This Is How It Ends (12 page)

CHAPTER 17

WE LOADED THE BOX AND
two trash bags full of Natalie's stuff into the trunk of Trip's car and drove to Lu's town house at the mountain.

Trip carried the box and I grabbed the bags when we got there, following the girls in. There weren't a lot of people in town who could afford to live in the complex right at the base. Mostly weekenders owned the homes there, using them only when the snow fell, but Lu's family had some kind of fishing company back in Sweden they'd run for generations. She was a shareholder or partner or something, which gave her more than enough money to buy pretty much whatever she wanted in Buford. She was also one of the hardest-working and nicest people in town. It hadn't surprised anyone when she'd insisted on taking Nat in, not because Nat was the team's star skier but because Lu had known Nat since she was six, and it was just the kind of thing she'd do. Lu had driven to the police station as soon as she'd heard about Mr. Cleary, and hadn't left until they'd turned Natalie over to her.

Inside, it was bright and warm, all the lights in the living room on and Lu tucked into a corner of the sofa with a book. She stood when she saw us.

“Hey, hot stuff,” Trip said. He could get away with that, having skied for Lu until he was twelve.

“Hey, yourself,” Lu answered, walking immediately to Natalie. “You okay?”

Nat nodded and then burst into tears.

“Shhh,” Lu soothed, enveloping Nat in a hug. She stroked Nat's back, raising her eyebrows questioningly at us.

Trip shook his head solemnly. Lu nodded and led Natalie to the sofa, folded her into the corner.

“Stay here, hon,” she said. “Trip and . . .” She looked at me.

“Riley,” I supplied.

She nodded. “Let me show you where to put Natalie's things. If one of you girls wants to make her some tea, it's in the cupboard over the stove,” she told Tannis and Sarah.

We followed Lu up a flight of soft carpeted stairs while Tannis headed for the small kitchen and Sarah took a spot beside Natalie.

“What happened?” Lu asked once we were in the room where Natalie was staying. It was just as clean as her room at the trailer, but soft and new and inviting. I was glad Natalie had somewhere like this. It felt safe and about a million miles removed from where we'd just been.

“The police hadn't cleaned up anything,” Trip said.

Lu's eyes went wide. “No.”

Trip nodded.

“That doesn't sound like Bob Willets,” she said. “He's got more sense than that.”

“I'd have thought so too,” I agreed. “I don't know who Nat actually talked to.”

“Bureaucratic oversight?” Lu asked.

“Maybe.”

“Well, it's a pretty damn huge one.” Lu set her mouth in a grim line. “Okay. Let's get her mind off it.”

We played Yahtzee and Scrabble for hours. Lu kicked everyone's butts. Tannis came in last because she was stuck with a tray full of
E
s, at least according to her. Lu made us all hot chocolate, and by then Natalie looked a lot more relaxed.

So of course Tannis had to ask, “Did being there—back home—jog your memory at all, Nat?”

Nat blanched, and I saw her hand tremble. Lu frowned at Tannis, but she was oblivious.

“I don't know,” Nat said softly. “I keep trying to remember stuff . . . but there's just . . .” She shook her head. “Nothing. Obviously
someone
was there. But I don't know who.”

“It's probably good you don't,” Sarah said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if you had come out . . .”

“Oh!” Nat clapped a hand to her mouth. “You mean I might have . . .”

Sarah nodded. “Been a victim.”

“God,” Natalie said. “I didn't even think of that.”

“Do you think she's in any danger?” Tannis asked.

“What kind of danger?” Lu said.

“Well, everyone knows now that she was there. What if the killer thinks she knows something . . .”

“I think you've been watching too much TV, Tannis,” I said.

Trip cocked his head. “I don't know. I mean, I think if someone were after her, she'd already know it, don't you?”

“Yes,” Lu said firmly. “I think that's true. Natalie's perfectly safe. And will continue to be.”

We all nodded, and I couldn't help feeling that, regardless of a killer lurking in Buford, Lu was right. Nat Cleary was probably safer now than she'd ever been before.

