The Passenger (34 page)

“What was she like?” I asked.

“She was your mother. You should know better than me.”

“I hadn't seen my mother in ten years. What was she like in the end?”

“The way most people are at the end. Scared and full of regret. The way you are all of the time.”

I felt like she was digging tiny graves in my conscience. I couldn't look at her. The town of Bilman had turned me into a fake criminal, but Blue had turned me into a real one.

Blue smiled. Not the way most people smile, when prompted by laughter or joy or a fond memory. She smiled with satisfaction. She knew more about me than she had five minutes ago. She asked me when I decided to come home, and I told her about Reginald Lee.

“You blew up his entire home?”

“It was either that or let him murder dozens of innocent people.”

Her eyes lit up. “Did you take any video?”

“Of the explosion?”

“Yes.”

“No, I didn't.”

“Not even a picture?” The light in her eyes faded just a bit.

“No.”

“Oh, well. I'm still proud of you.”

“What's next for you, Blue? Are you going home?”

“Not until I write the last chapter of the Nora Glass story.”

“You can't be serious,” I said.

She was.

B
LUE DROPPED ME
off at my childhood home and said, “See you tomorrow?”

Time had lost some meaning for me. When you're not sure what the future holds, you choose to stay in the present.

“Tomorrow?” I said.

“Your mother's funeral.”

“Right,” I said.

It felt odd knocking on the front door of 241 Cypress Lane yet again. I wondered if the key was still hiding under the fake rock.

Pete opened the door. He smiled nervously. “Welcome home,” he said.

All those years I wanted to hear those words. Now they just got under my skin.

Pete cooked me a meat-and-potatoes dinner, which we ate in awkward silence. He made a ceremony of giving me the keys to my mother's two-year-old Toyota. Naomi had left the house to Pete, since he'd paid off the mortgage, but there was some money in a bank account. Pete gave me the paperwork.

“I know you don't have any family left. You can think of me as family, if you want.”

Pete was a nice man, but I didn't have the same notions of family that other people had. It wasn't something I was looking for.

I excused myself from the table and went to bed. I fell asleep fast. I slept in that deep careless way that children do, as if I were making up for all of those years I spent on guard.

At some point in the night, I woke. Someone was rapping on the window outside.

I
OPENED
the window and there he was. My best friend, the man I loved for far too long, and the person who betrayed me more than any other. Seeing him made me happier and sadder than I could ever remember. I climbed outside. We stood there just looking at each other. We didn't hug or shake or anything.

He'd changed over the years. Lost a bit of hair, put on a few pounds. Worry and sorrow had burrowed highways on his brow.

“You don't look like you,” Ryan said.

“I wasn't allowed to be me.”

“I mean, you don't look like I thought you'd look.”

“It's the hair,” I said, hoping he wasn't seeing right through to my conscience.

“Are you planning on staying?” he said.

“I'm not planning anything.”

“I have a family,” he said, taking a few steps closer.

“I know.”

“I have a daughter.”

“I heard.”

He closed the distance between us. Up close I could only see his eyes, the same eyes I had stared into thousands of times. They were sad now, but they were still Ryan's and they still made me ache.

He kissed me. His lips felt more familiar than my own reflection. I felt seventeen again, as if anything were possible. And then he pulled away, and I was reminded of every cruel trick that the world had in store for me.

“You ruined my life,” I said.

“You ruined mine,” he said.

“I'm not staying,” I said.

“Good. I don't ever want to see you again.”

He never did.

T
HE
morning of my mother's funeral, I decided to dye my hair back to brown. I was growing tired of the stares that my bleached, chopped locks were drawing. After I rinsed out the dye and dried my hair, I looked half-normal again, even if I didn't feel it inside. I picked an old dress from my closet to wear to the funeral. It hung loose on me. It was the same plain black dress I'd worn to my grandma Hazel's funeral. Only three people had attended Hazel's service.

