He should’ve been smarter than this.
Daniel had reached her at the river and grabbed her purse, and the buckle broke. He took her purse, her phone. He must have buried it all somewhere or ditched it in his car, because I knew he didn’t have it when he met up with us again behind the house. He’d kept her house key, which was now tucked away in my father’s slipper. Add my brother to the missing gaps, and the story begins to take shape.
He must’ve found her and . . .
But no. Wait. I knew Annaleise had gotten away from him. Followed the river. Reached the motel and shimmied through the back window before calling Daniel again. From the hotel phone, because hers was in her purse.
I didn’t understand. Why had she called Daniel’s house? She’d been trying to get away from him. Daniel was probably here, anyway. It made no sense. But I’d stood in that motel room, and I’d hit redial, and I’d heard the machine: Laura’s voice, cheerful and welcoming, dancing through my head: You’ve reached the Farrells . . .
Laura. Not Daniel’s cell. Annaleise had called the house, knowing Daniel wasn’t there.
She had called Laura. My hand rose to my mouth in sudden understanding.
“It’s not Daniel,” I whispered. Tyler nodded, staring at the mess around him, but I wasn’t sure if he believed me or if he thought this was just me, hoping.
But I could feel it all coming together—could see all the pieces lining up in reverse.
Annaleise’s whole world was shrinking to a point, and this must’ve been the only card she had left. Her only way out. Tell Laura. Tell her about her dangerous husband, his dangerous family. No need for the blackmail pictures to come into it if she could convince Laura to come forward instead.
Where’s your husband right now? I can tell you. Chasing me through the woods to keep me silent. He has my purse. My phone. It’s not safe for you. Someone in that house killed Corinne Prescott. You must know that.
I tried to imagine Laura picking up the phone, listening to Annaleise. Would she believe her? Would she listen? Daniel had said Laura wasn’t home when he got back—that she’d probably gone to her sister’s place. That she was upset. She’d done that before, if rumors were to be believed.
But what if she hadn’t? What if she’d answered that call and listened? What would she do?
What if my brother had been telling the truth: that he followed Annaleise to the river, and then he lost her. His arm reaching out, fingers grasping the edge of her bag, and yanking. The handle breaking, the purse dropping, the buckle lost in the mud. All he had was her purse, her phone, her key. And he’d hidden it all, and waited.
As the days passed and she didn’t reappear, he must’ve felt that net closing. All the secrets, threatening to shake loose—then and now. He used her key to check for evidence at her place, to go through her files, deleting himself from her history as the investigation gained force. Hid the key after in his desk just in case, where he figured Laura wouldn’t look—and where I’d found it. The only thing my brother had been trying to cover up was the rumored affair. He knew, as well as I did, what it could lead to.
But somehow Annaleise ended up dead in a field of sunflowers. Just lying there.
Daniel would’ve buried her. Brought the body to one of his abandoned sites. But Laura . . .
I closed my eyes and saw it all sliding into focus:
Laura picking Annaleise up from the motel—Where are you? I’ll come and get you—with Dad’s gun in the glove compartment. Laura driving her out toward Johnson Farm, away from town, just driving around—so we can talk—listening to Annaleise accuse her husband and her husband’s family. Laura, who had already started a list of slights. The rumors about Annaleise, or maybe more, that had made her leave Daniel for a while months earlier; and now this. This woman, threatening to take down everything Laura had planned. Laura, who was eight months pregnant and had an entire life stretching out before her: one that included Daniel. She was so close, she could see it. The life she wanted, the life she was owed.
Laura, who could not dig a garden, let alone bury a body, but needed a place to get this woman away from her family.
Daniel was right—I underestimated Laura. I underestimated how fiercely she loved my brother, my family, her future. I underestimated the lengths everyone here would go to for each other.
I underestimated how much I wanted to come back.
* * *
TYLER LOOKED OUT THE window because the sirens were getting louder. A shudder ran through him.
“I tried to get there first, Nic. I did get there first. I was trying to find the ring, but I heard the sirens, and I ran . . . I ran out of time.”
“It’s okay,” I said. The sirens were closer, moving with purpose, and Tyler was trembling in the middle of the kitchen.
“No, it’s not okay.” His hands shook. Did he touch her? He must have. “They found—” He ran both hands down his face.
“They found the ring?” I asked, my vision turning hazy.
He shook his head. “A letter.”
“She sent a letter?”
“No. No. It was tucked inside her waistband. I didn’t see it. I heard the sirens and I ran.”
“So then how do you know?” I asked. He had run, he said. And it looked like he had driven straight here.
“Everyone knows!” he said. “Jackson called just before I got here. To make sure I’d heard.” He winced, dropped his head in his hands. “To make sure I’d heard about the piece of paper folded over and addressed to the Cooley Ridge Police Department.” He fixed his eyes on me. “No envelope. Like she meant to leave it for them somehow. An anonymous letter.”
I pictured the blank pad of paper from the hotel, imagined her scrawling a note in desperation. Pictured her tucking it away when Laura pulled up to get her, saving it for later. “What did it say?” I whispered. All the terrible possibilities echoing in my head. All the reasons Daniel had just called in a panic, telling me to get out.
Nothing keeps in this place.
Tyler paused. Lowered his voice. “That they could find the body of Corinne Prescott on the property of Patrick Farrell. Advising them to take a hard look at Nic Farrell and Tyler Ellison.”
I felt my body start to tremble, mirroring Tyler’s. “Oh, God.”
Annaleise had not meant to be tied to the letter. An anonymous note and Laura. She was counting on both in a desperate effort to come out unscathed.
“Listen, I’m sure someone saw my truck. The family who found her was waiting out on the road. Even if they didn’t see me, someone saw the truck. They can place me in the field. I’m covered in pollen. It looks bad. I need to go. I have a cabin in Tennessee. It’s not registered under any name, just this place I built on my own a few years back. I need to disappear for a while. I set it up this weekend just in case.”
Tyler had been in the field of sunflowers with Annaleise’s body, with a note implicating us. Maybe he could explain away Annaleise. Maybe he could even prove it. But not without revealing what had happened ten years ago. Corinne comes back to us.
To me.
His truck, which I had been driving. He’s always known. But he let me believe that I wasn’t at fault. That something else must have happened to Corinne on the side of the road after we left. He let me believe I was innocent.
The box is full of lies, but none of them has the same type of power. There is nothing more dangerous, nothing more powerful, nothing more necessary and essential for survival than the lies we tell ourselves.
I stuck my finger in his chest, a desperate plea rising in my throat, coming out in a gasp. “You swore I didn’t kill her. You promised I didn’t do anything wrong. You swore.”
His eyes closed and he took a slow breath—time stretching, pausing, giving me one more moment, just one more. “You didn’t, Nic. She threw herself in front of the truck. She killed herself. She did it.”