CHAPTER 18

I WAITED UNTIL THE END
of physics on Wednesday to talk to Mr. Ruskovich. The closet was still firmly locked, though Mr. Ruskovich had said he was considering reopening it, if we felt up to it. Everyone had nodded and Matty added an enthusiastic, “Definitely!” Our physics lessons over the past week had been uncharacteristically boring. Matty and Chuck practically ran out of the room each day when the bell rang. I hadn't asked Matty about Tannis again, and he hadn't asked me about the SATs—an unspoken truce. I almost wished he
would
ask so I could tell him I'd finally registered, though I still felt guilty enough about it that I hadn't even confessed to my mom. I was hoping she wouldn't notice.

Sarah lingered after the others had gone, shooting me a questioning look before finally gliding out the door.

“Yes, Mr. Larkin?” Mr. Ruskovich asked as soon as we were alone. He'd been shuffling papers, clearly aware that I was stalling. He put them aside now, leaning on his desk. “What can I do for you?”

I was nervous about asking him, but I couldn't stop wondering about the binoculars. Trip, Tannis, and Sarah were all more worried about who'd killed Nat's dad. It's not that I wasn't, but to me the binoculars felt bigger. Definitely more personal. I'd been thinking about them more and more, feeling them like a constant thrumming pulse in my drawer. My very own telltale heart. It occurred to me that maybe Mr. Ruskovich could help. Maybe there was a science behind them and what they did. Maybe he could tell me if what I saw really was—could be—my future.

“Natalie Cleary said something I wanted to ask you about. In confidence,” I added.

“Of course.”

“She thinks she saw her dad's murder before it happened.”

Mr. Ruskovich eyebrows shot up. “A premonition?”

“Or a vision.” I hesitated, dying to tell him the whole story. I trusted Mr. Ruskovich. He was my favorite teacher. But I didn't really
know
him. And what if he wanted to
see
the binoculars?

“So your question is . . .”

“Whether that's possible,” I said, deciding to play it safe. “Is there a scientific basis for seeing the future?”

Mr. Ruskovich frowned. “I'm not sure I can tell you that, Riley.”

“Oh.”

He read my disappointment. “You thought I'd have a better answer.”

I nodded. “Last year when we were talking about time machines and how matter moves . . .” I shrugged. “I guess they're not really related.”

“Ahhh, I see where you're going with it.” Mr. Ruskovich nodded. “That's reasonable. Well, as far as science knows today, time travel is impossible. Matter cannot travel through the space-time continuum. But can we somehow have knowledge of future events? That's a different discussion, and yes, I'd say it's possible.”

“How?”

“‘Why?' is probably the better question,” he corrected. “Some things
can
move through the space-time continuum.”

“Like?”

“Energy,” Mr. Ruskovich said immediately. “And I suppose it's possible that energy from the future could travel through time.”

“Could you make a device that made that happen?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Channeled that energy?”

I nodded.

Mr. Ruskovich thought about it, then shook his head slowly. “I suppose so,” he said, “but I can't really imagine how. It seems very far-fetched.” He cocked his head. “Natalie Cleary told you she'd seen her dad's murder in some kind of device?”

“No,” I said, backpedaling quickly. “Not that. I was just thinking out loud. About premonitions and the science behind it and whether, you know, there were any practical applications or . . . anything.” I finished lamely.

“Uh-huh.” Mr. Ruskovich checked the clock, then stood, collecting his papers. “I don't know about practical applications, but I think the lesson science fiction writers have been teaching us for generations is that knowing the future is a dangerous thing.” He looked at me. “Wouldn't you agree?”

“Yeah,” I said, thinking that not many good things had happened since we'd looked. “I guess I would.”

***

I wasn't two steps out the door before Sarah fell into step beside me. I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Why'd you ask him about that?” she said.

I felt my face turning red. I should have known by the way she'd watched me that she'd known I was up to something. I never felt like I could put anything past her. “It's been bugging me,” I said, not looking at her. Hoping I sounded nonchalant. Knowing I didn't.

“But we went back,” she pursued. “And you guys didn't see anything.”

“Uh-huh.”

Sarah stopped, grabbing my arm so I'd have to stop too. I felt her hand, warm on my biceps, and resisted the urge to flex. I gazed down at her, so close I could see faint freckles across her nose. “Riley.”

“Sarah.”

She studied me an extra second. “You saw something the other night, didn't you?”

