She Was Alive
“Who took her?”
Owen stopped talking. I stood in the middle of my living room with the phone pressed against my ear. “Owen. Who took Lena out of the house?”
“You know who.”
“No, I don’t.”
He went quiet again.
“You said they took her. Who is they?”
“Claire and Nathan.”
I closed my eyes. Claire and Nathan. Not me. The relief came so fast it made me sick. Lena had been hurt, someone had moved her, and my first reaction was relief that I hadn’t been one of them.
Then I remembered what else Owen had said. I had been there. I had been crying. He’d thought one of us would call for help.
“Where was I?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said I was there.”
“You were, but I left before they moved her.”
I frowned. “So you didn’t actually see Claire and Nathan take her.”
“No.”
“Then how do you know they did?”
Another pause. “Because Nathan told me.”
My grip tightened around the phone. “When?”
“Years later. Same time he told me about the phone.”
“He told you more than that?”
“Some. Not everything.”
Of course. Everyone had a piece. Nobody had the whole story. Somehow I was the only person expected to put it together without knowing what the picture was supposed to look like.
“What exactly did Nathan tell you?”
“That Lena left the house alive.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me where they took her. Just that she was alive when they left.”
I laughed, but it came out ugly. “Do you people hear yourselves? Everybody knows something, but nobody knows enough. Everybody was there until suddenly they weren’t. Everyone lied, but somehow nobody knows what the actual lie was.”
“I know more than I wish I did.”
“Then tell me.”
Owen was quiet for a few seconds. “You were trying to call 911.”
I stopped. “What?”
“Before I left. You had your phone. I think you were trying to call an ambulance.”
My throat tightened. “What happened?”
“Claire took it from you.”
Something shifted inside my head. Not quite a memory. More like the shadow of one. My hand. A phone. Claire standing in front of me. Then her voice.
She’s breathing.
I closed my eyes, trying to hold onto it, but it was already gone.
“What did I say?”
“I don’t remember exactly.”
“Try.”
Owen sighed. “You kept saying she needed a hospital.”
Something inside me cracked open. Not memory. Grief. For twenty years, I’d imagined myself standing in that house and doing nothing while Lena disappeared. Maybe I hadn’t. Maybe I’d tried.
I covered my mouth for a second before asking, “Why did you leave?”
“When Lena fell, everything went crazy.”
My body went rigid. “Fell?”
“I don’t know what happened.”
“You just said when she fell.”
“I heard something from upstairs. A crash, maybe somebody yelling. I came down and Lena was on the floor.”
“Claire was there?”
“Yes.”
“Nathan?”
“Yes.”
I hesitated. “Me?”
“Yes.”
“What was I doing?”
“You were beside Lena.”
My hands started shaking. “Was there blood on me?”
Owen went quiet. That was enough.
“Owen.”
“Yes.”
I looked down at my hands. Chapter Seven. There was blood on my hands. It hadn’t been fiction.
“What was I doing?”
“You were holding her. Her head, I think.”
Relief and terror arrived together. The blood could’ve been there because I was helping her. Because I’d been trying to stop the bleeding. I refused to follow the other possibility.
“Was she conscious?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But she was breathing.”
“Yes.”
“And I wanted an ambulance.”
“Yes.”
“Claire said no.”
“Yes.”
I started pacing again. “Why?”
“I asked her the same thing. She said we’d all been drinking and there were drugs in the house.”
“What drugs?”
“Weed. Pills. I don’t remember.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You don’t let somebody die because there’s weed in a lake house.”
“I know.”
“What else did she say?”
Owen hesitated. “She said Lena would tell them what happened.”
I stopped moving. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have to stop saying that.”
“I didn’t see it, Mara.” His voice rose, then softened almost immediately. “I didn’t see how Lena got hurt. I walked into the aftermath.”
I closed my eyes. Just like I was doing now. Twenty years late.
“What happened next?”
“You and Claire started arguing about calling an ambulance. Nathan kept pacing. Claire told me to leave.”
“And you did.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
This time the silence felt different. Ashamed.
“Because I was scared.”
At least that was honest.
“You left Lena there because Claire told you to?”
His voice cracked. “Yes.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment. We’d been nineteen. Children pretending we were adults. That excuse sounded a lot less convincing when I pictured Lena unconscious on the floor.
“I’ve hated myself for it every day,” Owen said.
I believed him. That didn’t make it better.
“What happened after you left?”
