I ran into town, past the pawnshops and tattoo parlors and donut shops. Past the old houses that had been made into offices. Past the courthouse on the square and all the stately old buildings where people used to do their shopping. Now there were mostly junk shops and stores that sold medical supplies or wigs.
I ran until I found myself in the leafy, flat neighborhoods with one-story wood houses and dogs that wandered in the street. I ran past a fire station and the library, then there were more fields and farmhouses and a bridge. I stopped and threw the tights over the bridge and watched them swirl away in a brown creek. And then I ran some more.
I ran all the way through Macon and made it almost to Rutland before fainting in the parking lot of a Hardee’s. The manager found me slumped against his dumpster and called the police. Around ten or eleven, Mrs. Waylene came to pick me up. The manager had given me a double bacon cheeseburger and a Coke, and I slept the whole way home, exhausted, my secret hidden deep inside me.
The wind buffeted the mountain, and I shivered in Cerny’s too-big work coat. Heath sloughed Cerny off his shoulder like a sack of concrete, and when the body hit the rock, I winced. The sound was muffled but heavy—flesh and bone and blood. Heath groaned and flexed his arms behind his back, his spine cracking. I glanced at the rolled-up blanket with Cerny’s body inside. Sometime on the journey up, a spot of blood had bloomed on the side of it.
“Daphne.”
I turned away from the body, gathered my hair back against the blustering wind, and looked out over the edge. I felt like I’d been dropped into some gothic horror novel. How could I have gotten here? About to dispose of a body? To cover up a murder?
“Can I ask you something?” he said.
I met his eyes.
“Do you still . . .” He faltered, then tried again. “Will you . . .”
“Yes,” I said quickly. Maybe too quickly. “I will, Heath.”
He knit his brows. “Even after knowing what I am? After seeing what I’ve done?”
I mustered a smile, even though the sight of him made me physically ill. Even though I wanted to scream and run and forget I’d ever met him. “I love you, Heath. That hasn’t changed.”
He heaved a sigh. “I can’t tell you how much it means to me to hear you say that.” He eyed me. “I can’t believe how lucky I am. That you understand why all of this had to happen.”
A lump rose in my throat. I jutted my chin toward the drop-off. “So, you should do it.”
He rolled the blanketed body to the edge of the rock slab, then straightened and kicked it off. I heard tree branches snap and the echo of them reverberate through the valley, and I turned away. I was feeling light headed. Nauseated.
Heath hitched up his pants and wiped his brow. I knew he’d come back with Cecelia and roll her off the cliff like he’d done with Cerny. And then what? We’d head back down to his car and drive off into the sunset. Bonnie and Clyde, the millennial version. Only, how long would I have to wait to make my move? To run like hell and hope to God he didn’t catch me?
He took my face in his hands. Smiled down at me. “He was a hell of a guy, you know, and I got a kick out of coming back here and watching him do his thing. The fake couples, the video playbacks in the attic. It was what they did best, he and Cecelia—turned real life into a show.” His expression softened. “It’s worked out better than I could even have hoped. I love you, Daphne, and I would do it all again. I would go to the ends of the earth to hold on to you.”
His hands were so cold and hard against my cheeks, and I’d begun to shiver uncontrollably. I needed to get away from this place. From this man. Just being in his presence was eating away at my sanity. I realized, suddenly, that I was looking past Heath to the stone cliff, out over the tops of the trees. I realized also that the precipice was only a few short steps away from where I stood.
It would be so easy, I thought, just a matter of forward motion, of closing my eyes and letting gravity take me.
“My dear,” he said.
His face swam into focus again. It was the second time he’d called me that, and the word sounded saccharine coming out of his mouth.
“You should hurry,” I said. “Go back down and get Cecelia. I’ll wait here.”
He gave me a long look, his eyes two black unchanging pits, then left. When the sound of his crashing footsteps on the trail below had faded away, I sank to the ground, my back against a pine.
Maybe, if I could just be patient, an opportunity would present itself.
Maybe I didn’t have to end my own life to save it.
I just needed to think. To plan.
I don’t know how long I sat there, but eventually I felt the air change, the temperature drop, and raindrops start to fall again. I pulled out the iPad. All the video files popped up—the archived footage from Heath’s childhood, but there were other files as well. Files simply labeled Heath. I touched one of them.
This one was just an audio file, dated only a few days ago. I hit “Play,” and Cerny’s voice rang out.
“Go on.”
“I didn’t plan it. I hadn’t been thinking or fantasizing about it, in any way. Not lately.”
“Because of Daphne?”
“I think so. But then it came back, like before. A fully formed idea—more detailed than the others, not just thoughts. More like plans.”
“Describe what you did, Heath.”
“I didn’t go home after work. I went out. To a bar. I had a drink, met a woman, and we left together . . .”
I tried to swallow, but my throat felt raw. I felt like time was rushing past me, a huge rocketing freight train, and I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t stop listening to the tape. I couldn’t stop Heath from returning with Cecelia and throwing her off the cliff either. I couldn’t stop any of it. Sweat beaded under my arms and breasts.
“Where did the two of you go?”
“We got in my car and drove around for a while. We talked. I told her about my life—how I grew up. About you and Cecelia. About the time I hurt myself, and Cecelia held me in her arms.”
“How did she respond?”
“She felt sorry for me. She wanted me to have sex with her.”
“Did you?”
My heart slammed in my chest.
“No. I drove her east of town, outside the perimeter, and down this gravel road. I explained to her that the only way I could connect with another human was to hurt myself or them. And then I told her that I was not going to hurt myself.”
“Was she frightened?”
“She tried to run.”
“You stopped her.”
“Yes. I stopped her. I strangled her. It felt . . . it was good.”
“How so?”
“I felt close to her. We talked . . . I talked to her.”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. A couple of hours.”
(laughter)
“What’s so funny, Heath?”
“I don’t know. That I thought you actually could do something to stop me from being me.”
“I can help, if you’ll give me a chance. This doesn’t have to be a life sentence. But I can only do it if you’ll stay here at Baskens. I need you here, where I can administer intensive therapy. We need time and privacy—”
“No. We agreed: one week to wrap up your study, and to help me stop the nightmares, and then you owe me. You help me tell Daphne. But there’s more. You need to do something about Cecelia.”
“Why?”
“She’s been talking to Daphne. Telling her things she doesn’t need to know.”
Leaves rustled and twigs snapped just below the trailhead.
Heath, back with Cecelia.
I leapt up and gripped the iPad, my heart skittering wildly. He would pitch her off the edge of the mountain, and we would troop back down to our car and drive away from this hellhole. We’d head down the switchback roads, back through Dunfree, slowly, coolly, like he hadn’t just murdered someone—maybe two people—and I’d helped him dispose of their bodies.
I couldn’t do this anymore. This was the end of the line. The end of everything.
I walked to the edge of the cliff and closed my eyes, Heath’s crashing footsteps echoing in my ears. He was almost to the top. And he would expect to find me here, waiting.
Friday, October 19
Night
When I see the green truck drive past, relief and elation wash over me. Luca is okay. And if I can get to him, I will be too. I burst through the door of the station.