Chapter Fifteen

 

 

 

My schedule was as regular as it got. Yvonne knew full well I needed to leave early every other Friday. I made up the hours during the rest of the week, I never took longer breaks than the other girls—and for the most part I was fairly punctual in the mornings. But my track record was meaningless five days after I was outed as a serial murderer’s only heir.

I hadn’t realized that my personal details had been made available online until Yvonne came up to me to ask if I was okay.

Apparently someone had attempted to find out which department I worked in by asking around various counters. Security had intervened, but not before the busybody had made a scene. I’d been helping a client with a fitting and had missed the whole thing. I would’ve liked to miss the others, too—the valiant souls who figured out the lay of the store and fanned out with smartphones at the ready in hopes of catching a glimpse of me.

Yvonne told me she’d take care of it and, sure enough, by mid-afternoon my anonymous admirers were nowhere to be seen.

It should have ended there.

Yvonne was great about the whole mess. For once, she didn’t ask details or prod me with questions. She schooled the other girls on our floor into keeping their noses out of my business.

But it was a mistake to think that meant I was off the hook.

The summons came at the end of my shift. It was a brief chat, refreshingly direct. In the aftermath, I had to dig my nails into the strap of my shoulder bag to keep from crumbling.

I saw Ashley before he saw me. He was wearing black slacks and a handsome gray and burgundy checkered blazer. His shoes gleamed in the multiple rays of diffuse electric light beaming down from the ceiling. Those five or six seconds it took for him to raise his gaze to mine were no comfort. As I stepped off the escalator, I read on his face the same wariness he’d exhibited so often over the past couple of weeks.

“What is it?” he asked, marching toward me.

Now, I added mentally. What have you done now, Laure?

Exasperation was familiar. He took my shoulders in his hands, gentle like he wasn’t in bed—like I didn’t want him to be.

“I’m on leave until further notice,” I blurted out. “Just got out of a meeting with HR. It’s better for everyone. Apparently.” Yvonne had been present as my direct superior, looking more embarrassed than anything else. I didn’t blame her. I was pretty uncomfortable myself. “Let’s just go…”

Ashley fell into step beside me. “Shouldn’t you call Marc?”

“Why?”

“You’re being suspended for something that’s being done to you—”

“Ashley, they’ve started coming here,” I snapped, ignoring the clients who glanced our way. It took me a moment to notice I was still wearing my name tag. I ripped it off hastily and hurled it into my handbag with a shaking hand.

As if HR needed another reason to turn suspension into termination.

“I don’t understand. Who’s coming here? Reporters?”

That would’ve been preferable. I could take their publications to the cleaners, ruin them in court. I was powerless against private citizens with Internet access—at least until one of them threatened me with violence. So far the policemen I’d spoken to seemed to believe this was a mere annoyance. They’d suggested I learn to live with it.

I shook my head to dispel my aggravation. Patience was paramount tonight.

“I’ll tell you in the car.”

We stopped a taxi on the curb and Ashley gave the address of our destination while I pretended not to glance around in search of idling pedestrians armed with phones. Rue de Sèvres wasn’t exactly deserted on a Friday evening, particular one as sunny as this, and the sidewalks were jam-packed with tourists and shoppers.

“Laure?”

“Hmm?” I hadn’t realized Ashley had been talking to me until he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked as tired as I felt. A pang of guilt stabbed between my ribs. I’d break up with you if I had the guts. But I didn’t, so we pressed on, blundering through limbo like two creaky dinghies moving vaguely in the same direction.

“I was asking if you’ve talked to your grandparents since Saturday,” Ashley repeated, terse.

“No,” I shot back, trying to rein in the urge to match his tone. He wasn’t angry with me, just like I wasn’t angry with him. The problem lay with was other people.

“So are they expecting us, or…?”

My answer was a shrug, precisely the kind of thing I knew would piss him off.

“You couldn’t be bothered to check?”

“It’s not like I’ve had a lot of time—”

“Really? It takes two minutes to confirm. Christ, Laure, I’ve got work to do!” he sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face.

“So you keep telling me.” Last night’s tryst hadn’t cured us of all pent-up resentment. It was naïve of me to have expected that it would. “If you don’t want to come, I can drop you off—”

“Did I say that?” Ashley snapped as the taxi idled at a traffic light. I caught the driver glancing back at us in the rear-view. Heat flooded my face. Was this what relationships were like? Sniping at each other in public? Deliberately misrepresenting each other’s words?

I was clear-headed enough to see the precipice toward which we were hurtling, but I had no idea how to course correct. “Maybe the problem is that you don’t say anything.”

“You don’t exactly leave much room.”

