“Unless Laura didn’t want anyone to know that they were seeing each other.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“What happened next?” Serena asked.
Stride listened to the waves outside the window. The old house rattled in the wind. “I don’t know. That was the last time I saw Laura. Something happened to her in the softball field, where her shoe was found. But that’s not where she was killed. She took another trail from the field and wound up on a beach on the north side of the lake almost a mile away. That’s where Cindy found her.”
“So Peter’s bat wasn’t found in the softball field where you last saw it?” Serena asked.
“No. It was on the beach by the body. Someone took the bat, followed the trail from the softball field to the beach, and killed Laura there. There was something else, too.”
“What?”
“No one knows about this,” Stride said. “It was never released to the press. I only found out when I took over the Detective Bureau and pulled the file. The police found semen near the body.”
“Laura had sex that night?” Serena asked.
Stride shook his head. “Not in the body. Near the body. In the woods near the beach where Laura was murdered. Whatever went down that night, someone was there watching. Either he killed her, or he saw who did.”
WHO KILLED LAURA STARR?
EIGHT
What do I remember about that night?
I remember the two of us alone, after Laura left to follow the trail back to the field. Me and Jonny. I know it was wrong to let her go, but back then, we were all blinded by our desires. Any one of us could have made a different decision. If we had, the night would have gone another way. I try not to dwell on it. Life happens the way it’s going to happen. So does death.
I remember us walking hand in hand out of the shelter of the trees. The rain came in sheets, but there was no more lightning, no more thunder, just wind and water. It sounds romantic, but it was funny, actually. We were laughing. We blinked our eyes and gulped air like fishes, as if we were breathing under a waterfall. We shivered in the cold. The wind whipped us around like dolls.
I remember saying, “Let’s swim.”
I had to start. If Jonny had reached to remove my clothes, I would have let him, but he would never do that. I unhooked my bikini top in back, let the straps slide off my shoulders, and saw my white breasts come free in the darkness. My long, wet hair covered them. I pushed my hair out of the way so he could see me. My pink nipples and the little bumps around them were swollen. I took his hand to make him touch me, and I showed him how, guiding his fingers with mine, caressing and rubbing the way I liked it. When we kissed again, I remember the feel of our wet, bare chests pressing together.
I remember stepping back and staring at my feet as I peeled my bikini bottoms down and feeling nervous and self-conscious when I was finally naked in front of him. I couldn’t look into his eyes. I felt an urge to cover myself, which was stupid. I remember finding the courage to look up, spread my arms wide, and say, “Now you’ve seen the whole deal.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. He was transfixed. His face was in awe.
“You’re beautiful,” he told me.
I was, but how can you not be beautiful when you’re seventeen? I wasn’t a model, but I was the girl he loved. I remember folding my arms over my breasts and saying, “Your turn.”
He had it worse than me. Guys do. I was intensely curious, without wanting to show him how much. He stalled. He fumbled with his shorts. When he got them off, his underwear was even whiter than my sun-starved breasts. It jutted out because of his erection. He looked nervous like me as he went the rest of the way, and it took him even longer to meet my eyes again.
I remember wanting to reach out and touch it, but I didn’t.
“Are we ready for this?” he asked.
“You sure look ready.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know what you mean.”
No, I wasn’t ready. I was scared to death. I knew he was, too. But I wasn’t going back.
I remember us swimming. We waded out naked into the dark lake, with the rain cascading over us. The lake bed under our feet was a slippery mix of sand and stones. The water wrapped around us and rose up to our necks. You feel so exposed and vulnerable like that, naked and submerged, with the whole sky stretching over your head. You think strange thoughts about what might be in there with you. I remember yelping as a fish brushed my stomach, swimming between us, and then, of course, I realized it was not a fish at all, and it was a good thing Jonny couldn’t see my face turn red.
I remember floating, my small breasts like little snowy peaks above the waterline. Jonny held me. His hands explored. It felt good.
I remember finally touching him and watching his eyes close and his mouth fall open.
We could have stayed out there all night, postponing what both of us really wanted to do. Out in the lake, we were in a kind of frozen world, nothing behind us, nothing ahead. The splashing rain and the whistle of the wind blocked out every other sound. There was no moon to glisten on the surface, just complete darkness. I was blind to reality. Blind to the violence I had let my sister walk into.
I remember us lying on our backs on the beach. No stars. Fog and mist rising like clouds out of the low lands. The rain no more than spatters on our skin now. Hungry mosquitoes starting to wake up, buzz, and hunt for blood. If we didn’t do it now, it wouldn’t be tonight.
I remember him on top of me. I felt crushed and didn’t care. Our kisses were urgent. We were both clumsy. I remember my legs spread wide like wings. We were laughing and struggling. I helped him, and somewhere after the pressure and pain, somewhere after our hands, feet, and knees found their right places, we both realized that we were really doing it. There was this little pause in the middle when we caught our breath and our eyes met with a kind of amazement. Then I felt his muscles all bunch into one, and I wrapped my legs tight around him, and I watched his face as it happened.
I remember we stayed like that for a very long time. I remember sweat and rain. When he withdrew, I showed him with my hands how to touch me, and I watched him watching me right up to the moment when our fingers working together pushed me over the top, and I closed my eyes, and it happened to me, too.
I remember thinking that in the morning, the world would be a very different place.