“I’ve thought for a long time that I couldn’t trust myself, because if nobody believes you, if the police don’t believe you, how can you trust yourself?” Only flashes of that night had stayed with me. The crack that ran the length of the ceiling. How hard the bed was. The turning of a door handle. Was my lack of memory a blessing or a curse? “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”
Jacob looked surprised. “You don’t need to apologize to me. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
I got up and crossed the room, trying to get a bit of space. I wasn’t saying it right. I took a long, shaky breath and tried again.
“I think I killed my mom. I don’t know if it’s possible to fix myself. But I do know I have to make amends for what I’ve done. So I’m going to turn myself in. I might go to jail for a long time. But before I do, I needed you to know the truth about why I never called you back. The reason I ran away.”
Jacob half-stood, a look of alarm on his face. “What is it?”
“The night we slept together was just a week before I was attacked,” I said. “The baby I gave up for adoption, Jake. She could be yours.”
forty-one
kat
that night
I STARED AT THE WORDS on the bathroom mirror.
I
Found
You
The adrenaline and fear were too much. I heaved forward and vomited, the tea I’d drunk earlier swirling around the drain. I rinsed my mouth and dabbed it with a wad of toilet paper. I suppose on some elemental level I knew one day Seb would find me. He was not the sort of man to forgive a betrayal.
I felt like such a fool. I had become complacent, and now he was here, ready to ruin the life I had built for myself.
Suddenly angry, I wiped the words off the mirror with a tissue. I would not let him frighten me.
I walked downstairs, my hand slippery against the banister. Outside, wind thrashed against the house and a flurry of rain galloped down the windows. My neighbor’s floodlight went on. I entered the living room, and there he was, Sebastian, my husband, sitting on my couch. He held a cup of tea in his hand, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be here after all these years.
Time had not been kind to him. He looked rather older than I knew him to be. Smaller and more shrunken. His skin was pockmarked, scars nicking his cheeks. His nose was crooked, as if it had been broken many times. Dark stubble sprouted on the lower portion of his face, his blue eyes small and beady. His dark hair was thin and streaked with gray.
My mind flitted to the gun locked in a storage cupboard upstairs. I’d bought it after Eva moved in, hoping to reassure her that she was safe. But then she’d left, and it had sat locked away ever since. It did me no good now. I couldn’t even get to it.
He smiled, revealing stained yellow teeth. “Hello, Katherine.”
“Sebastian.” I hid my shaking hands in the folds of my trousers. “How did you get in?”
He made a scoffing sound at the back of his throat. “That lock couldn’t keep a teenager out.”
“The alarm—”
“Oh, you mean this alarm?” Seb rose and went to the alarm panel near the door. He typed in a series of numbers and the alarm beeped and disarmed. “You were always so predictable, Katherine. I knew it would be our daughter’s birthday.”
“How did you find me?”
“The good old BBC. ‘British Citizen Wins Prestigious Medal of Courage in Seattle.’ The news report said you were a teacher here. All I had to do was look through the staff pages of local schools.”
The same way Rose had found me. I knew Eva and I should have left then, but I had been so certain I could keep us safe. And I had. Until now.
Seb moved closer to me. I flinched, but all he did was hand me the mug he was holding. He smelled of fried food, grease, and the oily scent of someone who hadn’t washed in a long time.
“Here, I made you some tea. Sit down.”
It was so normal, so domestic, it felt utterly surreal. I took the mug and sat in my armchair, tea sloshing onto my trousers.
“Drink up, Katherine. You look a little pale.”
Wordlessly, I sipped the tea. Rain clattered like shards of glass against the windows and thunder boomed. The storm edged closer, the air heavy and dense.
I wiped a bead of sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. “Are you going to kill me?” I asked quietly.
He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe. But I want something from you. And you’re going to give it to me.”
