Erin’s expression falls flat.
Again, a wall of silence drops between the two women, but this time the reason feels more tangled, weighted down by unspoken words and unresolved issues. A wall bigger than both of them. A wall that neither knows how to break through.
“I—I guess I should go,” Erin says, voice wavering, hands stuffed in pockets.
Riley’s gaze darts around the room because she doesn’t know where to look.
Erin pulls a small gift box from her purse and says, “I almost forgot. Here.”
Riley opens the box. Inside is a delicate gold bracelet, and between the links sits an infinity symbol with SISTERS engraved on it. With mouth opened wide, she looks up at Erin.
A tenuous shrug. “It’s a welcome-home gift.”
“Erin, it’s absolutely beautiful.”
Now she feels guiltier.
“Thanks,” Riley says, putting on the bracelet and holding her focus there. “Things are just overwhelming for me right now. But I really do apprec—”
“It’s okay,” Erin says, but she looks injured. “One more thing. If you need anything around here, the office is downstairs off the lobby. Aileen Bailey is the manager.”
“Aileen Bailey. Got it.”
Midway through reaching for her car keys, Erin adds, “One word of caution about her. She’s a bit on the disagreeable side.”
“Meaning . . . ?”
“With all the news coverage and negative attention, she was undecided about renting to you. I talked her into it, but she made me promise there wouldn’t be any problems and you’d keep a low profile.”
In an effort to seem unfazed, Riley starts loading silverware from an opened box to the washer.
Erin takes reluctant steps toward the door. Halfway there, she looks back and says, “Be sure to lock up after I’m gone. Okay?” Her voice resonates with heedful warning, and Riley can’t determine if it’s prompted by the lousy neighborhood . . .
Or an angry public on the hunt for justice.
4
Riley’s lids flicker open, and it takes a few seconds for her mind to square with reality, to recognize that she no longer lives at Glendale, to become acclimated to the idea that this new apartment—in this rocky new world—is now home.
She’s not sure which is worse.
Then she looks at the ceiling sprinkler heads, rusted and dirty, and feels her affection lean an inch toward Glendale. It’s not that she loved her life there, but even the hospital was in better shape than this place.
The grass is always greener?
“Debatable,” she says to nobody at all while swinging her legs toward the bed’s edge. But if she’s going to be truthful, the lawn looks scrubby and brown on both sides of the fence.
From the medicine cabinet, she pulls down her meds, which Erin thoughtfully placed there. She studies the labels:
OLANZAPINE
TAKE TWO TABLETS BY MOUTH IN THE MORNING AND TWO IN THE EVENING.
LEXAPRO
TAKE ONE TABLET BY MOUTH IN THE MORNING AND ONE IN THE EVENING.
She shakes into her hand two round, white Olanzapine tablets and one of the round, white Lexapro tablets.
Depression with psychotic features. The diagnosis came shortly after Riley’s arrival at Glendale. But her life had been skidding off the rails for about five years before then, illogical thoughts and strange voices already in full swing. Looking back through the fissures of insanity, all she sees are splintered fragments of a life blown to pieces by tragedy. A life left forever in ruins.
After she steps into the shower, her thoughts drift to yesterday’s clumsy encounter with Erin. Neither mentioned the tragedy. Neither had to. Both felt the tension. Both knew where it came from—the thorny events that, through the years, have become harder to skirt.
Though Erin, in her late thirties, is Riley’s younger sister, she acts like the older one. It’s been this way since they were kids, one of those sibling role reversals that take root early on. By the time anyone notices, the dynamic is already hardwired and irreversible.
Growing up, Riley constantly found herself walking in Erin’s shadow. During grade school, she was the awkward one—a shy child who always stood somewhere along the fringes, who sat in the back of the class and chewed on her hair. The observer of life rather than the participant. The outsider, endlessly searching for a place to belong. And Erin was always the leader—the prettiest, the smartest, the most socially adept.
