“Did she ever mention a Cleo?”
He blinks at me strangely and steps away. As if whatever I am is contagious. “I’m sorry. I already told you. I don’t have any students by that name.”
Panicked, I turn away from him and back to Gotleib. Towering above the podium, the cave of his mouth is open wide, words wheeling like bats from the dark heart of it. But I can’t hear what he’s saying. It’s all static, white noise. All but this. Cleo.
****
I can’t leave. Not yet. I stand at the edge of the dwindling crowd, still holding my candle and scanning what remains. The empty quad, the trampled grass, the litter. A sign discarded on the ground and marked by a muddy footprint. WE LOVE THE LOVE DOCTORS. RIP. The aftermath of a vigil, it turns out, isn’t so different from a concert or a football game.
And my eyes keep playing tricks on me. It’s Cleo, arm in arm with Onion Breath, whispering in his ear. Cleo, sword fighting with her candle. Cleo, scurrying away from me, vanishing into the woods like a fox with a rabbit in her mouth. Or worse, she’s watching me. And laughing. I feel unsettled—a subtle shift in the earth beneath me, a fault line threatening to quake—so I wait.
I observe.
I analyze.
Dean Gotleib blows his nose into a handkerchief and pushes a thin wisp of hair over his bald spot. His pants are tight at his waist, straining to hold him. If he sat on my therapy couch, he would confess he’s clinging to middle age. Afraid he’s well past his prime. I’m not the man I used to be, he would say.
His wife is smiling at him, but I don’t believe her. There’s anger there, veiled beneath, in the toothless stretch of her lips. She would sneer when she’d tell me, The Love Doctors didn’t save our marriage. I just gave in. Gave up. Decided to stay.
A few students gather at the base of the podium, the impromptu memorial. A girl places a teddy bear at the edge of the pile. Then she aims the lens of her smartphone at herself and fires. A vigil selfie.
I breathe in, breathe out.
And find the face I’ve been avoiding.
Sheila Pope. Kate’s mother and her carbon copy with her dancer’s body and golden hair. Orange County resident, widow, retired real estate agent, active member of the Turning Pages Book Club. I know her. Or at least that’s how it feels when you look at someone long enough, when you type her name into Google, when you scroll through her Facebook photos, squinting your eyes so you don’t miss it. It. Whatever it is that made her daughter good for Ian. Better than you.
Ian wrote my name, I want to tell her. Mine. Not your precious Kate’s. But it doesn’t matter, because I don’t know why he did it. Or if he did. And because they’re both dead now anyway. There’s no prize left to win. If Ian could even be called that, there’s no one to watch me win it.
Sheila moves like Kate. Graceful and reserved. Like she’s holding something back. A delicate part of herself, a breakable part. She follows Dean Gotleib and his wife from the stage. They walk toward me and my candle, with its meager flame rounding to the shape of a teardrop.
Our eyes meet. Hers, flat and worn, like pebbles at the bottom of a dry creek bed. Mine, no less so. Grief wears you away. Not all at once. But eventually. Cruelly and completely. But to grieve a violent death is worse. It’s an amputation. An axe to your soul.
I wait for her to speak. To tell me we’re kindred spirits, both left behind. Or to curse me. To recognize me, at the very least. To have looked me up, studied me, the way I’d studied her. But I’m nobody to her. Nobody to Kate either. A stand-in wife. An extra on the set. Just filling in until the real talent showed up.
With a single puff, I blow out the candle and drop it into a waste bin.
Kate’s mother strides past, oblivious, Gotleib and his wife right behind her.
I follow.
****
The parking lot is nearly empty. Just a few cars and even fewer people. Most are heads down and rushing away to their safe, warm homes. Where murder is spoken about in hushed tones, then forgotten. Where dead professors are dinner conversation but nothing more. There’s an uneasy stillness in the air. Like the whole world, or at least the entire MCC campus, is holding its breath. And waiting. Waiting.
I watch nearby from my car, the window cracked, while Dean Gotleib folds his arms around Kate’s mother, strangling her in an awkward embrace. Like a child with a cat.
