When She Was Bad

6

Daylight crept reluctantly through the cracks in the blinds. Outside the darkened office, the small town stirred to life. A newspaper thudded onto a front porch; a neighbor’s dog barked to be let out; a crow on the back fence angrily greeted the new day.

Inside, despair. “It’s not fair,” Lily moaned, rocking back and forth on the couch, her knees drawn up to her chin and her hands clasped around her shins. “I never did anything wrong, I never hurt anybody.”

Lyssy sat next to her, his hand resting lightly on the nape of her neck. “We know, believe you me, we know,” he murmured soothingly. His posture and manner, his facial expressions, even that believe you me, were so eerily reminiscent of Al Corder that if Irene hadn’t known better, she’d have sworn there was a family resemblance.

The rocking slowed; Lily turned her tear-streaked face toward Irene, who was sitting in a side chair drawn up in front of the sofa. “What happens next, Dr. Irene? Where do we go from here?”

“You don’t need to go anywhere, dear. If what Lyssy just told us is true-and if Lilith was telling him the truth-then you haven’t committed any crime. Quite the opposite, in fact: Alison says you saved her life. So whatever Lyssy decides to do-keep running, turn himself in-there’s no reason you couldn’t stay on here with me.”

“And you won’t send me back to the Institute?”

Irene smiled ruefully. “I promise you, dear, that’s one mistake your uncle Rollie and I won’t be making again.” She turned to Lyssy. “As for you, Lyssy, I strongly recommend you give yourself up before anybody else gets hurt-including yourself. But if you do decide to keep running-”

Lyssy cut her off in mid-sentence. “Dr. Cogan?”

“What is it, Lyssy?”

“Could I talk to you alone for a second?”

She glanced around the tiny office. “Yes, of course. Lily, will you be all right by yourself for a few minutes?”

“I guess.”

Irene led Lyssy out into the hallway, leaving the office door open so she could keep an eye on Lily. “What is it?”

“What I told you before, about how Lilith said it was Max and Kinch who did all the killing back at the director’s residence?”

“Yes?”

“What if it wasn’t true? What if she told me she’d killed one of them herself? Like maybe the psych tech you found upstairs in the bathroom.”

Irene felt her hopes sinking. “Is that what she told you?”

“Just say she did-do you think there’s any way the police would be able to tell?”

“There’s something called forensics, Lyssy. Fingerprints, fibers, transfer evidence-they’ve got it down to a real science. So I’d say yes, if Lilith committed one of the murders, there’s a good chance they’d be able to figure it out.”

“And if they did, what would happen to her? Would they still let her stay here with you?”

Irene recalled her brave speech to Pender in the airport yesterday morning: I don’t care what she’s done or how involved she was, I won’t let them put her away again. “Probably not,” she said, sick with longing for the good old days-say, five minutes ago, when her options had seemed so straightforward and uncomplicated.