Not myself.
I stumbled, my elbow cracking against my mug sitting on the console table. Tea spilled across the oak surface, the mug hitting the floor with a sickening crack. I stared at the pool of liquid expanding like blood, a memory mushrooming inside me, playing across the backs of my eyelids like a movie.
I was standing in Mom’s living room, my breath coming in short, sharp bursts. I looked at my feet, where two bodies lay on the floor. One was my mom.
A few feet away from her was the man from my sketch. The man from the article.
Sebastian Clarke.
The back of his head was split open, blood oozing toward my toes.
And I knew with a horrible certainty.
I killed Sebastian Clarke.
And if I’d killed Sebastian, that meant I was capable of killing Mom.
It was me all along.
thirty-six
kat
4 years before
I SECURED A SEAT at the back of the cocktail bar—always the back, so I could see who entered—and waited for Lily. This waterfront bar was her favorite, overlooking Seattle’s lovely seascape: the snow-tipped Olympic Mountains soaring over Puget Sound; the evergreen-cloaked islands in the distance; the setting sun casting a pink and gold glow over the horizon. A Washington ferry chugged into the blue expanse of Elliott Bay, heading in the direction of Bainbridge Island.
Lily entered like an actress sweeping before her adoring crowd, her long, flowing skirt fluttering behind her, her giant gold earrings dancing. She tossed a wave to the bartender, whose face brightened as he waved back. I stood to hug her.
“Happy birthday!” she exclaimed, handing me a card. We’d agreed long ago never to exchange gifts.
“Oh, thank you.” I rather hated being reminded of my birthday but dutifully opened the card.
“Sorry I’m late.” She dumped her bag on the chair across from me. “I walked up from my studio. I needed the exercise.” She patted her stomach. “I can’t get fat now that I’m getting old! I have another art exhibit in San Diego next week!”
I didn’t respond. Lily sometimes said ridiculous things in an effort to get attention, but I had long since learned to ignore these attempts.
“I’ll get us a drink,” I said, sliding out of my seat.
Lily waved me away. “No, no, it’s your birthday. I’ll get the drinks.”
She chatted with the bartender for a few minutes longer than was strictly necessary, then returned with a pint of ale for me and a glass of champagne for her. The bartender came up behind her carrying a slice of chocolate cake with a candle pressed into the center.
“Lily! Goodness!” I flushed, mortified, but at least she hadn’t insisted on singing—or, worse, that the bartender sing. It was one of the most appalling American traditions, singing “Happy Birthday” in public spaces in front of complete strangers.
“I couldn’t let your birthday pass without cake!” She leaned over and swiped a fingerful of icing.
“Thank you.” I took a bite. The cake was a little dry, the chocolate frosting rather too sweet, but it was a lovely sentiment, so I forced myself to eat the entire slice.
“How was San Diego?” I asked.
“Good. Very good, in fact! The exhibition was a wild success. Almost every single painting sold!”
“Blimey, that’s absolutely brilliant!” I exclaimed, truly happy for her. After a slow start, her paintings had really started selling in the last few years, and she’d built a great name for herself within the Seattle art community.
“So.” Lily sipped her wine and slid me a sly look. “I saw a woman leave your house last night. New girlfriend?”
I blushed furiously and busied myself with folding a napkin and placing it under my glass.
Lily laughed and waved a hand in the air. “It’s fine. I’ve always known you like women, Kat. I just wondered when you’d tell me. Why did you keep it secret for so long?”
I polished my glasses on my sleeve, giving myself a moment to respond.
“I suppose,” I said slowly, “I was uncertain of who I was, and what role that played in my identity. It was difficult to trust what I truly wanted.”
“I understand that. How can you be true to yourself when you don’t trust yourself?” Lily said. “You know it makes no difference to me, right? I love you no matter what.”
“I do. Thank you.”
“Do you like her?”
“Yes, I rather do. But it’s just casual really, nothing serious.”
“How did you meet?”
“I was hiking out by Snoqualmie Falls last June. She’d lost her phone, and we got to talking.…”
“Hiking.” She laughed. “Is that what you kids call it these days?”
I frowned, and Lily laughed again. “All right, all right. I get the hint. No more questions.” She looked down at our empty glasses.
“One more drink?”
I smiled. Lily was the devil on my shoulder, always trying to lure me away from being good. “You know I only have one if I’m driving.”
“Lucky for me.” She grinned and waved a hand to the bartender, signaling for another.
* * *
It was dark when I pulled up outside my house later that night. Lily stumbled down the street to her place, absolutely pissed. I didn’t envy her the headache she would have in the morning.
I was locking the car when someone stepped into the glow of the streetlight. I pressed a hand to my racing heart.
“Eva!” I exclaimed. “Darling, you frightened me. I didn’t notice your car there!”
She had been crying, her eyes puffy and rimmed with red.
“Mom, where have you been?”
I gave her a reproachful look. I didn’t need to explain my comings and goings to my grown daughter. “I went out for a drink after work.”
“Mom …” Her voice was high-pitched, scratchy.
“Come inside, darling. We can chat there.”
