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“She found my driver’s license. Did some digging.”
“Is that why you killed her?”
Tina pounds the steering wheel so hard the whole car shudders. “I didn’t kill her, Quincy! I liked her, for God’s sake. I felt like shit when she learned the truth.”
“But you came to me anyway.”
“I almost didn’t. It didn’t seem like the best idea.” A laugh bursts out of her, inappropriate and thick with irony. “Turns out I was right.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Information.”
“About what?”
“Joe Hannen,” Tina says.
The name is a lightning strike, zapping me awake. My eyes flicker open, pink-orange light catching in my lashes. Sunset. A strip of dying light crosses over the dashboard, collecting and reflecting off something Tina has placed there.
A knife. The one from my kitchen.
“Go ahead and try to grab it,” Tina warns. “I guarantee I’m faster.”
I lift my gaze from the knife to the windshield above it, dirty with wiper streaks and splotches left by wet leaves. Through the grime, I see trees, a gravel drive, a run-down cabin with cracked windows flanking a moss-flecked door.
“No,” I say, clenching my eyes shut again. “No, no, no.”
I keep saying it, hoping enough repetitions will make it not true. That it’s just a nightmare I’ll soon wake from.
But it’s no nightmare. It’s real. I know it as soon as I reopen my eyes.
Tina has brought me back to Pine Cottage.
39.
Time hasn’t been kind to the place, which sags under the weight of decay and neglect. It looks less like a building than something foul that’s emerged from the forest floor. A fungus. A poison. Leaves blanket the roof and surround the fieldstone chimney, which rises jaggedly like a rotten tooth. The cabin’s exterior, weathered to a dull gray, is pockmarked with moss and dying plant sprouts that curl from nooks in the wood. Although the sign still hangs over the door, one of its nails has rusted away, slanting the words.
“I’m not going in there!” Hysteria colors my every word, which pop out in panicked squeaks. “You can’t make me go in there!”
“You don’t have to,” Tina says, much calmer than I. “Just tell me the truth.”
“I already told you what I know!”
She turns to me, elbow resting on the steering wheel. “Quinn, no one believes you can’t remember anything. I read that transcript. Those cops think you’re lying.”
“Coop believes me,” I say.
“Only because he wanted to fuck you.”
“Please believe me when I say I don’t remember anything,” I beg. “I swear to God, I don’t.”
Tina shakes her head and sighs. Opening her door, she says, “Then I guess we’re going in.”
My body starts to buzz. Adrenaline churns my blood. I see theknife on the dashboard and lunge for it. Tina does too, snatching it away from my springing hand.
She’s right. Sheisfaster.
I go for the keys next, aiming for the plastic key fob. Again, Tina beats me to it. Yanking the keys from the ignition, she carries them and the knife out of the car.