The Three Beths

by Jeff Abbott

  “Your girls were at Holy Innocents in west Houston.”

  Sharon nodded.

  “You said you came here from Chicago, not Houston.”

  “We went to Chicago for a couple months then moved to Austin. So that’s not a lie. We just didn’t talk about coming from Houston before that.”

  “What happened to Penny? What did your husband do?”

  Sharon took a deep breath. Her hands, folded in her lap, went to her sides, as if she were bracing herself in the chair.

  “Hal drank. He drank during the day sometimes, because he’d go on sales calls and have cocktails at lunch with a client and rather than go back to the office he’d come home and drink. So. He went to get Bethany after preschool. She’d gone home with Penny. He’d lost a big account that day and left work. He told them he was sick, but he was drunk. I didn’t know.” She steadied herself. “I’m not sure what happened, but Penny got out of the house and was in the street. Playing, I guess. Bethany was still inside. He ran Penny down. He didn’t stop. He kept going. He left her in the street. In an insane, drunken panic.” She took a deep breath, shuddering, as if fighting for control.

  “And you did what?”

  “I did what I had to do. Hal came home. And he told me what he’d done. I wanted to call the police, but he said we’d lose everything if I did. I was terrified. He cleaned the car, and then he stashed it at his uncle’s house; his uncle had died recently, and no one was living there. I had to cover for him. We chose…that we would not say anything.”

  “You concealed this crime.”

  She nodded. It took her several seconds again to speak. “So while he started covering his tracks, I had to drive over and get Bethany while the police and ambulance were all there…pretend I’d been late to pick her up. I didn’t have to see Mary—Penny’s mother—the police had Bethany, who was hysterical.” She pressed her hand to her chin. “Penny…didn’t suffer. It was instantaneous.” She said this almost as she was trying to reassure herself. “Mary didn’t see Hal’s car. No one did. No one knew who could have done it.”

  Mariah could hardly breathe.

  “We were never suspected…I showed up to collect my daughter, as expected. This was my husband; it was an accident. My daughter couldn’t lose her father. We couldn’t bear to stay in Houston. We had to wait for the investigation to die down. We told people Bethany was so traumatized that we had to get her to someplace new, start again. People understood. Other mothers told me I was a good mom to do this for her.” Her voice wavered again. “We went to Chicago, for a few months. I told Hal we couldn’t live as we had before. He had to get sober. He wanted to change our names…he thought it would make us harder to find if anyone ever came looking for us. So he and Bethany took my maiden name of Blevins.”

  “Didn’t Bethany ask why?”

  “Bethany, she shut down. She saw that child’s body in the street. She didn’t speak for five days. We gave her new memories and she took them. We told her we were changing our names, and our cities, to put all the bad behind us. Kids accept a lot. She was ready for a new explanation. A new reality, the old one was unbearable.”

  Mariah suddenly felt a memory: wind on her face, sunlight in her eyes, an ache in her knees. She blinked it all away. A new reality, the old one was unbearable.

  “There wasn’t a news account of a hit-and-run involving a girl named Penny. I looked.”

  “Oh. Penny was a nickname. For the color of her hair. Her real name was Barbara. She was named for one of her grandmothers.”

  Mariah thought of the auburn hair in the news photo.

  “And then we came here,” Sharon said.

  “So Penny was dead, Bethany was blissfully unaware, Hal was sober, and you had a new life.”

  “Yes. It was a closed book.”

  Closed book. She remembered Bethany’s journal, quoting her mother using that phrase. “No justice for that child.”

  Sharon’s fingers went white with gripping the armrests of the chair. “I was more interested in justice for my child. It wasn’t her fault Hal was a drunk. Why should she suffer? He was sober now. He was a good man.” She swallowed.

  “So it was all perfect, and then he killed himself years later. Why?”

  Sharon moved slightly in her chair. “The guilt ate at him.”

