I ducked into a Waitrose grocery and bought one of the pre-pared ham and cheese sandwiches in the deli. My makeshift breakfast hadn’t been enough. I was ravenous.
The rain plinked down onto my head. I chewed the sandwich. The bread was dry and sucked all the moisture out of my mouth. I circled the streets around the park, taking in my surroundings and debating my options.
Everything happens for a reason.
I turned over one option in my mind, considering the angles. Was that my solution? Would it even work? I thought I’d had her before and I had been wrong. I went through everything I knew, looking at the facts fresh. Science is about looking at the data. Truth hides in details. As I sifted through the information, I realized I’d missed something. I’d accepted things as true without question. But now that I had different information, it threw everything into a different light.
Things happen for a reason. Nicki would have had a reason and I was pretty sure I knew what it was. If I was right, I had a possible solution. I grunted in satisfaction.
I pushed away the worry that no one would come to the park. I refused to believe that all of this had been in my head. I’d deal with it if I had to, but I wasn’t ready to admit defeat.
I walked to the park and wove my way to the Peter Pan statue, but Nicki wasn’t there. I chucked the rest of my food into the bin. I glanced up and down the pathway, but no one was coming. I didn’t want to sit on the bench; it seemed too suspicious to wait there as the rain fell. Instead, I walked in circles, never straying too far, my stomach a tight, sour knot.
No sign of Nicki. I pictured the solution (if she did show up) over and over in my mind. It might seem like my mom’s usual woo-woo, but visualization made a difference. It had been proved in studies. I slowed the steps down, playing them in slow motion in my head, imagining how she would react and how I would respond. My feet traced calculations in the gravel. Doing the math relaxed me.
The rain slowed to a light drizzle. With my phone turned off, I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since I’d posted the message. I realized I was picking at my fingers and shoved my hands deep into my pockets to keep myself from peeling the flesh down to the bone.
I reminded myself of Emily’s letter. I was smart. Things happen for a reason. This trip had taught me at least one thing: I needed to rely on myself. I was the only one who could find the answers. I could do this.
I nibbled on a sliver of fingernail. At least an hour must have passed by now, maybe as much as two. If Nicki was real, then she would have seen the message. She’d be looking to reach out to me because of the night before. She knew everything. Which meant that if she didn’t show up, I was going to have to face the idea that it had all been in my head.
I didn’t have to tell anyone about Nicki. The police hadn’t been able to prove anything in Connor’s death. They hadn’t even officially said it was a murder. They didn’t have proof. And if Nicki was in my imagination, I didn’t have to worry about her accusing me. Figments of my imagination weren’t going to chase me down, threatening to blackmail me if I didn’t kill their mother. I would be free and clear.
Except for the fact that I knew what had happened. I was thinking clearly now, but who was to say I would stay that way? It was possible in an hour from now I could decide that Nicki wanted someone else to die, someone else in “her” way. Who knew—maybe I’d get a dark wig and start running around, thinking I was Nicki while lost in some kind of fog.
If she didn’t show up soon, I would record everything I could remember into my phone, then call Detective Sharma. I’d let her take me to jail, or to a mental hospital, or wherever she thought I needed to be. It wasn’t about doing the right thing for my parents, or Em, or Alex, or even Connor. It was about doing the right thing because it mattered to me. I’d spent too much of my life trying to be what other people wanted, trying to make them happy. Being here, being stripped of everything, made me realize that what mattered most was my own opinion of myself.
“There you are!” I spun around. Nicki was here. “I thought we were going to meet by the statue?”
“I was walking around. Waiting for you.” My breath was slow and shallow.
Nicki spun in a circle with her umbrella as if she were Mary Poppins doing a dance number. “Well, here I am.”
I took a step closer. “I wasn’t sure if you would come.”
Another step.
“Of course I came. We have a lot to talk about.”
One more step. “We do.” I tried to calculate the distance. I lunged forward before she could dart away and seized Nicki’s arm. She tried to wrench it back, but I hung on, pulling her toward me until we were inches apart. Her eyes were wide, shocked. I could feel her breath on my face. I was close enough to count her individual eyelashes and stare into her eyes. I’d never really noticed the color before. I’d thought they were a light brown, but they were actually almost yellow. Lizard-eye yellow. I smelled the sticky sweet scent of her shampoo, like overripe strawberries. My nose twitched as I tried to suck in every detail. I felt the heat of her skin where I held her wrist and even the buried ripple of her pulse. There was a faint bruise by her mouth, covered with a thin layer of concealer.
“What are you doing?” Nicki hissed, still trying to pull back.
I leaned forward as if to kiss her cheek and lightly touched my tongue to her skin. Salty. “You’re real,” I said, the certainty of it spreading through me like fire.
Nicki yanked herself free and wiped her face. “What the hell? Of course I’m real.”
