“Yes,” Beth said, adjusting the red shawl around her shoulders that she’d bought at the Edengate Mall. She’d had Ransom bring it to her in a suitcase, along with a list of other clothes. It was over. She never had to go back to her jail cell, never had to eat that food or talk on that awful phone. There was a liquor cabinet at the Greer mansion that had been fully stocked the day she’d been arrested.
She knew it wasn’t possible, but if she inhaled the scent of the red shawl, if she concentrated on it, she thought she could smell her mother.
She put on Mariana’s red lipstick, too. Then she left to face the reporters.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
October 2017
SHEA
“The question is,” the voice in my ear asked, “what makes a killer? Are killers born, or are they made? Can they be stopped, or are they simply a human anomaly, a genetic gamble? Maybe the killing itself is buried deep in his psyche, waiting for the chance to come out. Or maybe the would-be murderer can be saved, the course of his life changed. Maybe it’s happened a million times, and because he never killed anyone, we never knew it was possible.”
I pulled my earbuds out. I was listening to a podcast this time instead of an audiobook as I sat in the break room at work. The half-eaten remains of my sandwich sat on the table in front of me.
Karen poked her head around the door, an annoyed look on her face. “Lunch break is over, Shea.”
“Right,” I said, pushing my chair back. I was lost in a fog today, forgetting details, not listening. I had to keep it together, come out of the dark into my real life. I needed this job. I had bills to pay. I couldn’t think about murder all the time.
I dumped my food into the garbage and came back out to the front of the doctor’s office, taking my seat behind the Plexiglas. There were six people in the waiting room, reading or talking softly or, in one case, napping. It was quiet and stuffy. For the first time, I realized that Esther was right about this job: I was literally spending all of my life in a waiting room.
“It’s quiet,” Karen said. “The doctor was reviewing patient files this morning. You can put them away while I take my lunch.” She nodded to a cart, then turned to grab her lunch bag and leave. As she did, the cart jostled and a stack of files fell to the ground.
I got off my chair and squatted, picking up the files as Karen walked away. I had one in my hand when I realized it was Beth’s.
Karen had left, and there was no one who could see me. I was crouched on the floor behind the desk, out of sight of everyone, out of sight of the security cameras that kept watch on the waiting room. I had maybe ten seconds.
It was like the kiss with Michael—I didn’t even think. I flipped open the file and looked at the top page, scanning it. I read the diagnosis, the notes from the doctor. The analysis of the test results.
Oh, Beth, I thought.
There’s a reason behind everything Beth does, Ransom Wells had said. Ask yourself why Beth has decided to tell everything now, after all of these years.
I closed the file, stacked it with the others, and put them away, my mind circling over what I’d just read. When Karen came back from her lunch break, I said, “I don’t feel well.”
She looked me over. “You don’t look so good.”
“I think I’m feverish.” I gathered my things, put on my sweater. This was a doctor’s office; the last thing we were supposed to do was spread illness to the patients. “I’ll go home and go to bed.”
She shrugged and turned away as a patient came to the window.
I left the office and stood on the sidewalk. What I’d just read in the file was still going around in my mind, but it also seemed off. It had something to do with why Beth had agreed to talk to me, but it wasn’t the only reason. There had to be something else.