“Yeah, but I was just double checking.” He gives me a sidelong glance. “Sometimes people change their minds about stuff like that.”
“Well, I don’t have to change my mind because it’s the truth.”
“Alright.”
He doesn’t believe me and quite honestly I’m not even sure I believe me.
“Oh, I forgot to mention that I went through your file.” He’s making it sound like a casual mention, but it’s clearly been planned. He wants me to hear whatever it is he found.
I look at him, puzzled. “File?”
He glances at me again, getting a good look at my face, and I hope it portrays that I’m calm, casual, and completely cool, instead of the erratic instability I’m feeling inside. “Yeah, the one filled out for the accident six years ago.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask smoothly. “Find anything interesting?”
“Should I have found anything interesting?”
I make steady eye contact with him. “You tell me, since you’ve gone through it. I on the other hand have no idea what it says.”
His eyes land on me and the intensity flowing from them almost causes me to melt back in the seat. “Did you know that you had a high dose of flinitrazepam in your system the night you were hit?”
I shake my head, baffled. “I don’t even know what that is.”
“The street name for it is Rufi.” He watches me closely.
“You mean the date rape drug… What? How?”
“Yeah, I’m not sure why. I don’t think it was ever looked into.” He presses on the brake and I realize we’re at my house and turning into my driveway. “You know, it’s strange.” He puts the car in park, parking it right in front of the garage. “A girl in the middle of the street, gets hit by a car, the driver takes off, and you have drugs in your system. Yet her mother doesn’t want the investigation looked into further. Especially one that worries so much.”
I want to ask him what else he read, but in doing so, I feel like I’m putting myself at risk. For whatever reason, he seems to think I have some kind of connection to Sydney’s murder and asking him questions will probably make him question me more.
“Thanks for the ride,” I say, pushing open the door and hopping out into the rain before he can say anything else.
“Any time,” he says with a trace of a pleased grin on his face.
I shut the door and run inside the house with every intention of confronting my mother about the drugs, the fire, the hospital, but to my shock she’s gone. I’d left my phone in my room and find about a dozen missed calls from her and a text.
Mom: Went looking for you. If you get home before I do, don’t leave. Do you understand me? You weren’t supposed to leave the house and the cops came today. I’m serious Maddie…
I stop reading it because it doesn’t matter.
My life is one big lie.
You can trust me. I tell the truth, no matter how painful it is.
I sink down on my bed and watch the rain shift from a downpour to a drizzle, listening for the front door to open, for my mom to walk in. The longer I wait, the more frustrated I get. I was drugged that night and she didn’t want it investigated. Drugged? Why wouldn’t she have it looked into? Why is she always lying to me about everything? To protect me? Because what I’m going through now is anything but protection.
“I wonder what she’d do if you were here,” I say to Lily. “If you showed up and spoke to her… she has to know you exist?”
Maybe we should find out.
I remain sitting on my bed and consider that for about an hour. The more time passes by the more I just want to get away. I know I’m moving, but that can’t happen overnight. I need to just take a day off. Away from my mother. Detective Bennerly. I don’t want to be somewhere where River can find me and confront me after he gets the cuffs off. I just want to be alone, where I don’t have to worry about anything, just for a little while. I want to be able to breathe again. I miss breathing.
Without much deliberating, I grab a blanket and pillow from my closet, grab a heavy coat and fill up a bag with snacks. Even if it’s only for a day, I need a break from all this madness and there’s only one place I can go to get just that.
Chapter 24
Maddie
I rip the house apart until I find my car keys. She’s hidden them in the freezer of all places, pretty coincidental considering I woke up in a freezer they morning Sydney was found. I get in and drive up to the foothills, stopping near the turnout. I text my mother that I won’t be coming home tonight then turn off my cellphone before she can flip out on me and stop me from bailing out for the night.
I know I’m running away from my problems. Know it’s probably the chicken’s way out of this. But it’s hard to live life when nothing makes sense around you or inside your head. There’s no downtime. No quiet. No peace because even when the detective and my mother aren’t accusing me of being someone else. I am. I know what I am. Fear what I am. Yet at the same time part of me likes it and the like makes me sick, makes me feel wrong inside.
The closest stop near the cabin still leaves me a couple of miles in walking distance. Thankfully, the rain has ceased but it’s still cloudy and the ground is a murky mess. By the time I arrive at Ryland’s, it’s late. The sun is lowering behind the mountains and pastel colors glow from underneath the clouds, making the sky look like a watercolor painting. I’m exhausted. Hungry. Out of breath. My boots and bottoms of my jeans coated in mud. And more mentally drained than I’ve ever been in my entire life. But as soon as I see Ryland standing inside the cabin, watching me from out the window trudging through the field, my panic silences. Air enters my lungs easier. My steps become lighter—life becomes lighter.
I’m free for the moment.
“You’ve been gone for a while. I was beginning to think you’d finally decided not to come up here anymore,” Ryland says, sounding disappointed that I’m here as he opens the door to let me in. He’s wearing old jeans and a stained white shirt, his sandy hair its usual mess, and everything about him screams comfort. Safe. Home.
“I’ve been on lock down,” I divulge as he moves back and lets me enter the cabin, closing the door behind me. I drop the bag and blanket onto the living room floor noting that he has a few leaks in the roof, rain slipping in from a handful of different areas. The fireplace is burning bright, making flashes of memories surface in my mind, but I don’t feel a thing, because I’m here.
Safe.
“My mother pretty much has me trapped in the house,” I admit, turning away from the fire and facing him with my hands on my hips.
“And why’s that?” He tentatively walks up to me with his hands tucked into his pockets.
I shrug, not wanting to get into any of the crazy stuff. “I don’t know yet, but I need to find out.”
We stare at each other briefly, a silent exchange. I swear he can read my thoughts, sees through me and sees that I don’t want to talk about why I’m here, that I just want to be here and not think about my life away from him. He gives me a soft, but depressed smile as I sit down on the floor in front of the fire. He follows my lead without questioning me and then we lay down, side by side, with our arms stretched out. Rain trickles in through the holes in the roof. The smell of rain usually provokes fear, but not this time—not up here. It could downpour and I could drown in it and be completely and utterly okay with it at the moment because Ryland is here with me and somehow I know that with him everything will be okay. At least until I leave the cabin.
“I wish I could stay here forever,” I admit, lying motionless as I close my eyes. “Life would be so much easier if I just stayed up here and lived with you.”