Behind Every Lie

by Christina McDonald

  I sat on the bed next to Laura and leaned against the headboard. There was nothing to do but keep waiting.

  I flicked the telly on. The BBC was reporting on a breaking news story.

  “. . . that Rose Ashford and her daughter, Laura, have died in a murder-suicide after finding a note taped to the young girl’s buggy. The note indicated Mrs. Ashford jumped into the Thames with the girl because of guilt over the death of Eva Clarke, her nanny’s young daughter. Mrs. Ashford’s note reportedly admits full responsibility for opening the window the child …”

  I stood slowly, utterly stunned. I glanced at Laura, who seemed blissfully ignorant of the news story.

  Rose was dead. And somehow she’d made it look like Laura was too.

  The reporter’s voice faded in and out. I stared out the window. An airplane roared overhead, the jet stream a haze in the pale afternoon sky.

  I cast my mind back to her last words, an apology. Katherine, I’m so sorry.

  The clouds shifted, a shaft of light pouring into the room, shining directly on Laura, her dark-red hair alight. I wanted to reach for that light, grasp it in my hand, bend it the way a wave of light is bent by gravity. If I could loop it back on itself and redo that day, none of this would be happening. Eva would be alive. So would Rose.

  I could no longer contain it. I ran to the washroom and slammed the door shut as vomit burst up my throat. When I was empty, I sank to the floor and pushed my hands hard into my temples, rocking as I cried. The pain in my chest was dreadful, an excruciating throb of self-blame and recrimination.

  Nobody would come looking for Laura now. Seb would think she and Rose were dead. Had that been Rose’s plan all along? To give Laura a fighting chance?

  But then the truth hit me like a brick wall. Seb would come looking for me. How long before he realized my passport was gone? Before he sent one of his men after me or notified the police I was missing?

  If he found me, he would find Laura. What had he said? An eye for an eye. I could not be certain he wouldn’t hurt her, and yet I had promised Rose I would keep her safe.

  Gradually numbness seeped, like a drug, into my veins.

  “Miss Katherine!” Laura’s voice brought me back to earth with a jolt. “Miss Katherine, I finished my picture!”

  I wiped my eyes. I had to deal with this as I’d dealt with everything in life that came snapping at my back. Laura’s safety was my responsibility, my only priority, now.

  Pulling the bathroom door open, I dropped to one knee in front of Laura, my eyes landing briefly on the envelope with my passport and Eva’s birth certificate sitting on the bedside table.

  “Laura, today we are going on an airplane,” I said. “And we’re going to play a game. I shall call you Eva, and you must call me Mummy.”

  twenty-two

  eva

  AFTER JACOB AND I got off the phone, I called all the hospitals in central London. I found David Ashford at St. Thomas’ near Westminster. It was too early to visit, so I decided to take a bath.

  I turned the water on to fill the bathtub and peeled my clothes off to inspect my body. The bruises on my chest, my shoulders, my hips were fading, losing their defined edges. Even the fern-shaped edges of the Lichtenberg figures on my arm had blurred, the new skin a bubblegum pink, the electric vibrations muted.

  When the tub was full I climbed in, tentatively lowering myself until I was covered to my chest. I stared at the ceiling; a cobweb with a fly trapped in the middle hung in the corner of the bathroom. Outside, the outline of a small bird hopped along the frosted-glass window.

  The quiet flat folded around me, the water occasionally sloshing against the tub, intermittent drops from the faucet splashing into the water. Suddenly a sharp crack came from outside the bathroom door, then the thud of footsteps. I jumped, my eyes flipping open. I held my breath, straining to hear.

  There. The unmistakable thud-thud of boots stuttered across the hardwood floor.

  Someone was inside the flat.

  A drawer scraped open, the silverware inside rattling. More drawers opened and closed. A floorboard groaned as footsteps came closer.

  I leapt out of the bath, water cascading onto the linoleum. I flung the lock across the door. My heart thundered in my ears as I tried to squash rising panic. The walls loomed around me, a prison I couldn’t run from. Adrenaline surged through my blood so fast I felt dizzy. The horror of being confined, completely naked, overwhelmed me, sent me back to the night I was attacked.