I pushed the door open and turned the downstairs lights on. Under the bright living room lights, I could see that her skin was a very pale, pasty gray, the area around her mouth red and spotted with acne. Her hair was lank and unwashed, dark with oil. She was rather plump too, as if she had been eating too much rich food, her face and fingers bloated.
I felt the first flicker of worry shimmer in me. I paused as I shed my coat, one arm in and one arm out.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
Eva sank onto the couch and looked up at me, her gray eyes suddenly impenetrable. She dropped her head into her hands and started crying.
“I’m sorry! I completely forgot your birthday and now I’ve ruined it!”
“Don’t be daft!” I exclaimed. I hung my coat up and sat next to her, patting her knee. “How could a visit from my daughter ever ruin my birthday? Come now. What’s all this about?”
“Mom, I was raped,” she said, still crying. “And now I’m pregnant.”
* * *
The whole horrifying tale tumbled out.
“Oh, Eva. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Eva bent over her knees, pressing her face into her hands. “I was ashamed! And … I don’t exactly remember it!”
“What do you mean, you don’t remember?”
“Everything was spinning, so I went outside to get some air. I remember being in the alley, and then a man was there.…” She started sobbing again, her shoulders shaking. “I went to the police, but they didn’t believe me and I had no evidence to prove it had happened, so I left. I tried to convince myself I’d just imagined it, but now I know I didn’t!”
“You were drugged.” My voice sounded flat, unemotional, and I was glad, because inside I felt like I would be sick. All this time I thought I was keeping her safe from Seb, but it was the other dark things in the world I should have been looking out for. Once again I had failed to keep her safe.
“Yeah, I think so. I have to get an abortion.”
“You are not serious!” I stiff
ened, horrified. “What happened to you isn’t the baby’s fault!”
“Are you fucking kidding me? You think it’s my fault?”
“There’s no need to curse at me,” I snapped. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I can’t have a rapist’s baby! And how would I even support it? I just got fired from the restaurant. I’m too sick and too messed up to even work.”
“Move back in here,” I said. “I’ll help. You are responsible for a child’s life. There is nothing more important than that.”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I just don’t know. This is so messed up, Mom. No matter what I decide, it’s going to break me.”
“Then make the best choice for the child.”
* * *
Eva did move back in with me, and she agreed not to get an abortion, but despite my best arguments, she decided to give the baby up for adoption. All through those long months she stayed with me, her stomach expanding as her cheekbones hollowed out, I hoped she would change her mind. I hoped that as soon as she held her baby’s tiny body in her arms, she would forget how it had been made.
But I was mistaken.
After she gave birth, I brought Eva the small, pink bundle of her daughter and begged her to hold her.
“Just for a minute, Eva,” I said. “See the miracle you’ve created.”
She turned her head away, refusing to look at the child.
I remembered holding my daughter after I’d given birth, the sound of her cry when the maternity nurse thumped her on the back, the heaviness in my breasts and the weight of responsibility that had pressed on my shoulders.
I would have given anything to have her back. Eva didn’t know what she was giving up.
“Get her out of here!” Eva snapped.
I took the baby out to the hallway, where the nurse scooped her out of my arms and handed her to the new parents. I watched them coddle her, stroke her downy forehead, and was mortified to find myself unable to contain my emotions.
I hurried away, thumping down the metal staircase and out the door into the brisk spring air. Everything was bursting into life, cherry blossoms and azaleas and cornflowers bright in bloom. I sat on a bench, trying to gather my thoughts.
There is a point, I recognize, at which a parent must resist being the protector and instead abandon their child to their own choices. The loss shook me, but I could not change it.
After a little while I went inside. I flung the door to the ward open, almost colliding with a well-built man with tidy fair hair. He stepped aside, holding the door open. The cuff of his business suit rode up, exposing a pale slice of white flesh and a silver Rolex.
My heart pulsed as adrenaline charged up my throat. I heard Seb’s laugh as he flashed his new Rolex at me. The face you put on becomes your identity.
I ran to Eva’s bedside, but she was sleeping, blissfully unaware of anything.
He isn’t Seb He isn’t that guy from Chicago, I assured myself, my hands shaking. Anybody could have a Rolex.
But even though I repeated it to myself over and over, I didn’t quite believe it.
thirty-seven
eva
I KILLED SEBASTIAN CLARKE.
The realization made my body go completely boneless. My fingers, my toes, my elbows, everything felt like it was floating, completely separate from my body.
“Eva, you there?” Jacob’s voice on the phone startled me back to the present.
“Yeah, sorry. I don’t know where my head is.” I forced a light laugh. “Hey, I need to get going. I’ll call you later, okay?”
I expected him to question me, to ask why, the way Liam did. But Jacob just said, “Sure. Talk to you later.”
A sick kind of adrenaline bubbled in me. My phone rang, and when I looked, it was Detective Jackson. I knew I should answer it, but I was too scared. My hand hovered over the phone. Detective Jackson had been so distracted earlier. Had he already gotten the arrest warrant? Was he on his way here now?
The phone stopped ringing and went to voice mail, then started up again.
The walls curled around me, tilted inward. Beads of sweat broke out on my upper lip and beneath my arms. I could feel myself breaking into a million pieces.
