Everyone Here Is Lying(69)

“Go see her,” he agrees. “Get to the bottom of this.”



* * *



? ? ?

Upstairs, Marion busies herself around the house, waiting for the sleeping pills to take effect. Then she sits at the kitchen table, her eyes alternating between the door to the basement and the clock on the stove. How long will it take for Avery to be completely out? Marion doesn’t want to go down too soon. She has retrieved a rope from the garage, and it is sitting on the kitchen table, as if staring at her. She will have to get rid of the rope too.

When she thinks it’s time to check on her, Marion summons her nerve and unlocks the door.

She opens it, and as she steps onto the landing and raises her arm to flick on the light switch, she feels a violent push to her hips, which completely upends her.

Marion crashes down the stairs. And as she goes, it’s as if it’s all happening in a slow-motion blur, and yet she’s thinking clearly. She’s thinking that Avery has bested her. She’s shocked, furious, helpless as she tumbles down the stairs, her head and limbs smashing as she goes. The door behind her is open, Marion realizes. How did she not see this coming? She strikes the back of her head hard against the sharp post at the foot of the staircase and comes to rest on her back on the floor, stunned and in excruciating pain. She looks up at the ceiling, dazed, panicking that Avery is getting away.

But Avery hasn’t fled, not yet. She’s looming over her. She’s smiling down at Marion, a horrible grimace of a smile. And now Marion knows for sure that Avery is truly bad, that she has no moral limits at all. Now Marion thinks Avery is capable of anything. She’s got the cold, unfeeling selfishness of a psychopath. In that, they are alike. And in her final moment, as she feels blood trickling down her neck, Marion knows that Avery has won.



* * *



? ? ?

Avery enjoys her moment of triumph, reveling in the terror in Marion’s fading eyes. She watches in fascination as the pool of blood expands beneath Marion’s head. She’s never seen anyone die before. Avery leans over her until she’s sure. Marion’s eyes are open, but she’s gone. Marion is dead.

Avery sees the rope that has fallen from Marion’s hand. So she was right. Marion was going to kill her. She can still hardly believe it.

But this is perfect. Marion died falling down the stairs while Avery was trying to escape. She can run out of the house now, run screaming down the street. It’s not like they’re going to charge her with murder. It was self-defense. She’s nine years old, and she’d been kidnapped. Everyone will be on her side.

She takes one last look around, leaves everything as it is, and runs back up the stairs to the open door. She finds herself in the familiar kitchen. She spies an empty blister pack of sleeping pills on the kitchen counter.

Yes, it’s perfect. They’ll believe that she was held prisoner, that she was drugged, that Marion meant to kill her—because it’s all true. She stops at the front door to study herself in the mirror over the hall table. She looks fine. That won’t do.

She rearranges her face into a mask of fear and horror, pulls open the front door—and is startled to see a woman coming up the front walk. The woman stops dead, as if she’s just seen a ghost.





Forty-six


Gully is stunned. She recognizes Avery Wooler, sees her sinking into a faint, and springs forward to break her fall. Her heart is pounding. She glances up at the open door behind Avery. What’s happened here? Is Marion in there? Is anyone else in there with her? She grabs her radio and calls for backup, for an ambulance. She calls Bledsoe. Avery’s eyes flutter open and stare up at her. “Avery,” Gully says, her arms supporting the girl’s small body. “Is there anyone in the house?”

Avery manages, “I pushed her down the stairs.” Her eyes flutter then close again.

A police cruiser screeches up in front of the house, an ambulance right behind, while Gully’s mind races. Avery must have been held here in this house, on her own street, all this time, and they missed it. Gully feels disbelief and a terrible sense of failure. They failed this girl. But she’s alive, and safe now—no thanks to them.

The uniformed officers run up the steps, and Gully directs them to secure the house, while more cruisers arrive. The ambulance attendants bend over Avery as Gully steps back. The officers return to the front porch and report to Gully that the house is secured; there’s the body of a woman in the basement.

Bledsoe arrives and directs one of the officers to fetch Erin Wooler from down the street. He arranges for someone to bring William Wooler to the scene. Everything is happening so fast, but for Gully, it feels as if everything has slowed down. She feels as if she’s been in an explosion—she’s stunned, disoriented, everything is muffled and muted.

Erin arrives, with Michael, while the ambulance attendants are checking Avery over, and pushes her way forward. She falls on her daughter, sobbing.

“Avery, Avery,” she cries, hugging her daughter tightly. She hugs her as if she will never let her go.

Michael watches from the sidelines, tears running down his pale face.

Gully feels her own eyes welling up, and she can sense the emotion in Bledsoe and the others standing nearby. This girl was missing for four days, probably given up for dead by many. God only knows what she’s endured. But they have a happy ending. She has come back to them.