It was barely a question, and I thought about lying but could tell she already knew. Her eyes were so intense, like she could read every blink, every muscle twitch. I nodded.

“I thought so,” she said. “That's why I—”

Suddenly her phone interrupted, blaring.
Sexy and I Know It.
Trip. He'd programmed it himself. She held up a finger.

“Hey,” she said into it. “I'm on my way.” I picked at a loose string on my backpack, trying not to listen to the rest of her conversation but perfectly able to fill in Trip's side. I watched her face soften and smile, and felt a stab of completely irrational jealousy. Then her eyes flicked to me. “Hang on,” she told the phone, pulling it away from her ear. “Nat wanted to know if you took anything out of her things from the trailer.”

“Of course not.”

“Where's the vase? The crystal one that was her mom's?”

“It wasn't there,” I told Sarah. “I looked on the living room shelf where Nat said it would be. And around the rest of the house . . .” Until I felt like I might puke. “Nada,” I finished.

She conveyed that to Trip. After she hung up, Sarah told me, “Nat said it should have been there.”

“Maybe her dad gave it away.”
Pawned it
, was really what I was thinking.

“No. Nat remembers seeing it that night when she got home from the Dash party.”

“Maybe the cops have it.”

Sarah shook her head. “John checked with his dad, and they don't.”

We looked at each other, and finally I asked, “So what does that mean?”

“Exactly what you think,” Sarah said. “That either it's there and you didn't see it . . .”

“Or someone took it between when Nat got home that night and when we were there,” I concluded.

The phone rang again. Trip. “I'm coming!” she said, not waiting for a response from him before hanging up. “Sorry,” Sarah said. “I told him I'd meet him before his math test. He needs help.”

“True, dat,” I agreed.

She snorted. “Oh my God, you are so white. Listen,” she said, her voice turning serious, “I want to talk to you about them.”

“Nat and Trip?”

“No. The binoculars,” she said impatiently. “Can you come over later?”

“Tonight?”

“Well, that would be most convenient,” she said. “But if you're booked, maybe next week or a month from now . . .”

“No, tonight's fine. When?”

“I have to go to the Hull with Trip. Can I text you when I'm home?”

I nodded mutely.

“Great. Thanks.” She put her hand back on my arm and squeezed gently before walking off. A few steps away, Sarah turned back. “And, Ri?”

Her voice was husky, and I could still feel the warmth and tingle where her hand had been. “Yeah?”

“Bring them with you. The binoculars,” she added. “Not Nat and Trip.” Then she jogged away, down the hall.

CHAPTER 19

I SAT IN THE LIVING
room, willing her to text me. It was past eight, and I'd been there for over an hour, fiddling with the binoculars, wanting badly to look into them again. Just in case I'd see what I did that first time. Get to feel her bare skin.

I'm sure it seems pathetic, my puppy-dog crush on my best friend's girl.

The thing was, she wasn't his girlfriend when it started, sometime between Kelly Lipman's party and when Trip asked her out last year.

At first she was just this girl I was kind of amazed by. She'd smile at me in the hall sometimes, and I'd smile too, feeling a twelve-year-old's embarrassment. I wanted to talk to her but had no idea what to say. By ninth grade most of the girls had started wearing makeup, crimson lips and heavy-ringed eyes, but not Sarah. Her face stayed fresh, dark eyes striking against that powdery skin. I realized sometime that year that I liked her, but I was still so consumed with the awfulness of the previous twelve months—my dad dying, shit with my mom, Trip and me hanging out less and less—that doing something about it was the last thing on my mind. It took till the start of junior year for me to finally work up the nerve to ask her out.

“I've been thinking about that stupid dance next weekend,” I told Trip one day. We were walking into town ten days before homecoming.

Trip and I had started hanging out again that summer, as randomly as we'd stopped. One June day he'd just showed up at my house like we hadn't spent the past two years barely speaking. I'd gotten used to it by then—us not being friends—chalking it up to some combination of sports and cool kids who were a lot more fun than the mopey kid with the dead dad. Even if that kid used to be like a brother to him.

I was distant with Trip at first. Not putting too much faith in whether he'd come back the next day or show up when we had plans. But for the most part he did, and as that summer wore on, I remembered what I'd always liked about him, what I'd missed. It felt like a piece of me had come back.

