Between the flowering bushes that had overtaken Jackson Dunn’s yard, Jo and Nessa waited for Claude to come up the stairs from the beach. Blood splatter decorated her shorts and white shirt, and a bright red smear stretched from one temple to the other where she’d wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“He knew,” she muttered, as though the fact still astounded her.
“You did what you had to do,” Jo assured Claude. “Nessa and I will help you dispose of the body.”
“Oh no, we won’t,” Nessa announced. She saw what Jo couldn’t. Her eyes were locked on the ghost of Faith Reid, who’d followed Claude up the stairs.
Nessa thought of the Polaroids of Faith posed in front of a mirror. Before she died, the girl had been dressed for something important. Someone took those photos. Someone wanted to make sure she chose just the right outfit.
“No?” Jo asked as Claude came to a stop in front of them, Faith beside her. “Why not?”
“Claude took the picture you found in the locker.” They stood silently, surrounded by the bright blast and heady scent of the flowers around them. Claude’s lips stayed sealed.
“How do you know?” Jo asked.
“Faith is telling me,” Nessa said. “Claude brought her here. Faith wouldn’t have trusted a man, but she went along with you, didn’t she, Claude?”
Claude’s face was grim. “I never expected Spencer to kill her,” she said.
The confession hit Jo like a blow to the gut. “Oh my God,” she gasped. “What did you expect?”
“I expected her to leave the Pointe with enough money to build a bright future. That’s how it was supposed to work.”
“How it was supposed to work?” Jo repeated.
“But instead, she was murdered,” Nessa said. “Like Mandy Welsh and a dozen other girls who were brought here.”
“I didn’t know anyone other than Faith had died. There were rules the men here were supposed to follow. They ignored me.”
“So you were in charge?” Jo felt rage building inside her.
“She supplied girls,” Nessa said. “They trusted her because she’s a woman. She betrayed them.”
“I made sure the girls I brought here weren’t harmed,” Claude argued. “Rocca was the one who changed all of that.”
“Let me get this straight—you were okay with the girls being raped, but you drew the line at murder?” Jo asked.
“They needed money, and they got it! I even made the men donate to charities that build schools for girls around the world. I got Leonard to hand over millions of dollars to train young women in self-defense.”
“So they could protect themselves from people like you?”
Nessa crossed her arms over her chest. “While girls were being raped and killed, this bitch was living like a queen. And the perverts got to call themselves philanthropists.”
“Nothing’s going to stop them from doing what they want to do,” Claude argued. “These are some of the richest men in the country. For God’s sake, they had the chief of police bringing them girls. The only thing I could do was make sure some good came out of it all. For fuck’s sake, Jo. Their money is helping us teach girls how to protect themselves from predators! Some of their money funded your husband’s new play!”
Jo could feel the fire shooting through her veins and waves of energy traveling down her limbs. She saw heat ripples radiating from her skin and smelled the grass singeing beneath her feet. She’d tried her best to control it. Now Jo closed her eyes and let go. Nothing had ever felt so good.
She knew then what she was meant to do. She knew why Nessa had found her. Nessa was the light in the darkness. Harriett was the punishment that fit the crime. She was the rage that would burn it all to the ground.
“You know what’s going to happen, right?” she asked Nessa.
“Yes,” Nessa told her. “I do now.”
“Jo,” Claude begged, “think of all the good you can do!”
“Oh, I am,” Jo assured her.
When Jo opened her eyes again, they fell on one of the yellow bushes. She reached out and grasped the tip of a flower-covered branch between two of her fingers. A thin wisp of smoke wafted up from between them. When Jo let go, a tiny flame was glowing at the tip of the branch. She leaned over and blew gently, and the entire bush burst into flame. The flames leaped to a nearby bush and soon it, too, was ablaze.
Jo began to laugh. It started with a snicker, but then she just couldn’t stop. Several more bushes were already burning.
“Can you believe we were worried about Harriett?” Jo could barely get the words out. “She planted these fucking bushes. She’s known what would happen since Memorial Day.”
That’s when Claude bolted, zigzagging between the burning bushes and disappearing in the direction of the mansion her father had bought after he’d stolen his first fortune. The house her partner had shipped across the ocean and rebuilt to say he was sorry. The estate she’d shared with the man she’d just killed.
“Should I chase her down?” Jo asked.
Nessa looked over at Faith, who was already fading. The girl smiled as she shook her head.
“Naw, let her go,” Nessa answered. “Harriett had this all planned out. Claude isn’t going to last very long.”
Then the two women walked arm in arm through the burning bushes, then down the road toward the Culling Pointe gate.
Harriett stood on the deck of the boat, eating an apple as she watched the smoke rise from the Pointe. One by one, the mansions along the south beach burst into flames.
“The fire is traveling fast.” Celeste was watching through binoculars. “I’m surprised none of the houses have sprinkler systems.”
“They do. Isabel dealt with them the last time she watered the plants,” Harriett said. “May I borrow the binoculars? There’s a painting I’d like to see go up in flames.”
