CHAPTER FORTY-SIXCAT
I keep replaying it. The way my hand shook as I called Sheriff Ryan, trying to sound calm, trying to sound like the adult in charge. Within minutes, The Hollow was lit with headlights and flashlights, yellow tape strung across the cave. Deputies kept the kids back while we waited for the coroner. Cans of alcohol littered the bank. Marijuana smoke lingered on the air. The girls clumped together, mascara smudged from crying, their bare shoulders trembling in the cold. I kept Olivia close, her head pressed against me.
The sheriff asked a few quick questions, jotting in his little notebook—who found it, what they saw, whether anyone touched anything. There would be more follow-up later. For now, he just needed names and parents’ numbers.
By two in the morning, cars were pulling up fast, headlights slicing through the dark. Parents climbing out in slippers, half dressed, faces pale with fear.
And then Emily, storming from her silver SUV, marching down the bank.Where the hell were you, Cat? There was a whole party going on, and you didn’t hear a thing?
The other parents turned, some whispering. Emily didn’t have to say the rest out loud:You were drunk. You were passed out. Same old Cat.
I wanted to scream that I hadn’t touched a drop, that I’d been home with my earbuds in, drowning out my thoughts with oceanwaves. But the words wouldn’t come. Not when every set of eyes there knew my history, knew the stories, knew all the times I hadn’t been reliable. The shame clamped me down, silent.
I just stood there, heat burning my face, while Emily took my daughter away, back to her home, where she is safe and looked after. The truth was, I had no explanation to give. Emily is right in the way that counts. As they left, Olivia looked back over her shoulder, and the faintest flicker passed between us—enough to keep me standing, enough to remind me I hadn’t lost her completely.
Now, I see Isabelle Whitmore’s face. I watch it decay in a rapid time-lapse, unable to turn away. Her skin white and waterlogged sloughs off in strips that float in the stagnant, iron-colored water, flies and beetles lay eggs in the creases of her closed eyelids, larvae worm out to consume soft tissue, rats take chunks, a grotesque frenzy of movement, of degradation until she is nothing but bone.
I wake in a puddle of sweat, the sheets and pillowcase damp beneath me, my nightgown twisted up between my legs. I strip the bed, throw the laundry in the wash, and put on clean sheets.
The model home is so quiet I can hear the toilet filling, the hum of the central heat, the buzz of my own thoughts like hornets.
I think of the champagne bottles.
It’s only champagne. People give their kids sips of champagne on New Year’s Eve. There’s more alcohol in most people’s mouthwash. It hardly qualifies.
I can hear the cork pop so clearly. The release of tension. Cold bubbles that promise a warm honey oblivion.
I haven’t poured out yesterday’s half-empty bottle yet. If Mark is secretly keeping count, he’d never know if that bit went down the drain or not. And how much could a glass or two hurt, really?
I get up casually, open the fridge like I’m grabbing a snack. Because if Mark is counting bottles, who’s to say he hasn’t installed a nanny cam to keep an eye on me as well? I make a face at the champagne, act like I’d forgotten it was there. I bring it to the sink and unhook the airtight stopper. The pop is subtle, but the smell makesmy heart flutter. I tip it over the drain, but move my thumb to cover the opening, to trap the champagne inside. I feel a little thrill. And then Emily’s voice slices in, that cut-glass edge:Same old Cat.
I grip the bottle harder, ashamed of how quickly I’m proving her point.
I set the still half-full bottle in the recycling bin, upright so that it doesn’t spill, pull the strings of the trash bag tight and tie it, lift the bag from the bin. I’ll set it out by the trash, and no one has to know it’s there. No one has to know anything at all.
When I open the door, I’m jolted back to my senses. Melanie is standing on the porch. Relief washes over me when I see her. What the hell was I thinking?
“Honey, I wanted to check on you, with everything that’s going on. We can’t have you spiraling again.”
I place the bag down and throw my arms around her.
“Oh, Cat,” she says, rubbing circles on my back. “Everything will be fine.”
I hear the bag slump and shift, then feel the chill of the champagne on my bare feet as I squeeze her tight.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVENSARAH LYNN
I sit on the love seat in Mom’s pageant room, whitening strips on my teeth, staring at the giant portrait of her in her crown and sash, the gleam of her teeth, the perfect slope of her nose, her high cheekbones. But all I can picture is the skull beneath, the bones that give her face its shape.
Mom is at her desk, phone to her ear. She’s been fielding calls all morning. By now, everyone in town knows that The Hollow is taped off. They want to know if the pageant will be postponed, if maybe it will be cancelled altogether. They’re also concerned about the weather. Warnings crawl across the bottom of every local channel: temperatures dropping into the twenties, windchill in the teens, a chance of sleet. A handful of counties have already called off school, and the power company is urging people to “prepare for disruptions.” And still, Mom keeps assuring callers that the show will go on.
“The Amenity Center is not considered part of the crime scene,” she says crisply, as she clicks her pen against a legal pad. “We’re still planning to meet tonight to set up the venue, and I expect all contestants and volunteers to show up as committed.”
People don’t understand how much work she’s put into this, how every vendor has been wrangled, how the deposits have all been paid, funds raised because she’s been buttering up sponsors formonths with favors and fancy lunches and a thousand phone calls. But I do. I have seen every single thing she’s done.
When she finally hangs up, she exhales sharply, then turns to her corkboard. The headshots are pinned in neat rows, contestants lined up like soldiers. Olivia’s face sits at the very top, skewered with a red pushpin.
Last night, when Mom picked us up from The Hollow, she didn’t yell. She didn’t ground us or threaten to take away our cell phones or tell Dad. She just drove home in silence, her hands tight at ten and two. In the garage, she got out, walked straight into the house without a word.