by Sara Shepard
37
KIT
SATURDAY, MAY 6, 2017
I sit on the side of my old bed from childhood, staring at the braided rug. There’s no way I can sleep. I watch as the clock ticks from 1:20 to 1:21. Then 1:59 to 2:00. Then 2:12 to 2:13.
I haven’t heard from the anonymous caller again, but those few words, that bald threat—I know you did it—is enough to send my mind spinning. Who was on the other end? Why would they say I murdered Greg? I try to reconstruct the night of the benefit as best I can, but it’s pointless. The whole night is a jumble of sounds and images I’ll never get back, a dark, formless room with a door shut tight.
But if I could open that door a crack, what would be in there?
I was certainly angry enough. Humiliated that Greg had ruined our family. Rejected, too, because I’d expressed again and again that I wanted to save the marriage. And then I’d seen Patrick at the benefit, the fresh lust making things hurt even worse. What might have happened in my yearning, needy, hopeless, irrational brain? Did betrayal plus wanting plus rage plus embarrassment plus extreme intoxication equal murder?
Stop it, I tell myself, punching my pillow. You didn’t do anything. But I don’t know for sure. I don’t have certainty, and it’s that tiny shred of doubt that makes me uneasy.
I rise from the bed, pull on a cardigan, and push my feet into a pair of slippers. I can’t be in this house right now. I’ll take a flashlight, I’ll take some pepper spray, but I at least need to stand on my father’s front porch and look at the stars.
I creak down the stairs, not wanting to wake the girls. I disarm the alarm system and push open the front door. The air feels good on my skin, and I tilt my face toward the sky. The moon shimmers above me. The only sounds are faint gusts of wind and far-off traffic.
I wonder if the neighborhood was this still the night Greg was killed. I shut my eyes, trying to recall padding across this lawn, poisoned out of my mind. Staggering into the house. Not heading straight into the bathroom but instead into the kitchen and finding Greg at the fridge, casually reaching for a beer. Could we have fought? Maybe everything burst to the surface, and I just . . . snapped? I don’t remember, though. There isn’t even a glimmer.
I turn and look at my parents’ house, the stonework towering toward the sky, the aged copper roof tiles intricately shadowed in the moonlight. I’m sorry, I want to tell my sleeping father. The last thing he needs is a shock to his system. I want to tell my daughters I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry because I don’t remember, and I don’t have a good excuse, and I can’t know for sure if I’m not a killer. And I’m sorry to Willa as well. I dragged her out here. Put her through this. And it turns out it was me all along.
I swallow hard. Plunge my hands into my cardigan pockets and locate my phone. I need to run this by someone. I scroll through my calls and find the number. It rings a few times, and when he picks up, he sounds disoriented. Which—obviously. He was sleeping. It’s the dead of night.
“Please come,” I tell him, my voice cracked and dry. “There’s something we need to talk about.”
38
WILLA
SATURDAY, MAY 6, 2017
I snap awake and look around confusedly. It takes me a moment to realize I dozed off on my parents’ couch in the back room—I’d wanted to wait up for Kit when she came home to ask where she really was tonight, but I guess my sleepless nights got the best of me. I sit up and rub my eyes. My heart is still banging in my chest. Something woke me. A sound? Kit?
A car engine growls outside. Frowning, I hurry to the front window. Headlights glow on the circle. Kit drifts, sylphlike in a white cardigan, toward an open door of a white SUV. There’s a nervous, conflicted look on her face, almost like she isn’t sure she wants to get in. The car chugs. It’s too dark to see the driver. After a beat, Kit seems to gather her courage and climbs into the seat. The car door slams, and the car peels away noisily, tires screeching.
“Kit!” I cry out uselessly. But there was something so unsettling about the way the car just left the house. It was almost like a . . . getaway. Worry spirals through my gut. I know someone with a white SUV: I saw him, his wife, and her baby climb from it the day of Greg’s funeral. Ollie Apatrea. The cop. The murderer? Is that his car she just climbed inside?
