I keep wondering what they want from me, what else they could possibly need when I barely knew Lilibeth. Most of what I know about her comes from the diary she kept.
They walk me through a long hallway and lead me into an empty interrogation room, then leave me there alone.
The second the door shuts, my thoughts start clawing at me. I pace the room because standing still feels impossible, because maybe if I keep moving, an answer will come to me before the questions do. I try to think ahead, to prepare for something tricky, but my mind gives me nothing.
Nothing except Nathaniel.
Nothing except the way Margaret’s words keep repeating in my head. That I might be pregnant.
I never dreamed about this moment. I never really wanted kids, not like this, not here. If it ever happened, I thought it would be later. Somewhere far from all of this. Somewhere away from California, away from this house and everything buried inside it.
I make another slow circle around the table in the middle of the room, dragging the tip of my finger over my mouth, and only then does the detective finally walk in.
“You can sit, Miss Vale,” he says.
I drag the chair out and sit down, pulling it closer to the table once I’m settled.
“We have a couple of questions,” he says, opening the thick file in front of him. “Can you tell us how you got the job?”
“I saw an ad in the newspaper saying they were looking for a house sitter, so I called. A woman answered. The housemaid, Margaret Danvers.” I fold my arms and lean slightly over the table.
“Not the owner of the house, Mr. Rosewood?”
“No,” I say simply. “He wasn’t at the property at the time.”
“And?”
“And I went there for an interview,” I say, letting out a tired breath. “Then I got the job.”
“Did you know the owner from before?”
I glance down at my fingertips, the skin around them raw and bloody from nervous biting.
“No,” I say, then lift my eyes back to his. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I’m having trouble remembering people,” I say. “I was in a car accident four months ago.”
He lets out a quiet chuckle. “Hmm.” Then he closes the file.
“Funny thing is, he disappeared after a car accident,” he says. “Strange, isn’t it?”
I frown and shake my head. “What do you mean, disappeared?”
“No one could find him,” he says. “We found his car at the scene of the accident, but not him. We only found out he was alive when we knocked on the door of the house.”
“I didn’t know that,” I say, clearing my throat.
He exhales and sits down again. “You’re saying you lived in his house, wrote about murder, and never once questioned why the man who hired you was nowhere to be found?”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “Wrote about murder?”
“We found a strange page in the diary. A list of ten ways to murder someone,” he says. “Just like we found a couple of bodies that keep appearing whenever you’re around.”
I stare at him.
“That list was just a joke I made with the owner...” I start.