  “That’s why he had books on dealing with guilt and used Penny’s newspaper picture as a bookmark. And he suddenly couldn’t take it anymore? After years of coping with it.”

  “I don’t know. But I know you don’t really cope. You endure it.”

  Don’t you ask for my pity, Mariah thought. Not after what you covered up. “There had to be a trigger.”

  “Can’t you just leave us alone? He’s dead. There’s your justice.”

  “Penny’s dead, too. So why is someone pretending to be her when I call her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Bethany found out about this. How?”

  “I don’t know, but you cannot tell anyone. I think…maybe the woman who talked to you as Penny…is my daughter. Bethany’s still alive.”

  The silence in the room grew huge.

  “You know this how?”

  “She found out about what happened with her father and Penny. I don’t know how. There must have been someone who knew or learned about it. So she doesn’t want to go to the police but she also doesn’t want anything to do with me. She is angry with me; she keeps her distance.”

  “What about her marriage?”

  “She wanted out. This was a way out.”

  “Yeah, she wanted to not be around when her husband made a fortune. And when you would have made a lot of money, too, with the stock she promised you. Funny how you never mentioned that to me. Maybe her taking off was a way to punish you, both emotionally and financially.”

  “I want you to leave. I’m telling you all this only because this has nothing to do with your mom.”

  “My mom knew Bethany’d found out the truth about her dad. That means I think you had a motive to hurt my mom, Sharon.” Mariah’s voice was like steel. “Get up.”

  Sharon stayed seated. She worked her hand into the cushion and she brought up the gun.

  Mariah froze.

  “I never met your mom, never hurt her, don’t know anything about her,” Sharon said. Her voice trembled. So did the gun. “I’m tired of people trying to ruin my life. My husband, my daughter.”

  “You killed your husband. Maybe his version of breaking after all those years was confessing, and you couldn’t let that happen.”

  “I didn’t!” she screamed. “I swear, I was at work. I have an alibi.”

  “He bought a plane ticket to go back to Houston. What, to go confess to the police? And you didn’t know that he’d gone that far, and when he told you what he was going to do, you killed him. Did you hold that same gun on him and make him swallow those pills?”

  “No, no, no, no, it wasn’t like that. I didn’t.”

  “A man who is going to kill himself doesn’t buy an airline ticket, Sharon.” Mariah kept her gaze on the gun. If she somehow killed her husband, she won’t hesitate to kill you.

  “He changed his mind. I swear it. He was going to go and confess, and then the thought of it must have crushed him and he took the easy way out. I know him like no one else ever did.” Her voice broke into shards. She wept and Mariah stayed still. After a few moments Sharon regained some control, wiped the tears and the snot from her face.

  “Why then? What happened?”

  Sharon shrugged. “He couldn’t live with it anymore.”

  Mariah watched the gun, still aimed at her. “Bethany wasn’t running from Jake. She was running from you. She didn’t tell Jake why to protect him from you. If he knows your secret, he’s in danger. Is that it?”

  Sharon didn’t answer.

  Mariah said, “Oh, I meant to ask. Who was the older man at Reveal’s meeting you were staring at?”

  Sharon blinked, wiped at her eyes with the back
of her hand. “I don’t know any of those people.”

  “You reacted to him.”

  “I was reacting to everyone!”

  “I’ll find him and I’ll ask him. Unless you’re going to kill me. It would be awkward though. Jake knows I’m here. My father knows I’m here.” The last was a lie, but she had to keep her voice steady. “I am not interested in tearing down your life, but if Bethany is alive, then I need to talk to her about my mom.” She felt a sting in her chest, between her shoulder blades. She felt the hot rage of tears unshed. She stood up. “Sharon, put the gun down and we’ll forget this part of our talk, all right?”

  The gun held steady. Mariah felt ice creep along her spine. She had never had a gun aimed at her before. She was unarmed, with a trunk full of weapons in her car, and she had the baton in her boot, but she thought words would be a better weapon. “If I can talk to Bethany, maybe I can talk her into coming home.”

