“You need to focus on helping the police find Oliver, Tessa. Until he’s behind bars, that’s the only thing you need to focus on.”
Tessa stops and glares at Margot, her hands coming defensively to her hips.
“I’d appreciate it if you could stop telling me what I need to do, Margot. I’ve told the police the same thing I told you. There’s nothing else I can do. I don’t know anything.”
Margot glares back and crosses her arms.
“Well, there’s got to be some reason he claims you do, and instead of trying to figure it out, you’re about to dive headfirst into a new film.”
“I am not—” Tessa stops and pauses to take a breath. She forces her voice into an even tone before she continues quietly. “I’m not starting a new project. I told you that. Just like I told you I can’t find Oliver.”
“There’s a reason he mentioned you, Tess. Didn’t you hear the video? ‘Ask Tessa Shepherd. She knows.’ You know him better than anyone.”
Better than anyone.
Tessa thought she did. Once. How could she have been so wrong? A part of her, even now, insists that she wasn’t wrong. The Oliver Barlow who sat across from her in Merrivale Correctional simply wasn’t capable of committing those terrible acts he was sent to prison for.
But if that was true, then somewhere along the way, amid the injustice and the broken promises and the devastating losses, a good man had turned bad. If that was true, then good and bad—right and wrong—they lost all meaning.
Tessa can’t accept that. She can’t accept a world where right and wrong don’t matter. A good person wouldn’t have taken out his rage on an innocent woman, no matter how much injustice the world served up.
“No, Margot. I thought I knew him. I spent hours with the man researching that series. We talked about everything. But it turns out, I didn’t know him at all. I have hours and hours of recordings, days’ worth, and they’re nothing but lies. He was playing me. I fell for it, and I have to figure out a way to live with that. Now, I love you. I always have, and I’m grateful you’ve allowed me back into your life, even under these circumstances, but I’ve got to tell you, you’re not helping right now.”
Tessa shoves her hands into her pockets and turns toward Fallbrook, trying to rein in her emotions before she says something she can’t take back.
“How do you expect me to help you when you won’t bother to help yourself?” Margot calls. Tessa grimaces, but doesn’t pause. “Maybe it’s time to look again, this time with the knowledge that he was lying. You weren’t looking for that the first time.”
Tessa whips around, disbelief etched on her face. “Of course I was! I was looking at nothing but that! I didn’t go into that prison with my mind already made up, Margot. I was looking at everything he said, and God help me, he convinced me. Trust me, there’s nothing there. Nothing but lies. Very convincing lies. It won’t help anything.”
But Margot’s face is stubbornly set and she refuses to back down. “So what?” she says, lifting her hands, palms upward, then letting them drop. “So what if it doesn’t? At least you’ll know you’ve done everything you can.”
“I know that already.”
“You’re running away from this, like you always do.”
“I didn’t run from you, Margot! You pushed me out!” Tessa’s composure is slipping with every jab.
Her sister’s lips thin, and she crosses her arms again. “Fine.” She spits out the word in a way that says it’s anything but fine. “Don’t do it, then. Bury your head in the sand and move on to the next tragedy.”
Tessa’s throat tightens. How did they get here?
“There’s nothing there,” she says quietly.
“How do you know if you don’t look again?”
“Why do you care?” Tessa shouts, unable to bear the badgering any longer.
“Because he’s coming after you next, you idiot!” Margot advances on her. Tessa stands her ground, refusing to back up. “And you”—Margot shoves Tessa with both hands. She stumbles backward a step, but Margot closes the distance—“and all the bullshit that comes with you”—she shoves Tessa again—“are all that I have left!”
The two of them stand, staring at each other, their breath coming in short, heavy gasps. Like a sudden rain shower, realization dampens Tessa’s frustration.
Margot’s not angry. She’s scared.
“Fine,” Tessa says lightly. “I’ll listen to the tapes.”
Margot had shoved her.
“Better yet,” she says, “you listen to the tapes, since you’re so convinced. Then maybe you’ll believe me.”
“Fine,” Margot says, with a tilt of her head and one eyebrow raised. She turns to walk back to the big house, keeping a few paces in front of Tessa.
“Fine,” Tessa mumbles, but she doesn’t kid herself. If that was a battle of wills, she was the loser.
30
Margot is heading back to Bracknell Lodge to shower and grab a change of clothes. Tessa writes down Anne’s email address for her.
“She’ll forward you the files from the Barlow interviews,” she says, keeping her word, despite reservations.
The idea of anyone, especially Margot, viewing those files sets off butterflies in her stomach.
The scenes that made it into the documentary focused on Gwen Morley’s murder and the aftermath, but the raw footage includes so much more. Tessa had built a relationship with Oliver over time, something that never could have happened without mutual trust.
You can’t ask a person to let down their guard, then open themselves up in front of a camera unless you’re willing to do the same.
Margot has no idea what she’s asking.
It’s sadly ironic that sharing intensely personal thoughts with an inmate at Merrivale Correctional left Tessa feeling less vulnerable than the thought of sharing the same footage with her twin sister.