It went like this: Erin takes first place in the Franklin Elementary Art Show. Erin wins each event at her middle school’s track-and-field championship. Erin single-handedly captures both the homecoming and prom-queen titles. And, of course, Erin effortlessly secures her spot as the magna cum laude of her law school.
Riley got a paper route when she was twelve.
For a while, the distance between them grew and grew, most of it—okay, probably all of it—coming from Riley. Then adulthood came crashing in. Differences were settled. Blood became thicker than water. And she and Erin began to discover commonalities they’d never known existed. As a result, they experienced what—if there were a name for it—might be called a latent sisterly connection. They became closer than they’d ever been, and Erin reinvented herself as Riley’s advocate, her animal spirit of sorts.
It was all so lovely. Then Riley’s life capsized.
Today, their relationship is similar but more complex. Erin is a successful defense attorney, and Riley is the alleged wack job, the outcast, the suspected murderer.
During Erin’s first visit to Glendale, the staff had to make her leave after Riley’s hallucinations produced an explosive and violent outburst. After that, Erin stayed away for a while and returned once her sister became lucid, but the circumstances had driven an intractable wedge between them. It didn’t take long for Riley to wonder if Erin doubted her innocence. But she never asked, and Erin never offered to share her thoughts. With no memory of the murder, even Riley didn’t know what had happened. But she wasn’t so sure Erin believed that part, either, so the topic became off-limits.
This, she suspects, is how their relationship will always be: stuck with an immovable concrete divider between them.
Riley takes her morning shower, then puts on her bathrobe and treads to the kitchen coffee maker. After starting the machine, she begins to walk away, but her feet stop moving.
The front door is unlocked and slightly ajar.
She rushes to open it, looks up and down the hallway, but nobody is in sight. She closes the door, locks it, and goes straight to the bedroom—the only room she can’t see from her entryway. At the threshold, she comes to a shaky halt, and it takes several seconds for her mind to fully absorb what it sees. Then the blood drains from her face, and black dots dance before her eyes. Two words glare at her.
Ugly words.
Scratched into her bed’s headboard.
Vile enough to give her an appalling chill.
CHILD KILLER
5
Riley takes faltering steps toward the headboard, then runs an unsteady hand across the letters’ grooves.
They’re real.
And in that moment of awareness, the hairs on her arms flick up, allowing fear to surface.
Someone was here while I was taking my shower.
She checks the rest of her apartment, wondering how long the intruder lingered, violating her space. Back in the bedroom, her peripheral vision catches something lying on the floor, something shiny: a construction nail. She picks it up, presses the pointy tip into a deep indentation on the first letter. It’s a match, and her fear ratchets up.
The feeling doesn’t endure, because her mind goes into a fast flip. Fright changes to anger, which quickly morphs into determination. She puts on some clothes and, with the nail in hand, bounds out her door, then marches toward the apartment under repair.
She stomps in and scans the room. A box of nails lies on the counter next to the carpenter’s bag. After pulling one out, she
holds it next to the one from her apartment: another match. With the door open, anyone could have grabbed it. Her hands quake while she roots through the bag. She digs out a sheet of sandpaper, then she’s out of there.
CHILD KILLER. CHILD KILLER. CHILD KILLER.
The revolting words poke, prickle, and refuse to leave her.
Inside her apartment, she vigorously scours away at the writing. She wants to make it disappear. To take away the pain. To shake herself loose from this world that’s again trying to hijack her mind—not with insanity but with the poison of persecution and torment.
“YOU WON’T BEAT ME DOWN!” she shouts, berating the wood as if it’s to blame for all her problems, sanding harder, sanding faster. “YOU WILL NOT!”
Her arm is sore from rubbing, her breath is out of control, and tears roll down her cheeks, but none of that matters. She’s angry. This is personal. It’s taken too much to fight her way back, and there’s still more at stake. She won’t give in to the waspish harassment that has followed her into this hellhole. She’ll stay here as long as it takes to carry out her plan, and only then will she leave on her own terms.
