“How can you know that?”
“Remember how he spent most of the trial with his head bent over his notepad, scribbling? I stared at him so much during that trial that I’m certain. He was writing with his right hand.”
This is all your fault.
“You know—” Lanie started.
This is all your fault, and you will answer for it.
“This is all your fault,” I interrupted. “That’s what you heard? Are you sure?”
“As sure as I am about anything.”
“But it’s not new, right? That you think that?”
Confused, Lanie shook her head. “No, I’ve always thought that was what I heard.”
“Melanie Cave,” I said confidently. “She left a voicemail for Dad the day he was killed. She said, ‘This is all your fault.’ ”
“Are you sure?” she asked, something akin to hope flickering through her eyes.
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure. Poppy played it during one of the podcasts.”
“Melanie Cave,” she said quietly. She exhaled a sigh that sounded like relief and switched on her flashlight, blinding me suddenly. “It was Melanie Cave all along.”
Discussion thread on www.reddit.com/r/reconsideredpodcast, posted September 30, 2015
The Melanie Voicemails (self.reconsideredpodcast)
submitted 8 hours ago by jennyfromtheblock Can we talk about those voicemails Melanie Cave left for Chuck Buhrman? “You will answer for it”? That seems incredibly damning right? Why didn’t anyone bring that up at trial?
miranda_309 72 points 7 hours ago Because Melanie was the one paying the defense attorney.
attractivenuisance 30 points 6 hours ago But zealous advocacy!
Source: second-year law student
miranda_309 49 points 6 hours ago You’re cute.
Source: practicing attorney
attractivenuisance 12 points 6 hours ago Are you suggesting that Warren’s attorney was violating ethics rules? And that she was doing so on purpose?
jennyfromtheblock 81 points 4 hours ago MELANIE CAVE, GUYS. Come on, stay on topic.
chapter 22
I coaxed Lanie into the passenger seat of the rental car, promising we could return for her vehicle later. On the ride back to town, she sat so silently I thought she might have fallen asleep, but when I glanced over at her, I saw she was staring out the window at the moonlight streaming across the flat, empty fields. Her face was like a mask, betraying no emotion. I wondered what she was thinking, if she was replaying that horrible night in her mind’s eye and now recognizing the perpetrator as Melanie Cave.
“I don’t want to go home just yet,” Lanie said as we crossed the city limits. “Take me to Aunt A’s.”
“Are you sure? Adam is really worried about you.”
“I’ll call him and let him know I’m all right.”
“Lanie—”
“It’s two o’clock in the morning, Josie. Coming home at this hour would upset Ann. Besides, I don’t want her to see me like this. Not until I’ve had some sleep, or at least a shower.”
“You’re her mother, Lanie,” I reminded her softly. “She loves you just as you are.”
“I know,” she said, still gazing out the window. “All the same. I don’t want her to worry about me the same way we worried about Mom.”
Aunt A’s house was dark and quiet, the sole sound the steady ticking of the hallway clock. Bubbles was the only inhabitant who was awake, and he greeted us by weaving circles around our ankles, rubbing himself insistently against our shins until Lanie scooped him up.
“Do you want me to make up the daybed in the craft room for you?” I offered.
Lanie shook her head. “I’m not tired.”
I regarded her suspiciously, cataloguing the dark circles under her eyes and the tension in her jaw. “When was the last time you slept?”
“Fine,” she conceded. “I’ll try to sleep, but I’m not promising anything. Don’t bother with the daybed. I’ll just stretch out on the couch.”
“I can stay down here with you,” I offered, uneasy with the thought of leaving Lanie alone in such close proximity to the door.
“I’m not a flight risk, Josie,” she said softly. “I’m going to be all right. Go upstairs and sleep in your own bed. You look like you could use the rest, and I’m probably just going to end up watching TV.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” she said, kissing my cheek. “Now go to bed.”
Upstairs, I crawled into bed beside Caleb. Still mostly asleep, he murmured something indistinct and threw an arm over me, pulling my body snugly against his. With Caleb’s heart beating against my back and the comforting knowledge that Lanie was safely in the house, my body finally began to relax, and I fell headlong into the deepest sleep I had gotten in weeks.
“Josie.”
I blinked into the darkness, unsure whether hearing my name had been a dream, unsure whether I was even actually awake.
“Josie,” my sister’s voice hissed. “Are you sleeping?”
“Mm,” I murmured, coming awake. “Lanie?”
“Get up,” she whispered, clutching at my hand. “I need to show you something.”
The urgency in her voice tripped an alarm inside me. I eased out of Caleb’s embrace and followed Lanie down the front stairs. The hallway clock chimed four just as Lanie led me into the living room, where the UPS box of our mother’s things sat open on its side. Beads, scarves, photographs, and other objects had all been removed and heaped into small piles arranged in a circle on the floor.
“You were supposed to be sleeping,” I reminded my sister.
“I told you I wasn’t tired,” she said. “So I started going through Mom’s things.”
“Obviously.”
“Have you seen this?” Lanie asked, snatching something bright yellow up from the floor. She held it out to me. The Official Handbook of the Life Force Collective.
“Yeah.” I frowned, remembering our mother’s notation. Best. What had she meant by that? Getting away from us was the best part? Or leaving us was for the best?
“You’ve read it?” she asked, her voice turning shrill. “And no one bothered to tell me? You didn’t think I’d want to know?”
“Whoa, calm down. I didn’t know that you cared about the handbook. I’m sorry.”
Lanie paused, peering at me curiously. “How far did you read?”
I shrugged. “Only up to the first chapter. Aunt A got pretty upset, so we stopped.”
“There’s something I think you should see,” she said somberly. “Start at the back.”
My skin prickled as I took the handbook from her and flipped to the end. I was so surprised by what I saw that I cried out. The last pages of the handbook were blank pages titled Space for Notes—and they were covered in our mother’s handwriting. It was cramped, shaky, and upside-down, but I could recognize her distinctive scrawl, the little flags she put on her ks and hs.
“What is this?”