Thirty-seven

My late father’s house is thick with the syrupy scent of lilies, and I’d like to throw open the windows and let the wintry air sweep it all outside, but that would not be the hospitable thing to do. Not when thirty-two guests are milling around the living and dining rooms, grazing off trays of appetizers. Everyone speaks in murmurs and feels the need to touch me, and I feel assaulted by all those comforting pats on the shoulder and squeezes on the arm. I respond with somber thank-yous and I even manage to produce a few pretty tears. Practice makes perfect. It’s not that I’m heartless about my father’s death; I truly do miss him. I miss the comfort of knowing there’s someone in the world who loves me and would do anything for me, as he did. To keep me safe, Daddy sacrificed his cancer-ridden body and his few remaining, if miserable, months of life. I doubt anyone else will ever be so devoted to me.

Although Everett Prescott is doing his best to play the part.

Since the moment we came back from Daddy’s memorial service, Everett has been practically joined to my hip. He keeps refilling my drink, fetching me little nibbles on plates, and I’m growing a bit annoyed at all the attention, because he won’t give me a moment to myself. Even when I retreat into the kitchen to fetch another platter of cheese and crackers from the refrigerator, he follows me and hovers nearby as I peel plastic wrap off the tray.

“Is there anything I can do, Holly? I know how hard this must be for you, dealing with all these guests.”

“I can handle it. I just want to make sure no one goes hungry.”

“Here, let me do that. And what about beverages? Should I open another few bottles of wine?”

“It’s all under control. Relax, Everett. They’re just my dad’s friends and neighbors. He certainly wouldn’t want us to stress out over this.”

Everett sighs. “I wish I’d known your father.”

“He would’ve liked you. He always said he didn’t give a damn if a man was rich or poor, as long as he treated me well.”

“I try my best,” Everett says with a smile. He picks up the tray of cheese and crackers and we go back out into the dining room, where everyone greets me with tiresomely sympathetic looks. I replenish the platters on the table and rearrange the vases of flowers. People have brought so many damn lilies, the scent is making me nauseated. I can’t help scanning the bouquets, searching for any palm leaves, but of course there aren’t any. Martin Stanek is dead. He can’t hurt me.

“Your father did a very brave thing, Holly. We owe him a debt of gratitude,” says Elaine Coyle. Cassandra’s mother stands with a plate of appetizers in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. A few nights ago, her ex-husband, Matthew, finally passed away after weeks in a coma, but Elaine is serenely elegant in the same black dress that she wore to her daughter’s funeral last month. “If I’d had the chance, I might have shot the bastard myself. I know I’m not the only one who feels that way.” She gestures to the woman beside her. “You remember Billy Sullivan’s mother, don’t you?”

I have not spoken to Susan Sullivan in years, but she looks no older than the last time I saw her. Her perennially blond hair is upswept and perfectly lacquered in place, and her face is eerily unlined. Wealth seems to agree with her.

I shake Susan’s hand. “Thank you for coming, Mrs. Sullivan.”

“We’re all so sorry, Holly. Your father was truly a hero.”

Elaine squeezes Susan’s arm. “And how brave you are to come. So soon after Billy...” Her voice fades.

Susan manages a smile. “I think it’s important that we all honor the man who had the courage to finish it.” She turns to me. “Your father did what the police never could. And now it’s well and truly over.”

The two women drift away as other guests come forward to murmur condolences. Some of them I only vaguely recognize. The news channels have been relentlessly reporting the story of my father’s death, and I suspect many of these neighbors are here only out of curiosity. After all, my father was a hero who died while delivering justice to the man who’d molested his daughter.

Now everyone knows I was one of the Apple Tree victims.

The looks they give me as I circulate among them are both sympathetic and slightly abashed. How do you meet a molestation victim’s eyes without graphically imagining what was done to her? After twenty years, the case had slipped off everyone’s radar, but here it is, back on the front page. FATHER WHO KILLED DAUGHTER’S MOLESTER IS SHOT TO DEATH BY POLICE.

I keep my chin up and stare everyone squarely in the eye, because I’m not ashamed. I don’t really know what shame feels like, but I do know what’s expected of a grieving daughter, so I shake hands, endure hugs, listen to countless murmurs of I’m so sorry and call me if you need anything. I won’t be calling any of them and they know it, yet it’s what one must say in these circumstances. We go through life saying things that are expected, because we don’t know anything else to say.

