“Looking back,” Krissy began after the silence had grown unbearable, “I wish we’d chosen different costumes.”
Sandy sat, seemingly content to let that linger in the air for a long moment before continuing. “Speaking of theories, let’s shift to the ongoing police investigation, in which you both have been questioned. I think most of America, myself included, don’t quite know what to think about you two.” Her sharp gaze flicked between Krissy and Billy. “On the one hand, you seem like regular, nice people. You own a farm, you’re a part of a close-knit community. You go to church every Sunday. On the other hand, the police have said you’re cooperating to an extent, and both of your fingerprints are on the can of spray paint used to write those horrific words on your kitchen walls.”
There was a ringing silence as Krissy sat frozen in her seat. How had she known? Detective Townsend had sprung this on Krissy in an interview less than forty-eight hours ago, and she was just as shocked by it now as she had been then. Had Townsend leaked it to the show’s producer? Were the police trying to set them up? The thought sent a chill of fury up her spine.
Before she could say anything, though, Billy cleared his throat. “I bought the spray paint for a project I was doing on the farm. I was touching up the paint on the barn doors.”
“Hm.” Sandy shifted her narrowed gaze from his face to Krissy’s. “And what about you?”
“I went in the barn the other week,” she said, her voice feeble, “to look for some WD-40 for a noisy hinge. I was rummaging around and I moved it.” This wasn’t true, of course, but it was what she’d told Townsend when he’d asked.
“Hm,” Sandy said again, then turned to Jace.
Krissy’s heart stopped. She’d insisted Sandy not question him. That was the one condition she’d given.
“I’d like to hear from you, Jace,” Sandy said in a voice both kind and firm. “Can you tell us what happened that night from your point of view?”
Krissy swelled with fear, adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream so fast it hurt. She opened her mouth, then closed it. What could she do? Jace was shrinking into her body and she had the urge to jump away from him. A sudden movement caught her attention from the corner of her eye and she glanced over to see the producer who’d briefed them earlier miming to the guy behind one of the rolling cameras. By the hand gesture she was making, it looked as though she wanted the cameraman to zoom in on Krissy and Jace. Fuck. Krissy hadn’t been thinking. Far too late, she wrapped a stiff arm around her son.
It was then that Jace finally spoke up, his words coming out in a flat, solemn voice. “I don’t like to talk about it.”
“Why is that?” Sandy asked, all patience and understanding.
“I just don’t.”
“I understand that this is probably scary and it’s sad to talk about your sister when she’s gone, but sometimes talking about it can help.”
Jace hesitated. Krissy wanted to scratch Sandy across the face. The sound of her own heartbeat hammered in her ears.
“I don’t like to talk about it,” Jace finally said, “because I don’t wanna get in trouble.”
* * *
—
That night, as she, Billy, and Jace slept in their shitty hotel room near the Newark airport, Krissy awoke with a start. She thought something had touched her neck—cold, soft fingertips. She swiped her hand at it, but there was nothing there. Blinking into the darkness, she saw a figure standing by her bed, and when her eyes adjusted, she realized it was Jace.
She inhaled sharply. “Jace? What’re you doing?”
But he just stood there. If she couldn’t feel his breath on her face, she might’ve thought he wasn’t there at all—just a figment of her imagination, a specter come to haunt. “Jace?”
“I’m sorry about January, Mommy.”
The words sliced into her, her chest and stomach contracting with their force. In the five days since January had died, Krissy had done so well at keeping the memory of that night buried deep in the recess of her mind. But now, in the darkness and in the wake of her son’s apology, it all came flooding back.
* * *
—
The first thing Krissy remembered was the sound of a crash.
Hours earlier, as she’d gotten ready for bed, she had taken a sleeping pill—just as she had almost every night for the past four years. Before marriage and motherhood, she never used to have trouble sleeping. At night, she’d fall into the unencumbered rest of a teenager, and in the morning, she’d wake full of energy and possibility. But then, in a blink, she was a wife to a man she hardly knew and a nineteen-year-old mom with two infants. Suddenly, the sheer act of existing felt like a burden she wasn’t capable of carrying on her own. Loneliness, like teeth through her chest, was her constant companion. Wine helped dull the edges, but pills, she discovered, were best: Valium to get her through the days and sleeping pills for the nights. Maybe, after all these years, she’d grown inured to the little white pill, or maybe the sound of the crash was so out of the ordinary, but whatever the reason, in the early hours of that morning, Krissy woke from her medicated fog.
She sat up in bed, heart beating fast. The farmhouse sometimes seemed alive, creaking and groaning in the night, but the crash had been different. She glanced over at Billy’s back, but he was silent and unmoving.
Quietly, she slipped out of bed, tiptoed into the bathroom, and tugged her robe over her pajamas. She padded down the hallway toward the stairs, stopping outside the twins’ rooms. The crash had sounded far away, from somewhere in the depths of the house, but she’d feel better knowing her children were safe and sleeping. And yet, when she poked her head through the doorway to January’s room, the bed looked empty. Krissy blinked, trying to clear the lingering sleep from her mind. January’s nightlight was one of those revolving ones, slowly projecting shapes onto a paper box around it, horses and flowers and rabbits retracing their steps night after night. The images danced around the room, distorted and flickering, making it hard to see. Krissy stepped closer to the bed, but January was still not in it. Nor was she under it or inside her closet or in the hallway bathroom. When Krissy discovered that Jace was also missing from his room, she began to panic.
She hurried down the stairs, the old wood creaking beneath her feet, shadows gathering and shifting around her. When she stepped into the kitchen, something unusual caught her eye: The basement door was open, the blackness beyond a yawning mouth. She thought briefly of retrieving one of Billy’s guns from the case in the sitting room, but that was so far away. Plus, if the kids were down there, she didn’t want them to see their mom materialize out of the darkness, a shotgun in her hands.
At the top of the basement stairs, Krissy felt unease like a cold fingertip crawling up her spine. Something felt…wrong down there. She forced herself to breathe, then peered into the stairwell, but the three horizontal windows at the bottom were black with night. She took a few slow, tentative steps into the depths of the old house. As she did, the moon came out from behind the clouds, and suddenly, the room was illuminated. That’s when she saw it.
There, lying at the bottom of the stairs, was January.
The breath kicked from Krissy’s lungs. Her daughter’s eyes were closed, her body straight and unmoving. Her white nightgown was incandescent in the moonlight, her chestnut hair pooling around the nape of her neck. But her face looked all wrong. The skin was puffy and ashen, her lips strangely stiff. Gazing down at her, Krissy could feel the truth like a stone in her stomach: Her darling daughter was dead.
And crouching over her lifeless body was Jace.