Sara was on the doorstep, waiting with her arms folded, when we got to her house. She kept apologizing repeatedly as Matt and I held Carol between us and got her upstairs, Sara directing. Matt laid her on the bed and then left Sara and me to remove her shoes and tuck her under the covers, positioning her to the side in case she threw up.
“This is . . . so embarrassing,” Sara whispered, closing the bedroom door behind her.
I thumbed to where Carol was passed out. “How long has this been going on?”
She shrugged. “A while, I guess. I’m not sure. All I know is that it’s one of the reasons Dad’s been so anxious to get us on a mission. He’s convinced that if he sticks Mom in the outback of India, she won’t be able to get her hands on any meds or booze.” Sara grinned lopsidedly. “I suppose that’s one advantage of being adopted, huh? Don’t carry that alcoholism DNA.”
I opened my arms, and she fell into them, hugging me tight. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you, Lil. You’ve seen me at my best and now my worst. You’re the only one who knows all my secrets.”
“Ditto.” And then I had a brilliant idea. “Why don’t you come live with me? We have plenty of room at our house, and that way you can finish up senior year.”
“I can’t. I wish I could.” She gave me a squeeze. “Thanks, but Dad needs my help with Brandon.”
Now I understood why it had been Sara’s duty to get her little brother ready for school and make his lunch. She’d had been shouldering all this parental responsibility for years and I’d been too self-centered to notice. Talk about being a crappy friend.
“Hey!” Matt called from the foyer. “If we’re gonna get your mom’s car, Sara, we better do it now before someone sees it and calls the cops.”
I headed downstairs, with Sara following. “Let me go,” she said, unzipping a suitcase and removing a pair of rain boots. “It’s my car, and the cops won’t be suspicious if I tell them I avoided hitting a deer or whatever and ran off the road.”
Matt and I exchanged glances. He would have much preferred me, but Sara did have a point.
“Just keep an eye on my mother, okay? Dad should be home any minute and then he can take care of her.”
Matt abruptly stepped past Sara and boldly kissed me full on the mouth. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t start getting safe on me.”
I smiled and kissed him back. “Not a chance.”
Sara, eyes wide, quickly averted her gaze and went out into the night. The door closed with a slam and Matt’s truck started up, rumbling down the driveway. I went back to the kitchen and sat on a stool.
The house had been stripped bare. The dozens of family photos had been removed from the white walls, along with Mrs. McMartin’s watercolors of sunsets and her needlepointed SINCE GOD COULD NOT BE EVERYWHERE, HE CREATED MOTHERS.
Everything was being dismantled, I thought. This house. This family. Sara and me. Our whole world.
There was an awful retching coming from the master bedroom. I ran upstairs and opened the door to a sickening odor of vomit. Mrs. McMartin was crying, her front covered in puke.
“Help,” she pleaded.
Bringing my hand to my nose, I ran to the bathroom, grabbed a roll of toilet paper, and returned to find that she’d undressed down to her underwear, her clothes heaped on the bed. “We need to hide these before Sara’s father finds out,” she mumbled. “I need a shower.”
She stumbled into the bathroom and closed the door with a slam. I flicked on a bedside table and, seeing that the sheets had been ruined too, decided to wash them as well. The shower turned on. There was more vomiting.
I yanked back the comforter and the top sheet. The fitted sheet, however, was fastened to something at the footboard. Slipping my hand between the mattress and the box spring to unsnag it, I cried in pain as something sharp cut into my finger.
Blood streamed down bright red as I cursed whatever had gotten me. A nail? Wrapping my finger in the sheet to stem the bleeding, I hoisted up the corner of the mattress and stared dumbly at what lay before my eyes.
Two silver scalpels and what appeared to be a man’s shirt, speckled with dark-brown splotches of dried blood.
I shrieked and let the mattress fall. The shower turned off and Carol stuck her head out. “Oh, Lily, you don’t need to do that. I’ll change the sheets. You just go on and say good-bye to Sara.”
Then she closed the door and turned on the water again. Did she know what was hidden at the foot of bed? Did she know . . . everything?
I collapsed on the floor, reeling. Facts that had seemed so disjointed before now fell into place, creating a picture almost too gruesome to be true. Dr. Ken was a doctor. Erin had interned in his office the summer before. He was older and married, and naturally she didn’t want anyone knowing they were having an affair.
Neither did he, especially after he learned she was pregnant. Allie had said the father was pissed. How pissed?
I thought of the scalpels secreted away in the bed. That pissed.
Poor Sara.
For a second, I didn’t know what to do. My first instinct was to leave everything, go outside, and wait for Matt and Sara. I could claim that I felt ill and had to go home. I could pretend I never saw what I saw.
But if I did that, then Erin’s killer would be in India by Monday, never to return.
Think, my brain commanded. Use your logic.
I went to the balcony off the master bedroom and unlatched the double doors, stepping outside to escape the stench of that bedroom. Sara and I used to pretend this was Rapunzel’s tower when we were little girls because the balcony overlooked a dramatic wooded slope that bottomed out at the railroad track.
