Nowhere Girl (39 page)

“Cady.” Charlotte touched my knee. “Breathe. It's okay. We'll sit here and see what happens.” She chewed on her lip for a moment. “Do you have anything left of hers? A stuffed animal? A book?”

I couldn't give her the diaries. “She collected Tweety Bird figurines. I still have them, but they lived on a high shelf in our bedroom.” When I'd finally taken them down, they were covered in dust—hadn't been touched in years. I pulled on my hair, hard. I couldn't believe that I had erased my sister and hadn't even been aware I'd done it.

Charlotte leveled her gaze at me. “You did not betray Savannah. If there is one thing she took with her, it was how much you love her.”

I'd been hearing that line from shrinks and counselors for more than half my life. “Please don't patronize me. You don't know that.”

She raised one eyebrow. “Don't I?”

“Oh God. I guess you would know, wouldn't you?” Suddenly, I was exhausted. “Thank you for saying that.”

She leaned forward. “Let's meditate for a moment and wait.”

“How will I know if she's here? Will I be able to see her?”

“Probably not,” she said sweetly. “It's different for everyone. For me, I get visuals, like screenshots. Sometimes I get a firm directional about what she wants you to do; sometimes other spirits come because the channel is open, and they leverage it.” She put her hands on her knees. “We'll have to see what happens. But most of all, you should remember they don't communicate like us; it isn't always direct. We have to accept what they can do now that they are home.”

“Home?”

Charlotte's blue eyes somehow seemed surprised. “Yes. She's home. We are all trying to get there; she found a path a little earlier than the rest of us.”

And what an odd portal she took to bring her
home
, I wanted to say, but I didn't. Patrick busied himself opening his leather notebook, and I was so relieved he was there.

“Now.” Charlotte sat up straighter. Her voice was soft and smooth, almost melodic. “Do you know if she believed in the afterlife?” Somewhere in the house, a phone rang, and I wondered if she knew who it was. “It's okay if you don't know,” she said.

“As a matter of fact, I
do
know.” One of the things Savannah and I disagreed on was religion—or, more accurately, faith. It was as if she was born knowing there was a master plan, a greater force at work. And she seemed to accept it. I, on the other hand, hadn't been able to make myself believe that there was life after death or anything but eternity in a hole. “Not only did she believe in it,” I told Charlotte, “she thought it would be like one big party. It was almost unsettling how comfortable she was with the thought of dying.” I felt an ice pick stab of guilt. “I mean, not that Savannah didn't love life; she did. She didn't want to die; she just believed that every next thing was going to be fun, whatever it was.”

“Good,” Charlotte said.

“Why is that good?”

But she continued with her eyes closed, the eyeballs darting back and forth as if in a dream, as though she hadn't heard me. Patrick squeezed my hand. Charlotte said suddenly, “She's here.”

“What? Where?”

“Shh.” Charlotte put her finger to her lips. “She's talking.”

Without warning, I felt myself begin to perspire, and then I started to cry. I put my hand over my mouth, worrying that Charlotte wouldn't be able to hear Savannah over my blubbering, but I couldn't quiet myself.

Patrick put his arm around me. “It's okay,” he whispered, reaching for the tissues on the table. I leaned into him.

Charlotte was quiet for several minutes, her eyes closed, while I tried not to blow my nose too loudly. “I can't see her,” she told me. “All I see is an overwhelmingly bright light.”

“Is it green?” I asked, feeling suddenly, inexplicably happy.

“Do you see it too?”

“No, but green was Savannah's favorite color.” I scanned the room, even though I knew I wouldn't see what Charlotte was seeing. “She's here.” I felt her distinctly, smelled her cherry lip gloss, her honey shampoo.

“Yes,” Charlotte said. “She's talking to me in pictures. I can't hear what she's saying now, but she's giving me still shots, like a slide show.”

“What's she showing you?”
The abandoned house? The man who did it …

“I'm seeing you,” she said.

“Me? Why?”

“Because you, Cady, you have the missing piece.”

