What Never Happened

by Rachel Howzell Hall

Colette Sienna Weber of Los Angeles, California, is no more. She left this world on Sunday, March 22, 2020. The woman didn’t heed any of our previous warnings. That is why Colette was taken to the highest point on Santa Catalina and shot in her fingers, toes, and then knees, living agonizingly long enough to suffer until one final bullet between the eyes ended her for good. We warned you, Colette. You fucked around—and you found out.

And catching me means boarding a ferry and crossing the Pacific Ocean, and then finding me on an island that murdered my family twenty years ago.

Because promises are potato chips. They’re cheap. Easy to break. Too many hurt your heart.

“You have to stop and face your demons before you can win the game. You may get a little bloody, even lose a limb—or a few fingers—but know this.” At a stop sign, he looks over to me. “Running ain’t gonna make it go away.”

But I won’t say this to Frank. I’ll let him enjoy his illusion here in Mayberry by the Sea.

“So, yes . . . I do want the house now. I’ve been paying property taxes all this time, and my parents’ insurance paid the note off a while ago. Even if I take this job at Maddy’s paper, it won’t pay enough for rent in a decent place and to pay all my bills on top of that. “But you’re staying here, just like I said, just like I told Pam Robins. Nothing’s changed, not really. Well . . . it is my house and . . .”

I smile and follow Maddy to her office. Ha. This bitch really thinks I trust her.

To the one who survived WELCOME HOME

If you go back there somebody’s gonna die

“Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.” I squint at her. “Wow. Yours?” She sucks her teeth. “Girl, that’s Robert Frost.”

business. Gin-and-tonic lunches. Usual rich lady stuff.” Over lobster sushi rolls, macaroni and cheese, and french fries,

information for Consuela’s and Vera’s families. She does. “But don’t call them right

People tend to disregard us old ladies—they think we’re only good for sewing robes and making hot chocolate, that we’re crazy since we can no longer bear children. But we’re smarter than everyone because we don’t have distractions anymore. No kids. No husbands for many of us. We always knew the evil that men did, and we still do. Just now, no one believes us.”

“Remember you and I understand what this place did to your family.” She pauses, then adds, “That evil is still here. I can feel it.” What do I do with that, at ten minutes to six?

2020 Back at home, the grate that leads beneath the house has been fixed,

“Gwen staying out of trouble?”

“That lady’s still got quick hands,” he says, eyebrow high. “You know, right before you arrived, she asked me about eviction laws in Los Angeles County. If she could have an unwanted tenant arrested for trespassing.”

Foreshadowing?

Colette S. Weber-Patton of Los Angeles, California, is no more. She was a writer and an orphan—but none of that matters now because on Thursday, March 19, 2020, she tumbled off the bluffs near Two Harbors Camp and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. Her battered body was discovered stuck between the rocks.

We take comfort in knowing that she died in agonizing pain.

“Always carry a satellite phone in this weather if you’re going to the interior,” she tells me.

I wait as the woman blows her nose, using that time to study the dusty purple minivan parked at the curb.

Watch out for Noah. What does that mean, though? I will ask him, but not right now.

A rough hand clamps over my mouth. Every nerve in my body strains, and even with that hand over my mouth, I scream.

Colette’s spine curled. Because the red-faced deputy had told her to tell him about the Black man or he’d arrest her for obstructing an investigation and for being an accessory to murder. Because you all know each other, he’d said.

“Look for those records,” Maddy instructs. “Teacher-parent conference notes, evaluations . . . I bet all of this is related to his job. I can help if you want. Catalina may present as utopia, but some folks here can be racist as fuck.”

It was right there, even on our first date when he expected me to pay. Women always pay my way, he told me.

I just didn’t want to see it because I wanted to be safe. I wanted stability. I wanted another family to replace the family I’d lost. I boxed with Micah because at least I had a boxing partner.

Then, the coffee mug I was holding swung through the air and connected with his face.

It’s time to make big moves, and to find out all that I’ve refused to see. It’s time to explore this house.

That’s the plan? Scare him, make him think that Al, Coco, and El are in danger and then what? He supposed to say fuck it, I don’t want this house no more? And then, you and Dee Dee and everybody go back to your little enterprise? I don’t get it but I’m not as brilliant as you.

I can get with the plan but no tussling. I’ll just kick a few things around and make it look like Oh shit!

The woman didn’t heed any of our previous warnings. That is why Colette was taken to the highest point on Santa Catalina and shot in her fingers, toes, and then knees, living agonizingly long enough to suffer until one final bullet between the eyes ended her for good. We warned you, Colette. You fucked around—and you found out.

Raggedy bitch, that’s who I am, down to the hair on my head.

“This is what we do, Coco. We’re reporters. We can’t run from danger. If we run, who’s gonna tell the world to beware? Is it dangerous work? Yes. Absolutely. But that’s my job. No, that’s my calling.”

“This is an opportunity of a lifetime. To catch a monster and end this once and for all. Wanna talk about legacy? I want you to write that I go down with the monster’s head in my hands. That’s the first line in my obituary.”

Will you let me help you?” Nope. I trust me.

If someone’s gonna come through for me, she’s gonna be me.

Because I’m tired of running, I’m tired of being scared, I’m tired of looking over my shoulder and not breathing, not sleeping, not loving myself, not living fully. The answers are just over there, lost in the mist, still not close but not a life’s journey away. Who is the man in that bicycle shop—and how are we connected? “I’m not running,” I whisper. “Not anymore.”

I know this song that she’s humming. And yes, I will survive.

“I’m wearing a hidden recording device. And I’ve been wearing it since the first time we met.”

“I’m not just recording you, though,” he explains. “I’m capturing everything. My mother’s decline. Conversations with my father. Meetings with people around the island. I’m recording everything as it happens. Your return to Avalon. The murders. The investigation. And it’ll all go into a documentary—”

I slap his hand away. “You’re not interested in me. You’re interested in my story.” “Both,” he says. “Colette, look—”

“I’ve set it up that you and my editor will get an email that I’ve already scheduled—if I don’t change the date on the send, it gets sent automatically.” “Does Maddy know?” I ask. “No,” he shouts. “And don’t tell her, okay?”

Nope. There’s a reason Gwen pinched from Helen, and I’ll honor that theft.

He arrested Carson McIntyre Junior tonight.” I gawk at her. “What?” Maddy nods. “His fingerprint matches the bloody print on your cheek. He was already in the system for DUIs.”

“The night your family died, the crime scene techs collected evidence. Evidence that would’ve pointed to McIntyre Junior as the man who committed the murders—your family’s murders.”

“But Mac Senior,” Maddy continues, “destroyed fingerprint evidence, destroyed DNA samples, and hid the knife.”

“Back in November,” Maddy says, “Mac Senior knew that he was dying, and he anonymously sent the knife to Harper Hemphill’s team. His wife knew and spilled her guts to Santos tonight.”

“So you recognize him?” Noah asks, eyes big. That salt-and-pepper hair. Those bright-blue eyes . . . I nod, then whisper, “I thought he was Gwen’s handyman.” “What?” Noah and Maddy shout.

My hands. I can’t feel my hands or my feet. My heart . . . is it beating? I can’t feel any pounding in my chest, in my throat, in my head. I can’t feel anything . . . at all.