The Night It Ended

Katie Garner was born in New York and grew up in New Jersey. She has a degree in art history from Ramapo College and is certified to teach high school art. She hoards paperbacks, coffee mugs and dog toys, and can be seen holding at least one of those things most of the time. Katie lives with her husband, baby boy and shih-poo in a New Jersey river town, where she writes books about women and their dark, secret selves. KatieGarnerAuthor.com The Night It Ended Katie Garner For Graham THE YEAR BEFORE FILE NAME: JPN00.012.00030923.mp3 [00:00:00] INT: Are you ready to begin? Remember, I’m on your side to try to get to the bottom of this. I want to prove you’re innocent in all this, okay? RES: [inaudible] I understand. INT: ... Great. So, uh, I’m going to ask you simple, easy questions. Just take your time. We’ll go nice and easy. RES: Okay. INT: First, uh, please state your name. RES: My name is [redacted]. INT: And I’m [redacted], working on behalf of the [redacted] Police Department. Please remember, no matter what we discuss, that I am on your side. Okay? RES: Okay. INT: So, let’s get started. Today is Monday, December 13, 2021. The time is 0-4-0-3-P-M. Okay, um, [redacted], let’s start from the beginning. Let’s start with how you met [redacted]. RES: How I met him? [00:01:35] INT: Yes, just walk me through. When did you meet? How? RES: [inaudible] We met about...maybe, six months ago. INT: And what was your relationship, when you first met [redacted], before it progressed? RES: We—he was...my husband is an attorney. Um, he works a lot. We were happy. INT: [redacted], this works best if you’re honest with me. Okay? Look at me, hey, I need you to be honest with me. I know it’s painful. I know. I do. But you have to trust me. You have to promise me you will be honest and you will trust me. RES: Okay. Yeah. I’ll be honest. I promise. Friday, December 16 1 I’m speeding home when the phone rings, persistent and angry, demanding to be heard. I know I should answer it, even though I want nothing more than to throw it out the window. I could let the call slide into voice mail, delete it, never hear the voice on the other side. But I can’t. I jerk to the side of the icy road to a chorus of blaring horns, dig the phone out from the cavernous tote bag resting on the passenger seat beside me. The phone is sleek and black, brand-new—opposite of the cracked, chunky white one I’m used to shoving in my back pocket. A sweet little chime and the ringing ends. 1 new voice mail. Quickly, I glance in the side mirror. Car exhaust melts away into the morning winter sky. Nothing is behind me, nothing but air. I exhale a deep sigh of relief, press the phone to my ear. “H-hi, this message is for Dr. Madeline Pine—” A siren wails in the distance. The phone slips through my fingers, lands mutely in my lap. A knot swells in my throat. I glance in the side mirror again, feel my heart pound, each breath shrinking to tiny gasps. The sirens near. An emergency vehicle speeds past. It’s only an ambulance. My body wilts. I take a deep breath. In. Out. The knot in my throat loosens. I hate the person I’ve become. I’ve never been this nervous, this afraid, anxiety and fear clinging to my every move. I wish I could escape—step into someone else’s life, if only for a moment. Just twelve short months ago everything was different. I was different. Any other December, I would’ve been home, prepping for the holidays, shopping online for last-minute deals on things none of us needed. My husband, Dave, would be staying too late at work, his dinner wrapped in a blanket of aluminum foil, kept warm on the stove. My teenage daughter, Izzi, would be upstairs in her room, scrolling noiselessly through her phone, feet kicked up on the bed behind her. The house would’ve hummed with the steady softness of disjointed home life, but instead here I am, lurched to the side of the road, the air frigid in the tiny cabin of my car, listening to a voice mail I never thought I’d hear. I replay the message: “H-hi, this message is for Dr. Madeline Pine. If you get this, I’m Matthew Reyes, a private investigator working on behalf of a family. Listen, I was hoping you could please call me back at this number, I—I’d really appreciate it. We have a sixteen-year-old female who died on school property. The police believe it’s an accident, but the mother hired me to be sure. The girl was found at the bottom of a hill. No witnesses. I thought you might be able to help—given your expertise. Please call me back. Thanks.” I repeat his words in my head. The girl was found at the bottom of a hill—I can picture it, picture her. She’s there, fallen sideways, her body splashed across the woodland floor. Moss and stones, skin and blood, leaves and twigs. I don’t know her, but I don’t have to. I already feel as if she were mine. The man who left the voice mail, Matthew Reyes, has a voice both gravelly and weary, and I know what he wants the moment he mentions the school. Police often believe they can demand anything they want and get it immediately—even psychological evaluations—but it takes time to gain trust from strangers, and even more time to tease out the truth. Especially from teenage girls. I start weighing my options. I’m not sure I’m capable of this, of anything. Especially after last year...especially after what just happened in that too-hot office during this morning’s disastrous therapy session. My face flushes at the memory of the woman who’d been sitting cross-legged in front of me. Her