Colin says he’ll help with anything I need. He arranges for a rental car to be dropped off, and he uses his own credit card and refuses the cash I offer him in exchange. He calls me by that name, and after enough times, the name stops feeling strange to me. Less of an invasion, more of an old friend returning to my memory.
“You could come back to California.” He broaches the suggestion without force, like he’s merely suggesting we go to the movies. “Mom has been trying to find you. I didn’t tell her you’re here. She’s afraid you’re dead.” The thought of Elaine typing my legal name into a search engine, reading police logs and obituaries looking for me, tugs at a piece of my heart I pretend not to have. The part that has always longed to be somebody’s daughter.
I stare at my lap and will myself not to break down. Colin doesn’t press the issue. Exhaustion finally overpowers me, and my foster brother doesn’t wake me when I fall asleep mid-conversation on the couch.
When I open my eyes again, it’s morning and the sun is beaming in through the window. I realize I’ve never seen what this room looks like in the daylight because we’ve always kept the curtains closed. But now the yellow light casts a certain cheer over the hideous outdated furniture and fixtures. It’s nice—I think—to let the light in.
I shower, dress, make myself eat something. This place feels too quiet, even with Colin rattling around in the empty space.
When I grab the car keys, he says, “I can’t talk you out of going to see her, can I?”
Although we look nothing alike and we’ve never shared a womb, Colin knows me well. That’s part of why I’ve avoided him so much in the past six years, ever since Iris killed her boyfriend and our ritual began.
“No,” I say, because however the world might judge us for it, my sisters and I will always come back to one another.
“They could have gotten away, you know,” I tell him. “They would be safe and free right now, but they came back for me.”
“Hey.” He bridges the space between us in two steps. “Your sisters aren’t free because they kidnapped someone and told you to kill her. They belong in jail. Youarefree because you wouldn’t do it.”
Colin frowns at me, and in his expression, I see the truth that he’s trying to drive home. I know, logically, that this is true. But the arguments rise in me anyway.You don’t know them. You don’t understand. My sisters need me. I needthem.
31
I wait for Moody at a small round table in a room with concrete walls. There are several tables all around me, waiting for inmates and their visitors to occupy them, but for now I’m the only one here.
The door opens and Moody is escorted in, her ankles and wrists cuffed. But even in the restraints, there’s a confidence in her stride, her chin cocked, eyes bright. There’s an angry bruise purpling her left cheek, and her knuckles are swollen.
“Nice job lying low,” I tell her.
She sits across from me. “Oh, please,” she says, after the guards have moved to stand by the door, away from us. “You can’t take anyone’s shit in here. Otherwise you’ll get knocked around.”
I can’t hide my anger. “I’m trying to get you out of here,” I say. “I’ve got an attorney who’s willing to meet with you, but not if you get time added to your sentence by starting fights.”
Her fingers twitch, and I think she’s going to reach out and take my hand. But then she remembers the handcuffs, and the guards watching us from ten feet away. “Sis.” Her voice is so soft I can barely hear it. The playful gleam in her eye disappears, and she turns sober. “I’m never getting out of here.”
“The kidnapping charge will be bad,” I tell her. It’s the truth and it’s good that she knows it. “But there’s a chance—”
“I’m not talking about that,” she says. “I’m talking about the other things.”
I start to speak, but before I can open my mouth, she glares daggers, warning me to stay silent. The words die on my tongue.I protected us. Even when our photos make the national news, there’s no DNA. There’s not even motive. Only coincidence. People go missing every day.
But Moody was right to silence me, because as I play the words in my head, I realize they’re only a form of denial. Even if I cleaned every drop of blood, even if I secured our alibis, circumstantial evidence has put people away for far less than what we’ve done.
“They know about the guidance counselor,” Moody says, not using the man’s name. I don’t know if she even remembers it. I do. I remember everything. “His wife saw our mug shot. She knew about the affair.”
Iris is my next stop, just as soon as the hospital visiting hours begin. I think of her, lying helpless, God only knows in what condition. She’s fighting for her life, and if she makes it, she’ll only end up spending it in prison.
A new determination rises in me. I can protect Iris the way that I always have. It will be harder this time, but that just means I’ll need to be more clever. “What do you need me to do?”
Moody smiles. It’s a sweet smile, and it only lasts a moment before her guard goes back up. “How could I have ever doubted your loyalty?” she asks. “You really would follow us right into the depths of hell.”
I want to remind her that she and Iris will always have me. I’ll always love them, always protect them, even if they had tried to kill me up on that hiking trail rather than Sadie.
But before I can say any of this, Moody says, “I told them it was me.”
A loud throbbing fills my ears, and I realize that it is the sound of my own heart thudding hard and slow in its shock. I think I whisper the word “Why?”Why the hell would you do that, Moody? Why would you give up already? Why would you take the fall for a crime that wasn’t even yours?
She is looking at my face, staring at me as though I’m the most treasured thing in the world. “Because it’s the truth,” she tells me. “Because I was jealous. That bastard was ruining Iris’s life, and I wanted him dead.”