  “She won’t. She’d have to explain why. It means telling what her dad did.”

  “If she hasn’t broken any laws, then there’s no case. Jake just wants to know she’s all right, and he wants to move on with his life. Let’s all move forward. Put the gun down.” She decided not to mention the embezzling; maybe that was what kept Bethany away. Maybe she had done it. But she would have to tell Mariah what she knew about her mother’s involvement in this mess.

  Slowly Sharon lowered the gun, tears in her eyes. “I haven’t spoken of what happened with anyone since Hal died…I thought it was over. Then she found out, and she told me she knew, and she never even let me try to explain my side, why I did it to protect her…Please, don’t tell…”

  There was no excuse for what she and Hal had done. But Mariah forced her voice to be calm because she needed Sharon’s cooperation. “I know you must miss Bethany so much. I know it must have been hard for you. But you must understand how much I miss my mom, right? Help me.” Mariah leaned over and took the gun from Sharon’s hands. Sharon didn’t resist. Mariah unloaded it with care, including the round in the chamber. She put the gun and the ammo down on the coffee table. Her hands were shaking.

  “I want you to understand that I’m not a bad person,” Sharon said. “I’m a devoted mother. Devoted.”

  “I understand,” Mariah lied, afraid if she said anything else Sharon would quit talking. “Is this what Andy has over you?”

  “What do you mean?” Her voice had gone to a whisper.

  “I saw him kiss you. And you kissed him back.”

  Her face contorted, and she looked away. “It was so hard after Hal died. Because I knew what had killed him and I couldn’t say. I was terrified the police would make a connection back to our lives in Houston.”

  The words, so small, felt like a punch to Mariah’s gut.

  Sharon went on, not seeing the horror on Mariah’s face: “But they only cared about being certain it was suicide and not about anything more. Andy was here all the time. She cleared her throat. “But it wasn’t my fault. He preyed on me when I was really weak. And now, even when he’s got Julie, he won’t leave me alone. He takes any opportunity he sees. That’s how he could turn on Bethany, even after they were close for so long.”

  Mariah asked, calmly, “Do you talk to her on the phone?”

  “No. She doesn’t want to talk to me because of what her father and I did. The cover-up.”

  “She blames you for the suicide.”

  Sharon ignored that. “She only communicates through email with me.”

  “Then how do you know it’s her?”

  “She called me the morning she left for Houston and told me it was the last time she could speak to me for a while and if I tried to find her that she’d tell the world what I’d done. I couldn’t believe it. I thought she would protect me. But she said we’d only talk through email. That she had set up the Gmail account for me. When I signed in with the account name and password that she told me, I saw a message from her.” Sharon’s voice shook.

  “Show me these emails.”

  Sharon got up, and Mariah followed her into the office. She brought up an email client and a listing of messages from an account, one that didn’t use Bethany’s name or initials. She scanned through them:

  If you killed yourself like dad did, how would you do it?

  You claim you miss me. I don’t miss you. I miss Dad and I blame you for what happened. He wouldn’t have tried to cover this up, this is all about you and your comforts and what people think of you. To you that was more important than what you did to that family. You said you did it for me. That’s just to make yourself feel better.

  If you and Dad had gone to prison you all might be out by now and everyone’s lives wouldn’t be ruined. Closure matters, Mom.

  What would you do if I never came home? I can’t bear to look at you. I can’t decide what I want you to do, Mom? Die like Dad or forget about what you did. I honestly don’t know. I am your only justice now.

  “She’s not well,” Sharon said. “Clearly. I mean, to speak to me that way.”

  Mariah wondered. Bethany had every right to be angry. But what was she doing this for? What was she doing in Houston, period? How was she living and working? No trace of her. She’d have to be living under a new name, which was not easily done. She needed money, and so maybe the embezzlement was a real thing, and she had indeed stolen and was now living off that money. What did she hope to accomplish by tormenting her mother from a distance when she could simply tell the Houston police the truth? But she kept this to herself. Sharon had hope…and only hope. The cruelest drug of them all.

