I swayed a little on my feet, not thinking much of anything. Not until I felt her creep up behind me on cat feet. I refused to turn around.
When my father pulled the car up, Holmes opened the passenger door and climbed in without a word. Fuming, I got into the backseat, pushing aside a small avalanche of toys and snack wrappers that belonged, no doubt, to the half brothers I’d never met. I tried to fight the feeling that I was a guest star in my own life.
As we drove, my father kept up a steady stream of chatter that Holmes replied to in monosyllables. I couldn’t manage any response at all. My brain had roared back to furious, nervous life. When he stopped at a Shell station outside town, I tipped my head against the cold window and tried to steady my breathing. In a few hours, I’d be arrested for a crime I hadn’t committed. I wished I’d never come back to America. That I had killed Dobson, just so I’d have something to confess to. A way to get this all to end. I thought again about my pathetic fantasy, the two of us on that runaway train. Maybe this was the sensation of it crashing.
Without a word, Holmes reached back, fumbling for my hand, and when she found it, she grasped it firmly in hers. I thought about taking it back. I reminded myself that I was maybe holding the hand of a killer, but I decided I was too tired to care. The three of us drove the rest of the way in silence.
Really I’d been so distracted by what had happened at the station that I’d forgotten to dread the rest of it. Then it came into sight, my childhood house in the country, and I remembered all at once learning to ride a bike down this street, my father holding on to the seat even after I told him he could let go. He did, finally, with a great laugh like a shout, and I went a full three feet before I hit a bump and flew head over handlebars.
Today, despite the cold weather, there was a bike fallen on its side in the yard. It wasn’t mine. I watched my father notice it, how his eyes flickered to me in the backseat. I noted the worry there, his own dose of dread. It was the first time I ever felt sorry for my father.
“Abbie and the boys are at her mother’s for the weekend,” he said with false cheer as we pulled into the garage. “So we’ll have the place to ourselves. I made a steak pie that I’ll put in the oven for dinner. But right now, you two need to get some rest.”
Holmes stumbled into the house and over to the living room couch. Without taking off her shoes, without saying a word to either of us, she stretched out in her homecoming dress and went immediately to sleep.
“There’s a guest room,” my father said as I folded myself up into the armchair beside her.
“I know,” I said to him. “I used to live here.”
He didn’t have anything to say to that.
The truth was that, for many varied, contradictory reasons, I didn’t want Holmes out of my sight. Even as I fell into a dreamless sleep, I kept an ear open. Listening in case she ran, and left me there alone.
WHEN I WOKE, IT WAS DARK AGAIN, THAT SORT OF FALL-EVENING gloom. The clock on the wall said 6:07. I’d slept the whole day, and from the state of the couch, so had Holmes.
There was a rustling in the kitchen. Inside, it was as well lit as I remembered, and the table and chairs were the same. But the dark cabinets had been given a coat of white, the walls painted a farmhouse blue. A ceramic rooster presided over the sink. Abigail’s additions, I was sure. When my father offered, I turned down a tour of the rest of the house.
Holmes had hoisted herself up onto one of the stools at the counter, and she sat there, swinging her legs while her eyes roved around the room. I watched her put together the story of this house, of my childhood, the way a soldier assembles a gun in the dark. At least one of us knew how to behave normally—though for the record, this may have been the first time it was her, and not me.
“Hi,” I said to her.
“Hi,” she said back. “Did you sleep well?”
“I slept fine.”
We avoided each other’s eyes.
“Well,” my father said as the oven heated up. “Let’s get down to it. That Shepard fellow arrives in”—he consulted his watch—“an hour. What have you got for him? To clear yourselves?”
“Nothing,” Holmes said. “Well. The fact that we didn’t kill anyone, for starters.”
“You haven’t killed anyone,” I repeated. It was the first time she’d admitted it.
She lifted an eyebrow. “We haven’t attacked a single person at this school. We’ve never killed anyone.”
She was choosing her words carefully, I could tell.
“And that—that serial killer den wasn’t yours.”
“That serial killer den wasn’t mine.” Unexpectedly, she grinned at me. “It wasn’t yours, was it? It’s a bit rude not to share.”
I wrinkled my nose at her, and she hit me in the arm. God help me. I couldn’t stay mad at her, even if she did turn out to be a cold-blooded killer. I was in way, way too deep.