  There was nowhere to run. The bathroom window was a tiny slit at the top of the room, four or five inches tall at best. I was trapped.

  Fear prickled along my skin. I gulped at the air, trying to think clearly. I pulled a towel from a hook on the back of the door and wrapped it around my body, scanning the bathroom for something to use as a weapon. The shower rod would make too much noise to get down; the toilet scrubber wasn’t lethal enough.

  I dropped to my hands and knees and peered under the door. There was no sound. Everything had gone quiet. Too quiet. My pulse hammered in my ears.

  Suddenly heavy black boots drew level with my nose, just on the other side of the bathroom door. I rocked back on my heels as the door handle rattled abruptly, a sudden image flashing in my mind.

  A different apartment.

  A different door handle.

  A long corridor flashing as I ran past.

  “Wait. Eva, don’t go!” A man’s voice.

  And then I was outside racing past a sign for Vista Square Condos.

  The bathroom door handle rattled again. The sound yanked me back to the present. I jumped to my feet, looking around wildly. My eyes fell on a bottle of bleach tucked neatly behind the toilet. I lunged for it.

  In the bathroom mirror, my wet hair was slick against my skull, my face pale with terror. But there was something else there too: the glint of determination. Maybe I was trapped, but I wasn’t completely defenseless. I could move. I could fight.

  I unscrewed the cap off the bleach, ready. But then the footsteps trailed away from the bathroom. A long moment of silence passed.

  I waited, unsure what to do. Had the intruder left?

  Finally I unlocked the door as soundlessly as possible. I edged it open, the bleach ready. A woman was standing in the living room, reading something on her phone. I must’ve made a noise, because her head jerked up, and she screamed.

  “What do you want?” I shrieked. I held the bleach up threateningly, but the towel started to slip. I grabbed for it while still trying to hold the bleach.

  Shockingly, bizarrely, she laughed. “Your towel …”

  She had a thick accent, Eastern European, maybe Russian. She was stunning, tall and slim, her body encased completely in black, like a panther. She wore a pair of chunky black Doc Martens. White-blond hair cascaded nearly to her waist. She had high, Slavic cheekbones, full lips, and dark-brown eyes framed by thickly mascaraed eyelashes.

  I clutched at my towel, breathing hard.

  “Why are you in Jacob’s apartment?” she asked.

  “Jacob’s my friend,” I replied, defensive. “He said I could stay.”

  “He did not tell me this. I will call him.”

  She tapped at her phone, then spoke in a low murmur. I slipped into the bedroom and pulled on my clothes from yesterday.

  The rush of adrenaline was fading now, leaving me nauseated and trembly, fear clutching at me like a fist. The blond woman appeared in the doorway.

  “It is okay for you to stay,” she said stiffly. Her jaw, sharp as an arrow, was set in a way that said she didn’t approve. “I am Anastasiya. I am also Jacob’s friend,” she said. “I check on his flat when he is away. And sometimes I stay here.”

  My face flushed hot with mortification, followed by an unexpected coil of jealousy. It was stupid. I was going to marry Liam. Jacob could date whomever he wanted. It was just our history, I guessed.

  “I see.” I pulled on my shoes and socks and stood.

  “Jacob said
to help you if you need it. Do you need help?”

  I slid into my jacket and pulled the collar up. “No.”

  “It is very cold today. You won’t be warm enough in that.” She pointed at my quilted coat. “Have this.…” She pulled a chunky, knit scarf from a large leather handbag sitting near the door and held it out to me.

  “Thank you, but no.” I was touched by her kindness, but I never wore scarves. I couldn’t stand anything around my throat. Not since the night I was attacked. It was why I’d cut my hair. “I’ll be gone tomorrow. Do you need the flat before then?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Jacob said you must stay as long as you need.”

  “My flight leaves tomorrow.”

  She stared solemnly down at me. “Jacob said to tell you …” She paused, as if she was trying to recall the message. “He said, ‘Be careful, Eva. You don’t know what you’ll find.’ ”

  Maybe Jacob’s real words had gotten lost in translation, but on her lips it sounded like a threat.