A couple times I thought of asking him about it. Why it was okay to hang out with me now. But why bother? What was the point in acting like a jealous needy girlfriend? Trip was just Trip. Capricious, fearless, self-centered, fun, charismatic, loyal when he wanted to be. Instinctively I knew I either took him as is or not at all. He wasn't going to change for Riley Larkin.

“Yeah, I've been thinking about that dance too,” Trip said, kicking a pebble that skittered into the gutter. We were going to the library to work on a research project for history. “You know who I think I'm gonna ask?”

“Who?”

“Sarah McKenzie.”

And just like that I lost my chance. Unbelievable. I stared at him, trying to figure out how to fix it. What could I say?
She's mine? I thought of it first?
Ridiculous.

“How about you?” Trip asked. “What are you thinking?”

I'm thinking how much I wish we hadn't started this conversation. And that I'd had the guts to ask her out last week or the week before or two years ago when I realized how into her I was. I'm thinking how irritating it is that you always one-up me like this. Even when you're not trying and probably don't mean to.

“I'm thinking I'm going to skip it,” I told him. “It'll probably be lame anyhow.”

“Yeah,” Trip agreed.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Trip went with her, I stayed home, and from then on I got to watch the two of them—my sometimes best friend and the girl I'd been crushing on—fall in love. Un-fucking-believable.

Around nine I finally heard from Sarah.
Home
, she texted.
Sorry it's so late.

No prob
, I wrote back right away.
Want to talk?

Yes, can u come over?

Be there 15 min.
It'd be more like twenty-five, I thought, pulling on my hat and gloves and steering my bike out to the road. But if I pedaled hard, I might make it sooner.

The air whipping past was bitter, but at least I wouldn't be a disgusting sweatball by the time I got there.

I made it in just over twenty minutes, pausing to catch my breath and tame my hair before ringing the bell, my inner fourteen-year-old crowing,
Alone with Sarah! Just her and me!

The door opened, and Sarah smiled, making me feel every bit like a fourteen-year-old who had no idea what to say or do with girls, instead of the . . . well, seventeen-year-old who had no idea what to do with girls. She ushered me in, glancing up and down the block.

“Where's your car?”

“Right there.” I pointed to my mountain bike lying in the shadows beside her house.

“You
biked
here?” She shook her head. “Oh God, Riley. I'm such an idiot. I'm sorry. I didn't even stop to think—”

“Sarah,” I stopped her. She looked so upset that I felt bad. “It's no big deal. Really. It's what? Two miles? This is Vermont; we're outdoorsy here.”

Sarah smiled gratefully, then closed us into the small, warm living room. I took in the white walls hung with old posters and tie-dyed tapestries, the mismatched sofas and blankets, and scattered everywhere—plants. Lots of them, their greenness surprising after weeks of seeing only the browns of dead grass and mud. The walls between the plants were lined with books, and boxes of more books were piled haphazardly beside half-filled shelves, like Sarah's parents were still unpacking.

“You guys going somewhere?” I asked.

“Oy,” she said, exasperated. “The boxes. Always the boxes.”

“Your house is really nice,” I told her.

“You've never been here?” I shook my head. “Well, thanks,” Sarah said. “It's not fancy, but it's home.”

“It feels like one,” I said. “That's a compliment. It's really comfortable and . . . nice.”

She gave me a half smile. “That's very sweet.” Sarah took my coat and hung it on a hook by the door, her slippers scuffing across the wood floor as she walked.

I wandered over to a table where a sculpture of a windmill sat. It was made out of what looked like old bicycle parts and an erector set. There was a single bare lightbulb beside it.

“What's this?” I asked.

Sarah came over and fitted something onto the arms of the sculpture, and it started to spin. After a few seconds the bulb began glowing with a soft red light.

“Whoa!” I studied the thing, realizing they were magnets she'd put on and that there were wires snaking from the center of the sculpture to the bulb, making it a mini-generator. “That's really cool. Where'd you get it?”

“My mom made it,” Sarah said.

“Really?”

Sarah smiled. “Her hobby. Tinkering, she calls it.”

She motioned me toward the sofa. I gave the machine another glance, then sat, trying to look at ease, though I felt anything but relaxed. It was quiet in the house, like it really was just me and Sarah.

