Only The Trees Know, page 17
Instead of the cruel words I’d been used to, he’d whispered assurances to me. That had grown into full conversations. I had someone to talk to when the loneliness set in. It felt like having the perfect moments of our friendship.
Then I’d begun to crave him, which had been the very problem with our relationship in the first place. I had to remind myself that he was not real.
Giving in, I walked over and sat next to Liam on the mattress. It shifted beneath me, the plastic coating sliding on the slick metal frame. I didn’t look at him when I admitted, “I don’t want to shut you out, but I have to. It’s just, you won’t always be here, will you?”
I felt Liam’s intensity as he looked at me. “I don’t know. Maybe? Will you need me?”
I’d always need him. Of course I didn’t say that. I hadn’t said it before he’d died, and refused to say it now. And honestly, I hadn’t realized the depth of my need until he’d left me.
“We weren’t always like this.” Liam leaned into me. I wished I could feel him the same way I could see and hear him. But it wasn’t like that. He wasn’t a solid presence.
I leaned forward and put my head in my hands, my elbows resting on my thighs.
Liam let out a sigh. “What happened to us? I never understood.”
I had a hard time putting everything that tumbled through my head into words. Finally I said, “We got lost,” because it seemed the easiest and most truthful explanation.
“I miss you,” he said in a low voice that never failed to send shivers of need through me. “We never talk like we used to.”
He’d said that exact same thing several times in the weeks before he’d died. They still hit me in a deep way, cutting through the noise in my head.
“I miss you too.” The words caught in my throat making me choke on the truth of it. Our relationship had been real. No matter how I colored it now, he carried a part of my soul. I felt emptier because he was gone. I’d been blinded by frustration and jealousy and hadn’t realized the true, genuine friendship we’d had.
“You always remember the bad times. There were good times too,” he said, sounding wistful. “I was your friend before I was anything else.”
“I lusted for you first,” I argued. Still, he was right, we’d had the connection of friendship too. I remembered the times laying on the grass talking for hours. The first time we’d held hands, how overwhelmed I felt by the simplicity of it. The first time he grinned with a shared inside joke. All those things were etched on my heart.
“You blame me for everything. But the truth is, you were the driving force in our relationship falling apart.”
“I blame you for the things you did,” I contradicted. “I know that I’m more than culpable, and trust me, I’m aware of my faults. But you hurt me, Liam. Don’t say that you didn’t scar me. I’m free without you.”
I had to remember that he’d twisted what I’d felt for him. He’d made me hate him as much as I loved him. His promises had been lies.
Liam made a sound that may have been amusement, or maybe disagreement. “If that were true, then your life should be so much better now that I’m gone. And it’s not.”
“But you’re not gone.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m gone in all the ways that matter.”
I couldn’t disagree with that.
Then Liam asked what I’d dreaded he would when this conversation had started. “Now that our secret is out, what are you going to do?”
“Shut up,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut. “I don’t want to think about it.” I began to pant with my mouth open, gulping in large breaths.
“You worked so hard to hide it. It must be tearing you apart that everyone knows. They all look at you and wonder if it’s true. You see it, don’t you?”
I didn’t answer.
“You sacrificed us,” he added with sorrow.
And none of it had mattered. Nothing I’d done had kept the silence I wanted above everything. “I’m going to deny it.”
“It won’t work.”
What else could I do? I had to try.
“What about the consequences?” Liam pressed. “Your father, everything that you worried about, it’s still going to happen. You won’t be able to escape from this.”
I whined.
“What will he do to you?” Liam asked.
I swallowed, turning my focus to the ceiling. Breathe, I told myself. I couldn’t have a panic attack here. “I don’t know. Beat the shit out of me? Cut me off? Lock me away?” It could be any or all of those things. “He can do whatever he wants. He’s proved that there’s no consequences for him.”
All I knew was that it would be a worse punishment than I’d ever had. It didn’t matter that I was eighteen now and legally an adult. If I managed to get out of here, there would be hell to pay.
“I’m sorry I’m not there for you,” Liam said.
And for once I was sick of pushing him away. So I leaned in close and imagined what it had felt like when I’d been held by him and wished I could feel it one more time.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
THEN…
IN THE FOREST
We finally stumbled into the outskirts of our camp. The fire had almost guttered out. Glowing orange coals only gave off enough illumination to light the edges of our tents. It looked normal, just as we had left it. But I knew there was something wrong.
I got a prickling sensation, a forewarning that I’d learned to listen to. It had saved me way too many times from my father for me to ignore now. My heart leaped and adrenaline snapped alive, spreading across my chest into my arms and legs. I paused, cutting my steps short. Tilting my head to the side, I tried to puzzle together what had me on edge.
Liam stopped beside me. Probably more automatic than him sensing danger. He turned to me and opened his mouth. I knew he was about to ask why we had stopped. Before he could, and before I could shush him, there was a rustling. It was a faint sound that we would have missed if we’d kept walking into camp.
My first thought was that it was an animal. Maybe even a bear. I began to plan our escape. I didn’t think we could climb a tree and was pretty sure a bear could climb a tree too. Either way, we’d be without food and had the chance of being mauled.
