Page 48

FORTY-SEVEN

Alex pockets the phone and moves toward the hallway. The house is fully dark now, a maze of bluish shadows that she navigates as quietly as possible. The silence roars in her eardrums. It’s been so long since Alex has been away from the city, she has forgotten the pitch black of the nighttime world. In her apartment the light always finds its way in. The streetlights sneak their way around the cracks of her curtains, the headlights move across her wall. But here the darkness is startling. It gives Alex a strange floating feeling as if she is walking into a void. She passes a window, her phone’s flashlight bouncing off the glass. She can hear the sound of insects chirping outside. The lights of a neighbor’s house far in the distance sparkle through the trees.

Alex could run now. She could leave the house and dash across the lawn and knock on their door. But what would she say? That she has illegally entered a dead woman’s home searching for clues to implicate her boss in murder? She’d be lucky if they didn’t call the police immediately.

A creak comes from the kitchen, and her heart constricts. There has got to be an explanation. This is Lucy after all. Not some stranger. She should let Lucy be the one to tell her what it is. So, instead of running, she turns toward the dark kitchen. Her ears prick as she reaches the doorway. There is no sound at all now except her own lungs filling and emptying and the scrape of her footsteps as she moves through the house. She shouldn’t jump to conclusions about her sweet assistant. She’ll just ask her what is going on.

“Lucy?” she calls into the kitchen, trying to sound as casual as possible. She remembers some advice from one of Francis’s letters: People are not inclined to open up if confronted. She’ll start slow. “Hey, Lucy, are you still back here?” She tries to keep her voice light despite the tremor that has taken hold of her body.

“Alex?” Lucy’s voice cuts through the dark. It is deeper than normal, raspy. “Were you talking to someone?”

Alex puts a hand on the center island to orient herself as she follows it around the side of the kitchen. She moves the light of her phone toward Lucy’s voice. Lucy stands at the edge of the counter.

“Jonathan called. He wanted to tell me that he found something in Howard’s agenda that we’d missed,” Alex lies, not wanting her to know that no one is coming. “Howard should actually be here sooner than we thought.” She can see Lucy’s silhouette shuffle uncomfortably at the news. Lucy frowns down into the glow of her phone for a moment and Alex can see the black shine of fear across her eyes.

“Was that it?” She is barely audible.

“They had gone on dates, apparently. Francis and Howard were lovers, not enemies.” She watches Lucy carefully.

“Oh, wow, that’s a surprise,” she chokes out.

“Lucy, it makes me question whether he really was interested in young girls like you said.” Lucy takes a big step back.

“Jonathan also told me that Francis Keen never had an assistant.” Now Alex doesn’t even have to see her expression; she can feel the panic coming from Lucy as she backs away. It vibrates through the room, bounces off the floors, filling Francis Keen’s kitchen with anxious terror.

“That’s strange.” Her laugh is hollow.

“What is going on, Lucy? Why would someone lie about being an assistant?” She comes up against the far end of the counter.

Alex takes another step toward Lucy, closing the space between them. “Lucy, you can tell me what’s going on. I am not going to be mad at you. I’m sure you had a reason, I just need to know why.”

Lucy’s flashlight comes on suddenly. As its blinding beam swings through the dark, Alex has the sick feeling that she has made a terrible and irretractable error in judgment.

“Oh, do you?” Lucy says, her voice hard. She steps toward Alex now, shining the light directly in her eyes. Blinded, Alex steps backward.

She should have known. It all comes crashing in on her. The way Lucy always took the stairs and never the elevator, slipping back behind the newsroom. Skittering through the old part of the building. She’d never even seen her assistant with anyone else in the office, only on her own.

“How did you get in?” Alex asks.

“It’s easy to get a job in the mailroom these days.” Lucy smiles smugly. “No one wants to do the dirty work anymore. I just applied. Got hired on the spot. They practically begged me to start right away.

“From there it was all about finding the perfect moment. When you were just vulnerable enough. I had to break you down a bit first. It wasn’t exactly hard to do. You were so jumpy already. Always thinking someone is out to get you, aren’t you, Alex? Maybe you’re the one who is actually causing the trouble though, ever think of that?”

“What do you mean?” Alex backs away.

“You gave me quite the gift with Howard.”

“Howard? You were always so scared of him. And those young women. You said Howard was a predator, that he tried something.” Alex thinks of her boss, stumbling drunk in the hallway, of the young woman he’d taken advantage of. Of Lucy afraid for her job.

“What was I supposed to do? I was trapped. I had to come up with something. You would have found out I was lying. It would have ruined everything.”

“Why are you doing this? Did you kill Francis?”

“God, no. Why would I kill Francis?” Her face screws up. “I never even met Francis Keen.”

“But why did you pretend to know her?” Alex asks, shielding her eyes.

“I wasn’t trying to get closer to Dear Constance, although I hate that column more than just about anything. No, I wanted to get close to you .” Her voice turns now from derision to pure anger.

Alex stumbles back, trying to understand what is happening. “Why me? We have never even met.” Her fingers grab at the air behind her.

“We have, though. Don’t you remember?”

Alex’s foot slips on the tile. She is falling in slow motion. On the way toward the kitchen floor her head smacks against something sharp. She lands in a pile, her vision swirling with stars. She curls on the floor, a pulsing behind her head.

