Envy

chapter 40

THERE WAS NO GETTING AROUND IT. Starla Larsen wanted everyone out of her way. She practically stiff-armed the kids in the hall as she rummaged in her hobo for her cell phone. The look of determination and pure venom in the cheerleader’s eyes would have made a two-yearold cry for her mother. Teenage girls at Kingston High School? Pretty much the same result. Starla was just that scary right then as she hurried out the door and over to a hedge of evergreens near the bridge that served as the school’s entryway. Her heels stuck in the mud, and that only made her madder.

“Look,” she said into her phone, her eyes nervously scanning the scene. “This thing went too far, and I’m afraid someone is going to call me on it.”

Starla turned her back to the school courtyard filling up with the onslaught of kids as they meandered toward the cars in the lot. She faced the hedge and listened to the person on the other end of the line. Her lips were a straight line, and her eyes narrowed in anger. In that moment, maybe for the first time in her life, no one would have said Starla Larsen was beautiful. Maybe not even reality TV pretty.

And since she was so pissed off about what the other person was saying, she probably didn’t care what anyone thought about her appearance just then—likely another first-time occurrence.

“Don’t tell me that it wasn’t our fault. I already know that. I never wanted anything like this to happen. I’m putting the blame on you!”

Starla pressed the phone tight to her ear and balled up her other fist. If a kitten had the misfortune to walk by, she might have stomped on it with her four-inch heels. She was that irate.

Whoever was talking to her didn’t have the opportunity to say much. Starla, it seemed, was on a roll.

“The biggest mistake I ever made was to trust you. If this goes any farther, you’re the one who’s going down for this. No excuses! I have too much to live for and I’m not about to have you F it up!”

She clamped the phone shut like a mousetrap and turned around.

Taylor and Beth were coming toward her.

“Starla,” Beth said in that direct way of hers, “you look pissed off. Someone steal your pom-poms?”

Starla barely looked at either girl as she retracted her heels from the muddy grass, making a sucking sound that only served to make her angrier.

“Don’t even go there, you emo-freak,” Starla said, her voice as controlled as possible. She said nothing else and never looked back.

“Wow, she looks like crap,” Taylor said, stating the obvious.

“I almost feel sorry for her,” Beth said. “She’s really going through something. Maybe she hates her highlights.”

Taylor tugged at Beth to get to the bus for the ride home. “I have no idea what’s up,” she said, in what she knew was a big lie.

SAVANNAH OSTEEN LIVED IN A LOG CABIN in the middle of wooded acreage near the airport. While the location was indeed remote, the mosquito-like buzzing of private planes could be heard overhead as they dropped lower for landing. The aircraft was an audible reminder that even in the woods, there are people hovering, watching. Savannah’s cabin wasn’t one of those Daniel Boone affairs, all mossy and drafty, but a decidedly modern one with a steep roofline and made of perfectly peeled pine logs. Anchoring it from the ground to the sky was a river rock chimney that looked like it might even be made of real rocks. Which it wasn’t, of course.

Moira Windsor edged her pewter compact car under a gnarly grove of cedars that formed a canopy, nearly blacking out the late-afternoon sky.

“Moira?” a voice called out.

Moira turned in the direction of the voice. “Savannah?”

“Yes. I’m back here, in the aviary.”

Moira followed the sound to a large fenced pen with a ten-foot-high ceiling of chicken wire. Inside, a woman in her late thirties was huddled next to a wooden crate. Suspended above the crate was a heat lamp sending an eerie splash of orange over its contents.

Savannah motioned for her to come inside the pen.

“Dumb idea to raise pheasants in the middle of winter,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Moira unlatched the gate and walked over. She bent down a little and looked inside at a dozen or more small birds huddled in one disgusting mass and pretended to be interested.

“They’re pretty,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll be all right. Spring will be here soon enough.”

“I hope so,” Savannah said, looking up at her visitor and smiling. Up close, she was a pretty woman with corkscrew hair that was more gray than brown. She wore slim-fit jeans; a heavy, tan Carhartt jacket; boots; and a pair of garden gloves with the fingertips nipped off.

“Let’s go inside and talk about farm to table, and I’ll tell you how my pheasants fit into that scenario,” she said, lowering the heat lamp a little. The birds peeped loudly and scuttered from the light.

“Oops,” Savannah said, raising the lamp a touch. “Don’t want to cook them. At least, not yet.”

“No, not yet,” Moira said, acting as if she was excited, though she couldn’t care less. She wanted to talk about something completely different from these disgusting birds. Besides, farm to table made no sense to her. Everything she ate came from a box or was shrinkwrapped.