Sheila purses her lips and smooths the black fabric of her dress. She’s like Kate that way too. Dignified. “Thank you for honoring my daughter and son-in-law. It was lovely.”
“Of course. My pleasure—uh, I mean I’m glad to do it. We were quite fond of them both. And Ian told me how close you all were. Well, with his parents being gone, he looked to you as a mother. His mother.”
I imagine punching Gotleib in the throat. The satisfaction of listening to him gag while I force-feed him a mouthful of truth. Ian had said almost the same to me about my mother.
“How is Madison?”
Sheila tenses, and so do I, gripping the steering wheel till my knuckles whiten. She shakes her head at Gotleib’s wife. “Not good. She hasn’t uttered a single word since the police found her. Not even to the child psychologist we saw yesterday.”
Both Gotleibs gasp. Later, this might be pillow talk, a way to ease the tension between them. Other people’s problems are the best therapy. My line, not Ian’s.
Gotleib’s wife speaks first. “I thought Maddie didn’t see anything. That they found her downstairs, hiding.”
“We don’t know. We just don’t know. The detectives scheduled us another appointment with the doctor on Monday. He said severe trauma can cause this sort of thing. That she won’t talk until she feels safe. It’s called selective mutism.”
Selective mutism. I feel featherlight and cold. So cold. My throat closes like a flower in the darkness—the way it had the moment I’d found my father with his head halfway there, halfway gone. I’d heard the therapist tell my mother my silence was about control. What the hell did he know about all the ways the brain can betray you? The rush of cortisol, the shrinking hippocampus, the fierce little amygdala overriding protocol like a crazed pilot at the helm. In that three months of near silence, speaking to no one but my mother, I’d never felt more out of control.
And Maddie is just a girl. A talker, like her dad. She’d spoken to me before when I’d been a complete stranger, but I push the memory away before it takes hold. Before it makes me feel worse than I already do. “Kate put up one heck of a fight.” That’s what Detective Lennox had said. A death like that doesn’t come quietly. Maddie must’ve heard something. Seen something.
The thought sickens me. I have to get out of here. I shut the window, start the car. The Gotleibs’ mouths contort into predictable shapes—grimaces and downturned lines—as Sheila holds up her hand to say goodbye.
I swallow hard, my tongue thick and heavy and dead. Just a slab of meat. I say my name out loud to prove to myself I still can. The sound of my voice, shaky as it is, comes as a relief. And a reckoning. I’m not fourteen anymore.
Chapter
Ten
I’m still thinking about Maddie when I pull into the drive. Where she’s staying. Who’s taking care of her. When she’ll find her voice again like I did, and what she’ll say when she does. The questions spring up like weeds, invasive and unwanted, trapping me in the tomb of the car. And the memory comes again, insistent.
“Why are you taking my picture?” Maddie had asked me, with the unguarded innocence only a child could pull off. I’d stared at her blank-faced, the unsayable truth corroding my insides. That I’d wanted to see her with Ian, to capture him laughing as he’d caught her at the bottom of the slide. That she should’ve been my daughter. Our daughter. Mine and Ian’s. But she’d already darted from the fence, back to the playground, and I’d hurried away before Ian spotted me, feeling admonished. And creepy as hell.
>
“I am creepy,” I mutter. That’s what the cops will think if they ever find the photos. Any of them. That’s the least of what they’ll think.
I push the car door open, desperate to breathe in the cold night air, to free myself from the tangle of the past. But as I head up the path to the house, I realize I’ll never be free. The past isn’t a dream. It’s a real thing, a solid thing, an unfixable thing. It’s the ramshackle foundation I built my very self on. No wonder I’m such a mess.
And then I see him, standing in the glow of the porchlight.
I have to look again.
And once more to be sure. His face is darkened with stubble, and he’s buzzed the scruffy copper hair from his head. He’s gained weight too. Looking more ex-con than accountant. Not exactly the man from the photographs, but close enough. Ricky Sherman. And the certainty pinches my lungs shut. Because he doesn’t belong here.
