She scanned some titles. Many were the classic standards served up in high school and college. Heart of Darkness, Hamlet, Crime and Punishment, Lord of the Flies, and Plath’s The Bell Jar.
Pretty gloomy fare.
She kept looking and feeling other books.
On the top shelf, there was a row of more modern titles. She came to a nonfiction section. True crime. She froze when she spotted the Bugliosi book, Helter Skelter.
The day that Will disappeared, Georgia had given him a copy of the same book. She remembered his revulsion … as if it were yesterday … not two months ago.
Why would she think to give me such a dark book at the depth of my despair, he’d said.
Emma was convinced that she was onto something.
For some indistinct reason, she was sure that, unlike the other books, Helter Skelter would pull free.
It didn’t.
What it did do was more momentous. At her urging, the book triggered a mechanism that caused the entire wall to move soundlessly toward her. Helter Skelter incorporated some kind of ingenious door-opener. The bookshelves were hinged on the left. She went to the right end, which was ajar, and pulled the entire bookcase slowly forward. For a brief moment, she stopped, afraid to continue. The book wall might be hiding something she would regret exposing. She knew she had to see what was on the other side, but what if? Channeling Pandora, she understood that whatever horrors she unleashed, at least Hope would remain. Anyway, that was the point of the myth.
Her heart pounded crazily.
Immediately thereafter, her head did, too. Just for an instant.
A violent, agonizing blow knocked her senseless. She promptly lost consciousness.
61
Happy Fourth of July
Emma tried to open her eyes, but why should she? She just wanted to sleep, like forever. Her head felt like she had drunk a case of Thunderbird wine. She had no idea how long she had been out. She realized she might never know. She wasn’t remembering a lot.
Memories gradually stirred. Her first wish was that her favorite paramedic would give her more morphine. Then she wondered if the blow to her head had exacerbated her brain bleed. After Georgia had boxed her temples at Vanessa’s house—had to have been Georgia, right?—she had Googled epidural hematoma. Wikipedia had solemnly declared, “Without treatment, brain damage typically results. Death often follows.”
Something more to look forward to.
Wherever she was, it was dark except for a nightlight.
Wherever she was, she knew she was Georgia’s prisoner.
She felt a surprisingly comfortable mattress underneath her, and clean sheets covered her to her chin. She attempted to turn over and cuddle in, but her head screamed in protest.
She was still profoundly tired. She let herself drift off, not back into unconsciousness, but into a deep sleep. She wasn’t sure how long she remained in that state.
When she awoke for the second time, she looked around the dim room.
The far wall, where the nightlight shone, included most of life’s essentials: a toilet, a stall shower, and a kitchenette with a sink and a refrigerator but no stove. All were open to the room.
The rest of the room was dark.
She thought she heard something.
As her eyes grew accustomed to the limited ambient light, she made out a second bed. She couldn’t tell if anyone was in it.
There was movement in the bed.
Suddenly, she recognized her husband in the gloom.
“Oh my God, you’re alive!”
She thought, but didn’t say, You didn’t kill anyone!
Will wasn’t Mr. Sharpie.
Will stared at her. She could just make out his open eyes, but he didn’t speak a word.
“Will?” she tried again.
Still, he did not answer. All she could hear was a moan of despair.
62
Questions and A Few Answers
She leapt out of the bed, which triggered another agonizing brain implosion and stopped her short. She stumbled to Will’s bedside. She knelt on the floor and put her arms around him.
She heard an abject voice: “Emma? Is that you?”
“Yes, my darling,” she answered. She kissed his cheek.
Will’s body spasmed, and he cried, “Where have you been, Emma? Why did you leave me here to suffer?”
She had no idea how to respond. Emma had never been fully convinced that she would ever see Will again. Now that their reunion had happened, she expected it to joyous.
He continued, “You can’t believe the hell I’ve been through! I counted on you … I believed in you … but you never came.”
Emma’s life had never taken her to the abyss of depression. Consequently, it was hard for her to fathom the depths of Will’s. How could his wonderful, caring personality have descended to a degree where he could speak so cruelly?
But she said, “Shush, I’m here now.”
Before she knew it, Will was asleep in her arms.
The day Will had disappeared, he had been a man in pain.
But now?
Was he a man destroyed?
Emma cursed her psycho-sister-in-law. How insane does a person have to be to imprison her brother, the one she claims to love the most? And to what end? Torture equals love? She watched her husband sleep, realizing that the moment for which she had dreamed was just another landmine in her path.
Dispiritedly, she climbed back into her own bed and lay facing the wall. She closed her eyes. As if the Hoover Dam had failed, pent-up questions flooded her mind. Since there were no answers, she amazed herself by falling asleep, too, oblivious to everything but the tranquility of oblivion.
Hours passed. Maybe it was minutes. She had no idea. She looked at her watch. It was a couple of minutes before noon. Could’ve been a couple of minutes before midnight, too. There were lights on in the room now. She glanced to her side. Will was still napping. Or maybe he was sleeping the night away. Again, who knew?
