As You Lay Sleeping

“Alright,” I said, wanting to be done with all of this. “Give me a minute.”

I threw on a pair of shorts and a tank top, then pulled my hair back into an elastic. I didn’t waste any more time getting decent. I wanted this over and done with. I paused by my door and took a breath before heading out to the hallway. I wasn’t sure why I was nervous. I had nothing to hide.

The detective stuck out like a sore thumb in our living room. With his dark suit and military-style buzzed hair, he looked as if he had stepped out of a television drama. It was the summer—he must have been sweltering. He was speaking to Mom when I entered the room. He turned around and I was struck by his serious expression. His sharp nose pointed accusingly at me.

He gave me a close-lipped smile sand shook my hand. “Cara, I’m Detective Devereaux.”

I shook back. “Hi.”

The room closed in around me and my head lightened. I fought to keep it together when my brain kicked in.

“Have a seat,” Mom said.

I knew she was talking to the detective but I slowly sank down the couch.

He sat on the loveseat and Mom stood behind me. I assumed Madison was still locked in her room, playing the part of the sullen teen that I should have been.

Detective Devereaux opened a small notebook and held it in front of him. “I know this is a difficult situation, Cara. And the sooner we get your statement, the sooner everything can get back to normal.”

“What about everything I told the other officers?” I asked.

The corner of his lips twitched. “Officers on the scene will take the initial information. And the statement they took wasn’t official, since you didn’t have a guardian present and you are under eighteen. It’s my job to record a more in-depth reporting of what happened.”

“I found his—him in the pool house. Dead.”

He poised his pen over the notebook. “What time did you arrive at the pool house?”

“I don’t know.” It wasn’t like I was looking at the clock.

“You don’t know?”

“It was after dinner,” I said, glancing at Mom.

“She left around five thirty,” Mom said.

He wrote that down.

“Oh, wait,” I said.

Rachael and Brittany’s text had come in as I arrived. I grabbed my phone and scrolled through the texts.

“Cara,” Mom scolded under her breath. “This isn’t the time.”

“A text came in when I arrived at Joe’s,” I explained. I found the text and read the time stamp. “Around five fifty-five.”

His eyes narrowed briefly. “Did you normally go to the Blair house unannounced?”

I fisted my damp hands in my lap. “He was my boyfriend.”

“Answer the question, please,” he said.

My shoulders tensed. “It wasn’t unannounced. We made plans earlier in the day. I told him I was coming by after dinner.”

“What else did you discuss?” Detective Devereaux asked.

I swallowed. Why did he need to know what we talked about? I tried to recall everything Joe and I said to each other that would have anything to do with his death.

“Let me rephrase,” the detective said. “What was his state of mind?”

I shrugged. “He seemed normal.” I had a feeling I knew where the detective was going with his questioning. I waited for him to ask me outright.

“Was he using at that time?”

“Using?”

“Drugs.”

“I don’t know,” I said quickly. I had an idea he was but I wasn’t looking at him with a joint in his hand. “Maybe.” My neck flushed and I could feel Mom’s stare directed at the back of my head.

“So he may or may not have been using around noon when you spoke with him.”

I let out a noncommittal sound. Why did I feel like I was on trial?

“Did he seem depressed?”

“No,” I said quickly.

The detective’s eyebrows lifted. “You seem sure about that.”

I really wished Mom weren’t in the room. But would that mean they would have to hire a lawyer? Would that make me seem guilty somehow? And I didn’t want Mom to know for sure that I was lying to her about Joe’s extracurricular activities. I decided to come out with it, expecting my parents to question me about it later.

“We were going to break up. Officially. That’s what Joe called me about. He wanted to do it in person, I guess.”

“Who initiated the breakup?”

“Both of us?” I wasn’t sure that was an option in most relationships, but it had been for us.

“So he wasn’t upset about you wanting to break it off with him?”

The detective kept coming back to how Joe was feeling. Did he think the overdose was a suicide? If there was one thing I knew about Joe, it was that he would never willingly end his life. He had too much fun flaunting his wealth and getting away with anything he wanted.