“Oh dear,” she hears Lucy mutter from somewhere behind the light. “That’s a real bummer.” Alex blinks into the beam of her flashlight. Disoriented, she tries to stand, but her feet slip and she slides back to the floor.

Alex brings her hand to her head and feels the slick of blood between her fingers. She sees it in the beam of Lucy’s flashlight, the bright red spattered on the tile and on her hand. The sight of it makes her woozy. The pain comes moments later, a wave of it cascading through her head. It makes Alex’s body contract with nausea.

“I did not want you to get hurt, you have to understand that. This was not supposed to happen this way,” Lucy whines. “I wanted you to look your best.”

“Look my best for what?” Alex chokes out as she tries to stay upright.

“For the apology,” she says as if Alex should know what she is talking about.

“What apology, Lucy?” Through the pain in her skull, Alex tries to understand what Lucy is talking about.

“Oh, the one between you and my dear older brother whose life you destroyed so thoroughly.”

The shock of it cuts through her pain, rattling through her body as she looks up at Lucy’s silhouette.

“ Lulu ,” she whispers. How could she not have recognized the silent little girl with straight-cut bangs and Mary Jane shoes? The one with absolute adoration for her much older brother Brian.

Lucy’s posture changes, her hand on her hip, almost bragging. “It’s been hard keeping it a secret, I must admit. I knew you wouldn’t remember me; I have changed a lot, grown up. But still, it hurts a bit. The way you stared at me that first time though, I thought for a minute that you’d see right through me. That I’d been caught out.”

The horror of it gathers in Alex’s chest, beating like wings against the inside of her ribcage. The young man who had ruined her, who had taken the last shred of her innocence, who had made her fearful and paranoid. And now she sees it; she has no idea how she missed it. The same rounded cheeks. The same way of looking at you, lying to you. That should have been the biggest clue of all. Lucy looks down at her. She can dimly make out the smug smile playing on her lips. Alex’s head throbs.

Before she can say anything, there’s a rush of movement in the dark. Alex’s arms are yanked tight behind her before she has the chance to pull away. She feels something hard and unyielding, with sharp plasticky edges, close around her wrists. A zip tie. The horror of what is happening hits Alex. Lucy came prepared.

“Your brother nearly ruined me.” If Alex can make her understand what happened back then, Lucy will let her go. She’ll have to. Alex is the victim here. She needs her to understand. “He hurt me.”

“I don’t remember it that way,” Lucy says. “Neither does he, of course. He loved you. And you just left in the worst possible way.”

Alex realizes, her stomach dropping, that Lucy has no idea what happened. Why would she? There is no way Brian would ever have admitted what he did. He’d probably told his family she ran away. He’d probably told Alex’s mother the same thing. She can imagine the hurt he would have conjured in his eyes as he told their families what had happened.

“You always loved him so much,” Alex remembers. She tries to comfort Lucy from her position curled back against the cabinet. “It’s easy to see things the way we want to when it comes to family—”

But Lucy draws away angrily. “He always said you had trouble with the truth. Don’t you pull your helpful bullshit on me,” she snaps. “I can see right through it. I know you have no idea what you’re doing. God knows how you got this job. Not that I’m complaining. If it wasn’t for that announcement in the paper, there is no way I would have found you.”

“Is that what he told everyone? That I left him?” Alex asks gently. Despite it all she can see the vulnerable child still inside of Lucy. She remembers the way she’d look up to her big brother, her eyes shining as they followed him around a room. It wasn’t too different from how Alex had looked at him at first. Brian had them both under his spell.

“He tried to kill me,” Alex says in case Lucy didn’t know.

Lucy crouches down in front of Alex. The little black hearts stitched into her tights stretch at her knees. She looks down at Alex with concern.

“Did he, Alex? Because it really looked like you tried to kill yourself.”

Alex shakes her head. Her wrists throb at the memory of that night. “No.”

“He had gone for help. He wanted to rescue you.” Even as Lucy says it, Alex can feel reality tilt and shift around her. Her confidence starts to slide away. “And then you just ran away and abandoned him. You didn’t even let him know what happened. He was worried sick.” She is petulant now, scuffing her toe against the floor.

“That’s just not true, Lucy,” Alex says, squeezing her eyes shut against the glare of the flashlight. The pain in the back of her skull has intensified, sending a sharp dagger through to her forehead.

Lucy glances down at her palm. In the dark kitchen the screen of her phone gives her face a demonic glow, like a child at a slumber party telling a ghost story.

Alex squirms against the tie but it cuts painfully into her arms. She pleads with Lucy: “Please, Lucy, just let me leave. You don’t know what you’re doing. Brian is not what you think. He’s not a good man, he’s—”

Lucy spins back and Alex recognizes the angry clench in her jaw.

“You misunderstood everything,” Lucy says, rigid with anger. “And you caused so much suffering for us all. And now I am giving everyone the chance to make things right.” Then she closes her mouth tightly, giving a little nod of satisfaction at her pronouncement.

“No, you’ve got it all wrong,” Alex begs.

“Well, soon you’ll be able to clear it up,” Lucy says, a small smile quivering on her lips.

“What are you talking about?” Alex asks as the room starts to spin.

Lucy gives her a last wolfish smile, the same one as her brother’s. How had Alex not seen it sooner?

“When he gets here.” She breaks into a full grin as Alex’s heart turns to sludge.

Now it is too late. Without another word, Lucy turns on her heel and leaves Alex alone on the cold tile.