I felt lightheaded. I hadn’t invented her.
Nicki backed up a few steps and inspected me. Then she burst out laughing so hard she bent in half. “Oh my god, you thought you imagined me?”
“It’s not funny,” I said.
“That is so perfect,” Nicki crowed. “It never even occurred to me that you would think I was some kind of psychotic voice in your head. You must have thought you were going insane.” She trailed off in giggles. “I wish I could have known what you were thinking for the past few days. Wandering around all Lady Macbeth–like: ‘Out, damned Nicki.’” Her eyes popped and her mouth made a perfect doll O. “Wait, so did you think you were the one who killed Connor?”
I hated her. “It’s not funny.” I reminded myself to stay calm and logical.
Her shoulders shook with laughter. “That would be where you are wrong.”
“I went to your mother’s house last night.”
“I know. I was watching.” She smirked.
“I want nothing to do with you.” I turned and began walking away. I was counting on the fact that she’d follow me. She wouldn’t want this moment to end. Like a cat who had cornered a mouse, she wanted to play with me first.
But what she didn’t realize was that I’d been paying attention too. After her comment about there being cameras everywhere in the city, I’d realized she was right and now I knew a place where we could truly be alone. And this discussion required privacy.
She trailed after me on the path, catching up in a few short steps . . . just the way I’d visualized it. She linked arms with me. “Okay, we’ll walk. It’s chilly just standing here.” She rubbed her hand up and down her arm. There was a red imprint where I had held on to her wrist.
“I didn’t see you leave the house,” she said. “But then that woman started screaming out the window like her hair was on fire, so I knew something happened.” She glanced over. “Even if the something wasn’t what was supposed to happen.”
“That woman wasn’t your mother.”
“Nope.” Nicki hopped over a puddle. It reminded me of that nursery rhyme: Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.
“I don’t get it.”
“I was just curious if I could make you do it.” She leaped lightly over another large, muddy puddle, like a gazelle.
I stopped walking and stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
“I wanted to know if I could make you do it,” she repeated. “How far you’d have to be pushed to take that action. What would it take to make someone like you”—she paused to inspect me up and down—“do something so totally out of character. You’re smart, but you’ve got no spine. I wanted to know what would happen if I pushed the right buttons.” She rubbed her hands from the chill and waited for me to respond.
I crossed the bike lane and headed out of the park. If she was being honest, then I’d gotten it all wrong again. I refused to believe that.
She chased after me. “Now, don’t be mad. It’s not your fault that you’re not as smart as me.”
“You can’t be serious. This was some kind of a sick game?”
Nicki snorted. “Not a game. Research.”
“You’re what? Some kind of fucked-up moral Dr. Frankenstein?”
She laughed. “I guess that makes you my monster.” She threw her arms up in the air. “It’s alive! It’s alive!”
I shook my head and crossed the street. “What about what you did to Alex?”
“I didn’t do a thing to him. He had an allergic reaction.” She stared at me as if she was trying to figure out how to explain it using smaller words. “I followed you and saw what happened. Bingo. Opportunity. I went out and bought the shrimp powder and sneaked it into your room so you’d think I did it. It was just lucky.”
“Lucky,” I repeated, my voice flat.
“Pretty much.”
“What about his EpiPen? How do you explain that it was missing?”
The traffic noise faded as we left the main streets behind. “I don’t know anything about his EpiPen. I guess he lost it.”
I searched her face, looking for a tell—a twitch of the eyelid, or the licking of her lips—trying to ferret out if she was telling the truth. “Alex always made sure he had that with him. Always.”
Nicki rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what to tell you. I didn’t touch lover-boy’s medication. All I did was let you think I did, to see if that would be enough to nudge you forward.”
“You’re lying,” I said. I was certain now. She’d done it on purpose and was trying to dance out of it.
She giggled. “Maybe. Guess you’re getting a bit smarter all the time, or at least more skeptical. Does it really matter if it was an accident or on purpose? The whole point is that it was the pressure point you needed.”
A train whistle blew in the distance and the sound broke through my thoughts like a bullet. “But you killed Connor,” I said. “That wasn’t just a lucky accident.” I made finger quotes in the air around the word lucky.
Nicki paused to look over the side of the bridge we were on and watch the tracks below. “It might have been.” She glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “Or maybe it wasn’t. When doing research, some test subjects have to be sacrificed. Scientific progress can be messy. Look at any of it—you don’t move forward without having to step on some people to get there. I mean, they blind little bunnies to test mascara.” She shook her head. “I feel worse for the bunnies than I do for someone like Connor.”
What she was saying felt like a punch in the gut. “You killed Connor to see what I would do.”
