“Here and there.”
“You hiding?”
“Kind of, I guess. I’ve got a plan to leave, anyway.”
Louise looks up at him, finally. Then past him. There are only two other houses on this cul-de-sac, both of them seemingly shuttered for the night. There are no streetlights on the side streets of Shattuck; she can see his form only by the glow cast forth from her mother’s house.
“Louise?”
“What?”
“I’ve got something weighing on my mind,” he says. “Had to tell you before I go.”
Louise’s heart skips several beats. In her mind, she makes guesses, all of them far-fetched.
“Oh?” she says—trying to sound casual.
“Your boyfriend,” says Lee Towson. “Your fiancé. Excuse me.”
“What about him?”
“He was sleeping around.”
Louise closes her eyes.
“How do you know?” she says.
“I supplied him. And I saw him a couple times with another girl. Same one.”
“Not,” says Louise.
“Not Barbara. No. He was up at the main house. On the beach behind Self-Reliance. He was with a girl he called Annabel,” says Lee.
• • •
Louise closes her eyes. The world around her fades; her understanding with it. Other things come into focus now: Annabel’s declaration, early on, that her parents had someone in mind for her to marry. The Southworths and the McLellans, longtime friends, staying together at Self-Reliance. John Paul’s staunch refusal to bring Louise anyplace in its vicinity. His absence throughout the week. And—last, most brutal—Annabel’s departure in the middle of the camp dance. The same night as Barbara’s disappearance.
“Annabel’s seventeen,” says Louise.
Lee says: “Normally I’d mind my own business. But I thought you needed to know that, in case.”
“In case what?” says Louise.
“In case it—proves anything. In case it’s helpful to you. I know what charges they laid on you. But I bet they’re interested in you for something else. That’s how they work,” he adds.
“Why do you care what happens to me?” says Louise, abruptly. It sounds more bitter than she meant it to. Everyone, she believes, has an agenda.
“Well,” says Lee, “because I like you.”
She says nothing. She closes her eyes.
A long pause. Then: “Louise. Why don’t you come with me?”
“What?” says Louise—distracted now. “Where?”
“I’m going to Colorado tomorrow. To a town called Crested Butte. Buddy of mine lives out there, says it’s heaven.”
“I’m not allowed to leave my house,” says Louise, stiffly. “My mother’s house. I’m out on bail. They got me on possession charges. For some drugs that weren’t even mine.”
“Ah,” says Lee. “Well, there goes that idea. Unless you feel like pulling a Bonnie and Clyde. Hide out awhile, till things cool off.”
Louise shakes her head. “Anyway,” she says, “that’s where they think you’re going. So you should prob’ly choose a different place.”
“Who does?”
“The police.”
Lee pauses, considering.
In the silence, Louise says: “I heard about you. I heard about why you went to jail.”
Lee inhales and exhales. Then, as if suddenly tired, he seats himself on the ground. “Who told you that?”
“My mom’s friend.” She doesn’t feel like telling the whole truth.
Lee gives a long sigh.
“I was nineteen,” says Lee. “She was sixteen. She was the daughter of the family I cooked for. Rich family. Had a place in the Catskills, okay? Not quite as nice as the Van Laar place, but something like it.”
