Page 17 of The Woods

He pulls a lighter from his pocket, sparks up his joint, then brings it to his lips. Lifting his chin, he exhales up into the night sky. Graceful is the word that comes to Polly’s mind as she watches him.

He holds the joint out to her. Even though she is taken with him, she shakes her head. “No, thanks. I make it a general rule not to take drugs from strangers.” She scans the ground for the joint she must have dropped when he startled her. It sits on the grass only a few feet away. She picks it up and brushes it off.

He holds his lighter out to her. “I’m Gray, short for Grayson,” he says.

She takes the lighter from him. “Polly.”

“So there,” he says. “We’re no longer strangers. You can take drugs from me whenever I offer.”

She laughs, sputtering smoke before it’s had time to fill her lungs. “You don’t seem like the other kids in this neighborhood.”

He blows a plume of smoke up at the sky again. “The other kids in this neighborhood are lame. And stuck-up. As are most of the parents.”

“I know.”

“Which is why I sneak off to the woods to smoke by myself.” He takes another long drag.

“You didn’t answer my question earlier,” Polly says. “You’re not scared of the murder house?”

He shrugs. “Weirdly, I’ve never thought about it. I guess it is pretty creepy though.” He pretends to shiver.

“Thanks for the validation.”

“No, but seriously, I always liked this house, murders aside.” He shrugs again. “Maybe the fact that you’re surrounded by woods? I’m a sucker for a good forest. And I like it even more now that a girl named Polly climbs out of her bedroom window to smoke in the trees.”

An unexpected and uncharacteristic heat rises in her cheeks. She can’t remember the last time a boy made her blush—if ever. “I’ll be honest,” she says with a playful smirk, “I’m still undecided on how I feel about a boy named Gray lurking outside my window and scaring the shit out of me.”

“Fair enough,” he says. “I’m pretty sure I’ll turn that around eventually.”

She’s only known him for five minutes, but she’s pretty sure he will too.

He sucks his joint down to the nub and drops it on the ground to crush under his sneaker. He bows to Polly. “Again, I apologize for scaring you.”

She bows back. “Apology accepted.”

“Shall we make this a recurring thing, then? That way I won’t appear unexpectedly and scare the shit out of you?”

Even with the numbing effect of the weed, Polly feels the butterflies in her stomach. “Sure, why not,” she says, offering a casual shrug.

“All right then, same time, same place.” Without looking away, he backs into the trees. “It was a sheer delight to make your acquaintance, Miss Polly of the Murder House.”

“Likewise, Mr. Gray of the Serial Killers.” By the time she gets the last word out he’s been swallowed up by the shadows of the woods. She hears him laugh and then the sound of his footsteps breaking branches and crunching leaves. Polly climbs back through her bedroom window and starts to get ready for bed, the whole time replaying her odd encounter.

Not quite ready for sleep, she decides to listen to the podcast Quinn told her about and enjoy the warm buzz from the joint. She’s only on the second episode and isn’t sure how far she’ll get with it. Part of her wants to know what happened here, but another part really doesn’t. She slides under her covers and presses Play anyway.

Cleo: We are back, talking about the Justine Gordon case. I find this case particularly puzzling, because from all outward appearances, Justine had the perfect life. Her husband, John, was an investment banker, and she was a history professor. They had two teenage sons, well liked, well adjusted, who succeeded in school and sports. So, then what drove Justine to kill them? What was going on beneath that façade of perfection? Those are the questions we put to Justine’s lifelong friend Michelle, who was kind enough to grant us an interview. To protect her privacy, we are withholding her last name, and we’ve altered her voice.

Cleo: Welcome to the show, Michelle, thanks so much for being here. We know this can’t be an easy thing to talk about.

Michelle: You’re welcome.

Cleo: Let’s get right to it, then. Michelle, how well did you know Justine Gordon? Can you give us a bit of your history with her?

Michelle: I knew her very well, or at least I thought I did. [long sigh] We were college roommates in the nineties and became good friends while we lived together. We stayed close even after college. She was the maid of honor at my wedding, and I was hers. Yeah, we were super close. Right up until—well, you know.

Cleo: Were in you contact with Justine around the time of the killings?

Michelle: Intermittently. While she was teaching abroad we emailed regularly. We kind of lost touch a bit when she came back from Scotland and moved her family into their new house.