“What?” I blinked at her. “Who was Elizabeth Trevor?”
Carole tutted at me with the pleasure of someone who knows an obscure piece of trivia that has finally become useful. “You should brush up on your Claire Lake history,” she said, “especially your feminist history. Elizabeth Trevor was a factory worker who got fired because she got pregnant when she wasn’t married. She campaigned for rights for unwed mothers. In those days, single mothers were discriminated against by employers, landlords, doctors, everyone. Elizabeth Trevor tried to change all that. She was a badass.” Carole nodded. “You’re not looking for a psychiatric hospital; you’re looking for a home for unwed mothers. Are we done here? I’m going home.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
October 2017
SHEA
“Jesus, Shea, what is it? I got here as fast as I could.” Michael slid into the booth opposite me, brushing his hair back from his forehead. “I’ve never heard you sound like that.”
Panicked—that was how I must have sounded. Excited. Alive.
I cupped my hands around my hot coffee cup. We were in a diner around the corner from the courthouse. People were coming to grab takeout on their way home from work. I was still in my scrub top under my jacket and was finding it hard to keep warm. The shock was starting to get to me.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Michael. “I know you were probably busy.”
He shrugged and motioned to the waitress for a coffee. He was wearing a gray T-shirt under a dark brown blazer, a look that was just formal enough that I knew he had been working when I called. “It sounded important. I wanted to hear what it is.”
I let out a breath. “This is going to sound insane,” I said. “Completely insane.”
“Okay. I’m ready.”
“I may have just cracked the Lady Killer case.”
The waitress brought Michael’s coffee, and I watched her give him a once-over before she walked away. Michael didn’t notice. He also didn’t touch the cup. “What did you find?” he asked, his gaze fixed on me.
“Beth’s mother wasn’t mentally ill,” I said. “Sylvia got it wrong. The place Mariana went before she was married, the papers Julian had—she wasn’t admitted to a mental hospital. She was in a home for unwed mothers.”
I watched it hit him, the way it had hit me. The way it was still hitting me, almost an hour later.
“I found it in the file for 120 Linwood,” I said, pulling out my phone and calling up the photos I’d taken of the file. I turned the phone so he could see the photos on my cracked screen. “From 1949 to 1956, it was the Elizabeth Trevor House for Women. There are no records of the place online, but there are articles about Elizabeth herself. She was an activist for the rights of unwed mothers.”
“You’re kidding.” Michael peered closer at my photo, trying to read. “I’m going to send myself this,” he said.
“Go ahead.” I watched as he texted himself the photos. “The timeline adds up,” I said. “Mariana is at the Elizabeth Trevor House before her wedding to Julian. It’s kept a secret. After they’re married, Julian and Mariana have Beth. Then, a few years later, Mariana’s mother dies, and her will leaves everything to Julian instead of Mariana. Including her secret papers.”
“Julian would learn of the secret for the first time,” Michael said. “We have to assume the premarital baby wasn’t Julian’s, then.”
“Probably not, but who knows?” I took my phone back. “Either way, he’d be angry, but especially if the baby wasn’t his.”
“So Beth Greer has a half sibling.” Michael picked up his forgotten coffee and sipped it, thinking.
“A half sister,” I said.
His eyebrows rose. “How do you know the baby was a girl?”
Because I saw her standing at the edge of the drop behind the Greer mansion, her blond hair blowing in the wind. I saw her go over. I’ve heard her voice on my phone, telling me she’s still here. “Think about it,” I said. “The woman’s handwriting on the murder notes. The woman seen at the crime scene who resembles Beth. The fact that no physical evidence ever tied Beth to the crimes. Because it wasn’t her, but it was the next best thing. It was her sister.”
“We need documents.” Michael rubbed his temple. “A birth certificate. Patient records from the unwed mothers’ home. Some type of ID so we can track this woman and find out where she is, what her life has been, if she’s still alive.”
“She isn’t still alive,” I said.
“You don’t know that.”
I did. There were some things I knew better than Michael did. The woman who had pounded on the door of Julian’s study had definitely not been alive.
“I’ve been working on the handwriting samples you sent me,” Michael was saying, making rapid notes on his phone. “The Claire Lake PD never released a photo of the original notes, but I’m sure I can find something. A photo we can compare to the handwriting you saw in Julian Greer’s study.” He continued typing, his coffee forgotten again. “It’s possible that Mariana’s first baby died and we’re completely off track, which is why we need records. But to track down this lead—Jesus, Shea, we have so much work to do.”
He was right. We had a lot of work to do, and all of it was important. And it was possible I was wrong.
But I wasn’t wrong. I had heard Mariana’s voice. Is she bitter, or is she sweet?
Sometimes she was so sweet, but other times . . . Well, I don’t like to think about it.
* * *
—
When my phone rang hours later, at one o’clock in the morning, I wasn’t sleeping. I knew who was calling. I picked up the receiver and said, “Beth?”
“I can never sleep,” Beth said. “Can you?”
I sat up, wide awake. “I won the game,” I said.
“Did you?” Her voice didn’t have its usual fight. She sounded tired, so tired.
Still, I pushed on. “Your mother had a child before she married your father. You have a sister. I’m going to find her.”
Beth sighed. “You’re going to regret that. But, then, it’s too late. You’ve already met Lily.”
Lily. “Is that her real name?”
“What a curious question,” Beth said. “It’s the only name I’ve ever known her by. And I’ve known her a long, long time.”
“She’s dead, isn’t she?”
“If you already know the answer, why are you asking the question?”
My spine tensed. Next to me on the bed, Winston Purrchill gave me a look of displeasure as I disturbed his sleep. “I saw her,” I said. “Standing behind the house. She was blond. Pretty, I think. She went over the edge. Is that what happened, Beth? Did she jump?”
There was a short, bitter laugh on the other end of the line. “Lily would never have killed herself. That would have been too easy. She was showing off, trying to scare you. You’re lucky. You should see what she does to the people she doesn’t like.”
And there it was—the crux of everything. When you looked beneath the files and the records and the search for proof, this meant that the pretty girl I’d seen with her blond hair blowing in the wind had been the deadliest serial killer in Claire Lake history. She had shot two men point-blank in the face. She had killed Julian Greer and left him to bleed on the floor.
“Who was she?” I asked Beth.
“There are so many answers to that question.” Beth’s voice was slurring a little. She sounded drunk, but she didn’t drink. She must have taken a pill. “She was the shame of my mother’s life. She was the person who ruined mine.”
“And yet you covered for her crimes. You went to trial for her. You nearly went to death row.”
“I had my reasons,” Beth said. “If you knew Lily, you’d understand.” She paused, and then her voice lowered to a slurred hush. “I think I hear her now.”
“Beth?”
There was quiet on the line, rustling. Then Beth said, “Come tomorrow, and I’ll tell you. It’s time. This is all going to be over soon, and I’m so damned tired.”
I felt a bolt of alarm at the idea. “Beth, I don’t want to come to that house.”