by Lili Evans
“In his brand new BMW,” William shook his head.
“I’ve never been more scared of destroying something in my life.”
“I know.”
“But the point is that I turned out okay,” Nadia blew out a breath. “And I’m still here.”
“So we did something right.”
Nadia leaned over to kiss his cheek. “It’s a wonderful party.”
“Yes it is,” William glanced around. “And you should be with young people now. You’re free. Go drink and smoke and be reckless.”
She laughed. “I’ll take that offer.”
“I’ll see you later.”
“Yes, you will.” Without a backward glance she crossed the patio to her mother and waited for her to finish her conversation with her sister. “Great speech Mom,” she said when Vivien turned away.
“Thanks,” her mother accepted the hug that Nadia offered.
“Dad says I’m free to go. I won’t be late.”
“Okay,” Vivian met her daughter’s eyes as they parted. “I don’t have to tell you to be careful.”
“No,” Nadia agreed. “I haven’t had much to drink.”
“Then I’ll see you later,” Vivien unknowingly echoed her husband’s words.
“Yes, you will,” Nadia repeated and turned away.
Later, she would think it terrible that her last conversation with each of them had been so casual. When she played both conversations back in her mind, Nadia wished she had have stayed. She wished she had have looked back, just once, over her shoulder as she left, to see them one last time. She wished she had have told them that she loved them. But she had done none of those things.
Instead, she met the man she told her mother about for a drink. After a late meal at a nearby restaurant she found herself enjoying a romantic stroll with him in a nearby park. She found him attractive, Nadia considered, but that was all. She thought of her mother’s warning and pushed it away. She wanted to have sex with him, she wanted to do it tonight, but she thought she wouldn’t see him again. Their relationship was a superficial one and Nadia was realistic enough to realize that.
She lay under him, rolling over the soft grass as trees towered over them. When it was over she felt resigned. She was glad she had done it but disappointed. Her relationships never lasted and this was merely another one that never began.
“I’ll give you a lift back to the restaurant,” he told her as they dressed.
“Okay.”
“You left your car there.”
“I did.”
What else was there to say? Nadia wondered. He appeared to sense that it was goodbye when she climbed out of the car. Alone in the parking lot she watched him drive away.
The sound of sirens, so many sirens, cut through the quiet as she made the drive home, passed the park, passed the woods, and through the side streets. When she got home she thought she’d check the news, curious about what might have happened. Then, if her mother was still awake, she thought she’d tell her that she had been right about love and sex.
While she had harbored few expectations for the man in the park, she felt unsettled for not wanting to see him again. He must have felt the same, she realized, because he didn’t seem to expect a relationship either. Shouldn’t she have wanted one? Nadia worried. This was becoming a regular habit of hers: physical attraction that went no further that a one night stand, and it bothered her. This was the kind of conversation for an older sister, Nadia thought bitterly. But then, she didn’t have any of those anymore.
She turned onto her street and stopped abruptly. The road ahead was blocked by an emergency crew with flashing lights. Police officers stood in clusters talking with paramedics. There were two fire trucks, three ambulances, a chief ambulance, and five police cruisers, Nadia calculated with horror. Not knowing what to do, unable to think clearly, she simply got out of the car and walked toward her house. The car was still running in the middle of the street but Nadia didn’t notice.
Why were there so many ambulances?
The party was over. The house looked too quiet. There were hardly any cars. Her chest began to tighten and she felt the air being drained out of her. The closer she walked the harder it became to breathe.
The emergency crew stood around, as if waiting for orders, or something to do. They were in no hurry. Which, to Nadia, seemed a very bad sign.
Someone’s dead.
It was too familiar, too indicative of what she had been through before. She didn’t want to believe it. She didn’t want to let her thoughts go there, but deep down she knew it was true.
“Excuse me, Miss,” the police officer stopped her.
“I live here,” Nadia could barely get the words out.
“You do? What’s your name?” he asked.
“Nadia. Nadia Halingsford. I live here.”
“Nadia, I’m Detective Delaney. We’ve had a bit of a situation here tonight,” he took her by the arm and led her toward the side of the road. Dazed, Nadia let herself be pulled to sit on the curb.
“What’s happened? My family,” she was unable to finish the sentence.
“We’re not sure what’s happened,” Delaney replied frankly. “I’m going to tell you what I know and then maybe you can help me fill in the blanks.”
“Okay,” Nadia stared at him.
“We received a call that two shots had been fired. A neighbor called it in. A few moments later a guest at the party that was going on here also called it in.”
“Shots?” Nadia asked blankly. “Like gunshots?”
“Yes, gunshots,” Delaney told her, his voice deliberately softening. “Nadia when we arrived at the scene we found both of your parents. They were dead.”
“Dead,” Nadia repeated.
“Yes, both of them.”
“Dead,” Nadia repeated again. She was unable to process the rest.
“Yes,” Delaney confirmed. “Can I get you something? Call anyone to be with you?”
“There’s no one,” Nadia continued to stare at him blankly. “My brothers and sisters left years ago. It’s just me. I stayed.”
