“But . . . ?”
She sighed. “But, I don’t know. I mean, we’re supposed to believe that Lily just happened to go to the clearing, alone? Do you remember her ever doing that?”
He watched her steadily. “No.”
“And then Spencer just happens to come along? On a walk, when he lived all the way over on the south end of town? His habits were so rigid—he was at the gym every morning before work, and then home every night. Remember we used to make fun of him about that? And there’s also the problem of her things. The backpack and clothes. Spencer never mentioned them, and there’s no reason Lily wouldn’t have had them with her.”
“Yeah. The out-for-a-walk thing doesn’t really ring true, especially since she’d already been out once that day, with me, and I dropped her back in town. So what are you saying—he kidnapped her and took her there? Asked her to meet? Either way it’s premeditated. Although, at this point, how much does it matter? He confessed to killing both of them and they’ve got premeditation on Lawrence—how much worse could his sentence be?”
“It’s not that. It’s just . . . I don’t know, his whole story doesn’t ring right for me. I mean . . . I’ve been thinking about how little attention I paid to Lily that summer. I was so focused on the future”—our future, she didn’t say—“and she was such a pain to be around. She’d been sick so much that year, which by the way is another reason she wouldn’t have gone there alone, she said it made her skin worse—”
“Wait,” Jake said. “Whatever happened with that, anyway? Wasn’t your mom taking her to a shrink or something?”
“She took her a couple of times, but it didn’t amount to anything. Mom thought the rashes were psychosomatic, but the psychologist suggested we just go along and treat them with over-the-counter medication rather than confronting her about it. They thought that way she could work through what was really bothering her on her own.”
“Which was what?”
“I don’t know, growing pains? Hormones? Typical teen angst? Dad thought the whole thing was ridiculous. He always accused Mom of indulging Lily, and they both seemed to think that she’d grow out of it. I remember that’s what they said to me one time when she was out with Tom—‘Go easy on her, Virginia, she’ll grow out of it.’” Go easy on her, the perpetual refrain where Lily was concerned. “I remember it pissed me off, that she got a pass for all her outrageous behavior while they still had a fit if I so much as talked back.”
“She was kind of a bitch that summer.”
“Jake . . . was there anything else you talked about that day? Anything you might have forgotten?”
He took a sip from his wine. His own food was going cold, too. “You know, I was so angry at you and everyone else, I swore I’d never tell. Typical reckless adolescent behavior—I remember telling Dad I’d rather rot in jail than cave to small minds. You know what he told me?”
“No . . .”
“He said my principles wouldn’t be much comfort when I was desperate for a smoke, a steak, or a woman. Except he didn’t say ‘woman,’ he used, ah, another word.”
“Oh . . .” Gin felt a blush creeping across her face.
“Yeah. Made quite an impression on me.” He laughed without humor. “Looking back, I guess that’s one of those times a mom might have come in handy. Look, I’m only telling you this to explain why I retreated so far for so long.”
He reached for her hand. His touch was electric, irresistible. She looked into his eyes, into the sadness that seemed permanently lodged there. “I was wrong. About just about everything. I mean, my dad could probably have expressed himself better, but my lone-wolf tendencies squashed my, uh, emotional development for a long time. Listen, I’m not much for looking back . . . but I’m sorry, Gin.”
“But . . .” she whispered. It had all been her fault. It sickened her to think of how she’d blamed him.
He let go of her hand gently, and carried their untouched plates into the kitchen. With his back turned to her, he said, “Maybe sometime we can finish forgiving each other and blaming ourselves, but I guess I should answer your question.”
He came back with the bottle and topped off both their glasses. “You want to know what Lily and I talked about? Well, first of all, it didn’t happen nearly as often as you think. Most of the time she just wanted a ride to the Parkers’, or to meet Christine at the mall.”
“You were the only one with a car,” Gin remembered.