My mother drew a bigger crowd—or rather her notorious daughter did. Half the town seemed to have packed into Bronson & Sons mortuary to get a glimpse of the infamous Nora Glass. It was a closed-casket service, so there wasn't a whole lot to look at besides me.

When Edie came through the door, I averted my gaze. She approached me cautiously, like I was a stray dog. Then she hugged me. Not tight, like a real hug, but a tentative hug you might give a fragile old relative.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I should have known you didn't do it.”

“I'm glad you left him,” was all I said.

Pete stood by the door and welcomed the guests, even the ones he knew were attending just for the show. He shook everyone's hand until Roland and Logan Oliver arrived. Pete turned away from the door as if they were invisible. An audible gasp came from the crowd and then a quiet murmur, like a still ocean.

Guilt hadn't aged Logan as it had his brother. He was still lean, handsome, and looked like he could fool you into believing he was a good man. As Logan sat down in a pew, Roland walked right up to me.

“I'm sorry for your loss,” he said.

“Which loss are you referring to? My mother's life or mine?”

“I tried to help her, you know. I put her in rehab. I gave her money whenever she asked.”

“You're good at paying people off.”

“You may never understand, but I really thought we were doing what was best for everyone.”

“If it's absolution you're after, I'd see a priest.”

Roland retreated and took a seat in the back row. As the service was about to begin, Blue stepped inside. She was wearing a sleek black dress, pumps, and a veil.

“You're a bit overdressed,” I said.

“Nice turnout,” she said. “Oh good, the Olivers are here.”

“
Why
are they here?”

“I suggested that if they didn't attend the funeral they'd look guilty,” she said.

“They
are
guilty.”

“That's neither here nor there, Nora. Excuse me, I can't finish my book until I get an exclusive interview with Logan. I'm going to try to steal him right now. I doubt he wants to sit through a boring funeral service.”

From a distance, I watched Blue work her wicked charm on Logan. After just a few words passed between them, Logan was following Blue out the front doors of the mortuary. I swear that Blue could talk her way out of a lion's den.

Pete gave a lovely eulogy about redemption and tried to convince the cynical crowd that Naomi had truly made amends for a life riddled with misdeeds. I stood in the back of the mortuary, hoping to keep as many eyes off of me as possible, but I still caught rubbernecks trying to catch a glimpse. I wondered if people were hoping for tears. They would have been disappointed. My eyes were dry as the desert. I had lost my mother ten years ago. I'd shed all of my tears back then.

I slipped out of the mortuary as the service came to a close. I didn't need any more false mourners paying me their respects. Outside, sulfurous clouds loomed low in the sky. A light drizzle began to fall. I spotted Blue and Logan chatting intimately in the parking lot. They were standing by a black Range Rover.

As I walked over to them, Blue clocked me out of the corner of her eye and said something to Logan. He looked in my direction and opened the passenger door for Blue. Then he got into the car and drove out of the lot.

M
Y MOTHER'S
T
OYOTA
was parked at the far end of the lot. Blue and Logan had a head start, but it didn't matter. I knew exactly where they were going. I started the engine and pulled out of the lot. I turned right on Buckwheat Lane, made a left on Route 47, and took the exit for Skyline Road. The speed limit was forty; I was going sixty.

After ten minutes on a two-lane road, I had the Range Rover in my sights. I hadn't been on Skyline since the night Melinda died. We were at least four miles from Lyons Bridge. I remembered reading years ago that they had named the one-mile viaduct after her. I picked up my phone and dialed Blue's number. She answered after the third ring.

“Now's not a good time,” she said.

“I know what you're doing, Blue. Please don't. It's not what I want.”

“I'll call you when I'm done interviewing Logan.”

“Blue—” I said.

But she had already disconnected the call.

I was driving seventy miles an hour, just to keep them in my sights. We were only two miles, less than two minutes, from the bridge. But time had lost all meaning. I was in the past, the present, and the future all at once.

