“I thought you’d killed him for the money,” Linda said. “And then I thought something bad had happened. Your sister—the next day—that was awful. There had clearly been a fight or—or something. I wanted to call the police. I wanted to beat up that piece of shit you call a mother. But I couldn’t.”
“Why?” was all that Leigh could ask.
“Because it didn’t matter why you did it. What mattered was that you got rid of him, and you got paid, and that seemed fair.” Linda sucked hard on the cigarette. “I never asked questions because I got what I wanted. He was never going to let me leave. I tried once, and he beat the holy hell out of me. Smacked me until I was unconscious, then left me on the floor.”
Leigh wondered how Callie would’ve felt about this information. Probably sad. She had loved Linda so much. “You couldn’t go to your family?”
“I made my bed, didn’t I?” Linda picked a piece of tobacco off of her tongue. “Even after you got rid of him, I had to prostate myself in front of my prick of a brother. He would’ve put me out in the streets. I had to beg him to take me in. He made me wait a month, and even then, I wasn’t allowed in his house. We had to live in a squalid apartment over the garage like the damn servants.”
Leigh held her tongue. There were far worse places to live.
“I did wonder, though. Not all the time, but sometimes, I wondered why you two girls did it. I mean, what’d he get paid for that framing job, fifty grand?”
“Fifty was in his briefcase,” Leigh said. “We found thirty-six more hidden around the house.”
“Good for you. But it still didn’t make sense. You girls weren’t like that. Some of the other kids in the neighborhood—sure. They’d cut your throat for ten dollars, do God knows what for 86K. But not you two. Like I said, that part always bothered me.” Linda took the keyfob off her belt. Her thumb rested on a button. “And then I found these in my garage, and I finally understood.”
The trunk popped open.
Leigh walked around to the back of the Jaguar. A black plastic garbage bag was inside. The top was open. She saw a pile of VHS cassettes. Leigh didn’t have to count them to know that there were fifteen in all. Fourteen featuring Callie. One with Callie and Leigh.
“The night Andrew died, he came by my house. I heard him in the garage. I didn’t ask him why. Sure, he was acting strange, but he was always strange. Then a few days ago I remembered. I found that garbage bag shoved into the back of one of the storage cabinets. I didn’t tell the police, but I’m telling you.”
Leigh felt her throat grow tight again. She looked up at Linda.
The woman hadn’t moved except to keep smoking. “I was only thirteen when I met his father. He had me but good. It took three years of me running away, being sent to my grandparents, even to boarding school, before they realized I wasn’t going to give him up and they finally let us get married. Did you know that?”
Leigh wanted to grab the bag, but Linda was the one with all the power. There could be copies. There could be another server.
“I never thought …” Linda’s voice trailed off as she took another puff. “Did he try it with you?”
Leigh stepped away from the trunk. “Yes.”
“Did he succeed?”
“Once.”
Linda shook another cigarette out of the pack. She lit the fresh one off the old one. “I loved that girl. She was a sweetheart. And I always trusted her with Andrew. I never for a moment thought that anything bad would happen. And the fact that it did—that she was hurt so bad that, even after he was gone, he found a way to keep hurting her …”
Leigh watched tears slide down the woman’s face. She hadn’t once said Callie’s name.
“Anyway.” Linda coughed, smoke coming out of her mouth and nose. “I’m sorry for what he did to you. And I’m real damn sorry for what he did to her.”
Leigh said the same thing that Walter had said to her. “You never thought a pedophile who molested you when you were thirteen would molest other thirteen-year-olds?”
“I was in love.” She gave a bitter laugh. “I suppose I should throw in an apology for your husband. Is he all right?”
Leigh didn’t answer. Walter had been knocked out, held at gunpoint, and forced to drink a date-rape drug. He wasn’t going to be all right for a really long time.
Linda had sucked the cigarette down to the filter. She did the same as before, shaking out another, lighting the new off the old. She said, “He raped that woman, didn’t he? Killed the other one?”