Elizabeth turned to her now, anger sparking in her eyes and burning her cheeks red. “Did she really do what they’re saying she did? Did my mother really kill all those people?”
Brett nodded. The girl had been lied to her entire life. It was about damn time someone told her the truth.
“And Zach? Was it because of me?” Here her voice trembled. “Did she kill him because of what he did to me?”
The simple answer was yes. Clara had killed Zach because of what he’d done, but it was also far more complicated than that, and Elizabeth certainly wasn’t to blame.
“Your mother made her own choices that had nothing to do with you,” Brett said. “You did the right thing coming forward after what happened to you at the party. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”
Elizabeth bit her lip and stared down at her feet.
Brett continued, “I know this is a lot for you to take in, and it’s going to be a long time, I think, before you start to feel anything resembling normal again. But you will, I promise you that. You might be all kinds of broken right now, but give it time, and it’ll start to hurt less. You’ll find a way to live with this. You’ll find a way to move on. And Elizabeth. Elizabeth, look at me.”
She lifted her head.
“Anytime you need to talk. Anytime you have questions, or just need someone to scream at, or someone to be silent with. I’m here. I want you to know that, okay? You’re not alone.” She brushed her fingers across the back of Elizabeth’s arm.
Elizabeth recoiled from her and cast her gaze across the churning sea. “She’s a good swimmer, you know. She’s been swimming her whole life.”
“The water’s cold,” Brett said. “Even a strong swimmer would have trouble.”
“So, you think she’s dead?” There was no tremble in her voice now, and she didn’t wait for Brett’s answer. Her words were sharp-edged when she said, “I hope she is.”
Brett said nothing, allowing the silence to swell between them. Down on the water, seagulls bobbed on white-capped waves, their silhouettes stark against the copper horizon.
“Do you know what’s going to happen with my dad?” Elizabeth asked. “Every time I ask my grandparents, they tell me not to worry about it. That he’ll be home soon.”
“His attorney is working with the prosecutor on a plea deal,” Brett told her. “They’re charging him with false imprisonment and accessory after the fact. If he continues to cooperate, he might only have to pay a fine and serve probation for a few months. But you should prepare yourself for the possibility that he might have to serve some prison time.”
Elizabeth shook her head hard like she was trying to shake out every painful feeling swirling inside her. She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again, wrapped her arms around her chest, holding herself together. “She made him do all that. He would have never done it by himself, you know. He was trying to protect me from her.”
“He might have been trying to protect you, but he still has free will. He made his own choices too,” Brett pointed out. “He knew what the consequences could be.”
The muscle in Elizabeth’s jaw tensed. “Do you really think he knew? About what she’d done? Do you think he knew this whole time what she was capable of?”
“He says he didn’t.”
“But how could he not have known?”
“Did you know?”
A shuddering breath, a gulp, and then she shook her head. “She was just, she was my mom, you know? That’s it. She was overprotective sometimes and got mad at me when I left the toothpaste cap off and did this annoying thing where she would hum whenever she was at a red light. But she was my mom. She took care of me. She loved me. I think. I mean, she must have. But I don’t…How could she do what she did?” Elizabeth turned tearful eyes onto Brett. “Is it that easy? To kill another person?”
Brett wanted to tell her that killing was the hardest thing in the world, that taking another person’s life changed you irreparably, that Clara had been broken in a way most people weren’t. But she knew that wasn’t the entire truth. Every person was capable, everyone a flicker of uncontrolled rage away from taking another’s life. Given the chance, Brett would have killed Clara without hesitation if doing so meant Margot got to live.
“I don’t want to end up like her.” Elizabeth tossed the words toward the ocean like a prayer.
“You won’t,” Brett tried to sound reassuring.
Elizabeth clutched her hand against the base of her sternum for a moment, with her fingers curled in a fist like she was holding something precious. She turned toward Brett again, a haunted look in her eyes.
“I thought about it, too. About hurting Zach. About taking a knife and…” She sucked in a sharp breath, pinched her lips together a moment before finishing. “How does that make me any different from her?”
Without waiting for an answer, Elizabeth spun away and marched down the hill. Brett let her go.
Amma’s house—her house now, too, Brett realized—glowed invitingly at the bottom of the hill. Brett knew when she finally went back inside, there would be a hot bowl of soup and a cozy pair of socks waiting for her. And later, Pistol would curl up beside her in bed with a tiny sigh of contentment, and she would burrow beneath the covers until sleep overtook her. And in the morning, the sun would rise, and she would rise with it. But for now, she stayed on the hill, gazing out across the smudged aluminum of Sculpin Bay.
The shadows lengthened as the sun dipped low, and the sky bruised purple. Waves tumbled rocks one over another as the tide tried to devour the land. A few minutes passed, and then the moon appeared high above her, stitching a slender silver thread over an ocean that never stilled. Her breath made white puffs in the dark.
There had been a moment in the water when Brett thought she had found Clara. She heard a splash and lunged toward the sound, but her hands grasped nothing. She felt something brush against her leg, but when she turned, she found herself alone in the cold and endless dark, on the verge of drowning. Then Irving pulled her to safety.
There was a slim chance that Clara had gotten away. That she swam to some shadowed beach, pulled herself from the water, and disappeared into the night. Even now, she could be in a new town, with a new name, building herself a new life.
But Brett had been in the water that night, too. She’d felt for herself the power of the tide, the ravenous way it pulled you under, and she knew in her heart that Clara Trudeau was lost to the deep. Only the ocean could tell her secrets now.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I couldn’t do any of this without support from readers like you. Knowing you’re excited about reading my books, keeps me excited about writing them. Thank you for loving books as much as I do!
Special thanks are also owed to the following people:
Alisa Callos: who suggested the beach house writing retreat where the seed for this book was planted, who also reads many of my messy drafts and is excellent at double-checking the nitty-gritty details I often overlook.
Caroline Starr Rose: who lets me emote all over her and then kindly reminds me to keep going, whose gentle nudges and daily check-ins keep me grounded and optimistic.
Carrie La Seur: who came in late to the game but whose insightful feedback changed everything.
Julia Kenny: who helped shape this book from the beginning and gave me her blessing when I decided to blaze my own trail for a while.
Nathan Andress: who lent me his name and promised not to get mad.
Caitlin Doughty: who got me out of the house when I thought I’d be stuck in a rut forever and continues to be there for me whenever I’m starting to freak out.
My sweet friends and family who are constantly telling me not to be so hard on myself. Thank you for cheering me on with the big and small stuff—I would probably quit if not for your voices in my head.
Finally, kisses and unflagging devotion to Ryan, a man who continues to prove himself to be my biggest fan. He
is the reason I have space and time to create. He is also the reason I don’t starve. More than that, he is the reason this book exists as something other than a file on my computer. Because when I thought I was done, he took my hand and said, What have we got to lose? Thank you for being willing to step out into the unknown with me.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Valerie Geary is the author of Everything We Lost and Crooked River, a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband where they enjoy hiking favorite trails and discovering new ones together.
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