Page 83

His brows furrow. “Hmm?”
“You went to visit her in the hospital. Why?”
“Oh. She had a nurse call me. I was curious, so I went. The first time she was sleeping, so I went back the next day. She asked what my intentions were with you. I told her not to worry, they were all good. She was in and out of it after that, so I left her to rest.” He knocks back the amber liquid in his glass. “Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“You accused me of sending you stuff. So you, what, think I was stalking you or something?”
“Yes.”
“Why would I do that? Even if I had known about you and my dad. Why on God’s earth would I want to bring up shit that happened twenty years ago?”
“Revenge?”
“Revenge for what?”
I don’t answer right away. Instead, I wait until Noah looks up and our eyes meet. “Revenge for killing your father.”
Noah’s brows shoot up. “You strangled my father?”
“Strangled? No. I hit him over the head with a lamp to keep him from punching me more on the night of my graduation.”
Noah’s eyes flare. “Well, then you didn’t kill my father. Because he died from asphyxiation, not a head injury.”
CHAPTER
42
The days pass in a blur, one after another.
Mr. Sawyer died fromasphyxiation.
The morning after Noah caught me in his house, I woke to an envelope slipped under my door. Inside was a death certificate.Hisdeath certificate. An original, with a raised county seal. Of course, Noah could’ve made it. Technology is pretty advanced these days. But it looked pretty damn real. Even the envelope it was tucked into had the county seal and return address.
I unfold the thick paper sitting on the kitchen table for the millionth time, and my eyes drop right to the bottom.
Cause of death: Asphyxiation by strangulation
Ivy and I were both too terrified to go near a dead body, but it surelookedlike Mr. Sawyer was dead. There wasso muchblood around his head. And we were in the room for a long time, trying to make sure we’d wiped down anything I’d touched and making it look like a robbery. He’d never moved. But I suppose it waspossiblehe was only unconscious. Though if I didn’t kill Mr. Sawyer that night, who did? And if I’m innocent, why would someone be haunting me with those chapters? Who hauntsavictim?
I pace my mother’s house day and night, subsisting on coffee and wine. But sometimes it’s wine for breakfast and coffee late into the evening as I wander aimlessly, trying to figure out how all of it, howanyof it, makes any goddamn sense. I ignore the phone calls that come in, don’t even consider checking my email.
The rest of the world can fuck off.
In the good moments, I manage to stuff knickknacks in boxes to take to Goodwill and separate tattered clothing to go to the dump. But mostly, I stare off into space, thinking—thinking of Noah, his wide eyes, swearing up and down he didn’t know what I was talking about. Letting me destroy his house to search for evidence. Why did he let me do that? Has he cleaned it up?
And the Polaroids, those sick-in-the-head photographs . . . I should have taken them. Should have burned them to protect the other the girls, to protect me. I could go back, find an unlocked door when he’s not home, break a window if I have to, and take them, if he hasn’t hidden them again. There’s a reckless desire to send the photos of the other girls to the police, to tell them what he did, to sully Damon Sawyer’s name forever so he’s not remembered as the honored schoolteacher anymore. But those women have been through enough.
It’s Thursday—or maybe Friday? I don’t know—when a knock comes at the door. It’s not the first knock this week. Sometimes casseroles are left on the doorstep from Mom’s church friends, all of which go uneaten. Because I have no appetite at all.
I stop halfway through the kitchen, a coffee mug in one hand, an empty wineglass in the other. I’m trying to decide which to fill next. Or if I should instead heat up some food. My stomach feels queasy from all the alcohol and caffeine, but it’s been that way for days. I’m almost used to it. Is this how Mom felt all the time? I look at the door.Maybe whoever is knocking has some fresh food, and I won’t even have to turn the oven on.
When the knock comes a second time, I set down the cups and peer through the curtain.
There’s a man. He’s wearing a suit, with his back to the door, looking out at the driveway. It doesn’t look like Noah, but I can’t be certain it’s not. So I step back from the window and yell, “Can I help you?”
“Hi. Umm . . . I’m looking for Elizabeth Davis? I’m an attorney. I did some work for her mother.”