“I drove around for a while. Claire called me the next morning and told me Lena had walked off.”
“And you believed her?”
“No.”
That surprised me. “You knew she was lying?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you tell the police the same thing?”
“Because I was a coward.”
No excuse. No softening. Just the word.
I sat down. “Did you ever ask Nathan what really happened?”
“Not for years. When I finally did, he told me Lena left the house alive and then told me to leave it alone.”
“Did he know where she went?”
“I think so.”
“Why?”
“Because of the way he said it.”
I stood again. “Did Nathan ever tell you Lena died?”
“No.”
“Did Claire?”
“No.”
“Did either of them ever tell you she was dead?”
“No.”
I stopped pacing. “Then why did we all assume she was?”
Owen took a breath. “Because she never came back.”
The answer hit harder than it should have. Because she never came back. Not because we’d seen a body. Not because police found her. Not because anyone actually knew. Twenty years passed and Lena never corrected us, so somewhere along the way we stopped saying missing and started thinking dead.
“What if she lived?”
Owen didn’t answer.
“What if she survived? Somebody found her, she got help, and she went somewhere.”
“Maybe.”
“What if she didn’t want to be found?”
That got a longer silence. At first the idea felt impossible. Then I remembered Lena. Her mother was gone. Her father had remarried. She hated going home and spent holidays anywhere else she could. She used to joke that if she disappeared, her father wouldn’t notice for a week.
I hadn’t thought about that in years. Maybe because it wasn’t funny anymore.
“Did she ever talk about leaving?” I asked.
“Everybody did.”
“No. Really leaving.”
Owen thought about it. “She talked about California. New York. Everywhere, really.”
“So did we.”
“Yeah, but Lena was different. Sometimes when she said she’d disappear one day, I thought she actually meant it.”
For a second, I could see her. Bare feet. Silver bracelet. Laughing.
One day I’m going to disappear and none of you assholes are getting my forwarding address.
Had she actually said that? Or was my brain writing again? I couldn’t tell anymore.
I called Detective Mills after Owen and I hung up. He answered on the second ring. “Ms. Voss.”
“I need to tell you something. About Nathan and Lena.”
That got his attention.
I told him Owen had called. I told him Lena had still been alive when Owen left Blackwater and that Nathan apparently admitted years later that she left the house alive. I did not tell him about @LenaLived. I definitely did not tell him that the account had announced Nathan was murdered.
Not yet.
When I finished, Detective Mills asked for Owen’s number. I gave it to him.
“Does this change anything?”
“About what?”
“Nathan.”
“I can’t discuss an active investigation.”
“Is it an active investigation?”
“Mr. Cole’s death is being investigated.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No, it isn’t.”
I was really starting to dislike him. “Do you still think it was suicide?”
“I never told you I thought it was suicide.”
I stopped. “Claire did.”
Silence.
“Claire told me Friday morning that they thought Nathan killed himself. She told me before you called.”
Detective Mills didn’t respond. A chill moved over my arms. “Detective?”
When he spoke again, his voice had changed. “Ms. Voss, I’m going to ask you not to discuss Mr. Cole’s death with anyone for the time being.”
My mouth went dry. “Why?”
“I’ll be in touch.”
The call ended.
I stared at my phone for maybe ten seconds before calling Claire. Straight to voicemail. I tried again, then gave up and texted.
Call me. I talked to Owen.
Nothing. Then: He told me Lena was alive when he left.
Claire finally answered. Owen doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
I stared at the message. Finally.
He said Nathan told him she left the house alive. Is that true?
Nothing. Claire.
A minute later: You need to stop talking to people.
I laughed. Of course. Why?
No response. So I asked the question that mattered.
Where did you take her?
Delivered. Read. Nothing.
Five minutes later, Claire went offline.
That night, I opened Chapter Eight of The Last Night at Blackwater. For the first time since I’d started the story, I didn’t want to invent anything. I wanted to remember.
So I typed only what I knew.
Emily was alive.
That is the part we got wrong.
She was alive on the floor. Alive when Claire said not to call. Alive when Ben went outside. Alive when someone decided what happened next.
My hands hovered over the keyboard. Something flashed.
A car. I stopped breathing. Vinyl against my bare legs. Darkness outside the window. Someone crying.
No. Me crying.
I closed my eyes. Back seat. My forehead against cold glass. Streetlights slipping past. Trees. Movement.
We were driving.
My eyes flew open. “Oh my God.”
