Beth raised her gaze back to the witness stand again. Black was answering about whether she had taken it seriously when she was questioned, and Ransom stood to object. The judge answered, and for a second Black turned her way and their eyes met. He looked and sounded cool when he answered questions, but in that brief look Beth could see that he was miserable and torn. I have to say all of this, that look told her. I can’t say anything else, because you didn’t give me anything. He knew she hadn’t murdered anyone. He knew that whoever had shot those men in the face was still out there, maybe about to shoot someone else. But he had no proof, no evidence, no trail to follow, and it was killing him.
Mankowski went back to murdering Beth’s character, asking whether she’d used profanity. It was so stupid she would have laughed if her life weren’t on the line. Black answered, though he didn’t want to. It’s okay, she telegraphed to him, even though he wasn’t looking at her. I’m not mad. She realized for the first time, watching him, that she was looking at probably the only good person she’d ever met in her life. A person who got up every morning actually wanting to right wrongs, a person who wasn’t out to serve himself or get rich or check out with alcohol and drugs when things got too hard. Someone who was going to marry a kindergarten teacher and have nice kids and actually be a good father. The only person in her life who hadn’t lied when he’d told her he was trying to help her. He really had tried.
If she’d given him Lily, handed her over to him, it would have been the best gift he’d ever been given. It would have put all of his questions and doubts to rest, and he would have known he was bringing a true murderer to justice. But if they had no evidence against Beth, then they had no evidence against Lily, either. No gun, no fingerprints, no way to prove she was there or even in town. If Beth could slip away from this, slide her neck out of the noose, then so could Lily. The difference was that once Lily was free again, she’d start to think about killing. She’d start planning something bad.
And if Beth made Detective Black Lily’s enemy, he’d be dead before he could see what was coming. Even if she warned him.
No one would listen to her warnings about Lily. That, she already knew.
Black’s testimony ended. Ransom declined to cross-examine him, not wanting to trample on Mankowski’s disaster, wanting to leave the memory of that hostile witness in the jury’s minds. Black was dismissed and left the stand as well as the courtroom.
Everyone was watching.
Beth kept her gaze ahead of her, on nothing, her expression blank and slightly bored, as if Detective Black meant nothing to her. She didn’t have to watch him to know that he didn’t look at her, either. There was nothing for anyone to see. Even Ransom was making quick notes to himself, not looking at Black leaving the room. Without anyone seeing, her knight had tilted at windmills for her as much as he could, and now it was over. She was alone.
Beth looked at nothing as the courtroom buzzed quietly around her, and thought, What will I do if I get out of here?
Two weeks later, she was acquitted. The jury had deliberated for four days.
They gave her her things back, had her sign papers. Made her wait in one room, then another. She knew this was a monumental moment, that everything was changing yet again, but all she could think was that she was incredibly hungry and she wanted a drink. She wondered if Ransom would give her money for a hamburger, or whether she had her own money again. She wondered where Lily was. There was no way her sister was missing this. She probably wasn’t far.
Ransom eventually came to get her. This was a triumphant day for him. “There’s a sea of media outside,” he warned her. He looked her over. “You’re wearing that?”
“Yes,” Beth said, adjusting the red shawl around her shoulders that she’d bought at the Edengate Mall. She’d had Ransom bring it to her in a suitcase, along with a list of other clothes. It was over. She never had to go back to her jail cell, never had to eat that food or talk on that awful phone. There was a liquor cabinet at the Greer mansion that had been fully stocked the day she’d been arrested.
She knew it wasn’t possible, but if she inhaled the scent of the red shawl, if she concentrated on it, she thought she could smell her mother.
She put on Mariana’s red lipstick, too. Then she left to face the reporters.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
October 2017
SHEA
“The question is,” the voice in my ear asked, “what makes a killer? Are killers born, or are they made? Can they be stopped, or are they simply a human anomaly, a genetic gamble? Maybe the killing itself is buried deep in his psyche, waiting for the chance to come out. Or maybe the would-be murderer can be saved, the course of his life changed. Maybe it’s happened a million times, and because he never killed anyone, we never knew it was possible.”
I pulled my earbuds out. I was listening to a podcast this time instead of an audiobook as I sat in the break room at work. The half-eaten remains of my sandwich sat on the table in front of me.
Karen poked her head around the door, an annoyed look on her face. “Lunch break is over, Shea.”
“Right,” I said, pushing my chair back. I was lost in a fog today, forgetting details, not listening. I had to keep it together, come out of the dark into my real life. I needed this job. I had bills to pay. I couldn’t think about murder all the time.
I dumped my food into the garbage and came back out to the front of the doctor’s office, taking my seat behind the Plexiglas. There were six people in the waiting room, reading or talking softly or, in one case, napping. It was quiet and stuffy. For the first time, I realized that Esther was right about this job: I was literally spending all of my life in a waiting room.
“It’s quiet,” Karen said. “The doctor was reviewing patient files this morning. You can put them away while I take my lunch.” She nodded to a cart, then turned to grab her lunch bag and leave. As she did, the cart jostled and a stack of files fell to the ground.
I got off my chair and squatted, picking up the files as Karen walked away. I had one in my hand when I realized it was Beth’s.
Karen had left, and there was no one who could see me. I was crouched on the floor behind the desk, out of sight of everyone, out of sight of the security cameras that kept watch on the waiting room. I had maybe ten seconds.
It was like the kiss with Michael—I didn’t even think. I flipped open the file and looked at the top page, scanning it. I read the diagnosis, the notes from the doctor. The analysis of the test results.
Oh, Beth, I thought.
There’s a reason behind everything Beth does, Ransom Wells had said. Ask yourself why Beth has decided to tell everything now, after all of these years.
I closed the file, stacked it with the others, and put them away, my mind circling over what I’d just read. When Karen came back from her lunch break, I said, “I don’t feel well.”
She looked me over. “You don’t look so good.”
“I think I’m feverish.” I gathered my things, put on my sweater. This was a doctor’s office; the last thing we were supposed to do was spread illness to the patients. “I’ll go home and go to bed.”
She shrugged and turned away as a patient came to the window.
I left the office and stood on the sidewalk. What I’d just read in the file was still going around in my mind, but it also seemed off. It had something to do with why Beth had agreed to talk to me, but it wasn’t the only reason. There had to be something else.
I pulled out my phone and opened my email, scrolling back for the message from Michael about the Linwood Street property records. I had a gut feeling I was missing something, a detail that was an important piece of the puzzle. Maybe it was buried in the past, in the property records.
I stopped scrolling when I saw the Google alert that had come into my inbox days ago. It was an alert I’d had for years, set to deliver me anything to do with crime in Claire Lake, in case there was a juicy story I could use for the Book of Cold Cases. There was so little crime here that I didn’t get an alert very often. I’d forgotten about this one almost as soon as it came in, and it was still unopened.