Emma sat up and leaned her back against the headboard, careful not to let her head touch. So much had happened. The reality of their reunion made her heart ache.
She now knew with total certainty that Will wasn’t Mr. Sharpie. That made her happy. What didn’t make her happy was that Georgia held their lives in her hands.
What else did she know about Georgia? She thought way back to when Will had told her about her Uncle John molesting Georgia as a child.
She remembered him, when they’d first married, saying something akin to … After I was able to stop John from abusing her, I believe that she fell in love with me. Probably as some kind of needy compensation for what she had been through. I don’t think she ever thought of me in sexual terms, but I know that for our entire adult lives she has been obsessed with me. Sadly, for you, after we got married, she became obsessed with you, too.
He’d also explained that Georgia had raged against Emma since that moment. Georgia had wanted a child, too, but she would have settled for a niece or a nephew. When Emma and Will couldn’t conceive a child, that added to her rage.
Emma decided that in Georgia’s perverted mind imprisoning Will was saving Will.
Emma glanced around the cell. Classic Georgia, it was over-decorated. Custom-built bookcases, laden with books, lined three sides, similar to the ones which concealed the entry. Two cushy easy-chairs were separated by a table, on which stood a large china table lamp with a Chinese motif. A luxe Oriental rug covered the floor.
She shuffled over to the door, a hollow-core like the door to Georgia's gym, and tried the knob. Locked, naturally. The door also had a peep hole and, below it, a large custom-built pass-though, large enough to pass a tray through. She opened the flapper and reached through. Her knuckles struck steel. Another door, she presumed. That door was anything but hollow.
She went back across the room and used the toilet. Afterwards, in the refrigerator, she found a green plastic bottle of Perrier with its distinctive juggling club
shape. She suspected that Georgia didn’t permit glass. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was until she downed the Perrier in one nearly continuous glug-glug-glug.
As she tossed the empty into a bin marked Recycling, she heard Will’s voice behind her.
“Get me one, too. I’m thirsty.” His voice sounded as empty as reverb on an old record.
Emma was so glad to hear him speak that she tried to overlook the other-worldly timbre of his voice.
“Coming right up,” she said cheerfully. “You’ve slept a while. How do you feel?”
“Shitty,” he said, “like I always do.”
She brought him a cold Perrier and sat down next to him on the bed.
She handed him the plastic bottle and gazed into his eyes. They were unfocused, and he averted her gaze.
“Will, please talk to me.”
“You want to know how I feel?” He took a sip of water. “I tried to hang myself—to end my useless life—but my sister saved me. According to her, that’s what she’s been doing … saving me.”
Emma looked on, appalled. She wanted to say something soothing, but he interrupted.
“My world is a black fucking hole. No, not that, it’s a long tunnel with no lights. Far, far down the tunnel, my demons have sealed off the other end. You can’t even imagine the hell I’ve been through, Emma.”
What about me? she thought sadly.
She tried a different approach. “We have to get out of here. We have to escape.”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried?”
“Do you ever just scream bloody murder? I know Georgia’s goddaughter, Sophie, comes over here every now and again. Maybe other people do, too.”
Emma suddenly remembered the cryptic text she had received from Sophie: I need to talk to you … Please. Had she wanted to talk about Georgia? Moot point, though, because Emma doubted her jailer allowed the traditional phone call.
“I tried making a racket in the beginning,” he said bitterly. “Until Georgia told me that there is a foot of sound insulation—walls, floor, and ceiling. This place is built like a professional sound studio. We’ll never get out of here. Georgia will never permit it.”
Emma shifted gears again, anxious to keep him talking.
“How the hell did she even get you here?”
“That night, while you were out—why did you even leave me alone?—Georgia came to our house and let herself in. She must’ve been watching, seen you leave. That zolpidem had zonked me cold. How she got me out of there I don’t know. Apparently, my sick-fuck sister works out way too much. However she accomplished it, I never woke up. Maybe she gave me something for a kicker. I don’t know. The next thing I knew is I woke up in here. You realize I’ve been here for the last fifty-nine days, don’t you?”
Emma kept her forward motion. “But why would Georgia kidnap her own twin?”
“How should I know? She’s sick. My sister’s got serious mental health issues—more than I ever shared with you. My parents worry, too.”
“Do your parents know you’re here?”
“God no,” Will snorted. “They may be dysfunctional alcoholics, but they would never be a party to this madness.”
Emma took a deep breath. “I’m afraid there’s a lot that you don’t know about. Brace yourself. First, Dad died. A heart attack—”
“Aww, shit. I’m not sure I want to hear this.”
“There’s more,” Emma said.
“Huh?” Staring at the floor, Will appeared distracted. No doubt, he was still absorbing the news about Archie
“Will, you better listen. There is more you need to know.”
His head snapped up, but his eyes still stared behind her.