He was always a cocky bastard. I was too naïve to see it as a flaw when I was young, and once I did we had a daughter and I couldn’t risk losing her. But I saw it now. His arrogance was something I could use. I just had to keep him talking.
“What could I possibly have that you’d want?”
“You know I want Rose. And the girl.”
“They’re dead.”
“We both know that’s a lie. I know you were on the run with a little girl, red hair, about three years old. You called her Eva.” He shook his head and laughed, but not like it was funny in any way. An angry laugh that bubbled, caustic, like acid reflux, in his throat. “I knew it was Laura. You planned it all with Rose, didn’t you! You ran away with her.”
I closed my eyes. The bloke who’d attacked me in Chicago. He’d gone back and told Seb about Eva. I knew I shouldn’t have let him live.
“How could you?” He reached across the space between us and slapped me, so fast I didn’t see it coming. I was out of practice. I used to see it coming.
I gasped, my hand flying to my cheek, stunned as he glared at me, breathing hard.
“How could you run away with our daughter’s murderer?”
“Rose didn’t murder Eva. It was ruled an accident, remember? The police released her.”
“She still opened that window! She may as well have pushed her! Maybe you don’t care about justice for our daughter, but I do.”
“But why now, Seb? It’s been so long!”
“Let’s just say I was a little … indisposed while I was detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Otherwise I would’ve found you much sooner.”
“The fire. You were caught starting the fire at that restaurant. The Gardener.”
“Guilty. At least according to a jury.”
No wonder I hadn’t seen or heard from him all these years.
“So where is she?” he asked. “Where is Rose?”
“I told you, Rose is dead. She really did jump off that bridge.”
Seb leaned back against the couch and folded his arms over his chest. His expression grew calculating. “I saw you meet Eva at that restaurant. Did our daughter really mean so little to you that you thought you could slot another child in where she used to be? You disgust me.”
“She did nothing wrong, Seb. She’s never known about any of it.”
My neighbor’s floodlight went on again. Somebody was outside, so close. I could scream for help, if only I could catch my breath. My vision blurred, hazy yellow clouding everything. My heart felt like spark plugs were pulsing in my chest. My limbs were utterly, utterly useless.
“You have no idea what it feels like!” Sebastian’s voice shook. “I lost everything.”
“She was my daughter too! I’ve suffered every single day since she died!”
Pain, physical and emotional, draped itself over me. The guilt and blame I’d carried for so long was a sharp stone boring into my chest.
Seb sucked his upper lip between his teeth, his face twisted. “I dream about her. Dreams where I’m watching her fall, but our angel has no wings to hold her up. I dream that I’m under the window about to catch her, but somehow I miss. I dream I’m watching her in the window but my legs are made of cement and there’s nothing I can do. I couldn’t protect my own daughter.”
“Oh, Seb,” I murmured.
Guilt was eating him up, just as it had me. But he’d swallowed the sweet medicine of revenge to cure his guilt, only to become addicted t
o it. That addiction was driving him even now, festering and turning into a living, breathing thing.
“Rose opened that window and she has to pay, Katherine. It’s the only way to get justice.” He grasped my hand, his touch reptilian.
I shook my head.
Seb leaned forward, his nose only inches from mine. “You get her here, or I’ll kill your precious Eva. I know where she lives. Don’t think for a second I won’t do it.”
A cold wave of sickness rolled through me, coating my skin in a thick, pin-prickly feeling. The armchair cradled my back, the only thing keeping me upright.
I had to keep Seb talking. I was too weak to fight him off.
“It wasn’t Rose, Seb.” My voice was thready. “It was me. I opened the window.”
forty-two
eva
JACOB’S ELBOWS WERE PROPPED on his knees, chin cupped in his hands. He was staring at the green shag carpeting, his forehead crumpled as a tissue. He hadn’t moved in a few minutes.
“Jake, please say something,” I pleaded.
He shook his head, dazed. “You never said a thing.”
