I have a gap in my memory after that. My next major recollection is being in the car with Aunt June, who had come to pick us up. Aunt June’s car smelled like cigarettes and I didn’t like it. She said nothing all the way home as Faith and I each just stared out our respective windows. We were hungry as it was well past dinner now but we didn’t ask for food. When we got home Aunt June told us to go straight to bed and we did so, even though it was still early.
From her twin bed across the room from mine, Faith whispered, “What do you think happened?,” and that’s when the lie came out of my mouth so easily it shocked me.
“I don’t know but it’s your fault. Remember when you started walking to the arcade holding Charity’s hand? Dad told me he trusted you to watch Charity, that you were even more responsible than me. He told me to have fun playing the games because you would be in charge of Charity. You lost her. It’s your fault.”
Faith was very quiet but then a sob came out, then another, and she was heaving and crying harder than anyone I had ever heard. I felt bad and I thought about going over to her bed to comfort her but something stopped me, I don’t know what. Instead, I stayed in my bed but I said, “Faith, I will never tell anyone how you screwed up, OK? It’s our secret.”
She cried even harder but thanked me over and over.
They found Charity’s body three days later in a remote part of the state park that bordered the beach. For a full year, there were no suspects. Then another little girl went missing from the arcade but someone spotted a guy in the parking lot trying to push the girl into his car while covering her mouth. That girl was saved. It turns out an arcade worker lured both with lollipops to his office in the back. I couldn’t help but wonder if Charity’s had been grape—her favorite flavor. The office had a second door that led to the parking lot and he would get them to his car quickly. I couldn’t stand the thought of little Charity being pushed into the car. I sometimes have to throw up when I think of it even now. I guess if there was any consolation, he never sexually assaulted her. He confessed to having a fascination with just strangling little kids.
Our family was shattered. Faith and I both had to go on antidepressant meds. Faith would get wired, almost manic, on hers and she became this wildly big personality that I knew wasn’t truly her. I had the opposite reaction, becoming more sullen and preferring to be alone. Dad burrowed deeper into his own demons and I think he took out his grief on us for the rest of the time we lived at home. Mom just got despondent and by the time we both finished college she spent most of her time in their bedroom. Dad was especially cold to me after that fateful day on the beach, but I didn’t want Faith to notice that, so when Faithwould get home from being out somewhere I would make up little lies about fun things Dad and I did together.
Faith could never get past her remorse, shame, and guilt. At least once per year she would break down and say to me, “Please, please, please promise me you’ll never tell anyone what I did. I don’t think I can take it.” And I would promise, even as I felt my own guilt at continuing to dupe her.
Even as adults Faith would tell me she felt she owed me big-time for keeping her secret safe. After all, she couldn’t be the famous Faith Richards if people knew how she neglected her little sister, causing her death, right?
So when I started to run into money problems I leaned on Faith for a little here and there. She was on TV; she had to be making better money than me, even in the smaller markets. And she always helped out. I tried to stand on my own two feet, I really did, but I just couldn’t find a job or a boss I respected, and I drifted around a lot.
I was trying to figure out my next move, feeling poor and down in the dumps, when Faith called. It was Charity’s birthday. Faith cried on the phone and said she was close to a nervous breakdown at work and in her personal life. She had a stalker following her, she was snapping at people for no reason, she didn’t get along with her coworkers, she had no boyfriend and no life other than going to work and coming home, she was tired of being on TV and being recognized, she couldn’t stop thinking about Charity. The list went on and on. I told her about my crappy life and how I really could use a break and a fresh start. She said she felt the same.
Then a week later she told me about her conversation with Tom, the idea he gave her. She was unsure, but I wasn’t. This was the escape we both needed—no, deserved actually after so manyproblems in our lives. She hesitated. I couldn’t stand it any longer so I had to push the envelope. I told her if she didn’t do this I would tell everyone the truth about her not looking after Charity. I knew if I did she would confess; I could see how tormented she had been, she told me she journaled about it constantly and thought about it all the time.
My ultimatum was mean, one final twist of the knife that had already resided in her heart for decades, but she had to be pushed. We both needed this change in the worst possible way and Tom’s idea was brilliant.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Faith
July 1
Her calves hurt and she had trouble catching her breath but a run had never felt so good. The weather was pristine. If she had been doing a television forecast, she would have worn her “Perfect 10” earrings that had a “1” on the right ear and a “0” on the left. Viewers knew that meant it couldn’t get any better.
Faith had really pushed herself, earbuds in, pumping hard rap music to give her a beat to run to. She was wearing a short wig and a baseball cap, plus her sunglasses, of course, to hide her eyes. It had been one month since she was found “dead,” strangled in her car near the TV station. Although no one in Door County, Wisconsin, would likely recognize her, she still had to be very, very careful.
