Chapter Twenty-one

I’m not worried about my behavior being called in to law enforcement. Andy Reeves will recover, and when he does, he won’t want anyone reporting the incident.

I am more worried, however, about Reeves’s threat. Four people—you, Diana, Rex, and Hank—have been murdered. Yes, I’m going to use that term now. Forget the claims of accident and suicide. You were murdered, Leo. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let that go.

I call Ellie. She doesn’t answer, which pisses me off. I look on my phone and check the photo I took of Reeves. He’s on the floor, his face scrunched up in pain, but it’s clear enough. I attach it to a text and send it to Ellie. The text reads:

See if Maura’s mom recognizes him.

I start to drive home, but I realize that I haven’t eaten anything. I veer to the right and make my way to the Armstrong Diner. It’s open twenty-four hours. Through the window I see that Bunny is on duty. As I get out of the car, my phone rings. It’s Ellie.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey.”

That’s our way of realizing we went too far, I guess.

“Where are you?” she asks.

“The Armstrong.”

“I’ll be there in half an hour.”

The phone goes dead. I get out and start toward the diner. Two girls, probably late teens, maybe early twenties, stand outside, smoking and jabbering away. One is blond, one brunette, both resembling “Internet models” or wannabe reality stars. That’s the look, I guess. I walk past them as they take deep drags. Then I stop and turn back toward them. I stare at them until they feel my eyes. They keep talking for a second or two, glancing toward me. I don’t move. Eventually their voices fade away.

The blonde makes a face at me. “What’s your problem?”

“I should just go inside,” I say. “I should just mind my own business. But I want to say one thing first.”

They both look at me the way you do at a crazy person.

“Please don’t smoke,” I say.

The brunette puts her hands on her hips. “Do we know you?”

“No,” I say.

“You a cop or something?”

“I am, but that has nothing to do with it. My father died of lung cancer because he smoked. So I can just walk right past you—or I can try to save your life. Chances are, you won’t listen to me, but maybe if I do this enough, maybe just one time, someone will stop and think and maybe even quit. So I’m asking you—I’m sort of begging you—please don’t smoke.”

That’s it.

I head inside. Stavros is behind the cash register. He gives me a high five and nods toward a table in the corner. I’m a single guy who doesn’t like to cook, so I’m here a lot for dinner. Like the menus at most New Jersey diners, the Armstrong’s menu is Bible-length. Bunny just gives me the specials menu. She points to the salmon with couscous and gives me a wink.

I look out the window. The two smoking girls are still outside. The brunette has her back to me, the cigarette between her fingers. The blonde gives me a baleful look, but there is no cigarette in her hand. I give her a thumbs-up. She turns away. She probably finished it already, but I take the victories where I can.

I’m just about finished with my meal when Ellie comes through the door. Stavros’s face lights up when he sees her. It’s a cliché to say that someone lights up a room when she enters it, but at the very least, Ellie raises the average level of goodness, of decency, of virtue in it.

This is the first time I just don’t take all that for granted.

She slides in across the booth, tucking one foot under her.

“Did you get that photograph to Maura’s mom?” I ask.

Ellie nods. “She hasn’t replied yet.”

I see her blink away tears.

“Ellie?”

“Something else I never told you.”

“What?”

“Two years ago, when I spent that month in Washington.”

I nod. “For that conference on the homeless.”

She makes a “yeah right” noise. “A conference”—she picks up the napkin and starts dabbing at her eyes—“that lasts a month?”

I don’t know what to make of that, so I stay silent.

“This has nothing to do with Maura, by the way. I just . . .”

I reach out and put my hand on her arm. “What is it?”

“You’re the best person I know, Nap. I trust you with my life. But I didn’t tell you.”

“Didn’t tell me what?”

“Bob . . .”

I stay perfectly still.

“There was this woman at work. Bob started staying late. So one night I surprised him. The two of them . . .”

I feel my heart bottom out. I don’t know what to say and I don’t think she wants me to say anything, so I tighten the grip on her arm a little. I want to offer some kind of comfort. But I blew that chance.

A monthlong conference. Man.

