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I proceed to tell him everything.
I start with Len’s crimes, using the driver’s licenses and locks of hair pulled from behind the loose board in the basement as proof. They now sit on the coffee table between us. After taking a single glance, Eli told me he didn’t want to look at them anymore, yet his gaze keeps drifting to the pictures of Megan Keene, Toni Burnett, and Sue Ellen Stryker as I recount how I learned what Len had done.
“Then I killed him,” I say.
Eli, in the midst of sneaking another glance at the IDs, looks up at me, shocked.
“He drowned,” he says.
“Only because I caused it.”
I hold his rapt attention as I describe the events of that night, detailing every step of my crime.
“Why are you telling me this now?” Eli asks.
“Because it helps everything else make sense,” I say.
The everything else is what’s been going on at Lake Greene. Again, no detail is skipped and not a single bit of my bad behavior is overlooked. I hoped admitting everything would leave me feeling as cleansed as a sinner after confession. Instead, I only feel shame. I’ve committed too many wrongs for the blame to rest solely with Len.
Eli listens with an open mind. After getting to the part about Len taking possession of Katherine’s body, I say, “You were right. Something was in the lake, waiting. I don’t know if it’s all bodies of water or just Lake Greene or something special about Len. But it’s true, Eli. And it’s happening right now.”
He says nothing after that. He simply stands, leaves the den, and goes to where Len is being kept. Their voices drift in from the living room, too hushed and urgent to be heard clearly.
Ten minutes pass.
Then fifteen.
Eli ends up speaking with Len for twenty minutes. A fraction of the time I spent talking, but long enough for me to get anxious that he doesn’t believe me. Or, worse, believes whatever lies Len is telling him.
I hold my breath as Eli finally returns to the den and sits down.
“I believe you,” he says.
“I—” I struggle to speak, flustered by both surprise and relief. “Why? I mean, what convinced you?”
Eli cranes his neck to pass a glance into the distant living room. “She—sorry, he—admitted it.”
That word—he—tells me Eli’s serious. Knowing that he believes me would typically leave me fainting with relief if not for the last thing I need to tell him.
My plan for what’s next.
Again, I go through every step, answering all of Eli’s questions and addressing each of his concerns.
“It’s the only way,” I tell him when I’m done.
Eventually, Eli nods. “I suppose it is. When do you plan on doing it?”
I turn to the window, surprised to realize that while I was talking to Eli and he was talking to Len, the storm had moved on. No more gusts rattle the windows and no more rain thrums against the roof. In their place is the quiet stillness that always follows wild weather, as if the atmosphere, having blustered and bellowed to exhaustion, is now taking a long, restful breath. The sky, once so dark, has now thinned to a medium gray.
Dawn is on its way.
“Now,” I say.
In the living room, Eli and I stand before Len, who’s still trying to pretend he’s bored by all of this. The old Len might have been able to get away with it. The new one, stuck with Katherine’s exquisitely expressive face, can’t. Curiosity peeks through his impatient facade.
“Tell me where you put those girls,” I say, “and I’ll let you go.”
Len perks up, his feigned boredom vanishing in a snap. “Just like that? What’s the catch? There has to be one.”