It is hours before the house finally empties out and the last stragglers walk out the door. By then I’m exhausted and all I want is peace and quiet. I collapse on the sofa and groan to Everett, “God, I need a drink.”

“That I can arrange,” he says with a smile. He goes into the kitchen, comes back out a few minutes later with two glasses of whiskey, and hands one to me.

“Where on earth did you find the whiskey?” I ask him.

“It was way back in your dad’s kitchen cabinet.” He turns off all the lamps, and in the warm glow from the fireplace, I already feel my tension draining away. “Your dad clearly knew his scotch, because this is a top-grade single malt.”

“Funny. I didn’t know he even liked whiskey.” I take a much-needed sip and glance up, startled, when I hear the toilet flush in the powder room.

Everett sighs. “I guess there’s still one more guest in the house. How’d we miss that?”

Susan Sullivan emerges from the powder room and glances around in embarrassment at the empty room, at the fire flickering in the hearth. “Oh, dear, I seem to be the last one out the door. Let me help you clean up, Holly.”

“That’s so nice of you, but we’ll be fine.”

“I know what a long day it’s been for you. Let me do something.”

“Thank you, but we’re going to leave it all till morning. Right now, we’re going to unwind.”

She doesn’t take the hint to leave, just stands there looking at us. Everett finally says, out of sheer politeness, “Would you like to join us in a glass of whiskey?”

“That would be lovely. Thank you.”

“I’ll get you a glass from the kitchen,” he says.

“You stay right where you are. I’ll fetch it myself.” She heads into the kitchen, and Everett mouths I’m sorry, but I can’t really blame him for inviting her to linger when she so clearly wanted to. She returns with her own glass of whiskey, plus the bottle itself.

“It looks like you’re both ready for a refill,” she says, and politely tops off our drinks before settling onto the sofa. The bottle makes a pleasant thunk as she sets it on the coffee table. For a moment we sit in silence as we sip our drinks. “It was a lovely memorial service,” Susan says, staring into the fire. “I know I should think about having one for Billy, but I dread it. I just can’t accept...”

“I’m so sorry about your son,” says Everett. “Holly told me what happened.”

“The thing is, I can’t have closure. He’s not dead. He’s missing, which means he’ll always be very much alive to me. But that’s the nature of hope. It doesn’t allow a mother to give up.” She takes a sip of whiskey and winces at its sting. “Without Billy, I don’t see any reason to stay on. No reason at all.”

“That’s not true, Mrs. Sullivan! There’s always a reason to live,” says Everett. He sets down his nearly empty glass and reaches out to touch her arm. It is a genuinely kind gesture, something that comes naturally to him. A skill I could learn. “Your son would certainly want you to go on and enjoy life, wouldn’t he?”

She gives him a sad smile. “Billy always said we should move someplace warm. Someplace with a beach. We planned to retire to Costa Rica, and we put aside enough money to move there.” She stares off into the distance. “Maybe that’s where I should go. A place where I can start fresh, without all these memories.”

I’m starting to feel light-headed, even though I’ve had only a few sips. I slide my whiskey toward Everett, who picks it up without even noticing it’s mine and takes a gulp.

“Or maybe Mexico. There are so many beautiful homes for sale, right on the water.” Susan turns to me, and her eyes are so bright they seem to glow in the firelight.

“A beach,” murmurs Everett, giving his head a shake. “Yes, I could use a beach right now. And maybe a nice, long nap...”

“Oh, dear, I’ve stayed too long. You’re both exhausted.” Susan rises to her feet. “I’ll be going.”

As she stands buttoning up her coat, the room suddenly feels warm, too warm, as if waves of heat are blasting from the fireplace. I look at the hearth, half-expecting a conflagration, but there is only the gentle flicker of flames. It’s so pretty I can’t stop staring. I don’t even notice when Susan leaves. I hear the front door close, and the flames give a shimmy as air puffs into the house.

“Feel... feel sorry for her,” mumbles Everett. “Awful, losing a son.”

“You didn’t know her son.” I keep staring at the flames, which seem to pulse in time with my heartbeat, as if the fire and I have some magical connection. I am the fire and the fire is me. No one really knew Billy. Not the way I did. I gaze down at my hands, where my fingertips are glowing. Bright threads emerge in gold meridians, arching toward the hearth. If I move my hands like a puppet master, I can make the flames dance. As wondrous as it all seems, I know this is wrong. This is all wrong.

