Two quick steps and I bumped the side of his Subaru with my hip as hard as I could. The car wobbled, falling as the scissor jack gave way and landed on the ground with a metal clang.
Keenan let out a scream. It was louder than I’d anticipated, he still had a bit of fight in him. I walked to the garage door and hit the close button with a shirt-covered finger before kneeling beside him. His head was turned toward me, his face red, eyes bulging from the weight of his pride and joy that was now crushing his lungs.
“Help...” he gasped. “Help...me...”
“You ruined my life,” I said slowly, smiling as he cried out again and took another breath, much shallower this time. “Now I’m going to ruin the rest of yours, and you’ll never, ever know what really happened to Celine.”
31
LILY
I couldn’t sleep, spent the entire night tossing and turning, trying to figure out what to do. One thing was clear, I wasn’t wrong about Maya, and Ash needed to know the truth. I couldn’t believe how she’d come here, how she’d had the downright audacity to mock and challenge me, and any doubts I’d had about how deranged and twisted she was had long evaporated. I thought about going back to the house to try and talk to Ash, but knew she’d be there, ready to spin more lies. Somehow, I had to get him on his own, make him see her for what she was: a compulsive liar. But how when they were heading to Brookmount?
The more I thought about it, the clearer my two options became. The way I saw it, the first was getting to Maryland before Ash did. I’d have to camp out at the storage facility and try to talk to him, but no doubt Maya would be there, and my credit card was dangerously close to being maxed out. As things stood, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pay for the gas to even get there. The second option was to wait until they came back to Newdale. It would give Ash time to cool off and provide me with more opportunity to work out what to say, but it also afforded Maya the same chance to turn him against me even more.
It was almost eight in the morning now and I still hadn’t decided. I wasn’t due at the Cliff’s Head until tomorrow, and I already knew Patrick would accuse me of being a thief. He wouldn’t believe me when I said I hadn’t taken the money, and no doubt Maya had already told him about the cash in my room. With my history, it wouldn’t be hard to convince people I’d gone back to my old thieving ways.
As I debated whether I should go to Brookmount or wait it out in Newdale, my phone rang. When I saw it was Heron, I declined the call, listened to the voice mail she left me a few moments later, my grip tightening around my phone as she spoke.
“Lily, it’s Detective Heron. I have news. We believe Jason Whitmarsh attacked Jack on the beach the night he went missing, and we have enough evidence to charge him with manslaughter. A witness will testify Jack was new to the poker group, in fact it was the first time he’d played with them. He won the game fair and square, well, as fair and square as an illegal game can be won, but Whitmarsh wouldn’t accept it. He insisted Jack was a hustler and made it very clear he’d get his money back somehow. Anyway, you’re no longer a person of interest, okay? Please contact me when you get this message.”
I thought about calling her, but what was the point? She was so far away and couldn’t help me with the situation here, and, anyway, could I trust her? Would Ash be in trouble if I told her he was alive? Would I be, considering I’d known for more than a week and hadn’t told them? Maybe this was just a ploy to find out where I was. How could I be sure they no longer suspected me? No, I decided, I wouldn’t call her, not yet. I needed a little bit more time, wanted to tell Ash the details I’d found out about Whitmarsh and see if it sparked a memory. Except he wouldn’t believe anything I said now, not until he understood what Maya was doing to him.
I wondered if I should call Sam for help, but he couldn’t do anything, either. I’d texted him about the side effects of clonazepam as soon as I’d got to the motel, and he’d filled me in a few minutes before Maya had knocked on my door with my sweater—a false pretext for a visit if I’d ever heard one. That’s when I’d realized she’d been giving Ash the pills. I thought about how she’d practically dared me to hunt for evidence relating to Ash’s departure from Newdale, something to incriminate her. She’d said there was none but...
I stopped pacing the room as another path crystalized in my mind. With Ash and Maya in Brookmount, the house would be empty. If I could get inside while they were away, I’d have ample time to search the place, see if I could find something that would help me convince Ash his sister was crazy. My mind raced ahead as I packed my things, deciding I’d have to make everyone believe I’d left town in case Maya asked around. There was a dirt track a few hundred yards before her house, an ideal place for hiding my car while I hunted through her things.