The same railroad track that ran behind Erin’s house, I realized. Of course, that was why the last car the Krezkys saw was Kate’s, because Dr. Ken came and left on foot. He had only to travel maybe a quarter mile at most before reaching Erin’s backyard.
Erin would have let him in her sliding door, too, because this was a man she trusted—possibly loved. Her parents were out of town. Mrs. McMartin was probably passed out, drunk, so Dr. Ken would have had no problem slipping away unnoticed.
That Saturday night, knowing she’d be alone for hours, he’d brought with him the tools of her destruction in case she didn’t comply with his wish. An abortion? Out of the question for both of them, since Erin was super Catholic and certainly that conflicted with Dr. Ken’s religion.
Then again, so did murder.
Mrs. Krezky gave a statement to police that she’d peeked inside the Donohue house and saw Erin arguing with a male. The only problem was, why would she have told Sara he looked like Matt when Dr. Ken was lankier, like Alex Bone, with a dark beard?
Unless, Mrs. Krezky never said that to Sara.
Because Sara never asked.
Let me do the talking.
Oh God!
My entire body began to tremble. The Persephone necklace. The night before I lost it at the quarry, I’d worn it at Sara’s house when I was sleeping over. She must have found it and then, to throw the police off course, planted it on a tree in Erin’s backyard.
Sara knew. Sara knew. And worse, she set me up to take the fall. I’d told Sara that Matt was worried Erin would harm herself. Matt knew he’d told me, but he didn’t know I’d told Sara. So it kind of looked to him, or anyone else, that I used that knowledge to stage Erin’s suicide. Even the formalin might have been an attempt to further link me with Erin’s murder.
All those true crime shows she watched. They made her the perfect accomplice to cover her father’s crime. Because after all, in the McMartin household, family rules.
School, church, family. Welcome to my prisons, she’d said bitterly to Alex at the café.
Alex, who was innocent. Sara, who was guilty.
I fell against the glass doors, fumbling in my pocket for my phone. I had to call Matt and warn him. But my pockets were empty, and I remembered with a sinking feeling I’d left my phone in my bag o
n the floor of his truck.
Landline! I had only seconds left as I ran around the bedroom searching for a phone. What was wrong with these people? Where was their freaking phone?
“Oh!” Mrs. McMartin exclaimed. “You’re still here.”
Steam wafted from the bathroom, providing barely enough cover for me to grab the evidence and go. I bunched up the scalpels and shirt in the bottom sheet and shoved it under my arm.
“Sorry,” I gushed. “Wanted to wash this before your husband came home.”
“Leave it,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “My goodness. I feel so much better. Must have been some bad shellfish I had at lunch. Thank you, dear, for coming to my rescue.”
“No biggie,” I said, shrugging. “Well, I’ll let you get dressed.”
“Lily?” she called as I headed to the door.
My fingers closed around the handle. “Yes?”
“I said . . . leave it.” Her tone was like steel.
I waited two beats. Then opened the door and ran.
She came after me, screaming at the top of her lungs while I took the stairs two at a time, my precious bundle clutched in my arms. If I could make it to the door I’d be safe.
Too late. Dr. Ken was already waiting, Brandon in a Superman cape by his side.
I gazed into his dark eyes, so warm and kind before, and saw only calculating cruelty.
“Brandon,” he said crisply. “Why don’t you go to the basement and watch some cartoons?”
Brandon dutifully did as he was told. Dr. Ken closed the door, locking it. He dropped his eyes to my bundle, and then to his wife. “You too,” he said. “Go.”
Mrs. McMartin nodded numbly, and footsteps padded up the stairs. The master bedroom door shut, and then we were alone.
He sighed. “This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen.” He plunked himself down on a bench and opened his coat so I could see the handgun under his tweed jacket. “Give me what you found.”
I held it away from him.
“Really, Lily? You’re in my home. You’re unarmed. And no offense, but Sara’s told me how everyone in school thinks your death obsession is weird. The stars are not aligned in your favor.”
“Matt will be here soon.”
“I don’t think so.”
I fought a flutter of hysteria. “What does that mean?”
“What could I do?” He shook his head forlornly. “He ran my daughter off the road, didn’t he? He was going to kill her with his truck just like he murdered Erin.”
“That’s a lie! Your wife drove into us drunk. We saved her. If it hadn’t been for Matt, we’d all be dead.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” He smiled. “You see, I’m Dr. Ken McMartin, the well-known, much-loved pediatrician. I am an established, upstanding member of the community, and you and Matt are punks who break in to cemetery tombs and, for all I know, commit Satanic rituals.”
My jaw dropped. Where was he getting this stuff?
“So what version of this story do you think the police will buy,” he said, “yours or mine?”
The bundle of evidence felt almost radioactive in my clutches. “I think they’ll trust us. Matt and me. Two against one.”
“Correction. One against one.” He frowned. “I’m so very sorry. But when I found out that Matt Houser had tried to kill my daughter, I did what any protective father would do.” He shrugged apologetically. “I shot him. Dead.”
Nooooo. The word rang through my brain. “You didn’t. Sara wouldn’t let you.”
The garage door opened, and we paused to listen. Please be a truck, I prayed. But it was only the soft hum of the Mercedes.
