The trail narrowed until they were walking along the edge of a steep ravine full of bracken and spindly young trees. About halfway down, a jagged stretch of rock jutted from the hillside. Out of breath, Michelle retreated to a fallen log on the right side of the trail and sank down.
“Too many tiny little cigarettes?” Kimber asked. But her breath was short as well.
Michelle kept her head down. How many times had she told Kimber she would quit before she had kids? That smoking a pencil-thin Virginia Slims was like smoking half a cigarette? She almost believed it herself.
“Why all the way up here?” Kimber crouched on the dirt trail in front of her.
“Give me a minute.” When her breath returned, Michelle said, “Listen to me, okay? I’m not going to lie to you, and I’m not going to protect Dad or you or Mom anymore.”
Kimber laughed, the sound floating into the trees. A squirrel scolded from high in the branches above them.
“He’s here. We’re going to meet with him.”
“What? Daddy’s here?” Kimber scanned the woods.
“No. I already talked to the guy we’re going to meet on the phone, and what he told me makes me sick. It makes him sick. But you have to know. Mom has to know too.” Tears burned in her eyes. “I can’t live with it anymore, Kimmy. Dad’s sick, and he’s making it worse for everybody.” She watched fear—or was it anger?—steal into Kimber’s eyes. “He doesn’t love us anymore. I’m pretty sure he never loved us.”
“Did you ever think maybe he just doesn’t love you?”
Michelle was stung, but she kept on. “He only married Mom because she had Mimi and Granddad’s money. She was rich and he wasn’t, and he conned her into having sex with him, and Mom thought she had to marry him.”
“I don’t see Mimi putting up with that. She’d have disowned Mom if she knew she was having sex.” Kimber gave her a wry smile. “You’re such a liar. I don’t know who’s been telling you this crap, but I know it wasn’t Daddy. Or Mom.”
“Mom needs to know, and that’s why you have to hear everything before she does. We have to help her. When she leaves Dad—”
Kimber jumped to her feet. “She’s not leaving Dad! Don’t even say something stupid like that. Why do you hate him so much? You want to mess up everything. Our life was just fine, then you started with all this mysterious stuff about Daddy, and Mom being—I don’t know—stupid, and you want to make it all about you. You’re jealous. You’re jealous of me and you’re jealous of Mom because there’s something wrong with you. And I’m sorry if you think Daddy’s weird or works too much or whatever.”
“You won’t even open your eyes, Kimber. You’re the one who’s weird about Dad. You’re the one who’s jealous because he doesn’t love only you. You’re the selfish one. I’m just trying to help. When you know the whole truth, you’ll understand.” Kimber was still her little sister, and she had to take care of her. To protect her.
“God, I hate you.” It was something Kimber had said to her many times, but this time she said it slowly. Deliberately. She sounded twenty years older.
Kimber turned and started back down the trail.
“Fine!” Michelle shouted after her. “Don’t say I didn’t try to help you. I’ll tell Mom what Dad’s been doing by myself. He’s a big, shitty fraud, and she’ll leave him, and then you won’t even get to see him again because he’ll be in prison. It will be your own fault!”
Kimber stopped and turned around. Neither she nor Michelle noticed the glint of sunlight as a camera lens took focus from the tree line on the ridge above them.
Michelle stood frozen, watching Kimber’s feet as she ran toward her. Their family weren’t athletes, but Kimber had surprised them all last spring when she’d joined the track team and become an unlikely star in the hundred-yard dash. Now here she came, her feet barely brushing the ground, her arms out in front of her as though she might take off into the air. When Michelle looked up at her sister’s face, she knew to be afraid. Kimber’s mouth was open. Was she screaming? Was that what she was hearing? She couldn’t look away from Kimber’s eyes, which were dark with fury.
Why can’t I run? Why can’t I move? Her mind couldn’t process what was happening. She couldn’t. She won’t.
Kimber’s open palms slammed against her chest. As Michelle fell backward into the ravine, she reached out for Kimber so that their fingertips touched ever so slightly.