Fiona hadn’t been at the front desk when I’d checked in last night and wasn’t there when I dropped off my key. I was grateful. I didn’t want to explain how things hadn’t worked out with Ash, and I was going home. Thankfully, my credit card payment for the room went through, and within a few minutes I was in my car, heart thumping at the thought of breaking into Ash and Maya’s home. She wasn’t stupid, and she’d have moved the spare key, but I’d have to get in somehow, either by jimmying the door or a window. Whatever. I’d make it work.
I drove down the long road and past Keenan’s place, which looked abandoned. I kept expecting Maya’s Pathfinder to come in the opposite direction, but when I got to the dirt track, I turned and drove up until the path veered to the left, and the road behind me was no longer visible. I got out and continued on foot, staying hidden in the brush as I made my way to the house. I needn’t have bothered being so secretive. Maya’s car wasn’t there. I couldn’t be certain they’d already left town, but as I listened, the only sounds filling the air were the gentle noises of chirping birds and the leaves waving in the wind.
I crept across the grass, circling around to the front of the house, trying not to wince as the deck creaked beneath my weight. I couldn’t break in until I was sure no one was home, and I rang the doorbell, counting to fifty as I waited. Nobody came. Maya and Ash were gone.
The front door was locked, but when I lifted the flowerpot, expecting to find an empty space, the spare key glinted in the sunshine, another clear sign Maya thought she’d beaten me. My heart sped up again, fear bubbling inside me, but I was here now. I had the time, the opportunity—and I had to act, do something.
I pushed the key into the lock. The front door groaned as I opened it farther, and I listened for movement. Although everything was quiet, I tiptoed across the hallway, checked all the rooms on both floors before finally believing I was on my own. I opened one of the front windows a little, hoping it would be enough to hear the crunching gravel if a car pulled up. Keeping one eye on the driveway, I searched through the living room and the kitchen, quickly rummaging through the cupboards and the old dresser, coming up with nothing, not even the receipt from the drugstore Ash had mentioned, which would’ve been a start.
One thing was certain. Maya wouldn’t be dumb enough to leave anything implicating her just lying around. I headed back up the stairs to her bedroom, terrified she’d jump out as I stepped in. I needn’t have worried. The only things greeting me were the ticking of a clock and the scent of fresh laundry. I went to her bed and ran my fingers underneath the mattress. No, too easy. Whatever she was hiding had to be somewhere more private. I checked out the obvious places anyway, including the toilet cistern and the bathroom cabinet, but the only things I found were tampons, scissors, nail files, cotton swabs and a couple of bottles of headache pills, which appeared legitimate. So much for hiding things in plain sight.
My impatience grew. I searched through the spare room, and Ash’s, too, but still found nothing. Maya was cunning, had a mind with more twists than a corkscrew...or perhaps I’d become crazier than her.
I stood in the house, trying to think of my next move, and as I lo
oked out of the window, it dawned on me I was in the wrong place. If Maya was hiding something, it had to be in the garage. Excitement fluttered in my belly as I headed out of the house and crossed the driveway. The side door to the garage was unlocked, but I didn’t ponder why for long, because the enormity—the impossibility—of the challenge ahead settled on my shoulders, weighing me down. There were so many places Maya could’ve hidden something. Nooks and crannies, boxes and crates. It would take me days to do a thorough search. Even with them out of town I’d never get it done. I was debating whether to give up and leave when I noticed the old orange rug. It had been shoved to one side, exposing the trapdoor to the old room below. An ideal place to hide if you were a kid, but also to stash something you didn’t want anyone to find.
I pulled the door open, flicked on the light, and with the blood thundering in my ears, put my left foot on the ladder. I counted the steps as I descended, one, two, three, four—ten in total before I reached solid ground, my heart sinking when I saw the shelving units had been taken out, the empty bottles removed. The room was completely empty. Not only that, but I still didn’t know what I was searching for. I was about to climb back up when I heard sounds above me. Footsteps coming closer. There was no time to reach the light switch and pull the trapdoor closed, so I hugged the wall, made myself as small as possible.