“No, not at all. He wanted to be single for his freshman year of college. And I wanted to be single for my senior year.”

“You didn’t get any idea that he was upset.”

“No.”

The detective scribbled in his notebook again and the silence of the room weighed on my shoulders. I wasn’t ready to look at Mom yet, so, instead, I stared at the scuffed tips of his shoes.

He looked up at me again, his pen poised on the paper. “What time did you speak with Joseph Blair yesterday?”

“Around noon,” I replied.

“The ME puts the time of death between two and four yesterday afternoon,” he said as if he were lining up my story with his.

My mouth dried up like the desert. The question popped into my head again. Could I have saved him if I’d gone over earlier?

A small sound escaped Mom. I couldn’t bear to turn around and see her face. I knew I’d break down if I did.

“When you were in the pool house, did you touch anything?” he asked.

I rubbed my hands against the cushions, thinking of the note burning a hole in my desk drawer. Would I get in trouble for taking it? I didn’t see how it would be relevant to the case. I took a second, pretending to think about it. “No.”

“No?”

“No.”

He licked his lips. “So you didn’t touch the body?”

My mouth popped open and I stuttered through my response. “Yes, I touched him to see if he was sleeping.”

“So you did touch something at the scene.”

I cleared my throat. “Joe. I touched Joe. That’s it.”

He nodded and scribbled something in his notebook. Probably the word “LIAR” in big, bold letters.

The rest of his questions were similar to the ones I’d answered the night before. I stumbled over some of them as I remembered the feel of Joe’s stiff body under my fingertips and seeing his blank expression. I knew without a fact that I’d never forget last night. Every single detail was branded in my memory. My hands fidgeted in my lap.

Mom must have noticed my discomfort. “How many more questions do you have, Detective? My daughter is clearly distraught.”

While Mom spoke, the detective didn’t take his eyes off me. It was as if he were waiting for me to tell him something he didn’t already know.

He licked his lips and flipped his notebook closed. “That would be all for today.” He gave us a curt nod and stood. “I thank you for your time. I will be in touch. I can show myself out.”

I got up too, keeping my gaze on his. I hoped my expression was calm, even though my heart banged in my chest in time with each step he took.

When the door closed behind him, I sat on the edge of the couch, replaying the answers I gave in my mind. Mom sat next to me and wrapped her arm around my shoulder, pulling me to her. Joe’s death was an accident. So why did I have a suspicion that the detective thought I had something to do with it?

Chapter 5

Turns out that wasn’t the last I heard from Detective Devereaux. The next day, a phone call from the police station came bright and early asking me and my parents to come downtown to answer more questions.

“I don’t know what else to tell them,” I’d said after Mom told me about the phone call.

“I’m sure they’ll let us know when we get there” was all she’d said.

Kat sent me and the girls a text when she arrived home but her parents weren’t allowing visitors to the house. I assumed they were keeping curious eyes away from the scene of Joe’s death while grieving. I understood completely, while Rachael and Brittany bombarded my phone with texts trying to persuade me to sneak over to the house with them to see Kat. I didn’t think they wanted to appear uncaring; in fact, I think they wanted to support our best friend, but they were going about it the wrong way.

I decided to keep quiet to everyone about going to the police station. I thought Detective Devereaux was going overboard for an overdose, but I didn’t want that comment to get back to Kat and somehow make her more upset. I knew how quickly a comment or story could turn into something else when others decided to put their own spin on it. I’d been the victim of that a few times since the beginning of our friendship.

When we arrived that morning at the station, I expected to see the detective right away. Instead, I was taken down a hallway and told to stop in front of a random table. The gruff officer instructed me to stand there while he opened a few drawers and pulled out a sheet of paper and an ink pad.

“Excuse me,” Dad said. “Are you going to fingerprint my daughter?”

The officer cleared his throat, there was enough mucous rattling around in there to choke a horse.

I swallowed, unable to hide my grimace.