“I know. I’m so sorry, Jake. You deserved better than that. I was so messed up and—”
“Where is she?” he cut me off.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. It was a closed adoption.”
“What?” Jacob stood slowly. “You gave up a baby who might have been mine to a closed adoption?”
“I didn’t know whose baby it was! I thought about getting one of those prenatal paternity tests, but they’re expensive. Plus I would’ve needed a swab from your mouth for them to analyze your DNA, and how was I supposed to explain that to you? Besides, you left. You left, Jake. I didn’t know where to find you!”
“Don’t give me that bullshit story, Eva. You know you could’ve gotten in touch. You should’ve tried harder!”
“I’m sorry. You’re right. But how could I say those words? I’m pregnant, but I was raped and I don’t know if the baby’s yours or his.” I dashed at the tears brimming in my eyes. “I’m not saying I was right, but try to understand what I was going through.”
Jacob stared down at his clenched fists, his shoulders heaving. He wouldn’t speak now. His reaction to anything uncomfortable was to go into lockdown, retreating into silence.
I straightened my shoulders and lifted my chin. I was done apologizing for things that weren’t my fault. “Look, I just wanted to do the right thing here. I thought you should know the truth.”
I grabbed my coat and picked my way back over the piles of broken plaster and shattered fragments of wood to the front door and let myself out.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The trees that lined the road bent and swayed in the increasing wind. Rain mingled with the tears on my cheeks as I ran to my car. I wrenched the door open and threw myself in. Icy rivulets dripped from my hair down the back of my neck, making me shiver.
I turned the key in the ignition. The starter made a raspy clicking sound. I tried a few more times, but no luck. And then I realized what the problem was. I’d left the headlights on.
“No!” I shrieked. I smacked the dashboard with my palm and dropped my forehead to the steering wheel.
What now?
I couldn’t call Liam. There was no way I was going back in to Jacob. And I couldn’t call the detective to pick me up right here. It would be too mortifying. Maybe Uber or Lyft? I’d never needed to use them on Whidbey Island and had no idea how they worked.
The darkness wrapped around me, pressing on the windows. I shivered as drops slipped off my hair and dove down the collar of my coat. I looked across the road at Mom’s house.
I was cold to the bone and soaked when I let myself in the back door. First I went upstairs to Mom’s office where I remembered seeing an electric heater. I unplugged it from beneath the desk and straightened. My gaze fell on her telescope. I smiled, remembering how baffled she’d been when I chose the arts over science.
I peered through the eyepiece and pulled back in surprise. It was looking directly into Jacob’s living room. I could see where his lanky frame was slumped like a question mark on the shabby brown couch. I flushed, embarrassed that Mom had been watching Jacob and his dad.
A sudden chill crept into my skin as I thought of the night I found Mom’s letter. How Jacob had come into the house without knocking. I remembered thinking it had been a long time since we were kids and could come into each other’s houses unannounced. I looked again into the eyepiece. Maybe I should be asking why Mom was looking into Jacob’s house.
Back downstairs, I tugged on a sweater of my mom’s I found draped over the back of a kitchen chair. Her smell gusted off of it. I pulled it tight around my body and surveyed the living room. The bloodstain on the floor near where Mom’s armchair had been was still there. Swirls of fingerprinting dust stood out on the fireplace mantel. I picked up a picture of my brother when he was about a year old. No wonder Mom had no pictures of me when I was a baby.
I set the picture down and dialed my brother’s number.
“Eva? What’s up?” Andrew’s voice was low. Voices filtered in the background, the tinkle of piano music, the clatter of silverware against porcelain.
“Andrew, I need help.”
A woman’s voice floated through the phone. Andrew hushed her; then a door clicked and there was silence. For so long, Andrew had been just my little brother. Then he was my competition for love, time, attention from our parents. Then he was my judge, my number-one critic, and the benchmark I held myself against. But for the first time I thought of him as an adult with an actual life. A girlfriend, maybe children down the road, happy dinners and laughter with good friends.
