Page 79 of The Catcher

“Aye, laddie, trust me, I don’t want to get any closer. I hate heights. It’s dangerous up here. Come on over.”

“No. I’m going to jump.”

McKenzie extended a hand. “Nicholas, you don’t want to do that. Look, just climb back over the railing, and we can talk.”

Nicholas shook his head; he leaned a little forward.

“Whoa! Nicholas, okay, just talk to me from there. What’s going on?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“I know more than you know.”

“Yeah, like what?”

“That you were a good friend to Elizabeth Anderson.”

He shook his head. “Not good enough. I couldn’t stop it.”

“I know. We know, Nicholas.”

“I didn’t kill them. I didn’t.”

“We also know that.”

Nicholas looked over his shoulder at McKenzie. “She was my only friend, the only one who understood. And those bastards…” He trailed off at the sound of the radio.

The radio crackled on McKenzie’s hip. It was Terry. “McKenzie!” he barked.

McKenzie lowered the volume so it wouldn’t distract the kid.

“Look, it’s over. They’re gone. They can’t harm you anymore,” McKenzie said.

“All of them?”

McKenzie thought about what Noah had told him. That there was the potential that Tyler Ashford was still alive. He also knew that Addison was in the hospital, hooked up to a ventilator. “All of them,” he said, lying. All that mattered was getting him back over that railing. If he had to withhold the truth, so be it.

“It doesn’t matter. There’ll be others.”

“Nicholas. I get it. Kids can be brutal. Adults, too,” he said, turning down the volume a little more after hearing Terry swearing over the radio. “No matter where you go in this life, you will find assholes. Most of them are just reacting to cover up their own inadequacies, pain, and trauma. And some, well, they’re just jerks. But you need to know there is life after this. One day, you will look back and wonder how you ever thought they could win.”

“Win?”

“Yes. If you jump, they win. Don’t give them that satisfaction.”

“Elizabeth did. She escaped. Happened right here,” he said, looking down.

“And look at the ripple effect. The community. You. Her father killing those teens. Your life matters, Nicholas. What about those who care for you?”

“No one does.”

“Someone does. I do. What about your parents? It willdestroy them,” he said. Nicholas looked away. McKenzie could see him chewing it over. He wanted to bridge the gap so he could lunge forward and grasp him, but fear of heights kept him at a distance. Still, McKenzie began to inch forward just a little more, his one hand extended.

“Come on, Nicholas. Give me your hand.”

28

“Hindsight really is 20/20,” Callie said. Her voice held a hint of nostalgia as she thumbed through the book’s aged pages. Seated beside her, Noah focused on the road ahead as they journeyed toward Saranac Lake in her trusty Jeep, the engine’s steady roar filling the air.