He nods. “I should explain. About Baskens.”
But I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I think I’d prefer to ease around the subject for a little longer, if we could, so I say, “How did you find me?” Quickly, lightly, to divert his attention.
“Jessica,” he replies. “Jessica Kyung.”
Surprise ripples through me. Why would Jessica give me away now? Back when I first drove out of Georgia, she was the only one I called when I was finally able to get my hands on a phone. It turned out to be the right choice. After listening to the whole sordid story, Jessica had told me a story of her own. How, around a year ago, she’d caught wind of rumors about goings-on at Baskens in the mid to late nineties, before Cerny started the retreats. She’d embarked on a bit of unofficial, off-the-record investigating, though was never able to turn up anything solid. But she always sensed bad mojo around Matthew Cerny and that place.
After I contacted her, Jessica went full-on fairy godmother on my behalf—telling me to head west and wait for her call. I don’t know how she did what she did, contacting God knows what shady characters and pulling God knows what strings, but the woman made disappearing a reality. I basically owe her my life.
She was the one who informed me the police had found three bodies buried back behind my house on Ansley Street—Holly Idlewine plus two other women. And she said Heath was clinging to life, just barely, at Grady Hospital. The police were looking for me, if only to ensure I wasn’t buried somewhere too. I felt terrible about that—and it pained me that Lenny and her parents were probably wild with worry. But Jessica told me to sit tight, that, for the time being, it was best for me to stay gone, and she would meet privately with the Silvers and fill them in.
I’m not sure why she helped me, but I was glad she did. Now I’m somewhat alarmed to know she gave away my information.
“She contacted me,” he says. “Asked me to come see you.”
He does that hair-raking thing again and sends me a tentative smile. It’s a warm smile, and it occurs to me—again—that he’s remarkably good looking. Which shouldn’t matter, even though I seem to be thinking about it a whole hell of a lot. Maybe it’s just a defense mechanism.
“It’s over,” he says. “Heath Beck is dead, and they close the investigation. Everyone knows he killed Cerny, Cecelia Beck, Holly Idlewine, and two other women. Maybe one of them his birth mother.”
The world tilts a little. I put a hand out flat on the table.
“A woman named Annalise Beard say you contact her for help, before? She told police you were asking questions, maybe afraid of Heath like she was.”
I nod.
“Everyone knows you had nothing to do with the murders,” he says. “You’re clear. Jessica says it’s safe to come back. To come home.”
So there it is. The horse is out of the barn. The boulder’s rolling down the hill. The dam . . . the door . . . All the metaphors morph into one singular, unified shout.
He is dead.
I will get to go back home to Decatur, feel the southern summer’s sticky humidity and the thrum of energy around the square. I’ll see Lenny and her parents again, eat Barbara’s strawberry-and-rhubarb mousse. Feel Hap’s wince-inducing backslap when he hugs me. I’ll pick up a white-chocolate latte at my favorite coffee shop on the way to work, listen to Kevin and Lenny singing along with Britney Spears on the office Pandora.
I will live again.
“You okay?” Luca asks. He digs in his pocket and lays a ring on the table. I stare at it.
“The police give me this. They say it belongs to you.”
I stare stupidly at the ring I once thought was so beautiful. Cecelia’s ring. I don’t touch it.
“The news say there could be others,” he tells me. “They think after Heath ran away from Baskens when he was sixteen, he was homeless for two, maybe three years—in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana. In New Orleans a church take him in, collect money so he can go to community college. He transfer to Georgia second year but the church . . .” He explodes his hands.
“They disbanded?”
He nods. “Maybe because he mess around with the pastor’s wife and some of the other ladies? I don’t know. No one say. At Georgia, he make good grades, get student loan, make friends with rich kids. He meet their parents. He get a good job. A lot of good jobs. Then he meet you.”
I nod. Heath never told me any of this. Of course, I’d basically assured him he didn’t have to, because I didn’t want to reciprocate. I had let him off the hook to protect myself.
“Now they look around Florida and Louisiana for missing persons,” Luca adds. “For others.”
Others.
“The other woman, Annalise, says now she don’t know why he didn’t kill her. You wonder why he never hurt you?” he asks. It’s a mountain of a question, but his voice is gentle. A voice to curl up in.
I do know why. Heath was looking for a partner, in life and in his crimes, and he chose me over Annalise because I was clearly an easier target. I was the perfect mark. The woman he fantasized who would stand by him—adore and cheer him on—even after knowing his horrifying secret. Because she had secrets of her own.
But there was more to his motivations. In the past months, I’ve had plenty of time to study people with antisocial personality disorder. They are a strange breed. Contemptuous of others’ rights, they operate outside the moral and civil law, and they do not change. At first, like Heath did with me, they idealize their targets, flattering and praising to win their trust. To control their targets, they must keep them close, hence Heath’s manipulating me into going with him to Baskens. From the moment we met, he’d made up his mind that I belonged to him, and nothing could sway him.
It gets even more chilling than that. Antisocial personality disorder combined with malignant narcissism and Machiavellianism forms what experts call “the dark triad”—a lethal combination of nature and nurture that creates a perfect storm in the human brain, compelling sufferers to destroy everything around them. And they do it with glee. I’ve come to understand that, based on the chemistry in his brain and his abusive childhood, Heath had every reason to hurt me.
Only he didn’t—because that would’ve been hurting himself.
He believed that, at our core, we were the same. When he looked at me—the abandoned girl who had lashed out once in violence—he saw himself. In the glare of his narcissism, I was nothing but a reflection of him. With me, he wouldn’t have to live his life alone. He would have someone to sympathize with his urges, to admire his handiwork, maybe even, at some point along the way, take part in it. I’ve only begun to understand it myself, but the strange truth is, in his twisted way, Heath Beck loved me.
Luca speaks. “You want me to go?”
I realize I’ve been somewhere else entirely, and I touch his hand. “No, please. I’d like it if you stayed.”
“Okay.” His eyes are so kind, so steady. “I come to say it’s safe for you now. But also to say I’m sorry for what they did to you back in Georgia. I didn’t help you.”
“But you did. You helped me get away.”
He shakes his head. “I should know something was bad at that place. My sister, she works for the doctor for many years at his retreats. She quit to go back to school, but when he calls her about a new job—just one week, really good pay—she say I should do it. She tell me I only cook for four people, and maybe he’ll help me with my citizenship, like he helps her. When I get there, Cerny say I have to deliver empty trays—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I know it don’t sound right, but I’m scared to say no.”
I nod.