“So, um, where are your parents?” I asked.

“My dad's down in his office in the basement,” she said. “And my mom's with the jerk she ran off with, somewhere in Florida.”

“Oh . . . uh . . .” I racked my brains, trying to think if I'd known that. How could I not have? I smiled sheepishly. “Open mouth, insert foot. Sorry.”

She smiled back, mostly clearing the cloud that'd passed over her face. “No worries, Ri.”

She sat and leaned forward, getting right down to business. “Why didn't you tell us the truth?”

I wasn't surprised—Sarah was a pretty direct girl, and she'd told me she wanted to talk about the binoculars. But I wasn't quite ready. “How did you know?” I stalled.

“I can usually tell when you're hiding something.” She smiled. “Don't take this the wrong way, Riley, but you're not a very good liar.” She added, “That's a compliment.”

It didn't feel like one. My face burned. I wondered how much else she'd figured out. She was still waiting, delicate hands dangling between the worn parts of her jeans.

“Partly it was Tannis,” I said. “She was really twisted about what she saw, thinking the kids meant she'd never race.”

Sarah nodded. “She lost it with me one day too.” She paused, then added, “That hit close to home for you, didn't it? The things Tannis was upset about . . . being stuck here?”

I raised an eyebrow. “I didn't realize we'd be psychoanalyzing me tonight.”

“Sorry.” She smiled. “My dad's a shrink. Can you tell?”

“Well, it explains your deliberate pauses and penetrating stares,” I said. “Anyway, when Trip didn't see anything, Tannis was so . . .”

“Relieved?”

I nodded. “And if I'd told her I
did
see something . . .”

“She'd keep believing that what she saw was her future,” Sarah finished.

“I didn't see any benefit to that.”

“That was really thoughtful of you,” she observed. “I didn't know you had such a soft spot for Tannis.”

“I don't. But seeing her cry was like . . . snow in July or a plague of locusts—”

“Signs of the apocalypse?”

“Right. I didn't really want to deal with that.”

Sarah nodded. “But you
did
see something?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

Which of course was the
real
reason I hadn't said anything. “I can't tell you.” Seeing her disappointment, I added, “It's not you, Sarah. It's just that it involves other people.” It was my mom's and Trip's dad's secret. And Trip's, even though he didn't know it. “I'm sorry.”

She was trying to figure it out—I could tell in how she studied me. But there was no way she'd guess this one. “Any of us?” she probed.

“Not really.”

“Is it something bad?”

I thought about that scene, my mom with Trip's dad, her droopy eye and what I knew that meant about her sickness. But she'd still been in our house, which looked nicer than it ever had before. “Good and bad,” I answered.

“Do you think it's the future?” she asked quietly.

“I have no idea,” I said. “I mean, how could that even be possible?”

She didn't answer, didn't ask me about the stuff Mr. Ruskovich had said. Instead she rubbed her forehead, anxious. “I need to look into the binoculars, Riley,” she said finally.

“What?” I hadn't expected that. “Why?”

“The same reason you did. So I'll know if it's real that you really saw things.”

There it was again. “You,” not “we.”

“I just told you I did,” I said, wondering what she'd seen and why she needed to hide it.

“Would you have believed Trip if he'd looked and seen something? Would that have been enough for you?”

“I'm not sure. I think so,” I lied.

“You didn't believe him when he said there was nothing,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, but—”

“I think there are just some things you have to see for yourself,” she said. “Right?”

“Maybe.” She was right, of course. But I didn't want her to look again. I wasn't sure why. Mr. Ruskovich's warning, maybe.

“Where are they?” she asked softly.

“In my bag.” She looked at me expectantly. I unzipped it but didn't take them out.

“Sarah,” I said. “I have to tell you something.”

She looked at me warily, and I took a deep breath. “I know you looked before. I saw you. Outside the cave that first night.”

Her eyes widened. “Why didn't you say anything?”

“It seemed like you wanted to keep it secret.” I watched her carefully. Was it wrong for me to hope that her vision had been like mine? About her and me? Because that was what I was hoping. But I couldn't tell anything; her eyes gave nothing away. “I guess I wanted to respect that,” I finished.

She didn't say anything right away, so I asked what I really wanted to know. “What did you see?”