28Ring
I am painfully aware that I’ve just spent my last night with Regis. Soon I’ll begin to feed, and he cannot touch me then. No one can. I haven’t yet determinedhowI’ll keep my distance, maybe fake an illness or a trip. Considering the complexities swirling in our relationship, it shouldn’t be too hard. I only hope that once I begin, I find the Strangler soon, and finish him.
I return to the cabin and soak in a long, hot bath. When I get out, I crawl into bed and immediately fall asleep. In my dream, I am on a trail, light twinkling through overhead branches, as I follow a man with a hiking pole. His back is ramrod straight, eyes never straying from the path, steps as regular as the hands of a clock. I study him, the creases in the back of his shirt, the curl of his fingers on the rubber grip of his hiking pole. Something doesn’t feel right, and the feeling gnaws at me, adamant and disturbing. I gain on him, certain this must mean he is the one I’m searching for, the murderer I am meant to kill. As I get close enough to touch him, a scent warns me off, both familiar and repulsive, a cologne I know and detest. But it is too late, I am laying my hand upon his shoulder and spinning him around, ready to make my move. Only it isn’t the Saranac Strangler. It is Henry, and in my shock, I am too slow. One hand reaches out to throttle me as the other raises the pole, the sharpened carbide tip aimed at my heart.
I wake to Myrtle shaking me feverishly. “Get up, Piers.Now.You need to see this.”
Groggily, I rise from bed and follow her into the living room, registering that it is early morning. “What time is it?” I ask with a yawn.
Her eyes pierce mine as she directs me to the TV screen. Don’s car, abandoned in the Syracuse cemetery, is emblazoned across it, and a reporter is explaining how it was found to be in association with the roadside death of a Washington, DC, man in Virginia, poisoned with pokeweed berries. “Police now suspect foul play,” she is saying gravely, “and are asking anyone who has seen this woman to come forward for questioning.”
A fuzzy video of me, frantic and with a fresh dye job, fleeing the hotel lobby in Charleston in my crappyMiamiT-shirt plays on a loop in the corner of the screen.
“She was seen leaving the victim’s hotel with him in Charleston, South Carolina,” the reporter explains. “A ring was also missing from the victim’s belongings; an anniversary present from his wife, commissioned for him only last year. Stolen, they believe, by the person responsible for his death, and possibly the key to finding the truth.”
An up-close image of the signet ring I took flashes across the screen in all its unique detail. Myrtle waltzes over and turns off the set. My stomach bottoms out.
“You let yourself be recorded,” she admonishes.
“I didn’t realize. I didn’t even know any of this then. It was an accident. I was trying to get a ride out of the city before Henry—”
“The venery will not like this, Piers. Not one bit.” She paces back and forth, practically wearing a groove into the thick boards at her feet.
“Any chance they won’t have seen it?”
She shoots me a look that could turn anyone to stone. “If it’s playing on the newshere,then I doubt it. You brought that car across state lines to New York. Do you know what that means? FBI will be involved. He was a political consultant, a high-profile figure in Washington. You’ve turned this into a national manhunt.”
“I had no other way to get here!” I counter. But it doesn’t matter. Myrtle is right; I’m screwed whether I deserve it or not.
She comes over and rubs my upper arms briskly, as if she’s trying to warm me up. “Shhh… It’s okay. We’ll figure this out. I’ve just got to think. I need a defense planned before they call.” She turns to stare out the window, as if the answer is waiting in the dark. What I can see of her face pales. “What if Sheriff Brooks sees this?”
I crumple to my knees as I recall the night that I arrived. I’d put Don’s ring on the counter as payment to anyone who would take me to Crow Lake. He’ll recognize it. The second he learns about Don, he’ll put it together with the man in the café and Ed. He’ll never believe me again.
“At least your hair is different,” she says. “We can recolor it. Something close but not quite so red. Men never notice those kinds of things. He’ll think it was always that way. And the video is just bad enough. If he says anything, refute it. Deny, deny, deny.” She glances back, sees me on the floor, and rushes over, lifting me by my elbows. “You did nothing wrong. No matter what it looks like. They won’t be able to prove this. No one up here will even place you in that video besides the sheriff.”
But Regis is not the only person I am worried about. There is someone else who will know my face, my build, instantly. It won’t matter that I colored my hair or put on new clothes. If Henry sees this report—which is surely playing in Charleston now that I’ve been connected to Don and the hotel—he will know everything. That I didn’t drown, didn’t die. That I fled. That I planned it all. That I am here, in New York.
And he will come for me.
“He saw the ring,” I tell her. “I stole it from the car, and Regis saw me with it, Myrtle. He’ll know. The second he sees this, he’ll know.”
Her lips pull tight with fear. “Then you must convince him you are innocent, Piers. Use your allure, his attraction to you, your insight into the Strangler case—whatever you have to. But make him believe they got it wrong. Because they did. They always do.”
I shake my head, tears beginning to spill over. “I don’t know, Aunt Myrtle. I don’t know if I can do that. I’m not like you. I’m not good at this.”
She wipes them swiftly away, cupping my cheeks in her hands. “Of course, you can,” she tells me, summoning a confidence I know she doesn’t feel. “You’re a bane witch. Never forget it.”
MYRTLE WOULD NOTapprove. She wanted me to wait until he confronted me. She wanted me to deny it. She wanted me to overpower him with my allure, as if I even know how. She wanted me safe. But I can’t sleep. And I can’t keep lying in bed, wondering if he knows, if he’ll show up tomorrow with handcuffs and drag me away. I don’t want to wait, and I’m tired of running; I’ve been running since Charleston. Running since Henry and I first met. Running since I left my mother and Gerald behind. Running since I was that little girl eating pokeweed berries under a full moon. I don’t care what happens to me as long as I can finallybeme, as long as I can belong to myself.
It must be after three in the morning when I pull into his drive. Myrtle was snoring in the next room, so I took the car, a habit I am getting stupidly accustomed to. I expect to find him in bed, dead asleep. Expect that he will answer the door with mussed hair and bleary eyes like he did a few nights ago, a note of vexation at being woken, summoned at such an ungodly hour, by me no less.
But when I pull up, he’s in the harsh glare of an overzealous outdoor light, chopping wood in his long underwear and a loose flannel shirt, his boots pulled up to his calves, sloppily laced. Even in the frigid night, there is a gleam of perspiration at his hairline. I turn the car off and get out.
“We need to talk,” I say.
He casts a bitter glance at me, swings his ax, and brings it down hard on the block of wood he’s splitting. “I think you’ve done enough talking,” he says.
I know then that he’s seen. And he hates me for it. For lying to him, he believes. For killing the innocent.