Flying was nothing like Michelle had imagined it to be. In dreams, she stroked through the air as though swimming, her body perfectly executing each curve and turn. The air had weight and substance, yet it yielded to her. She was learning that flying really was an impossible thing, and that falling lasted an eternity. Kimber stood looking down at her, arms floating slowly to her sides.
You did, Kimber. Oh God, you did.
Still afraid, Michelle squeezed her eyes shut and thought of blueberries and the way they broke and melted as the pancakes cooked. How their juice radiated into the milky dough like tiny vessels filled with purple-red blood. How weird to think of such a thing. How could she have known that she’d have so much time to think as she fell? Her mind clutched for thoughts to hold on to: dandelions, walking to the convenience store with Kimber when she was seven, holding Kimber’s sweat-sticky hand, using a stick to dig out a worm in the freshly turned dirt of her grandmother’s garden, beating a boy—what was his name?—at Scrabble, then letting him take her into the closet to kiss her, and all the kisses she had ever had, which weren’t actually that many. She remembered the tangled emotions of excitement and shame she felt after such kisses, but the memory evaporated as her body met the earth with unbearable violence.
Then she felt nothing.
Chapter Forty-Five
Kimber can’t breathe. There it is, the thing that lives inside her like some wretched, fiery creature.
Her hands slamming against her sister’s chest. Michelle plunging over the edge, falling through the air. Her head hitting the rocky outcropping. Her body, lying still. Michelle dead. Michelle, the victim of her sister’s anger and jealousy.
“I don’t believe you.” She gets up, paces the rug, heedless of the dust and debris beneath her feet. She wants to shrink into herself now that this thing is out in the world. The photographs were real but also hypothetical in a way when it came to anyone else besides Kevin.
“I believe it was an accident. You weren’t capable of killing your sister. I saw you together, remember? I know you, Kimber. You’re not a murderer.”
She turns on him. “How do you know? How do you know how I felt about her? You didn’t see us every minute of every day. You didn’t see us fight. I hated her when she died. You can’t know how much I hated her. No one can!”
He gets up and gently grips her forearm, then wraps his arms around her. Even through swelling tears and a nose that’s about to run, she can smell his cologne, but also perspiration. He’s hurting too.
“Shhhhh. You didn’t hate her. You couldn’t handle what was going on. Even if you didn’t know it consciously, you knew something wasn’t right. What your father did to you and your sister was wrong. It was brutal. No one can live a decent life based on lies. Children especially.”
He holds her as the tears come. That moment she’d pushed Michelle, just wanting to get her away. Wanting her to shut up.
“She wouldn’t stop talking about Dad. She told me he didn’t love us. She told me she had proof. That there was somebody who would tell me the truth. She wanted to tell Mom too, and then everything would’ve changed. I think I knew, but I didn’t want to know. God, I didn’t want to know.”
She cries for several minutes, her sobs filling the quiet house. The house that had been her father’s, that he had given to her. Only her. Not Kevin. Not her mother. Just her.
When she pulls away, she grabs a tissue from the dusty box on the side table and blows her nose. She sinks onto the couch.
“Who told you? Was it Kevin? He sent me photographs from that day. He must’ve been the
person Michelle had the proof from. I don’t know what he was looking for in this house, but I think he wants to blackmail me over Michelle.”
Don, looking less strong now, also sits. “He’s involved, but it was your father who told me.”
“Then he did know,” she says, crestfallen. “Kevin must have told him. Kevin saw us, took the photographs, and…he told my, I mean our, father. Of course Daddy left because of me. Who would want to be the father of a killer?”
“Neither of us thought for a moment you meant for Michelle to die. Your father knew you too well. I knew you.”
“But he left because of me. He couldn’t bear to be around me.”
“I think he left because he wanted to protect you and your mother from Kevin. Kevin was obviously dangerous, even back then. I think Ike thought that if he got Kevin away from you, you’d be safe. Not just from prosecution but from Kevin’s hate. I don’t think you need any more evidence of how Kevin feels about you.” He spreads one unsteady arm, indicating all the damage. “And there’s something else.”
