Tears simmer, hot and sudden, ready to boil over onto my cheeks.
“But I didn’t know!” I say. “None of us did.” A sound ripples through my throat, something between a groan and a whine. “No wonder they call our house Murder Mansion.”
Those gossiping islanders. Like the wind and the ocean, their whispers have been the white noise of Blackburn Island. And yet: the snippets I’d catch—murder, parents, that family—while spinning through Fritz’s leaf piles were never enough for me to hear the whole truth.
I grip my head on either side, squeezing my temples. “Everyone knew!” I say, because of course they did. “Out here, everyone knew. But in there”—I gesture toward the center of the island, the hill on which our house looms, gray and stony as the sky—“we had no idea. And how could we? We were so isolated. So insulated. God, it’s so messed up. My family is so messed up.”
I’m breathing heavily as Elijah looks on. I feel his eyes, soft as a breeze, skimming across my face. Our shared silence fills the space between us until I finally meet his gaze.
“I kind of used to hate you,” he says quietly. “When I was a kid.”
I startle at the subject change. “What?”
“I thought you had something I didn’t: a family so close you’d shut out everyone else.”
I toss out a brief and bitter laugh.
“And I was mad,” he adds, “that my dad paid so much attention to you all, instead of paying attention to me. But now, talking to the rest of your family, then talking to you… I think maybe you’ve always been like me. On the outskirts of it all.”
He shifts almost nervously, a different man from the smug, withholding detective who baited me into this walk. “Am I right?” he asks.
I gape at him, surprised by his openness. My instinct is to tell him he’s wrong, that I only felt like an outsider in my own family once Andy was gone. But then I think of Charlie and Tate, laughing behind closed doors. I think of Mom, haunting the staircase, studying the faces of her parents whose story she’d rewritten. And I think of Dad, whose stiff body language and gruff voice kept me from knowing him at all.
My entire life, I thought that Andy and I saved each other from loneliness, when really, we just built a different kind, one that felt like comfort, like safety, but in the end, was only a cocoon. And that seemed normal to me; it was just like Charlie and Tate.
But what I didn’t understand, never paused for a moment to consider, is that cocoons are inherently temporary, too tight a space in which to grow.
Andy knew that; that’s why he urged me to leave with him, get away from our family, our unnatural life. And it kills me now, wondering what might have happened if I hadn’t constantly pulled him back, hadn’t held down the wings that were itching to sprout from his spine.
The ocean thuds against the sand, wrenching me away from a past I can’t remake.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” Elijah says, voice stiffer now. “That was incredibly inappropriate.”
He stands straighter, clearing his throat. “To clarify, though: I didn’t actually hate you, I hated my dad’s obsession.”
At the mention of Edmond, the hiss of obsession, I stand straighter, too.
“Back then, it seemed kind of… pathological. Almost malicious. Like he couldn’t stop himself from returning to your house. Like he got off on taunting you all.”
My pulse flickers. I see Edmond circling our mansion, memorizing our property, our patterns.
“And I guess I’m just saying—it’s clear you’re not exactly close with your family. That you’re put off by what your mom did, what your siblings are doing. And I relate to that. I was definitely put off by my dad. Especially since his obsessions left little time for me.”
He starts walking again, and I hurry forward to fall in step beside him.
“But I’ve had to make peace with a lot of that,” Elijah adds, “since he’s been sick and all.”
“How long has he been sick?” I ask, spurred on by Greta’s theory, by the image of Edmond drawn back and back and back to our yard.
“It’s been a while,” Elijah says. “Started seven, eight years ago, I think.”
Seven or eight years. Only two or three after Jessie Stanton.
“And that’s when he went to the nursing home?”
Elijah’s eyebrow twitches. “No. That’s just when his memory started to ‘turn on him.’ That’s how he referred to it. It only became unmanageable the last couple years or so.”
Still. Even the smallest change to Edmond’s mind could have been enough to disrupt him, to distract from whatever sick desire sends someone hunting for women at night.
“Was he ever violent with you?” I ask, and I see, as soon as Elijah whips his head my way, that it’s a question too far.
“No,” he spits. Then he stops, scrutinizing me. “Did your dad get violent with you?”
My head jerks back, whiplashed by his pivot. “Of course not.”
A wave crashes onto us, soaking our shoes, the bottoms of our pants. I register my socks growing damp, suctioning to my skin, but something keeps me from moving.
Pathological, Elijah said in describing Edmond. Malicious.
Is it possible he, too, has considered Greta’s theory—that there was more to Edmond’s obsession, more to Edmond overall? Is Elijah disturbed enough by that possibility that he’s forced his attention onto my father, hoping to find something that will quell his suspicions of his own?
I study his face, darker now, but find no answers. Instead, he says, “We’re here.”
All around us, there’s nothing but the same sand, same rocks, the spot indistinguishable from the rest of the shore.
“Do you know this place?” he asks. “Do you know what it is?”
I turn my back to the water, inspecting the landscape: hard sand that yields to tall, spiky grass, and behind that, trees that shoot up, eventually blending into the woods that fill out the center of the island.
“No, I’ve never been here,” I say. “Andy and I never went to the ocean.”