  “How did she tell you she knew about Penny’s death and your cover-up?”

  “When she called me that morning.”

  “Did she say how she learned?”

  “No.”

  “Does she know about you and Andy?”

  “No. No. She couldn’t.”

  “Is she in touch with Andy?”

  “She doesn’t tell me such things.”

  Mariah checked the last email. It had been sent a month ago. But then she opened the Sent folder and searched in there for her own name.

  Nothing.

  “You didn’t email her about meeting me.”

  “I was afraid it would make her skittish. Make her scared, to know someone else was looking for her. She might stop talking to me.” As if Bethany’s notes, defiant and angry, were still treasured.

  “Email her. Write what I say. And I’ll get you free of Andy.”

  “How?”

  “Just trust me.”

  “No.”

  “Do what I say, or I’ll call the Houston police right now and tell them Hal killed Penny and that you covered it up. Like you said, even if they can’t bring charges, your life is done.”

  She stared for a moment with the resentment of the powerless and put her hands back on the keyboard.

  “Ask her: what did you give Beth Dunning?” She thought, If this is Bethany, this ought to scare her into answering me. If it’s not Bethany…then whoever is on the other side of that email message might be who killed my mother.

  Sharon obeyed. And hit Send. “She may not answer. She doesn’t always. It drives me insane.”

  “Forward me her response.” Mariah stood to leave.

  “Where are you going?” Sharon called.

  “Where did Andy say he was going when he left?”

  “Back to his office. He said he would have to work late.”

  “If you talk to him again, you haven’t heard from me. And if you don’t do what I say, Sharon, you’ll be the lead story in the news here and in Houston tonight.”

  “You promised,” Sharon’s voice shook in rage.

  “What, you want to hold me to telling the truth when your life has been a lie built on a dead child? Sorry. I lied. Oops.”

  Sharon started pleading. “Listen to me. If Bethany isn’t alive, if she’s not the person on the other end of the email, then I know Jake killed her. I have to find a way to prove it. I ca
n’t let him get away with it.”

  “Jake isn’t your problem, Sharon. You just see if you get an answer from that email account.”

  Mariah walked out, the sunlight bright. She wondered if it was smart to leave the gun with Sharon; the woman might use it on herself. Mariah kept walking.

  46

  R​EVEAL HAD LOADED up the car for the drive to the airport. His parents were out, and he thought of all the times he’d spent watching television in the den, dreaming of being on the big screen, having something to say that people were desperate to hear and know. His parents had shaken their heads at him, but when he came back here, it would be with a television show. He could not allow himself to picture an alternate future.

  He left a note for his parents: Off to airport, love you both, not sure what day I’ll be back but will text you when I get to LA if there is time. Thanks for always believing in me. That was a touch of revisionist history, but he felt bighearted and generous.

  He had just sent the text when his home phone rang. He answered it.

  “I read what you wrote on your blog,” the woman’s voice said. “About Bethany Blevins. It’s not true. There’s not a connection between the Blevins case and the Dunning case.”

  “Who is this?”

  “My name doesn’t matter. But I knew Bethany.”

  “So how do you know there’s no connection.”

  “Because I know what happened to Bethany.”

  This. This was the kind of moment he had waited for. Prepared for. He got crank calls and bad leads, but there was something in her voice: certainty. “You should tell me, and then we should go to the police,” he said. It was important he never be seen as interfering with an investigation. An arrest would end everything for him with the producers.

  “The police don’t pay,” she said, a touch of lightness in her voice.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Your big announcement about television. That you’re hosting a show…”

  His stomach twisted. “Well, that was a preliminary announcement. We haven’t sold it to a network yet.”

  “It wouldn’t be preliminary if you had a knockout punch,” the woman said. “If you solved the mystery of the disappearance of a software company millionaire’s wife.”