The gold telescope is in front of me, trained not up at the sky but out at the ranch. I stand up, curious. I shake my hands out, rub my knuckles and walk to the telescope. I bend down, peering through. A face flashes in front of me. I jump back with a start, knocking my ankle on the sharp corner of a box.
I catch my breath. My heart hammers in my chest. I remind myself that the face is on the other side of the telescope, not in here with me. I force myself to look again. It’s Jed, standing under a tree on the far side of the ranch.
It takes me a second to piece together that this is not a coincidence. That he is waiting for me, that he knew to wait for me there because he used to wait for you. I wonder how I can get out of your room without your parents noticing. I stick my head out the window, but I am on the second floor, and there is no ladder, no trellis, no pipe.
It takes me actual minutes to remember that I am not a prisoner, that I can leave for any reason, at any time. I open the door. I walk down the hall. Your mother’s bedroom door is open. I can hear the sound of water running, see the oversized dresser against the far wall. I pass by the open door and walk down the stairs. Your father is still at the computer, still scrolling through dozens of thumbnails of boats.
“Everything okay, Sera, Sera?” He has picked up this habit and he is not going to put it down.
“Is everything all right down there?” your mother calls.
My face heats up. My back hollows. Run. “I left something in the cabin. I’m just going to grab it.”
Your father scratches behind his ear. “Why not wait until tomorrow?”
“Emmett, is everything okay down there?”
“I’m just going to get something!” My voice rises so I almost shout. I almost sound hysterical. “I’ll be right back!”
My hands ache and I press my nails into my palm, wanting to break the skin. And my head spins and my throat narrows and my heart beats in overdrive and I rush to the door before they can chase me, before they can stop me. And I am fifty feet away in the bracing cold before I realize they won’t. Why would they? They have no reason to. I can walk outside alone. I can do whatever I want. I am my own person. I don’t belong to them.
Still I hurry, past the lodge, out into the ranch, where I find Jed standing under the tree, lit by the moon, like a lost cowboy in search of a love song. In spite of everything, all the evidence surrounding him, I just can’t see him as a killer. He is too busy killing himself to kill anyone else.
“This is all my fault,” he says.
“What is?” I say, disoriented.
“Don’t stay with them.” He steps forward, grips my wrist but presses too hard. I automatically pull away.
“I have to. I’m in Rachel’s room. There are files. I think they might have clues.”
“Sera!” He sounds angry. “When are you gonna let it go?” His eyes widen in alarm. He was too loud. He knows it. The valley threw his voice from here to there. The dogs bark in the distance. Out on the highway, another truck roars past.
He steps back away from me, kicks the dirt. “Shit. Lawd.”
“What is it?” I step forward softly. “What happened?”
“Someone was in my house.”
My bones chill. “How do you know that?”
He wipes a hand through his hair. His jaw is loose. I wonder how much he has had to drink. “They moved some stuff.” He finds his breath. “They moved some stuff around.”
I think of the letter. Did I put it back? Or did I leave it out on the bed after I took the photo? I was so distracted, distracted by the words and what he wrote, and I can’t remember. “Maybe you’re imagining it.” I feel the pull of guilt and I know I should confess but I can’t. He’s already mad at me, for not dropping this thing, for taking it too far. And it’s not just that. He’s fragile. I can see that now, like whatever guise of strength he had has been ripped off by our intimacy and now I can see him clearly. I thought he was strong but maybe he is weaker than me. Maybe he is more lost than I am.
He shakes his head, and that’s when I realize he is shaking, shivering without his jacket in the cold where he has been waiting for me for who knows how long. And I want to hold on to him but I can’t because I’m afraid and he says: “She knows.”
“How could she?”
“She knows everything.” He shakes his head miserably. “You don’t understand. You don’t understand what she’s like. She’s jealous.”
“Of what?”
“Of everything. Of anything she can’t control.” He is trembling everywhere. He has always been on the edge, but now he is losing it, right before my eyes, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help him.
“Jed, calm down. I don’t know why you’re so afraid of her.”
“Man alive, neither do I. I’m losing my shit. This place gets to you. It just gets to you. The other day, when I was in Willa Creek, I saw vultures circling, miles out up the road, and I knew they were here. I knew they were circling the ranch. And they were. If you look up. All day, every day, there’s vultures circling here.”
“Jed, breathe. You need to breathe.”
“I think she’s bugged the phone at the lodge. I think she’s listening when I call my mom, when I call my brother.”
“Jed.” I feel sorry but I also feel slightly fearful, like it might be catching. I remember what your mother said, how thoughts are as contagious as colds out here, and I don’t want to catch whatever he’s got, but I don’t want to leave him sick either. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Hey, you need to pull it together. Everything’s okay. Everything’s fine— Hey!” I say again, and then I pull him into me.
He shivers, ten seconds, and then he melts into me, and then he sobs, “I did something bad.”
I step back quickly. He moves away too, allowing it. “What do you mean? What did you do?” My mind goes straight to you. Did he do something to you?
“It’s like I got a death wish.” His thoughts are jumbled and I don’t understand what he’s trying to say.
“Did you do something to Rachel?”
He shakes his head. “No, listen to me. Rachel is not—”
“Sera!” We both jump a mile. Jed dashes his shoulder into the tree, eyes wild.
Your mother stands behind me in her nightgown. The glow of a distant bug light makes a crown around her head. “I thought you were going back to your cabin,” she says to me, her voice so calm, it cuts through us. “You know I don’t like you all standing around in the dark. It’s not safe.” Jed has stopped shaking. His whole body is rigid. “Jed, remind me where you live.”