My head is spinning, and my stomach is still lurching.
Not help me, not who are you, but is he here?
I shake my head. “N-no. He’s at work, he…”
“It doesn’t matter,” Bea says, and holds out her hands to me.
After so much time spent looking at her pictures, seeing her here, in front of me now, is almost too surreal to fathom, and maybe that’s why I find myself crossing the space, putting my hands in hers.
“We have to get out of here before he gets back,” she says, and I nod even as I say, “Tripp.”
She frowns at me, confused.
“What?”
I shake my head, the shock turning my thoughts to a kind of thick, heavy sludge. “I talked to him today. Just a few hours ago, and he said he was there that night, that Eddie was there that night. It was him, wasn’t it? Eddie killed Blanche. Oh my god.”
The words come out a moan, and Bea grabs my shoulders. She’s smaller than I thought she would be, somehow, but strong, especially for a woman who’s spent so much time locked away.
Jesus, locked away. Locked up here. By Eddie.
“Jane,” she says, and I think of Eddie telling her about me, telling her my name, and want to scream, but there’s another sound.
The closet door opening.