Faith had worn a wig on air ever since coming back to Detroit because her natural hair had been thinning so much. Her eyes were always too pale a blue, she thought, so the colored contacts really helped her eye color to pop on the air. Now the contacts were gone, her eyes reverting from a striking blue to the boring light cornflower she was born with.
A huge collection of wigs had awaited her in the Airbnb when she arrived, left there by Hope. Wearing a wig for disguise instead of to impress viewers was a strange concept, but she liked the comfort of one on her head. With that, her thick glasses on, plus a dowdy way of dressing, she was fairly certain she would just blend in. Not to mention that hardly any tourists in Door County came up this far along the Wisconsin peninsula compared to the other vacation towns of Fish Creek, Ephraim, and Sister Bay, which were always teeming with people from Milwaukee and Chicago.
It was why she and Hope picked this out-of-the-way dot on the map as their starting spot after the disappearance. Hope did the research and found the long-term rental on the far tip of the county: Gills Rock, unincorporated. Everyone there kept to themselves. Hope said there were a lot of artists and writers, and so many people lived a quiet, indoor life. The owners of the house Faith and Hope rented were an older couple who proudly told Hope they didn’t even own a TV in their own house but provided one in the rental. It felt like extra insurance to the women that the couple would not recognize Faith, even though they only got signals from TV stations in Green Bay and, on a clear day, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Certainly not from Detroit.
Gills Rock had a single restaurant, the Shoreview, and it was open only on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings due to staffing shortages. The rest of the tiny hamlet consisted of a maritime museum also with limited hours, three small gift shops for the few tourists or locals who took the ferry across to Washington Island, a playground that always seemed deserted, a smoked-fish store, and one motel that perennially had theVACANCYsign out, although theYhad been rubbed almost invisible for years. Nature was everywhere. There were so many deer in the woodedareas peeking around trees Faith would sometimes distract herself by counting them. The wind in the tree provided the only soundtrack most days. Raccoons, squirrels, and chipmunks abounded.
Hope did their grocery shopping ten minutes down the road at a tiny country place called the Frontier Store in Ellison Bay that closed every night by sixPMso the owners could retire to their apartment above the store. Faith joined Hope there once, as a litmus test to be sure she wasn’t recognized. Faith kept her eyes low and the brim of her cap pulled down and she never spoke. Still, she was weak with worry the whole time. The few townies getting their milk, eggs, and meat only nodded at the sisters in that friendly Midwestern way, and when Hope and Faith walked out the heavy front door with the bell jangling on top and made their way back to their car, Faith had collapsed into the front seat with relief.
The sisters hoped to do something way more adventurous than Gills Rock at some point, but this was home base until they figured out their next move. The rental house was set well back from the road and hidden by a huge grove of mature oak trees. The living room and upstairs master bedroom overlooked a bay and they marveled at mesmerizing sunsets that came with facing west. In the backyard a fire pit was set up along with a hammock, a picnic table, and several lounge and camping chairs.
Hope used part of the money she got from selling Kelly’s jewelry to pay for the rental. Soon the life insurance would be rolling in—thanks to Faith naming Hope as beneficiary—and they would really be set. A few months and they might be ready to head somewhere else. They didn’t have a fake passport for Faith and were too scared to try and procure one, so they limited their options to the United States.
At night the duo sat in the backyard with a crackling fire in the fire pit and a bottle of wine on the table between them, and they looked at a map. Maine? The Oregon coast? Myrtle Beach? Arizona? There were so many options. They would have to drive, but that was OK.
Discussions went well into the night about how to use the money to allow them both to live their best lives for decades. Hope would be the front man now and Faith the quiet sidekick, so different from how they grew up, but when you’ve faked your own death, you have to retreat and morph into someone new. It was worth it to Faith.
Faith knew she could never use her credit cards, ID, anything. But with Hope by her side, she felt she could manage just fine. They planned to get Faith a fake identity—Lord knew there were plenty of ways to do so on the dark web. Hope would also provide Faith with prepaid credit cards.
It was exactly what Faith had been dreaming about for years. The chance to escape her life as a TV star, but with dignity and the love of the community rather than shame if she just quit. It had been a treat to watch the vigil through the nanny-cam teddy bear Hope brought along, pretending it was her emotional-support animal. They named it Mr. Bojangles after a favorite cat they had as children. So many people showed up to honor Faith at the memorial, and hearing the tributes from her ex-colleagues had actually made her tear up. After all, doesn’t everyone want to attend their own funeral?
The medical examiner had asked Faith how she wanted to die—he could fake anything on the report—and she had hesitated for only a moment before whispering, “Strangulation.”