“What about Charlie?”
I look at him, puzzled, until he opens his folder and pulls out an 8 x 10 photograph.
I recoil, thinking it’s one from the shed. But Elijah waits for me to examine it.
The shot was taken low to the ground, as if the photographer were crouching in the water, the bottom of the camera licked by the waves. The angle allows for a glimpse of the landscape in the background. And in the foreground—I swallow—there’s a dead woman.
She’s a Blackburn victim, identifiable by the blue gown. But unlike the pictures under the shed, she isn’t segmented into parts; she’s photographed as a whole, her body flat upon the shore—this spot of shore, I realize, as I match its giant rocks to the ones behind the woman. Her knees are slightly bent, and her arm is flung out beside her, like she’s reaching for something she’ll never be able to touch.
It’s Claudia Adams. The fourth victim. Her red hair gives her away.
“This was taken by one of the first officers on the scene,” Elijah says, “before the public knew about the body. Except—check this out.”
He jabs the upper-righthand corner of the picture, pointing at a tree that’s shorter, darker, than the rest. But no—I squint closer—it’s not a tree. It’s a small, thin figure.
It’s somebody watching.
“I asked some of the officers who were part of the investigation. They admitted they flat-out missed it. He kind of blends in.”
“He?” I say.
“And most likely,” Elijah continues, “they were using this photo to focus on the body itself, the area just around it. In pictures like these, we check for footsteps, other disturbances, details about the victim. There were others photos of just the surrounding area, and he wasn’t in any of those.”
“He?” I repeat.
“We blew it up as best we could. The quality isn’t great, but—here. See for yourself.”
; He shuffles through the folder again and yanks out another photo. When he hands it to me, it’s only a moment before recognition, sharp as a gasp, jolts through my body.
“That’s Charlie,” I say.
Elijah was right; the quality is terrible, shadowy and pixelated. But I know this teenage shape of him, skinny as a sapling. I know this sideways slouch.
In the photo, he’s watching the scene below him: the woman’s body splayed out on the sand, her damp hair draped over her face.
“Charlie?” I say again. It comes out as a question this time.
“I think so, too,” Elijah agrees. “Did he ever mention seeing one of the crime scenes, one of the women’s bodies?”
I shake my head, glaring at the photo, the stick-thin shape of my older brother. Then I look at the woods above us, as thick and tangled as they are in the picture, and I try to fathom why he even would have been there.
“My first thought,” Elijah says, “was maybe he took an early morning walk. Maybe he stumbled upon the commotion down here and stayed to watch the officers work. I can see that being of interest to a kid. Hell, it would’ve been of interest to me.”
He pauses now, the moment stretching wide.
“Except— Those woods right there…” He thrusts his chin toward the trees. “They’re really dense. Difficult to navigate. Not an easy place for a casual walk.”
“What did Charlie say?” I ask. “What reason did he give for being here?”
“That’s the thing. He said it’s not him.”
I look at Elijah in surprise. “He did?”
“He was emphatic about it. Your sister, too. And your mother… she was noncommittal, said she couldn’t tell. To be honest, she seemed more interested in the dead body.”
Behind us, the ocean races toward our feet, and at Elijah’s expression—eager but careful, like he’s closing in on something—my heart races, too.
“Why did you bring me here?” I ask.
His shrug is too casual. “I wanted to see if this spot meant anything to your family. If you knew its significance and could explain why Charlie would come here.” He smiles with half his mouth. “Guess that was a long shot, though, since you said you’re not very close with them.”
But I didn’t say that. Elijah did, right as he told me I was on the outskirts of my own family.
“It’s just strange to me,” he goes on. “Miles of shoreline around this island, acres of woods, and Charlie ended up on the one part, the one very small part, where there was a body. Before the public knew.”
I take a step back, my foot splashing into water.
“If he told your sister what he saw that day, it might explain why her diorama of Claudia Adams was so accurate.” Elijah points to the photograph, the woman’s waxy body. “Wouldn’t really explain the others, though.” He tilts his head at me. “Unless you have an idea?”
I back up farther. Satisfaction winks in his eyes—a look I’ve seen before, on somebody else. What was it he said about Edmond? He got off on taunting you all.
“I know what you’re doing,” I tell him. “You’re going on about how you relate to me so much, how we’re both on the outskirts of our families. But that isn’t true. You chose to become a cop, just like your father.”
His face stiffens. His features grow taut as a web waiting for a fly.
“You didn’t bring me here to see if I knew this spot,” I continue. “You wanted to pull me away from the house. From my family. You’re trying to get me to turn on them.”
“Turn on them?” He tucks the folder under his arm and reaches into his jacket pocket. Pulling out his notebook, he clicks the top of a pen that seems to have sprouted from his palm. “Turn on them about what?”
The wind picks up around us, a suffocating, gagging force. The ocean thunders like a storm.
I spin around without answering. I march away from him, feet pummeling the shore. I expect to feel him close at my heels, chasing me down, taunting me into talking about things I don’t have answers for. But when he calls after me, he sounds far away, like he hasn’t even moved.