“Oh my God,” I whisper, my hand flying to my mouth. Is this because of the call I made to their house earlier? Does Ollie know we know? What on earth did he say to Kit to tell her to get into the car willingly? I curse my choice not to text Kit with my hunch about Ollie. News that your dead husband had a child with another woman seemed like a callous thing to find out through text, but maybe I shouldn’t have waited. Clearly, Kit trusts Ollie enough to get in the car with him. But she’s dead wrong.
I rush down the path, but there’s no way I’ll catch the car; even before I reach the curb, it’s already turned off the street. I scramble back into the house, snapping on lights in the kitchen, wondering what to do. I can’t let them get far. I grab the VW keys from the table and hurry to the garage. The engine springs to life, and I’m backing out of the driveway and turning in the same direction the vehicle went—toward the college. If I drive quickly, I can hopefully catch the SUV. Where could it be going?
With one hand, I stab at the green phone button on my screen and dial Kit’s number, putting the call on speaker. But it rings and rings, then goes to voice mail. I press END, then do it again. Voice mail. My stomach swoops with worry and dread. Do I call a third time, or is this making the matter worse? If Ollie is the driver—and if Ollie is the murderer—he might hurt Kit faster if he’s aware someone knows she’s missing.
Far ahead, two taillights blaze at a stop sign. It’s them. I ease up on the gas now that I’ve got them in my sights—and then it hits me. What am I doing? Am I really going to do whatever this is, alone? As much as I want to handle this all on my own, maybe I’m being foolish.
My eyes are still on the car—and my sister’s shadowy figure in the passenger seat. I feel around for my phone in my cardigan pocket. Glancing from screen to road and then back to screen again, I click on the window I need, and then the phone number. The time between rings feels like an eternity. I hold in a breath, praying that he answers.
“Hello? Willa?” And here’s Paul’s groggy voice, full of concern and confusion. “I-Is everything okay?”
I swallow hard. “No. I need your help.”
39
KIT
SATURDAY, MAY 6, 2017
For a few minutes of the drive, I don’t speak. My heart is thumping with doubt. It’s like there’s a Ping-Pong match going on inside my head: One minute, I worry I killed my husband. The next, I’m certain I never could have done such a thing. Does even suggesting my guilt open doors I should keep shut? Maybe I should keep quiet?
Except that phone call. Someone’s trying to get to me. I need someone on my side.
So I look to my left to the man I’ve dragged out of bed at this time of night. Patrick. “Thanks for coming,” I say shakily.
He gives me a sidelong look but says nothing. It makes me uneasy. I climbed into Patrick’s waiting SUV because I thought he’d be full of concern and sympathy and comforting words with what I’m going through, but the vibe in the car is the opposite of that. Also strange: He hasn’t asked me yet what I want to talk about. Is it possible he knows already? Is it possible the person on the other end of the line called him, too?
I eye Patrick cautiously. His eyes are vibrating. His hair is mussed. He looks like he’s been electrocuted. I clear my throat. “So, um, were you awake anyway, when I called?”
Patrick speeds through a traffic light without answering. Blue Hill is eerie this time of night, and Patrick’s white SUV, when reflected in the shop windows, looks like a drifting ghost. At the main intersection before the college, he reaches over and gives me a small nod of recognition. “Actually, yes,” he finally says. “It’s
been a weird night.”
“Me too,” I say, the unsettled feeling in my gut sharpening. The caller did reach him, then. That has to be what this is about.
And yet he still doesn’t ask me what’s wrong.
We take a sharp turn on a yellow light and head up a road I haven’t been on in years. It leads to a back neighborhood of newer homes, but we pass though the main entrance and head toward a sign that points to a wooded park with a running trail, an outdoor ice rink, and a dog run. I know this park. Years ago, my mother, Willa, and I used to skate at the rink. We were all terrible skaters, holding on to one another for balance, relishing the moment when we’d completed a few laps and could dive back to the benches and drink hot chocolate.
