February 2, 2023
1:58 p.m.
I hadn’t seen Siobhan in sixty days, and I knew that for a fact, a number that ticked itself off each morning in my head, one I couldn’t escape no matter how much I wanted to.
I stared at the book, scratching absently at my bottom lip.
How could this be? How could it be her?
But the words were right there, of course, impossible to ignore:
This book belongs to Siobhan Jones.
This was real. That woman out there, it was her.
My face began to feel hot, and my chest ached, weighty. The world—my world—seemed to stand still on its axis, no longer spinning, and my vision began to blur, her name merging into alphabet soup behind my tears.
I tried to wipe them away, but a sob took me instead, and I found my shoulders hunching over the book, my body shaking.
No, I thought again. No, it can’t be.
But it was. Christ almighty, it was.
And then, suddenly, the heat in my face was concentrating on my cheeks, burning with shame, with regret. I pressed my hands against them, trying to cool them down, looked again at the name in the journal.
It’d been two months since Siobhan and I talked. Sixty days that I had no idea would be—that shouldn’t have been—her last.
My chin dropped to my chest. How could things have gone differently if I’d never cut her out of my life?
Those days could have been spent going to get coffee or taking long walks around Prospect Park, dissecting our lives—the horrors of IVF and the strain it was putting on my relationship with Frank; the way she feared sometimes that Charlie would get tired of her, that his eye would wander to someone more classically beautiful, someone like Allison, whom Siobhan was always, always comparing herself to. Those days could have been—should have been—filled with the couples nights we used to have, Frank’s nerdiness and Charlie’s artiness a Venn diagram with artfully crafted indie board games in the middle.
If I hadn’t cut her out, would she even have come here? Was it somehow all my fault?
Don’t, Kerry, Imaginary Frank tried to comfort me. You didn’t kill her. Someone else did. It’s not on you.
But I pushed away the thought of Frank’s kindness. I owed it to her to tell her what was going on. She deserved so much better than to be abandoned by me without any explanation. I had been so naive, so sure, somewhere in the back of my mind, that what had happened between us wouldn’t be a permanent goodbye. That, in time, I would find a way to fix things with her…somehow…but I hadn’t been ready. And now there was no time. There was no opportunity to text her, to apologize.
Now, she was gone, her life stolen from her, and here I was, surrounded by her things, holding her journal.
Her journal with a picture of me in it. Why had she drawn me, and sitting in the motel of all places? Had she known I was coming here? Had Allison found out from Maisy, passed it down the line like a game of telephone? I shook my head almost viciously, the thought too much—down, down, down it went—then I slammed the journal shut and tossed it onto the bed.
The shock, the shame, the grief were overwhelming, and part of me wanted to crawl into bed, shut out the world, and swim through the sadness, but I couldn’t, could I? Someone had killed Siobhan; someone had moved Siobhan. There was no power, a snowstorm, the cops long gone, and I was stuck here. So I took deep breaths, trying, desperately, to focus, to process this new information, to figure out what it all meant. She was here to make her film—or, as she would say, movie; Siobhan was free of pretentions. That much was clear from the journal. And then it hit me head-on, so obvious, so clear—she was the one who would have been shooting up here the last weekend of February. We would have been forced to see each other once again. But now none of that was possible, was it?
Focus, Imaginary Frank was saying. Stop shaming yourself and focus for a minute. Figure out what you have to do to keep yourself safe. I may not want anything to do with you right now, I may even hate you sometimes, but I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want to find you jammed in some freezer, too.
Okay, I thought. Okay, Frank, okay.
And I’m sorry, Siobhan. I’m so very sorry. I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there for you and this is what happened.
Another sob took me over, but I brushed away the tears, forcing myself to think straight. Something had happened to my friend, but when exactly? Between the last night she was here and when I’d arrived the next day. I knew it had to be then because there’d been that party; Tyler had confirmed it. And he’d said himself that the prior caretaker was there. Besides, her bags were packed like she’d been about to leave, but she hadn’t. It must have happened that night, in fact, because if she’d woken up the next morning—alive and well—she surely would have started cleaning up, especially if she had to check out.
Only who would want to hurt Siobhan—and why? She was such a kind, such a positive, such a lovely, brilliant person. I’d never deserved her—and Charlie hadn’t, either.
Charlie. His behavior had gotten more and more erratic as his drinking had increased. She’d told me as much. Was it possible that he’d been up here with her, that the party had led to some sort of argument?
That he’d…
No. I shook my head, my chest constricting, and pushed the thought away. Not Charlie. Not like that. No way. I turned back to the room, looking around. Shouldn’t Siobhan’s camera be somewhere? And maybe that footage would have some answers, would somehow tell me what to do next. Would help me figure out who had done this to her, so I could protect myself but for another reason, too—so I could make them pay.
