He looked down at her chest, and for a moment he thought he saw the rise and fall of it beneath her white eyelet nightgown.
And then he gasped and stumbled a step backward as it sunk in—her chest wasnotmoving.
He took a moment, then reached out and touched her, laid a hand on her cheek.
He snatched his hand back as though burned. But her skin was icy, waxy, and curiously hard beneath his fingertips.
“Oh God,” he whispered. He thought not only of the sleeping pills, but all they’d drunk the night before. A cold, clinical voice whispered in his ear, “The combination of the sleeping pills and alcohol could be lethal.”
“Could be?” he wondered aloud.
He then grabbed her wrist, hoping against hope he’d feel a faint pulse. But there was nothing.
When he pressed his ear to her chest, the tears now leaking from his eyes, the silence of the morning mocked him.
“No,” he said and stuffed a fist to his mouth.
He hit her then, one out-of-control, frenzied punch to the chest. “Dammit, Lace! How could you?”
He screamed as the teakettle began to whistle in the kitchen.
He hurried out of the room to quiet it.
And then he went to his bedside table, picked up his phone, and called 911.
Chapter 3
THE FUNERALhome was old school. In a converted turn-of-the-century (twentieth century, that is) white brick and white-trimmed mansion only steps away from Lake Michigan and squarely on the border of Rogers Park and Edgewater, the home had a large front porch, massive picture windows, a gate with stone pillars, and an expansive east-facing front yard, bordered by carefully sculpted shrubbery.
As Jasper hurried up the front walk for Lacy’s wake, he paused for a moment, almost overcome by how unreal all of this felt. Sure, he could hear the traffic behind him on Sheridan Road, and just beyond that ebb and flow, a more natural ebb and flow of waves crashing into boulders. Children screamed from a playground at a nearby elementary school. Their recess seemed somehow wrong and added to the surreal aspect of the morning.
After he’d phoned 911 that awful morning a few days ago, he’d called Lacy’s parents. Even though he’d lived with their daughter for a few years and thought he knew her like a sister, he’d never met the people who’d brought her up. He knew only that they lived somewhere on the west coast, Southern California, a town in the Coachella Valley called Indian Wells. Lacy’s father had been an attorney before he retired, and her mother had always stayed home to take care of her, despite having a teaching degree. Like Jasper, Lacy was an only child.
And Jasper sucked in a breath as a memory assailed him.You’re not an only child. Well, you are now, but once upon a time, there was a sister, and another sibling on the way. A grainy front-page photograph Jasper had stared at many times of a ransacked used-furniture store popped into his head, the image like something out of a nightmare. Before he could push it away, he saw again the dark splashes and splatters on the floor and an old couch that he knew were his mother’s and his sister’s blood. There was an old, worn newspaper article too that he’d once found hidden in his father’s sock drawer. It was so creased where it had been folded it was all but ready to come apart in his hands. The newsprint felt soft, almost like fabric. Jasper, because he never really remembered the killings, had read over the article so many times as a kid that he had it memorized.
The details were horrific. How could they not be?
He stood for a moment more on the expansive front porch to collect himself, facing the large, heavy oak double doors with their spiral design and black wrought-iron handles. Leaded glass windows at eye level provided a distorted, blurry view inside.
The sky behind him was gunmetal gray. The air smelled of imminent snow. The temperature that morning hovered around twenty degrees. A wind—sharp, arctic—blew across the lake, propelling him to open the door.
He went inside.
The interior of the funeral home was hushed. Very softly, classical music—Brahms, maybe—played over speakers built into the ceiling. In the air was an almost sickening aroma of cut flowers, floral “tributes” he supposed they’d be called here. He’d thought briefly of sending a Venus flytrap. Lacy would have appreciated it.
In front of him was a long corridor, carpeted in plush mauve, that led to the back of the house. At its end were large floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out upon a back garden, brown and dead-looking in March. The walls were papered in cream with a subtle stripe.
To his left and right were identical doors, similar to the oak front door but unadorned by any design. In front of one was a sign reading “Esther Purdy.”
In front of the other was a sign reading “Heather Burroughs.”
Where was Lacy?Am I in the wrong place?
And then it came back to him: her real name was Heather, which she despised and had threatened him with castration if he ever used it in her presence.
If ever a name could’ve been more wrong for a person, it was Heather for Lacy. She wasnota Heather. Heathers were blonde, the cheerleader or the majorette. Heathers were not goth. Heathers got married to doctors or lawyers and had 2.5 tow-headed children and lived in suburbs like Wilmette or Kenilworth.
Heathers didn’t commit suicide.
