BLINK AND YOU’LL MISS US. We’re the people who make up Coldcliff, all seven thousand, eight hundred of us. Let me situate you. You’re standing in Coldcliff Heights, which is on the north side, and it’s the area the high school is in. It’s pretty, you’re probably thinking. Look at the view of the mountains.
Do you feel safe? You probably do, all nestled in like this, framed by mountains and thickets of trees. The air probably smells better here than where you come from. Fresh and crisp. Maybe you think our girls look wholesome.
There’s no reason to come to Coldcliff. Not really. We don’t have any of the Fourteeners protruding from our land, so we get passed up by most of the serious climbers. Our shopping leaves something to be desired—most of us buy everything online anyway. The one mall we have, Forest Glen, is pretty tiny, with more shops getting shuttered by the year. Most people get their groceries at the Stop & Shop, which is in the same plaza as my dad’s orthodontic office and the optometry place where I get my glasses.
We have nice neighborhoods, suburbia bordered by wilderness. Most people here are solidly upper middle class, living in two-stories just like ours. Most of us have big backyards. Most of us never use them.
What we do have are some good hiking trails. They draw people here in the fall, when the leaves are changing, a smattering of outdoorsy types with waterproof clothing and bear spray for the black bears that they think are the greatest danger around.
If you’ve read the news lately, you might think there’s another danger now.
We have a new tourist attraction. My sister. They’re flocking to the trails with maps made by this one website—Outwit the Split, they’re calling it, trying to re-create Tabby and Mark’s last walk. Isn’t that sick and twisted? I have no idea who was morbid enough to come up with it, or who is morbid enough to actually take the time to do it. But I see them in the woods, because I’m there, running.
And today, along with those lemmings and their maps, I see somebody else. Mark’s brother. I recognize the hair—blond curls, so different from Mark’s meticulous buzz cut. Also, he’s wearing flip-flops. Who hikes in flip-flops? Except I guess I know he isn’t hiking at all.
He sees me. I freeze, like a deer caught in crosshairs. I’m not scared, though. Like I said, he’s in flip-flops, and these woods are my domain.
“What are you doing here?” he says. “Don’t tell me you’re one of them.” He aims his middle finger at a man and woman in matching khaki shorts with walking poles.
“I’m a runner. So I’m running. Do you honestly think I’m one of them?” I jog in place next to him. I hate losing momentum.
“I don’t know. Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude, but these idiots get under my skin. I’m Alex. You’re Bridget, right?”
I know what he means by You’re Bridget. You’re Tabby’s sister.
“I’m Bridget.” I gesture to his feet because I don’t want to look at his face. He looks too much like Mark, once you get past the hair and the stubble. Same eyes, same mouth. “Not the best choice of hiking footwear.”
“I’m not hiking,” he says. “I’m—whatever. Never mind. I just feel closer to him when I’m here. And apparently so do all these other people who never knew him at all.”
I stop jogging on the spot and glance up, then drop my gaze, because it’s hard to look directly at him. Maybe I read Alex all wrong, the hardened boy I saw at the funeral who hates my sister. Right now he just looks sad and lost. I think about Tabby at home, probably stretched out on the couch watching the Real Housewives. Maybe this whole thing isn’t as shrouded in mystery as everyone wants it to seem. Maybe it’s just a dead boy and the people grieving for him.
“I’m sorry,” I say, wiping damp hair off my face. Why do I sound so guilty? I didn’t push Mark.
But I did something else, and if I hadn’t, things might be different now.
“Let me ask you something, and please be honest,” Alex says. I look around, aware that we’re utterly alone. “You saw them that day, right? Did anything seem off?”
I shake my head and make the mistake of meeting his eyes, and the intensity there makes me hold my breath. He looks especially like Mark now—Mark when he wanted something. “No. They seemed totally normal.” I don’t mention that their normal was anything but.
“I’m just trying to make sense of it,” he says. “I mean, I know what I’ve been hearing. And I saw the video. This has been hell for my family. Mark and I didn’t talk often. Last I knew, he had a girlfriend, but I had no idea if they were serious.”
They were too serious. I think about Tabby’s locker, the words scrawled there. Alex has no idea.
“I didn’t know much either,” I say. “Tabby had her own life, and I have mine.” I stare at my watch, at the timer that has kept going. I don’t want to stand here, because I’m afraid of what he’ll ask next.
“I’m heading back to Australia next week,” he says. “But if you remember anything, let me know. You know where we live, because I see you running by.”
I swallow. My throat is dry.
“I should go.” I turn and start to jog, willing him not to follow me.
“Mark mentioned his girlfriend’s sister didn’t like him,” he yells, his voice rising. “Why didn’t you like him? Everyone liked Mark.”
I break into a sprint.
Coldcliff doesn’t feel that safe anymore.
Excerpt from Tabby’s Diary
October 18, 2018
How do you stop yourself from loving someone? I seriously need to know. Now Mark is upset at me because he knows I talked to Beck about us. Nothing else happened, but Mark doesn’t believe that. Yet I’m supposed to believe him that nothing happened with all the Instagram girls. I even called him out on it, just to see what he’d say. He made me think I was the paranoid one. You’re the only one, he told me, but keep this up and you won’t be. I feel so alone.
THE COLORADO CHARGER
September 19, 2019
New witness comes forward in boyfriend-killer case
By David Moss
A shocking new witness statement from Coldcliff, Colorado, resident Abe Hendricks, 47, alleges that Tabitha Cousins, 17, was seen at Coldcliff’s Crest Beach stuffing rocks into a picnic basket the morning before Mark Forrester’s August 16 death. Hendricks called in to the local police tip line with his testimony. While he doesn’t have photographic proof of Cousins collecting the rocks, he is certain it was her he saw at the beach that morning.
Forrester’s body was found in a creek approximately fifty meters from a backpack weighted down with rocks, leading investigators to surmise there was foul play in the competitive swimmer’s drowning death.
“Usually I’m the only one there,” Hendricks told the Coldcliff Tribune yesterday. “It was early, not even seven. The sun was just on its way up. There was this girl. I didn’t think of it again until I saw her face on the news.”
A source who did not want to be named reached out to the Charger exclusively to report that Cousins and Forrester had recently been fighting at a house party thrown by one of Cousins’s friends.
“I couldn’t make out what they were saying,” the source said. “They kept their voices down. Then she stormed off.”
Speculation exists that Cousins was cheating on Forrester with her ex-boyfriend, Thomas Becker Rutherford III, and she may have shoved Forrester when he confronted her about it during their hike. However, District Attorney Anthony Paxton has stated that the plot to kill Forrester was carefully crafted by a dangerous girl. Cousins’s attorney, powerhouse lawyer Marnie Deveraux, maintains that the accusations against her client are “absolutely invalid.”
COMMENTS: (24 previous)
CoffeeAddict: awfully convenient that this guy comes forward now. I don’t know. Something about this case isn’t adding up
KatieKat: I have no idea how she’s getting out of this one.
PrincessPea: They were fighting at that party because she was screwing another guy.
Swifty01: Yeah like you would know
PrincessPea: I would because I was there.