MAKANI AND OLLIE walked back to Main Street. If the mood weren’t so subdued, it might have even been called a stroll. The sun was setting, the candles had melted, and the memorial was over. Zachary had been escorted to his car, and Darby had been dropped off with Alex. They were meeting back up with Chris. Their brief time alone was dwindling to an end, and they were trying to make it last.
Makani didn’t feel like Ollie was judging her, or even looking at her askance, but there was something new—faint but solid—wedged between them. They didn’t hold hands. Their hands were tucked back into their pockets, unsure again.
As they turned onto Main Street, only a few short blocks away from Greeley’s, where Ollie’s and Chris’s cars were both parked, she spoke out of last-ditch desperation. “Thanks for listening earlier. In the hospital. And for not judging me.” She paused. “You aren’t judging me, are you?”
Her directness loosened him up. He shook his head with a smile. “No.”
The road had been reopened, and a tailgating stream of cars and trucks were heading home in both directions. Compelled to keep filling the space between her and Ollie, Makani kept talking. “It’s just I never thought I could be that type of person. But I am.”
Unexpectedly, her voice cracked like a mirror. Before the incident, she hadn’t believed that she could be capable of cruelty. Now, she knew that she was.
Ollie stopped. His expression was serious. He waited to speak until she stopped, too. “Everybody has at least one moment they deeply regret, but that one moment . . . it doesn’t define all of you.”
“But it does. It ruined my life. And I deserved for it to be ruined.”
“Makani. Makani.” Ollie repeated it, because she was walking away from him.
She halted. Kept her back to him.
“I’m not trying to absolve you from your sins,” he said. “But the person I know? She’s a good friend. And a good granddaughter.”
Makani crossed her arms. Her uninjured arm pressed against her bandage, and she winced and uncrossed them. “I don’t know. I’d like to think I’m a better person now, but for the rest of my life, I’ll always have this question in my mind. I’ll always have doubt. Something could trigger me, and I might snap or freak out again.”
“Well, I know that our regrets change us, and that’s how we grow—for either better or worse. And it seems to me, you’re growing better.”
Makani wasn’t sure what to make of this.
“Hey.” He gave her a small smile. “I’m still here, right?”
“Well, yeah, but—” She cut herself off.
The smile twisted into a knowing smirk. “Ah. But I’m a fuckup, too.”
Makani looked away quickly. He shrugged like it didn’t matter. But he wasn’t looking at her, either. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s fine.” He started moving again. “It’s not like this town can keep a secret.”
She frowned. Stayed put. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I disagree.”
Ollie glanced back over his shoulder, a disbelieving eyebrow raised in her direction. But her expression made him falter.
“I mean, I’ve heard rumors,” she said, “but not even real rumors. Like, rumors of rumors. And I have no idea what’s true and what’s not, so I assume most of it is not.”
He grimaced. “Some of it’s true.”
“I wish you’d tell me.”
There. Another confession. Now that she’d started, she couldn’t stop.
Ollie’s gaze fell to the sidewalk, and the hard exterior cracked, revealing some of the damage underneath. “I’ve wanted to say something, even more since you told us about what you’ve been through, but . . . I didn’t want it to seem like I was comparing my situation to yours or like I thought mine was worse. Or even equal. But I don’t mean to not talk about it. And I know everybody talks about me, anyway.”
“I’d like to hear your version of the story,” Makani said. “Whatever it is.”
Ollie nodded, accepting her confidence. He gestured toward a neon sign behind them, at the opposite end of Main Street from Greeley’s. “You know the Red Spot?”
She did. It was technically a greasy burger joint, but its regulars used it as a bar. And if you weren’t a regular, you didn’t go. The rumor was that you could buy anything there—as long as you were looking for illegal drugs or sex workers.
“After my parents died . . . it messed me up for a few years. When I turned sixteen and got my license, I started hanging out down there. I should have driven somewhere better—somewhere out of town—but there was this girl who worked there. Dark hair, bleeding-heart tattoo. You know, those little pink flowers? Only these were actually dripping blood. I kinda had a thing for her.”
Makani felt a sharp pang of jealousy.
“Everybody there knew who I was. They felt sorry for me, so most of them left me alone. I was like their depressed kid brother. It took weeks of relentless flirting, but I finally got her attention.”