Patrick pulls into the lot and chooses a space by the entrance to the trail. After he hits the button to cut the engine, he climbs out of the vehicle swiftly and with purpose, as though he’s keeping to some agenda. He walks to the front of the car, hands on his hips, and stares at the towering trees.
I follow him, my sneakers crunching in the rough gravel. Wind snaps around us. The woods are as dark as death. “This sure is private enough,” I say, laughing nervously.
All I can see of Patrick is the edge of his profile, backlit by the moon. “I just figured we both needed somewhere quiet to think.” His voice is empty. Hollow. I think of those old horror movies where a patient’s brain has been removed and yet he can still talk, respond, react. But his whole essence has been removed.
It hurts to swallow. I walk around to face him, forcing him to meet my gaze. “Is everything all right? You’re kind of acting—”
But I’m interrupted as my phone lets out a beep. I glance at it, terrified it might be something from the strange caller, but, to my surprise, Lynn Godfrey’s name pops up on the screen.
Patrick notices before I can tuck the phone back into my pocket. His features darken, and he looks at me with disdain. “Why is she calling you?”
“I-I have no idea,” I stammer.
“Are you guys friends now?”
“No!” I stare at him like he’s gone crazy. “Of course not!”
“So she hasn’t spoken to you tonight?” His eyes are wild. “She hasn’t told you anything?”
His face is so close that I feel the need to back up a few inches. What is he talking about? “No,” I say. “Told me what? Did you and Lynn have a fight?”
Patrick turns away. His jaw is twitching, and he’s drumming his fingers on his thighs. “Lynn’s insane. Don’t believe a word she says.”
My stomach sours. I don’t like the way Patrick said insane. “Okay . . .”
“And she’s onto us. She knows.” His mouth twists into a smirk.
I bite down hard on my lip. “H-How?”
He rounds on me, admonishingly. “What possessed you to wear that bracelet to fucking work, right in front of her?”
I struggle to think. “The . . . bracelet? That’s how she figured it out?”
“Did you just want to rub it in her face a little? Need to mark your territory?”
“Patrick, what the hell?” I screech. This all feels wrong: standing in this dark, deserted park, Patrick’s jitteriness, that walking-on-eggshells feeling in my gut, the fact that I haven’t even talked about my thing, which is why we’re supposed to be out here in the first place. “I haven’t talked to Lynn. I’m sorry she found out. I’m sorry I wore the bracelet. But why would she recognize it?”
Patrick breathes out. He looks like he might shatter into pieces, but then he turns away and puts his head in his hands. I stare at him for a few beats, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. My thoughts zoom back to Lynn. God, she must have lost it when she put the pieces together. I can’t imagine the rage that whipped through her—or the revenge she has planned. I mean, if I got a sleeping pill in my cocktail just for stealing her clients, what does she have in store now that I’ve stolen her man?
But suddenly, I realize: I know what Lynn has in store. She’s already done it. She was the voice on the other end of that phone, insinuating I killed Greg. It’s brilliant, actually—she knows I have no memory because she’s the one who drugged me. She also knows that if I begin to believe what I’ve done, I’ll either lose my mind or confess. I’ll go either to a mental hospital or to prison. And then, Lynn will have Patrick back to herself.
It’s elegant, actually. Diabolical. The relief floods over me, too, because as soon as I let in this little crack, I realize how crazy the notion ever was. Of course I didn’t. Even in my wildest dreams, even in my drunkest state, I wouldn’t snap like that.
Except why is Patrick acting so strangely, then? Just because I accidentally wore the bracelet and Lynn figured it out? I guess that is kind of a big deal. His marriage is crumbling. He probably didn’t expect it to happen. And he definitely didn’t expect us to get caught—especially by his scheming, conniving wife.
My phone buzzes once more. I wince when I see Lynn’s name once again on the screen. Instead of calling, this time she’s written a text. I don’t intend to read it, but my settings are such that the message appears on my locked screen, like it or not:
I know you’re with him right now. Get out of there. He has no alibi for the night your husband was killed. He isn’t safe.
