The forest is determined not to make it easy for her. If walking through these woods, unkempt and ravaged by floods year in and year out, was difficult, then running proves a Sisyphean challenge. Whenever she thinks she might have gained a few precious yards of distance between her and her pursuer, she trips, slips, tumbles, or falls on her face. Mud coats the front of her coat and soaks through her jeans, weighing down the already dense material and making it cling to her legs, leeching out the warmth. At last, she thinks she sees a clearing up ahead, the tree trunks parting to reveal something like a discernible path—only to forget to watch her step for a crucial second. The patch of old leaves had been concealing a slick of slippery dirt. Laura’s foot goes out from under her, and she goes flying to land in the mud a few feet away.
All she can hear now is her own panting, her frenzied pulse rushing in her ears and the sounds of the forest, muffled and distant. She realizes she can’t get up, and if she tries, her heart might burst from the effort. She shuts her eyes and waits for Tony to pounce on her, expecting any moment now to feel his weight on top of her, pushing her farther into the cold dirt, squeezing the breath out of her.
Nothing happens.
A few moments pass—moments that feel to Laura like a self-contained eternity. But other than the beating of her own heart, she hears nothing. The forest around her is tranquil and still. Birds whistle and chirp somewhere far overhead. The wind rustles in the bare branches.
Laura rolls over, pushes the ground away, and comes to a crouch. She’s felt better. She’s shivering down to her core, her hands shaking when she grabs on to a tree branch and pulls herself up to standing.
She’s alone. It’s hard to tell where exactly she ended up, but she thinks she recognizes this part of the forest—the trees are less dense, which means she’s not too far from the path she took to come here. Only a matter of minutes before she finds it, and before she knows it, she’ll be on her way back to town. To the main street and to other people. Tony won’t be able to do a thing to her then.
She lets out a ragged exhale and starts to walk.
She makes her way through the trees to what she believes is the clearing in the distance, the clearing that indicates the road and, with it, safety. But the clearing seems to be receding in front of her. The faster she tries to walk, the more it appears to pull back, teasing her, mocking.
A few moments ago, she was freezing cold, but now she’s sweating again. She picks up the pace as much as she can manage until she’s practically breaking into a run again—
And then the trees finally part. Like magic. All the breath goes out of Laura at once, and a wail of despair gets caught in her throat.
The noise, the hum she’d mistaken for the rush of blood in her ears grows stronger now, so strong it drowns out the birds and the wind and her own chaotic shreds of thoughts.
She didn’t reach the road. She’d been going the wrong way this whole time.
She now finds herself on the riverbank.
Laura curses under her breath, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. How long will it take to get back on track? Easily an hour. She hardly realized where she’d been going and how long she’d been running. Goddammit. The sun is going to start to set, and then—
Something—someone—slams into her from behind. She has no time to react, she tumbles onto the old leaves and last year’s faded grass, choking on her cry.
The next thing she knows, Tony Bergmann wraps his hands around her throat.
EIGHTEEN
2017
Mistake number one: I go to the creepy, abandoned Fortier house after dark.
I don’t dare drive up to the old Fortier house in broad daylight. Sure, the dark is less than convenient, but so is getting caught snooping around private property. And I don’t want to pass up the chance to have a look around, maybe even snap some photos—I no longer have my nice camera since I had to sell it before leaving, but my phone has a flash mode that I can use.
Mistake number two: I don’t tell anyone where I’m going.
In my defense, who was I going to tell? My mom? I can imagine what she would make of that idea. And I sure wasn’t going to tell Luc. Not that I don’t trust him—although really, do I have any reason to trust him?—but if you’re planning on trespassing, it’s generally not a good idea to inform the son of the local hero.
I drive up to the Fortier house when it’s almost completely dark outside. The kaleidoscope of sunset colors has faded into a single wan stripe of blue on the horizon. When I pass the Chaudière river, I see the dull glint of its surface. It looks nearly still, as if, having done its worst, the river slunk back into its banks where it lurks, awkward and apologetic.
