“Judson, did you say?” Nanny asked.
“Yes. My father is your son, Judson.”
“So tidy.”
“Yes. He’s still tidy. He helped me clean up two nights ago when we had dessert at the cottage where I’m staying.”
A long pause.
“What time is it?” Nanny asked.
Genevieve stayed until her grandmother sat down to eat lunch, then drove back to Misty River tinged with melancholy. She envisioned Nanny and Pop Woodward singing to her on her birthday the year she’d had the unicorn cake, clapping for her after the fifth-grade school play, driving her and Natasha to the community pool in their wide Lincoln Continental.
She’d choose to focus on those times and on the positive things that had happened during today’s visit. Nanny had sung a little with her. And she’d not only remembered her son but also remembered that he was her tidy one.
Nanny had always been complimentary of her son’s tidiness. In fact, back when Genevieve had looked through her parents’ family photo albums shortly after arriving in Misty River, she’d come across several photos of her father’s boyhood bedroom that Nanny had taken. Her father in his tidy room. His books, meticulously shelved. Bed tightly made. Floor clean. Toy action figures...
Her stomach gave a slow, sickening roll as a thought occurred to her.
Her immediate response was to thrust the thought far, far away. It didn’t mean anything. It was nonsense.
Yet, her anxiety wouldn’t listen. It grew and grew.
Genevieve turned her Volvo in the direction of her parents’ house. She’d take another look at those albums. Her dad would be at work, of course. Her mom may or may not be home; she spent a good portion of every day outside the house meeting friends, volunteering, spending time with Millie and Owen, playing mah-jongg.
When she reached the house on Swallowtail Lane and clicked the garage door opener, she saw that, blessedly, her mother’s car wasn’t parked within. She let herself into the house, feeling more like a thief than she ever had before upon entering her childhood home.
Upstairs, she had no difficulty locating the albums Nanny had made. She selected an album, paged through it—nope. This wasn’t the right one. She slotted it back into its place and pulled free the next album. About a third of the way through, she came upon the set of bedroom pictures she’d been seeking.
The specific picture she’d recalled in the car just now was situated in the center of its page. A shallow wooden box held nothing but Dad’s boyhood collection of action figures. He hadn’t tossed them inside. He’d carefully placed them within, every one of them facedown, arms at their sides, legs straight and centered at hip width.
It was as if she was looking at an old, old omen. Each smallinanimate object prophesied the future positioning of Russell Atwell’s dead body exactly.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the picture.
Dizziness beckoned at the fringes of her vision. Her mother might return home at any second. Yet her brain failed to send her muscles the command to move.
It was a coincidence that her father’s action figures so perfectly mirrored the positioning of Russell’s body.
Except... She knew that her parents had lied to her about when and how they’d met. And she knew they’d covered up Mom’s first marriage. Why do that unless they had something to hide?
Her father had been in Camden the weekend of Russell’s murder.
Also, Russell’s body had been found in a pose unlike that of the Shoal Creek Killer’s other victims. Facedown, with arms at his sides, legs straight and centered at hip width.
Lord God.
She’d just been thinking earlier today that she’d never seen her father lose his temper. The most controlled man, the best man, the most trustworthy man in her life could not have been mixed up with Russell’s death in any way. It made no sense. Yet suspicion was growing deep inside, like a seed splintering open and extending its roots. This seed was confusion and its roots were fear.
Her hands seemed to belong to a stranger as she returned the album to its place.
Typically, she grabbed lunch at this time of day, then worked for the rest of the afternoon at the library, a coffee shop, or a bookstore. But today’s schedule was now hopelessly lost to her. The very last thing she could deal with? Public scrutiny.
She drove to her cottage and clicked on two lamps. Set her teakettle to boiling. Checked her phone and email. Started a fire. The kindling didn’t want to catch. She tried twice before throwing down the box of matches.
She paced, her body’s movement tense with desperation.
Even imagining that her father—her father!—had somehow arranged Russell’s dead body felt like a betrayal of him. He’d readChrysanthemumby Kevin Henkes to her approximately a million times. He’d coached her terrible first-grade soccer team, of which she’d been the most terrible player. He’d escorted her to a father-daughter Valentine’s Day dance in seventh grade and convinced her that she was beautiful even though she’d been an awkward girl with tragic bangs.