  * * *

  I hunched in my coat as I walked to Old Street Station. Anastasiya had been right—it was too cold for this coat. I tucked my chin low into my collar. I was jittery, agitated, like I was standing on the razor edge of a mountain, waiting for an avalanche to crash down on me, knowing it would crush me beneath its weight.

  I ached to call Liam. I missed him, the way his smile soothed my fears, how confidently he took charge of things. His calm, doggedly persistent way of fixing all the messes I made. Like when I forgot to pay my taxes last year, or when I missed an important appointment, or that time I overdrew my bank account and he’d patiently taught me how to use Excel to track my money, then opened a joint account so we could share our finances.

  But it was the middle of the night in Seattle.

  I was on my own.

  I checked my Tube map and plotted a route to the hospital. I miraculously found the right train and felt a little spurt of pleasure at my newfound independence.

  As the train swayed down the tracks to Westminster, I tried to untangle the memory I’d had of my hand on a doorknob, seeing the apartment complex name, a man shouting, “Wait. Eva, don’t go!” Was it real, or was I mixing it up with another night, a dormant memory fragment only emerging now? I had no way of knowing, and my memory was the least trustworthy thing I had right now.

  I exited the station just outside the Houses of Parliament, the Victorian Gothic structure of Big Ben right across the road from me. I stared up at it openmouthed, people bumping and jostling as they pushed by.

  The clouds were clearing, the sky the color of washed denim marbled with lacy white clouds. Puddles glinted in the morning sun. Gulls wheeled through the air, shrieking above the din of black cabs and red buses thundering past.

  I consulted Google Maps and headed toward the bridge. Across the river, the London Eye twirled slowly. I leaned over the bridge’s stone balustrade and watched the river’s sludgy brown waters slip by. According to the article I’d read at the British Library, this was the bridge Rose had jumped off.

  Or had she been pushed?

  The thought hit me out of nowhere. If you knew how to swim, you could probably make it, but not if you had a child with you.

  The sound of giggling interrupted my thoughts. A handful of Japanese tourists were gathered next to me, all pointing and laughing while taking photos of the ground. Finally I got what they were seeing. The clover-shaped holes in the walls of the bridge had cast a neat row of penis-shaped patches of light at our feet.

  A woman in a severe black business suit smirked as she slowed to watch them.

  “The Ponte Vecchio and the Golden Gate Bridge are all fine and good, but only in London do you get to stomp on willies,” she said to me.

  Hysterical laughter bubbled up my throat, wave after wave of it until tears glossed my eyes. For the first time in days, the sharp-toothed fear that had been hot against my neck lessened.

  The woman looked at me like I’d completely lost it.

  “Sorry!” I waved my hand, a white flag of apology. “Sorry.”

  She rolled her eyes and walked away.

  The laughter finally tapered off. I took a deep breath and headed across the bridge. I needed to talk to David Ashford and get the hell out of here.

  Before I became Sebastian Clarke’s next victim.

  twenty-three

  eva

  ST. THOMAS’ HOSPITAL was an expansive network of stone buildings and glass-encased wings. I wandered around bewildering loops and abrupt turns before finally finding the hospital’s main reception hall. A chubby woman with a neat brown bob, thick glasses, and a string of heavy pearls greeted me.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m looking for one of your patients. His name’s David Ashford.”

  “David Ashford.” She typed it into her computer. “I’m afraid Mr. Ashford is on St. Ann’s Ward, and he is only accepting family.” She peered up at me, her eyes huge behind her glasses. “Are you family?”

  I stared at her. Was I family? He was, possibly, my biological father. Did that make him family?

  She took my silence as a no. “You’re welcome to put in a visitor’s request, and we’ll pass it along to his family for you.”

  “Oh. Okay,” I replied, but she’d already moved on to another customer.

  I turned around, disappointed, and slammed hard into someone. Papers and folders flew everywhere, blown by a gust of wind puffing through the open front door.

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” I dropped to my knees, scooping papers into a pile.