He hasn’t spoken yet, but my cheeks already burn hot. I want to run from him. This man I’ve never met, not face-to-face, but feel I know somehow. At least the dark, vengeful heart of him. It’s not so different than my own. And running would only make me look guilty.
“Can I help you?” I ask, gripping the house key like a blade in my hand.
He barks a bitter laugh from the hollow of his throat. And with the night sky cloaking the empty street, the sound is practically sinister. The cackle of a madman. “You’re her, aren’t you? The Avenging Angel?” The vowels of his words are soft and wet, soaked in alcohol. And he sways slightly as he speaks.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about. My name is—”
“Ava Lawson. I know who you are.” I wonder how long he’s been waiting to say that, how long he’s known. “We had an agreement, remember? You were supposed to get the money from Ian. You were supposed to give me half.”
I shake my head at him. “A deal? I’ve never seen you before in my life.”
“Fine. If that’s how you want to play it.” He leans back against my front door—a thick wall of a man—and fixes his bloodshot eyes on mine. I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been. “But I doubt the police will buy your Little Miss Innocent routine. See there’s this thing called an IP address. And this one traces back to you. So why don’t we just cut the bullshit and talk about what we both want?”
“What I want is for you to leave. I told you I don’t know who you are, and you’re making me uncomfortable.”
“Just give me my half of the money or release the goddamned pictures. I thought you hated the bastard as much as I do. I saw you at the vigil. You heard the way they talked about him. Like he was a goddamned saint. Meanwhile, it’s my wife, me, and my family who get dragged through the mud. And now they’re saying I had something to do with his murder. Hell, for all I know, you did it.”
“Go,” I tell him, with as much conviction as I can muster.
“I’m staying at the Bay View in town. When you change your mind.”
“Now.”
He steps away from the door and stumbles toward me, bumping my shoulder with his. His breath is warm and sour. “You said you’d make it right. That you’d make him pay.”
“He’s dead.” Ricky is halfway down the walk, when I hiss the words through clenched teeth. Silently, I add, What more do you want?
“Yes, he is.” He spins, levels me with bloodshot eyes. “And thank God for that.”
****
I hurry inside and lock the door behind me, collapsing against it. My chest aches, and my legs are heavy. Like I’ve run a hundred miles to get here. I leave the lights off and watch through the blinds as Ricky shuffles down the street. I see him go—where to I can’t tell—but the smell of beer and sweat lingers, an acrid perfume.
He looks back once. I can’t see his eyes, but I feel them. The intensity of his stare, the vicious undertow of his wants. Because the things he wants are things I’ve wanted too. And I feel sorry for him.
It’s not a far walk to here from town. He’ll be back. And I know what I have to do. It’s what I should’ve done from the start. Or in the middle. Or even at the end, when Ian and Kate turned up dead. Better late than never.
I need to destroy the photos. But first . . .
Heart beating fast, I head for the bedroom. There’s no denying I’m my father’s daughter when I drop to my knees at the bedside and slide out the lockbox where I keep the gun. My gun. I don’t like to look at it—its cold body, its long black neck, its single, disinterested eye—but I’ve learned to do it anyway. To do what must be done. To wall off some soft, vital part of me when I hold it in my hand. This thing that’s taken so much from me. And in that too, I’m a cop’s kid. After all, my Dad had taught me to shoot. To aim for the center mass of a paper bad guy.
After we’d moved here, I forced Mom—under the threat of mutiny—to take me to the local range every Saturday. Until I got so good, I blew away the X. So good, I made Cooper jealous. So good, the range master asked me to help him teach the other kids. But what would I tell them? That I pictured my father’s face? Because he’d decided something for me, something irrevocable. And I couldn’t forgive him that.
I slip the gun into the front of the concealed-carry leather handbag Luke gave me for Christmas. I’m a cop’s girlfriend too, then, I suppose. There, Luke. I admit it.