I give my head a shake, trying to refocus, but the threads are still attached to my fingers and the filaments swirl in the shadows. The whiskey bottle catches the firelight’s reflection. I squint at the label, but the words are out of focus. I think of Everett, walking out of the kitchen, carrying two glasses of amber liquid. I never watched him pour it. I never thought to question the drink he placed in my hand or what he might have added to it. I don’t look at him, because I’m afraid he’ll see the doubt in my eyes. I keep staring at the hearth as I struggle against the thickening fog in my head and I think back to the night I met him. Both of us drinking coffee near Utica Street on the night Cassandra was found dead. He’d said he was meeting friends for dinner in the neighborhood, but what if that wasn’t true? What if our meeting was meant to happen, all of it leading up to this moment? I remember the bottle of wine he brought me, a bottle that still sits unopened in my kitchen. I think of how he has listened so attentively to every detail I shared about the homicide investigation.

What do I really know about Everett?

All this goes through my head as the fog thickens, as my limbs start to go numb. Now is the time to move, while I still have some measure of control over my legs. I stagger to my feet. Manage to take only two steps when my legs wobble out from beneath me. My head slams against the corner of the coffee table, and the pain cuts through the fog in a jolt that suddenly makes everything crystal clear. That’s when I hear the front door thud shut, and I feel cold air sweep in. Footsteps creak across the floor and come to a stop beside me.

“Little Holly Devine,” a voice says. “Still causing trouble.”

I squint up at the face staring down at me, a man who’s been stalking me for the last few years. A man who is supposed to be dead and buried in an unmarked grave. When the police told me that Martin Stanek killed Billy, I believed them, but I should have known better. Men like Billy can’t be killed; they keep springing back to life. Even though I’ve managed to hide from him all these years, even though I’ve changed my name and altered my appearance, he’s finally managed to track me down.

“How is the boyfriend?” asks a second voice, a voice that sends another shock through me.

“He’s unconscious. He’ll be no problem,” says Billy.

I struggle to focus on Susan, whose face has also come into view. They stand side by side, Billy and his mother, eyeing the results of her handiwork. I turn my head and look at Everett, who’s slumped on the sofa, even more helpless than I am. Not only did he drink his own glass of whiskey, he also drank mine. I took only a few sips, yet I can barely move.

“I see you’re still awake, Holly Dolly.” Billy crouches down to study me. He has the same brilliant-blue eyes, the same piercing stare that drew me to him when we were children. Even then I was enchanted by him and easily seduced into doing whatever he asked of me. So were the other kids.

Everyone except Lizzie, because she sensed who and what he was. The day he held a flame to the baby possum we’d found on the playground, Lizzie was the one who knocked the match out of his hand. And when he stole money from a classmate’s jacket, she was the one who called him a thief. That made him angry, which is something you don’t do to Billy Sullivan, because there are consequences. They’re not always immediate; perhaps it takes months or even years before he strikes back, but that’s the thing about Billy: He never forgets. He always strikes back.

Unless you make a deal with him.

“Why?” I manage to whisper.

“Because you’re the only one who remembers. The only one left who knows.”

“I promised I’d never tell anyone...”

“You think I’d risk that now? With that lady reporter and the fucking book she’s writing? She already talked to Cassandra. I can’t have her talking to you.”

“No one else was there. No one else knows.”

“But you do, and you might talk.” He leans in close and whispers into my ear, “You got my messages, didn’t you, little Livinus?”

Saint Livinus the martyr, who is celebrated on my birthday. The saint whose tongue was ripped from his mouth to silence him. While I managed to stay out of Billy’s reach, he knew how to send messages I couldn’t ignore. He knew the deaths of Sarah and Cassie and Tim would catch my attention and that I’d understand the clues he’d left for me: The palm leaf laid before the burned remains of Sarah’s house. The arrows in Tim’s chest. Cassandra’s gouged-out eyes.

I understood all too well what he was telling me: Tell no secrets, or you die like the others.

And I haven’t told. All these years, I have been silent about what happened that day in the woods with Lizzie, but my promised silence was not enough. Thanks to the journalist, the truth threatens to surface anyway, and here he is, to ensure that I stay as silent as Livinus with his tongue torn out.

Susan says, “This time it has to look like an accident, Bill. Nothing that will make anyone suspicious.”

