When I turned another page, taking in more of her scribbles, a series of pictures flashed in front of my eyes. They came thick and fast, and I had no control, couldn’t do anything to stop them. Wincing, I pressed the balls of my hands into my face, which did nothing to block the onslaught of images. In the first, Maya was crying, looking down at me as I crouched by something on the floor. Then it was me, shaking my head as I shouted, “We can’t. We can’t!” Blind panic came next, the memory of it making me want to vomit. And finally, I was looking over Maya’s shoulder as she wrote a note slowly, carefully, while I clutched a silver-and-amethyst necklace in my hand. Something I’d hidden where nobody would ever find it.
“No,” I whispered, my heart hammering as it found its way up my neck and into the back of my throat. “No. No. No.” This was more confabulation, another false memory, one my mind had conjured up, stitching my faulty knowledge and random fears into a sick movie. What I’d seen couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be.
I threw the vacuum hose out of the car. It took three attempts before my fingers obeyed my brain, and I fired up the engine. Time continued to work against me. Thick and suffocating, slow as treacle. A second stretched to a minute, a minute to a decade. Although I drove well over the speed limit, only slowing down as I passed Keenan’s house, where the driveway was filled with cop cars, it seemed to take a thousand years to get back to the house, where I abandoned the car in the driveway, rushed through the front door and bolted up the stairs.
My chest threatened to implode when I got to my bedroom and stood perfectly still as I saw the metal bed frame, which now represented everything I’d been afraid of, everything I’d convinced myself I wasn’t. I walked over and put a finger on the bottom left bed knob. How easy would it be to convince myself I was wrong? How difficult would it be to walk away, out of the house, out of Newdale, and disappear? I’d done it before. I could do it again. Except...I needed to know. I had to be sure.
I turned the knob, heard it squeak beneath my fingers as it loosened. Two turns, three, four and five. The knob ended up in my hand, revealing a small space in the leg of the bed frame. I peered inside...and there it was. Celine’s butterfly pendant. The one I’d given her one summer’s day. The necklace she never took off.
I let out a moan as my legs gave way and I sank to the floor, the realization of what I’d done pulling me down like a drowning man. Because I knew. Everything I’d feared, everything I’d tried to run from, but couldn’t escape. I knew.
I was a murderer.
33
MAYA
I knew Lily would come snooping. I’d banked on it. It’s why I’d sent Ash to the garage as early as possible so she’d think we’d already gone, and the reason I’d hidden in the tree line behind the house, a little off to the side so I could see the driveway. I’d even left the spare key for her, and I’d been right to, because not half an hour after Ash had driven off, the nosy little bitch sneaked through the woods and into my house.
I’ll admit it was hard to sit there and wait. I knew what she was doing, prying, going through all our things, but unlike most people, I’d managed to develop an astounding amount of patience over the years. Waiting for the man you love to recognize what’s in front of him will do that to a person. I could’ve laid in the grass for hours, watching, waiting.
It took Lily a while to give up and come outside, exactly as I knew she would because there was nothing for her to find, and my heart didn’t begin to race until she entered the garage, which I’d left open for her, too. I had to time this part exactly, make sure I gave her enough leeway to spot the misplaced rug—another little breadcrumb—and climb down the ladder, but I couldn’t give her enough time to come back up until I was ready.
Everything had worked out according to plan. Well, almost everything. I’d hoped the fall off the ladder would be fatal. I’d read somewhere killing someone almost accidentally felt different from doing so with absolute intent, say with a gun or a knife. Either way, I’d smiled when I’d heard her cry out as I’d slammed the trapdoor shut.
Back at the house I’d called Ash, packed a bag and made sandwiches for the trip, and then I’d contacted Patrick. He hadn’t been too happy about extending my time off, but I’d begged him to give me four days, not two, so I could “surprise Ash with more of a road trip.” Four days would turn into five or six once I’d taken a knife to the tires on my car, blaming it on the local Brookmount youth, and making sure we were delayed coming home. Of course, that was without the cops asking Ash to stick around. He’d remained adamant he wanted to speak to them, and I’d somehow have to convince him otherwise. I couldn’t risk him having to stay there and me returning home alone. Whatever the outcome, without water, Lily—whose phone I’d use to text Patrick in a little while, informing him she was leaving town and quitting her job, another indication of her guilt—wouldn’t last until we got back, and then all I needed to do was give Ash a few benzos one night to make sure I wouldn’t be disturbed while I got rid of her, her phone, which I’d already switched off, and
