Everyone Here Is Lying(67)
She slips out of the bedroom into the main part of the basement. It’s very dark, and she feels her way up the stairs. She knows Marion hasn’t come home; she would have heard her. At the top of the landing, she tries to turn the knob of the door to the kitchen, but it won’t turn. It’s locked. She wasn’t expecting that. She’s furious, disbelieving. Marion has locked her in! How dare she! While she was hiding quietly in the basement, following the rules, and had no idea. She tries the knob again, rattling it. She kicks the door repeatedly in her fury. Why did Marion lock the door? She didn’t have to do that. Maybe she doesn’t trust her anymore since she threatened to tell the truth.
She turns around and stomps back down the stairs again.
As the night wears on, she starts to wonder what’s keeping Marion. What if she lost her nerve? What if she never comes back? What if she took her car and her purse and her passport and never went to the police station at all? What if she’s on a plane somewhere, Avery thinks frantically, and has left her to die here of thirst and starvation, all alone? She can’t get out. She starts screaming for help, pounding at the barred windows, crying, until she is exhausted—but no one comes.
At last she hears a car turning into the driveway. A car door opens, then slams shut. Avery waits in the bedroom, her panicked breathing slowly returning to normal. She goes into the small bathroom and washes her face so that Marion won’t see that she’s been crying.
Of course Marion came back, Avery tells herself. Marion doesn’t mean to harm her. She’s a grown-up. She’s been taking care of her. She’s a nurse, her job is to help people. She just made a stupid, selfish mistake, that’s all. She won’t do it again.
Forty-four
Marion lets herself into the house. She’d treated herself to a rich dessert at her favorite all-night restaurant and stayed there for a long time, reading a book. It was nice to get away from the oppressive atmosphere of the house for a while.
She locks the front door behind her and makes her way to the kitchen. She drops her purse on the counter. It’s very late, almost two in the morning. She’d like to go to her own room and go to bed, but Avery will be expecting her to report what happened. She stares at the door to the basement with loathing. Finally, she quietly unlocks it, peers down the stairs, and lets her eyes adjust to the darkness.
She walks slowly down the stairs, gripping the handrail, hoping that Avery is already asleep.
“Marion?” The child’s voice reaches out from the darkness.
Shit. “Yes, I’m here.” She feels her way into the bedroom—the door is open, waiting—as Avery flicks on the remaining lamp on the bedside table nearest the door. She’s sitting up against the headboard. The small pool of light illuminates Avery from below, making her look creepy, like an evil child in a horror movie. She looks spoiled, angry, and menacing.
“So, did you tell them?” Avery demands.
Marion slumps onto the foot of the bed. “Yes.”
Avery makes her recount every detail about her time at the police station. And Marion makes up every detail. She does a good job. She’s always been an accomplished liar. At last, Avery seems satisfied.
“Good,” Avery says. She looks at her with her cold blue eyes. “Don’t ever try something like that again.”
“I won’t, I swear,” Marion says earnestly. She must keep her sweet, until the time comes. She stands up.
“And, Marion,” Avery says, “don’t lock the door behind you anymore.”
Shit, Marion thinks, she tried to get out. She knows. She nods. “Okay, I won’t. Sorry, it’s just habit. Good night, then.”
Marion returns upstairs, gets into her pajamas, and climbs into bed. Of course she has locked the door to the basement. It’s so well oiled it’s completely silent. Avery knows now that she has been locking the door. But it doesn’t matter anymore. Avery can’t get upstairs. She can’t get out. Avery had trusted her. She’d come into her house expecting to find a friend, but she’d walked into a trap.
Avery has made a terrible mistake.
Because Marion can’t allow Avery to live. That Avery doesn’t seem to realize this yet is almost laughable. Not when she might tell the truth someday about where she’s been. Now that she knows she’s been locked in. Kidnapping. She could go to prison for years and years. She can’t be having that.
Once Avery is gone, Marion tells herself, everything will turn out the way she wants.
Everyone already thinks Avery is dead. The police have no idea where she is. They believe Marion saw her getting into Ryan Blanchard’s car—she can tell they believed her. She will never recant her statement. She will go to her grave swearing that she saw Avery get into Ryan’s car. All she has to do is get rid of Avery. And then she will come forward publicly with what she saw. She will seem brave, when people understand why she didn’t come forward earlier, when they hear her story about her abusive ex-husband.
The truth is, her ex-husband had never laid a finger on her. Nevertheless, she’d had him charged with assault, twice—both times inflicting significant injuries on herself—and the authorities believed her, both times. When he’d told her the marriage was over, she’d wanted to destroy him, and that’s what she’d done, without regret.
William won’t be able to even look at Nora anymore. Nora’s perfect life will be in ruins. And maybe William will fall in love with her now. Maybe this will bring them together. She plays a little fantasy in her head, of how William, finished with Nora, finished with his wife, sees her with new eyes . . .