“How old was she?”
“Twenty-three.”
Not as old as the rumors. But way too old for someone who was barely sixteen.
“I guess she pitied me, too.” It seemed to hurt him to admit it. “We hung out at her trailer sometimes and got high.”
“What happened?” Makani asked.
They started walking again. Dried leaves crunched under their shoes.
“Chris found out that we were sleeping together. He was furious. He wanted to arrest her, but . . . words were exchanged first.” In his pause, Makani understood that Ollie’s fight with his brother was still too raw to be spoken aloud. “It was just this whole big, stupid mess. He was still trying to figure out how to be a parent, and I was—I’m not sure what I was trying to figure out.”
“Did he arrest her?”
“No,” Ollie said.
“But I’m guessing you didn’t see her anymore.”
“He forbade me from seeing her, which wouldn’t have worked, except it wasn’t necessary. I think Erika was embarrassed.” Ollie turned his face away from hers. “She didn’t want anything to do with me after that.”
Erika. The name pierced Makani’s heart. “Does she still live here?”
“Yep. Comes into Greeley’s a couple times a month. She’s married now. Cuts hair. We don’t speak,” he added. There was something in his tone.
“You liked her a lot, didn’t you?”
“I thought I loved her. I was an idiot, but that’s what I thought.”
The sadness expanded inside her, enough for the both of them.
“A few days later, I reached the genius and original conclusion that life was shit. I drank two forties and waded into the river. I was going to kill myself.”
Makani sucked in her breath. She’d been severely depressed, but she’d never been suicidal. It was upsetting to learn that Ollie had stood so close to the edge.
“I stumbled and fell,” he said, “and as I was flailing in the water, realizing that I didn’t want to die, the manager of Sonic drove past. By some miracle, the guy saw me. He pulled over and dragged me out. The river was only a few feet deep—I was just scared and wasted.” Ollie gave a regretful laugh. “It’s probably the real reason I hate Sonic. Reminds me of my dumb-ass self.”
An old pain distorted within Makani as she pictured Jasmine vanishing, also scared and wasted, into a different body of water. The situations were so different, yet eerily similar. She didn’t have the strength to let her thoughts linger there. “Well, it makes me like Sonic more. I’m glad he saw you. I’m glad you’re still here.”
Ollie bit his lip ring. “I’m glad you’re still here, too.”
Recalling a rumor associated with the river, Makani blurted, “Were you naked?”
He glanced at her with surprise. “What? Do people say that?”
She nodded guiltily.
“No,” he said. “In that particular brush with death, I had my clothes on.”
It was so tragic and absurd that it made them both laugh. “I can’t believe that happened,” she said.
Ollie shook his head in amazement. “I know.”
“You were naked.”
“I know.”
Her smile grew. And then faded. “What happened after the guy rescued you?”
“I wasn’t arrested—thank you, nepotism—but I spent some time in a psychiatric unit. After that, Chris sent me to a therapist in Norfolk. But, by then, I wanted help. I stopped drinking and doing shit.” He gave a loose shrug. “And that’s it.”
“Is that what Zachary meant when he said you’d hurt your brother?”
The lightness disappeared from his voice. “Yes.”
Makani was relieved that nothing worse had happened. And Ollie hadn’t even done anything truly awful; most of the disappointment was inside his own head. She could tell that, for Ollie, having worried his brother was the worst thing he could have done. Instead of pressing him, she backtracked. “When you said you got high . . .”
“Weed.”
“You never did any harder drugs? Pills or opioids or anything?”
He shook his head.
“And you never sold them?”
Ollie sighed. “Cool. You heard that one, too.” He shook his head again. “The only thing I’ve ever sold is produce.”
“Did you sleep with anyone else?” Please say no.
“Only in my dreams,” he said. “Only you.”
It was cheesy—definitely a line—but Makani didn’t mind right now. She smiled at him as they stood in front of Greeley’s. “Hey, Ollie?” she asked softly.
“Yeah?”
“You know how you said that I’m a good granddaughter and friend?”
He smiled back. “Yeah.”
“Do you think I could be a good girlfriend?”