I paused, realizing that the tents weren’t down. A bear would have torn them apart looking for scraps.
The sound came again, louder this time. My body locked on the sound ready to flee.
Maybe it was a smaller animal like a raccoon. Did raccoons live in the forest, or did they just live in cities? I should really have done some Googling before coming up here.
Liam looked at me with his eyes wide. He nodded his head once at me, and I felt that maybe he was asking me to go find out what it was.
I looked right back at him.
Then I sighed. If I was going to confront whoever it was, I needed a weapon. I looked toward our pile of wood, seeing a large branch that may do the trick.
Shutting off my flashlight, I motioned for Liam to do the same.
Liam obeyed, slower than I would have liked. He stepped next to me, his body pressed against mine from shoulders to thigh. His breath sucked in and out with deep pants.
“What do you think it is?” he whispered.
I shook my head.
The shadows were moving. One dislodged itself from the unformed darkness and floated across the space. It was large and upright.
Zoe stomped into camp behind us making a ridiculous amount of noise. The beam from her flashlight bounced. She made to push past us still muttering to herself. Unaware, or perhaps ignoring, that we’d stopped.
I surged forward and grabbed her. She fought me and I ended up pushing her to the ground. Her flashlight dropped and rolled. I placed my hand against her mouth when she opened it to scream.
“Stop,” I commanded acidly.
“What the fuck?” Zoe asked, words muffled by my palm.
I pressed it harder into her lips wanting to keep her silent. If she bit me, I’d knock her out. I leaned down so that my mouth was against her ear. “Someone’s in our camp.”
Maybe she didn’t hear me or hadn’t understood what I’d said. She certainly didn’t understand the danger we were in. She tried to wriggle out of my hold, hitting me with her hands and knees.
There was too much noise. I couldn’t risk whatever it was coming our way before I had the chance to arm myself.
I pushed myself more firmly on top of her so that she went face first into the ground. Shifting my weight, I sat on her lower back and pinned her arms.
Liam was already making for her flashlight, turning it off.
We all paused when there was another shuffling movement from the camp accompanied by a scraping noise.
Zoe paused in her dramatic flailing. Her head moved to the side placing her ear toward the camp. And her body felt like it took a huge shuttering breath.
My grip relaxed now that I knew she understood, but I still didn’t let her go. My hand remained on her mouth because she was stupid enough to call out.
I watched the camp as if I could see into the dark and mentally went over the items we had. There wasn’t much to steal, just our sleeping bags, a bit of food, our clothes.
Now that my eyes had adjusted I thought I saw whatever it was moving closer to the dying fire.
Zoe pressed her face into the dirt and whimpered. The fight had drained completely out of her. I removed my hand from her mouth slowly. Keeping it hovered there before I finally slid off her.
Liam shook, from either adrenaline or shock or both. He was the only one of us standing. I worried that he’d be seen.
I moved to him on my knees. Reaching up, I pulled him down next to me. He complied instantly to my touch. Then I nodded to a tree a little bit further head. We both made our way there. Silently, keeping crouched in the shadows. We tucked ourselves behind the trunk, keeping out of the ring of light.
“We need to get a branch.” I gestured to the pile, knowing which one I’d go for, but there were several others he could use.
“Is it an animal?” Liam asked, but I knew by the tone that even he didn’t believe that.
I shook my head. Whatever it was walked upright and was man sized. It moved across the area again and we heard the sound of a tent being unzipped. It moved inside causing the dark shape to silhouette behind the fabric.
Zoe crawled to us. She stayed quiet for once, though she still sniffled a bit. Her hand was against her mouth and her eyes were wide.
“He’s going through our stuff.” I stood up and stepped forward, intending to grab the branch and confront the stranger.
“Wait.” Liam reached out. His hand caught my forearm, stopping me. “We don’t know who it is. You can’t just walk into camp. It could be dangerous.”
“He’s the one who shouldn’t be there,” I said stubbornly.
“What if he’s armed?” His hand gripped me, clawing at the fabric of my jacket. “Seriously, he could have a gun or something. Think this through before you do something stupid.”
I relented with a tiny nod. It was true that a branch wouldn’t be much use against a bullet. I stayed tucked behind the tree, anxiety making my insides rush.
We watched and waited, all while I plotted how long it would take me to run across camp, arm myself, and beat the hell out of the intruder. And if I could possibly do it before being taken down.
The shadow exited the tent and finally stepped close enough to the fire so that we could get a good visual. The light outlined his body, his clothes, the slight hunch of his back. It was his crazy hair, though, that identified him.
Son of a bitch. It was the Grizzly Man. He had to have followed us and now he was here to do what?
I swallowed down the nausea that came right before an anxiety attack. No, I could do this. I knew I could take this man, that I could show this asshole who was boss. And I also knew that he didn’t have a gun. Or at least I didn’t think he did considering he was homeless.
“I’m gonna deal with him,” I said.
Liam stood up from his crouch, his arms coming around me. “Don’t you see it?”
