Lost Echoes

50

Harry spent the rest of the morning at Tad’s place, sleeping fitfully.

All he could think about was how Kayla would feel when he told her what he had seen. Her father standing on the sidelines.

Should he tell her? Did it matter anymore? It had happened so long ago.

The car. It had to be the one he had heard about, the one he thought was most likely a legend. The car with the lovers in it. Or that was the story. The bodies had long ago been removed, or they had been removed after lying undiscovered for years. Their killers were never caught.

And the old car just left there, too much trouble to free. That’s the way it would have been done in the past, a little town like this. Forensics would have been thought to be some kind of disease. And the story of the murders would go around, and in time, unless you were really willing to research, it would be thought to be no more than a legend.

It all twisted inside of Harry’s head until he could take no more. He had tried hiding in sleep for a while, but the horror of it would uncoil again and noodle about at the edges of his dreams, and he would awaken.

He not only remembered what he had seen, he felt it all. It was as if he was the one who had been raped. And he had felt the man’s fear just as the gun went off, a sudden sickness and a sad realization that there was no more to his life.

Harry sat up in bed, wadded a pillow behind his head, and watched the sunlight trace along the edges of the window, then flood it.

He got up to make coffee, but Tad was already there. Coffee made. Cooking eggs.

They drank coffee and ate toast and eggs, and when they were finished Tad said, “You’re sure what you saw?”

Harry nodded.

“It was all kind of confusing. The whole event was jumbled.”

“Gonna tell Kayla?”

“Don’t know. Maybe we should just forget the whole thing.”

“Maybe.”

“Would you?”

“Probably not.”

“Come on. Would you?”

“No.”

“Even if it meant you were going to hurt someone you cared about?”

“That question has a lot of roads that can be taken. But if you’re asking me specifically if I were you, and knew what you know, and I had a girlfriend like Kayla—”

“Just friends.”

“Okay. A friend like Kayla. And she trusted you. And she wanted to know what happened to her father…. Yeah. I’d tell her.”

“She’ll hate me.”

“She might. If she does, you won’t have that between the two of you, at least.”

“We won’t have anything between us.”

“Could be.”

“But you’d do it anyway?”

“I would, Harry. But I’m not you. You got to make your own decisions.”

“Shit,” Harry said. “I hate that part. I really do.”