Ollie’s hands reached for hers through the dusk. Their fingertips touched, and the streetlights flickered on behind them. “I think you’re already a good girlfriend.”
• • •
They kissed while they waited for Chris. It felt absurd, kissing in public. Kissing after a memorial. Kissing when they’d been so close to being actual subjects of the memorial.
It also felt euphoric, rapturous, and profound.
Ollie’s nose was cold, but his arms were warm as they slipped around her back. It was the thrill of summer, revived—making out beside the grocery store when they shouldn’t be doing it. Except infinitely better, because the questions between them had been answered.
Their lips parted to catch their breath. Makani laughed, glancing aside. And that’s when she noticed the blood.
• • •
Red handprints. Beaten fists. Dragged fingers. The fine lines of the skin that had touched the glass were shockingly clear and shockingly human.
Makani stiffened with fright.
Ollie followed her gaze, and they startled apart. They stared at the bottom left side of the store’s automatic entry doors. The blood was on the inside.
Their limbs reached for each other again, clinging, as they frantically checked their surroundings. Except for the cars, the parking lot was empty. The traffic had unclogged, and only a few people remained on foot. None of them were close by. None of them were Chris or any other officer. And none of them appeared to be David.
Makani’s heart raced. Ollie cupped his hands to peer inside the dark store, while she kept her eyes on the street. “Is he in there?” she asked.
“I think somebody was dragged toward the checkout lanes. But I can’t see them.”
“Oh God.” She ripped his phone from his pocket, bouncing anxiously on the balls of her feet. “I’m calling your brother.”
“The whole place is ransacked.”
“Shit! What’s your password?”
“9999.”
“What? Why would you do that? Somebody could guess that!”
“You didn’t,” he said. “Shit! Something just moved.”
Makani lurched against the door. He pointed toward a shadowy area, a pile of . . . she couldn’t tell what. “I think there’s someone there,” he said. “Someone on top of that.”
It was impossible to tell. But there was definitely something that might be a person.
Chris’s number rang emptily in her ear. The shadows shifted again, and Makani gasped. Before she realized what he was doing, Ollie unlocked the door. As a longtime and trusted employee, he had a key. “Someone’s still alive!” he said.
The overhead sensor picked them up. The doors whooshed open. They rushed inside and then staggered backward, stunned by the true destruction. Overturned vegetables, boxes, cartons, bags, and cans were everywhere—an abundance of food, splattered like congealing fireworks across the linoleum.
Ollie yanked her aside so they wouldn’t track through the blood, the streaks of a body hauled across the floor. They ran toward the shadows and then crashed into a halt. Makani clamped her hands over her mouth to mute her scream.
In front of the checkout registers was a permanent display of merchandise whose profits helped support the football team, something Makani had once found incredibly strange but she’d slowly grown used to. Now that she knew Osborne, it made sense. But tonight, it had been razed to the ground. And in the center of the debris of jumbled sweatshirts and flags and tchotchkes was Caleb Greeley.
The boy lay atop the heap like another item of garish memorabilia. His feet and knees were splayed outward. His face was on its side, and a swollen tongue protruded out from between his front teeth. The chest and stomach had been mutilated. Long incisions slashed through his blood-drenched band uniform, but, despite the clothing, the unnatural splaying of his limbs made him look more like one of those realistic sex dolls than a human being. It was his body’s complete and utter lack of dignity.
But that still wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was the hands.
Caleb’s fingers had been laced together, and then his hands had been severed. They rested over his heart in prayer position. Red gore and white bone.
But if Caleb was dead . . . someone else was the moving shadow.
Makani and Ollie backed into the cereal aisle, each placing a protective arm across the other person’s chest. They pressed against the yellow Corn Pops and green Apple Jacks. Their hearts slammed against their rib cages.
The air was sharp. Acidic. It stung their nostrils and watered their eyes. Caleb must have been chased down the condiment aisle, one over. The vinegary fumes from the smashed jars of pickles and olives were ghastly. Makani covered her nose. She was still holding Ollie’s phone, and Chris was shouting at them through the speaker.
The metallic thud of a push bar echoed throughout the building.
Their hearts stopped.
And then a heavy door settled closed.
Makani whispered into the phone, “David Ware just went out the back exit.”