The Fortier house sits atop a small elevation that has been enough to keep it safe from the spring floods the previous years. But not this time. As I get near, the car’s wheels crunch across the driveway that’s supposed to be neatly paved over. The headlights snatch trails of debris out of the darkness.
I realize almost immediately that the house isn’t empty.
There are other cars parked haphazardly all around. The house itself looms, dark, but reflections of light dance on the black windows like ghosts. There’s scratchy music and the sound of laughter that pours into the car as soon as I crack open the window.
There’s a party here tonight.
Mistake number three: not leaving well enough alone.
This should be my cue to turn the car around and go back to Laura’s. I can’t fully explain to myself why I don’t do just that. Deep down, I feel protective of the house, of the Fortiers, of the stories and secrets these mute walls keep to themselves. From a purely practical standpoint, these kids are probably going to trash the place, destroying any and all interesting evidence, and I better get there before that happens. In any event, that’s how I decide to rationalize it away.
I walk toward the house. The fence is dilapidated, with a large chunk of it missing, and I don’t even need to squeeze through. There’s a fire in a makeshift pit, and cooler boxes scattered all around. These kids sure didn’t come here to roast marshmallows. No one really pays attention to me, and to be fair, I blend in. All around me are teenagers in jeans and sweatshirts. One of them hands me a can of Labatt. I haven’t had a drink in years, and I haven’t had a Labatt even longer than that. But I don’t know why, I crack it open. This stuff is weak, like American beer. This can alone probably won’t even give me a buzz.
Mistake number four: falling off the wagon, while failing to acknowledge there was a wagon in the first place.
Marly has always been five years in the past. I thought the connected generation might be different, but it turns out I’m wrong. I recognize the music pouring out of the cheap speakers, stuff I still listen to. The resulting cognitive dissonance is unsettling and eerie. Like I’ve fallen back through time. I’m seized with panic—did I ever leave or did I dream it all up? Was I ever in Montreal, did I ever record a podcast, did I ever really work for Girlboss with the expensive haircut or was she just a figment of my imagination?
And it’s not like I have anything to show for it all.
But then, if none of it was real, then shouldn’t things be different? Shouldn’t there be Luc by my side and Cath still my crazy best friend? Shouldn’t everyone smile and nod and greet me because I’m still the most popular girl at school?
It’s the feeling of being unmoored from reality that intoxicates me, not the beer that tastes like shampoo. I wander the party like a ghost, ignored save for the odd look some girl throws in my direction. Debris crunches beneath the soles of my sneakers. I make my way farther, toward the dark edge that marks the descent to the river like a cliff. Was there a fence here at some point? If so, there’s no trace of it now. From this angle, it looks like I could just step over and fall off the face of the earth, silently, without a soul to notice.
I can’t help but ask myself if this was what happened to Michelle. Did nobody look for her simply because it was obvious she’d fallen into the river and drowned?
I approach the edge of the cliff until I see the drop-off and the river below. It’s beautiful. I understand why the Fortiers chose this spot for their house.
I want to sit down and enjoy the view for a little longer, but when I touch the ground, there’s no grass, and the earth is humid and ice-cold. I change my mind and wander toward the house. It seems too high up to have been flooded, even with historically high water levels. It doesn’t look all that water-damaged either, at least not at first glance.
The back side of the house is all windows, a concept just starting to get popular at the time the place was built. The house itself must have seemed forbidding, strange, way too avant-garde for a place like Marly where little bungalows and split-levels were the norm. I can imagine how people must have talked. Marie must have felt like such an outsider.
I approach the steps leading to the deck with trepidation. It’s a bit too dark to see if they’re in good shape. I take out my phone and use the flashlight. Nothing seems obviously wrong, so I decide to chance it. The deck itself also holds up. I make my way to the patio doors and see that one glass panel has been smashed and replaced with a piece of plywood that’s half fallen down already. It takes some effort to pry it out of the way. I step over the threshold into the house where Michelle Fortier lived.
