And behind her, a man walking his dog came out of the trees and watched her go before he ran for the nearest phone.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
October 2017
SHEA
The Greer mansion stood in shades of gray and white, like a tinted photograph. The wind had kicked up, cold and wet, though the rain hadn’t started yet. There was no one around as I got off the bus and walked up the street, no cars going by, no one walking their dog. Arlen Heights was hushed and quiet.
There was no car in the driveway. I stood facing the house, still wearing my work clothes and coat, my messenger bag strapped over my shoulder and across my chest. I took a minute to take in the swirling ugliness of the house, its pretension and clumsy lines and misery. An awful thing that was tolerated because it was made with money and pretended to have class. It’s an abomination that shouldn’t exist, Lily had said, according to Beth. That’s why I like it.
I pulled out my phone and turned it on. I ignored all of the missed texts and messages from Michael, from my sister. I called Beth.
“I’m at your house,” I said when she answered.
“I know,” Beth said.
“How do you know when you’re in Portland?”
“So you looked at my file,” Beth said. “I wondered if you would. I admire you for it. It’s what I would have done if I were you.”
“How did you know I’m at your house?”
“I have a motion sensor that triggers whenever someone comes up the driveway. I’d like to know if someone is going to burn the house down. That way I can cheer them on.”
I scanned the front of the house. “Are there cameras?”
“Lily smashed all the cameras a long time ago. I never tried again.”
“She doesn’t like her picture taken,” I said.
“She never did. That photo I sent you is one of the only ones I have of her. Lily didn’t like to see herself on camera.”
“Maybe they can do a computer reconstruction of her face,” I said. “That is, if they found her skull.”
There was a long moment of silence on the other end of the line. “Oh, Shea,” Beth said, and her voice was impossible to interpret. “I see you’ve been paying attention.”
“What did you do?” I shouted into the phone.
“I stopped her.”
In front of me, a light went on in the upstairs of the Greer mansion, where no one was home.
“You stopped her?” I said.
“Yes. No police with their burden of proof. No trials and no lawyers. No more hospitals that didn’t fix her, then let her out again. I stopped her. Me. Because I was responsible, and I always had been. I was responsible for every single death, just like you’ve felt responsible ever since you escaped your abductor’s car.”
That was an unexpected punch to the gut. Because she was right—I did feel responsible. It made no sense, but guilt doesn’t have to. It simply exists, weighing you down and choking you until you can’t breathe anymore.
Another light went on in the house, this one on the other side, the light beaming out of the window and glowing on the leaves of the trees. It should have been a comforting sight, but it wasn’t.
I watched the light go on downstairs in the living room. The lights in the house were getting brighter, the white glow blasting through the windows and into the lowering gloom. My cheeks were numb now, and so were my hands, the hand holding my phone so cold I couldn’t feel where my fingertips touched the plastic. The wind grew sharper, and the first splatter of rain hit my skin, harsh and cold.