“Yeah.” Jake looked bemused. “Part of Spencer’s whole effort to build Tom’s character. Too little, too late. Anyway, I gave in about half the time, mostly because she was your kid sister and I was—well, you know. Whipped.” A flash of that deadly grin, the one that could loosen her moorings. “She talked about, let’s see, in order: how much of a bitch your mom was, how stupid your dad was, what a bitch you were, how she couldn’t wait to get out of this town, how if she’d grown up anywhere else she’d already be an actress-slash-poet-slash-performance-artist-slash-whatever she’d fixated on that week.”
Gin couldn’t help it—a little laugh bubbled out. “Oh my God! She really was such a drama queen, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah, but you just couldn’t stay mad at her for long. And she usually ended up redeeming herself right before I dropped her off. Saying stuff like, ‘Be nice to my sister or I’ll cut your balls off.’ Sweet nothings like that.”
Tears pricked Gin’s eyes through her smile. “God, I miss her. Still.”
“I know.”
“I wish I’d tried harder to spend time with her that summer, instead of Christine. The two of them were like best friends, and I . . .”
Christine. Best friends.
“Oh no.”
Jake looked at her quizzically. “What?”
“It’s just—” Her mind tumbled, seemingly insignificant details lining up in new patterns, a devastating shape beginning to emerge. “It’s probably nothing, but—I need to go.”
“Gin, wait. Tell me what’s going on.”
“No, it’s probably crazy. I just need . . . I’ll call you as soon as I figure this out.”
“I’m coming with you,” he said, scooping his keys off the table by the door.
35
Olive answered the door, her hair in a ponytail, bright pink new rubber bands on her braces flashing in her smile when she saw it was Gin and Jake. “I made cookies,” she said, opening the door wide. “Chocolate chip. I mean they’re just the refrigerator kind, but they’re pretty good. Want some? Austen’s at his friend’s house or he would have eaten them all already. You’re here to see Mom? She should be back soon, she just went to pick Uncle Tom up from the hospital. He’s going to stay with us for a while. But that was, like, hours ago, want me to call her?”
The girl’s run-on exuberant speech reminded Gin so much of Lily that for a moment she had to catch her breath before she could speak.
“No, it’s fine, I’m happy to wait,” she said, feeling guilty for misleading Olive. “That’ll give us a little time to catch up.”
“By the way, look!” she said, tugging at the necklace Gin had given her. “I get so many compliments, I love it so much. Did I tell you I’m trying out for advanced drama?”
She led the way to the kitchen, but Gin had noticed something. Her forearms were pocked and speckled with an angry pink rash.
“Olive,” she said, keeping her tone light, as she accepted one of the warm, gooey cookies. “Has your rash been getting any better?”
“Oh, yeah, it doesn’t itch near as much. I got this stuff from the doctor. I have to put it on twice a day.”
The front door opened and Christine came striding into the kitchen, Tom tottering along after her, carrying a duffle bag and looking pale and weak and as though he’d lost twenty pounds in the past week.
“Gin?” Christine said. “I saw your car out front. What on earth are you doing here?”
Olive looked from Gin to her mother and back, confusion registering on her face.
&nbs
p; Gin couldn’t look at her. “Oh, I just thought I’d stop by and—”
“Olive, don’t you have homework?” Christine didn’t take her eyes off Gin. She clutched her purse strap hard.
“Hey, Gin, Jake,” Tom said, smiling weakly. “I’ll just take my stuff to the guest room and—”
“Stay here.” Christine’s voice had gone shrill. “Olive, to your room please, now.”
“But Mom—”
Christine reached for Olive’s jacket—at least, that’s what Gin told herself was happening. Calm, tightly controlled Christine, unflappable even as a teenager, would never do what happened next: Olive went staggering backward, crashing into the table, glancing off the edge and sitting down in the chair with an audible “oof,” a look of shock and disbelief on her face.
But Christine turned away from her and advanced on Gin. “You have no right, you can’t be here,” she snapped.
