As recently as ten days ago, just before her epiphany about Jackson, she would have put the poker down and returned to her room. But she no longer ran from asking questions.
She picked out a few small pieces of paper caught beneath a leg of the andiron and examined one. On it was a line drawing of some kind. An architect’s blueprint? She examined another fragment. Part of a printed word—LIBR. The Spanish word libre, meaning free?
Then she realized what she held in her hand—remnants of the blueprint for Columbia’s library. The blueprint her mother had told her about. On another small piece were scorched words.
Several hundred students . . .
Written with a black pen in a strong, confident hand.
It was just like the handwriting on the notecard she had found in Mama’s memento box.
Her father’s handwriting.
Aubrey was falling. She leaned back against one of the armchairs.
Would you still love me, Princess? Even when you realize the one you love is a murderer?
Now she understood why he had asked that.
And Mama knew, too.
CHAPTER 58
Her mother sat in a chair at the patio table, shaded by the gumbo limbos, palms, and bamboo trees. Maybe it was the harsh morning light, or perhaps the recent lack of rain, but the plants seemed to droop around her.
She was staring off absently, unaware of Aubrey’s presence, her bandaged hands upturned as though in supplication.
Aubrey pulled out the chair beside her. The loud scraping sound jarred Mama back. Her eyes flitted over the oversize T-shirt Aubrey had slept in, then paused on her fingertips, which were blackened by soot.
“Why did you burn the blueprint?” Aubrey was surprised by the strength in her voice, because it was nothing like the terrible weakness inside her.
Mama bit her lower lip and looked down at her bandaged hands.
That’s when it hit her.
Her mother had wanted her to smell the smoke and find the few charred scraps of blueprint.
“Have you had it hidden away?” Aubrey asked. “Tell me. Why did you burn it now, after all these years?”
She continued to stare at her hands. “A nurse gave it to me at the hospital. It was with your father’s things when the ambulance brought him in.”
Had that been the paper her father had found when she’d called him about the babysitter? If so, had he taken it from the time-share, planning to destroy it, knowing it was the one remaining physical link to what he had planned to do?
“It was Dad’s idea to blow up Columbia’s library and kill innocent people, wasn’t it?”
Her mother’s face seemed to harden into stone. She was protecting him, the way she had always done.
“Can’t you for once tell me the truth? For God’s sake, Mama. My whole life you and Dad have tried to keep me in the dark. And I’ve let you. I’ve been afraid if I pressed you for answers, I would somehow rip whatever it was that held you and Dad together.” She took a breath. Her heart was racing. “Why did I bother? You two were already broken.”
Her mother’s face was filled with agony. She extended her bandaged hands toward Aubrey.
“I’m sorry,” Aubrey said, “but I can’t do this anymore. I need to know the truth, and if you won’t tell me, maybe Dad will.” She pushed back the heavy wrought iron chair. The sound scraped painfully against her heart as she went toward the house.
Behind her, she could hear her mother’s voice, barely a whisper. “I love you, sweetheart,” she said. “Remember that, no matter what.”
CHAPTER 59
Her father sat in a chair by the window in his hospital room, the basket of wildflowers from the Simmers, now wilted, on a side table. His head was wrapped in bandages, and his hands lay palms-up on his lap, like they’d already surrendered.
Her father. Would he finally tell her the truth?
Aubrey stepped into the room. It was larger than the one he had been in originally, and there was a patient in the second bed. An orderly was adjusting the bed, moving wires and tubes.
Her father stared at his writhing roommate, who was moaning over and over, “Kill me. Put me out of my misery. Kill me.”
“I’m going to take you for your procedure now, Mr. Detweiler,” the orderly said, pushing the rolling bed.
“Leave me alone,” said the man. “I want to die.”
“Dad,” Aubrey said, “I have to talk to you.”
He ignored her and continued watching the other man as the orderly rolled the gurney out of the room. “Why are they prolonging his agony?” her father said, frowning at the empty space where his roommate’s bed had been. “He just wants to die.”
“Dad. We have to talk.” She stood directly in front of him, forcing him to look at her.
He sighed. “What is it, Aubrey?” His eyes were bloodshot, surrounded by purple bruises.
She held out her hand with the fragment of charred paper covered with his handwriting.
He seemed to shrink against the chair. “Where . . . where did you get that?”
“From the fireplace. Mama tried to burn it—not very successfully.”
“It’s not what you think, Aubrey. I swear.”
He had the audacity to deny it? “Tell me the truth,” she said. “What you did. All of it. I need to hear it from you.”
“So she told you.” His face drooped. “She promised she wouldn’t.”
There was something in his voice that stopped her. A plaintive tone like from the previous day. Was there another secret he believed Mama had revealed?
Would you still love me, Princess? Even when you realize the one you love is a murderer?
He couldn’t have been referring to the library. Even though he may have planned it, the library bombing had never happened, and no one had died. Yet he had called himself a murderer.
A murderer.
The pieces came crashing together.
“Oh, my God. You blew up the brownstone, didn’t you?” Her voice sounded discombobulated to herself.
Her father looked away abruptly.
In that single gesture, he confirmed what she didn’t want to believe, but she had to hear him say it. Once and for all, she needed to hear the truth.
“Say it,” she said.
He kept his head down.