My heart bottomed out.
"She drowned?" I whispered. I could only begin to imagine how everyone must have felt. Her father must have been beside himself. What about her mother?
Riley shrugged one shoulder. "The river took her and she was never found."
"ButJosiah," Connor spat his name like it was an insult, "refused to admit what happened. He said someone took her. Said he ran after her.Dashed, that's why we call him Dash. Cops never found any sign that anyone was there. He made it all up so he wouldn't look bad for what happened to her. But it's his fault she died. That's why we don't want him around here. She should have grown up with the rest of us."
"That's really sad," I said softly.
"Yeah, tell that to her dad," Riley said bitterly. "He trusted Josiah. When Coral died, he fell apart. Her mother left. He broke into a million pieces. No one around here can forget what happened. We take care of him as much as we can, but you can't mend the kind of brokenness that happened to him."
His lips twisted to the side, his emotions barely contained. Anger, pity, and the sadness that lingered after something horribly tragic happened. The whole town must have been in mourning for a long time. Years. Terrible things didn't happen in small towns without touching every single person who lived there. Everyone's heart breaks.
"I understand, but it was a long time ago," I said carefully. "What happened to her was a tragic accident. Unless you're suggesting Josiah pushed her in."
Was that what they were trying to explain? If that was the case, he belonged in prison, not walking around Aurora Hollow like a bruised soul.
"No," Riley admitted. "But he might as well have."
"He still lives there?" I guessed. "Above the falls?"
It was Connor who said, "He's the caretaker for Aurora Lodge. It's a ski resort at the top of the mountain. Popular with the hipster crowd." He didn't seem to have a particularly high opinion of the place. No doubt he and Riley had plenty of customers who stayed there though. I didn't suppose hehad any problem taking their money, despite their choice of accommodation.
"What about the rest of the year?" I asked. "When it's not snowing?"
Connor shrugged. "He's up there alone. That's his fucking problem."
"How old was he?" I asked. "When she died?"
"Thirteen or fourteen," Riley said. "We were about four."
Around the same age I would have been back then. Fiona too. She didn't seem to have the same hatred of Josiah these two did, but she didn't seem interested in welcoming him to town either. The whole town had closed ranks against him.
In some ways, he was more of an outsider than I was.
"That's a long time to hold a grudge against a teenage boy," I said. "Especially for an accident." No wonder Josiah was defensive. He probably spent the better part of the year alone on the top of the mountain, being hated for something that wasn’t his fault. He was still a kid himself at the time.
"It wouldn't be so bad if he admitted he looked away, or was taking a piss," Connor said. "He's stuck to the story about someone abducting her all this time. He won't take any responsibility for what happened because he's chickenshit." He all but spat out the last three words. His hazel eyes burned with raw hate.
Hate he was probably taught by his father, because he had to have been too young to make the connection himself. Hate that must have been taught to Riley by Henry, in spite of how mild he appeared. Unless Henry had mellowed over the years. It certainly hadn't mellowed the way they felt about Josiah.
"Is there any chance he's telling the truth?" I couldn't help asking.
They must have considered that possibility, right? I understood holding on to a grudge like it was a comfortableblanket, but it wasn't healthy for anyone involved. If they weren't careful, it could eat them alive from the inside out. Without doubt, it was doing the same to Josiah.
Silence fell, except for the sound of coffee dripping into the pot. The smell was starting to waft through the room. Any other time it would have been welcome, but today it turned my stomach. The whole story was both sad and sickening. What must that poor girl have gone through?
"The police said no one was there," Riley said finally. "The whole town searched for her, but nothing was ever found. No sign of any strangers or a car either. Nothing to say anything happened except her falling into the water."
"She wouldn't have survived going over the falls," Connor said. "She was long gone before anyone knew anything happened. That's why we blame him. All he had to do was admit what happened and we would have… I don't know, started to forgive him."
It didn't seem like full forgiveness was ever on the cards, but maybe they could have dialled it down to mild hostility.
Honestly, I wasn't sure what to think. Josiah didn't seem like the sort of person who would be anything other than bluntly honest. On the other hand, if he panicked, he might have said almost anything. He must be stubborn as hell to stick to that story for what must have been at least twenty years.
Either way, I felt sorry for him for being ostracised by the whole town, even if it was because of a lie. What difference would the truth have made? What difference would it make now? It wouldn't bring Coral Clarke back. It wouldn't put the pieces of her father's heart back together.
"Don't feel sorry for him," Connor said. "He's had plenty of opportunities to fix this."