“Let’s ask her ourselves, shall we?” Dr. Ken said, standing as the door from the garage opened and Sara walked in looking like death.
She regarded her father with a sneer of disgust, “I hate you. There was no reason to shoot Matt. He never would have known.”
“Sara,” Dr. Ken said in a warning tone. “I understand that you’re upset. . . .”
“Upset?” Sara yelled. “We could have just gotten the car and left. No one else would have been hurt.”
“And let him come here to find Lily dead or, worse, holding the evidence?” he asked. “I think not.”
At that, Sara spun on her heels, her eyes not meeting mine but focusing instead on the bundle of sheets. “Give those to me, Lil. Just let me have them and maybe we can work this out.”
I held the bundle tighter. “Are you crazy?” I shot back. “You killed Matt. You covered up Erin’s murder. You . . .”—and for some reason, this was even harder to say—“you lied to me! You never were my best friend, or even a friend at all.”
“I did not kill Matt. You have to believe me,” she said pleadingly, as if her words could change things. “Now, please, just hand over the stuff, or else Dad and I will have to take it from you.” She paused, her eyes wet. “One way or another.”
For a moment, we locked gazes. Everything about her was so familiar that she seemed almost part of me. They say babies can’t distinguish themselves from their mothers when they look in the mirror, and that’s how I felt about her. “Why?” I whispered.
Sara’s lower lip trembled. “I had no choice.”
Dr. Ken was coming toward me, hand outstretched. “Just be a good girl, Lily, and do as you’re told for once.”
A surge of rage raced through my veins. Throwing the bundle on the floor, I bared my nails like Erin had in the cemetery and tackled Sara’s father. I came at him so hard, he was flung into the glass front doors before I kicked his knees so his legs slipped from under him and he fell to the slate floor, his head hitting with a crack. He reached for his gun, but Sara was faster.
She stood over both of us, the gun shaking in her right hand.
My knee rammed into his genitals, rendering him temporarily defenseless, then I did as Boo had demonstrated and pressed my thumbs into his carotid artery and jugular vein, easy to find after years of practicing on corpses. He gurgled and flailed before his eyes bugged out and he collapsed.
Sara pointed the gun in my direction. “I’ll have to shoot you now. That’s the only way out of this.”
I got up, disgusted. “Yeah, right. As if you could.”
For Matt’s sake and for Erin’s, I summoned what little courage I had left and wrenched the weapon from her hand. Then I opened the door to toss it out, almost pitching it at Perfect Bob, who was there on the front step. With Mom.
No words were said as police officers swarmed the foyer, cuffing Sara and Dr. Ken. It wasn’t until Mom took me into her arms that I broke down like a baby.
All I could say was, “Matt.”
Later, they would tell me that all he could say was, “Lily.”
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EPILOGUE
The nondescript silver sedan that had been stalking Sara and me belonged to the undercover division of the Potsdam Police Department, on loan to Mom, who’d managed to convince her boyfriend that she needed it to tail her daughter. Which, looking back, explained why our tagger sucked.
My mother had been lagging behind when Matt and I stole away from the garden to go make out. So she hadn’t been there to witness Carol driving into us drunk—an accident that definitely hadn’t been part of Dr. Ken’s plan. If Carol hadn’t made that mistake, there was a good chance the McMartins would be living in India, free from prosecution.
Then again, as Boo would say, there are no such things as accidents or coincidences.
It was Boo who’d spied Matt and me sneaking out, and by the time she’d tracked down Mom, I was already at the McMartins’ putting Carol to bed. Fortunately, I’d left my iPhone in Matt’s truck since, unbeknownst to me, that’s how Mom had been monitoring my whereabouts—by plotting every movement of my iPhone on her Mac.
That would have pissed me off royally. Bef
ore.
But I was surprisingly cool with her overprotectiveness when I learned that because of it, Mom found Matt before he lost too much blood and managed to stem the bleeding, using her awesome anatomy knowledge, while simultaneously calling in the entire Potsdam PD to come to my rescue.
Matt was rushed by ambulance to the hospital, coherent enough to tell them that I was at Sara’s before he passed out completely. By the way, it was Sara who called Detective Henderson from the Potsdam Regional Medical Center to say that I’d been at the cemetery with Matt. He’d remarked that she wasn’t a friend. He’d been so right.
What will happen to Sara and her father is for the courts to decide, and I’ll leave it at that. They say justice comes from the law, but forgiveness comes from the heart. Matt says I need to forgive Sara for me, not for her. I don’t know. Maybe one day I’ll be able to.
These days, Matt and I are just concentrating on getting back to normal. Funny, I used to despise that word, and yet I cannot imagine any state sweeter except the one I’m currently in—madly in love.
Finally, for Matt and me, that’s no secret.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SARAH STROHMEYER is a bestselling and award-winning novelist whose books include How Zoe Made Her Dreams (Mostly) Come True and Smart Girls Get What They Want. She lives outside Montpelier, VT. You can visit her online at www.sarahstrohmeyer.com.
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ALSO BY SARAH STROHMEYER
How Zoe Made Her Dreams (Mostly) Come True Smart Girls Get What They Want
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