“Oh, fuck you very much,” I snorted. “You’re the one who wanted me to tell my story like some fame whore!”

“I wanted you to get it out of your head!” Ashley retorted.

“Yes, because you’re sick of dealing with it.”

Ashley swore under his breath. “Do you have any idea how precious jobs are in the print industry right now? I know at least half a dozen other guys who could do what I do but better—and they don’t come with online stalkers. I’m struggling, too, you know.”

“How can I, when you don’t fucking talk to me?”

It seemed so obvious from where I was sitting. All Ashley needed to do was cut me out of the equation and he’d have peace and quiet. He could focus on his job, I could concentrate on going on benefits and my grandmother could pat herself on the back for being right all along.

“I don’t want you to know,” Ashley gritted out through clenched teeth.

We were in motion again, the whir of the engine loud enough to drawn out the hitch of my breath. “Why?”

He glanced at me. “I’ve been fired before. It did a number on me.”

I recalled what he’d told me about losing weight, about not recognizing himself in the mirror. I hadn’t broached the subject again because I didn’t know how. I was attracted to him the way he looked now, but I hadn’t known him before. I couldn’t claim that I’d want him regardless. I knew I had it in me to be fickle.

Ashley sighed. “To be honest, I’m not convinced I could bounce back again. With everything that you’re going through right now, do you need to worry about that, too?” He went on before I could answer. “Melanie’s right. You have a lot on your plate.”

“Since when do you and Mel talk about me?” I was going to say something about Carmen, but he hadn’t brought her up so I didn’t want to be the one to scratch at healing scabs.

“We don’t talk about you. It was just that first day, when we went to her place?”

“When you got me hammered so I’d calm down?”

“That’s the one,” he replied, the barest hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

I had a foggy idea of hearing him converse with Melanie as I drifted off, but liquor had blurred my memories of that day. I was glad. Every day since had provided me with ample reason to be afraid.

“Well, Mel’s been known to make mistakes.” She’d be the first to admit it. I let my head drop against the back seat. “Look at it this way, I’m about to be fired anyway. If you join me in unemployment, at least we’ll have more time to fuck?”

Ashley let out a throaty chuckle. “That’s one way to look at it.”

I took his hand in mine and threaded our fingers together. “One of us has to be optimistic. Can we call a ceasefire until we’re done with the dinner hostilities?”

My grandmother’s house loomed at the end of the street. I’d gone in alone and in a bad mood before, but I would feel better with Ashley on my side this time around. My nerves were tattered enough as it was.

Ashley nodded.

We split the cab fare like democratic coeds on a first date and climbed the stone steps to the front door. Like something out of a horror movie, it swung open before I could raise a hand to the knocker.

Grandmother appeared in the gap, her expression pinched. “I heard the car.”

“Yeah, I think the guy had a problem with his transmission…” I knew fuck-all about cars, but then so did my grandmother.

She ushered us inside without comment. Grandfather came out of his study to greet us before the clock struck eight. I was bowled over.

“What am I missing?” I asked, feeling like I’d stepped into Oz without quite knowing. “Were we not supposed to come tonight? Because we can—”

“Why not?” Grandmother interjected.

Because you’re both acting weird. The last time my grandparents had walked on eggshells around me I’d been nine years old, newly transplanted from Topeka to Paris after they’d buried my mother.

Grandfather cleared his throat before I could reply. “Ashley, will you have a gin and tonic?”

“Um, yeah, sure…”

“Make that two,” I quipped.

Grandfather didn’t even scowl, much less point out that it was unseemly for young women to imbibe.

“I’ll have one, too,” Grandmother added. She seldom touched her lips to anything that wasn’t fine wine. Something was definitely up.

We sat on my grandparents’ couch, breathing in the scent of gardenias and whatever cleaning products their maid used to scrub the mahogany with. I felt about as comfortable as an elephant in a china shop. “So there’s a good chance I’m getting fired,” I said, hoping to break the spell my grandparents seemed to have fallen under.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, apparently stalkers aren’t the kind of experience we want to sell our clientele.”

My grandmother made a low, acquiescing noise in the back of her throat and shot her husband a meaningful glance. I expected some scathing reminder that I’d failed to reach my potential—or perhaps a sharp retort to bring to mind all the breaks I’d squandered. Neither of them took advantage of the golden opportunity.

“If you’re still upset that I went to the States without telling you—”

“It was not your finest moment,” Grandfather cut in, “but we understand.”

“You do?” If my eyebrows climbed any higher, they’d become one with my scalp. “Okay, who are you and what have you done with my grandparents?”