Jake tried to step between them but Christine shoved savagely at him, deflecting his arm. “Calm down,” he said. “Come on, Christine, you have to—”
“Do you have any idea what I’m going through here?” Christine demanded. “Not just dealing with Tom but trying to keep the kids from having to hear it on the news? About their own grandfather?”
“What the fuck is going on, Chrissy?” Tom said weakly, leaning against the counter.
“No. No. Just go. Tom just got out of the hospital and I have to, I have to—”
“You knew,” Gin said. There had to be a right way to do this, but the truth was lodged in her chest like a stone. “You knew all along.”
“What are you talking about?” Tom repeated. He really didn’t look good at all.
“Fabry disease. It happens when there’s a faulty gene in the X-chromosome. It’s what caused your rash,” she said gently to Olive.
“I know, the doctor told me. My stomach aches, too. My body can’t make an enzyme, so I have to have shots.” She grimaced. “They suck.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine with treatment. My sister Lily had it, too.”
Olive looked confused. “Are you sure? It’s super rare. I mean the odds of it being both in my family and yours are really low, like one in a million or something.”
“You had it,” Gin said to Christine. “When we were middle school. Remember? You wouldn’t wear shorts when it was bad. But you told me it was allergies.”
“It was a really mild case,” Christine said defensively. “Daddy thought it was mono, even though your father told him it wasn’t. My dad took me to a specialist and she monitored it the whole time I was in school. I hated the way she called it a disease, it made me feel like a freak, and I begged Daddy not to tell anyone.”
“But when Lily got that rash . . .”
“Olive. I mean it,” Christine said, her voice suddenly deadly calm. “Go to your room right this second. You can watch Netflix on your iPad.”
Olive’s eyes widened—whether because the rules were being unexpectedly relaxed or because of her mother’s behavior, Gin wasn’t sure. She backed out of the room with her trembling lower lip making a final mute plea. Seconds later they heard her door close.
“I knew what it probably was,” Christine said quietly, tears spilling from her eyes and forming rivulets down her face that she didn’t bother to brush away. Tom looked from her to Gin in confusion. “I mean, I knew what it meant. That Lily and I were related. That we had the same father.”
“Oh, fuck,” Tom murmured.
“You figured out that your father had an affair with my mother.” Gin forced the words out, barely able to stomach the thought. “She was taking care of all three of us when your family moved here. Our dads were at the surgery center night and day, to hear her talk about it, but I remember sometimes your dad came to get you guys when mine was still at work.”
“Of all the women in this town.” Spittle flew from Christine’s mouth; her hair had come unclasped from her barrette and hung wildly around her face. “Dad could have dated any of them and he chose her.”
“Yeah, well, if it makes you feel any better, he never knew he was Lily’s father,” Gin said, turning to Tom. “That was why Mom was so against you dating her, Tom. She was actually your half sister.”
“Shit. No.” Tom staggered heavily against the counter. “Jesus, that means that her baby . . .”
Christine whirled around to face him. “That’s why I did what I did! God, it was so . . . disgusting. I didn’t want you to have to know.”
“So you murdered her?” Jake asked.
“I didn’t—it wasn’t like that!” Christine pleaded. “I never meant to hurt her!”
“Then tell us what did happen,” Gin said. “You know, it’s really been bothering me that Lily didn’t tell anyone she was pregnant. But she obviously told you.”
“She refused to get an abortion,” Christine said. “I told her I’d find the money. I said that you’d drive her, Jake, if she asked. I told her no one else would have to know, and she said she didn’t care, that she knew Tom would stand by her. She swore she’d never been with anyone else. I just couldn’t—couldn’t bring myself to tell her who he was. Her . . . her brother. It made me just—just so sick. I told her to meet me at the clearing so we could plan how to tell everyone, but really I was going to try to talk her into the abortion one more time. I even went to your house and got her a change of clothes. I had the bus schedule figured out and everything, there was a clinic up in Pittsburgh where we could have gotten it done and I had enough money to pay for a motel so she could recover. By the time we came back it would have been all over and we would have made up some story . . . we would have gotten in trouble, but at least it would have been taken care of.”
