I shook my head. There had to be more. There had to be. “I don’t understand.”
The wind gusted up, hard and cold, and Lily held out her hand. She was standing a few feet away, out of reach, but I still felt the fear begin to grip me again as I looked at that hand. There was no way I was going to take it. “What are you doing?” I asked her.
“You came back here for a reason,” Lily said.
“No.”
“Yes, you did.” Her hand was still held out, and it held the same fascination and repulsion that the view over the drop had. I had the impulse to step toward it, and yet that was the last thing I wanted to do.
“Come with me,” Lily said.
“No.”
“It’s too late. You’re already here.”
I knew I should run, but I couldn’t. I moaned in terror as I tried to make my legs move, but they wouldn’t obey me. “No,” I said again.
“Come with me.” It was a hiss this time, harsh and furious, and then Lily’s hand grabbed mine. I hadn’t moved; I hadn’t seen her move. But she had me, and her grip was icy and so hard, like concrete or bone. Her fingers crushed mine.
“Please,” I begged her, wild with fear as she began to pull me slowly across the grass. “Please, Lily. Where are we going?”
“This is what you came for.” I couldn’t get free of her; she was holding me too hard, pulling me toward the drop to the ocean. “I’m going over, and you’re going with me.”
I started to scream, or at least I tried to. I didn’t know if any sound came out of my throat or if it was all in my head. But I opened my mouth and tried, with everything I had, to scream as she yanked me forward.
I fought her. I really did. But I finally learned what Beth always knew about Lily: There was nothing to stop her when she wanted something. She took what she wanted. And now she was taking me.
She brought me to the edge. The toes of my sneakers went over, and I looked down. It wasn’t a perfectly sheer drop; there were ledges, and brush, and rocks. And far below, the rocky shore and the ocean, the waves crawling up to the foot of the cliffs as the tide came in.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Lily said.
I screamed.
But she had me in her grip, her icy chill moving all the way through me. My struggles were hopeless.
I tried to beg Lily for my life, but my breath was gone.
Her voice was in my ear, as intimate as a lover’s. “Let’s go,” she said. And she pulled me down.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
March 1978
BETH
Snow had fallen the night before, and there were wet crystals on the ground, melting into the lawn. Beth’s sneakers were damp, her feet icy as she turned the key in the door of the Greer mansion and stepped inside.
It was three o’clock in the morning. Since the day of her acquittal, Beth had been hiding in a motel for nearly a week while reporters camped on the street in front of her house. Courtesy of Ransom, she’d sat alone in a run-down room, sleeping and sometimes watching television. Thinking.
Eventually, her posh neighbors had had enough; they’d called the police, and now the press was gone. There had been nothing to see, anyway—no dramatic homecoming to report on. Just the same old headlines, day after day:
POSSIBLE “LADY KILLER” GOES FREE. BETH GREER UNREPENTANT. NOT GUILTY VERDICT ROCKS OREGON TOWN.
Whether Beth Greer killed those men in cold blood or someone else did, one of the newspaper editorials said, the result is still the same: A killer is walking our streets right now, free.
Tonight, with Arlen Heights quiet again, Beth had Ransom drop her off down the street so no one would see her come home. She was wearing jeans, an old dark sweater, a wool coat. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she wore no makeup. She had a single bag of belongings over her shoulder. The red shawl and the red lipstick were long gone.
She slipped silently into the house and locked the door behind her.
It was cold in here. Musty. Beth walked to the living room, and the first thing her gaze went to—even before she dropped her bag—was the liquor cabinet. She stared at the gleaming bottles, lined up just so. At the small fridge that contained chilled wine and ice. She could taste it, the cold vodka sliding down her throat, the decadent flavor of red wine. She could taste all of it.
She was out of jail now. She could drink. She could quit drinking forever and start a new life. She could do anything.
From upstairs came the sound of water running from a tap, and a footstep.
Beth closed her eyes. She had expected this. Those days sitting in the motel, waiting, she had known this would happen. It was time.
The cold air grew sharper, as if a door were open or a window broken somewhere, letting in a draft. Ignoring the running tap upstairs, Beth opened her eyes again and walked to the kitchen. She stood in the doorway, looking dully at the scene in front of her. The blood. The body.
Julian.
She hadn’t been home the day he died, so she hadn’t seen it, really. She hadn’t felt the cold air or seen the blood, so this wasn’t a memory. She and Mariana had come home after the cleaning crew that Ransom hired had left, though she imagined the kitchen always had a strange smell after that.
Still, she’d never seen it. She didn’t know if she was seeing it now, whether this was real or she was losing her mind. She wasn’t sure she cared.
After a while, she turned away from the kitchen and walked upstairs. The door to the master bedroom was open. Standing in front of Mariana’s open closet, her back to Beth as she looked through the clothes, was Lily.
Beth was definitely seeing this. She knew that.
Lily was wearing a silk kimono that fell to her knees, the fabric covered in gaudy pink and purple flowers. Her blond hair flowed down her back. Her legs beneath the hem of the kimono were bare, and Beth could tell she was naked underneath it. In the en suite bathroom, the water ran in the tub. The kimono was one of Mariana’s.
“Our mother had such beautiful clothes,” Lily said to Beth without turning. “Most of them fit me, you know. I think I’m going to wear them.”
“What are you doing?” Beth choked out. Even though she had known this would happen, had expected it—she’d baited Lily to come find her—it was still shocking to see Lily in this bedroom, wearing Mariana’s clothes. She really doesn’t care, Beth thought. She really doesn’t think I’ll do anything.
“I’m taking a bath.” Lily turned and looked at her. Her face had that curious blank look that Beth had long ago learned to be afraid of. “I live in this house now.”
The sight of Lily after all this time was hard to take. She looked like Mariana, like Beth, like herself. Beth knew every line of that face, from childhood to adulthood. She had loved that face and been terrified of it. She’d had nightmares over the years that Lily was dead, her body unidentified in a hospital somewhere. She’d also had nightmares about Lily coming home. She didn’t know which was more frightening.
And now Lily was standing here, naked in Mariana’s robe, and part of Beth wanted to scream and run, to forget everything she’d planned. Another part felt like all of her pieces were falling into place at last, like for the past months she’d been a doll who wasn’t put together properly. She knew Lily like she knew her own heart.
There was only one way out of this. Only one way forward. She’d known it since she’d sat in a cell, watching Detective Black walk away.
“You can’t live in my house,” she said through numb lips.
“It’ll be my house,” Lily said. “You’re out of prison now. You’ll sign this place over to me, and it’ll be mine.”
“No.”
Lily’s voice was flat. “You have no choice, Beth.”
Just do what she says. The instinct was so old it was automatic. Do what Lily says, and she won’t get mad. But this time Beth fought it. “And where am I supposed to go?” She had a flash of leaving here, walking out the door. She could go anywhere, and she would be free. She could pretend, as she had so many times, that Lily didn’t exist anymore.