“I’ll have to get their names from you and ask you some questions. I’ll give you a few minutes first, to digest what I’ve told you.”
“It will take more than a few minutes for me to do that,” Nadia told him slowly. Her brain felt as if it were about to overheat it was working so hard, so fast, to absorb this information.
My parents are dead. That must have ruined the party.
She didn’t know where it came from. It was a morbid, horrible thought, and so unlike her that she flinched, worried someone had heard her. But nobody around her looked horrified. Everyone looked like they were waiting for something, a task to do maybe, or some kind of direction.
Dad turned sixty today. He died on his birthday.
She put her head between her knees and tried to breathe slowly. She could hear the detective speaking to her but she wasn’t paying attention to what he was saying. Her thoughts were louder, faster, and drowned the rest out.
The neighbor across the street had crossed to talk to the ones who lived next door to Nadia’s family. Nadia watched them gossip, share information, and gesture as they stood in the middle of the street. She could feel their stares as if their eyes burned holes into her head. They always gossiped at the times when you needed them most. Instead of coming over, asking if maybe they could help her, they would stand there and speculate. People didn’t change. People didn’t care.
I need someone to tell me what to do. What would Mom and Dad do?
And she knew. She knew what she had to do and how it needed to be done. She had to get through this, now, and on her own. She could think about the rest, the details, later. But right now she had to be stoic and strong like her mother, and practical and smart like her father. There was no one to hold her hand. Nadia had only herself.
“How did they die?” Nadia stood needing to be on her feet to hear the answer.
�
��Your mother was shot twice. Your father appears to have died from natural causes. We’ll need to do autopsies to be sure.”
“Natural causes?” Nadia asked wanting clarification.
“Possibly a heart attack or a stroke.”
“He wasn’t shot?”
“No.”
“Where were they?” Nadia made herself ask the question. Once she had the answer she knew she would be able to visualize their deaths. She didn’t want to do that but she had to know.
“In the library. There were about two hundred people in the back garden.”
“It was my father’s birthday party,” Nadia replied distantly. “He turned sixty today.”
“Were your siblings at the party?” Delaney asked her.
“No, they’re estranged,” Nadia told him. “We haven’t heard from them in years.”
“Are you sure?” Delaney pressed.
“Yes. Why?” Nadia made herself look him in the eye.
“Nadia, this is a homicide. It might be a murder-suicide. We can’t rule anything or anyone out.”
“Oh,” Nadia didn’t know what else to say. The noises seemed to get louder and louder in her ears. The streetlights got brighter. The neighbors all seemed to be watching her, waiting to see what she would do.
It’s like Dani’s murder. It’s happening again.
She walked away from Delaney, up the driveway, and onto the lawn, hidden from the neighbors. She heard him follow her and knew he wasn’t far behind.
“It’s a crime scene, Nadia,” Delaney told her gently. “You can’t go inside.”
“I know,” she fought to regain her composure. This couldn’t be happening to her. This was all wrong. She turned to face the house, the home she had loved, with all its memories, good and bad.
It’s a crime scene.
“I’d like to bring you to the station so I can ask you a few questions,” Delaney told her. “We have coffee there. Soft drinks. I can help you book a hotel for the night. I can get someone to take you there.”
Nadia only nodded. She continued to stare at the house in front of her. Everything seemed different now. She wasn’t sure how she was going to get through this.
“Are they still in there?” she whispered.
“Yes,” Delaney put a bracing hand on her arm. “They were identified at the party by guests. Now we’re just waiting on the coroner.”
“Why?”
“To place the time of death,” Delaney explained calmly. “And to take them away.”
“Take them where?” she looked at him now, panicked, and stepped away.
“To the morgue, Nadia,” Delaney told her. “Then we’ll do the autopsy.”
“And then?”
“Then they’ll be released to you. You and your family will make their arrangements.”
Nadia blinked back the tears and fought hard against the emotion rising in her throat. She wanted to throw herself on the ground, clawing and screaming, but knew that she couldn’t. She wanted to wail that they couldn’t really be dead, that her mother couldn’t possibly have been shot, but she couldn’t allow herself to truly think about it. She knew if she did, then any shred of control, of dignity or pride, would be sacrificed. It would have to wait.
“Ready to go, Nadia?” Delaney took a step in her direction.
“Yes, let’s go,” Nadia told him briskly. Then she turned and sunk to her hands and knees. The grass was damp from the sprinkler system. It smeared onto her hands and knees as she held herself upright, fighting against the nausea. None of it mattered.
Maybe nothing would ever matter again.
Chapter Three
The house was finally quiet and Dylan could sit and think. He and his wife hadn’t spoken any more about having another child, which was just as well, because Dylan didn’t know what he would have said. After dinner, Meg had cleaned up the kitchen while Dylan watered the garden. She had gone to bed early to read, and by the time Dylan joined her, she was asleep. He had stripped down to his boxers and crawled into bed, hoping the exhaustion of another busy day would knock him out. But his mind wouldn’t shut off. The past kept pushing to the front of his consciousness, demanding that he go back to that time. To that night.
