Chapter Thirty-Two
Janesville, 1905
Quarter past five o’clock in the morning
Holt asks quietly, “He never came?”
“Never.”
“So that’s where you were, during the murder. In the locked railcar.”
She says nothing.
“Waiting there to kill him,” he goes on. “Not knowing someone else already had.”
“Yes,” she says, staring down at her feet, looking exhausted. Her hair seems more gold than before, which makes him realize there is a little light peeking through the high, barred window. The false dawn is here, and sunrise can’t be far away. They’ve lost the night. What comes next?
“And then you ran,” he said.
“I ran.”
“But how could you?”
She looks at him blankly then, as if she doesn’t understand what he means, but he knows she must.
He asks, more insistently, “How did you get out? If the railcar was locked? Did one of the girls come and rescue you? Did you realize he left the ax after all? Did you use the straight razor somehow? What was it?”
She shakes her head.
And then, insight comes in a flash. One part of the story doesn’t add up. About what she’s told him she’s done, and who she’s told him she is.
“You didn’t escape from a locked railcar, did you? That’s something only an escape artist would do. And you’ve told me that’s not what you are. See? I was listening.”
She mumbles down at her feet, and it’s so soft he has to ask her, “Say that again?”
Instead of answering she shakes her head again, side to side, so fiercely another thick tendril of red-gold hair falls across her cheek, obscuring half her face.
His triumph begins to fade. He expected her to sass back with a ready answer, like she has before. But clearly, there’s something more here. “Please. I didn’t hear you. It’s important.”
“Is it?” she whispers.
“Yes. You’re telling me your story. This is how it ends. This is the only thing I don’t know.”
“And it matters?”
“Arden. You said you’d tell me everything, so tell me everything.” He reaches down and pushes the hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear, so he can see her better. “How did you get out?”
She seems to come to a decision, meeting his gaze with tears shining in her eyes, and says, only a little louder, “The door wasn’t locked.”
He doesn’t bother to hide his shock. They’re well past that. He even reels backward a step, his single footfall audible in the quiet. “What? You said it was. You said he locked it.”
“I did say that.”
“And?”
Still meeting his eyes, her gaze burning, she says, “I lied.”
“Arden…”
“But understand! It’s the only lie I’ve told you all night.” Her words come in a rush. “Everything else was true. The barn, my mother, Biltmore, the Iroquois, Adelaide’s tiger, my healing power, every last bit of it. All true. I swear.”
He has to ask. He has to. “Then why didn’t you run?”
“I did.”
“You said—”
“I mean, last night. Remember? I was running when you caught me.”
“But why not earlier? Before he could hurt you?”
“I was so goddamn afraid,” she says, the tears coming hard, running down her cheeks and neck into her high, open collar. They run over the pale, perfect skin where the bruise used to be and pool in the hollow in her throat. “My fear was all he needed to keep me there. I was too afraid to run. I didn’t want to admit that to you—you understand, how shameful it was, how weak I’d been.”
She pauses for a breath, and he wants to reassure her that he understands, but she forges ahead before he can.
“He’d threatened Clyde, and that was enough. One threat and I was his puppet. I let him damage me and try to heal that damage with his delusions of magic. I talk a good game about risk, but when it all came down to it, I chose something awful and safe. He’s a brute and a horror, and I was a fool to let him intimidate me into giving up everything that I cherished, but I did.”
“But you did finally run.” He wants to comfort her, soothe her. “You were brave enough, last night.”
“For all the good it’s done me,” she says, sniffling. “I’m a prisoner again now, aren’t I?”
He looks down at her, not sure what to say. The crying has reddened the whites of her eyes, making the blue irises even bluer, strikingly so. He reaches out silently to wipe away her tears, as he did much earlier in the night, while he thinks. Morning will be here shortly. He has to make his decision. He promised to hear her story, and he’s heard it. There’s nothing more to wait on.
“You’re not his prisoner,” he tells her. “That’s the difference.”
She takes a rasping, hiccuping breath.
He tucks the damp handkerchief back in his pocket and says, “Ray won’t ever hurt you again. Whatever else happens, there’s that. He’s dead.”
“God, I hope so.”
“Hope?”