With the binoculars to her eyes, she watched with great satisfaction as the Richard Prince nurse was put out of her misery. A slight turn to the right, and she could see Jackson Dunn’s roof deck being consumed by the blaze.
“It’s time.” Harriett pulled Celeste to her and kissed her. “Meet me at Danskammer Beach?”
“See you there,” Celeste said.
Harriett pulled off her dress, grabbed an empty backpack off the deck, and dove into the water.
When Harriett was twelve years old, she watched her father push her mother down the stairs. She listened to him lie through his teeth when the police arrived. And she knew his friends on the police force would never question a word her God-fearing father said. No one in a uniform bothered to ask Harriett what had happened. She sat with her mother’s corpse until the men from the morgue finally came to collect it.
The night after her mother’s funeral, Harriett cooked dinner for herself and her father. Steak, potatoes, and a side dish of mushrooms that she’d picked in the yard. She ate just enough of the mushrooms to spend the night vomiting. Her father was dead within hours.
Only Harriett knew for sure what had happened to her mother, but everyone in town must have suspected the truth. Men like her father couldn’t hide their real natures from everyone. So the actions she’d taken made perfect sense to her. Her father should have been punished. He’d cheated his way out of it, and she’d made things all fair and square.
The problem was, no one else felt that way. Not Harriett’s grandparents, who escorted her to church twice a week. Not the other churchgoers, who refused to share the same pew. It was her Sunday school classmates who gave her the nickname that stuck with her through high school. Even after she’d learned to keep her head down and play by the rules, they continued to call her the Bad Seed.
After graduation, she’d moved a thousand miles to escape the taunts, but thirty years after she’d gone east, she could still hear them. She’d even avoided having children, terrified of what she might bequeath to them. Then one day, at forty-eight, Harriett found herself all alone in her garden. Everywhere she looked, she saw the fight for survival. Bugs spraying birds with foul-smelling chemicals. Plants that fought fungi with their own brand of poison. And then her eyes landed on a cluster of death cap mushrooms growing near one of the trees. She remembered what she’d been thinking the day she picked some just like them: that her father had to be stopped or someone else would be next. Who knew how many lives had been spared by her act of destruction? How much misery would that one man have spread? Maybe other women would have been able to steer clear of him, but Harriett knew one thing for certain: she wouldn’t have survived if she hadn’t done what she did.
Other women brought life into the world. Harriett realized at that moment what her gift would be.
Claude made it out of the mansion with mere seconds to spare. When she heard the roof give way, she didn’t look back. She knew the sight would destroy her.
There was enough data on her computer to ensure she wouldn’t suffer. Names, photos, and videos—each worth a fortune. She’d been collecting for years. In the back of her mind, she must have known this day would come. She’d even kept the laptop in a waterproof case.
Claude set the case down in the dinghy they kept where the tide couldn’t reach it. Then she dragged the boat to the water’s edge. She felt a wave of heat hit her back, and she knew the beach grass had caught fire.
The sound of a splash startled her, and she turned to see a woman rising out of the surf wearing only a backpack. Naked and larger than life, Harriett grinned.
“I told you I’d get rid of the bushes,” she said.
Claude knew why Harriett had come. “Let me leave,” she begged. “I swear, I’ll give you anything.”
“Thanks!” Harriett reached into the boat and took the case. “This should do.” She unzipped it and cracked open the laptop. “Password?”
“You’ll really let me go?”
“I always keep my promises,” Harriett said. “The boat is yours.”
“A-M-six-seven-nine-eight.”
“Your father’s initials and the day he died. How poignant.” Harriett typed in the password and nodded. “Thank you!”
She returned the laptop to its case and slipped it into her backpack. Then she turned and walked back into the water. Within seconds, she’d vanished beneath the waves.
Claude dragged the boat to the water and climbed inside. As she rowed away from shore, she was forced to confront the burning house. She saw Leonard’s beloved grill explode, and she watched the propane tank fly through the sky.
Harriett surfaced at a safe distance from the destruction—just close enough to enjoy Claude Marchand’s final scream as the propane tank hurtled straight toward her boat.
Franklin was speeding down Danskammer Beach Road when he saw Nessa and Jo walking toward town, the fire on Culling Pointe raging behind them. He threw the car into park and left it idling with the driver’s-side door standing open as he ran to Nessa and threw his arms around her.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Nessa told him. Better than fine, she thought.
“The girls told me you were out here. Why didn’t you call me?” he asked.
“It was just supposed to be me and Jo out there today,” Nessa said. Like Jo, she now knew it to be true. Harriett had planned it all. “Your part’s going to come soon enough. There are a dozen girls out there who need their names back.”
“Look!” Jo pointed across the water. Someone was swimming toward them.
They walked through the scrub to the beach, where a woman was emerging from the surf, naked but for a backpack. Her body shone like bronze under the sun.
“That was fun, wasn’t it?” Harriett asked.