We always knew, Roberta had said. Sonia wouldn’t run away without her suitcase. The girls could have protested that Sonia hadn’t just disappeared in order to appear more innocent. The girls had had opportunity, access to Sonia, and Sonia’s trust. There was no gun or other weapon used in the crime—just a rock or a shovel, something the girls would have had access to. It was easy to imagine an argument, an impulse, done in a rage, the body dumped to cover it up quickly, the girls agreeing to cover for one another, never to expose one another.
And the motive? What kind of motive did teenage girls need? Jealousy, rejection, some imagined slight? The ultimate mean girls, and it explained why Roberta had not been surprised, why she had wanted access to Idlewild’s records: so she could find any clues to the crime in the files and remove them. Why she had made it clear she had no idea where the other two girls were now, which could be a lie.
It was the theory that fit in every detail, and it was the theory Fiona hated the most. She closed her eyes and tried to think clearly of why.
It was too pat, for one. Cliché, like a thriller movie. What’s more sinister than a teenage girl? Angry and duplicitous and full of hate. Everyone liked to picture a witchy coven of teenagers putting their hapless classmate to death, because it was easier and sexier than picturing Sonia being hit over the head by a local man who probably needed the 1950s version of mental health treatment, who had possibly sexually violated her first. But if it had been an accident, a true mistake, instead of a planned murder, then the girls would have been terrified. Covering it up would have been the first thing they’d do.
She hated it. But she had to admit it was possible. It was possible that she’d just had coffee with Sonia’s killer—or with a woman who was covering for Sonia’s killer, her school friend.
Maybe Fiona preferred picturing a man doing such a thing, or even a boy, instead of a girl. And that, she had to admit, circled back to Deb’s murder. She had always wanted Tim Christopher to be Deb’s killer. She had always wanted to believe that a man, sinister and big-handed and cruel, had put her innocent sister to death. Because it had fit.
But no one had seen Tim do it. And no one had seen him dump the body.
And for the first time in twenty years, Fiona let the words into her head, like a cold draft from a cracked window: Could they have gotten it wrong?
Tim had always maintained his innocence. Of course he had; nearly every convicted murderer did. But what if the wrong man was in prison? What if Deb’s killer was still free?
Sonia’s killer had walked free. That person was possibly dead, after living a life in which the murder of a fifteen-year-old girl had never been unearthed. Or that person was possibly living, elderly now. It was even possible that person had had a fruitful career as a lawyer, borne two children, and spent her morning playing cat and mouse with Fiona in a New Hampshire coffee shop.
There is no justice, Malcolm had told her once, but we stand for it anyway. Justice is the ideal, but justice is not the reality.
If Tim Christopher was innocent, it would kill her father.
Outside, the cold wind kicked up, and the flyer tucked beneath her windshield wiper flapped. Fiona stared at it, suddenly transfixed.
It wasn’t a flyer. It was a note.
She got out of the car and snatched it, nearly ripping it in half. She ducked back into the driver’s seat and slammed the door, smoothing out the note, staring at it.
Simple handwriting, on a piece of notebook paper, written in ballpoint pen.
Meet me behind the church at eleven o’clock, it said.
And, beneath that: You’re not looking hard enough.
Chapter 23
Katie
Barrons, Vermont
November 1950
“They’re probably circus freaks,” Katie said, sitting cross-legged on her bunk and watching Sonia pack. “He’s the world’s fattest man, and she’s the bearded lady. That’s why they’ve lived alone so long with no kids.”
“You forget I’ve seen them,” Sonia said, calmly folding a skirt and placing it in her suitcase. “They aren’t freaks. I met them when I first arrived in America.”
“And they forgot about you for three years,” Katie pointed out. “Maybe they were just busy building the cell they’re going to keep you in.”
She didn’t know why she was saying these things, passing them off as jokes. It was cruel, unnecessary, considering the true horror of Sonia’s past. But she couldn’t seem to stop it.
I don’t want you to go.
Sonia was unperturbed despite the barbs Katie was throwing. She was calm and happy, a little flushed with expectation. Like the other three, she had never been away from Idlewild, even for an afternoon, since arriving here.
“You’re packing everything,” CeCe pointed out, sitting on the floor, playing with the dials on her little radio, even though it was morning, just after breakfast, and they were at risk of getting caught. They only ever listened to the radio at night. “You’re only going for two days. Why are you packing your uniform?”
“Because,” Katie said when Sonia didn’t answer, “she thinks they’re going to want to keep her.”
“Shut up, Katie,” Roberta said. She was leafing through Sonia’s copy of Blackie’s Girls’ Annual, and she didn’t look up as she issued the reprimand. There was no venom in it.
“They might keep me,” Sonia said, adding her pitifully small stack of underwear to the suitcase. “Why else did they ask me to visit after so much time?”
She looked up, and the glimpse of hope on her face, naked and bare before she tucked it away, made Katie feel a slice of pain. She was an idiot, she knew. Stupid and petty. She wanted Sonia to be happy, but not by leaving, not by going to live with strangers.
And what if those strangers didn’t want to keep Sonia after their visit was over? What would happen to the hope on Sonia’s face then?
Sonia had gained a little weight over the last few weeks. She had smoothed out, her eyes less sunken, her elbows less sharp and bony. She wasn’t pretty—Katie knew, with the perfect detachment of the beautiful, that no one was pretty next to her—but her skin had a healthier flush to it, her gaze a calmer sparkle. Her uniform skirt was too short now, and it had begun to grow tight around the hips, though her bust was hopeless and probably always would be. When we’re out of here, Katie mused idly, I’ll get her one of those padded brassieres. There were no movie magazines—no magazines at all—at Idlewild, but some of the teachers wore bras that made their bodies look like soft rocket ships beneath their blouses. Katie was fascinated by the idea, not because she found it attractive, but because she had an animal instinct that boys would. If her hips grow out some more, and I get one of those, and I curl her hair . . . Oh, being eighteen was going to be fun.
Then she remembered that Sonia might not leave here with the rest of them.
“I bet they’re monsters,” she said, unable to stop herself. Unable to keep the words from scraping her throat as they came out.
“Hush,” CeCe chided, looking up from her radio. “Monsters don’t exist.”
They were all quiet for a moment, no one believing this, not even CeCe.
Katie looked up to see Sonia looking at her, watching her from those calm eyes. She had stopped packing. “I’ll be back Sunday,” she said quietly.
The hope draining from her friend’s face was worse than anything, so of course Katie’s perverse mood swung the other way. “It’s best if they do keep you,” she said. “That way you can find a way to sneak me some dirty magazines.”
Roberta laughed, glancing up from Blackie’s Girls’ Annual, and Sonia made a face. “What if they don’t have any dirty magazines?”
“You find a way to get them, silly,” Katie instructed her. “You ask for an allowance.”
“I want chocolate,” CeCe said, perking up at this.
“Books,” Roberta added. “For God’s sake, get us something to read besides Lady Chatterley’s Lover. We’ve already read the dirty parts to death.”
A squawk came from CeCe’s radio, and she twisted a button. “Careful with that thing, or we’ll lose it,” Katie said.
“No one has heard us so far,” CeCe pointed out. “I like it. I want to know what shows are on at this time of morning.”