For a moment, I want to call him just to hear his steady voice. But I know he wouldn’t leave it at that. He’s already texted four times since this morning. Four texts I’ve ignored. There’s no summoning Luke without getting Officer Donovan too. And him I can do without. Because Officer Donovan would not approve of what I’m about to do.
****
There are no other cars on Ocean Avenue. It stretches, gray and lonely, as far as I can see in the glow of my headlights. I park around the corner from my office, in case Ricky followed me here. Before I force myself out into the cold, I scan the tree-lined street. But even the shadows are still.
Be quick, Ava. Quick but careful. My father’s coaching me, so I jog up the stairs two at a time and fit the key into the lock. Smooth as an officer of the law. Or a cat burglar. Both. The door creaks open, and a chill goes through me.
“Bad guys like the quiet,” Dad always said. And I couldn’t be sure if that had been before or after he’d become one. “So good guys have to learn to like it too.”
Then, it had seemed so clear, that hard, dark line between good and bad. If only I knew which I was now. Which my dad had been.
I crouch at my desk, open the drawer, and take out the false bottom. I reach inside for the envelope and hold it in my hand, feeling a sudden wave of relief. I can still make this right. I can still be a good guy. Or at least not as bad as I have been.
But then, my neck prickles. The envelope is featherlight.
I pull back the flap.
Turn it upside down.
Shake it. Claw at it, with a visceral kind of fear. The kind of fear that speaks to me like an old friend. Hello again, it says, hissing into my ear, whispering through my veins. It’s been a while. And I bite my cheek to keep from screaming.
The envelope is empty.
Panicked, I turn on the study lamp and lean over the drawer, feeling sick.
The memory card is gone. But there’s something else here. Something new. Set beside the ring box.
A brown paper bag, the dreary kind you’d get from the mini-mart or the liquor store. The kind a dutiful mother would pack for a school lunch. Ordinary. But remarkable too, this bag. Because it has a smell that takes me somewhere. Back to that summer evening. To my father dead on the hardwood, his Glock indifferent at his side. To the horror of my own silent scream. To the smell of his blood—raw and sweet and festering.
And without thinking, I reach for the bag and look inside.
I make no sound as it falls from my shaking hands.
****
&nb
sp; Footsteps.
How long have I been here? The soft thuds blare like a siren through the white noise in my head.
It’s Ricky. It must be. He found me at home. Surely, he could find me here. But the measured steps don’t sound like those of a drunk man. Or even an angry one. The pace is too calculated, too expert. Too sly.
Then, I think of the voice on the phone, the steady timbre of those veiled threats. I know what you did, Doctor Lawson. I know what you did. But it’s not him—whoever he is—I picture climbing the stairs, steady as a ticking clock. It’s another man, from a lifetime ago, long dead now. A man who’d reminded me of my father, which made what we’d done even worse. Unforgivable. And now, he’s a ghost come to collect the debt I owe. With Ian gone, it’s mine alone to pay.
I push the drawer shut—quiet!—and reach for my gun. There’s nowhere to hide, so I scurry behind the open door and wait.
The footfalls grow louder. Until whoever it is—man or ghost or something in between—is standing in my doorway.
I hear his breath like a stirring of the wind off the ocean. In my hand, the gun trembles.
“Carmel Police. Show yourself.”
“Luke?” I slip the gun under my sweater and step out into the dimly lit room feeling like a criminal. But worse. Because it’s Luke I have to lie to. Again.
“Jesus Christ, Ava. What the hell are you doing here?”
My eyes flit to the desk drawer and down to my feet. I half-expect it to be open again, gaping like the star-shaped hole in my father’s head, the gash in Kate’s neck. But it’s closed. Watchful.
I rush to gather my bag, straighten the papers on my desk. Shut the lamp. Anything not to look at him.
“I forgot to lock up,” I say, with a laugh that clunks from my throat. “I didn’t want to take a chance with my client files, so I drove back the moment I realized.”
As soon as I get it out, I feel better. It sounds believable enough. But when I finally meet Luke’s eyes, there’s doubt there. In the subtle tilt of his head, the tension in his jaw. His gaze that fixes me in place. I may as well be handcuffed.
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