“But—” I felt so frustrated I wanted to throw the teapot across the room, dump the chaise longue with Charlotte in it. “What piece? I don't know what you're talking about.”

“The necklace.”

“The necklace?” And then I remembered the necklace I never took off except when I went to the prison to see Larry Cauchek, and I felt around my collar for it and pulled it out from under my shirt.

Charlotte's eyes were only half-mast when she opened them. She blinked. “Yes, this necklace,” she murmured. “Its twin.” And then she closed her eyes again. “The necklace will lead you to your answers.” She opened her pretty eyes and touched the amber bracelet on her wrist. Her voice got very stern and forceful, like she was scolding me. “She is only showing you this because you have lived too long in her shadow, my dear.” She looked intently at me, her silver hair framing her face like those auras on angels at church. “There are no villains here. Do you understand this?” She fingered the necklace.

“No villains?” I glanced at Patrick. “Excuse me, but what the hell is that supposed to mean? I'm pretty sure murderers are villains.” Charlotte blinked at me, and I saw that I had offended her. “I'm sorry,” I started, but she put up a hand and closed her eyes, and I realized Savannah was communicating again.

When she opened her eyes, she sighed. “Well,” she said in an entirely different voice, a voice people use when they are wrapping things up. “She says you must not be ready. She wants you to let go of her so you can be happy and write the only book that matters to you.”

Shit. Did Savannah know about the letters I'd been writing to her since she died? Every year or so, I'd bring them to Deanna and ask about publishing them.

Charlotte stood up. “I am so very sorry I couldn't help you, my dear, but often it is the dead who are more ready to help than the living. You have your belief structures so firmly embedded it's like trying to loosen cement.” She began to move toward the door.

“Wait,” I said. “I'm ready. I swear, I'm ready.”

“Yes,” Charlotte said wearily, turning to me. “You are ready.” She studied me, and then Patrick, and then me again. “But first you need to understand that Savannah didn't experience the world like everyone else. She needed more to be able to feel things that the rest of us took for granted. Nothing is ever as it seems.”

 

CHAPTER

47

We drove in silence. Patrick squeezed my leg, and I put my hand over his.

“How you doing?” he asked.

It was dusk, and the streets seemed bathed in topaz, which made me feel so sad. I could barely sit up without wanting to double over. “I don't understand any of this. Am I wrong here, or was Charlotte saying I'm supposed to forgive the man who killed my sister?”

“That's what I got out of it, but no one would ever expect you to do that. It's too much.” He took his hand off my leg to turn down the radio and then slipped it under my fingers again. “Where to?”

“Not home,” I told him. “I don't want to go home.”

“Okay. Should we just drive?”

When I told him yes, he turned down the next side street and then onto a windy back road. “What's going on in that smart head of yours?” he asked.

“Couldn't Savannah have given me a name?” I watched the little capes and a town park pass by. He was quiet, driving with one hand on the steering wheel. “She used to make me do her dirty work,” I said suddenly. “She was always making me tell our parents lies about where she was, making me do her homework, screening her calls. Maybe she was prettier, all the upperclassmen girls and guys loved her, maybe people were drawn to her in a way they weren't to me, but I was smarter, and she always made me pay for it. And now she's … she's dead, and she shows up at a fucking psychic's house.” I was crying now, wiping at my face furiously. “In her stupid green light—of course it's green; green is Savannah's favorite color—and whatever Savannah wants, Savannah gets. She shows up and gets everyone all rattled and happy she's there, and then she can't even tell me a name. I'm supposed to fucking figure this out. How dare she, when she can see everything. How dare she keep up this endless fucking scavenger hunt.” I wiped my nose with my sleeve. “I've given up my whole life for her, and this is what I get?” We were stopped at a red light, and Patrick was staring straight ahead. “I'm sorry,” I said, wiping at my eyes. “I know I sound like a brat.”

“You know what you sound like?” Patrick asked, inching the car forward.