I stood so fast my chair hit the wall.
We took her somewhere.
Not Claire and Nathan.
We.
The memory disappeared almost as quickly as it came. I tried to pull it back, but all I had left was darkness, movement and the feeling of crying so hard it hurt.
I opened the blog. I was in the car.
@LenaLived replied quickly. Yes.
Not a correction. Confirmation.
Where were we going? Was Lena with us?
The answer took longer. You’re almost there.
I read it twice. Not closer. Gentler. Patient. And suddenly I realized I’d already started separating the messages in my head. Nathan’s messages. Closer. One word. A push. Now: you’re almost there. Encouragement.
I typed, Why are you helping me?
Almost a minute passed. Because he couldn’t finish.
Nathan.
Did Nathan give you this account? Did you know him?
Nothing. Eventually another message appeared. He was afraid of Claire.
My pulse jumped. Did Claire kill Nathan?
No answer. I waited. Nothing.
“Fine.”
I shut the laptop. If the account wouldn’t tell me, I’d find someone who would.
I spent Saturday searching for Lena Hart. Not the missing girl. The woman. That distinction changed everything. Every search I’d ever done assumed Lena’s life ended June 14, 2006. This time I searched as if it hadn’t.
Marriage records. Obituaries. Social media. Aliases. Old college connections.
Nothing.
At one point I found a forty-one-year-old dental hygienist in Arizona and stared at her Facebook profile for ten minutes. Wrong eyes. Wrong smile. Wrong Lena.
By Sunday afternoon, I had forty-three tabs open and absolutely nothing useful. Maybe Lena really had died, just not at the lake. Maybe Claire and Nathan left her somewhere and she died later. Maybe —
My phone rang. Owen.
“The police came by,” he said when I answered.
“Mills?”
“Yes.”
“What did you tell him?”
“The truth.”
“Which version?”
There was a pause. “That isn’t fair.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Sorry.” I meant it. Mostly.
He told me Mills had asked about Nathan, Claire and Lena. Then he hesitated. “There was something else.”
I sat up. “What?”
“I found something in an old box. Pictures, letters, stuff from college.”
Apparently we all had one.
“And?”
“A receipt. Gas station. That night.”
My heart started pounding. “What time?”
“12:46 a.m.”
After 12:17.
“Where?”
He gave me the name of a town I didn’t recognize. I pulled up a map. At first my stomach dropped.
“That’s south.”
“Yes.”
The newspaper article from my porch flashed through my head. SEARCH AREA EXPANDED SOUTH. Wrong direction.
Then I zoomed out. “Wait.” The lake house was north. The search had expanded south from there. But the gas station wasn’t south.
“Owen.”
“Yeah?”
“This is west.”
“I know.”
“How far from Blackwater?”
“About forty minutes.”
“Why were you forty minutes west?”
“I told you. I drove around.”
“Were you alone?”
He hesitated. “I thought I was.”
My skin prickled. “What does that mean?”
“I’ve been thinking about what I saw there.”
“What did you see?”
“Claire’s car.”
I stood. “At the gas station?”
“Near the pumps.”
“Claire was there?”
“I think so. I was drunk and scared, and I didn’t go inside. I just remember seeing the car.”
“Who was with her?”
“I couldn’t see.”
“Nathan?”
“Probably.”
I hesitated. “Me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Lena?”
Another silence. “I don’t know.”
I closed my eyes. Back seat. Cold window. Trees moving. Me crying. We.
“Why didn’t you remember this before?”
“Same reason you didn’t remember the car until now, I guess.”
Fair enough.
“Did you follow them?”
“No.”
“Do you remember which way they went?”
“West.”
“How?”
“Because I watched the taillights.”
I stared at the map. Forty minutes west of Blackwater. 12:46 a.m. Roads stretched across the screen. Small towns, forests, county lines. Places we could have taken Lena. Places we could have left her.
“If Claire’s car was there at 12:46, then she didn’t stay at Blackwater.”
“No.”
“And if Nathan was with her—”
“Probably.”
“And I remember being in the back seat.”
“Mara.”
“Then we all went somewhere.”
Owen didn’t answer. I stared at the map until the roads blurred.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
There was a long silence. Then Owen said my name.
“Mara?”
“What?”
“I thought you knew.”
A chill moved through me. “Knew what?”
“What happened after I left.”
My mouth went dry. “No.”
He was quiet for another second.
“I think you were the only one who went with them.”
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