“HUNTER, PLEASE,” I said, stepping forward and begging for an answer.
She wouldn’t look up, and when I got close, I could see tears in her eyes. “It wasn’t supposed to be her,” she muttered before finally looking up at me. “I thought it was you,” she said one more time and three too many times for my liking.
It was the answer I wanted so badly, a true confession from the killer. It wasn’t Benjy or Gil. It wasn’t JP or Mark or my father. I figured it out when no one else could. I won, but it didn’t feel like it. It felt like shit.
I didn’t know what to do. Yell for the cops? They were just through the woods. Was I in danger? It didn’t feel like it. I wasn’t scared. It should have been me, I guess. It was supposed to be me. That would have been better. Mark and I having a torrid affair. Hunter exacting revenge in the night. Jenny still alive, out there engaging in delinquent behavior that was just safe enough to keep her alive until she outgrew her rebellious years. I should have been in Mark’s bed, not Jenny. She should have let me have this. This was my thing. She knew; she saw the notes. She didn’t need to take this from me. She would still be alive if she hadn’t.
Hunter reached across the kitchen island until her hand made contact with the knife block. Mark regained his posture, but we both stayed absolutely still. She slid a knife from the block and set it down on the island in front of her. She took it in. It was a large knife. Maybe she could see her own reflection. Maybe that’s why she was staring.
“Hunter,” I inserted myself. “It’s OK,” I whispered, then repeated, “It’s OK.”
I thought of her in my bed holding my hand. I thought of how well I slept that night. She was somehow my friend, or at least someone who meant something to me. Was any of it real? All the lies she told me. Were they lies, or were her words only untruthful in the context I assumed for them? She was torn apart by Jenny’s death. She felt guilty. She felt responsible. She thought she should have done something to prevent it. She couldn’t have sex after she found out. She was worried it would happen again. Far from lies, they were all almost more authentic now that I knew the truth.
Her eyes fixed on to me like we were having a staring contest. Her face was impossible to read. I couldn’t tell if she wanted to hug me and beg me for forgiveness or stab me five hundred times.
Mark took advantage of her momentary distraction and charged toward her, lunging over the island and seizing the knife. It seemed to me like she just let him take it. He slithered back over the island, gripping the knife. Back on his feet, he held it out in front, pointed at Hunter.
“Call the cops, Virginia,” he ordered without looking, still glaring at Hunter, almost begging her to try something.
I didn’t move.
“Virginia!” he yelled, turning his head only a millisecond to look at me, then back to Hunter.
I still didn’t move.
“Goddamn it, Virginia,” he barked as he whipped around to scold me. The knife came with him, but before he could point it all the way around …
“STOP!” a familiar voice came from outside.
Through the missing glass of the shattered back door, I saw my father crossing the backyard, extending a gun toward us. His presence was unannounced and unexpected and what he would do next—unpredictable.
I looked at Mark and then over to Hunter. I made a decision in that moment that would haunt me forever.
“He did it, Dad!” I yelled. “He killed Jenny!”
Mark never saw it coming. He spun toward me, venom in his eyes and the knife in his hand.
My father pulled the trigger. Just as I’d hoped he would.
The bullet ripped through Mark’s chest. The knife fell to the floor.
That was all I needed from my father.
Mark dropped to his knees and rolled onto the hardwood floor. “I didn’t kill her,” he whispered to me, pleading with his last words as if he still needed to convince me, as if he didn’t want to accept what I had just done. That was always his problem. He could never fathom what we were capable of.
The patch of trees separating the property from JP’s flooded with cops sprinting toward the sound of the gunshot. A few uniforms emerged from the tree line first, then Brandon. Their guns drawn.
“Put the gun down,” one yelled, and my father obeyed. He raised his hands into the air. He was done.
I let Mark look at me as he went. I wanted to kneel down, to grab his hand and give him something to hold on to, but I couldn’t let anyone see that. He was Jenny’s killer now as far as anyone ever needed to know. Letting him keep my attention was the hardest thing I ever had to do. There was nowhere else I wanted to look, but every second that we stayed linked would be with me forever. I loved him so much and I hated it. I did this for me. Mark and I would never get back together now.
I smiled—one of those smiles to let him know everything would be OK. I had pulled the plug on all of it. He could let go.
Hunter stumbled out from behind the island, reminding me that I was not alone in the house or the lie. She collapsed to the floor a few feet away from Mark and started crying, bobbing in and out of lucidness as he bled out all over the hardwood floor. I stared down at the two of them. I couldn’t react. I couldn’t even speak. The line between right and wrong was decimated. Was she up for this?
“Call an ambulance,” Brandon shouted as he stepped through the broken glass.
An ambulance wasn’t going to help. He was gone.
“Are you OK?” Brandon asked, filling the space behind me.
I just nodded without turning to look at him.