“What?” I was sure my eyes were bright red, and I must have looked like a wreck, but when he turned to me, his face was so open, so totally accepting, it made me want to start crying all over again. “You sound like a human being,” he said. “A really hardworking, sweet, frustrated human being.”

I bit my lip. “I'm exhausted,” I told him, and I almost told him about Brady, about how all this time I'd had a crush on Brady and that he'd been at my house an hour ago to tell me he and Savannah had some amazing love affair, and that's when it hit me. We were sitting at the first light on Main, near the high school, and I thought of Charlotte's voice: “Nothing is ever as it seems.”

“You know what? I'm not feeling well. Would you mind taking me home?”

He put his hand against my cheek. “You're a little warm. Why don't I call the deli downtown and order some soup for us?”

“I think I'm just exhausted. I need to go home and sleep.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I'm so tired.” I leaned against the passenger door and closed my eyes, hoping I sounded convincing.

We drove in silence for a few minutes until Patrick pulled in my driveway. “I'll text you in a little while to make sure you're okay,” he said.

“Sounds good.” I yawned, a big, fake gesture for effect. “And thanks again for taking me to Charlotte's. I think I understand what Savannah was trying to say.”

 

CHAPTER

48

There were things that came back to me in times of crisis, startling images that seemed so banal at the time, but now, while I was watching the whole world close in, I finally understood. As I fumbled for my phone, trying to dial Brady's number, I saw all the pieces that I had not recognized before, but most of all it was the picture in the yearbook, the way Savannah was looking at someone off camera. And now that I knew that someone was Brady Irons, it all made sense.

“I'm sorry I overreacted,” I said when he picked up. “I need to see you. Can I come over?” But I was already getting in my car, and I didn't really hear what he'd said.

The only time I'd been in Brady's house was when Colette was having her episode—decompensating, I think Chandler had called it. I knocked once and turned the knob.

“Brady?” I called. “Are you here?” I let myself in the front door, and the house seemed different now, somehow peaceful. I walked to the kitchen and stood at the window overlooking the garden of daisies that, I realized now, must have been for Savannah. “Brady?”

He came from down the hall, his eyes rimmed in red. “I'm so sorry about earlier,” he said.

I pulled him into a fierce hug. “No, I'm sorry. Ever since I read Savannah's diary, I've been feeling happy in a way that hasn't happened in a long time. Knowing she loved someone brought me a certain kind of peace I didn't think I'd ever have. And finding out it was you should have made me even happier. I don't know why I freaked out.”

We stood, inches apart. Face-to-face, mouth-to-mouth. I couldn't draw my eyes away from his. A current ran between us, connecting, clarifying.

“You know,” he said. It wasn't a question.

“Yes.” I felt a sob rising in my throat. “Where's the necklace?”

He raised his hand, but I wasn't afraid. Before I could step back or speak, he touched my face. “I've been wanting to confess since we met again at the prison. I can't tell you how many times I've thought about turning myself in.”

It was hard to breathe, knowing what I did. We silently walked to a cloth couch in the living room and sat. I noticed he was holding a small, velvet box. “Tell me you didn't mean it,” I said. “Tell me you loved her and it was some kind of horrible accident.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but something between a cry and a noise a wounded animal would make came out. “Oh God, I am so sorry. So, so sorry. I never meant to hurt her. I didn't want to do it, but she insisted. She always wanted to try new things; she was in such a rush to grow up. After that singer from INXS died and someone told her he may have done it to himself, trying to get off, that's all she talked about.” He was crying now, and I was having a hard time understanding him. “I loved her so much. I swear to God I never would have hurt her.”

Everything hit me at once, and I grabbed for my neck. Hearing the killer's voice and seeing his hand holding Savannah's necklace, but not being able to identify him. Savannah coming to me in dreams, but never giving me clear clues. She wasn't helping me to catch her killer like I'd thought all these years. She was trying to make me forgive myself and understand that her death wasn't what it looked like.
Nothing is ever as it seems.
Both Larry Cauchek and Charlotte Reid had spoken those exact words. I understood now, watching Brady almost convulse he was crying so hard, that Savannah's death was a pure thing.