“I know.” Billy rises and regards Everett, who is immobile and utterly helpless. “And we have to deal with two of them. This makes it harder to stage.” He scans the room, and his eyes turn to the hearth, where flames barely flicker around a crumbling log. “Old houses,” he muses. “They go up in smoke so fast. What a shame your father forgot to change the battery in his smoke detector.” He drags a chair under the smoke detector, pulls down the unit, and removes the battery. Then he throws an armload of wood into the hearth.

“I have a better idea,” says Susan. “They’re tired and they’re drunk, so where would they be? The bedroom.”

“Let’s move him first,” Billy says.

They drag away Everett, and as I hear his shoes scrape across the floor toward my father’s bedroom, I already know how the death scene will look when we are discovered. The tipsy young couple, their bodies charred on the bed. Just another tragic death due to fire and carelessness.

The fresh armload of wood has made the flames roar back to life, and as I stare into the hellish glow, I can almost feel the heat singeing my hair, consuming my flesh. No, no, this is not the way I want to die! Panic sends a surge of adrenaline through my body, and I push myself up to my hands and knees. But even as I crawl toward the front door, I can already hear their footsteps returning from the bedroom.

Hands wrench me backward, and my face slams against the edge of the raised hearth. I feel my cheek swell up in what will be an ugly bruise, but no one will ever see it; all will be cooked in the heat of the fire. I am too weak to resist as Billy drags me down the hall, into the bedroom.

Together, he and Susan heave me onto the mattress, next to Everett.

“Take off their clothes,” says Susan. “They wouldn’t go to bed with their clothes on.”

They are an efficient team, working swiftly to remove my slacks and blouse and underwear. Mother and son, united in this sick striptease that leaves Everett and me naked on the bed. Susan tosses our discarded clothes over a chair, leaves our shoes scattered on the floor. Oh, yes, she has the scenario well thought out, of the young couple exhausted after sex. After a moment’s consideration, she leaves the room and comes back with two empty wine bottles, two goblets, and candles, everything wrapped in tea towels. No fingerprints. She arranges everything on the nightstand, as carefully as a set decorator prepping for a stage play. When the candles set fire to the curtains, Everett and I will be intoxicated and asleep. That’s why we aren’t roused by the smoke. We are naked and drunk, sated young lovers who have been careless with fire. The flames will consume all the evidence — fingerprints, hairs, and fibers, the traces of ketamine in our systems. Just as the flames consumed the evidence of Sarah’s murder. Like Sarah, like doomed Saint Joan of Arc, I will be reduced to ashes, and the truth will burn with me. The truth about what really happened to Lizzie DiPalma.

I know, because I was there in the woods when it happened.

It was a Saturday in October, the autumn leaves as brilliant as flames rippling in the trees above us. I remember how the twigs snapped like tiny bones under our shoes as we walked. I remember Billy, already strong at eleven, stamping the shovel into the earth as he dug the grave.

Susan leaves the room again, and Billy sits down on the bed beside me. He fondles my bare breast, pinches my nipple.

“Look at little Holly Devine, all grown up.”

Repulsion makes my arm muscles tighten, but I don’t move. I don’t betray the fact that the ketamine is rapidly wearing off. He doesn’t know that I took only two sips of the whiskey that Susan poured into my glass; Everett was the one who finished my drink, who’s now bearing the brunt of the full dose. Everett’s eyes are open, and he’s moaning softly, but I know he’s helpless. I’m the only one capable of fighting back.

“You were always special, Holly,” he says. His hand moves from my breast, strokes down to my belly. Can he feel me shudder? Can he see the disgust in my eyes? “Always game for everything. We would’ve made a great team.”

“I’m not like you,” I whisper.

“Yes, you are. Deep down, we are exactly the same. We both know what really matters in this world. What matters is us and nothing else. That’s why you haven’t told anyone all these years. That’s why you’ve kept the secret. Because you knew there’d be consequences. You don’t want your life ruined either, do you?”

“I was only ten years old.”

“Old enough to know what you were doing. Old enough to make your own choice. You hit her too, Holly. I gave you the rock and you did it. We killed her together.” He rests his palm on my thigh, and his touch is so repulsive I can barely remain still.

“I can’t find any plastic bags,” says Susan from the doorway.

He turns to his mother. “None in the kitchen?”

“All I found are those flimsy grocery sacks.”

“Let me look.”

Billy and his mother leave the room. I have no idea why they want plastic bags; I only know that this is my last chance to save myself.