“Pretty much.” She sighed, sounding like my mother when she was disappointed. “Why are you looking at me like that? I told you the first time I met you what fascinated me: why people do what they do. How they can be influenced. You’re acting like all of this is coming as some big surprise. I would think it would make you feel better to know that Connor died for a greater purpose.”
I barked a bitter laugh. “Your research is some great purpose. Now you’re like a twisted Dr. Freud.”
Nicki screwed her mouth to the side. “I picture myself more like B. F. Skinner. Operant conditioning, behaviorism, that kind of thing. I was never into Freud. I don’t really care about penis envy or how your childhood impacted you, although I have to say, for the record, you have some major mother issues.”
“You’re fucked up,” I said.
Nicki tucked her hair behind her ears. “That’s rich. An hour ago, you thought I was just a voice in your head. I’m not sure you should be chucking rocks from inside your glass house about other people’s mental health status, if you know what I mean.”
“I’ll go to the police. Even if you didn’t try to kill Alex, you murdered Connor.”
“Maybe. I haven’t admitted to anything.” She waved off what I was about to say. “It might have been an accident. Maybe he died and I decided to see how I could use his death.” She glanced up. “Or maybe not. Let’s say, for the purposes of the argument, that I did kill him. What makes you think the cops would believe you?”
“They will.”
She shrugged and I felt the tension in my chest tighten another notch. “Maybe. But I still have this.” Nicki reached into her pocket and dangled the list I’d written about Connor in my face and then pulled the paper back. “Keep in mind that even you thought you might be responsible. And given how good I am at shaping people’s reality, imagine what I might do with the authorities.” She winked.
“You don’t shape people; you manipulate them,” I spat out.
“Call it what you like, but even you won’t argue with the facts.” She leaned against the wall. “I’m simply giving you the advice that you might want to think about it before you go to the police.”
“What if I taped all of this?” I opened my arms wide. “You forgot to search me this time.”
Her eyes narrowed and her mouth pinched in. She wasn’t used to being caught out. Her eyelid twitched and then a smile broke across her face. “You’re lying. You didn’t record this.” She tapped me on the nose. “I know you. Don’t be mad. You can’t think of everything all the time. I’m not even going to hold it against you that you lied.”
“How kind of you,” I said, my voice flat.
“Don’t be snotty. I’m just pointing out that I could be angry. Technically, in addition to the lie, you still owe me a body.”
I closed my eyes, trying to shut her out. I opened them again. “You still want me to kill someone?”
“Perhaps. That will be the fun of it, won’t it? Wondering what type of favor I’ll call in, and when.” She smiled, her expression softening. “I’m going to miss you when you leave tomorrow.”
“The feeling isn’t mutual,” I said.
She laughed. “Fair enough. Hopefully over time our relationship will at least include respect.” Nicki held out her hand. “Despite the hard feelings, I owe you sincere thanks. You’re my first real research subject, and the past few weeks have been fascinating. I haven’t had this much fun in years. I know you’re mad at me, but honestly, I adore you.”
I stared at her outstretched hand. She was never going to go away. She was right about something: she would pop up when I least expected her, screwing up my life. But I suspected I knew something. Something she hadn’t anticipated I’d put together. I took her hand and smiled as we shook.
My smile unnerved her. I could see it in her face.
“My friend reminded me of something today.”
“What’s that?”
“Everything happens for a reason.” I could feel her wanting to pull her hand away from me but not wanting to struggle.
Nicki giggled. “You’re starting to sound like your mom. Are you telling me this is all destiny?”
“No. It’s logic. You didn’t choose that woman at random. You knew her house. You’d been there before.” I let go of her and crossed my arms over my chest.
“Maybe.” Nicki gave an elaborate shrug. “I like to go exploring sometimes—you’d be surprised how many people don’t lock up carefully.”
“It’s not that. You act like you’re some kind of scientist, that this is all about the pursuit of knowledge, but it’s much sleazier than that, isn’t it? You’re not special or some type of above-the-rest-of-us kind of person. Your real motivation is much more banal. You slept with her husband.”
There it was, a tiny twitch just above her eyebrow. A crack in her veneer. I’d been right. She said nothing. “This was never about a research project,” I continued. “Or at least that wasn’t the whole reason. It was about revenge. You were their babysitter, you slept with her husband, and when it all came out, you expected him to choose you, but he didn’t, did he? He went back to his wife. And then when they got divorced, he still didn’t want you—he moved away. That’s what you really couldn’t stand. That he didn’t want you.”
I locked eyes with her, enjoying the rage in her gaze. This wasn’t the way this research project was supposed to turn out.
Research animals weren’t supposed to bite back.
She’d never expected me to put it all together. And I might not have if I hadn’t gotten Emily’s letter. Everything happens for a reason, and if so, then there was a reason Nicki wanted me to kill that woman. When I thought it was her mom, then I figured it was because of her drinking or because Nicki wanted her money, but if it wasn’t her mom, the reason had to be something else. Then the pieces fell into place: the relationship Nicki had mentioned on the plane with a married guy, the woman in the street talking about a scandal, the woman telling me at knifepoint about her cheating husband.
