JON WORKED HIS way in the woods. The going was arduous. It would have been quicker to have gone straight from his house to the destination. But the sender did not want that; and neither did Jon. He could not risk being seen.
The headlamp illuminated the woods a few feet ahead, reflected back to him in tiny fragments by the reflective markers in the trees.
He headed toward a marker, then repeated the search until the next marker glimmered.
He pushed along, branches slapping his face. He shoved his hands into his pockets to try to keep them warm, but the cold steel against his flesh in one pocket only made him colder. Still, he wrapped his hand around it. Its heft was reassuring.
He made his way down a gully and up the opposite bank. It took longer this time than it had the first time. The first time when his heart had raced with such panic for the small window of time he had to do what needed to be done before he would be missed by Bethany in the restaurant.
His heart raced now, but he felt a calm finality spreading through him with each step. It would be over soon. This would cover the ugly truth for good. It had to. He did not care about Jessica. He could not. All he could do was protect and save himself now. Everything was clear.
He saw lights up ahead, sifting through the trees.
He finally came out behind the school, near the back of the parking lot, where this had all begun so many years ago.
The lot was empty. Snow swirled in the pale lamplights.
Then he saw it, off in the shadows. A figure. Him.
Jon turned off his headlamp and walked toward the figure, his legs feeling as if he’d walked a thousand miles. Leaden and sore, yet somehow detached.
His hand wrapped tighter around the cold steel in his coat pocket.
He came to stand a few feet away from the figure, who had now materialized into Randy Clark.
JON CLUTCHED THE cold steel in his jacket pocket.
“Randall,” he said.
Randy Clark said nothing. He stared at Jon, and even in the poor light Jon could see the watery weakness in the man’s eyes. The boy’s eyes. The victim’s eyes.
“Randall, it’s over. Here. Now. This stops. Your threats stop. I have—”
“You’re ready then? To tell the police what you did?”
Jon shook his head. No. Randall looked over toward the parking lot, where so many years earlier, when he was eight, a GMC pickup had been parked. It was a night like this: snowy and cold. Christmas vacation week. The lot empty except for that truck. Jon had been heading home through the same woods he’d just come through, after having left the Town Arcade, where the Village Fare now stood. The woods had not really been woods then. The trees had been small and scrubby, and because kids walked and biked everywhere, there’d been a clear path. Jon had taken the path that evening, and as he’d passed by the truck he’d looked inside.
Jon shivered.
“That’s your choice,” Randall said.
“They’ll never believe it. I’m a prominent man. And you. You’re what? Jobless? Homeless?”
Jon recalled the time he’d seen Randall at the White Spot. Jon had truly not recognized him. The last time Jon had seen him before that, Randall had been eight years old. At the White Spot he’d been in his twenties. But Randall had recognized Jon. He remembered the word Randall had whispered in his ear to make Jon suddenly understand who this stranger was.
“You should have helped me,” Randall said. He thumped a tight fist against his thigh. His hands were bare. He wore jeans and sneakers and a torn dark denim jacket. “You could have helped me. It was fate I ran into you at that diner in Virginia. A thousand miles from home, ten years later. That was fate. And you spat in its face. You could have—”
“I couldn’t.” Jon felt the cold steel in his pocket. “And you? You didn’t need me. You could have helped yourself, like I did. You could have taken control over your own life. Claimed your life back. Survived. It’s the only way. Forget. Separate. Survive. Instead, you played victim.”
Randall snarled, spitting his words: “What the fuck do you know? You fucking—” His voice was rising as he pounded a fist against the side of his head.
“No one will believe you,” Jon said. “Even with the photo. It’s not proof.”
He started to ease his hand out of his coat pocket.
Randall licked his cracked lips.
“I’ll make this go away,” Jon said and started to yank his hand out of his pocket and bring out the only thing that could stop all this.
But Randall, weak as he looked, was fast, and he was on Jon before Jon could finish his move.