I heard you grunt before you hoisted it over your head. It was heavy, lopsided, and must have been difficult, but you had a strength that day that I’d never seen before. I watched you for a second as you swayed on your feet, the muscles of your arms straining against the heavy weight, fighting for balance. There was this look on your face, a kind of excitement—a strange satisfaction brimming there. I couldn’t look at you, so I settled my gaze back on that poor cat.
You started the countdown.
“One…”
My stomach tightened. The cat meowed like a siren’s wail, as if it knew what was coming.
“Two…”
My hands balled into fists. I dug my heels into the ground, bracing myself for the inevitable. When I glanced over at you, there wasn’t a bit of fear in your eyes, not a single indication of uncertainty or doubt on your face. Instead of seeming nervous, to me you appeared eager, and I had to look away again. But, looking at the cat continue to struggle, hissing now, knowing that the end was near, I couldn’t do that, either, so instead I just stood there with my eyes closed tight.
I heard you grunt, one final heave-ho effort, before you let out a scream like a war cry.
“Three!”
As sunspots danced on the lids of my shuttered eyes, I screamed too. But it wasn’t loud enough to drown out the thud of the rock and the crack of bone. The hissing stopped, and the air was soon filled with the smell of blood.
When I finally found the courage to open my eyes, I went completely cold inside. First I saw the cat, its body as still as the rock lying on top of it. I turned my head slowly to look at you. There you stood, your arms limply at your sides, surveying what you’d done with a look of astonishment on your face. You’d shed no tears, and you showed no fear, no sorrow, no hint of remorse. Worse, your eyes held a strange sparkle. There was dark satisfaction glimmering there, and I couldn’t help but think that you’d gotten a twisted thrill out of what you’d done.
That look on your face, in your eyes—I’d seen it before, when you had Wally in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. I asked in a voice soft as the warm summer breeze that ruffled your long hair, “Eve, is that you?”
You turned your head slowly to look at me, as if you’d just realized I was standing right beside you. You kept your unblinking gaze fixed on me for a time as a slight grin came to your face. And without saying a word, your smile brightened as you sent me a single nod.
CHAPTER 19
THE DINING ROOM AT Big Frank’s was a quarter full, better than usual, but not good enough. Customers contentedly grazed on pizzas, calzones, and salads, but Grace had no appetite at all. She was busy in the kitchen, helping Annie prepare pies and such, thinking mostly about Mitch and their meeting with Navarro.
As she was layering sauce on a pizza, Grace layered more guilt onto herself.
“Maybe if we’d met Dr. Cross sooner, knew about DID sooner, got Penny better treatment, none of this would have happened,” Grace lamented to Annie, who was slicing veggies next to her with the skill of a Hibachi chef.
She left out how frustrating it was that after all the effort to get a proper diagnosis it wasn’t sticking, not with Palumbo and apparently not with Mitch either. Of course she was grateful that Mitch had a plan that might help keep Penny out of prison, but with the trial so close, and Eve so difficult, it was a long shot—or a moon shot, as Navarro had implied.
“I think you’re being too hard on yourself,” Annie said, her knife a blur against the cutting board. “Everyone thought Ruby was a routine. You couldn’t have known it was DID. And then, well, when Chloe came, you didn’t even know it was an alter. If it weren’t for therapy, you wouldn’t have even known any of these alters had names. One day Penny just announces that she wants to get straight As in school and you’re supposed to think … what? It’s not really Penny? I would have been happy as could be if my kids ever committed to their schooling like that.”
Grace had to laugh, because that was just how she’d felt back then. Happy. Her concern had been only that Penny would be too hard on herself if she fell short of that goal.
“There were signs much earlier, is all I’m saying,” Grace said definitively. “The rock incident, remember that?”
“Refresh, please,” Annie replied with a slight grimace of embarrassment. “A lot has happened to you, and this old noggin has downshifted.” She rapped her knuckles against her skull.
“I’m sure you remember that Penny and Ryan were always squabbling—he said this, she did that—that kind of thing.”