So she did. When they got to Belinda’s building, he jumped out. But Emily couldn’t find a place to leave the car, even an illegal spot. It took her ten minutes and she was still half a block away. As she finally made it to the top of the stairs, she stopped across the hall from Belinda’s apartment door, out of breath and courage. She heard voices, but couldn’t make out the words. Finally, she pushed open the door. The room was dark and quiet. Esme fumbled for the hall light switch, and tripped over Belinda’s cell phone. From somewhere inside, she could hear Stefan moaning, almost growling.
“What came next?” I said.
With all my might, I did not want to know. “What did you do?”
Emily crept into the living room.
She leaned to one side to snap on the lamp she knew was there.
She said that Belinda and Stefan were lying on the floor, in front of the couch, their bodies half on top of each other, almost in an embrace. A golf club, thickly coated in blood, was propped like a sword against Stefan’s leg. He was stirring, his head thrashing a little, but Belinda… Belinda’s head was broken in the back like a pumpkin after Halloween.
“There was nothing I could do, Thea. I knew she was dead.”
Emily breathed in slowly, then out. She said she went into the bedroom then and found the little satin bag she and Belinda were using to save cash for their plan of running away together. They’d put together a few hundred dollars.
“Then I just ran, Thea, I just ran. I didn’t want to go to prison. Because now you get it, right? You see what I mean when I said I knew the truth. It was really all my fault.” She glanced up and reached for her backpack. “I have to go.”
“Wait,” I said. “I’ll drive you to the bus.”
Stefan slapped his hands on his thighs and got up. I heard him going up the stairs, then the bathroom door slamming. Didn’t he realize I was just bluffing?
Esme said, “I’m going far away. Because things happen to people. Something could happen to me. In a deserted place, and I would just be there until I was a skeleton, all alone.” She added, “Things could happen to Stefan too.” She snapped her fingers. “Like that! That easily. If he remembered the wrong thing, he would tell you, and you would tell the police.”
If he remembered the wrong thing? There is only one story…
“What wrong thing?” I said. “Are you talking about Jill? Is this tied up in some weird way with Jill’s reputation? With vengeance?”
Emily said, “No,” and then, “Yes.” Then she said, “Trust me. You don’t know the side of her that I do.”
And I didn’t. If nothing else, what Emily-or-Esme told me proved that Jill had a capacity for petty vengefulness that she concealed very well.
I left her briefly and followed Stefan upstairs to quietly call the police, and as I got to the landing, I heard him turn on the shower.
When I told the Portland Police dispatcher that there was an intruder in my house, he said, are you safe, can you go to a safe place? I told him I was safe, that I knew the intruder. He paused. Then he asked if there was a domestic dispute in progress. I told him no, there wasn’t, not at all, but to come quickly.
“A car is on the way,” the dispatcher said. I looked out through the porthole window. The stars were beginning to fade into the dark gray sky. It was five in the morning. Then I called Pete Sunday, on the cell number he gave me. I expected him to sound muffled, like one of those people who knocks the phone off the nightstand.
“You have her in the house? Is she restrained?”
I almost laughed. “Uh, no. I wanted to use those zip ties, but I ran out. She’s downstairs, she, well, I spilled some boiling water. She startled me, in the kitchen. She has a burn, but it’s not very bad.”
“Seriously, Thea. I’m on my way. Did you call the police?”
I told him I had, they were on the way, and added, “She denies killing Belinda.”
“What did you expect?”
“I thought she was coming here to confess to me, but what she confessed was that giving Stefan that whole brew of drugs was wrong. She just admitted inciting him to rage over Belinda.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I don’t know. I know she thinks I believe her,” I told him. “She’s the Unabomber.”
“What?”
“She was the guy in the hoodie. The one who kept following me. That was her all along.”
“I thought it might be.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?” It seemed strange, to say the least. “And she is also that girl in the picture, the tall, dark-haired girl. She says her name really is Emily.”