point in their long relationship. She settled on the first nickname to pop into her head, literally a stab in the dark. “I already know you … Ferris Wheel.”
Walker snapped his head toward her. He stared at her until she felt him looking through her, not at her. Her head ached, but she kept it up. “You think Anna didn’t know that you watched her and Lanny Neal? Of course she did, Ferris Wheel.”
He shoved her. She staggered back but did not fall. Nathan Prair’s head, sideways in the mud now, watched them.
Matthews said, “Is that what caused the split between you?
Your watching?”
He shoved her again, and this time she went down hard in the mud, face first, on all fours. Her right hand hit a piece of glass and cut. The smell that kicked up was putrid and sickening.
He trained the light down onto her, but by the time he did she’d picked the sizeable piece of curved glass out of her palm, and had transferred it to her left hand, now curled around it. She rubbed her bleeding hand on her pants, and Walker noticed the wound.
“Shit,” he said, the child that didn’t mean to hurt the family pet. “Up ahead there’s this wall. We’ll rest there. Clean that up.”
She gained a few yards on him. She wasn’t going to run away, but she wanted some physical space in which to clear her mind, regain herself. She recalled all that LaMoia had told her about the interview with the barmaid, Walker’s former girlfriend. “The trouble began after your father died, didn’t it?” The pain in her hand lessened. She decided she had to keep talking, free association, whatever came out of her mouth. Just keep talking. “It was just the two of you on the boat after that.”
“So what?”
“Pretty close quarters for a man and a woman.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“No?” Her mind worked furiously through several sets of possibilities. She’d try them all if she had to. “You think you’re the first guy to ever watch his sister? Give me a break.” Condescending. Mary-Ann would have dominated their relationship.
She sorted out several planes of thought on which to operate, areas of possible vulnerability for him. She had him talking-that was the important step. She didn’t want to lose that for anything. Until now the mud had disgusted her, but as it came to cover her, to own her, she felt in a primitive state, capable of almost anything. Prepared to strike.
“Shut up about her,” he said.
“No, I don’t think so,” she fired back. He moved her down the tunnel. The mud walls weeped in places. If she sneezed hard, the ceiling was coming down. “Why do you think you picked me, Ferrell? I’ll tell you why: Because I listen, because I made sense from the very first time we spoke. It was at the docks. Do you remember?”
“Of course I remember.”
“You liked the way I looked, sure. They all do, Ferrell.” She wanted to make him as small as she could, for both their sakes.
“But more important, you liked what I said.” She didn’t remember what she’d said, not exactly, but she knew something had initiated the transference, and she felt determined to unlock that key. “You knew I could help you, didn’t you?” she asked. “It’s why you haven’t given up on me.”
“Oh, but I have,” he said, chilling her.
“No, you haven’t.”
He raised the knife blade in the dim light and spun it back and forth so that it threw light across her face. Margaret’s blood had dried onto that knife. “Got me all figured out, do you?” It flashed again. “Maybe not,” he said. “Maybe the fuck not.”
She stood her ground. Plan two. “You picked me for a reason, Ferrell.”
“Because you told me to.”
“I told you to what?”
“At the morgue,” he said. “You told me there was no one else in the room. You said to put Mary-Ann where you were … and I did that … and when you spoke, I heard her voice, just like you said I would. You were right.”
“I’m not Anna, Ferrell, am I? Look at me. Listen to me closely. Your sister is dead.”
“Going for that gun just now?” he said. “That was impressive. That was something Anna would have done.” She felt his eyes encompassing her. “It was a mistake, but it was ballsy.”
“How do you think seeing that knife makes me feel? How would Anna feel? You think I want to get to know you when you’re holding that knife, threatening me with that knife?”
“You said you already know me,” he reminded.
She didn’t want to think of him as smart, didn’t want him focusing on her attempt to escape, deciding to challenge him yet again in an attempt to keep him off-balance. “You didn’t find that sweatshirt, did you, Ferrell? I missed that, didn’t I?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” But he most certainly did.
“Mary-Ann’s sweatshirt,” she said. “You didn’t find that sweatshirt. You already knew where it was.”
“What?” His voice betrayed him. He sheathed the knife, taking time to draw its blade clean on his jeans. This victory instilled her with a sense of courage.
“You knew where Neal hid his car key.”
“Enough of this.”
“You’d been with them that night he’d misplaced the other key. A birthday, wasn’t it?”
“I said, enough!”
“How did you get her to just sit there while you backed over her, Ferrell?”
He screamed, “Shut … your … mouth!” and she knew she’d scored a direct hit.
“Up ahead, we’ll rest a minute,” she said, wanting it to sound like it was her idea, to take control away from him. She was starting to understand that Walker’s transference had gone beyond what she’d previously imagined. He’d not only transferred his feelings for Mary-Ann onto her, but he’d transferred his own guilt onto Lanny Neal in the form of blame.
She heard his breathing-quick, shallow intakes-and realized they’d switched roles. She had him back on his heels now, and didn’t want to stop.
“You can’t replace her, Ferrell. Not with me, not with anybody. You can’t change what has happened, as much as you’d like to, and repeating what you’ve done-it’s what you have in mind, isn’t it? — that won’t help anything. It’ll just make it worse. The pain, I’m talking about. I know all about the pain.
It’ll be much, much worse.” She defiantly and purposely turned her back on him before he had a chance to recover from that.
She marched forward toward the resting place he’d told her about.
“You betrayed me,” she heard from behind her, and she knew this was about Mary-Ann, not herself.
She worked with something Neal had told them, saying over her shoulder, “You begged her for money … to go back out on the boat with you. It’s not what she wanted. She wanted a life.
What did you expect, Ferrell?”
“I … sav ed … her,” Walker said. “She … owed … me.”
She stopped, turned. “Saved her from Lanny Neal, from herself,” she purposely hesitated, wanting this next thought to sink in, “or from you? That part of you that thought about her in ways that brothers aren’t supposed to think about their sisters.”
Walker stepped close enough that she could smell his familiar stench. “From him!” he said, as agitated as she’d ever seen him. “I saved her from him.” His eyes darted to the left, and she knew he regretted having revealed whatever it was he’d just revealed.
Without meaning to, Matthews gasped aloud. She’d missed the catalyst all along. It had been right there in front of her-practically handed to her by LaMoia-and she’d moved right past it. Now the pieces fell into place for her like a row of dominoes tumbling over in perfect succession. Now, it finally all made sense, the discovery charging her with a renewed strength and sense of purpose. She had him; he was all hers.
She said, “The drowning … It wasn’t an accident.”
