“Stop that,” I say. “Iris wouldn’t want you to take the fall for her.”
Moody doesn’t answer right away. She listens to my breathing, which has started to come on a little faster. She waits for me to understand, and then she says, “You know that you’re my favorite, Sissy. I’m telling you the truth.”
“You didn’t,” I rasp.
“I wanted us to stay together.” There’s a crack in her voice. And in this moment of vulnerability, I see the Moody who’s been lost to me since we were children. The frightened little girl who was forced to live with strangers when all she wanted were her sisters. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” she says. “And now I’m the reason we can’t.”
“Yes, we can,” I tell her, ferocity steeling me. I can fix this. I always find a way. I reach across the table and take her hand. A guard takes a step closer, gruffly tells us there’s no touching. A snarl begins in my throat, but Moody pulls out of my grasp. She doesn’t want me to incur their wrath.
She squares her shoulders. “Get yourself out of here. Don’t fuck this up. Iris is facing a lot of charges and she may be screwed no matter what we try to do, but you still have a chance.”
If more victims’ families come forward to say their friend or their relative dated one of us before he disappeared, they’ll have no way of knowing which one of us it was. If Moody takes the blame, they’ll believe her. But back in Fresno, it was a poorly kept secret that Iris was sleeping with her guidance counselor. Ironically, the one murder Iris may be accused of is the one she didn’t commit.
“Ten minutes. Time’s up, Amelia,” the guard says. Moody flinches at the use of her real name; hatred flashes in her eyes. It brings her back to a time she would rather leave behind for dead. But neither of us moves. My stunned eyes meet hers that are full of heartbreak, and defiance, and unflinching truth.
She stands only when the guards haul her from the chair. I watch her shuffle in her chains.
“Don’t bother writing. I won’t read a word,” she calls over her shoulder. “Have a nice life, Sis.” To the guards listening, it will seem like a brush-off. But we both know what the words mean. She’s taking accountability for the path she led us down. She held us captive for all these years, and she can’t undo it; she can’t even save Iris. But I’m the only one of us who broke the rules and refused to kill my victim. I still have a chance, she said. But only if she lets me go.
32
I drive for the hospital, dazed.
The night Iris called me after her lover’s death, she was hysterical. She didn’t tell me what happened, but when I stepped into the apartment, I could smell the blood. I could feel the weight of the terrible thing that had happened.
Iris couldn’t look at him. She was curled up in the hallway with her back to the wall, blood all over her hands and shaking.
Moody had rage in her eyes, and she only softened when Iris ran to the bathroom and started throwing up. While I dealt with the body, Moody drew Iris a bath. She sat on the edge of the tub and talked softly to her and made sure every last drop of blood was scrubbed off her skin.
Iris was despondent, nearly catatonic, until we made her snap out of it when it was time to dispose of her lover’s remains. In thatmoment, she had looked so powerful, I’d thought. She had made a tremendous and terrible decision.
But now I look back and I see the frightened nineteen-year-old girl she was. I see the grief that I missed in the heat of the moment back then. And I see new meaning to the wrath in Moody’s eyes. Moody was an impulsive teenage girl made angry after a lifetime of watching her sisters being hurt and suffering. She was tired of being powerless. She was tired of what the world had done to us. All those broken hearts. She had no tolerance for this man who had Iris wrapped around his finger.
We were only children—how could we have ever believed we were more than that?
It was Moody. It was always Moody, held captive by her anger. Her resentment for the world beyond our little trio. Her desperation to keep us together. Now she’s alone, and this is too big. I can’t save her.
By the time I make it to the hospital, visiting hours have just begun. A nurse tells me that Iris just came out of a lengthy surgery the night before, and she’s fragile.
This is not a word I ever thought I would hear used to describe Iris. She stands the tallest and proudest of us all. She’s the most tenacious. But now everything is starting to come to me in a new light. She would attack us, challenge us, demand that we fight back. If we broke free of her grasp, she rewarded us with pride. If we couldn’t, she let us go and she demanded that we be stronger next time. Begged us.
She never talked about that night with her first lover, no matter how many times I asked. She never talked about so much of her life when she was being kept away from us.
Iris is being charged with her role in the kidnapping. Sadie—now in the protective custody of her father—has already expressedwillingness to testify against her whenever there’s a trial. Sadie also told the police that I was the one who set her free, that I had nothing to do with the abduction. I read all this in an article on my phone, and I do my best to prepare myself as the nurse leads me to my sister’s room. But seeing Iris’s wrist and ankles cuffed to the bed still tears at me.
Kidnapping can carry a life sentence, and I don’t know what Colin’s attorney can do for her when he gets here. All I know is that I’ll stay here as long as it takes. I’ll help her any way that I can, even though we’re out of places to hide.
The bullet shattered her skull. It was a seven-hour surgery to remove the fragments, and the nurse tells me that she regained consciousness for a few minutes this morning, which is encouraging. When I take her hand, her skin is pale against my own. When I squeeze, she doesn’t respond in kind.
I bring my face close to hers and whisper, “Iris, I’m here.”
They shaved the hair from the left side of her head, and in its place is a row of angry-looking stitches.
She lets out a small moan and then her eyes open. Dull, cloudy green, almost glowing in the fluorescent light. I don’t realize how much I’ve missed her until I see the recognition come to her as she looks at me.
“Hey.” I brush my fingertips against her face.
“Fuckers... broke my skull,” she rasps. Her voice is strained, her mouth chapped from hours of intubation.