He brushed past me and dropped to the floor to uselessly apply pressure to the wound.
I stared at Hunter, alone on the floor. The cops kept a reasonable distance. None of them knew what I knew. Did I make a terrible mistake? I couldn’t take it back now. She just stared at Mark. She didn’t speak. I prayed she wasn’t too crazy to live this lie. I needed her now.
I walked over to her and reached for her shoulder. She grabbed my hand. Our entire friendship was built in the time after she had murdered Jenny. That darkness I found so alluring in her was the killing-a-little-girl kind of darkness. Was any of it genuine? I couldn’t ignore how much of myself I saw in her. Had I just been lucky? All those nights that I was blacked out, out of my mind, obsessed with the severity of my worthlessness. Was I lucky to be so passive? Not driven to find a cure like she was? I was no less sick, crazy, broken than she was. It was what happened to us. We were plucked from our peers. We were chosen. We were special. Then we weren’t.
It was happening to Jenny too. Maybe Hunter had saved her. Maybe that just made me feel better about what I had done. I could forgive Hunter for what she had done to Jenny because that’s the only way I would forgive myself. In hindsight, it was a forgiveness I afforded to us too easily.
I RODE TO the police station with Officer Brett. Brandon had offered, but I insisted he take my father. Brandon was too comfortable and would expect me to talk. Brett was shy and nervous and was content taking the ten-minute drive in silence so that I could think.
I didn’t know who Hunter was riding with. I needed to talk to her. We needed to get our stories straight. It was a problem I needed to solve. It was something for me to fixate on instead of any of the horrible garbage thoughts lying just below the surface.
Our story was good. It ticked all the boxes. It would give everyone the pedophile they were looking for. It had everything: motive, a dead perp who couldn’t deny it, and enough scandal to satisfy those strangers who filled the pews at her funeral.
No one had to know about me. No one had to know about Hunter. No one had to know it happened to us first.
I WASN’T THE first person brought to the station. JP sat in one of the dated wooden chairs in the waiting area, slouched, hands in his pockets. No one was paying him much attention.
“Have a seat here, will ya?” Brett asked, void of any authority.
I nodded and took a seat next to JP. There were two chairs on each side of the reception desk, and it seemed cold to not sit next to him.
Brett walked through the swinging gate to check in with the chief, and JP and I were alone to talk.
“Hey,” he said, casual, a reminder of how young and simple he seemed.
“You all right?” I asked.
“Yeah, now that they know it wasn’t me. Did you think it was me?” he asked, looking over at me and trying to read my face.
“Not really,” I said, regardless of if I meant it, and that seemed to make him feel a little better.
“Why did he do it?” he asked. “Mr. Renkin?” he clarified unnecessarily.
This was my first performance. No time for rehearsal. House lights were lowered. Curtain drawn. “Something was going on between them and she was threatening to tell, to expose him, I think.”
“What do you mean?”
I didn’t know how to say it. It would sound so gross out loud.
“Just tell me,” he pleaded.
“They had a relationship. They had sex and something went wrong. Or something like that. I don’t know the specifics,” I explained, then backtracked. I had to stay removed from proprietary details.
His face scrunched. Bothered. “He raped her?” His wheels were spinning.
“I don’t think it was like that, but I don’t know. I mean, they said she was raped when they found her, but it could have been consensual,” I said, not sure if that would make him feel better or not. “As consensual as that sort of thing can be,” I clarified.
He didn’t say anything. He stared at the floor and reflected on what I just told him. It wasn’t sitting well, and I began to panic. Was I this bad at lying? I had lied my whole life. I had to be good at it by now.
I needed to change the subject. I needed more … layers … a pattern. Page two of the articles soon to be written.
“What do you know about Gil?” I asked as I remembered that gaping hole in the whole thing. “And I know you know something, so don’t lie.”
I saw his hands clench as he chewed at his bottom lip. “It was nothing. He was just a loser she was messing with. Trying to get things out of him like money and presents and stuff. She never met him in person. She said he was harmless, just mailed her shit when she asked.”
“He’s missing,” I added, thinking he might stumble.
“Guess it doesn’t really matter anymore,” he said, turning to look at me in a way that felt like what I said next was important. I honestly had no idea if he was lying to my face. It wouldn’t be the first time. He was right, though; it didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was my lie.
“True,” I said. “Who knew she was up to all this shit? Getting mixed up with these men? And why did she need money so badly?” I asked rhetorically, putting questions in his head to regurgitate unconsciously when interrogated.
“She wanted to get out of here,” he said. “She didn’t like it here.”
I just nodded, the kind of nod that goes on way too long and says, I understand what you just said so deep to the core that I can’t find words to express it.
“But it doesn’t make any sense,” JP muttered.
