Twin Offerings
Page 24
“Water,” she said. She had a million questions, but couldn’t think straight. She couldn’t see anything but vague, blurry shapes, but she felt a cup of blessedly cold water in her hand. She felt for the straw and drank until her stomach felt tight and sick. “What about you?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
“Mostly,” he said.
“Shouldn’t you be in one of these beds too?” Laurel asked. She rubbed at her eyes, trying to blink away the ointment. As her vision cleared, she saw that Fletcher was wearing a tattered t-shirt underneath a wrinkled suit jacket. His shirt was streaked black with soot. The lines in his face were filled in black from the smoke, and there were flecks of ash in his hair. Blood was underneath his fingernails.
“My arm is burned pretty bad,” he admitted. “But I told the doctors that there was no way in hell I was letting them drug me up and put me under until you woke up and I knew you were safe.”
“Oh my god,” she said. She couldn’t believe that he’d watched over her like that, ignoring his own injuries. “How bad is it?”
“Might need a surgery,” he said, “But it’s not that bad. It’s just my forearm and my days as a hand model were coming to an end anyway.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Let them fix you up.”
“I will,” he said. “But I need to tell you, Laurel. I can’t lose you. This whole thing… it scared me. If I’d lost you…” He couldn’t finish that thought. It was too terrible. “I love you,” he said. “I know I’m supposed to go back to Virginia, but we can work something out. We have to. I can’t just walk away from this. From you.”
Tears filled Laurel’s eyes, blurring her vision again. “I love you too,” she said. “But you don’t know everything that happened.” She had to tell him. She’d let her secrets fester for the last fifteen years. It was time to end the lies.
“Nothing you could say would change how I feel about you,” he said. Laurel wasn’t so sure, but she had to tell him the truth. She couldn’t lie to this man who’d risked everything to protect her.
“Back when my sister and I,” she started. “When he was getting ready to take our pictures in that empty office building. I saw him put some powder into our drinks and stir it up. I saw him do it. I knew it wasn’t a photo shoot. I knew he was going to kidnap us. But I didn’t say anything to Leigh.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “You were a kid, you were just—”
“No,” she shouted, straining her raw throat. “Let me finish.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. She wanted to feel his body pressed against hers, wanted to draw strength from him, but she couldn’t. She had to do this on her own.
“I saw him put the drugs into the cups, but I didn’t say anything,” she said. “Instead, I told Leigh that I wasn’t thirsty and to drink mine. I was so scared when I saw him do it; I knew we were in serious trouble. Something so terrible that it didn’t even seem real. I had an idea, that if he saw the two empty cups, he’d think we were both going to knock out. He’d relax and let his guard down. I could sneak out and get help.” She felt hot, her skin tingling, her eyes burning with tears, her throat choked—and it had nothing to do with the fire. She’d never told anyone. If Fletcher rejected her—which she was fully prepared for—she would never tell anyone again.
“I was going to get help. I really was. But I was lost. I couldn’t find my way back to the school. Too much time had passed. And when I finally did get to school, they were asking me so many questions. Accusing me. Demanding to know what happened. I sort of froze up. I didn’t know where to start. I hadn’t wanted to admit that we’d gotten into a stranger’s car—that was so stupid of us. But I was going to tell them everything. I wanted them to find her. I meant for them to go back for her. I just…”
Fletcher crawled into the bed with her, wincing as he put pressure on his injured arm. He wrapped his good arm underneath her and pulled her tight. His warmth, his comfort was all that she would ever need. “It’s okay,” he said. “I understand. I deal with child victims and child witnesses a lot. Let me tell you that they all lie about one thing or another. Children are the most unreliable witnesses. They’re the most vulnerable, the most imaginative. The brain hasn’t developed. We wouldn’t ask a child to carry a fifty pound box because we all understand that their muscles aren’t strong enough, their arms aren’t long enough. It’s the same with the brain. Children can’t process traumatic events. Shit, most adults can’t either.”
