“I know it’s weird,” I said. “I just . . .”
“I know.” He put his car coat back on.
“What are you doing?”
“Walking you to the bus stop.”
“You don’t have to.”
He looked amused. “You, of all people, are going to tell me that?”
It was cold out, the air full of the promise of oncoming winter, but for once it wasn’t raining. I zipped my collar all the way up as we walked.
There was no one else at the bus stop. The lights of the houses and apartment buildings glowed yellow in the night, a reminder that although this was a lonely spot, there were people nearby. I had no desire to live outside the city, in the unbroken darkness, where there was no one around. I needed the lights and noise of people, even if I wasn’t talking to them.
I turned to find Michael looking at me. How was he this handsome? Even his jawline was nice. Since when did I ogle men’s jawlines? That wasn’t like me.
Then again, maybe it was.
I didn’t think. For once, I didn’t drive myself crazy. I just leaned up, put my hands on his shoulders, and kissed him.
His lips were soft, his skin faintly rough with stubble. He kissed me back, not even hesitating, before he put his arms around my waist and pulled me closer. He deepened the kiss, running his hands up my back, and my body started to hum in a way I hadn’t felt in years, or maybe ever. Everything got warm, even in the damp cold of a fall night in Oregon. I was pressed up against him like it was the most natural thing in the world. Then, as we heard the bus pull up, he broke the kiss and stroked his fingers gently through my hair.
“Be careful,” he said. “Be safe.”
I nodded, pulled reluctantly away, and got on the bus. My skin was prickling, and my lips were still warm. I sat down and stared ahead, my bag in my lap. I could still taste him.
Slowly I came back to myself. I watched Claire Lake out the window, the lights going by, and my phone pinged with a text.
It was from Beth Greer.
It was a photo. An old one, black and white, a picture of two teenage girls sitting on the sofa in the Greer mansion—the exact same sofa where Beth had sat every time I interviewed her. One of the girls was Beth, aged around thirteen. The other girl was Lily.
Both girls were wearing sweaters and wool skirts. There was a Christmas tree out of focus behind them. Beth was easily recognizable, even though this photo was from so long ago—her cheekbones, her lips, her large dark eyes. She was leaned in toward her sister, a smile on her face that was tentative and yet so hopeful it was a little heartbreaking. This was Beth when she still thought that things might work out somehow. Beth when she still had two living—if unhappy—parents. Beth who was in the middle of the much-looked-forward-to yearly visit from her sister, who was obediently posing for a Christmas photo taken—obviously—by Mariana.
Lily, two years older, was blond. She sat upright, her hands folded on her lap, her shoulders straight, her chin angled just so. She looked straight at the camera with eyes that were dark like Mariana’s. Her face was narrower than Beth’s, her lips thinner, but the girls were so clearly related—it was in the set of their bodies, their cheekbones, their identical hands. But Lily sat more confidently, and her smile only played at the corners of her mouth. It didn’t reach her eyes, which were curiously flat as she looked at the photographer—her mother.
Another text came after the photo. I thought you might like this, Beth wrote. It’s Christmas 1967.
Sweet and bitter, I thought, looking at Lily and remembering the article about Lawrence Gage, shot in the face in his own home. Remembering that Julian Greer was about to die the same way a few years later. I wanted to reach back through the doorway of this photo and—what? Stop Lily? Change everything? Save Julian’s and maybe Mariana’s lives?