When everything changed. When she died.
Dylan couldn’t ignore it. The more he tried, the guiltier he felt for not letting himself go back there. He finally got up, knowing there was no point in trying to sleep. He had too much on his mind and knew that he had to acknowledge it, consider it, before he could move beyond it. That was the type of person he was. He was sensitive, analytical, and slightly obsessive. He couldn’t just focus on the big picture, that had never worked for him.
Meg had picked a hell of a time to tell him that she wanted to have a baby, he thought. Of course, she didn’t know enough of the facts to know otherwise. Which was his fault, Dylan reminded himself. If he’d been honest with her from the beginning then none of this would be an issue. Or at the very least he could have talked it over with her. He had lied to her about his family. He had told her he didn’t have one. Now, because he had done so, he couldn’t use them as an excuse not to have a child.
Was it normal, he wondered, to be this restless five years later? If his family had remained intact, if he hadn’t lied about it, if his sister hadn’t died, would any of that make the memory hurt less? If there were fewer factors and less damage would this be just another day?
In the kitchen he lit a candle and sat in the dark. He didn’t dare turn on the lights in case he woke Meg.
He got up, agitated, and retrieved his bottle of whiskey from the top of the cabinet. The moon, huge and bright, caught his attention through the kitchen window. He remembered sitting out by the pool at night, watching it, studying it, marveling that everyone else all over the world was looking at the very same moon. It used to bring him comfort when things at home were bad. Now it made him sad and old and alone.
He had never told Meg the truth about his dysfunctional family. At the beginning of their relationship he had reasoned that the truth would ruin what they had. She was a family-oriented person. She never would have been able to accept that he had no desire to make things work with his own family. She would never have understood that there are things in life a family cannot survive.
He didn’t blame her for it. Her upbringing had been remarkably different from his own. Her family had supported and nurtured her. The lifestyle she was born into had affected her personality. There was nothing wrong with it. Like his analytical and obsessive traits, her views on family were simply who she was.
He poured the whiskey over ice and sipped it, hoping to calm his nerves. The problem with keeping information from someone in the early stages of a relationship was that if you played your cards right, and things worked out, you’d lied. You could never go back and amend that mistake without admitting you’d lied. And in most cases, like this one, Dylan thought, the lie became bigger and worse than the truth.
And the truth was pretty fucking bad.
The phone rang then, suddenly, jarring Dylan from his thoughts. He grabbed for it, afraid it would wake Meg, but also afraid something might be wrong. It was nearly midnight.
“Hello?” His voice sounded anxious even to him.
“Dylan?”
“Yes, who is this?” Dylan stood from his chair and began to pace the worn kitchen tiles.
“It’s Nadia,” her voice became shrill. “Dylan, please don’t hang up!”
“I won’t,” he didn’t know what to say.
“I’m sorry to call so late but I had to. Something’s happened.”
“I was awake,” Dylan said after a pause. “My wife is asleep. I don’t think you woke her.”
“Good,” Nadia took a deep breath. Dylan could hear it through the phone. “You know I wouldn’t bother you if it wasn’t important.”
“I didn’t even know you had this number,” Dylan replied. He ran a hand through his hair.
“The police helped find i
t,” Nadia explained. “You’re not unlisted.”
“Oh,” Dylan didn’t know what to say to that.
“It was hard for me to call you. I know we’ve been estranged and I know you said you never wanted anything to do with the family again but there’s something I need to tell you,” her voice faltered, “and I need some help.”
“And you chose to call me? Why now after all of these years?” The past was still too fresh in his mind.
“I’ve been calling everyone tonight,” Nadia sighed. “You’re the first one I’ve reached. I’m dreading calling Marianne because I really don’t know how she’s going to react to what I have to say and I’m stalling.”
“So stop stalling.” he was curious now. “What is so important that you need to call everyone in the middle of the night?” As soon as he said it, he knew. “Dad’s heart?”
“Something like that,” Nadia sniffled. “Is your wife there with you? You know, for moral support, just in case?”
“My wife is asleep,” Dylan turned to look out the window. “I never told her about our family.”
“You probably should have,” Nadia said quietly.
“Either way, Dad dying isn’t that big of a deal to me, Nadia. We aren’t close. We don’t get along. And I haven’t spoken to him since I left.”
“I know all of that,” Nadia inhaled sharply. “But Mom was killed as well. I’m calling from a hotel.”
“Wait a minute,” Dylan cut her off.
“What?” Nadia asked him. “I don’t expect you to care about either of them but I still thought you should know. I even thought you might want to come to the funeral. Most importantly though I thought you should know in case the police contact you, which they said they will.”
“The police,” Dylan felt his skin go cold.
“They’re suggesting that Dad shot Mom and then had a heart attack. Or that it was a murder-suicide. Either way, they want to ask all of their children a few questions.”
“Oh shit,” Dylan swore. He reached for his glass, and downed the rest. “When did this happen?”
“Tonight. Mom threw Dad a sixtieth birthday party. There were two hundred and fifty guests. So now there are two hundred and fifty suspects.”