Surveying the room now felt different. Checking the bathroom, knowing all the makeup, all the toiletries, were hers. Pawing through the other suitcase. Opening cabinets and drawers, trying to find whatever my friend had left behind in her last moments on earth. I was beginning to think that whoever had hurt her had taken her camera, as well as any other identifying details, like her wallet and phone and ID, when I found myself on my knees against the patterned rug, looking beneath the white-pine bed frame, and there, atop a scattering of dust, was a camera. I reached for it, hungry for information, for answers, to see what was happening with Siobhan in the last days and weeks of her life. To see who had done this to her. Who had hurt her even more than I had.
Pulling it to me, I scrambled to find a power button, finally locating it at the top. I pushed it, again and again, but there was nothing more than the flicker of a dead-battery icon.
There were no answers here. No answers anywhere while the power remained out.
So what next?
What would Frank do? Practical Frank.
He would stop drinking, for one, but what about after that?
Frank would size up the situation, take an inventory of the tools at hand, like he always did.
Slow down, he was always saying. You don’t have to be in such a rush. But that’s the way I always was. Once I made the decision, I was full-in.
I hadn’t wanted to do IVF and then once I’d come around, I’d obsessed about it with fervor.
I hadn’t wanted to go back to drinking, but once the bottle was open, I practically fell right in.
I hadn’t wanted to do a lot of things that I ended up doing.
There was a main office, and Maisy had mentioned in her packet that some extra phone cords and electronics chargers were kept there. Was it possible there were some sorts of backup power packs, ones I could use to charge my phone or this camera? If cell service returned before the power did, it wouldn’t be any use if my phone was dead.
Another gulp of wine and a deep breath to follow; then I grabbed the journal and the camera, made for the door. I trudged through the snow, ears pricked for any kind of noise, until I got to the main office, situated right on the edge of the L’s corner. I fumbled with the key ring, then checked the largest key first. It worked. I turned the knob and tried to push it open, but the door was stuck. Tossing the weight of my body against the door, I pushed again, but nothing. One more push, and it shoved open, about a half a foot. I looked down, the obstruction instantly clear.
A manila envelope, wedged into the crack.
Siobhan Jones was printed across it, moisture from the snow making the S of her name bleed. I grabbed it, ran my nail under the flap, reached inside to find a stack of four or five papers, my eyes scanning quickly across a spate of legalese, the bottoms of the pages warping with water damage. I caught Siobhan’s name once again, and then, the knowledge like a weight in my stomach, Charlie’s. I kept reading, hungry for information, until my eyes locked on a number.
Twenty-five thousand dollars.
It took another minute for it to all fully connect.
Charles Mathis, the man Siobhan had been so worried about losing, who had been the topic of conversation on nearly every one of our walks and coffees and drinks nights and meetups. The man who’d schooled me in board games, who’d always been the one to order an extra round of drinks.
The man I knew wasn’t good enough for her—a screwup, just like me.
Charlie was suing Siobhan for thousands upon thousands of dollars.
Money she probably didn’t have.
I slipped the papers back into the envelope, then folded it in half, tucked it into the outer pocket of my coat, and approached the front desk.
There was mail there, too. A stack of bills and a couple of packages, all addressed to Maisy, and then, right on top, something that didn’t fit with the rest.
Eight and a half by eleven, a sheet of computer paper, crumpled on the edges but clear as day—in bright red Sharpie, scrawled in capital letters across the page.
TAKE CARE OF YOUR MESS
My mind turned with possibilities as I tried to hold back more panic. Was this directed toward Siobhan, who had left the place in such disarray, or was it aimed at the killer, who’d first abandoned her body out there in the snow before moving her to the freezer? Either way, it was horrifying, wasn’t it? Somehow more cutting, more creepy, than if it had been an outright violent threat.
Take care of your mess. It could mean so many things, couldn’t it? A physical mess but a figurative one, too. Taking care of my mess was exactly what I’d been trying to do coming here, picking up the pieces of the chaos I’d made of my life.
And yet things had only gotten messier. Had the same been true for Siobhan? Would I know if I hadn’t ghosted her, if I hadn’t been so cruel?
I lifted the paper and flipped it over, checking to see if there was anything else, but was met only with blankness.
I turned it back around, my eyes returning to the message, angry and red—
TAKE CARE OF YOUR MESS
—my heart cinched up as I folded that paper as well, tucking it into my coat next to the lawsuit.
So much had happened in those sixty days, so much that had gone terribly, irrevocably wrong.
What mess were you in, Siobhan?
And why hadn’t I been there to help?