He scoffed. Grandmother pursed her lips, a moue of displeasure twisting at her parchment-like features. I found it unspeakably comforting. “No need to be so melodramatic, Laure. We’re capable of compassion. And perhaps we haven’t always been…open on the subject of your father.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” I murmured. Twisting the knife in an open wound was how we dealt with conflict in my family.

“Yes, well.” Grandfather cleared his throat. “It’s never been our intention to deprive you of contact with him.”

“We assumed you wouldn’t wish to be in touch.”

I couldn’t disagree. For a good portion of my adolescence, I’d told other kids that both my parents were dead. I made up a boogeyman, a serial killer with Kane’s face who wasn’t any blood relation of mine. It comforted me, but lies are paper-thin shields. Sooner or later, the truth will out.

“When I went to see him last week…he mentioned sending me letters?” I recalled. “I never received anything.” With Ashley beside me, it was a little easier to bring up the subject.

Grandmother tapped a fingernail against the base of her crystal tumbler. “As your guardian, I didn’t think it was appropriate to allow him to poison your mind.”

“So he did write.”

“Yes.”

The gin and tonic settled into my knees with a handsome kick. “Did you keep the letters?”

Grandmother fixed me with a level stare. I was relieved that she didn’t look the least bit apologetic. I wouldn’t know how to handle her regret.

“Yes.”

My throat closed. “I’d like to see them.” They were technically my property, but I didn’t expect to gain much mileage out of that argument. My grandparents had never been anything less than generous, but there were fishhooks in every expensive meal, every year of paid private school tuition.

“I thought you might,” Grandmother said. She rose with a sigh and produced a stack of envelopes tied with ribbon from the sideboard. “He stopped when you turned eighteen. I expect he lost interest.”

Because I didn’t answer for nine years. I kept that to myself. I didn’t know that ten years ago I would’ve wanted to write back, anyway.

There was a lot I didn’t know.

“That’s not all,” Grandmother breathed. She drew something else out of the sideboard. All I could distinguish about it was that it wasn’t an envelope. “This was your mother’s. We found it among her things when we came to get you. Mr. Pruitt was kind enough to allow us to take a few mementos when we left.”

“You met Pruitt?” For some reason my thoughts clung to that detail above all others. “You never told me that…”

“He was Laure’s husband,” Grandmother pointed out thinly. “We would’ve liked to see more of our grandson, as well, but his father is not the…easiest character.”

“I noticed.” I held out my hand for the packet. “But he let you take Mom’s diary. That’s something.”

My grandparents shared another cryptic look, fifty years of marriage translating into an odd telepathy I found at once enviable and extremely frustrating.

“We’ve come to wonder if he truly meant for us to take this into our possession. Look at the last page,” Grandmother suggested. She held herself very straight, like a ballerina about to engage in a challenging routine.

I did as I’d been told. Ashley took my glass to help free my hands. The diary was only about three-quarters full. I spied dates on a number of entries—1989, 1991, 1993—but the final pages were blank, absent my mother’s spidery handwriting. All save the last one. I traced my finger down the list of names and dates with a sinking heart, stopping when I hit one I recognized.

 

May 3, 1993. Donna Barnes

 

“What is this?” I glanced up, a phantom’s fist around my throat. “What does this mean?”

It was my grandfather who answered, albeit haltingly, “We don’t know. Until recently, we thought it was merely a list of appointments, or friends of your mother’s—some kind of code, perhaps.”

“But now you don’t.”

Ashley folded a hand around my knee. I knew he was on the same page. He was thinking the same thing I was. I resisted the urge to tear free of his grasp.

“We thought you should know,” Grandmother said. “Now, shall we move into the dining room? I’m sure Therese—”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” I stood on wobbly legs, the gin and tonic doing me no favors.

Grandmother stood before me as immovable as the sea. She was radiant, her wrinkles worn with pride, her white hair combed into a handsome chignon at the base of her neck. She arched an eyebrow and thrust out her chin in a regal gesture that nevertheless did nothing to endear her to me. Then again, she’d never placed much stock on my feelings. Why start now?

“All this time, I thought you were protecting me, you know? Now I get it… You were afraid I’d find out the truth.”

I grabbed the envelopes and diary off the couch and marched out of the living room, then out of the house altogether, trusting Ashley to follow me.

He caught up with me halfway down the street, jogging to catch up.

“Laure! Wait up!”

I slowed my steps, but I didn’t stop. I was worried that if I stopped walking I’d crumble.

Ashley was breathing hard when he drew level. “What’s the rush? I don’t understand—”

“I think I might. But I need to see Kane first.”

Ashley stopped me with a hand on my arm. “You need to see him?” he repeated, incredulous. “We just got back from America. There’s a virtual witch-hunt going on… And you want to go back?”

