“You said Malcolm is evil. Do you think that’s what brought them together?” Clare asks.
“I never said my sister was evil. I said she was drawn to evil people.”
“Like Malcolm,” Clare suggests.
“Yeah,” Charlotte says before turning to walk back to her car. “Like Malcolm.”
The Cabin is busier than last night, the bar lined end to end with bodies hunched over drinks. Clare spots Kavita and Charlotte at a high-top table in a corner, bright cocktails in front of them. She hovers by the door, watching. Kavita rests one hand on top of Charlotte’s, and they lean so close that their foreheads nearly touch. So there is something more between them, something more than friendship. Clare straightens, tugging at the bottom of the loose but low-cut black shirt she’d selected in her pit stop to the hotel. When she reaches the table, neither of them smile at her in greeting.
“Is it still okay for me to join you?” Clare asks.
“I guess,” Kavita says, retracting her hand. “Charlotte invited you.”
“Please,” Charlotte says. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Clare sits and accepts a menu from the passing server. The silence between them is thick. When the server returns, Clare orders only a soda water.
“You don’t drink?” Kavita asks.
“I generally avoid it.”
The withering look Kavita gives her shrinks Clare back against her chair. Between these two women, Clare had taken Kavita as the kind and welcoming one, Charlotte hardened and cool. But tonight they appear to have swapped demeanors.
“My father used to own this building,” Charlotte says. “The bar too.”
“Your father owned the whole town,” Kavita says.
“It used to be really nice here,” Charlotte says, ignoring her. “Sort of hipster rustic. It’s fallen a few rungs since then.”
“Where’s Austin?” Clare asks Charlotte.
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll turn up. He likes to be in on the action.”
“You know that Austin isn’t a real journalist, right?” Kavita says to Clare. “He’s got a rich brother who made millions on some calorie-counting diet app. Billions even, I don’t know. Austin lives off his brother’s money and fancies himself this genius investigative reporter.”
“He did go to journalism school,” Charlotte says.
“Whatever,” Kavita says. “The guy couldn’t catch a squirrel if he was holding a bag of nuts.”
Kavita’s leg bounces madly under the table, the anger she radiates a cover for her agitation.
“For the love of God, I do not understand why you like coming here,” Kavita says. “It’s fucking weird.”
“It’s the only decent bar in town,” Charlotte says.
The smell of Kavita’s and Charlotte’s cocktails makes Clare’s throat itch with thirst. She can imagine the sweet coating of the first swallow, the warmth that would come. After returning from the beach to park her car, Clare had opted for a brisk walk from the hotel to this bar, a mile uphill, and as her breaths grew shorter, she grew angry again. Angry at her exhaustion, at Somers, at Malcolm, at Austin and Charlotte; a hazy and dense anger striking anyone who popped into her thoughts. She carried only cash and her phone in her back pocket, her gun tucked under her loose shirt. Now, at this table, she can relate to Kavita, her anger hard to contain too. These women demand her professionalism, but Clare wants to give them her wrath. She doesn’t even know why. When the server returns with a pint of club soda, Clare gulps half of it before setting the glass down.
“You two have been through a lot together,” Clare says, her tone a touch too sharp.
Kavita lifts her cocktail in mock cheers. “Sisters in PTSD.”
“Don’t call me your sister,” Charlotte says. “It’s gross.”
“You must hash it out, then,” Clare suggests. “What happened the night your dad was killed? Given you were both there. No doubt you’ve compared details.”
The women exchange a glance that Clare cannot decipher.
“Have you ever listened to someone tell a story?” Charlotte asks. “And you’re in it? You’re a character, you play a part? It’s different from how you remember it, but the way they tell the story is so convincing that you figure their version must be right? Has that ever happened to you?”
Yes, Clare thinks. So often, in her marriage, Clare would listen to Jason recount stories of their home life, explaining an absence, a bruise, fending off concerned questions from Clare’s brother or from Grace. And though Clare knew he was making it all up, she found herself marveling at the details he invented, the way he could authenticate his rendition, the way he’d pass off Clare’s poor memory as a side effect of whatever pill she’d swallowed that day. The way Jason shaped her story for her.
“I know what you mean,” Clare says. “But who are you referring to?”
“The cops interviewed Charlotte and Zoe together,” Kavita says.
“People talk about your brain freezing,” Charlotte says, ignoring Kavita’s interjection. “When something traumatic happens. Like your brain has to stop absorbing what’s going on. All I remember is my mother blowing out candles on her birthday cake. And my father was about to dig in to his dessert. Then he was dead. I swear.”
“You didn’t get a look at the shooter.”
“No,” Charlotte says firmly.
“So who was telling the story for you, then?” Clare asks.
“Zoe,” she says.
“I just told you, they were interviewed together,” Kavita repeats.
“We were,” Charlotte says. “They let us sit together alone in the interrogation room before the interview. Of course, Zoe seemed totally fine. She was always a freak of nature that way. I was numb everywhere, shivering, but she was fine. It was performance art to her. She was going over the details with me. Tell them this, she said. Don’t forget to say that. But I literally couldn’t remember anything. She just told me what to say. When we were little girls, we’d be horsing around and we’d break something, or someone would get hurt, and it didn’t matter how