I marshal all the strength I have left and roll over the edge of the mattress. I hit the floor with a thud, a noise so loud that they must be able to hear it in the kitchen. I have so little time now; they’ll return any minute. I reach blindly under the bed, feeling for my purse. With so many guests in the house this afternoon, I needed a safe place to stash it, because I know how people are. Even a house in mourning is not safe from the sticky fingers of an opportunist. I feel the leather strap and tug it closer. The purse is already unzipped, and I thrust my hand inside.

“She’s managed to get off the bed,” says Susan. She looms above me, staring down with a look of annoyance. “If we leave her like this, she might crawl away.”

“Then we have to finish it now. We’ll do it the old-fashioned way,” says Billy. He grabs a pillow off the bed and kneels down beside me. Everett moans, but they don’t even glance at him. They are both focused on me. On killing me. I will never feel the flames; by the time the fire engulfs this room, I’ll already be dead, smothered by linen and polyester.

“It’s just the way it has to be, Holly Dolly,” says Billy. “I’m sure you understand. You could ruin everything for me, and I can’t let that happen.” He places the pillow over my face and presses down. Presses so hard that I can’t breathe, can’t move. I twist and thrash, kicking at air, but Susan throws her weight on top of me too, pinning my hips to the floor. I fight to suck in oxygen, but the pillow is plastered so tightly against my nose and mouth that all I inhale is wet linen.

“Die, goddamn it. Die!” Billy orders.

And I am dying. Already numbness is seeping into my limbs, stealing the last of my strength. The fight is over. I feel only heaviness weighing down on me, Billy pressing against my face, Susan against my hips. My right arm is still under the bed, my hand inside my purse.

In my last seconds of consciousness, I realize what I am holding. I have carried it in my purse for weeks, ever since Detective Rizzoli told me my life was in danger, that Martin Stanek would try to kill me. How wrong we both were. All that time it was Billy who waited in the shadows. Billy, who staged his own death and after tonight would vanish forever.

I can’t see where I am aiming. I only know that time has run out and this is my last chance before darkness falls. I drag out the gun, press it blindly against Susan’s body, and pull the trigger.

The explosion makes Billy jerk away. Suddenly the pillow goes slack and I gasp in a desperate breath. Air fills my lungs and sweeps the fog out of my head.

“Mother? Mother?” Billy screams.

Susan is now a deadweight across my hips. Billy rolls her off me and I hear her thump onto the floor. I push the pillow away and glimpse Billy crouched over Susan’s body. There is blood streaming from her chest. He presses his hand to the bullet hole, trying to stem the flow, but surely he can see that her wound is mortal.

Susan reaches up to touch his face. “Go, darling. Leave me,” she whispers.

“Mother, no...”

Her hand slides away, leaving a smear of blood down his cheek.

My arm is shaking, my aim so unsteady that the second bullet I fire hits the ceiling and knocks off a chunk of plaster.

Billy wrenches the gun from my hand. His face is distorted with rage, his eyes as bright as hellfire. This is the face I saw that day in the woods, the day he picked up the rock and slammed it onto Lizzie DiPalma’s skull. For twenty years, I’ve said nothing. To protect myself, I’ve had to protect him, and this is my punishment. When you make a pact with the devil, the price you pay is your own soul.

He grips the gun in both hands, and I see the barrel swing toward me like a pitiless eye.

I flinch as the gunshots thunder — a series of explosions that come so rapidly I can’t count how many there are. When they finally stop, my eyes are closed and my ears are ringing, but there’s no pain. Why is there no pain?

“Holly!” Hands grasp my shoulders and give me a hard shake. “Holly?”

I open my eyes and see Detective Rizzoli staring down at me, frantically searching my face.

“Are you hurt? Talk to me!”

“Billy” is all I can whisper. I try to sit up, but I can’t. My muscles are still not working and I’ve forgotten I’m naked. I’ve forgotten everything except the fact that I’m alive, and I don’t understand how this is possible. Detective Frost drapes his jacket over my bare torso and I hug it to my breasts, shivering not from cold but from the aftershocks of what has happened. Everywhere I look in my father’s bedroom, I see blood. Susan lies beside me, her eyes glazed over, her jaw gaping open. One of her arms is stretched out in a last dying effort to reach her son. Their fingers don’t quite touch; instead, it is the pool of blood that connects them, Billy’s mingling with Susan’s.

Mother and son, united in death.

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