I shrugged. “I guess.”
“Look, I’m sorry for misrepresenting certain . . . things about my life and the way I run the island. And I know you’re sorry for not telling me about the foal. So I’ve got an idea. How about, from this point on, you and I start dealing in the truth?”
“Okay.”
I didn’t trust Doro, but I still needed her in order to finish the book. I wanted to keep things cordial between us. She had come clean about most everything. I had to give her credit for that. And I had to admit, I wanted to believe her. Her friendship had become something I couldn’t imagine not having.
She went back in the office to make some calls, and I closed my eyes and let myself drift. If I could just climb in a bed and sleep until all the lead was out of my system, I’d be golden. I hadn’t realized how run down I had gotten used to feeling in the past year. And how it made living my life seem like an insurmountable task.
Just then I heard something in the next room. Footfalls on the stairs. A tentative voice calling down. “Doro?”
It was Frances.
“Doro?”
I sat up. Crept to the arch and peeked around. When she saw me, she froze.
“We need to talk,” I said.
She turned and scurried back up the stairs.
“Well, that’s just swell . . .” I muttered, then charged after her, all the way up the stairs, down multiple halls, and back to her room. I pounded on the door.
“Frances! Open up! You’re going to talk to me, do you hear?”
There was no answer. I pushed into the room and looked around. Her suitcase lay open on the bed, neat stacks of clothing already packed inside. Piles of jewelry and lingerie surrounded the bag. Two other bags already waited by the door.
“You’re leaving?” My voice was a screech.
She bustled in from the bathroom, arms full of zippered bags. “I have work to do back at home. And I miss my husband.” She swept her eyes over me and crinkled her nose. “Good Lord, Megan, you really ought to think about a shower once in a while.”
She dumped the bags, then flitted to the wardrobe, where she flung open the doors. She swept an armload of dresses from the rod and brought them to the bed.
“I went up to the middens,” I said. “To look for the murder weapon.”
“A fool’s errand, if there ever was one.”
“I don’t think so.”
She smoothed a stack of clothing in her suitcase. “Megan, think about what you’re saying. Even if you did find the murder weapon, the chances of finding any DNA on it are minuscule. This isn’t CSI: Bonny Island.”
“Well, maybe not, but I did find blood there, on the wall—dried blood, I think from where Doro has shot horses. I caught her, I think, about to shoot another one.”
Frances went on with her folding. “You think. And even if that’s what she was doing, it’s part of her job, to manage the herd on the island. Doesn’t mean she’d kill a human being.”
“It means she’s capable of violence. Right? It can’t be easy to shoot an animal. A horse. That would have to take a seriously cold-blooded person.”
“Or someone who grew up understanding the balance of nature.”
“Mom.”
Frances stopped and gave me a look, the one that meant she’d had enough and was about to slam shut the door on this conversation.
“I’m going to let you in on a little secret, Megan,” she said. “I made the whole thing up. Everything about Kitten, the poisoned guests and the murder. All of it. I made up the whole goddamn story, just like a million writers do every day.”
She straightened. Her hair had come loose from the pins that held it back. Her mouth was a grim line. She looked old. Tired.
Goose bumps broke out on my arms. “That’s not what you said before.”
“It’s what I’m saying now.”
“Were you lying then? Or are you lying now?”
She just glared at me. And then the realization hit me.
“You know where it is,” I said. “The murder weapon. The rock. You know where he hid it, and you don’t want me looking for it.”
I thought I caught a flash of alarm in her eyes.
“Where’s the murder weapon, Frances?” I asked. “The house, the ruins, or the middens?”
Her face hardened; her mouth clamped shut.
“Susan Doucette really did her homework, didn’t she? She actually figured it out, so you had to shut her down. Where is it, Frances? Where’s the rock? The house, the ruins, or the middens?”
And then, all at once, I didn’t need an answer because I saw my mother’s face. After all these years, trying to get close to her, studying her for a sign of love or approval or . . . life, I knew my mother’s every expression. I knew why her face had suddenly turned a sickening shade of gray.
“Oh my God,” I breathed. “I can’t believe it.”
I took a step toward her, and I could’ve sworn she flinched.
“You have it,” I said. “You actually have it.”
She didn’t move. Not a twitch or a breath. She stared at me, her eyes huge and watery, and I let out a crow of triumph.
“You stashed it somewhere in the apartment.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“I don’t believe you. It’s hidden in the apartment. You kept it close.”
I started mentally cataloguing the place. “Where’d you hide it? Where?”
Her phone trilled on the bed between us.
“Who is that?”
“Nobody.”
The phone jangled again.
“You put it in your safe, didn’t you? The one in your closet?”
I could see her hesitate, frantically tear through the files in her brain for an excuse. The phone was distracting her, and it was almost comical to see her struggle to come up with a lie.
“I don’t have it,” she said lamely. She was flushed now, staring down at her phone.
“Or in a safe-deposit box.”
“Stop thinking you can bully me into confessing something that’s not true!”
I fought an urge to laugh. “But it’s true, isn’t it? Susan was right. Billy gave it to you.”
“He absolutely did not.”
“There’s a chance it could still have Kim Baker’s DNA on it. What do you think of that? Frances? What do you say to the fact that you could be obstructing a murder investigation right now?”
The phone finally, blessedly, quit ringing.
“I’m going to call the police,” I said.
“Don’t you dare—”
“Don’t you dare misdirect me anymore. I’m not asking the right questions! I don’t know what I’m doing! I’m just another stupid Kitty Cultist, those poor pitiful losers imagining things that never happened because their lives are so sad and gray. Your lies are so obvious, Frances. You shut Susan Doucette down eight years ago because she figured out that you and Billy worked out some kind of deal and hid the truth. She got your fucking number and scared you to death, so you threatened her and her parents.”
She was listening to me now. I finally had her attention.
“You’ve always known what happened that summer. But it wasn’t Doro who killed Kimmy, was it? It was someone else. Was it Billy? Or you?”