“What in the hell else can there be?”
“If I tell you, I don’t know if you’ll forgive me. I know your mother may never forgive me. God knows I wish I’d died before I had to tell her the truth. She doesn’t deserve to be hurt any more. Even now, I promise I haven’t told her about you and Michelle. You both need protection from that. You only have each other left.” His voice is wistful, painful evidence of his desperate wish to be part of Claudia and Kimber’s small family.
“It can’t be worse than murder.” Kimber gives a mirthless laugh.
“I knew your father was leaving. He came to me. I’d never seen him so shaken. Not only was he devastated about Michelle’s death, but I think he was afraid Kevin would tell both your mother and Faye about each other. Ike couldn’t bear to choose, you know. That’s why he married your mother in the first place. Six or seven years after his first marriage, I think he was restless. They say that’s when a couple starts to figure out what they’ve gotten themselves into: a mortgage, a child, jobs. You know, Faye worked as a nurse and paid a lot of their bills. I never saw her again after that day in the restaurant, but your father spoke of her so warmly. He truly loved her.” He brushes the air with his hand. “I’m not saying he didn’t love your mother. But he loved Faye first. Now, don’t get angry when I tell you this.”
“I’m way beyond anger. Can’t you tell? I’m in some weird place I can’t even recognize. This past week I’ve been living on another planet. Planet Beat the Shit Out of Kimber.”
“Good. I mean not good. But good that you probably won’t be surprised.”
“Surprised? Please.”
“Your mother has always had money, and I know her parents were very generous when they were alive, and when they died. I think the fact that you and she wouldn’t suffer that way helped him decide what to do.”
“Huh.” She gives a derisive snort. “Generous? With strings, you mean. They didn’t make it easy.”
“I’ve heard that from your mother.”
That admission surprises her. So all these years her mother has been hiding the fact that she knew exactly what her own parents were like. Pot, meet kettle, Mom.
“Faye worked but was never in perfect health, and she eventually died from a congenital heart issue.”
“Too bad for her.”
He ignores her sarcasm. “I gave your father enough money that he could leave, Kimber. He didn’t know what to do. Kevin wouldn’t let him stay with your mother, but he didn’t know how to quit your family and disappear. He knew he would have to start over somewhere, but a man like him—someone who likes to have control over the people in his life, over his future—wants it to be easy.”
“You were in love with my mother. So essentially you bought her from my father.”
Don heaves a sigh that shudders through his body. “Please don’t say it that way.”
Kimber’s voice softens. “I guess it’s a good thing she loves you so much. Because she does love you.”
Tears glint in his eyes, and she suddenly feels sorry for him. I did it all for love! Isn’t that what the song says? He’d done a hell of a lot for love.
“Are you going to tell her?” he asks. “I know I have to tell her eventually, but I want to do it in my own time. Soon. I’ll do it soon.”
“Me? I may be known in some quarters as a jerk—especially when it comes to my mother—but I don’t think I’m that mean. You’ve got enough to deal with since she knows that Faye and Kevin were his other family. The one he chose to be with. I think that’s enough for now. Plus, you need to tell her. I’m not a tattletale anymore.” She hesitates. “You’re not going to tell her about Michelle? I mean about me?”
He shakes his head. “I won’t.”
The truth finally dawns on Kimber like the sun rising overhead. “Kevin is blackmailing you too. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
Chapter Forty-Six
Kimber watches Don make his way slowly to his car. He’d hidden so much. Another man who’d kept secrets from her and her mother. She wanted to be angry with him, but unlike her father, he’d told her everything. He hadn’t apologized, because in his heart he felt like he’d done the right thing. Who was she to say he hadn’t? He’d done more to take care of her mother than her father ever had, and plenty to take care of her. Her father had been a coward.
