“No, I didn’t see anything,” I said to Trip. “I just . . .” I shook my head, grasping for an answer. “It’s so frustrating,” I blurted. “I don’t get why they worked before and not now.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Tannis said. “It means what we saw that night was just what you first thought. A hallucination or something. Not the future. There’s nothing special or freaky about these.” She waved at the binoculars, still keeping a careful distance.
“Right.” I mustered everything in me to sound convincing. “Of course not.”
“So what does that mean for Nat?” Tannis asked.
“It means these had nothing to do with what happened to her dad,” Trip said. “I mean, are you guys positive that even happened? That you really saw something?”
Tannis looked unsure, but I didn’t feel the least bit that way. Of course we’d seen something. Obviously there was something in the binoculars. What did that mean for Nat? For me?
I glanced at Sarah, who hadn’t spoken at all. Our eyes met, and I was struck by the sudden and complete certainty that she could read me like a book.
And knew I was lying about the binoculars.
CHAPTER 11
WE FINALLY SAW NATALIE ON Wednesday. Her dad’s funeral.
Everyone from school and half the town went. My mom had to work. “The nursing home doesn’t shut down for a funeral,” she’d said ruefully. That she couldn’t afford to take the day off went without saying. I recognized lots of people from the mountain and the ski shop. The grocer was there, and people from the hospital. Plenty from the restaurant, too. Moose was at the edge of the crowd by himself. I nodded to him, and he scowled. Still pissed at me. I felt guilty, then angry about it. He’s the idiot using drugs, I thought. Not me. Bill Winston was conspicuously absent. So was Natalie’s mom. At least that was the rumor. I wouldn’t have recognized her or any of Mr. Cleary’s girlfriends, though I saw plenty of skanky-looking women who might have qualified. I wondered if the police had questioned all of them. Or if they were taking notes as they stood on the fringe of the crowd, a buffer between us and the reporters cordoned off by the roadside, where the police had ordered them to stand. Their numbers had increased tenfold as the story had lingered. The official press release was that it was a murder investigation, daughter left unharmed, persons of interest being questioned.
That Natalie was one of the persons of interest had become common knowledge in the underground whispers, though the police had yet to confirm it.
It was the first time we’d seen her since the day he was killed, and she looked terrible, standing somberly beside her Social Services case worker.
“How’s she doing?” John Peters asked quietly as he came over to stand beside us.
“Don’t know,” Trip answered. “None of us have been able to talk to her since that night at your house.”
He nodded. “My dad says they were pretty tough on her.” He shook his head angrily. “So unfair.”
Trip looked at him, surprised. “You don’t think she did it?”
“Of course not.” Trip nodded approvingly as John went back to his family.
The service sucked. Randall Cleary had given up on church ages ago, but I guess the church never gives up on anyone, even people like him. A priest gamely gave the eulogy, doing his best to gloss over the details of Nat’s father’s life and give it some sort of meaning. They’d obviously never met.
I watched Natalie throughout, still finding it hard to believe she’d done it. But I could see lots of other people looking at her with plenty of suspicion. It didn’t seem like she noticed it. Or much of anything else.
We stood in a line by the coffin to pay our respects, but more because it was the only way to get close to Nat. The four of us formed a protective cluster around her when it was our turn. Sarah was the first to speak.
“I’m so sorry, Nat,” Sarah said, hugging her. “We wanted to see you, but no one would tell us how.”
Tears welled in Natalie’s eyes, and then spilled over immediately, and I recognized exactly where she was—that state where you’re able to hold it together as long as absolutely no one talks to you or touches you with any amount of sympathy. “They had me there for days. Asking questions, doing tests . . .” She took a ragged breath. “It was horrible.”
“When do you get to come back?” Tannis asked.
“Now,” Nat said. “I’m back.”
“You are?” I asked, surprised. “So the police . . .” I hesitated, not sure if Nat realized she’d been a suspect.
“Yeah,” she said darkly. “They’ve finally realized I had nothing to do with it.”
“Idiots,” Trip spat.
She looked at him gratefully and almost smiled. “Thanks, Trip. I couldn’t agree more.”
“Natalie,” Sarah said. “What happened? That night . . .”
Nat’s eyes shifted to her handler, standing discreetly to the side. “I don’t know,” she said simply. “That’s what I kept telling them. My dad was wasted. Worse than at the mountain. Much worse,” she said quietly. “I went to my room, locked the door, and put on my headphones, the ones Lu gave me?” We all nodded. Lu was her coach, and the headphones were noise-canceling, to help her concentrate before races. Trip had seen them in her bag one day at school, and we’d taken turns wearing them at lunch, trying to read each other’s lips. Tannis had made these ridiculous faces at me, mouthing something I couldn’t understand. The others had been cracking up, and later I’d found out it was I want you.
Nat continued, “I woke up just after three in the morning, my lights and headphones still on. I got up to brush my teeth and was going to get a glass of water from the kitchen.” Nat stopped and took a few quick breaths. I could feel my heart beating hard and fast. “I knew something was wrong right away,” she said. “There was a funny smell, and I had the weirdest déjà vu, walking down that hallway.” My skin was prickling. I saw Sarah’s hand slide involuntarily to clutch the other one. “Instead of turning into the kitchen, I kept going. Into the living room. And it was—” Natalie stopped, brought her fingers to her mouth, bit hard like she was holding something in.
“You found him,” Trip finished softly.
Natalie nodded, fingers between her teeth for another second. Then she dropped her hand. “It was exactly what I saw in those binoculars,” she whispered in a rush. Her eyes darted to Trip, then Tannis, then me. “Exactly.”