My best friend was in horrible pain. And I never saw it.

Some great detective, right?

Ellie wipes her eyes and forces up a smile. “It’s better now. Bob and I cleared the air.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“Not right now, no. I came to talk to you about Maura. About my promise to her.”

Bunny comes over, drops a menu in front of Ellie, gives her a wink. When she leaves, I don’t know how to continue. Neither does Ellie. So finally I say, “You made a promise to Maura.”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“The night Leo and Diana died.”

Another punch in the teeth.

Bunny comes back over and asks Ellie if she wants to order anything. Ellie says a decaf. I manage to order a mint tea. Bunny asks whether either of us wants to try the banana pudding, it’s to die for. We both decline.

“That night,” I say. “Did you see Maura before or after Leo and Diana died?”

Her answer sends me into another tailspin: “Both.”

I don’t know what to say, or maybe I’m afraid of what I might say. She looks out the window, into the parking lot.

“Ellie?”

“I’ll break my promise to Maura,” she says. “But, Nap?”

“What?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

—

“Let me start with the after,” Ellie says.

The diner is emptying out, but we don’t care. Bunny and Stavros have been steering newcomers to the opposite end of the diner, giving us privacy.

“Maura came to my house,” she says.

I wait for Ellie to say more. She doesn’t.

“That night?”

“Yes.”

“What time?”

“About three in the morning. My parents had broken up, and Dad . . . he wanted me happy, so he converted the garage into a bedroom for me, which was pretty awesome for a teenager. My friends could come at all hours because you could reach my room without waking anybody.”

I’d heard rumors about Ellie’s back door always being open, but this was before Ellie and I became tight, before my brother and Ellie’s best friend, Diana, were found on those railroad tracks. I wonder about that now. The two sturdiest relationships in my adult life are with Ellie and Augie, both born from that tragic night.

“So anyway, when I first heard the knock, I didn’t think much of it. People knew that if they couldn’t go home yet—if they were too drunk or whatever—they could crash at my place.”

“Had Maura ever come by before?” I ask.

“No, never. I know I’ve told you this, but I was always a little in awe of Maura. She just seemed, I don’t know, cooler than the rest of us. More mature and worldly. You know what I mean?”

I nod. “So why did she come to you?”

“I asked her that, but at first, Maura was just a wreck, crying and hysterical. Which, like I said, was weird to me because she always seemed above it all. It took me like five minutes to calm her down. She was covered in dirt. I thought she’d been attacked or something. I actually started checking her clothes to see if anything had been ripped. I read about that in some rape-trauma class. Anyway, when she started to calm down, it almost happened too quickly. I don’t know how else to put it. Like someone had slapped her in the face and shouted, ‘Snap out of it!’”

“What did you do?”

“I broke out a bottle of Fireball whisky I had hidden under my bed.”

“You?”

She shakes her head. “You really think you know everything about me, don’t you?”

Evidently not, I think.

“Anyway, Maura shook me off, said she needed to keep a clear head. She asked if she could stay with me for a while. I said of course. Truthfully, I was kinda flattered that she chose me.”

“This is three in the morning?”

“Around three, yeah.”

“So you didn’t know about Leo and Diana yet,” I say.

“Right.”

“Did Maura tell you?”

“No. She just said she needed a place to hide.” Ellie leaned forward. “Then she looked me dead in the eyes and made me promise. You know how intense she could be, right? She made me promise not to tell anyone she was there, not ever, not even you.”

“She specifically said me?”

Ellie nods. “I actually thought at first maybe you two had a big fight, but she was too scared. She came to me, I think, because, well, I’m Reliable Ellie, right? There were people closer to her. That’s what I kept wondering about. Why me? Now I know.”

“Know what?”

“Why she came to me. You heard her mom. People were looking for her. I didn’t know that back then. But Maura must have figured anyone close to her would be watched or questioned.”

I nod. “So she couldn’t go home.”

“Right. And she probably thought that they’d spy on you or question your dad. If they wanted to find her, they’d search the people close to her.”

I see it now. “And you really weren’t a friend.”

