I open the folder containing the fingerprint reports from Connecticut and New Jersey. The different jurisdictions slowed down the identification process. “Do you know a Jezebel Sloane or Jessie Jenkins or Jackie Jones?” I slide the print run in front of her, and the mug shots. They all look much more like Bethany than the person sitting in front of me. But similar enough— there’s no doubt they are all one and the same. “You look great these days, I have got to hand it to you, Bethany. Gorgeous and young, even though you’re what— three, four years older than your Vassar friends? You’ve done a great job maintaining your looks. But man, you were sloppy as a criminal. You got arrested a lot at first— petty larceny, grand theft, bribery, prostitution. All in the six years after killing Jane and before you enrolled as one Maeve Travis at Vassar College. And let’s not forget the murder charges that are on the way for Derrick and Jane. You got so lucky with all the rain we had right after you killed Jane, the flooding. I imagine it made them quick to assume that accounted for any missing evidence.” I slide another page in front of her. “But I think your luck just ran out. We have prints matching all three of these women on the corkscrew that killed Derrick. And I just sent the tent stake that was used to kill Jane down to the lab. What do you want to bet those are going to match, too?”
Bethany looks up at me then, without blinking. “I want a lawyer.”
“Good idea.” I close the folder and stand. “I think you’re going to need one.”
SIX MONTHS LATER
BETHANY
They were all accidents. Really. Well, I guess maybe with Derrick— but that was a decision I was forced into, by him. Well, him and Finch, it turns out— I’ve learned since that it was Finch who sent that stupid email. But how was I to know that everyone else had gotten the same email, when they were keeping it to themselves? A terrible coincidence, like Jonathan buying a house here, of all places. As soon as Jonathan mentioned looking for houses in the area, I tried to redirect him. Peter won out, of course, and he’d had his own reasons for fixating on Kaaterskill. Turns out, he and Luke met in college, too— Buffalo State, a SUNY school.
I’d known the risk of going back to Kaaterskill, even with my family long gone. But how could I have explained not coming along for Keith’s big intervention? He needed us. All of us. Did I also maybe want to prove something to myself? That this chapter of my life really was closed, that nothing was going to stand in the way of my future with Bates? Could be. I definitely second-guessed that decision when Jane’s little sister Julia introduced herself as one of Kaaterskill’s finest. Luckily, it didn’t seem like she recognized me— but then she’d been so young back then and I looked so very different now.
If only I’d been more cautious, less willing to push the envelope, maybe everything could have ended differently. And that makes me sad, because I did love Derrick as a friend— in my own way. But love and happy endings are often mutually exclusive. Despite what people like to believe.
It was all much more complicated than it seems, too. I guess that’s why I’ve agreed to talk to you, Rachel and Rochelle— over my lawyer’s objections. Because I want to be sure people know the truth. My lawyer says it doesn’t matter that we have a plea deal and that I already have my sentence and all that. He says that they can still find a way to use your show against me, at a parole hearing for instance. But I’m not worried. People will understand. I’m sympathetic, and believable. Always have been, always will be. You’re right, too, my perspective matters. And I agree that it would be good for me to finally tell my side of the whole story.
I mean, I know this: people change. And what starts out as a story you made up about yourself can eventually become the truth of who you are— if you want it bad enough. I am Maeve now. That’s the bottom line. And I have been her for a very long time.
But I didn’t forget everything that came before. I remember what it felt like to be Bethany. How miserable I was. And how sad.
I remember Jane, too. I loved her, by the way. So much. She was my best, best friend. She was fun and silly, and she really got me. I know what people thought back then: what a mismatch, Bethany and Jane. Why was perfect and popular and golden-hued Jane slumming it with someone like me?
That’s why that day down by the river crushed me so— when Jane started saying in her gentle, nice, well-meaning way that maybe I should think about improving myself. That she’d even be happy to help. I was beautiful, she said, especially on the inside. But there were things we could do to make my inner beauty really shine. She held my hands as she said it, beamed that dazzling smile of hers my way. And I felt her love. Limited, though, as it was by how beautiful she was— her hazel eyes glittering in the sun, her blond hair a bright gold. I’d always known it was only a matter of time before Jane came to her senses and saw me the way the rest of the world did.