About forty-five minutes later, her riot of agitation starts to settle. She examines the bare spots on her headboard, knowing they’ll endure as a constant reminder of the unvarnished truth that she’s at a disadvantage when it comes to defending herself.
She drops the sandpaper, walks to the bedroom window, and stares out at the new building across the way. Moving a finger along the glass, she traces the structure’s sleek outline, and her tears again start, but this time they’re different, no longer fueled by anger but by the ruins of frustration. Beds can be fixed, but her life? That’s another story. She wonders whether she’ll ever be able to fit her square-peg self into this round-holed world instead of constantly having to fake it.
6
Among the brazen artillery of thunder, Riley stares at her door and catalogs every squeak, rattle, and thud that travels through the apartment.
Figure this out . . . I have to figure this out.
Calling the police about this morning’s break-in isn’t an option. They’re the enemy. Asking Aileen to change the locks on her door isn’t an option, either—not after Erin’s warning about making waves. So, instead, she takes matters into her own hands, going with the easier to ask for forgiveness than permission plan.
She calls a locksmith.
A few hours later, she’s got a new lock in her door and a new set of keys in her hand. Hopefully, nobody will even notice.
She weaves through the labyrinth of cartons piled tall in the living room—full of belongings Erin packed and put into storage after Riley lost her house—then goes on a hunt for the one box she herself packed long before that. It’s marked Blue Bed Linens, a special code that only she understands, with special items inside. It takes some unstacking and restacking, but she finds the box, carries it into her bedroom, and rips the flaps apart. She looks inside, closes her eyes. She opens them. And a hybrid of nostalgia and sadness stirs within her.
With great care, she removes two piles of folded garments and places them on her bed. She separates the layers, pulls out a pair of faded blue jeans and a pink-and-white shirt. She holds them up side by side to the light and nods in approval, then lays them across the bed.
The rest will go into her closet until she picks a new ensemble to leave out for tomorrow.
7
Riley slips between the boxes and toward her living room window, then looks out through the rain-soused glass at the new building across from hers, which offers a stark contrast to this place. Modern and slick, the Pointe at Canyon Hill boasts sexy lines and glass, screaming loud and clear that Riley has been sequestered to a land different from that one. She studies the six-foot wrought iron fence that separates them, how the building stubbornly faces away toward the downtown skyline, practically insisting that it wants nothing to do with this place. She allows her gaze to linger for a few moments longer, then shifts her weight, crosses her arms, and lets out a pained sigh.
Abrupt movement from the new building draws her attention in time for her to see someone snatch a pair of drapes shut.
The phone rings.
She jumps.
Her racing pulse settles. Since nobody else has her landline number, it’s a good guess that Erin is checking on her.
“Hey, sis. What’s going—”
“Sorry, not your sis. Stacey Freelander, Channel Five News. We’d love to set up an interview. Will you be around to chat? Say, about one?”
“No.”
“When, then?”
“Never.”
She hangs up, and a new worry swoops in, one she hasn’t yet considered—this could be the first of numerous calls from the press. Then another concern: reporters may be camped out around her apartment. She considers the door for a moment, takes long steps toward it, and looks through the peephole. Nobody there, but they could be lurking somewhere out of view. She knows they won’t give up easily. In the years before being committed to Glendale, she put on quite the public freak show, and the press lapped it up like a pack of starved wolves. Before long, Riley Harper had become a household name for all the wrong reasons.
It doesn’t matter, she decides. She can’t let that keep her from leaving this apartment. She doesn’t want a repeat performance of the mess outside Glendale, but staying here would feel like being locked away all over again.
Get out. Stay strong. Trust your truth.
She has plans to make. Required appointments to schedule. She needs to fit in. Abide by the rules.
