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“I could sue you,” I say, interrupting again. “Sam and I both could. So you better pray that nothing happens to us.”
Jonah gives a hard swallow. “So you came here to tell me you’re going to sue the paper?”
“I’m here to warn you that there’ll be hell to pay if I ever see another article about me or Samantha Boyd. What happened to us was years ago. Let it rest.”
“There’s something you need to know about that article,” Jonah says.
“You can shove that article up your ass.”
I move to leave but he grabs my arm, tugging me backward.
“Don’t touch me!”
Jonah’s stronger than he looks, his grip alarmingly tight. I try to get free, arm twisting, elbow aching.
“Just listen to me,” he says. “It’s about Samantha Boyd. She’s lying to you.”
“Let me go!”
I give him a shove. Harder than I intend. Hard enough to get the attention of the guard, who barks, “Miss, you need to leave.”
As if I don’t know that. As if I’m not aware that the longer I stay in Jonah’s presence, the angrier I get. So angry that when Jonah moves toward me again, I give him another shove, this time intentionally harder than the first.
He rocks backward and the folder drops from his arm. It flapsopen on the way down, spitting out its contents. Dozens of newspaper clippings fan out across the floor, their headlines shouting variations of the same story.
Pine Cottage. Massacre. Survivor. Killer.
Low-quality photos accompany most of the articles. To someone else, they’d mean nothing. Copies of copies, all pixels and smudges and Rorschach blots. Only I can see them for what they really are. Exterior shots of Pine Cottage, taken both before and after the murders. Yearbook photos of Janelle, Craig, the others. A picture of me. The same one that graced the cover ofPeopleagainst my wishes.
He’s there too. His image is in a separate box right next to mine. I haven’t seen that face in ten years. Not since that night. I shut my eyes, but it’s too late. That single glimpse breaks something loose inside me, not far from where His knife went in. A croak belches from my throat, followed by a sick rattling as that broken chunk of myself pushes upward, black and bilious and thick.
“I’m going to throw up,” I warn.
And so I do, spewing onto the floor until every single article there is covered.
PINE COTTAGE
6:18 P.M.
Quincy and Janelle stood in the cabin’s kitchen area, separated from the great room by a waist-high counter. It was Janelle’s suggestion that each of them prepare some aspect of dinner. A surprise, seeing as how the most elaborate thing Quincy had ever seen her cook was ramen noodles.
“Maybe we should just roast hot dogs,” Quincy had said when they were planning the weekend. “We’re camping, after all.”
“Hot dogs?” Janelle replied, affronted. “Not on my birthday.”
So there they were, colliding with Amy and Betz, who had been tasked with the main course of roast chicken and several side dishes. Quincy was on cake duty, and she had lugged along an entire bag of baking tools to use for the occasion. A cake pan. All the necessary ingredients. An icing bag with detachable tips. Yes, Janelle’s mother and stepfather had paid for the cabin rental, but Quincy was determined to earn her keep in cake.
Janelle had an easy job—bartender. While Betz and Amy fussed with the chicken and Quincy decorated the cake, she set out several bottles of liquor. The large, cheap kind that came in plastic jugs and was meant to be poured into red Solo cups, of which Janelle had brought plenty.
“How long are you going to let Joe stay?” Quincy whispered to her.
“As long as he likes,” Janelle whispered back.
“Like, all night? Seriously?”
“Sure,” Janelle said. “It’s getting late and there’s plenty of room. It could be fun.”
Quincy disagreed. So did everyone else, in their own muted way.Even Joe, with his odd cadences and filthy glasses that clouded his eyes, seemed unenthused by the idea.