“What the f**k?” Tannis said when I told her Sarah had written. “Where’d she go?”
“Some kind of family emergency,” I said vaguely. I was watching Nat, the way her eyes looked shaded. More than just sad. Secretive.
“Is she coming back?” Nat asked.
“I don’t know.”
“And then there were three,” Tannis said.
But there really weren’t.
I noticed it over the next week when I tried to find a time to talk to Nat. She was with the skiers now. And John Peters, always John Peters. And when she saw me, she sometimes looked away.
So finally one day I biked to Lu’s, my tires slipping now and then in the slush from our first snowfall, which had been quickly plowed into dirty gray heaps. The mountain was covered, mostly man-made with a topping of the “real deal,” as the owners called it. It looked a lot different from how it had at the Dash, the hopeful start to our season. So different now and yet so the same as it always was, always would be.
I couldn’t wait to leave Buford.
Lu’s walk was neatly cleared, the sheer edges of the snow marked with a blower’s lines. I rang the bell, hoping I’d timed it right, that Nat hadn’t gone for some runs, just for fun.
She opened the door, surprised and not happy to see me. It took her a minute to recover.
“Hi, Nat.”
“Riley,” she said. “Hi. Sorry.” She smiled a little. “I didn’t expect you. Is everything okay?”
I nodded. “Can I come in?”
Nat hesitated, then stepped aside.
“Is Lu here?” I asked as she led me to the living room.
Nat paled. I didn’t mean to freak her out, but she’d never tell me anything unless she was alone. “No.” She turned to face me. “What’s going on, Riley?”
I didn’t want to just come out with it, but I could see Nat wasn’t going to budge until I did. “Sarah told me some things before she left,” I said. “I know you were awake that night.”
She blanched and swallowed once. “So?” Natalie folded her arms defensively.
“So,” I said. “That means you know who was there. And what happened.”
She stayed rigid for a second, and I thought she was going to tell me to leave. Then her whole body sagged. Natalie sighed tiredly. “Yeah,” she said. “I know.”
Suddenly I didn’t want to hear it. I had a flashback to Sarah and me standing in the woods behind my house. I’d hardly slept these past nights, all the things she’d said bouncing around. Once you heard things like that, things you weren’t meant to or didn’t want to, you couldn’t take it back. But Nat was already talking.
“You know who was there that night too. The whole town does,” she said. “Just like they always do. Do you have any idea what it’s like to listen to your dad whooping it up with your classmates? Snorting coke with Galen Riddock? Selling dope and lighting up with your lab partner or the girl who sits behind you in chem? Do you know what it feels like when they look at you after that?” Her voice rose. “After they see how you live?”
“No.” But I could imagine. And it was mortifying.
“No,” she agreed. “You don’t. I wasn’t wearing my headphones and I wasn’t sleeping, because I was worried about him. It was like living with a little kid that you have to constantly watch to be sure he doesn’t hurt himself. Except with my dad, it wasn’t just himself he’d hurt.” Nat paused and took a breath. “I wanted to keep an ear out, make sure he was okay.”
“And?” I prompted gently.
“And I heard Galen come and go, and then your buddy.”
“Moose?”
She nodded. “He bought, and my dad badgered him to stay, even though Moose never does. But this time he did. They sat out there for a while doing whatever, and then he left.”
I was relieved. It wasn’t Moose, after all.
“I was about to go out to talk to my dad, see if I could get him to go to bed. I could hear him stumbling around out there, he was so wasted.” Nat paused, struggling not to cry. “I’d had a bad feeling all night. Nervous, but I couldn’t figure out why.”
Suddenly I was nervous too.
Nat took a deep breath. “And then I heard the door open again.”
“Moose came back?”
She shook her head. “I thought it was him too, but then I heard my dad say, ‘Who the f**k ’er you?’
“And the person said, ‘You killed my sister.’”
It felt like my heart stopped. “Richie?”
She nodded. “He started going off about how Jessica was always careful, would never have taken too much, that my dad must have cut the drugs with something else.” Natalie looked sick. “I just sat there in my room, listening to all of it. All this horrible, horrible stuff. And my dad shouting back at him. I mean, who has to deal with this, right?” Her voice was rising again. I would have told her no one did and no one should, but I was afraid to interrupt.
“My dad went after him. Things were banging around, drawers or doors slamming. I heard someone get hit.” Nat winced. “And then my dad said, ‘Oh, you got a gun? Well, me too.’” Nat look a sharp breath. “The last thing he said was, ‘Hey, that’s mine.’” Natalie buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking.
“Nat . . .” I reached over to touch her, already piecing together the rest and feeling awful about making her go through this. “It’s okay—”
“It’s not okay,” she exploded, her head whipping up. “Don’t say that! I knew what was coming, Riley.” Tears were dripping from her eyes, down her cheeks, but she didn’t seem to notice. “I knew from the second I heard Richie’s voice. It was like being at the eye doctor and they’re showing you all the letters and flipping through the different lenses, and then, suddenly, everything is totally clear.” Words were spilling frantically from Natalie’s mouth, like they had to come fast or not at all. “It’s what I saw that night,” she said. “All of it. I knew they were going to fight and Richie would have my dad’s gun and . . . and that he’d shoot him.” The tears were wetting her shirt, and Natalie wiped at her nose, saying quietly, “I knew it was coming, and I didn’t stop it.”
“Nat,” I said slowly, “how could you? Richie had a gun and—”