Our fight in the car was nothing compared to the quarrel I could feel brewing in the sticky, humid evening air. I held up the notebook. “Did you see the names in here?”

“Yes.”

“Look again,” I challenged. “Other than Donna Barnes… My mother kept a tally of six other names, all between ’91 and ’93. Five of those have been identified as Kane’s victims. How much do you want to bet details of where the others are buried are hidden somewhere in this journal?”

Ashley’s features slackened. “Assuming you’re right—and I’m not saying you are—why do you need to talk to Kane?”

“Because if they’re not, then this is still leverage. I want the whole story.” I was going to finish what Barnes had started, whatever the cost. I took a deep breath. “Look, I understand if you’ve had enough. You’ve been amazing—you’ve done more for me than frankly I deserve.” I looked down at my shoes. Don’t cry. Don’t cry, you idiot. “I appreciate—”

“Do you need to do this by yourself?”

A braver woman than me would have said yes. It was, after all, my mess. My family psychodrama. I bit my tongue.

“Right,” Ashley drawled. “In that case, we’d best pack our bags.”

I hated myself for the way my shoulders sagged with relief, much less the eagerness with which I fell into his arms.

 

* * * *

 

To my surprise, my name had not been put on any list and airport security let me pass through MCI like a knife through butter. No one looked at me twice, no one did a double take when they ran my passport through the scanner. The lack of interest from the uniformed police that pockmarked the customs area was as disappointing as it was bizarre.

“I would’ve thought Valenzuela would want to talk to me,” I muttered as Ashley and I made our way through baggage claim. We’d packed lighter this time—one bag for two people. We were counting on a short visit. I tried not to dwell on how well that had turned out last time.

“Maybe the Bureau took your threat to heart?”

For some reason I doubted that my posturing about involving the embassy had made much of a dent in their approach. My story of repressed memories was suspicious enough on its own.

Still, I was glad when we emerged into the arrivals area unmolested.

I scanned the crowd with a wary eye. All around us, couples were reunited, kids leaped into their parents’ arms. I felt a quiver of discomfort at their unabashed, unencumbered glee—and I heard someone calling my name.

Lawrence tore through the waiting bystanders with a shit-eating grin. I barely had time to suck in a breath before he swept me up into a hug. I caught a brief glimpse of Ashley’s smile as Lawrence spun me around. I suppose it wasn’t as absurd to witness for someone who did the whole public displays of affection thing on the regular.

For my part, I was still glad that Lawrence put me down fairly swiftly.

“Oh, man, I was so glad when I got your email. I thought you’d left for good,” Lawrence gushed. “After what happened—”

“Yeah, well.” I waved a hand, faux-nonchalant. “I’m all about earning miles now. Oh, this is Ashley, by the way… He’s my, um, boyfriend.” My cheeks burned all the hotter as I struggled to figure out how to introduce him. It was one thing to refer to him as my partner when he wasn’t in the room, another to label what we had when he was present and able to contradict me.

Ashley held out a hand and they shook on it like men—stiff and a little hostile. Lawrence frowned. Although we were practically strangers, I felt a flash of tenderness at the thought of my little brother disapproving of my boyfriend. Then the moment passed and I came back to my senses.

“Does your dad know you’re picking us up? Not that I’m not grateful, but…” Judging by our last encounter, he wouldn’t be too thrilled to know I was in touch with Lawrence.

My brother scoffed. “Nah. But he’s not that bad. He was just worried for me. It was my fault,” he added, the way abuse victims do when they claim they’ve walked into doors.

I didn’t press him.

We made our way to Lawrence’s car and Ashley slid our suitcase into the back. I took the front seat. Lawrence drove a Jeep and I had to hop up to get in. I spared a thought for the Land Cruiser I’d driven briefly the last time I was in the States. It was a good car. Maybe someday, if I ever worked up the nerve to leave Paris, I’d buy one of my own.

“So what brings you to Kansas this week?” Lawrence quipped as he climbed behind the steering wheel.

“The usual. Need to talk to Kane.”

“Ah…” He keyed the engine and we eased slowly out of the parking lot, the chilly evening wind creeping through the windows. Lawrence either didn’t believe in AC or he was saving gas. Either way, the roar of the engine rumbled around us as we gained the highway.

The digital clock on the dash read 10:22. It was late, the endless expanse of rolling fields and cloudy skies like a black shroud on either side of the road. Evening traffic was deceptively thin. Other than a handful of trucks, which Lawrence quickly overtook, we were just about alone in the wilderness.

“Is this about what they’ve been saying on TV? The Barnes girl?”

