“Tell me again why I need to be there.”
Brad turned his head slowly toward me. We were heading north on Route 1, and the lights of an oncoming car lit up his features. For one moment, I saw real hatred in his eyes and I involuntarily flinched. “Because she’s coming there to see you. If I show up alone, who knows what will happen? And because you need to be part of this. I did the first one on my own, but I need you for this. I’m not doing this alone again.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. I knew that what he really wanted was for me to see someone die. I hadn’t forgotten the haunted look in his eyes the first time I’d seen him after he shot Ted. He probably thought I couldn’t handle it, but I was prepared. I was nervous about things going right, but I wasn’t nervous about seeing Lily Kintner get her head bashed in.
We were a little early, so Brad drifted through the empty streets of Kennewick. Along the beach I looked out toward the ocean, a swath of it sparkling with silver moonlight. I really did like Kennewick, not to live all the time, but as a place to get away from the city. But after the estate was settled, and all of Ted’s money was solely in my name, I’d sell the house along the bluff. There were better places to live. I pictured islands in the Mediterranean. I pictured palm trees and beach bars that didn’t look like Cooley’s. I’d wasted my life in New England for far too long.
It was close to 10:00 P.M. when Ted doused the lights on his truck and turned off Micmac onto the gravel driveway of my property. He drove slowly, the truck seesawing, the driveway more rutted than ever after the recent rains. The house loomed up, looking simultaneously massive, its dark outline dwarfing the landscape, and small and fragile against the expanse of the ocean. Brad parked next to the Dumpster and killed the engine. A steady wind buffeted the truck. “She’s probably already inside,” Brad said. “Watching us.”
“Don’t waste time, okay,” I said. “Once I enter the house, then you should start to move. I don’t want to be fending off a psycho bitch in there.”
“I’ll be fast. I want this over with.”
“Okay,” I said. Even in the dim light of the truck’s interior I could see that Brad was trembling slightly. I pressed a hand against his prickly cheek, and he jumped as though a snake had bit him.
“Jesus,” I said. “Jumpy?”
“You scared me. I can’t see a thing in this truck. You should go.”
I opened the door and Brad put his hand over the cab’s light. “See you in there,” I said, and shut the door. The engine ticked, cooling down. I pulled the keys from my pocket and walked toward the stone front steps. The moon was behind the house, and as I got closer, the house was like a black wall with nothing beyond it. I breathed deeply, shocked by how cold the air had become. I fumbled with the keys, finding the right one, and unlocking the door, swinging it inward and stepping inside. For a moment, I had the surreal sense that I had merely passed through the facade of a house, and I was still outside. I looked up to see stars, but there was nothing there.
“In here,” a voice said, and Lily materialized briefly in a pool of light, then disappeared again. “Come in,” she said. “Your eyes will adjust.”
I let the door shut behind me. The lofty ceilings of the foyer began to take shape in the gray light.
I tested my voice. “Isn’t this dramatic?” I said, and it echoed sharply in the house.
“Did Brad tell you what I wanted?” Lily said.
I moved toward the voice, one of my hands going instinctively to my pocket. I’d brought the small canister of pepper spray that I sometimes carried with me in the city. I told Lily I’d been surprised to hear that she wanted money. I asked her if it was to help her father, hoping that was a sensitive subject and that it would piss her off.
“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice sounding calm, almost casual.
“He killed someone, right? In England. He must have legal fees.”
“No,” she said, “the money is for me.”
I told her I couldn’t get her money right away, and she told me she just wanted to meet me face-to-face, to hear that it wouldn’t be a problem. We were about a yard away, and I wasn’t planning on getting any closer. My eyes had adjusted, but Lily was still just a featureless blob. She hadn’t moved since I’d come in, as though she were rooted in place. If she moved toward me, I was planning on bolting. I knew every square foot of this house, and it was an advantage I planned on using.
“Were you sleeping with Ted?” I asked her. Brad would be arriving any moment, and I genuinely wanted to know. “How did you two even meet?”
“We were on a flight together. He knew everything about you, you know? He knew you were cheating on him with Brad. You didn’t fool him.”
“So why didn’t you just turn me in?” I said. “If you’re so sure I’m this awful person.”