The place was spotless, which surprised Moira. She figured an old hippie—if that’s what Savannah was—would be a grungy pack rat with recycling stations in every room and ugly eco repurposed items like a bucket made into a lampshade. But the house wasn’t. Instead, it was clean and bright with furnishings upholstered in creams and grays.

After Moira removed her boots and jacket, she could see that Savannah was neat, maybe not exactly stylish, but not some Boho wannabe with a trashed-out house. A coil of silver chains swirled around her toned neck. Ten silver bangles ran up each wrist.

Savannah offered coffee, not herbal tea, which also surprised Moira. There was no small talk about sustainable resources, the dire situation with South America’s rain forests. They engaged in some casual chatter, before Moira made a confession of sorts.

“I lied to you on the phone,” she said, once they settled at the kitchen table, a large Douglas fir crosscut topped with quarter-inch-thick glass.

“You’re not from the paper?” Savannah said, her tone indicating some skepticism and maybe even a little understanding.

“Not exactly,” she said and looked away.

“Blogger? That’s okay. I understand.”

“No, I actually am from the paper. I’m just not doing a farm-totable story.”

Savannah perked up a little. She didn’t seem alarmed, only a little interested.

Moira wondered if there was marijuana in the coffee. This woman is so calm. I could be an IRS agent or a serial killer and she wouldn’t bat an eye.

“Is Moira your real name?” she asked.

“Yes, yes, it is. I’m sorry. Do you want to see my driver’s license?”

Savannah shook her head. “No. But tell me exactly why you are here?”

Moira took a deep breath and started to tell her about Katelyn’s death and how her editor had told her that Katelyn was in the terrible crash on the Hood Canal Bridge.

“You remember it? The one that killed the driver and four little girls?”

The look on Savannah’s face clearly indicated that she did. Actual words weren’t necessary. But the former language researcher answered anyway.

“Yes, I remember it very well.”

Just then, the air in the room thickened considerably. Moira Windsor knew whatever words she chose next would likely make or break the interview. In that moment, it was clear to both parties that what they were talking about was far bigger than merely an update on an accident and the lives of the survivors.

“I saw your posting on the Kitsap Kalamities site,” she said, waiting.

Savannah sipped her coffee. “Yes. I’m sure you did.”

“It was an interesting comment,” Moira said.

Savannah set down her cup and looked out the window toward the aviary. “I knew I shouldn’t have posted it. I even e-mailed the site owners and asked if they’d remove it.”

“They didn’t, you know.”

Savannah nodded. “Right. They didn’t. That’s really why you’re here.”

“What did it mean?”

“It meant that I’d had too much ouzo,” Savannah said, somewhat sheepishly. “Greek dinner party in Seattle and … I don’t know how I got home and, even worse, how I managed to type that comment. I’m not denying that I did it, because I did.”

Moira kept her eyes on Savannah. “I know you did,” she said.

Savannah turned her attention back to her coffee and took a sip.

“What did you mean by it?” Moira asked again.

Savannah took a breath and faced the reporter. Her face was grim.

She’s going to talk. Good. Tell all.

“I was a researcher years ago, for the linguistics lab at the University of Washington,” she said, now fidgeting with her fingertips deep within the back of her tangle of hair.

Moira flipped open her reporter’s notebook.

“I don’t think I want you to write about this,” Savannah said.

“About what?”

“About what I’m going to show you.”

For some reason, unclear to her just then, Moira’s heart started to race. She was not a woman given to much fear, but, right then, she felt some.

“Are we in agreement?”

“Yes,” Moira said, knowing that she was being completely deceitful.

Savannah had trusting eyes, and Moira felt sorry for her. She knew that Savannah was going to give her something she considered precious. She also knew that the woman wanted to. She wouldn’t have put that comment online, with or without too much ouzo, if she had wanted to hold it inside forever.

“You were saying?” Moira said, prodding.

“Yes, I was saying that I was doing a study on early talkers at the U. I was a field research assistant. My job was to tape children in their home environment.”

“Those children who, what, spoke at a very young age?”

Savannah nodded slowly. “Right. As early as six months.”

“I don’t think I started talking until after I was almost two,” Moira said, feeling a little stupid for the admission.

“Many kids don’t. But in order to better understand how the brain develops and what external forces shape speech, we were sent out to record children who exhibited the propensity for early speech.”

Moira wanted to write it all down, but this disclosure was all off the record. She prayed right then that she’d remember everything Savannah Osteen was telling her.

“So the Ryan twins, Hayley and Taylor, were in the study?” she asked.

“Yes, Hayley and Taylor.” Savannah paused, and it looked like she was going to cry, but somehow she appeared to shake it off and recompose herself. “They were beautiful little girls, really sweet. And smart too. Smart beyond their years, no doubt.”

“It sounds like they were gifted,” Moira said, thinking of her sister Maizey, who was in the gifted program for six years and really wasn’t—as far as she could tell—any smarter than she.