“I’m following orders, Mr. Daniels. You can take it up with Detective Devereaux if you’d like, but I can guarantee she won’t get out of it. Might as well let it happen.”

Mom looked from Dad to the officer. “Is she being charged with something?”

“Not as far as I know. Since she is closely affiliated with the victim, her prints will help differentiate the others at the scene,” the officer said. “Place your thumb here, miss.”

My eyes snapped to his, then slid over to my parents. Dad let out a deep exhale and nodded.

Mom still glared at the officer.

I did as he asked, wanting this humiliation to be over as soon as possible. The girls would never let this go if they saw me being fingerprinted. I had no intention of taking up a life of crime but I didn’t like having my fingerprints in whatever records they kept.

Afterward, we were told to go into a waiting area. We sat there for about fifteen minutes. Mom grumbled to Dad about the detective not being transparent about the visit while she was on the phone with him. Dad tried to calm her down.

My nerve endings fired all at once when I saw Detective Devereaux coming down the hall toward us.

He shook hands with my parents, then me. For the briefest moment, he looked at my hand. I suspected he wanted to make sure I had been fingerprinted, adding more fuel to the fire burning inside of me. The ink hadn’t successfully come off even after I scrubbed them, so I hoped he’d be satisfied with the amount of humiliation I suffered.

“I’d like to have a word with you, Mr. and Mrs. Daniels,” Detective Devereaux said, then turned to me. “We won’t be long.”

He turned around and walked away.

Mom squeezed my hand and then took Dad’s before walking away.

I slumped into the uncomfortable plastic chair and waited. I flipped through my phone. There weren’t any unread texts. I suspected Kat had more things to worry about, while Rachael and Brittany were waiting for her to initiate the conversation. Good. I didn’t want to make up any excuses on my location. I sat there for another thirty minutes, waiting for my parents to come back.

A door behind me opened and I glanced over my shoulder. I expected a hardened criminal to appear, struggling against officers. A stark contrast to me, furthering the point that I didn’t belong in a police station.

Instead, a familiar strawberry blonde entered the waiting room and sat in one of the chairs across the room.

Her blue eyes met mine and widened immediately. Kat hugged her purse against her body and launched from the bench and headed over to me. I looked around for her parents but I didn’t see them. Were they being interrogated like my parents were?

“What are you doing here?” she asked. She tugged at the ends of her hair. She was nervous.

For some reason, that relaxed me a little bit. “They called me in here to do fingerprinting.” I showed her my hands for effect.

She turned hers over too, the pads of her fingers gray like mine. “I can’t get this crap off. I feel like a criminal!” she moaned.

“The officer said they were excluding our fingerprints from others at the scene. Do they really think someone else did this to Joe?”

She scoffed. “Well, duh. That’s why we’re doing all of this and why they’re holding his body for another day.”

I frowned. “Holding his body where?”

“At the morgue.” She sniffed and pulled a tissue from her purse, dabbing her eyes. She was making her mascara smudge more but I didn’t dare tell her. “Did you say something to them?”

“About what?”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there. They seem to think his death wasn’t accidental. Which is ridiculous. Everyone loved Joe.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“So what did you say to make them think otherwise?” Her eyes narrowed.

“N-nothing,” I stammered. “Maybe they’re looking into all possibilities.” I recalled Detective Devereaux’s icy glare from yesterday’s questioning. He had suspected something from the beginning. I wondered how long it would take him to figure out he was wrong.

“Maybe,” Kat said wistfully. “Mom is freakin’ out over the arrangements. She wanted to have the wake and funeral as soon as possible. So the news that they were holding the body longer made her flip.”

“I can imagine.”

“Can you?” Kat said, looking through me.

I swallowed. “Not actually, but I—”

Her chin dropped to her chest. “I’m taking my frustration out on you. Sorry. This really sucks.”

I patted her shoulder, unsure of what else to say. I didn’t want to get on her bad side again.

“Where are your parents?” I asked.

“They’ll be up here shortly. I couldn’t stand being downstairs any longer.”