God, I could be awfully self-involved. No wonder he was angry at me.
“I-I’m so sorry,” I stuttered. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No, it’s fine. Actually, I’m glad you called. I was in court all day and then in the office. I only got your message a little bit ago. I’ve been worried about you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying you’re sorry, Eva,” Andrew said, not unkindly. “What do you need?”
“I need a ride to the detective’s office. I was on my way there, but I stopped by Jacob’s and I left my lights on and now the battery—” My voice cracked. “I need a jump.”
“Sure. I have some jumper cables in my car. I’ll bring them to you.”
“I’m at Mom’s now.”
He hesitated, but didn’t question me. “I’ll be there in a few. And remind me when I get there to give you the ID number you need to pick up your ring.”
“From the hospital?”
“No, from Detective Jackson. He called me asking where you were yesterday. He’s cleared your ring from evidence he found at the scene.”
I looked at my bare hand, where my engagement ring should’ve been. Something jangled at the back of my mind.
A knock came at the door. “Somebody’s here, I’ve gotta go.”
“See you in a few.”
When I opened the door, Jacob was standing on the porch hunched against the rain. The wind tossed his hair around his face.
“I’m sorry.” He looked like he was in physical pain, his face twisted and gray. “I didn’t handle that very well.”
“It’s okay—”
“It’s not okay. The way I acted—I’m not that guy. I should’ve done better. And I get why you couldn’t tell me. I really do. I should’ve—”
A brilliant flash of hot white light split the sky behind Jacob. Forks of lightning etched into the inky canvas of night, burning into my retinas. A second later, the horrific crack of thunder boomed across the charcoal sky. It permeated the air, reverberating throughout my body.
My brain lit up, neurons fizzing and crackling in a dizzying swirl of white light, my mind suddenly falling back, back, back.
Jacob was speaking, but I couldn’t hear anything because I was back there, the night Mom was killed. The lightni
ng from that night and the lightning from right now fused, illuminating what had been hidden, as if the veil had been pulled aside, and I was seeing it all for the first time.
forty-three
kat
that night
“I OPENED THE WINDOW, SEB,” I repeated. “Not Rose. Do you remember how hot it was that day? I set fans in the upstairs windows, but the one in the playroom was too large to put a fan in, so I opened the window and left the fan on the desk. And then I went downstairs.”
Tears dripped down my face as the image of my daughter’s small, broken body accosted me.
“It was an accident.” For so long I’d blamed myself, the self-hatred hulking like a tumor under the skin. Now I felt it soften and dissolve, washed away by the truth.
It was an accident.
Sebastian stared at me, as if unable to comprehend my words. “It’s your fault.”
He stood slowly, his body bulky with rage. I tried to stand too, but staggered, the tea dropping from my limp fingers and splashing onto my feet. The living room tilted precariously, but Seb grabbed me by the front of my shirt and yanked me upright. His face was twisted with loathing.
“You bitch.” Seb pointed something at me then. It glinted in the light, a sharp flash. I blinked, trying to clear my hazy yellow vision. He pressed the object to my cheek. It was a knife. One of my knives.
But he didn’t stab me.
The punch sent me flying backward, my cheekbone smashing against the floor. My glasses skittered under the couch. My vision erupted in red stars. Blood exploded inside my mouth, the taste of iron, hot and bitter.
I gasped and gagged, rolling onto my side as I cradled my throbbing cheek in my hand.
A voice inside my head screamed at me. Fight. Escape. Run. But I could barely stand, let alone get away. I was trapped. Gut-wrenching fear gripped me, my breathing ragged as a dark, rising panic wrapped its bony fingers around my chest.
I was going to die.
I turned and looked into Sebastian’s puffy red eyes and made a decision. He could kill me, torture me, maim me, but I wasn’t telling him anything.
Behind Every Lie Page 24