“What?” Even as I asked, I saw what he’d alluded to. The Grizzly Man had an open knife in his hand. He held in front of him as if he’d expected to find us in our tents and perhaps use it on us. That wasn’t what caused me to shake, though. It was the bloodlike substance dripping off the blade that made me whimper.
The dude flicked the blade several times and then wiped the flat of it against his pants.
I swallowed, my throat dry. My heart beat, a heavy thumping in my chest. A burn radiated down my arms. Still I insisted, “We can take him.”
“Take him?” Liam repeated hysterically. “Hell no, dude. Who knows what other weapons he’s got?”
“We’re gonna die,” Zoe’s voice shook.
I pulled out my own knife. “I’ve got a weapon too.”
“You’re crazy, man,” Liam said. He looked at me with an expression halfway between exasperation and disbelief.
“Do you want to die?” Zoe asked. “Because that’s what’s about to happen.”
“Have you ever been in a knife fight?” Liam asked. “He probably has. He’ll gut you.”
I hadn’t. Liam was probably right. I didn’t have any skill and Grizzly Man was twice the size of me. “Then what do you want to do?”
“Let’s get out of here,” Zoe suggested.
“We are not abandoning our stuff,” I said. “We’re days away from civilization. How will we survive?”
Liam clutched at me, stepping back and pulling me with him. “We don’t have to go all the way back. We’ll head for a main trail. Find someone and figure out how to get rescued.”
Zoe started pulling me too. “It can’t be too long till we run into another hiker.”
“What about tonight? Where are we going to sleep?” I asked. They couldn’t be serious. I may not be able to take Grizzly Man by myself, but I didn’t want to sleep in the dirt either.
Liam shook his head. “I can’t sleep anyway.”
“We’ll have nothing.” I emphasized, though I wasn’t putting up much of a fight at this point. Their fear rubbed off on me. I felt the jumpiness invade my body. Freaking me from the inside out.
Zoe had tears streaming down her face. She whispered urgently, “Let’s go.”
A yell split the silence.
We all turned together to find Grizzly Man stumbling our way. His knife held high in front of him and his eyes full of crazy.
Zoe screamed, turned and fled into the darkness.
“Run,” Liam yelled to me when I stood there. Then he ran too, following after her.
I had no choice but to go after them.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
NOW…
Detective Adams spun theories and lies. She’d been on the stand an hour. Each minute was more miserable than the last. With that sweet exterior, it seemed as if only I could see the devil beneath. She’d described detective work full of guesses and their interpretation of the evidence, I shook my head in disbelief. I could easily spin it another way if given half a chance.
The whole trial was railroaded.
“What was your impression of Mr. Harrison?” Ms. Johnson asked.
Detective Adams smiled that sugary smile. “He’s personable and clever. He has a way of drawing you in.”
Ms. Johnson nodded as if she too agreed that I had a winning personality. “Describe your investigation. Start at the beginning. What led you to focus on Mr. Harrison as the primary suspect?”
Detective Adams nodded. “Mr. Harrison was the only one of the group to survive. The more we looked into his story in order to discount him, the more viable a suspect he became. Eventually he became our primary suspect because all evidence seemed to point to him.”
“Describe how the investigation evolved,” Ms. Johnson directed.
“Good police work means following the evidence,” Detective Adams said. “We start at the beginning and build it piece by piece. No matter how we fit the evidence together his recitation of events didn’t work.”
“In what way didn’t it work?” Ms. Johnson asked.
“It was difficult to corroborate Mr. Harrison’s description of events. First off, every single person who knew of or knew details of their trip had died. There was no way to corroborate who planned the trip and what the details were.”
“Mr. Harrison didn’t have other friends who they could have shared their plans with?”
“No. From what we were able to understand, their group was insular. It’s interesting to note that on campus Mr. Harrison is more of a fixture, idealized by gossip rather than a realized person. Everyone knows things about him, and yet when pressed, no one could give specific details. No one could recall spending any time with Mr. Harrison. With the notable exception of Miss Rivera who had a passing acquaintance through Miss Adler. However, even she never spent significant time with him. For all purposes, Mr. Harrison doesn’t exist outside of the group. He’s an enigma.”
Ms. Johnson nodded. “What else didn’t hold up with Mr. Harrison’s story?”
“The primary part of his statement focused on a mysterious hiker who we later determined to be William Buckley. We could find no evidence to tie William Buckley to any of the deaths. No DNA, no forensic evidence.”
“Was there anything else you found that didn’t line up with his statement?” Ms. Johnson asked.
“There was the matter of the knife. Mr. Harrison admitted to having a knife in his possession. He’d used it to mark the trees in the area we found Mr. Crandall. The knife was never located. It was nowhere to be found at the crime scene, nor was it found on Mr. Harrison’s person. We grew suspicious. Why would the knife be missing unless it was used in the perpetration of a crime?”
Dawson stood. “Objection, your honor. Drawing conclusions.”
But Ms. Johnson spoke fast on the end of his argument. “Detective Adams is following through with her thought process. What she felt at the time they were gathering evidence.”