“But she refused to go along with it,” Gin guessed.
“Before I could even tell her my plan, she started telling me she’d already picked out names, that she wanted to tell Tom that Saturday, she was going to take him out to dinner, she was going to use her babysitting money to pay for it. She was—she was just delusional. She wouldn’t listen to me. And I could see that nothing was going to change her mind. So I—I stopped her.”
She turned to Tom, reached pleadingly for his hands. “I did it for you,” she said. “You and Dad. If people had found out—can you imagine what they would have said? Not to mention the risks to the baby. It could have been some sort of genetic freak, I felt like I was doing everyone a favor.”
“How did you kill her, Christine?” Jake’s voice was calm, but Gin noticed that he was edging toward the table, putting his body between Christine and her.
Christine looked almost disappointed in him. “It was just a rock,” she muttered. “Not even a very big one. Just the first one I could find. I held it with both hands and I—it caught her mostly in the back of the skull. It didn’t even mess up her face. And she just fell down, you know? She didn’t say anything, I don’t think it even hurt. I don’t think she ever knew.”
Lily. Grief emanated from deep within Gin, spreading through her body. But she couldn’t let go entirely, not yet.
“And the cooler,” Jake pressed. “Had you planned on that?”
“No. No. After, you know, it happened, I was so upset. I went home and I was crying, I could barely talk, and Tom wasn’t there, you were with your stupid friends, Tom, God—and I ended up telling Dad everything, I thought he would make me tell the police, but he didn’t. He said he would fix it. He said he would take care of it.”
The shovel. The hole he’d dug. Dragging the cooler by himself. Everything Spencer had told Gin in the bar was true—except for how Lily had died.
“He was covering for you,” Gin said, putting it all together.
“He told me that we had to keep it secret forever,” Christine said. “He said it was best for everyone. He said it was the only way.”
Christine reached in her purse for tissues, and Gin dug out her phone. It was time to end this. Time to call for help.
“Put that away, Gin.” Christine
’s voice was suddenly clear—and her hands were wrapped around a little gun she’d taken from her purse. “You know what, I knew you were going to be trouble. I’ve been carrying this ever since you came back to town.”
“What are you going to do, Christine?” Gin demanded. “You can’t possibly kill all of us. There aren’t enough coolers in this whole town.”
“Not all of you. Just you and Jake. I mean, it’s kind of a nice ending, don’t you think? The two of you, back together at last. And when you go missing, it’ll make a nice epilogue to the whole Lily story. Kind of poetic. And everyone will just think you ran off to start a new life.” She stared Gin straight in the eye. “Just like last time. Only this time, you get to keep the guy. Much better, don’t you agree?”
She swiveled and pulled the trigger. To Gin, it almost seemed like Jake staggered backward before the shot echoed through the room. A trick of perception, the speed of sound. She was on the floor with him before she realized that the screaming she heard was her own.
“Call nine-one-one, Tom,” she pleaded. She could see that the bullet had entered Jake’s shoulder; his face was already going pale.
“Oh, you’re not going to have time for that,” Christine said in a voice that was almost bored, as she crouched down next to Gin and pressed the gun up against her head. Gin could feel the metal, hot from the first shot, pressing against her temple. “Let’s see if we can make a little less mess with this one, shall we?”
And then she fell sideways, the gun clattering to the floor.
Gin looked up to see Tom standing above her, holding the heavy wooden knife block that he’d struck her with. Some of the knives were still lodged in their slots. “Oh,” he said, sinking to his knees. They both looked at Christine: her hair was matted with blood, and a thin, bright white shard of bone was visible. A voice in Gin’s mind, the voice of a thousand autopsies, was automatically running, documenting the damage, the negligible chances of her survival.
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