“Downstairs?”

She sighed dramatically. “At the morgue. God! Are you even listening?”

“Yeah, sorry,” I said, mentally chastising myself. Kat was obviously grieving and I didn’t want to continually upset her delicate state.

“Anyway,” she said, turning in her seat. “How long are they going to be down there?”

I had a sneaking suspicion that she wanted to be anywhere but there. It was understandable but a niggling sensation made me think it had more to do with me instead of her state of mind. It was the same sensation that lived with me for many years until I found my place in our group.

My parents came around the corner. It was only the two of them, no Detective Devereaux in sight. I stood up and went to them.

“What did he want?” I asked.

Mom looked to Dad, then back to me. “He asked us some questions.”

“About what?”

“Let’s talk about this later,” Dad said and walked past me.

I turned to see him talking to Kat. She offered him a brave smile and my heart broke for her. As much as the detective annoyed me, I could imagine whatever suspicion he had about Joe’s death putting a bigger strain on her family.

Mom offered her condolences, too, and asked Kat if she wanted us to sit with her until her parents arrived.

“No, thanks,” Kat said. “I’ll be fine.”

Dad hesitated but with a nudge from me he gave in to her wishes.

My parents headed toward the exit.

“Call me if you need to talk,” I said. “Any time, day or night.”

The polite smile she offered to my parents had faded. Her gaze wandered the room, pausing everywhere except for me. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon,” she said in a flat voice.

I hesitated, wanting to decipher what her change in attitude meant. I didn’t have a chance, since she turned on her heel, leaving me standing alone watching her walk away. I knew Kat did this; she always pushed people away when something negatively affected her. And this situation was no different. She needed my support as much as I needed hers. Even if at the moment she didn’t want it.

E

With each sharp inhale, the scent of the seawater filled my nose; my chest ached with the need to return home to my sanctuary. The air in Chester Bay, especially by the water, helped ease my nerves. A pair of joggers came toward me from the distance. I flipped my hood and cinched the strings tight, masking my face. Under the cover of early morning and later evenings I was able to rid myself of the plastic prison that concealed my identity.

The need to run had been ingrained in my body for years. Anger and frustration that appeared out of thin air at a moment’s notice were pushed aside. My mind was clear and that was exactly what I needed to formulate the next steps of my plan.

The man and woman passed, both of them nodding a hello. I dipped my chin lower, ignoring them. I doubted they would be so kind if they saw my face.

After picking up my pace to distance myself, I glanced over my shoulder to make sure they were gone. Their bodies were far in the distance.

I’d already done several laps, enough for now, even though I still had no idea where I was going to live for my stay in town. I packed light, my backpack had all the supplies I needed and currently resided in a paid locker by the bathrooms on the beach. I had a few things to pick up and didn’t find it necessary to lug them around before I needed them. I had enough money to cover the expenses when the time came.

I took a break, finding a bench to sit on. I scanned the area and it was clear of any people. I dropped the hood and traced the thick lines across the top of my head. The bench faced a playground. I could almost hear the laughter of the children from the swing sets and their glee as they glided down the plastic slides. The tinkling chains on the clatter bridge filled my ears like the echo of children running across it.

Had Sylvia played here when she was little? I imagined her face and how it had morphed over the years to a beautiful, ethereal teenager. Something inside me stirred.

A loud horn blasted in the distance and I turned around to see a large boat floating over the water further out to sea. I smiled. Fate had once again steered in my direction.

It was the fastest way to get her home, avoiding any chance of being followed. I shook my head. Why didn’t I think of it before? It was perfect. In my isolation over the years, Father taught me how to run a boat and with access to the ocean; my plan started to formulate.

I took a deep breath, embracing the sea air, allowing it to flow through me, to inspire and invigorate me.

My muscles buzzed with repressed energy and I stood from the bench and continued my jog back down the boardwalk. I steadied my breathing while picking up my pace.