I saw Logan's car swerve, right itself, swerve again, and then jump the rail of the bridge, bending steel. The windows were tinted, so I couldn't see what happened inside the car, but I knew that when the Range Rover jerked wildly to the right, Blue had her hands on the steering wheel. There was no skidding or braking. The Range Rover barreled into the guardrail and dove twenty feet down, right into Moses Lake.

I hit the brakes, put on my hazard lights, and jumped out of the car. The black SUV was slowly being swallowed by the lake. I sighed in relief as I saw Blue climb out of the passenger window. I couldn't see Logan through his window tints, but I knew Blue wouldn't help him escape.

I threw off my shoes and coat and dove off the bridge into the murky water. I swam past Blue, dove under, and climbed through the open window into the car.

Logan was still alive, struggling with his seat belt. His face was bright red from holding his breath. I reached for the belt and pressed down on the button, but the buckle wouldn't release. I tried again. It wouldn't budge. I was running out of air. I tried the belt one more time. I needed oxygen.

Logan watched the bubbles rise as I expelled the last air I owned. He grabbed the collar of my shirt and held it around my neck like a noose. I tried to pull him off me, but I guess he had decided that if he was going to die, so would I.

My lungs felt primed to explode. I looked Logan in the eye, silently begging for mercy. I should have known that he didn't have any. Then he took a breath of water, convulsed, and released his hold on me. I turned around and dove out of the car, kicking to the surface, where my lungs were finally able to feast on air. I treaded in the cold lake as I got my fill of oxygen.

I spotted Blue on the shore. I swam over to her and climbed out of the water, still gasping for breath.

“He's gone,” I said.

“That's what I figured,” said Blue, shivering, blue-lipped, but calm. “I was worried he was taking you with him.”

“What did you do?”

“I didn't do anything,” Blue said without any conviction. “He realized that his days were numbered as a free man, and he wanted to go out on his own terms.”

“So he just drove off the bridge all on his own?”

“It seemed like a poetic end. He dies on the same bridge that first made him a killer. I do love symmetry, don't you?”

“I prefer justice,” I said.

“Sometimes you get both.”

B
LUE AND
I hiked up the embankment back to the road.

“Give me a ride to my motel,” said Blue.

“We should go to the cops.”

“Why?”

“Because you were in the car with him.”

“Was I?” Blue said. “I don't remember that.”

I didn't argue with her. I didn't see how it changed anything in the end. I drove Blue to the Super 8 on the outskirts of town. She told me to wait in the car. I had the heat on full blast, but I was still shivering from being soaked through.

When Blue returned to the car, she was carrying a large manila envelope.

“You should have this,” she said. “I thought Logan's death was the ending I was looking for, but this is the Nora Glass story, and that's not over yet. I can't publish it as it is. You probably know most of the stuff that's in there, being Nora Glass and all. But there's one thing about Nora that you might not know, and it would clear a few things up.”

“I don't want it,” I said.

“Take it anyway,” she said, dropping the stack of papers on the passenger seat. “Be happy, Nora. Justice was served.”

“You and I have a very different idea of justice.”

“Do we?”

“Good-bye, Blue.”

“This isn't good-bye,” Blue said as she walked away.

I went back to my old house and took a hot shower. Later Pete came home and asked me where I had been. I said it was all too much for me and I had to leave. I crawled into bed and slept until my conscience woke me. All I could see was Logan bucking against his seat belt, awaiting death. I turned on the reading light and picked up the pages from Blue's damp manuscript.

As I leafed through the papers, I had to laugh. They were all blank except the title page and the last page, which was a report that took me some time to understand.

Blue was right. There was one thing about me that I didn't know, and it did indeed clear up a few things. At least now I knew why my mother and Mr. Oliver were so determined to send me away. Still, I think there had to be another way.

I
STAYED
two more days in Bilman helping Pete clear my mother's things out of the house. I was standing right next to him when the phone rang and he got the news of Logan's demise. The police were calling it a vehicular suicide.