Guilt encased me like a sleeve, hot tears tumbling down my cheeks. If I couldn’t trust myself, how could anybody else?
The phone went silent, this time for good.
I don’t know how long I sat there, trying to figure out what to do. I thought of all the men in my life who controlled me. Detective Jackson, Andrew, even Liam. And I’d let them. Yes, even Liam. For so long, I’d relied on him to fix me. But even he couldn’t fix this.
Only I could do that.
I would turn myself in to the police. Tonight. I wouldn’t even take the lawyer. I deserved everything I got. Arrest. Prison. My brother’s hatred.
I called Liam to let him know, but his phone went straight to voice mail.
“Liam, can you call me back right away? It’s important. I’m going to the detective’s office now.”
Even with my new resolve, I tried to delay leaving until Liam called me back. I wiped up the tea I’d spilled, washed the kitchen counters, and went through the pile of mail gathering on the kitchen island. Liam would like the house neat and tidy when he came home.
I pulled out the bills that were addressed to Liam and climbed the stairs to the third floor to put them in his office. Masculinity dominated the décor: charcoal tile flooring, green-shaded lamps, dark-gray walls hung with local and state business awards. A huge glass desk overlooked the lake outside. Black leather couches were positioned in an L-shape in one corner, an expensive black-on-white rug under a glass coffee table.
I put the envelopes in the inbox on his desk, my eyes falling on a document lying there. It was a letter from the building inspector listing the building code violations Liam had been cited for. Asbestos in the drywall joints. Spliced electrical wires without a junction box. The wrong size circuit in the light fixtures.
I frowned. Those sounded like very serious violations. No wonder the building permit had been turned down. I immediately felt guilty for thinking that. Liam wouldn’t cheat and lie and risk people’s lives for a building site. Would he?
For Liam, the goal was never as much about developing a property as winning at developing it. He liked beating his competitors, proving he could do something better than them. Actually, if I really thought about it, his desire to win was less about winning than it was about not losing. To him, losing was the same as being rejected.
But these were actual crimes.
I almost laughed out loud. Who was I to judge? If Liam broke the law, his offenses were tiny in comparison to murder.
I set the letter down and turned to go, but my eyes had already snagged on something else. A spreadsheet of properties Liam owned, with check marks next to the ones that had been sold. Right at the top was a property that rang a distant bell.
Vista Square Condos.
Where did I know that name?
Adrenaline hit me, as if my body remembered what my mind couldn’t.
Outside, a murky gray gloaming had rolled in. I turned on the desk lamp and sat in Liam’s chair, reading through the spreadsheet details. The condo he’d sold was a one-bedroom, one-bathroom in downtown Seattle. But he bought and sold properties all the time. It was part of what he did as a developer.
I ran my fingertip over the scab on my palm. My brain felt like it was turning to liquid. I couldn’t trust where my mind was going.
Suddenly the unmistakable thunk of a chain snapping came from downstairs. Then Liam’s voice: “Babe?”
I dropped the spreadsheet back in the inbox, turned the lamp off, and scurried downstairs. The front door was partially open. A slice of Liam’s face appeared through the narrow crack allowed by the door chain.
“Could you undo the chain?” he called irritably.
“Sorry!” I slid the chain free and opened the door.
&n
bsp; Liam scowled. He was probably still upset that I’d wrecked the living room last night. He dropped a backpack and his briefcase onto the couch and started peeling layers from his body: hat, gloves, windbreaker, fleece jacket, wet spandex.
“Were you rowing? I thought you had a meeting.”
He grunted a reply but didn’t look at me.
“I was trying to call you.”
“I went out on the lake after my meeting. What’s up?”
“I …” I hesitated. How to tell my fiancé I was a murderer?
I went into the kitchen and grabbed a tumbler from the cupboard, filled it with water. Liam followed in his boxer shorts, his face pinched.
“Eva.” He sighed, exasperated, and took the glass from my hands. “That’s a juice glass. It’s not for water.”
He took two tall, skinny glasses down from the cupboard and filled them both with filtered water. He handed one to me and drank the other in one long gulp. When he’d finished, he rinsed his glass under the tap and put it directly in the dishwasher, then took mine and did the same.
“Are you okay?” He tilted his head at me. “You look strange.”
I picked up the newspaper and handed it to him.
“Look.” I pointed at the headline. My guts twisted. “Sebastian Clarke is dead! He’s been dead this whole time. It wasn’t him following me in London. Do you know what that means?”
Liam shook his head.
“It means I killed him! I was there. I remember being there. I remember holding a knife. I—” My voice cracked. “I did it.”
Liam blew out a long breath and reached for me, wrapping me in his arms and pressing my face to his broad chest. His skin felt cold and clammy, the wiry hairs of his chest tickling my nose. I leaned into him, wanting the warmth of his reassurance, but his skin was so cold it just made me feel empty.
“I’m sure there’s an explanation,” he said.
“I’m going to turn myself in to the police.”
“What? No! Sebastian Clarke is dead.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So nobody knows what really happened that night! You can’t remember; you just keep saying that. That’s what your lawyer will say too.”
Behind Every Lie Page 22