I couldn’t even convince this kid. Was it possible that a plan this severe made in a split second might not work as I imagined? I had made a fatal miscalculation. Lying about yourself and lying about someone else are two different animals. I couldn’t control everything people knew about Mark Renkin. I couldn’t control everything people knew about Jenny. I could only control what people knew about me.
“He’s very good …” I said. “At lying, at hiding, at making others do the same.”
JP looked at me, confused and hungry for further explanation.
“Don’t feel guilty you didn’t know. Mark Renkin had years of practice. It was truly his gift.” I rubbed my thumbs together. Was I doing this? “I know, because it happened to me.”
“What?” he said, mouth falling open a bit.
I just nodded. “When I was in high school.” There it was. Out of my mouth.
The door to the outside swung open before I had to further elaborate. It was Hunter. She was led in by a cop I didn’t know, one of Brandon’s. There were no cuffs or fanfare. She wasn’t a suspect. She was a witness. Her face was red and puffy, but she was done crying. She looked at JP and then me like we could have been anyone.
The officer held his hand out to direct her into one of the chairs across from us; then he left too, through the swinging gate, back to the boys’ club.
JP glanced over at me like I should say something. I had a lot to say, but not out loud across the police station and not in front of JP.
I didn’t know what else to do, so I stood up and walked over to her. She straightened her posture, nervous at my approach. I extended my arms and wrapped them around her. She stayed in her seat; I bent over. My arms wrapped tightly around her shoulders. My cheek pressed against hers.
I didn’t expect the emotions that came when we inhaled in sync. I had to loosen the embrace to get a grip. I brought my lips as close as I could to whisper in her ear without choking on the wisps of hair.
“They were having an affair and she was going to expose him. He got mad and killed her. He admitted it to us both. Just now. Right before. You don’t know anything else. When they push you for more, cry. Break down. Refuse to eat or drink. You’re too upset. In shock. Don’t say anything else. We will figure this out together.” I waited for her to acknowledge my words, to agree to the plan. My mouth stayed close to her ear and hers close to mine.
I felt her inhale again before she spoke. “Someone moved the body,” she whispered.
I pulled away from her just as the front door opened again.
“What’s going on?” Brandon asked as he marched in with my father. Finally, someone in handcuffs.
I pulled back from Hunter, standing upright and moving to the center of the void between her and JP.
Brandon pushed my father forward, not looking at us but for the other cops. Brett and Brandon’s guy hustled toward the gate.
“Why are they all sitting out here?” he asked. “They shouldn’t be out here talking to each other.”
“We don’t have enough rooms,” Brett explained.
“Put one in the damn bathroom if you have to,” Brandon ordered. He was right. We should have been separated. He was just too late.
ADMITTING IT TO JP was a lot easier than to the cops. If I hadn’t already told his dumb young face, I might have chickened out. It wasn’t easy sitting in front of two detectives I had never seen before, knowing Brandon was watching on the other side of the mirror, admitting what, up until a few hours earlier, had been my biggest secret.
I struggled to make eye contact, but I didn’t worry if it made me look guilty because I wasn’t lying about this. I was telling the truth and I had the notes as proof, so whatever I did or didn’t do was natural human behavior not to be questioned.
I stayed as clinical as I could. Yes, we had a relationship. Yes, it was sexual. I was fourteen. Yes, he was my teacher. All the parts that mirrored what happened to Jenny. They pushed for more salacious details, curiosity masked as procedure, but I merely asked if that question was necessary whenever I felt it wasn’t and they rephrased.
When my statement was deemed enough for the night, given the circumstances, I was allowed to go home. I walked past Brandon like I couldn’t hear him until he grabbed my arm to stop me dead in my tracks.
“Virginia, are you OK?”
“Super,” I said.
“Let me give you a ride home.”
“No, I have a ride. Thanks.” I lied. I walked. It wasn’t far.
I PULLED THE bottle of vodka from the freezer, an unhealthy swig, three swallows, then crawled into bed and waited for it to hit my bloodstream.
If I had said something sooner … I couldn’t think about that; it wasn’t fair. What happened to Jenny was not my fault, just as what happened to me was not Hunter’s fault. It was nice to imagine, just for the night, that’s how the world would see it.
MARK RENKIN KILLED Jenny Kennedy.
It was so easy.
No one would want to believe this horrific crime could have been committed by a woman. A young woman. A beautiful woman. A smart woman.
The hair will not rise on anyone’s arms if they cross paths with Hunter alone in a dark alley. No one will hesitate to stop in the rain and help her change a flat tire. No one will text Hunter’s address to a friend as insurance before going home with her after meeting one night at a bar.
No one would think to believe a woman like me would lie for her. A jealous woman. A lonely woman. A woman with nothing to gain from it, instead forced to reveal her deepest, darkest secret.
Hunter was with the man I loved. Hunter killed my sister. Hunter had planned to confront me that night outside Mark’s house.
Yet here we were. There was no going back now.