I glanced at Lawrence’s profile, but his expression betrayed nothing. He was staring very intently at the road.

“Partly, yes.”

“You don’t believe it, do you?”

Ashley came to my rescue before I could stammer a lie. “I don’t think we know what to believe anymore. That’s why we have to see Kane.” We, he said, like he wasn’t here simply because I’d dragged him into my own personal telenovela.

“I thought you said you didn’t trust him,” Lawrence said after a few moments’ ruminating. He was addressing me.

“Kane is a manipulative son of a bitch… And he’ll definitely try to play me. But I may have figured out a way to play him right back.” I didn’t relish the thought of going head-to-head against a sociopath—especially one I was related to—but I saw no other way around it. “My grandparents gave me a diary. Turns out it belonged to Mom… I’ve started reading it, but deciphering her handwriting is a little challenging.” I chose my words with care. This was perilous ground to tread. “One thing I have been able to puzzle out, though? She wrote down the names of Kane’s victims.”

“What?” The Jeep swerved as Lawrence glanced at me sharply. “Fuck, sorry. What are you saying?”

“Easy, there…”

“Sorry,” he said again, knuckles white around the steering wheel.

My heart in my throat, I decided I didn’t blame him for getting a tad distracted. I’d barely made it out of my grandparents’ town house on my own two feet—and even then, it had just been to snub Grandmother.

“I’m saying that, at the very least, Mom knew what Kane was doing.” At the worst, she was his accomplice. I had trouble swallowing that down, never mind saying it out loud.

Lawrence swore under his breath.

“It’s pure speculation at this point, but I have to wonder.”

“Why?” my brother gritted out. “Why do you have to wonder at all? Can’t you just leave it be?”

His vehemence incensed me. “I could… But there are two more bodies out there. Two more families who never got to bury their daughters. Or their sisters…” I turned my head against the backrest to shoot Lawrence a sidelong glance. “Wouldn’t you want to know, if I was one of those girls?”

He said nothing, but that was more of a rhetorical question anyway.

I caught Ashley’s eye in the side mirror and he winked at me in an attempt to, I think, reassure. I was glad he’d come with me after all. I needed his strength.

We drove in silence for a good twenty minutes, until a loud pop echoed from the front of the car. Lawrence gripped the steering wheel hard. “Shit. I think that was the tire.”

“Was it?” Ashley sounded dubious. “I think we just rolled over a plastic bottle or something…”

“No, it was the tire. Let me pull over and check.” Lawrence’s expression was set, lips pressed into a taut line. I felt guilty for ruining his evening, so I didn’t protest when he drove us off onto the shoulder. We hobbled along a dirt path until we were a good hundred feet from the road.

At least the moon had come out from behind the clouds, or I don’t know how Lawrence could have seen the tire.

He slid the keys out of the ignition and hopped out while I muffled a yawn behind my hand. It was so quiet out here. I’d gotten no sleep on our connecting flight from Newark. I closed my eyes—just to rest them—as Lawrence stomped around to the back of the Jeep.

“Everything okay?” Ashley called out.

“Yeah, I just need a flashlight…”

Ashley clasped my shoulder with a gentle hand. “I’m going to see if he needs a hand.”

“Okay,” I mumbled, too sleepy to be of any use. To hell with the cliché—the men would have to figure out the tinkering on their own.

I heard the back door slam shut, the Jeep rattling around me. Ashley’s stomping footfalls receded into the compact silence of the night.

A quiet thud echoed from the open trunk.

I blinked my eyes open. “Ashley?” I glanced into the rear-view, but I couldn’t make anything out over the back seat. The distant ribbon of the unlit interstate gleamed with the fast-moving beam of headlights, more disorienting than anything else. “Lawrence? You guys okay?”

When no answer came, I shoved my door open and climbed out. Somewhere at the back of my head a voice urged me to run, but I shut it off, because if I gave in to paranoia I’d spend every day of my life fleeing from some manufactured anxiety or another.

My therapists had always urged me to look for factual evidence before I lent credence to my thoughts. According to them, the physical world doesn’t lie.

I had no reason to be afraid of the dark. I could see my feet just fine and the dirt road was even enough that I wasn’t afraid of tripping and falling into a ditch. Until I saw Ashley’s body prone in the dust, I wasn’t afraid at all.

“Oh my God!” A twig snapped behind me. I whirled around, staggering against the side of the car, and felt something stab into my flank.

At first I thought it was a knife, but the pain that arced through my body was all-encompassing, more crippling than any knife wound. I couldn’t even scream. My knees gave out, bending like pool noodles.

The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was Lawrence standing above me, Taser in hand and tears knotting beneath his stubbled chin.