away.
They didn’t care. Clutching at me, several people now lifted me from my place beside him. Eventually I went limp, retreating into silence, and allowed them to move me. Because I realized Liam was gone and now I had nothing left. There was no point in fighting. Not now when everything was a sea of bleakness.
Life disconnected for me. For a while I watched Liam being triaged, but I couldn’t feel anything. I’d gone dead inside. It was cold in this place, tainted with an aching loneliness. Then people gathered around me, blocking my view of Liam. Someone placed a blanket over my shoulders. Others poked and prodded at me as they asked q
“Where are the others?” the ranger asked. When I didn’t immediately respond, he got into my face. “Tell me where your other friends are.”
I found it impossible to give him any response, so I didn’t even try. My throat had closed to the point where I had difficulty swallowing. Worse, I didn’t know how to answer. Where we had been, what we had done, it was confused and mixed up in my head. The last few days had been a blur of anxiety, horror, and fear.
I took a deep breath, hoping to calm myself enough to focus. And then exhaled, not successful in releasing the ache that expanded inside my chest. One thing was clear: my entire life was over.
Throwing the blanket off, I pushed people aside as I crawled back to Liam. I pressed my mouth close to his ear again. Tears dripped from my eyes and I could barely voice the words.
I wanted to say, “I love you.” To tell him one more time. But there were people here and I couldn’t do that with an audience.
Instead I said with a sob, “I’m sorry.”
Chapter Two
NOW…
It was freezing. I tried to calm the shivers that wracked my body. It felt as if I hadn’t been warm in years. The summer high in Northern California usually didn’t reach eighty degrees, and currently it was just below that. The locals acted as if they needed to combat the heat by cranking up the air inside every building. It was no different in the police station. Plus, the interrogation room was probably kept at arctic temperatures on purpose. A psychological tactic to trick an innocent person into agreeing to any accusation just so they could leave the room and feel warm again.
They’d taken my clothes for evidence. I’d stripped in front of a group of pudgy officers who watched me with cold cruelty, like I was a suspect rather than a victim. As I pulled off each item, they’d placed them into plastic evidence bags. I’d redressed in the castoffs they had stored in bins for this sort of thing. Shivering deeper into the navy pullover they’d given me, I tried not to gag. It was several sizes too large, a stain covered half the front, and it smelled faintly of garbage.
According to the clock on the wall, I’d been in the interrogation room for over an hour. It was old school with a white face and large black numbers. It fit in with the tacky décor of the room. Everything was stark and uninviting. Being here did nothing to calm my mental anguish.
When the door finally opened, two swaggering detectives walked in. They introduced themselves as Detective Adams and Detective Sanchez as they took the two chairs across the metal table from me. Their stares were intent and it set me on edge.
“Shall we start?” Detective Adams asked with a smile that didn’t seem genuine. Her demeanor was too friendly and grimly repulsive considering my friends had just been murdered. I figured she played Good Cop to her partner’s Bad Cop. She looked the part too; she was a tiny woman, cute—some might even call her pretty—her voice high-pitched and excitable.
“Am I under arrest?” I sat forward in my chair, both hands pressed to the table. I reminded myself to be careful. Keep my breathing as even as possible. Don’t fidget even though I wanted to vibrate from the inside out. Focus on only what they asked me and answer those questions and nothing else. Most of all, don’t trust anyone.
I wasn’t stupid. I’d been the only one to make it out of Yosemite alive. Of course they were going to focus on me. If the long hour locked in this room had proven anything, it was that they considered me a suspect.
In a way that was okay; their routine reassured me. I'd tell them my story, that I had nothing to do with anything that happened, and they'd let me go. We’d wandered for days. A man had chased us. And my friends had died. All of these things were facts, but they didn’t make me guilty.
Detective Adams shared a conspiratorial look with Detective Sanchez before she leaned in, placing her hands on the scarred metal table. It mirrored my own posture, though she didn’t seem frustrated like I was. It did bring her closer and we stared eye to eye. Perhaps she attempted to make me feel safe by closing the gap between us.
It had the opposite effect.
“We need an official statement,” she said. “We just want facts. You should recount your story as best you can.”
Right, as if I believed they wanted my “story” and were concerned about the nightmare I’d been through. No, they wanted to pin three murders on me no matter how nicely she stated it. I felt the pressure of getting my words right. Anything I said could be taken out of context. Looking back over the last few months, I couldn’t decide where everything had taken a sharp turn ending me up here, on the edge of eighteen, ready to graduate high school and being interrogated for my friends’ deaths.
“It sounds like you’re accusing me of murder,” I said, becoming suspicious. I knew I should ask for a lawyer, it would be the smart thing. They’d told me they could speak to me even though I was seventeen without my parents’ permission. It had given me hope that once they understood my story, it would all go away. They’d realize that their current suspicion was wrong. Then I wouldn’t have to get my father involved. That was the number one thing I was trying to avoid. It seemed worth taking this chance. I figured talking couldn’t make things worse.
“We’re not accusing you of anything.” She gave me another smile. “Like I said, we want to hear your story.”
Oh yes, that sounded reassuring.
“How would you characterize your relationship with your friends?” Detective Sanchez asked, his accent as heavy as his dark, brooding features. He was a thickly set Hispanic man who wore a resting bitch face like no one I’d ever seen. His mustache would twitch when I responded with an answer he didn’t like.
It twitched a lot.
I shifted in my chair and looked away. The metal bit into my skin. There was no padding left between the green vinyl and the frame. Every tweak of pain to my body brought me back to the here and now.
“We were friends.” I made a gesture with my hands showing that I didn’t know how to describe what I meant. “You know, normal. We hung out.” Wasn’t that, like, all friendships ever?
Sanchez raised an eyebrow. “The girl? She hung out with the rest of you? Or was she someone’s girlfriend?”
“Both,” I said. “The four of us have been friends for years. She’s always been a part of the group.”
Detective Sanchez cleared his throat, looking me over with narrowed eyes. “Who was Zoe dating?”
“Liam.” It wasn’t the whole answer, or even a comfortable one. It was a very short piece of a long explanation. One I had zero intention of getting into with this jerk who was predisposed to hate me anyway. He wouldn’t understand.
He nodded like he’d expected that answer. “The relationship between Liam…” Sanchez flicked through his notepad, “Kirkpatrick and Zoe Adler, tell me about that.”
I glared. If this dude cared, he’d have known Liam and Zoe’s last names without referencing his notes. “Like I told you, they were together, you know? A couple. What else is there to say?”
Sanchez made a sound, considering. “Did you ever have a romantic relationship with Zoe?”
I pressed my lips together. “Yes, we were together last year. But she’s with Liam now.”
“Was with Liam,” Sanchez corrected.
“Was,” I agreed.
Sanchez sat back in his chair regarding me with heavy scrutiny. His legs kicked out under the table, crowding into my space. He waited for something; I didn’t know what. Like he expected me to react or crack in some way.
I stared at him, silent.
“We’ve located the bodies of your friends,” he said.
I exhaled, relaxing fractionally, feeling good about that. The last thing I wanted was for animals to eat them. “Okay.”