She doesn’t want to think about what might have happened if it had been Kevin who discovered him in the house. Don isn’t a small man, but his strength is far diminished from what it was even a decade ago. Kevin is muscle, sinew, and meanness, motivated by revenge.
It’s her house, but it doesn’t feel like it as she walks through the living room, trying not to grind any of the large chunks of grit into the wood floors. Which definitely need to be completely stripped and refinished.
All that remains of Kevin Merrill is the damage to the house and a trail of trash beginning in the kitchen and continuing upstairs. Did he find what he was looking for? It had to be the Threllkill man’s money. He’s gone, so why does she feel even more afraid? The fear feels enormous and familiar.
Standing on the edge of the ravine, looking down. Michelle lying motionless, with leaves in her hair.
There’s plenty of damage in the house, but at least the window on the landing is still okay, its narrow trees intact. Sadly, like the stained-glass tulip window in the living room, the abstract mountain in the dining room has a fissure in it. Kimber runs her finger along the jagged line bisecting the mountain. It’s not deep, maybe not even all the way through the glass, but it’s upsetting. Who could have imagined someone would come into her house and start trashing things? She makes a mental note to ask Troy and Shaun if they know how she can get them repaired. Diana, with her connections and knowledge of decorating, would have been the first person she asked. But that path is closed. Probably forever.
Though the house is warm with sunlight, she wraps her arms around herself as she goes up to the second floor. She can’t shake the feeling that she’s been physically violated. Despite there being no sign of Kevin’s personal belongings, there’s evidence everywhere that a stranger has been living in her house.
All his toiletries are gone, except for the twisted, empty tube of toothpaste. The mirror is spattered, and the toilet seat is up, the inside a murky gold with unflushed urine. Taking a tissue, she pushes down the toilet handle to clear it. It’s bad enough that several hairs lie on the counter and probably on the floor, beneath her feet. She shudders. Once the police have seen the inside of the house, she’ll get a cleaning service in to get rid of every trace of him.
Do I want the police here? No.
What if Kevin’s disappearance is just part of his messing with her head? He could still blackmail her. Tell the police what he knows.
As though she’s conjured the police just by thinking about them, she hears a car door slam in the driveway and looks out to see Officer Maby. A tall blond man ge
ts out of a second car, a sparkling clean Ford sedan. His hair is thinning at the back, and she wonders if he knows. Kimber doesn’t have a lot of experience with such things, but from his neat haircut, dark suit, and the black simplicity of his car, she suspects he’s from some government agency.
The look of surprise on Officer Maby’s face when Kimber opens the door tells her they were expecting to find Lance Wilson—or Kevin Merrill?—inside.
“Are you Kimber Hannon?” The man holds opens a black leather case containing his ID badge. “U.S. Marshals Service, Colin Delancey.” The picture shows a slightly younger, more serious version of the face of the man in her doorway. He holds the badge high, because he’s so tall, and looks surprised when Kimber grasps its edge and pulls it closer to her face. For a moment it seems as if they will have a tug of war over it, but she lets it go. Colin Delancey looks vaguely relieved.
“He’s not here. I got here an hour ago, and the front door was unlocked. All his stuff is gone. The SUV too.”
“May we come inside?” Colin Delancey glances beyond her, as though he might not believe her, then smiles. In the middle of all the shit that is her life, she can’t help but notice that it seems to be a genuine smile. White, but not too white, even teeth. He’s had braces, surely, but there’s enough shape to them that she guesses he isn’t the type to still wear a retainer at night. Maybe forty-one or forty-two years old. His nose is probably more prominent than he would like, but it complements the bold structure of his rectangular face. His suit doesn’t look as expensive as some of her business-owning clients wear, but she guesses it’s in the $1,200 to $1,500 range. The eyes watching hers are a couple of shades lighter than his subtle blue tie.
In a moment of almost-forgotten vanity, she remembers she’s been wearing the same wrinkled clothes since Saturday.
Beside him, Officer Maby is all professionalism, but it’s clear she’s not comfortable deferring to him. Do U.S. Marshals have authority over local cops?
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