She starts to interrupt but I hold up a finger, keeping her silent for one more second. “He does it because he believes that in all cases, good should triumph over evil.” I sit back in my chair. There, let her deal with that.
Rachel’s face turns to stone. “After what you’ve been through, Victor’s books are not appropriate reading material for you. Case closed!” Then she turns her attention to cleaning out her purse, a signal that our discussion is over.
I fume silently. Maybe someday she’ll understand that I am not a case. I can’t be closed.
“I have to go in to work for a couple of hours. You—”
“I know. Stay here.”
She opens the back door and pauses with her hand on the knob. “Should I put in a call to Dr. Engle?”
“No more therapists.” I add wide, laser eyes. “Unless you’re willing to open up and gut it out with me.”
Rachel leaves the door standing open and comes back to give me an awkward hug. Awkward because she’s five foot four and I’m five foot eight. I bend my knees to make it easier for her. “I’m sorry. I simply can’t relive all of that again,” she says. “I wish I could wave a magic wand and make you understand that none of the past has anything to do with who you are.”
And I wish I could make her understand that she’s wrong. It has everything to do with who I am.
“No worries, Rach. We’re good,” I say.
“We’re better than good.” She gives me a pat on the cheek. “Lock the door, okay?”
5
Most people believe that forensic evidence is the ironclad truth but they’re ignoring the fact that it’s handled by humans.
—VICTOR FLEMMING
Back in my room, I sink into bed and wrap a pile of blankets around me like flotation devices. When I was little we tried a bunch of things to jump-start my memory, including therapy and hypnosis, even acupuncture. Doctors said there was a chance I could remember the murder one day. But that never happened.
For my part, I just wanted to remember something—anything—about my mother.
I’ve read the report describing her cold, stiff body, lying on her back in an area of blood the size of a child’s swimming pool. They believed she had been dead for three days. Apparently the trail of my footprints, stamped in blood, told them how I survived three days alone by raiding the low shelves of the refrigerator and drinking toilet water. Two-year-old me, terrified, hungry, and dehydrated, but left alive, by whom and for what reason? The report is hard enough for me to stomach all these years later. Rachel was hit with the real deal. Who wouldn’t want to forget that?
Now I have a grasp on what she’s been dealing with all these years.
It’s hard, but I can read about my mother’s death scene because I don’t remember it. But I’m afraid the vision of Miss Peters, arms outstretched and golden curls floating on top of a seeping red sea, has become a permanent scar.
I even understand Rachel’s constant fear for me.
When I was ten, she sat me down and explained how the man who killed my mother had never been caught. Her tone was comforting, but her words were very blunt. He’s still out there walking around. He could be watching you every day and we would never know. He could come after you at any time. It was the most difficult and terrifying conversation of my life.
To keep me safe when she wasn’t around, Rachel actually gave me my first training in forensics. She taught me to pay attention to details by constantly reminding me to think about where I was and whom I was with. Over time my eyes became like a camera and my brain a recorder. I learned to speak less and listen more. I didn’t just think about my mother’s killer, I obsessed over him. Is he tall? Short? Mean? Nice? Old? Young? He could be any man walking down the street.
Someone pounding on the back door startles me out of my thoughts. I throw off the covers and slip down the stairs, cautiously scanning gaps in the front curtains for a familiar car in the driveway. I relax when I see a sliver of red.
I unlock the back door and Spam shoots through the opening with the speed of an alien popping out of a corpse. She’s wearing a short, puffy vest that’s gray and clear. Looking closer, I realize she made it out of duct tape and Bubble Wrap. She flings her arms around my neck and hugs me so hard that one whole side of her vest explodes. She doesn’t let go, even as I stumble backward into the kitchen. Our other friend, Lysa, steps in quietly behind her and closes the door.
Of the three of us, Lysa is the one who looks like she just stepped off the page of a magazine. She always wears a pair of crisply pressed designer jeans paired with hoodies, tanks, Vans sneakers, and socks that all color-coordinate. Today she’s decked out in five different shades of teal, which nicely complements her flawless, golden-brown skin.
I pry one of my arms out of Spam’s iron grasp and hold it out toward Lysa. She joins us in a quick group hug.
“You heard?” I ask.
Spam pulls back and squints, inspecting me all over.
“I’m okay.” I break from the hug and move toward a chair at the table. Lysa joins me, nervously gnawing on a cuticle.