“Well, well, well,” Maya said as she approached. “What are you doing, Lily?”
How did she know it was me? I was standing too far back for her to see me.
In a sickly singsong voice she said, “I know you’re down there...” Still, I didn’t move. “My mistake.” She sighed before flicking off the light, plunging me into darkness as she pulled the ladder up two feet.
“Wait,” I shouted, taking a few steps and looking up at her.
She smiled with a coldness I’d never seen before, not in anyone. “There you are... Why don’t you come up so we can have a proper conversation?”
I hesitated, but what choice did I have? “I can explain.” I put my foot on the first rung of the ladder, knowing she’d relish the tremble in my voice I hadn’t been able to hide.
“I’m sure you can. Let’s go to the house and talk things through with Ash.”
Ash was home? I sighed with relief. Although I knew how furious he’d be at my breaking in, at least I wasn’t alone with her. I climbed the ladder faster now, but when I reached the third rung from the top she pulled back and swung something in my direction, aiming straight for the side of my head.
Although I saw the piece of driftwood coming, I had no time to react, not even to put my hands up. My upper body was completely exposed as she brought the makeshift club down onto my skull. I cried out as I lost my grip on the ladder and fell. As I landed with a thud at the bottom, all the air left my lungs in a single whoosh. My head throbbed. My eyes went blurry. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Not even when Maya climbed down and stood over me.
“I warned you,” she said, taking my phone and keys from my pocket. “You should’ve listened. If you’d stayed in Brookmount, none of this would have happened.”
I wanted to get to my feet, but more of my vision faded, softening everything around the edges. As I heard her climb back upstairs, I held up a hand, silently begging her to come back, to not leave me down there. The last thing I saw was the ladder disappearing out of reach. I tried to scream, but only a small, pathetic sound made its way out of my mouth.
As the trapdoor slammed shut above me, enveloping me in complete darkness, the rest of my strength seeped from my body. Slipping closer and closer to unconsciousness, I had no choice but to stop fighting, and let it take me.
32
ASH
Now that we’d decided to travel to Brookmount, I wanted to leave first thing, but Maya had insisted I take her car to the garage in Falmouth for a long-overdue oil change while she packed and finished off two pieces for Drift. Ultimately, I decided I didn’t mind. We’d be spending the next two days in close quarters, and I could do with some time alone first.
I’d left the house a little before eight and it was almost nine thirty now as I sat in the waiting room of the garage, flicking through a shiny copy of a luxury car magazine, trying to distract myself. I stared at a picture of an Aston Martin, imagining a life in which I could afford that kind of vehicle, where I had no financial or other problems. It seemed so impossible, so vastly out of reach it was laughable. No way around it—my world was one giant clusterfuck.
“Mr. Bennett?” The receptionist who’d greeted me when I’d arrived stood in front of me, his arm outstretched, a phone clutched between his fingers. “I have a call for you.”
“Hello?” I said after he’d gone back behind his desk.
“It’s me,” Maya said. “How much longer will you be?”
“Not long, I think they’re almost done. Why?”
“Just wondering. I want to get going.”
After reassuring her I’d be there as soon as possible, I hung up and returned the phone to the receptionist. I tried to concentrate on the magazine again but felt a growing sense of unease as I thought about traveling to Brookmount. Would I recognize any of my things in the storage locker? Would a particular item help me remember anything? More importantly, what would the cops say when I walked into the station, very much alive? And what would I do if I saw Lily?
She was right; her lying about her name wasn’t the issue, I couldn’t be angry about that, or about her hiding a prior conviction. But stealing? Drugging me? I still couldn’t get my head around that last one. Why the hell had she wanted to keep my mind fuzzy? It didn’t make sense. Maybe she’d taken the pills herself, it was entirely possible, but then why not say so? Whatever her reasons, our relationship, both past and future, was over.