Further down the way, someone stood outside one of the storefronts. I moved to the other side of the boardwalk and flipped my hood over my head once more. The closer I got, the more I could make out the person. He carried a bundle of newspapers and stacked them on the stand outside of the store. Something inside made me slow down. I pretended to stretch my quadriceps while watching him. Another man came from the store and handed the delivery man an envelope.

The store owner lifted the top paper and clicked his tongue. “What a tragedy.”

“Tell me about it,” the delivery guy said, peering into the envelope. He seemed satisfied and tucked it into his back pocket.

“His parents own most of the places on this strip and a few other big complexes in town. Just goes to show that money doesn’t mean immortality.”

I glanced over my shoulder and saw the color photo on the front page. It was a picture of the boy I killed.

Chapter 6

The services for Joe took place later that week. My parents and I stayed for most of the wake. The funeral home was packed with people in support of the Blair family. Joe’s family members, whom I’d got to know over the years at holidays and other celebrations, approached me and hugged me. I offered condolences, while they did the same.

My parents were only children, so we didn’t have a big family. Ever since I entered the inner circle of the Blair family, I always looked forward to these events that I’d never be able to experience in my own family. Mom, Dad, and Madison seemed content with this, but I never did. They were happy enough to be small while I always had the yearning for more. It was a distinct divide in our family but there was nothing I could do.

It had already been raining for some time when I woke up the morning of the funeral. The sky was gray and thick clouds blocked any sun from peeking through. The leaves on the trees were slick with rain and twitched as the rain picked up again.

At the church, I sat with my parents and Madison. Rachael and Brittany had managed to get seats together and with their parents. Mom had insisted we show up early to get a seat together. As she suspected, the church filled quickly and soon enough there were people standing behind the last pew.

It didn’t matter that I was separated from my friends, it wasn’t as if we could socialize during the service. We’d meet up at the reception later.

At the cemetery, my parents, Madison, and I squeezed under one umbrella. I had a consistent trail of rain assaulting my head the entire time. And, by the time I got into Dad’s Jeep, I was soaked and sweaty from the heat. I shoved back my damp hair, which had been wild and frizzy that morning. I didn’t prefer either look. I worked my fingers through my hair and started to braid it.

The gentle patter of the raindrops against the plastic window accelerated as a loud boom of thunder rumbled in the distance.

Mom and Dad got into the car and Mom’s perfume filled the small space. She opened the glove compartment to retrieve a travel-sized pouch of tissues. She blotted the damp bags under her eyes and sniffled. She offered the tissues to Madison and me.

Most of the black-clad mourners were already in their cars and off to the reception. Streaks of water distorted the view through the window. One person was left at the service even after the priest had gone. He or she wore a long, dark trench coat and had a small, cheap-looking umbrella that bowed under the weight of the rain. A gloved hand placed the final rose atop the coffin.

I shivered as the cool air from the air conditioner struck me, turning my attention away from the coffin, and I said my final goodbye to Joe.

The reception was held in the ballroom of a country club that the Blairs belonged to, a place I’d been to only a handful of times. The exclusivity for members was lifted only for certain events.

Cream-colored gathered fabric billowed from the ceiling. The edges cascaded down to the spaces between the large French doors open to the stone patio and golf course. The rain pattering against the stone brought a more somber tone to the normally breathtaking view. Plush leather chairs outlined the dozen or so tables filling the room.

In the minutes from the cemetery to the reception, Rachael and Brittany had changed into black frilly party dresses instead of their more church-appropriate attire. I noticed their hairstyles were different, too. I assumed the humidity and rain had done the same tricks to their hair as they had mine. Rachael’s thick black hair was braided in a fishtail, while Brittany had a caramel-colored bun at the top of her head. I suddenly felt overdressed and plain compared with them, a feeling I hadn’t had in quite some time.

Rachael looped her arm with mine and we went in search of Kat. I tried to walk off the wetness in my shoes, which made an embarrassing squeaking sound as I walked. Thankfully neither of the girls commented on it. Last year, I’d found the shoes on an online bargain store. They were almost identical to a pair that Kat had that were almost triple the price.