While she was tied up in the basement they must have heard my interview claiming that June had woken up. Jonathan went back to the hospital to finish her off. The police pieced this all together, but Laurie was able to corroborate the details of the abduction. By chance, she saw Hannah being dragged into the back of the van. She had followed, afraid of them getting away, unable to call the cops because she couldn’t reach her phone in her bag on the back seat. She hadn’t wanted to pull over to get it in case she lost the van. She’d found a lipstick in the cup holder and scrawled the license plate number on her arm and had crashed the car when she eventually tried to reach behind and grab her bag.
Why did they want to kill June though?
Because she saw Nate’s face.
Nate knew that I shot her. He witnessed it. But he couldn’t press me too hard on it, worried that he’d trigger other memories of the night, ones involving him.
I have no idea what Nate meant to do when he drove me to Calvin’s house. Did he plan on killing Hannah? Did he plan on killing us both and burying us somewhere out there in the canyon? The whole way there he must have been plotting his next move, figuring out what to do. He went inside the cabin, alone. It’s all conjecture on my part, but I think he planned to kill Calvin in order to frame him. I think he planned on ‘rescuing’ Hannah. He’d look like the hero. No one would ever know.
That’s what the gunshots were. Calvin ran, and Nate chased him out of the cabin, which is why it was empty when I got there. Nate was chasing down Calvin, trying to kill him before he could rat him out.
I wish one of them had survived so we could ask them, so we could know for sure. I guess I’ll have to live with the uncertainty.
June is making progress. The lie I told the press came true. It was almost as if she waited until she knew the danger was past, and then she made her move. She blinked. She wriggled her toes. She squeezed Gene’s hand. Gene, who spends as much time beside her bed as I do. Gene, who, every day after his therapy and NA meetings, plays her music and reads graphic novels to her, taking the time to describe every illustration in detail. Gene, who tells me every day that she’s getting better as though his saying it will force it to be so.
And when she wakes, will she remember? Will she remember that I pulled the trigger?
The thought sends seismic shudders through me. When I sit by her bed and clutch her hand I whisper an endless silent stream of apology and prayer. It’s me who put her in that bed. It’s me who did this. The knowledge and the truth of that sits in my chest like an unexploded grenade.
Sometimes I think I should pull the pin and tell the truth – tell them all that I am the one who shot June, tell Robert that Hannah, his pride and joy, isn’t his – but every time I open my mouth the words evaporate off my tongue.
My family was built on a lie. And lies have broken us apart like bullets ripping through flesh and splintering bone.
But then again, wasn’t it the truth that did that? The truth is tricky. You open the door to it, thinking it will act as a salve, that it will set you free.
And instead it leaps at you, teeth bared, and rips out your jugular.
Chapter 55
Robert is crouched down by the kitchen island. When I walk in, he stands back and smooths the surface. The stain has vanished. He smiles at me and holds up a sheet of sandpaper in victory.
‘It came out,’ I say, trying to force a smile. I’ve already started thinking about ripping the kitchen out and putting in something new. Our first instinct to sell was reversed when Hannah pointed out that June will want to come home, not to a strange house.
Robert nods and I notice again the lines carved into his face as though with a scalpel, the pouchy bags beneath his eyes, and the way his shoulders sag under an invisible weight. I feel a sudden pang of love and tenderness. It springs out of nowhere and surprises me.
I don’t think he’ll ever fully recover from what happened, even if June wakes up, even if she walks or talks again. There’s some fundamental shift that’s taken place that I don’t think can be reversed. His smile fades, and he turns away from me.
We get in the car in silence and drive to the hospital in silence. A fundamental shift has taken place between us too. Ever since the day I collected him from jail we’ve barely spoken, except politely, and mostly to talk about June. We’re like two planets orbiting each other, but every day the gravitational pull gets weaker as though one of us, I can’t tell which, is drifting away, pulled by a bigger sun, or perhaps by a black hole.
We talked when he was first released. Or rather, I talked and he listened and said nothing. I told him about meeting Nate for coffee, and then dinner, and what transpired between us, down to my own awkward, shame-ridden flight. He hasn’t forgiven me. And I’m not sure he can forgive me either for believing, even for a moment, that he might have arranged to have me killed. That’s the bigger betrayal. And yet, he knows that his own reticence to talk to me about the financial troubles we were in, and about Gene, also played a role in what happened.
Can we forgive each other for all the lies? Can we find a
