Keep the Ghost

39. As I stood across the gulf

"You okay in there?"

Her voice comes from everywhere and nowhere, reverberating through the steel shell of the car.

"Can you hear me?" I ask.

"Yeah, I hear you. I asked if you're okay."

I feel us slow down as we cross a speed bump. "Not my favorite place, if I'm honest. But, I'm okay. I mean, if it gets us out of here." I shout to be heard, and my own voice rings in my ears.

"Can't promise that," Morgan says. "Just one step at a time."

The gear shifts, changes the timbre of the motor.

"You think we'll make it?"

"If we can lose this car and get a new one in the next half hour, maybe. If you stay hidden, maybe. Maybe, Sean. I'll see the coroner first thing in the morning, minute he opens. I sign two forms, he witnesses it, and I'm done. Then we can go north, get out of Florida. Maybe spend a few years in Canada. I'll get a tan, dye my hair, and change identities. It's fine."

She doesn't sound like it's fine.

"Have you ever done something like this before?"

It takes her a moment to answer. "No, Sean. I haven't. I spent my whole life avoiding something like this."

The car lurches to a stop, brake metal grating on the wheels. "Are we stopping because we're getting pulled over?" I ask.

"No, Sean. I'll let you know before we go to jail. This is a red light."

"Thanks, Morgan."

*

Feels like hours before we stop, and the trunk opens. When it does, I lean out and see only towering weeds. Ferns so tall they climb over the car, and there's nothing but a fading greenish yellow in every direction.

"It'll only be a minute," Morgan says. The duffel bag is open on my lap, and she's digging through it.

The gun comes out first. This goes into her purse, followed by a stack of hundred dollar bills.

"You sure you're going to be okay?" I ask, ducking low to keep from banging my head on the trunk's lid.

"What would you do if I wasn't?" Morgan asks, sliding open the cylinder of the pistol, checking inside, then sliding it shut.

I don't have an answer for that.

"Guard the money," she says. "Get your gun. You might as well keep it on you, we're down to that."

"And what am I supposed to do with it?"

"Kill yourself. Kill someone, I don't know. That about covers what the gun can do for you."

I dig into the duffel bag and find the snubnosed thirty-eight. I don't even touch it, just watch where it sank between two stacks of cash.

"Morgan, wait."

Her arm is already gone to the green, broken into the thick ferns that shield us.

"I want to know something."

She stops, turns, withdraws her arm. Fingertips fall back into the light.

"What do you want to know, Sean?" she asks, voice polite, but strained. Her talents on display, a controlled calm.

"Tell me what happened with Kayla." My hand isn't exactly on the gun, just in the bag with the pistol, but I'm not moving.

"What about Kayla?" she asks.

"Stop trying to narrow down the question. Just tell me your role in her death." I swallow hard. "Please. I want to know, in case we get caught soon. In case I don't see you again."

"Okay, Sean. We're all very nervous now, it's a trying time. I'll tell you what happened. Can I step over here?"

And then I realize Morgan is talking to me like I'm about to shoot her, and she's moving like she wants to get closer to the gun.

I don't want her to think those things. Still, though—what will it take to get a straight answer?

"You can stand wherever you want."

She nods, taking one step to the side. Her hands are folded at her waist, and Morgan stands prim.

"Did you help murder Kayla?" I ask.

"Before Cole, I never murdered anyone—I guess we're all going through changes. Kayla was going to be our newcomer, someone to take my place so I could take Jack's. We wanted someone young, someone who could play a daughter. Less suspicion that way."

She swallows, then continues: "The morning Kayla died, I was in the car. Jack was about fifty yards away, on the beach, waiting to meet Kayla. We were both about two miles north of you, on the opposite side of the causeway."

While I stood and watched her fade into the gulf.

"I sat there for a while, maybe thirty minutes. Then Jack came up to the car, and uh..." She swallows. "And his hands were bleeding, where he'd cut himself while he stabbed her. Jack was freaked, just standing there and bleeding, staring at nothing. I was pissed, I didn't know why he did it. We went to Kayla's body—it was laying on the shore, half in the water." Her voice is tight, tired. "Jack couldn't lift her on his own, so I helped. We found some rope, tied Kayla to a broken cinder block, tried to keep her from coming up. Burial at sea. There was no time, you know, at six thirty in the morning. The spot was secluded, but someone would come by eventually."

I glance down; a spider crawls from a brown shrub to reach my sneaker. I kick it away. "So if you two were picking her up—when you told me about the 'getaway car' and drove me around, that was all a lie? You just showed me an empty space and told me her car was gone?"

"What did you expect? I just met you."

And she tricked me so easily. I really thought Kayla might be alive, for a minute. Until I blinked, and the police tore my world apart.

She continues: "I wanted to get you away from Jack while I could. The minute you showed up, I knew it was over. No one ever told me you knew Kayla faked her death. You turned everything upside down. I distracted you, and Jack cleaned up the house and ran. And now this, which I can honestly say is the craziest thing I've done yet. I like to stay months ahead of the police, and now it's minutes."

I look up from my feet. "How do I know that's all true?"

All I catch is her silhouette as it's devoured by the scenery. "You don't."