Michael closed his eyes. His breathing was a little harsh.
“I was sure the man was chasing me,” I said. “I thought he would get out of the car and run after me, or that he’d circle the block, looking to grab me again. I didn’t think he’d just let me run.” Pain throbbed up from my broken elbow, and I tried not to wince. “I ran into a stranger’s backyard and hid in the garden shed. I crouched in there, barely daring to breathe, jumping at every sound. I had no idea how long I stayed in there, but I found out later it was three hours. It was winter, and by the time I got home it was fully dark and I couldn’t feel my hands or my feet.”
Michael opened his eyes again, his jaw working as he bit back whatever he wanted to say.
“My parents were frantic,” I said. “There were police at my house. My father was crying. I’d never seen my father cry. I didn’t think it was possible. They were in a panic because I hadn’t come home from school, and when my parents called the police about it, the police had showed up in minutes. They were alarmed because a girl had been found dead fifteen miles away, and they wanted to be sure it wasn’t me.”
Finally, Michael spoke, and though his voice was tense, he kept it low. “Anton Anders,” he said.
“He didn’t chase me,” I said. The words were harder to get out, because I was gritting my teeth through the growing pain. “He didn’t come after me at all. When I ran, he drove to a different neighborhood and waited near a schoolyard. He picked up a girl named Sherry Haines. She was nine, just like I was. He raped and murdered her and dumped her body by the side of a two-lane highway. He did all that in the three hours while I was hiding in the shed.” I looked at Michael. “You know the Anton Anders case, I assume, since you were a cop, and so were your father and uncle.” When he nodded, I said, “I was Girl A. I am Girl A. She’s me.”
“I wondered about it,” Michael admitted. “The way you reacted when I said that Joshua Black solved the Sherry Haines case. It seemed personal somehow. You’re the right age to be Girl A. I could have gotten access to the files, found your name for myself. But I didn’t.”
“You’re supposed to be nosy,” I said.
He looked at me and saw that I was trying, however weakly, for humor. A smile touched the corners of his handsome mouth. “Professionally nosy,” he corrected me. “If you wanted to tell me, I figured you would.”
He was right. “If I hadn’t hidden in the shed,” I said, “if I’d gone straight home and my parents had called the police, maybe Sherry Haines would still be alive.”
“Or maybe not,” Michael said. “Maybe he would have found a different victim on a different day. They’ve never been able to tie Anton Anders to any other cases, but no one who looks at the Sherry Haines case believes she was his first victim. He was too practiced. You were a terrified nine-year-old girl who had just been assaulted, Shea. Nothing was your fault. Nothing at all.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve thought about every angle for the past twenty years. I know I’m not to blame. But I’m not a little girl this time around.” I shifted in the bed as the pain got fiercer. “Don’t call a nurse yet,” I said when Michael reached for the call button. “Just listen. Beth Greer murdered her half sister, Lily, in 1978. She hit Lily over the head with an ashtray in the master bedroom of the Greer mansion, then drowned her in the bathtub. Then she dumped Lily’s body in the thick of the woods at the end of Claire Lake. Lily has been there all this time, until her remains were found a few weeks ago.”
“Jesus Christ, Shea,” Michael said, shocked. “Did Beth confess?”
“Of course not.”
“Then how do you know this?”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.” Behind Michael, the door opened and a nurse came in. She pulled a wheeled tray with her: a blood pressure cuff, pills in a small paper cup. I ignored her and put my good hand on Michael’s arm. “Call your cop friends,” I said. “And call Joshua Black. Tell all of them that Beth killed Lily Knowles because Lily was the Lady Killer. It’s her remains that were found, that I messaged you about. DNA will prove it if they do a test. For all I know, Beth is going to try and find some way to stop all of this from happening. Call them now.”