“Are you telling me the truth?” she asked. She hadn’t thought about it like that. When she thought about it, she could only think about her own guilt and shame. “You’re not making this up to make me feel better?”
“Not at all,” he said. He kissed her cheek. She felt the rough grit of soot and ash on his lips. “I’ve studied children’s victimology much more than I ever wanted to. You had a very normal response to mortal danger and the traumatic aftermath.”
Laurel let the weight of his words sink in. She wouldn’t be able to forgive herself all at once, but if he stayed with her—if she knew she could fall asleep in his arms every night—then she would be able to, with time.
“There’s nothing left for me here,” she said. “I can follow you while you work your cases. I can even help you look over the evidence. I can do whatever it takes. Please.” He propped himself up on his good arm. A smile spread across his dirty face.
“I don’t think it’ll come to that,” he said. “It’s only been a few hours, but we’ve been all over the news. I got a call from one of the top universities outside D.C. The dean offered me a position teaching. I can do my research and train agents, but leave everything else behind. Everything else, except you. If you’ll go with me, that is.”
“Yes,” Laurel said, eagerly, not even pausing to consider it. Both of them would have a fresh start.
Together.
It took months, but Laurel finally had her sister’s bones relocated to the family plot, right next to her mother and father. When Mullins had smiled and told her that Leigh was with them, what he meant was that he’d buried her in the backyard, underneath a large maple. The bones were exhumed, processed, bagged, stored. Her sister was in pieces, sealed up in Ziploc baggies, just another piece of evidence locked away like a bag of cocaine or a bullet casing. But they were finally released to Laurel in a large white box.
Laurel had a small ceremony, attended by Fletcher, Madison, Melissa, their parents, Rebecca and Rachel’s parents, and half the Sheriff’s Department. She spent all these years of not knowing what happened, imagining the worst sort of torture being inflicted upon Leigh. Now that she knew the truth—that she’d been kidnapped by a sick man who’d lost his own beloved sisters—she felt no weight lift, no relief, no closure. Knowing what happened didn’t change a thing.
But that was its own freedom. She could not dwell on her past, could not replay one horrible day over and over in her mind. She had to look forward. She had been a scared child and made a mistake. Fletcher had helped her see that.
If he could forgive her, then she could forgive herself.
One by one the guests left the grave, offering their condolences and well wishes. Only Laurel and Fletcher remained.
“Do you think she wants me to be happy?” Laurel finally asked him. He put his arm around her. She felt that swelling brightness in her chest, threatening to burst. She felt like she would scream or cry or do something because the feeling was so wonderful, so intense.
“Would you have wanted her to be happy, if it had been the other way around?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said. The tears were falling freely now, landing on the mounded earth that would soon be used to cover the coffin. “That’s good then, because I’m so happy right now, I want to scream,” Laurel said. She hugged him tight.
Fletcher threw back his head and screamed a wild, shrill, delightful scream. “Me too,” he said. “Me too.”
Laurel laughed. “Let’s get out of here before they have us committed.”<
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“We need to get home,” he said. He’d moved in with her while she wrapped up her affairs. She no longer kept a gun in every room, no longer cleared every room with her drawn pistol every time she came home. “You haven’t even started to pack.” Their flight was leaving tomorrow afternoon, one way to Washington, D.C. She already had a few interviews lined up for some of the top crime labs in the country.
“I’m just going to pack one suitcase and leave everything else,” she said. “The past has been nothing but a weight around my neck. And my most important things can’t even fit inside a suitcase.” She squeezed his hand. “Let’s go. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m ready to move on.”
Fletcher took her hand and they walked the long stretch of road back to the car. They were the only people left in the graveyard. The sun was setting and the grave markers reflected the radiant pink light from the sky. They were leaving this place of death to start a new life as one.
“I feel like I’m ready to do anything,” Fletcher said. “As long as it’s with you.”
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The End
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About the Author
RUTH PARKER lives in Los Angeles, in a house covered in toddler handprints and cat hair. She has a crippling addiction to diagramless crossword puzzles, Forensic Files and John D. MacDonald novels. Send help. And pencils.