“Why do you think Charlie was here, Dahlia?” His words slice through the island’s noise, voicing the question that’s pumping through me, quickening my steps: “Why was he here?”
* * *
By the time I reach our driveway, I’m running.
Bursting through the door, I call Charlie’s name, but he’s not in the foyer or living room. The tables and their white cloths are topped with misshapen piles that I barely give a glance before rushing up the stairs.
I race into Charlie’s room only to find it empty, and I’m struck by how tidy it is—the tightly closed drawers, the floor without clothes, the creaseless quilt on the bed. It’s like the police never touched his room.
They were here, though. I remember the thud of their footsteps, Charlie’s anxious gaze bolting toward Tate. And now that Elijah’s caught him in a lie—that was Charlie in that photo, I’m sure it was—I know he’s hiding something.
Something, I think, that’s in this room.
I launch myself toward his dresser, riffling through shirts and socks, probing every drawer. I feel inside the pockets of his pants, slide my hands under his mattress. I check his bedside table, shuffle through the pages of books, and then, at the lurch of an idea, I turn to his closet.
Inside, I flick on the light switch, but the bulb flashes once before burning out. I head through the shadows toward the back, feeling for a door like the ones to the passageway, but my hands don’t stutter over hinges or a knob. I crouch down, searching for a gap between the floor and a possible door. It’s only once I claw against the hardwood in a fit of frustration that my nails cling to something: the thinnest groove between boards.
I pick at it. Nothing happens at first, but then the board jerks up before falling back down. I pull my phone from my pocket, turn on the flashlight, and shine it onto the floor.
There’s a part of the groove, a tiny notch, that’s a little wider than the rest. I can see why the officers might have missed it, especially if they were only running their eyes, not their hands, along the floor. The notch doesn’t look deliberate; instead, it seems like an imperfection in the wood. But now, I squeeze my finger into it, struggling to move it around, and in a moment, half the floorboard springs open, like a tiny version of the trapdoor in the shed.
I waste no time with surprise. I stuff my hand inside it and grasp two objects, both small, cool to the touch. I pull them out and stare at my open palm, and it takes a second for my mind to catch up. Then I shake my hand violently, sending the objects clattering to the floor.
The air is trapped in my throat. I shine my light closer, needing to be sure of what I’m seeing, and now my hand rushes to my mouth.
One of the objects is a skeleton key, identical to the one that opened the door in the shed. And the other, the one that’s whipped my heart into a gallop, is something I’ve never seen before but immediately recognize.
With trembling fingers, I pick up a dark metallic B.
The Blackburn Killer’s branding iron.
eighteen
I’m out of Charlie’s room and down the stairs so fast, I feel like I’ve flown to the foyer. Voices rumble from the kitchen, and I run down the hall until I’m panting on the doorless threshold. Mom and Tate gape at me in surprise.
“Where’s Charlie?” I blurt.
“I don’t know,” Tate says. “Last I saw, he was—”
“Charlie!”
They jump at my scream. I wait, hear nothing, and yell his name again.
“Dahlia, what—” Mom starts, but I jolt my hand up to cut her off.
Footsteps trudge from the end of the hall near the victim room. I spin around and back up until my hip hits the counter.
“This better be good,” Charlie says.
“You were at one of the crime scenes,” I blurt—and that slaps the smirk off his face. “And you have this.” I open my palm, show him the key and the
iron. Behind me, somebody sucks in a breath.
“Was it you?” I ask him. “Were you the Blackburn Killer?”
“Dahlia!” Mom says.
Charlie’s face hardens. “I was six!” he spits, features twisting with rage. “When the first woman was killed, I was only six.”
My hand shakes. The iron feels heavier the longer I hold it. The key’s teeth seem to sharpen.
He’s right, of course—he was far too young to be the killer.
“Then why do you have this?” I pluck the iron from my palm, stab it into the air.
At that, Charlie seems to deflate, his chest going concave as his gaze slides behind me, reaching, as always, toward Tate.
“Don’t look at her!” I yell. “I’m the one asking.”
He shoves his eyes to the floor.
“There… there must be a reasonable explanation,” Mom stammers.
I glare at my brother. “Answer me!”
“Dahlia, stop,” Tate says gently. She steps forward until she’s standing between me and Charlie. Then she puts her hand on the sharp knob of his shoulder.
“You should tell them,” she whispers.
Charlie’s face appears so tortured that I almost feel guilty—like I’m witnessing something I shouldn’t.
“Tate,” he whispers back. “I can’t.”
“You can,” she replies. “Listen to what she’s accusing you of. It’s time, Charlie. You have to tell them.”
“Tell us what?” Mom asks.
Tate squeezes his shoulder. “I’m right here.”
My heart races as I watch them both. For a few charged moments, Charlie returns our sister’s stare, but then he throws out an arm behind him, feeling for the wall. He lets himself fall against it and slides down until he’s sitting on the floor.
Knees up, elbows on his thighs, fists against his forehead, Charlie lets out a single word: “Fuck.”
My skin goes cold, waiting.
Finally, Charlie drops his hands. “I got the brand from the chest. In the room beneath the shed.”
The Family Plot Page 20