Shivers zing through me. I press the phone to my chest to hide it. My heart is thudding. This is another one of Lynn’s tricks—it has to be. She’s just trying to drive Patrick and me apart, that’s all.
But then something strange occurs to me. After the funeral, Patrick found me and said, I know you didn’t kill Greg. He’d seemed so certain. So resolute. At the time, I’d thought he was being chivalrous, even romantic . . . but how did he know for sure?
Don’t think that way. But all at once, I can’t help it. I consider what happened at the benefit, too. Patrick had been so shocked when he saw me, but later, he told me that he’d felt something change in him that night—and that he had to have me, no matter what. Patrick left the benefit so early that night. Ditched Lynn, actually. Where had he gone?
My heart goes still.
Patrick lifts his head. I don’t know what he sees in my expression, but whatever it is, it must give me away. He knows what I suspect. He knows I might believe it. Hell, maybe he thought I knew this before I even got in the car—maybe he thought this was what I wanted to talk to him about.
Panic overtakes his features. He grabs the phone from my hands and tosses it into the woods. I see the glow of the screen disappear into darkness. “What the hell?” I shriek.
“She did get to you,” Patrick cries. “And you . . . believe her.”
“Patrick.” I have my hands clutched against my chest like armor. “I-I . . . I won’t say anything. I won’t tell anyone. I’m sure it was a mistake.”
He steps closer. He seems so tall, so imposing, and all of a sudden, I can’t breathe. “You really think I did it? You really think I’m that kind of person.” He looks so astonished. Then he points at me. “I was hoping you called me to talk about it and say you didn’t believe. And I came to get you so we could run away. Be together. Escape all this . . . bullshit.” He shakes his head, his expression sharpening. “Forget that now. You’re just as judgmental and quick to accuse as the rest of them.”
Hot tears stream down my face. I don’t know what to think. But I don’t like being out here, all alone. I don’t like the fraught feeling between us. And also—I don’t like the doubt that’s now in my mind. I need to get out of here. I feel the need to run.
“Freeze!”
At first I think I’ve imagined the voices, but as I look across the parking lot, I see two dark shapes. The shadows scuttle out from the bushes, and as they come closer, I recognize a familiar woman’s shape. The man she’s with points a gun at Patrick.
I blink hard. “Willa?”
Willa shoots me a grateful loo
k, but then steps forward. “Freeze,” she barks at Patrick, who’s backed away from me. “Don’t fucking move, asshole.” But then she stops. “Wait a minute. Who are you?”
40
WILLA
SATURDAY, MAY 6, 2017
I stare at the man next to Kit. He’s got a full head of hair, narrow shoulders, and a square jaw—in other words, nothing like bald, hulking Ollie Apatrea. As he lifts his head, it all crystallizes. It’s him. The husband. Patrick Godfrey.
Kit runs to me, and I wrap my arms around her protectively. “What the hell is going on?” I ask.
“Don’t let him leave.” Kit points shakily to the shadows. “Call the police. He’s the killer!”
Patrick lowers his hands for a millisecond, but Paul straightens the gun, and he stiffens once more. I balked at Paul bringing a rifle tonight—his dad used to use it to hunt, he said, and though he never used it, he still knows how to fire it.
Patrick glares at all of us. “Look, will you put that thing down? I didn’t kill anyone!”
Kit is shaking her head. “Lynn just texted me. Patrick has no alibi for the night Greg was stabbed. He has motive.”
“Of course she’s going to text you that!” Patrick roars. “That’s what I was just trying to explain! She hates me! She wants to break us up!”
I frown. So Kit is with him, then. I don’t know where to direct my whirling thoughts, what to concentrate on first. Then Patrick adds, “And I do have an alibi for that night, okay?”
“Oh yeah?” Paul calls, the gun still raised. “And what would that be?”
Patrick shakes his head as if to say I can’t believe I’ve gotten myself into this. A long few seconds elapse. There’s no sound out tonight, not even any bugs.