But if it helps Margot feel she’s doing something proactive, Tessa won’t stand in her way. Her sister is worried about her, and Tessa understands all too well the helplessness that comes with that kind of worry.
In return, Margot brandishes a small handheld vacuum cleaner she’s retrieved from the trunk of her car. “Try to find the least repellent place to set up camp,” she says as she pushes it into Tessa’s hands.
Tessa stares at the little vacuum, then back at her sister, dumbfounded. “You want me to clean up that place”—she gestures to the crumbling house at their backs—“with this?”
But Margot only rolls her eyes. “It’s the best I’ve got.” She opens her car door. “I’ll be back later. Try to stay out of trouble, please.”
Tessa clamps her mouth shut on a retort as Margot turns the car around and heads off.
31
KITTY
Kitty follows two steps behind her sister. “I’m sorry, I should have talked to you first, I know. But I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”
Dee slams the dresser drawer and glares at Kitty standing in the doorway. Her lips have thinned to an angry slash, and she elbows past her.
“Don’t be this way,” Kitty pleads. “It only makes sense. She makes movies. She could tell the real story about what happened, for the whole world to see.”
Deirdre turns on her. “What do we care about the world, Kitty? The world’s forgotten about us. Forgotten Fallbrook. Why couldn’t you leave it alone?”
“You’re the one who’s forgotten, Dee. You’ve spent your life pretending it never happened, but it did. And all that pretending . . . it’s changed you.”
Deirdre stares at her, openmouthed, then shakes her head. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Kitty moves toward her, holds out her hand. “It’s never gone away, Dee. It lives here with us, even if we don’t talk about it.”
Deirdre looks at her outstretched hand. For a moment, Kitty thinks she’ll turn and walk away, but finally she places her age-spotted hand in Kitty’s and squeezes lightly. The anger in her e
xpression fades, replaced by a bone-deep sadness.
“I know, Kitty. I know that. But this is where it belongs. Here, with us. Not out there for other people to pick apart and examine. To be discussed and debated as entertainment for strangers.”
Kitty places her other hand over the top of her sister’s. “Tessa’s not a stranger. She’s Imogene’s daughter. And this belongs to her too.”
Deirdre sighs.
“Aiden deserves the truth to be told,” Kitty says. “Tessa can give him that.”
Deirdre pulls her hand away and blows out a short breath. “Aiden, is it?” She shakes her head and walks to the door. “Aiden isn’t the one who wants this, Kitty, and somewhere inside, you know that.”
A chill sweeps over her at Deirdre’s words. “What are you saying?”
Deirdre opens the front door. One hand rests on the knob as she turns back to her sister.
“I’m saying . . .” She stops and pulls in a long breath. “Nothing. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
But a seed of doubt has been planted, and it begins to grow.
“You don’t believe Aiden . . . ?” Kitty trails off, unable to voice the rest. “He has nothing to hide.”
Deirdre doesn’t answer right away. She looks up toward the sky, like she’s waiting for the right response to drop down from the heavens.
Kitty holds her breath.
“No,” Deirdre says at last. “Of course not. Aiden has nothing to hide.”
But the words have the mechanical echo of a lie. An old, worn-out lie, one she’s told herself too many times to believe anymore.
Deirdre shuts the door softly behind her without meeting her sister’s eyes.
The cottage is silent, but Kitty’s mind is anything but. Her ears are ringing as if a series of bombs is exploding in the distance. They’re coming closer, louder, and shaking the foundations of her simple, well-constructed beliefs.
She reaches blindly for the sofa and drops down on the cushion before her legs give out.
Not Aiden. It’s not possible.
Kitty shakes her head, but she can’t dislodge the look on Deirdre’s face. It was sympathy. Sympathy for the poor, stupid girl who lives in a make-believe world.
32
TESSA
With her sister gone, and nothing to occupy her other than the handheld vacuum, Tessa’s mind finds its way back to the Cooke murders and Kitty’s impossible request.
She told Margot she had no intention of starting a new project. She didn’t lie.
So why is she brainstorming ways to overcome the obstacles? Finding financial backers with her reputation in tatters will be impossible. She doesn’t have her crew or any equipment. She has only one willing participant. She doesn’t even know the whole story.
And all that pales in comparison to the sickness she feels at the thought of Valerie Winters.
Tessa simply doesn’t have the confidence to make another film. Not now. Maybe not ever.
And still, she can’t let it go.
There is a story here, she can feel it. A story big enough to save her career, if that’s what she wants. But is that what she wants? Does she even have the right to want that?
She wanders around the house for a while, peeking into doors and waving away cobwebs that cling to her face and hair, but the stillness and silence of Fallbrook only magnify the growing list of questions forming in her head.
She opens a door to a room that might have once been a parlor. There are no windows, and no holes in the roof or floor, so the outdoors has been slower to invade the space. The wood in one spot does feel soft beneath her feet, but there’s no sign of bird droppings. Peeling wallpaper lines the room. Pink roses on a faded white background.
“Least repellent, here we are,” Tessa says aloud. She glances around, wishing for a broom and a pail of hot, soapy water.
She could trek back to the caretaker’s cottage and impose on the Donnellys’ hospitality for a loan of some cleaning supplies, but she’s certain she’s the last person Deirdre wants to see again so soon.