Grabbing her release papers from the kitchen table, she plucks off the business card fastened to them, then stares at the name.
PATRICIA LOCKWOOD, PSYCHOLOGIST.
She dials and sets up an appointment.
After taking a second shower to wash away the day’s stress, she gazes into the full-length mirror but doesn’t much love what looks back at her. There was a time—a long-ago time—when she finally felt comfortable in her own skin, but heartbreak stole those feelings away and in the process levied a physical toll.
It’s as if she blinked and everything went south.
She’s lost too much weight. Her eyes, once light brown with brilliant flecks of green, have faded. Her strawberry hair, once shimmering with blonde highlights, is accented only with streaks of gray. And her face . . . what a mess it’s become. Dark circles cradle her eyes, and she no longer needs to smile to see the laugh lines—they’re etched into her skin, harsh reminders of good times gone bad.
In the bathroom, she shakes her head in defeat after remembering that any makeup she had was left behind at the hospital. Out of hopefulness—or maybe blind desperation—she opens the top drawer and finds new packages of foundation, lipstick, and eyeliner.
Erin.
She applies the makeup, but even that can’t fix the damage caused by a life wasted, a life destroyed. Then a tear—the kind that expresses what words never could—rolls down her cheek.
8
Riley is making her way down the hall when, up ahead, an apartment door starts to open.
Groan.
She lurches back against the wall just as a lanky outstretched arm snakes its way across the floor, trying to grab a newspaper tossed several feet from the doorway. She guardedly paces closer. She lowers her gaze through the door’s narrow opening, and a pair of wide, panicky eyes peer up at her from behind a set of stringy blonde bangs. She slowly picks up the paper and extends it toward the woman, whose bony and poorly manicured fingers reach out and latch on to it.
Cousin Itt is my neighbor. Awesome.
Not that it surprises her—at this point there isn’t much that can.
She offers her neighbor an iffy smile. The woman does not return anything close to one; instead, she gives her a scalding up-and-down inspection.
“Thanks,” Cousin Itt allows, then pulls her paper through the narrow gap. “Now get the hell away!”
The d
oor bangs shut.
“Ingrate,” Riley says.
“Bitch,” she hears from behind the door.
The dead bolt snaps into its housing.
Riley goes storming down the hallway. She takes the dank stairwell to the lobby.
But trouble waits outside. As soon as she steps into the rain, a reporter perks up and runs toward her, his photographer trailing close behind.
Gaze fixed ahead, Riley keeps moving, but contempt chisels away at her patience. First, she lost her family, then these people transformed her tragedy into torment. Now here they are, trying to pick up where they left off.
“Ms. Harper!” he shouts. “Can we talk?”
Before he can speak another word, Riley pivots, aims a palm at the camera lens, and says, “No. We’re not doing this. We are not!”
The mechanized whir of the camera zooming in sends her nerves into a roaring buzz. She takes off, a line of sweat rolling down the center of her back, then stumbles forward into a trot. After gaining enough distance from the reporter, she bails around a corner, but in the process, Erin’s bracelet catches on the rough side of a light post and breaks from her wrist.
She hears feet advancing as she drops to the ground and scrambles to retrieve the broken pieces. She tries to pick herself up, but the wet sidewalk has other ideas. She falls, clambers to a stand, then takes off running again, her tears mixing with rain.
9
The cell phone store clerk scratches her temple while inspecting Riley’s driver’s license. The name tag on her blue-and-maroon company shirt says she’s Kristen L.
“Is there a problem?” Riley asks.
“You’ll need a current form of ID to establish an account with us,” Kristen L. informs her, then hands back the license. She flicks a restless glance toward the next person in line.
“I’m sorry . . . I . . .” Riley pushes a thatch of hair behind one ear and studies her ID, which appears to have lapsed while she was in Glendale. “I guess I didn’t realize it was expired.”
What She Doesn't Know: A Psychological Thriller Page 2