“Exactly. She figured that they wouldn’t go to me.”

“So what were they after? Why were these people looking for her?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“I asked. She didn’t tell me.”

“And you let that go?”

Ellie almost smiles. “You don’t remember how persuasive Maura could be?”

Oh, I do. I get it.

“I learned later that Maura told me nothing for the same reason she told her mother nothing.”

“To protect you.”

“Yes.”

“If you didn’t know anything,” I continue, “you couldn’t tell them anything.”

“She also made me promise, Nap. She made me swear that until she came back on her own, I couldn’t tell anyone. I tried to keep that promise, Nap. I know you’re angry about it. But something about the way Maura said it . . . I wanted to keep my word. And I was really afraid that breaking my word would lead to disaster. To tell you the truth, even now, even as we sit here, I think it’s the wrong thing. I didn’t want to tell you.”

“So what changed your mind?”

“Too many people are dying, Nap. And I wonder whether Maura is one of them.”

“You think she’s dead?”

“Her mom and I . . . we naturally bonded after this. That first call at the Bennigan’s? I helped set that up. Lynn left that part out when she talked to you, to protect me.”

I don’t know what to say to all this. “You lied to me all these years.”

“You were obsessed.”

Again that word. Ellie says I am obsessed. David Rainiv says Hank was obsessed.

“If I told you about this promise,” Ellie says, “well, I had no idea how you’d react.”

“Wasn’t your place to worry about my reaction.”

“Maybe not. But it wasn’t my place to break a promise either.”

“I still don’t get it. How long did Maura stay with you?”

“Two nights.”

“And then?”

Ellie shrugs. “I came home and she was gone.”

“No note, no nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“And since then?”

“More nothing. I haven’t seen her or heard from her since.”

Something isn’t adding up. “Wait, when did you learn about Leo’s and Diana’s deaths?”

“I heard about it the day after they were found. I called Diana’s house and asked for her and”—I see her eyes water up again—“her mom . . . God, her voice.”

“Audrey Styles told you over the phone?”

“No. She asked me to come over. But I could hear it. I ran the whole way. She sat me down. In the kitchen. When she finished, I went home to ask Maura. But she was gone.”

Still not adding up. “But . . . I mean, you had to figure it was connected, right?”

She didn’t reply.

“Maura comes to you the night Leo and Diana die,” I say. “You had to think there was some link.”

Ellie nods slowly. “I figured it couldn’t be a coincidence, that’s right.”

“And yet you didn’t tell anyone?”

“I made a promise, Nap.”

“Your best friend had just been killed,” I say. “How could you not tell anyone?”

Ellie lowers her head. I stop for a second.

“You were the most responsible girl in the school,” I say. “I could see you keeping a promise. That makes sense. But once you found out Diana was dead—”

“We all thought it was an accident, remember? Or maybe a weird double suicide, though I never believed that. But I didn’t think Maura had anything to do with it.”

“Come on, Ellie, you can’t be that naïve. How could you not tell someone?”

She lowers her head again. I know it now. She’s hiding something.

“Ellie?”

“I did tell someone.”

“Who?”

“But that was part of Maura’s genius, when I look back at it. What could I tell anyone? I had no idea where she was.”

“Who did you tell?”

“Diana’s parents.”

I freeze. “You told Augie and Audrey?”

“Yes.”

“Augie . . .” I think I can’t be stunned anew, yet here I am. “He knew that Maura had stayed at your house?”

She nods, and I’m reeling again. Can you trust anyone in this world, Leo? Ellie lied to me. Augie lied to me. Who else? Mom, of course. When she said she was coming right back.

Did Dad lie too?

Did you?

“What did Augie say to you?” I ask.

“He thanked me. Then he told me to keep my promise.”

I need to see Augie. I need to go over to his house and figure out what the hell is going on here. But then I remember something else Ellie told me.

“You said before and after.”

“What?”

“I asked you if you saw Maura before or after Leo and Diana died. You said both.”

Ellie nods.

“You told me about the after. What about the before?”

She looks off.

“What is it?” I ask.

“This is the part,” Ellie says, “you’re not going to like.”