Page 133 of Tear Me Apart

She makes a fresh pot of tea, pulls a new cup and saucer from the cabinet and sets them on the table. She tries to think what color lipstick Juliet had on, but can’t remember. It must have been something very subtle—probably that Burt’s Bees Pomegranate lip balm she carts around everywhere. Mindy uses it, too.

Down the hall in Mindy’s—my daughter’s—room, she finds a tube on the night table. Back in the dining room, she pours some tea into the cup, carefully picks it up and kisses the edge, then runs her finger across the nude smear. Perfect. She throws the cup and its contents to the floor, making sure it lands where Juliet fell.

She takes in the scene. Yes, this works. All is as it was.

The letters...she moves quickly to her bedroom and slides the dresser away from the wall. Sure enough, the manila envelope of secrets is gone.

Mindy, Mindy, Mindy. You are so naughty. She should feel panic, but she is past that. Now, it’s all about self-preservation.

She takes a quick look through her daughter’s room, doesn’t find them. The bathroom—ah, yes. Here they are. Under the sink, wedged against the wall. She takes the package and heads back to the living room.

One last thing...from under the kitchen sink, she takes the bottle of straight ethylene glycol that she borrowed from the garage. Jasper loves to save a dime here and there, and orders gallons of it online to make his own antifreeze, hating how much the brand names charge. She wipes it clean of her fingerprints, and sets it back in its proper place, making sure to coat it lightly in dust she swipes from the corner of the garage. A spider scuttles out of her way, frightened by the intrusion.

She watches its retreat. Normally she would rout it out immediately; she can’t stand the idea it may drop onto her shoulders as she passes through to her car unawares, but a reprieve is given. She feels a strange kinship with the small creature, hiding fearfully in its dirty corner. It will do anything it can to survive. It is at the mercy of its environment, of the people it comes in contact with. Any moment could be its last.

Just like her.

* * *

Bode Greer waits until the car pulls out of the driveway, debating. What kind of woman takes fifteen minutes to follow her dying sister to the hospital? What has she been doing in there? The Lauren Wright he remembers is not this woman. The interview had been fun. They’d been in the lodge at the top of Copper Mountain. Mindy had finished her last practice runs before the big events started, the interviews were standard at this point. He’d felt lucky to get one with her; everyone wanted to talk to the young phenom.

During the interview, Mindy’s mother had been charming, self-deprecating, offering to buy hot chocolate for him and Mindy as they spoke. She’d hovered a bit, yes, but in a pleasantly protective way. Mindy hadn’t seemed to mind at all. It was clear they were very close.

The woman he met upstairs is cold, calculating, awful. She makes his gonads shrivel. There is something very, very wrong with her. With all of this.

He’s torn. Go back to the house, try to get in and see what she’s just done, or follow her.

In the end, he thinks about what Zack Armstrong might want. Bode has a good feeling about the man. He seems like a straight shooter.

He puts the car in gear and follows her down the hill.

78

CBI LAB

DENVER, COLORADO

Parks packs up his bag for the chopper ride to Vail, shoving everything in without rhyme or reason. Starr is standing by the windows, looking out to the helipad, talking on her phone. He beckons to her, and she raises a finger. He taps his watch, and she nods.

The case is coming together. Lauren Wright’s DNA at the crime scene is explainable by only a few scenarios. Parks, with the long-honed instincts of a veteran homicide detective, feels certain the link between the two women has something to do with Vivian Armstrong’s incarceration at University Hospital.

The subpoena for Armstrong’s records came in two hours ago, and Starr has been on the phone since the document was served, combing through the files from afar. The 1990s have already been scanned and archived, so it’s not taking as long as it could to find the information they need.

Starr hangs up and rushes over. “Let’s go. I’ll brief you guys on the way.”

They clamber into the chopper, put on their headsets, and are airborne moments later. Starr’s voice comes over the headset, tinny against the whapping rotors.

“I’m going to cut to the chase. We know Vivian Armstrong—née Vivian Sato—did inpatient treatment for a depressive disorder at University Hospital. She was in and out from 1993–1998. She attempted suicide several times, both before her treatment and while she was there. When they let her out, she went to a halfway house and found a job in a restaurant. Soon after, she met Zack Armstrong and the rest of her story we know.

“Here’s the new info: She roomed with another teenager named Liesel Thompson. Thompson came in after a suicide attempt. I got another subpoena and pulled her juvie records, which show she was charged with manslaughter and sentenced to no less than one year at Middle Tennessee Mental Health Institute.”

Parks taps Woody on the knee. “That’s our criminal psychiatric facility.”

“Copy,” Woody said. “Who did she kill?”

“A man named Bennett Thompson, thirty-six, worked at Nashville International as a baggage handler.”

“Her dad? She killed her dad?”