Kitty would happily lend her what she needs, but she’ll have questions in her eyes that Tessa doesn’t have answers for yet.
She runs her fingers over the curve of a faded pink rose.
Since the day Tessa left Linlea, there’s only been one place where her footing was sure, and that was her work. Perhaps the biggest question of all . . . Does she have the courage to believe in herself again?
Tessa turns and walks swiftly out of the house, heading to her car. After digging around in the glove compartment for a moment, she returns to the rose room.
She pauses. With one arm crossed, and the elbow of her other arm resting on it, she taps her lips with the permanent black marker. Her eyes are glazed, her attention turned inward.
Where to start?
Then Tessa pulls the lid off the marker with a pop and tucks it into the pocket of her pants. She walks to the center of the wall and begins to write.
She starts with the word Imogene, draws a circle around it, then straight lines fanning outward.
The thick black marker squeaks as it transforms Tessa’s thoughts into bold, definitive lines, her favorite brand of therapy.
When she runs out of room, Tessa drags a heavy wooden chair across the floor and starts on the empty space above.
By the time she stops for a break, the wall is covered with Tessa’s version of a makeshift storyboard. A central section is taken up with the names of the Cooke family, and the Donnellys are directly next to them. Questions cover the rest of the space, some underlined, some circled, some with curvy arrows pointing back to other questions or to the names in the center of the wall.
The handheld vacuum is completely forgotten.
She steps back and surveys her handiwork.
Her eyes are drawn to one name in particular near the center of the wall. If this was a new project, which of course, it’s not . . . But if it was, the next person Tessa would want to talk to is Aiden Donnelly.
But if this was a new project, Tessa would have done extensive online research already. Many of the questions she’s laid out here she’d have answers to. Even the most basic details of the crime are still a mystery.
Her forehead wrinkles. She’d give a lot of money for a halfway decent internet connection right now. Unfortunately, the best she has available is the hill outside where she made the call to Ben.
The thought of Ben has Tessa biting her lip. She told Margot she wouldn’t call him again, but only after her sister promised, grudgingly, to let him know she was safe. Tessa reminded her of that promise before Margot left for Bracknell Lodge. She can only hope Margot will hold up her end of the bargain.
Tessa fishes the cap to the marker out of her pocket and clicks it back into place.
She has a date with a phone on a hill.
Tessa blinks against the bright sun as she emerges from Fallbrook, a bear coming out of her den in the spring. She stretches and pulls her phone from her pocket.
Her eyes are on the device in her hand as she walks toward the hill at the edge of the trees, but the bars remain stubbornly unlit, even as she comes to the top.
“Come on,” she says, raising the phone higher in the air.
Movement at the edge of the forest catches her eye. Her limbs freeze and she studies the tree line intently, her hand still holding the phone uselessly in the air.
She scans the shadows, then lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding when she spots someone wearing a bright yellow shirt or jacket moving through the trees.
Aiden Donnelly? Could it be?
Whoever it is, it’s not a bear. Bears don’t wear yellow, outside of children’s storybooks.
Her thoughts circle back to the questions outlined on the parlor wall and Aiden’s name scrawled there. She could introduce herself. It’s not unreasonable. She’s sort of his new landlord, in a way, although the word sounds uncomfortable to her ear. Landlord. A lord of land. Tessa’s not a lord of any
thing.
She shouldn’t be thinking what she’s thinking. According to Kitty, there are rumors the man could be a mass murderer. Even if it is just gossip, she still has no business wandering into the woods in search of someone she’s never met.
Yet her legs are already moving, quickly crossing the distance between herself and the place she watched the yellow jacket disappear into the trees.
“Crazy,” Margot’s voice whispers in her mind.
But Margot handed her a baby vacuum to clean an abandoned house.
“And she thinks I’m the crazy one,” Tessa mumbles under her breath as she follows a stranger into the woods.
33
KITTY
Doors to the past opening inside her. Doors that have always been there, down a labyrinth of darkened passageways. And what creeps out of those doors can’t be pushed back in.
Aiden. Young, beautiful Aiden, who spent his days caring for the horses in the barn. Pruning trees and repairing the fence. Helping a new mother give birth to a litter of pups.
Aiden, angry and scared.
No. No, that’s not right.
It was Mrs. Cooke who was angry. Always angry after the night at the cottage. Mam grew careful around her. They all did, walking on eggshells to avoid her sharp tongue.
“It’s unacceptable, Everett,” Kitty overhears, listening at the library doors. “They’re lazy and disrespectful, the lot of them. I don’t see why we can’t replace them with a better class of people.”
“Helena, we’ve discussed this. Saoirse Donnelly has been with us since the children were small. They’re fond of her, and I cannot fault her work. Aiden is a hardworking young man and dependable, a quality not so easily replaced. I will not dismiss them simply because you have some inane prejudice against the Irish. Not without cause.”
Kitty hurries away when footsteps approach, fearing Helena’s wrath if she’s discovered.
But the second Mrs. Cooke is patient. She wants rid of the woman at the center of her household, a woman who knows more than she should.
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