Nicki’s lip twitched, almost snarled. “Well, aren’t you a clever bunny?”
I tsked. “Now, don’t be cranky. It’s not my fault that the reason you did this was simple, common, basic revenge. It’s not even original.”
“Shut up,” she said.
“You weren’t in Vancouver visiting your dad, were you? You went there to find that guy.”
There was a whoosh as a train went under the bridge we stood on, disappearing around the corner. “Did you bring me here to remind me of Connor? To make me feel bad?”
“Do you? Do you feel bad?” I cocked my head. “I don’t think you do, but you’re right, being here isn’t an accident. It’s to make you remember. You went pretty far to get what you wanted, but it still didn’t work. Connor’s dead and that guy still doesn’t care about you at all. Even now, when he’s divorced.”
Nicki’s face cycled through a range of emotions. She jumped up so she was standing on the low bridge wall. She walked back and forth as if she were on a stage. I could see her wrestling her feelings back under control. She was up there because she wanted to be in power, but it was in appearance only. “Let’s hear it for the girl genius, ladies and gentlemen.” She gestured theatrically in my direction. “She finally figured out it wasn’t all about her.”
I stared at her as if she bored me. “Don’t they say sarcasm is the lowest form of humor? Just be honest. Did you do something to that guy in Vancouver?”
The corners of her mouth curled. “Confessing to anything, even without you recording, strikes me as foolish. Let’s leave it with the idea that he’s not likely to bother me anymore.”
I crossed my arms over my chest as I looked at her. “You have a way of getting rid of things that bother you.” I wondered if the baby had even died of crib death or if there was another victim to add to her list.
Nicki kicked a loose stone, sending it flying into the empty space behind her, and watched it fall. “The good news is that you do seem to grasp what I’m capable of. I guess we’ll have to leave it as a draw.”
“What does that mean?”
She shrugged. “You go home. I stay here.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
Nicki rolled her eyes. “Oh, now you’ve got some big plan? Now you’re the one in charge?” She put her hands on her hips, but she didn’t fool me. There was a slight tremor in her arms. She was scared.
“I was always in charge of what I chose to do—I’d just forgotten. I’m going to the police. I’m going to tell them about what I did last night. That woman will have made a report. I’m certain she knows your real name. The only way I would have known about her and her house is through you. The police will find a picture of you, Alex can confirm you pretended to be Erin, and if you were stupid enough to do something to the husband in Vancouver, then I’m pretty sure that will be the end of it for you.”
“You aren’t going to say a thing.” She pinned me in place with her eyes, looking down her nose. “Unless you want to end up in your own world of hurt. I’ll tell them that we bonded over stories of murder and mayhem. At the end of the day I still have no reason to have murdered Connor, but you do.”
I felt myself take a deep breath. “I don’t care. I’ll take my chances.” It started to rain again. No one was out in this weather.
Her face was flushed an angry red. “Don’t be stupid.” Spittle flew out of her mouth. “You’ll ruin it for both of us.”
“Doing the right thing doesn’t ruin anything.”
Nicki kicked the wall in frustration, sending a spray of small rocks into my chest. “I can’t wait to see you try to explain this.” She dangled my list in front of me and I shrugged.
“I’ll explain it the best I can and people can believe me or not. It doesn’t matter anymore what people think of me. The ones who matter will know the truth.”
She wadded up the list and threw it at me. It bounced harmlessly off my chin and skittered to the ground. Nicki looked disappointed, as if she thought it was a grenade that had failed to detonate.
“In case you’re wondering,” I said, “you aren’t one of the people who matter.”
I could see her drawing saliva. She lurched forward to spit on me, but the movement put her off balance.
Time seemed to slow down. One Mississippi.
Her eyes widened as she realized she was teetering. Two Mississippi.
I lunged forward and grabbed ahold of her wrist, pulling her toward me, away from the edge. Three Mississippi.
She snarled at me and yanked her wrist free, smiling as she tipped back. Nicki plunged off the bridge. Her scream was drowned out by the blast of a train as it shot out of the tunnel below.
Four Mississippi.
Then she wasn’t screaming anymore.
I stood there, shaking. I crept forward and peered over the edge. The train was still going by, its brakes squealing as it tried to stop. There wasn’t a single sign of her. It was as if she’d never existed.
Had she wanted to jump because she knew she’d been bested? Or had the idea of me helping her been that repugnant? Or maybe she thought I would feel guilty forever and that she’d win for all eternity.
I bent down and picked up the crumpled list. If she’d thought the guilt would crush me, she’d been wrong.