It was all so vivid. I knew Adam. I could see him parking at the end of that road and following the music toward the cabins like a siren. He must have suspected what he would find there. He must have realized that he was going to be a hero. What a combination of alcohol and adrenaline would have been pumping through his bloodstream.
“You came up here, and you saw it. There it was. The white F-150. Did you call out Jeremiah’s name? No, probably not. You still thought he’d been kidnapped. You figured whoever did it was still around. So you searched through the cabins, and you found him. Safe. Alive. Alone except for that poor old man, dead on the moldy mattress. Did Jeremiah run to you? Did he hug you? Wow, what a moment that must have been, Adam. Really. I know how exhilarated you must have felt. All these people searching, all these out-of-towners, all the national media, all the Feds treating you like dirt — and you found Jeremiah. You. All by yourself. You were going to be on television. I mean, real television, New York talk shows. Magazine covers, too. Probably a movie. You were going to be famous.”
I felt my words catching in my throat. I didn’t like doing this to him. I really didn’t.
“That’s when you left the voicemail for Agent Reed, right? I can hear it in your voice when I listen to it. That smug triumph. You were going to show all of them, all of those arrogant Feds. Except you were drunk, and you were impatient. You should have called for backup, Adam. One phone call to my father, and then you wait there with Jeremiah until the cavalry arrives. But that wasn’t good enough for you, was it? You weren’t going to let anybody else take that boy home. You were going to do it yourself. You were going to drive him right up to his house and put him in his mother’s arms. Nobody else. Not my father. Not me. Certainly not Agent Reed. Deputy Adam Twilley was going to save the day. But there was hardly any gas left in the pickup, was there? It was pretty much empty by then. So you said to Jeremiah: How about the two of us take a ride? You ever ridden on a motorcycle?”
I looked at the stricken pain on Adam’s face.
I knew I’d gotten it exactly right.
“You could feel that boy’s arms clenched around your waist as you rode. You must have been flying. You were thinking about your future and how this was going to change your life. You were thinking what it was going to be like when Ellen Sloan saw her son again. You were thinking about all those media people interviewing you and taking your picture. You were thinking about everything except what you should have been thinking about. The road. The wet pavement. The bike. You took one of the curves too fast, is that how it went down? The bike spun out? You fell. Jeremiah fell. You got up, but he didn’t.”
I shook my head.
“I’m trying to imagine the horror you felt, Adam, and I can’t. I just can’t. One split second, and all those dreams turned to nightmares. You’d found our boy, and now, instead of rescuing him, you’d killed him. You weren’t going to be the hero anymore. You were going to be hated. Everyone in town, in the state, in the country, would know your name. Adam Twilley. The drunken deputy who let a missing boy die on his motorcycle. You were going to lose your job. You were going to jail. Your life was over. You were in a panic. What do you do? You can’t let anyone know what happened. Nobody can know Jeremiah or Paul Nadler were anywhere near that resort. You had to cover it all up.”
I pictured him standing over the boy’s dead body on the road. Dragging him down the shoulder into the woods. Coming up with a desperate plan.
“You needed gasoline for the truck. So you rode back to Breezy’s, right? You figured she’d have a tank in her shed. Except in the middle of doing that, you heard somebody outside the trailer. Dennis Sloan. He felt you watching him; he was sure someone was there. But you were lucky. He didn’t find you. He left, and then you took the gas tank and went back to the resort to get the truck. You had to move fast. You needed to get everything done while it was still dark. You tried to hide any evidence that Jeremiah had been there, but you were in a hurry. There were things you missed, things you didn’t know about. The rocks. The Legos. The lost shuttlecock in the chimney. You filled up the gas tank of the truck, and you put Mr. Nadler’s body in the back, and you put your motorcycle in the flatbed. Then you went back to where Jeremiah was waiting for you. Was there a shovel in the pickup, or did you take one from Breezy’s shed? Either way, you buried him. You dug through the wet ground and buried him. Do you still remember the place where you did it? I don’t think you forget something like that. I hope you remember, because you’re going to take us there, Adam.”
His breaths were coming faster and faster. His eyes darted back and forth, as if he could find a way to escape if he looked hard enough.
“Then all that was left was to get rid of Paul Nadler. And the truck. So you drove all the way across the county to Stanton. It was a long way to go, but that was the safest bet, right? Put Mr. Nadler in the river not far from his nursing home. Everyone would assume he’d wandered away on foot and died. But the truck? The truck couldn’t be anywhere nearby. You didn’t want anyone to connect Nadler to the F-150. So after that, you went over to Shelby Lake and wiped down the truck and left it behind. Then you took your motorcycle and you drove home.”
Adam didn’t look at me. His gaze wandered across the field, following his hat as it blew away toward the trees. When he finally said something, he was the old Adam. The arrogant James Dean Adam. The hero with the inferiority complex.
“That’s a hell of a story, Shelby.”
“It’s a true story. Right?”
“I’m a cop. I know the difference between evidence and speculation. I know when somebody has proof and when somebody has nothing.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t count on that, Adam. We’ll be able to prove you were at the resort, because we’ve got the voicemail to Agent Reed. And when we search along the road between here and Witch Tree, sooner or later we’re going to find Jeremiah. Even after all this time, the FBI forensics team will find something to connect him to you and your bike. Count on it. But you can save us the trouble. You can admit what you did right now.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you’ve been living with the guilt for ten years, and it’s killing you. The only thing that will make it go away is to admit the truth. The only way to save yourself is to give up the secret. Tell me the truth, Adam. Tell us the truth.”
“Us?”
I gestured over his shoulder. Adam turned around. They were all there in the snow behind him, their faces grim.
Ellen.
Dennis.
Adrian.