Chapter Fifty-Three

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

RILEY WAKES SLOWLY, having at last fallen fitfully to sleep only around dawn. Her body and limbs are heavy, and she stares at the ceiling and feels a kind of smothering dread hanging over her. She'd gone straight to bed after the funeral yesterday, knocked out by half a Valium her worried mother had given her. She'd risen many hours later and had watched the late news with her mother. Turner had been arrested for Diana's murder. She couldn't believe it.

Immediately the texts came fast and furious from Evan, but she ignored them. She couldn't face talking about it any more that night. She just wanted to be with her mom, pretend that none of it had ever happened. But then afterward, because she'd slept after the funeral, she'd hardly slept that night.

It's over, she tells herself now. She should be feeling some sort of relief, but what she feels is an increasing anxiety, as if there's something she hasn't dealt with, as if there's something unacknowledged that she must face. She feels she must gather her strength, but for what?

And then she realizes – she must gather her strength to face a long life without Diana in it. Grief takes time, she keeps hearing, and she realizes she's hardly even begun. She feels that she is sinking under the weight of it.

She makes her way down to breakfast. Her mother has stayed home again, in case she needs her. Riley tries to think of what day it is and realizes it's Thursday, because the funeral was yesterday. Her mom asks her if she wants to go to school, but she doesn't want to, not yet. It seems like such a betrayal of Diana, to even try to go back to a normal life when she is lying there in the cold ground, all that earth pressing down on her. Riley starts to feel her anxiety rise, and with it a kind of breathlessness, as if she can feel the earth pressing down on her too. She remembers those stories about witches in New England being pressed to death – boards placed on top of them and then stone upon stone added until they finally died. They weren't all burned at the stake or tied to a chair and thrown in the river. So many awful ways for a woman to die.

Her phone pings and she glances at it. It's Evan.

She looks at his text. Riley are you okay?

I'm fine. Just needed some sleep.

Want to talk?

She needs to talk to someone, or she will break in two. Okay. Can I come over there? I need to get out.

Yeah, sure. I can't face school today. My parents have gone to work.

K. Maybe in an hour?

K. See you then.

Riley steps into the shower. Grief makes her move in slow motion. She lets herself cry under the water for a long time. Then she puts on jeans and a shapeless sweater, thinking that maybe Evan's right, and she should see a counsellor.

She walks to Evan's house. It's not far. It's another cold, grey day, toward the end of October. Riley notices the Halloween decorations that have gone up, seemingly overnight, or maybe she just didn't notice them before. The ghosts on people's lawns, and swinging from trees, make her think of Diana, and of the dead boy who visited them in Diana's bedroom, whose grave she found yesterday. It makes her feel gloomy.

She arrives at Evan's house, and he invites her in. He offers to make coffee. As the coffee is brewing, they sit in the living room and talk.

‘Turner killed her,' Evan says. ‘I can't take it in.'

She nods wearily. ‘They must have solid evidence, if they arrested him.'

Evan shrugs. ‘I don't know.'

She considers. She tilts her head at him and says, ‘What if they don't? What if they're just under pressure to make an arrest?' Her voice rises in volume and pitch. ‘What if he's not the one who did it? What if the killer is still out there?'

‘He must have done it, or they wouldn't have arrested him,' Evan says, as if trying to soothe her.

It irritates her. She doesn't want soothing, she wants the truth. For Diana. For her own peace of mind. ‘You know that's not true. The wrong people get arrested all the time.' He looks back at her uneasily, as if he's afraid she'll get hysterical. She's changed her mind about not telling him. ‘There's something I haven't told you,' she says.

His eyebrows go up. ‘What?'

‘I found another cemetery.'

‘What other cemetery? What are you talking about?'

‘There's another cemetery, a really old one, on the outskirts of town. And I found him.'

‘Found who?'

Is he being dense on purpose? He must know what she's talking about. ‘Simon Foster. I found his gravestone. Born 1861, died 1873.'

He looks at her as if she's lost her mind. He doesn't need to look at her like that – it's a fact. She saw it with her own eyes. She'll take him there and make him see it for himself. ‘The dead boy we spoke to in Diana's bedroom that night.'

He shakes his head at her impatiently. ‘You can't seriously believe in that stuff.'

Suddenly she wants to make him understand, to accept the possibility. She leans forward and speaks urgently. ‘But it's true. I was there. I saw him communicate through the Ouija board with my own eyes. And I found his grave! I'll show it to you.' As he observes her sceptically, she says, her voice notching higher, ‘What if Diana is out there too, and we can speak to her through the Ouija board, and she could tell us who her killer was? Maybe we should try!' It's a step too far.

‘Riley, the police have it handled,' he says. He stands up. ‘I'll get the coffee.' He leaves her and goes into the kitchen.

He's trying to give me time to calm down , Riley thinks. I'm not going to calm down. I think it's a good idea. If he won't try it with me, I'll find someone who will.

But she'd already asked Sadie, yesterday, after she'd found the stone marking Simon's grave, and Sadie hadn't wanted to try contacting Diana to find her killer either. The idea seemed to make her uneasy. She said she wasn't sure any more what had happened that night, because she'd had so much to drink. She thought maybe it hadn't happened the way Riley remembered. Riley hadn't had too much to drink, and she remembered it very clearly. But Sadie had refused to go back and look at the gravestone with her.

Evan brings their coffees into the living room and sets hers down in front of her.

There's an uneasy silence as each waits for the other to speak first. Finally, Riley says, ‘Never mind, forget I said anything.' He looks relieved. ‘I think maybe you're right, that I should see a counsellor,' Riley admits.

‘I think it would help,' he agrees.

Suddenly everything seems too much, and she begins to cry. Maybe she is losing it. ‘I'm sorry. I didn't sleep much last night.'

He says, ‘You don't have to apologize. You look worn out. Why don't you lie down for a bit. You can use my parents' room if you want.'

She hasn't got the energy to protest. She feels utterly drained, by her sleepless night, by the funeral, by everything. She hasn't got the energy right now to go home to her own bed. She lets him show her upstairs to his parents' bedroom. She's suddenly grateful at the sight of a bed. He leaves her there and she lies down, thinking she'll fall asleep immediately. But she doesn't. The smell of his father's cologne is overwhelming; she can't stand it.

She finally gets up and quietly crosses the hall to Evan's bedroom. It's impeccably neat, the bed tidily made. She slumps onto his bed and rolls over onto her side, facing the wall. But she can't get comfortable, and she turns onto her stomach, pushing her face down into the edge of the bed. She catches a glimpse of something bright red and sparkly on the floor in the corner under the bed, something familiar. She looks more closely.

Her eyes snap wide open. She's staring at the back of a phone case – one she recognizes immediately.

It's Diana's.