Lily and the trip to Brookmount weren’t the only things on my mind. Maya’s revelations about my fake alibi sat heavily in my stomach and I’d meant what I’d said—I couldn’t stay in Newdale with this knowledge. The place was slowly squeezing me dry, I had no future here. I’d broach the subject about selling the house with Maya again. It would make things easier for her, too. The place was heavy on old memories and upkeep, and her living there alone made little sense. She’d take some convincing to get rid of the house, and it wasn’t a conversation I relished, but I needed to get away. Find a job somewhere, move on with my life somehow, and not live with my sister. I needed to put some distance between me and her, too.
Something made me tune into the conversation the receptionist was having with a woman who’d just walked in. She was nodding furiously, leaning forward on the counter, her voice breathless. “It’s true,” she said, sounding as if she was proud to be the first one sharing some gossip. “They think it happened yesterday. He’d had a few drinks, and was working under his car when the scissor jack gave way...”
“Keenan’s dead?” the receptionist said, and the woman nodded. “That’s nuts. I saw him, what, three days ago? Came in for some parts to fix his car.”
I pretended to focus on the magazine again as I continued to listen to their exchange. First indications were Keenan had been trapped underneath his Subaru overnight, and someone had found him after looking in through the garage window. I shuddered as I wondered how long Keenan might have suffered. I hadn’t liked him, but that kind of death wasn’t something I wished on anyone, enemy or not. My next thoughts went to Fiona, and how she was coping with the news. She’d already lost Celine, now her brother was gone. Maybe Maya and I could stop in at the motel on our way to Brookmount and offer our condolences. It was the least we could do.
Ten minutes later and the car was ready. I paid the bill in cash—sorting out a bank account and credit card were still on my to-do list—and as I turned on the engine, I looked up at the car wash, something Maya’s grimy Pathfinder probably hadn’t seen in years. The inside of her car was full of empty sandwich and chocolate wrappers, coffee cups a
nd other discarded remains, all of which emitted a slightly offensive smell. While it hadn’t bothered me so far, the thought of being trapped inside a rubbish tip on wheels all the way to Brookmount and back held little appeal.
I headed to the car wash, bought a pass and eased into Neutral. Afterward, I parked by the vacuum cleaners, where I emptied all the loose crap before removing the floor mats and grabbing the hose, sucking up mountains of crumbs and sand. The final task was to clean underneath the seats, and when I slid the one on the passenger’s side back as far as it would go, I uncovered another slew of waste. As I picked everything up and dumped it in the bin, I spotted a notepad wedged next to the seat. Maya’s writing filled the pages, shopping and to-do lists, mainly, which were interspersed with sketches of driftwood art, some of which I’d seen in the garage and at the shop.
When I turned another page, taking in more of her scribbles, a series of pictures flashed in front of my eyes. They came thick and fast, and I had no control, couldn’t do anything to stop them. Wincing, I pressed the balls of my hands into my face, which did nothing to block the onslaught of images. In the first, Maya was crying, looking down at me as I crouched by something on the floor. Then it was me, shaking my head as I shouted, “We can’t. We can’t!” Blind panic came next, the memory of it making me want to vomit. And finally, I was looking over Maya’s shoulder as she wrote a note slowly, carefully, while I clutched a silver-and-amethyst necklace in my hand. Something I’d hidden where nobody would ever find it.
“No,” I whispered, my heart hammering as it found its way up my neck and into the back of my throat. “No. No. No.” This was more confabulation, another false memory, one my mind had conjured up, stitching my faulty knowledge and random fears into a sick movie. What I’d seen couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be.
I threw the vacuum hose out of the car. It took three attempts before my fingers obeyed my brain, and I fired up the engine. Time continued to work against me. Thick and suffocating, slow as treacle. A second stretched to a minute, a minute to a decade. Although I drove well over the speed limit, only slowing down as I passed Keenan’s house, where the driveway was filled with cop cars, it seemed to take a thousand years to get back to the house, where I abandoned the car in the driveway, rushed through the front door and bolted up the stairs.
You Will Remember Me Page 28