“More than gifted,” Savannah said, leaving the words to dangle in the air.

“You said something was scary about them. That you weren’t surprised they survived the crash.”

Something resembling a smile crossed Savannah’s lips, but it was more a nervous reaction than the result of a pleasant memory. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

Moira leaned closer. She was going in for the kill. “You did. Yes, you did.”

Savannah played with her bangles, moving them nervously up and down her wrists. She wasn’t going to rush, but she was going to talk. Finally, after a few beats, she spoke.

“It has been fourteen years,” she said, her voice quiet. “I’ve never shown this to anyone.”

Savannah got up from the table and indicated for Moira to follow her to her TV, hidden in a barn board cabinet in the living room. She retrieved an old Sony VCR player, layered in dust, from under the console.

“I keep this relic only because it is the only way to play the tape,” she said. “It isn’t like I play it all the time, mind you. But I have watched it once or twice a year since I left the university.”

The VCR powered up and Savannah inserted a tape.

“I didn’t know they made tapes that big,” Moira said, reaching for her phone.

“Half-inch. The quality for major productions at the time. Calling someone?”

Moira shook her head no. “Silencing my phone,” she said.

Savannah pushed PLAY.

The video predated HD and it had indeed degraded over the years. Not as bad as those old-timey movies they showed late at night, but there were gaps, scratches, and pops. The camera moved back and forth before finally landing on a pair of baby girls dressed in matching blue outfits. Their hair was faint, downy, and blonde. It was lunchtime, or maybe dinner.

“That’s Hayley on the right. Taylor’s on the left,” she said, touching the screen to indicate which girl was sitting in which blue high chair. Savannah was on the video too, looking quite lovely with dark hair and no wrinkles.

“Look at what they are doing,” Savannah said, her eyes fixed on Moira.

“Eating pasta?” Moira leaned closer, but she still didn’t see what could possibly be the big deal.

Savannah pointed to the screen. “See how Taylor is reaching into her sister’s bowl and looking at the camera?”

“Yes, I see it. But I think if I had a twin sister I’d be battling her for more food all the time.” Moira was surprised by her disclosure because it was so very, very true.

“Hang on,” Savannah said. “It was a lot easier to see when I was in the room. I zoomed in. Watch now.”

Someone nudged the camera and it went a little blurry before being refocused.

The girls were eating alphabet pasta in a light tomato sauce. Both were looking at the camera as it panned down to the tray in front of Hayley.

Moira looked up, her eyes wide as she took it all in. “It has to be some kind of trick,” she said.

Savannah turned off the VCR and faced Moira. She was expressionless now. She’d shared something that had traveled from place to place with her wherever she went. It was a tape that she’d watched countless times. It was something she considered both wonderful and frightening.

“It wasn’t and it isn’t,” she said, her eyes landing above the TV.

Moira looked up at several photographs. They were pictures of Savannah when she was younger, maybe the same age Moira was right then—early twenties. The girl next to Savannah was blonde and blue-eyed.

“Is that … ?” she asked.

Tears came to Savannah’s eyes. Just the mention of her sister brought back a stabbing pain.

“My sister, Serena. Yes, that’s her.”

“What … what happened to her?”

Savannah shook her head. She wasn’t going to go there right then. She didn’t think she had to. “You already know, don’t you, Moira?”

Moira stood. She felt the air suck right out of the log house. It seemed to happen so fast. All of a sudden she felt like she was going to faint. But she didn’t. She couldn’t.

“Does anyone know about this?” she asked.

Savannah pushed PLAY on the recorder again and the old machine clunked into action.

“You mean does anyone else know about it?” she asked.

A second or two passed and a ten-years-younger Valerie Ryan came into view.

“That’s the mother,” Savannah said. “Valerie Ryan.”

Moira knew that already. She’d seen her at the pizza place in Poulsbo, but she didn’t say so. “I see,” she said.

On the screen, Valerie picked up the plastic pasta bowls and paused, her eyes meeting the camera fleetingly. As she moved the bowls to take them to the kitchen, she dragged Hayley’s across the tray, leaving a red smear and a clump of pasta.

Moira had seen enough. Her heart was pounding. Hard. She started to leave, fumbling for her purse, her car keys.

“I quit the university after it happened,” Savannah said.

Moira knew that the it referred to what happened to Serena, not the message on the tray.

“You won’t write about this, will you?”

“Are you serious? If this is real, this changes everything.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by everything, but, yes, it is real. But you can’t write about it.”

Moira didn’t even answer Savannah as she started for the door. She felt scared and elated at the same time. Her info was true. She hadn’t believed the source at the time, but Savannah Osteen had confirmed it. She was onto something big—bigger and far more dangerous than she really knew.