  “It was my fault, honestly.” The doctor I’d hurtled into knelt next to me. She was in her early to mid-thirties with smooth, olive-toned skin and shoulder-length dark hair, straight and glossy as a shampoo ad.

  “My father always tells me not to rush everywhere, and yet I persist,” she said. I handed her the last folder, and she stood, smiling cheerfully.

  “Can you tell me how I’d get to St. Ann’s Ward?” I asked.

  “It’s on the fifth floor.” She pointed in the direction I needed to go. “Just take the lift and turn right.”

  The elevator deposited me onto a quiet floor decorated entirely in white and blue: white walls, white ceiling, blue-tiled floor, blue signs. To my right was a pair of doors, a sign above them blaring ST. ANN’S CANCER WARD.

  David Ashford really was sick.

  I pushed through the doors. There was an unmanned reception desk to my left. I strolled down the corridor as if I knew where I was going, trying to look confident. But there was no need. None of the doctors or nurses paid any attention to me. I peered inside each room, but I couldn’t see much because the curtains were all pulled. I was working out a lie to tell a doctor in order to find David Ashford when I heard a familiar voice.

  “Lie down, Dad. Save your strength. The chemo will wipe you out before you know it.”

  A bed creaked as a weight settled on it. I followed the voice and peered around the corner. It was that girl from the art gallery, Charlotte, tucking a sheet around a man’s waist. He was small for a man, thin as paper. His skin was patchy and dry, the ashen gray of the very ill.

  Charlotte looked even more exhausted than yesterday, older and harder too. The harsh fluorescent light cast stark shadows on her face. She was wearing jogging bottoms and an oversize gray sweater—clothes you pull on when you’re too tired to care.

  She looked up, catching my stricken gaze, and her eyes widened.

  “You!” She strode angrily toward me. “What are you doing here? I told you no interviews!”

  I ignored her and walked toward the hospital bed. It was him. The man from the articles at the British Library. Older, balder, sicker, for sure, but this was David Ashford.

  Once when I was little, Mom and Dad took Andrew and me on a road trip to Pismo Beach. I stood where the sea meets the sand and let the waves crash against my ankles. As the water sucked back out to the Pacific, the sand shifted under my feet, my heels hovering over nothingn
ess. That was what it felt like now. Like there was nothing holding me up, nothing to catch me if I fell.

  David blinked up at me from behind round glasses. His jaw hinged open. He stood slowly, the sheet dropping to the floor, exposing thin, bony knees beneath his blue hospital gown.

  He opened his mouth and said one word: “Laura.”

  Goose bumps skittered up my arms as a memory unfolded over me. A woman with red hair, the same straight nose and milk-pale skin as me, bent to lift me in her arms. She nuzzled my neck, and I giggled as her hair tickled my nose.

  “Mummy, that tickles!”

  “I love you, Laura-loo!” she exclaimed, blowing a raspberry on my cheek.…

  “Laura,” David Ashford said again.

  That one word splintered everything inside of me.

  Laura.

  David and Rose Ashford’s daughter.

  The child who’d died in the articles.

  But she wasn’t dead at all. Laura Ashford was very much alive.

  I’m Laura Ashford.

  twenty-four

  kat

  25 years earlier

  I LOCKED ALL THREE LOCKS to our apartment and hurried after Eva. Even though we’d been in Chicago for three months, I wasn’t used to so many locks. At least they kept us safe, at any rate.

  “Blimey, Eva! Would you ever wait up?”

  Her short four-year-old legs pumped as she barreled down the corridor, shooting a cheeky smile over one shoulder. Just then a tall, balding bloke exited his apartment and Eva smashed into him, the air bursting from her mouth.

  “Oh! I do apologize!” I exclaimed, hurrying to them and pulling Eva out of his way.

  “That’s all right.” The man smiled, his hazel eyes crinkling, and patted his belly. “I have some extra cushioning.”

  He was a rather large man, broad, with a significant paunch on him. Yet he had an air of gentleness, and his smile was so warm I couldn’t help returning it. I’d seen him around the apartment complex a few times, checking his post box and washing clothes every Sunday in the communal laundry room downstairs.