Everyone Here Is Lying(63)

“Are you okay?” Erin asks, looking at her closely.

Marion calls on her training as a nurse and pulls herself together. Treat it as an emergency. It’s just an emergency. You can do this. “I’m sorry,” she says, bringing a hand up to her forehead. “I have low blood pressure and got up too quickly to answer the door. I thought I was going to faint there for a moment.”

“Can I come in?” Erin repeats.

Marion tries to put her off. “Um—I was just going to run a bath.” But Erin doesn’t take the hint. She stands there on the front step, resolute, staring at her. “But sure, come in for a minute.”

Marion turns away and leads her to the kitchen at the back of the house. If they keep their voices down, Avery might not even know her mother was ever here. And even if Avery does realize her mother’s right upstairs, Marion tells herself, she won’t reveal herself. She’ll stick to the plan.

But what if she doesn’t?

The kitchen is at the back of the house, rather than over the bedroom where Avery is hiding. There’s less chance they’ll be overheard here. Marion doesn’t offer to make Erin a cup of tea. She finds herself looking at the door to the basement and quickly tears her eyes away. She pulls out a chair for Erin.

“I recognize you, of course,” Marion says in a quiet voice. “You’re Dr. Wooler’s wife, the mother of the missing girl.”





Forty-one


Marion keeps her eyes on Erin, and—she can’t help it—on the door to the basement, over Erin’s left shoulder. She is suddenly terrified that the doorknob will turn—but the door is locked. Avery might have heard her mother’s voice on the doorstep; she’d heard the police officers. Marion watches it, irrationally fearful that it might rattle and thump as Avery tries to get into the kitchen, afraid that she might call out.

“Seriously, are you okay?” Erin asks, with concern in her voice. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Actually, I don’t feel well,” Marion says, dragging her eyes away from the door behind her, focusing on Erin’s face. She tries to corral her fears. She must not let her nerves get to her. She just has to hold it together and get Erin out of here as quickly as possible. Even if Avery heard her mother’s voice at the door, she’ll stay quietly in her bedroom. She’s not going to blow everything now. Though she’ll want to know everything they talked about, afterward.

What flits through her mind next is whether Erin knows her husband has been sleeping with Nora Blanchard. She and Erin have that in common—they have both been callously rejected by the same man. He has chosen Nora Blanchard over both of them. She finds herself studying Erin’s face, her hands, drawing the inevitable comparisons. Erin has not weathered this crisis well, Marion thinks, rather pleased. It’s obviously taken a terrible toll on her.

“I won’t stay long,” Erin says. “I just want to ask you something.”

Marion tries to focus on what the other woman is saying. What can she possibly want to ask her? “What?”

“Are you the one who called in the tip about Avery getting into Ryan Blanchard’s car?”

Marion starts in surprise, feels her heart accelerate. She didn’t expect this. Erin is staring at her.

“Are you?” Erin asks again. Her voice is louder now, suspicious.

“No,” Marion says. “It wasn’t me.” She thinks she sounds convincing. She has always been a good liar, but she is off balance here, unprepared. She is too aware of Avery, hiding in the basement.

But Erin is staring at her now. “It was you, wasn’t it? You called the police about Ryan.”

Oh Christ. She watches Erin rise, the chair scraping loudly against the tile floor.

“You’re lying,” Erin accuses. “I can tell. Why are you lying?”

Erin’s voice is louder now, and Marion gets up, too, and retreats, her lower back pressed against the counter as the other woman approaches her. Erin looks like a woman possessed. Marion remembers that she attacked Ryan in his own home, because of what she’d done.

“I’m not,” Marion protests. She must handle this and get this woman out of here.

But Erin clearly doesn’t believe her. “Why? Why are you denying it?”

Marion looks back at her, trying to think. She’s always meant to come out publicly as the witness—once Avery is gone. She’ll enjoy it. She’s even looking forward to it. She speaks very quietly, “Okay, yes, it was me.”

“Why deny it?” Erin asks. “Is it true? Did you see her get into his car?” Her voice is wild now, too loud.

Marion pulls herself together. She must stick to her story. She deliberately keeps her voice low. “I didn’t want my name made public because I’m hiding from an abusive ex-husband. He’ll kill me if he finds me,” Marion says. She’s very convincing—it’s as if she’s convinced herself that her ex-husband wants to kill her. “And yes,” she says quietly, “I did see Avery get into Ryan’s car that day.” She meets Erin’s eyes. “That’s the truth.”

She expects that to calm the other woman, to diffuse the situation. Once she knows, she’ll go. But that isn’t what happens.

“And you’re absolutely sure it was Avery?”