“Deb and Vanessa are dead. They were murdered. So are Ethan Jackson and Stella Weeks—both murdered, too. The police believe that I killed them. I believe that the killer left Stella’s body in our kitchen to frame me for all four murders.”
For the first time, Will looked her in the eye. “Stop! That’s enough, I don’t want to hear anymore. Are you trying to make me more miserable than I already am?”
Emma wasn’t ready to stop. “Well try this out for size.” She told him about the text she had received, purportedly from him. “Obviously, your twin sister sent it.”
Will shook his head.
Emma concluded her litany, “You need to hear about one last atrocity. The police shot Pepper. It was my fault. She died protecting me. Pepper made it possible for me to get back to you.”
Will turned his back on her.
He said, “I’m sorry Emma, but there’s nothing I can do for you. I still love you, you know.” Then, he either went back to sleep or pretended to.
Emma left his side and sat on one of Georgia’s two over-stuffed arm chairs, weeping. She looked at the cherry table between the two chairs and dreamed that a tumbler of Lagavulin single malt scotch awaited another sip. She had to settle for Perrier.
She drank as if the fizzy water would somehow replenish her empty spirit.
63
Caroline and Skip
Despite it being a Sunday and the Fourth of July, Caroline Stoner called a meeting at headquarters. Dick Wardlaw had yet to appoint a new chief of police. Skip Munro was the last to arrive. Buzz, Pete Sinclair, Chuck Smith, and Max were already seated in the roll call room.
Lieutenant Munro took the podium, saying to Caroline, “Okay by you?”
Caroline didn’t mind at all. She was so upset about the confrontation with Emma and her role in it that she wished she had never been involved in the first place.
“I’m not picking on you guys, but she’s got to be somewhere,” Munro said, not troubling to bury his exasperation.
Buzz took the heat. He told Munro that officers had run a grid all over town, all night long. He described how Chuck Smith had reached out to Georgia Foster, Emma Thorne’s sister-in-law. She denied having seen Emma but let Smith stake out the house for the night. Buzz told Munro that she had not shown. “So far we’ve got bupkis,” Buzz said.
Max raised his hand. “Did we hear anything on Stella’s forensics?”
“Still preliminary,” Munro said. “Mittendorf said his report should be finalized by tomorrow afternoon. He did tell me that there is evidence that Stella wasn’t stabbed in Emma Thorne’s kitchen, but we already figured that. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the knife belonged to Emma.”
Buzz said, “Which means that Emma might have been set up.”
Munro said, “Maybe, but, except for her husband, she is the only suspect who has a direct connection to each of the victims.”
Murmurings filled the room. It was hard for Caroline to tell whether they were in support of Emma or against her.
Caroline called them back to order and said to nobody in particular, “What’s next?”
“Who were Thorne’s friends?” Munro asked. “Besides Deb Barger and Vanessa Mack.”
Caroline said, “I guess I knew Emma the best. She was closest to her dad, Archie, but he’s dead of course.” Caroline noticed her colleagues staring at her as if she had just said the stupidest thing in the world. Her face flushed. “It’s possible that she is holed up with Deb’s husband, Dave. They were pretty close. Dave might’ve taken her in. And, actually, Vanessa’s house is vacant. Emma would certainly know how to get into Vanessa’s.”
“What about this Georgia Foster? Why was Officer Smith sent there?” Munro asked.
“That was my idea,” said Caroline. “The pickup truck parked in front of my apartment building last night came back to Frank Foster, Georgia’s father. Staking out Georgia’s house was just a hunch … which didn’t pan out.”
“Anyone else?”
“The only other person I can think of is Phil Masters,” Buzz said. “He runs Group Therapy, the bar. Emma and he are friends.”
“Okay then. At least we have some possibilities,” Munro said. “Buzz, you and Officer Beyersdorf take Deb’s house and Vanessa’s house. Stoner and I will make th
ree stops: Masters, Foster’s parents, and Foster herself. The rest of you keep patrolling town. We’ll meet back here later.”
Caroline realized that Lieutenant Munro had just usurped their investigation. She was glad. Last night had been way too stressful. She hated that she’d turned on Emma.
The Sunday brunch crowd filled Group Therapy.
“May as well grab some food while we’re here,” Skip said. They sat in one of the few free booths. Caroline told the waitress that they wanted to speak with Phil when he had a free moment.
Skip ordered a roast beef sandwich au jus, and Caroline had the Southwest salad. Phil joined them at their table while they were eating.
He was visibly agitated.
Phil said, “You’re here about Emma, right? I heard she’s on the run, and I hope you don’t find her.” He stubbed a finger against Skip’s chest. “Who’re you? Another cop?”
“I’m Lieutenant Munro, Connecticut State Police, and I’d cool your jets if I were you.”
“Says you.” Phil sneered.
“Yes, we are looking for Emma Thorne. Do you know where she is, or have you seen her?”
“No to both. But I wouldn’t tell you anyway. There is no fucking way that Emma killed anybody. You are so far off base you could get picked off by any half-assed pitcher.”
Caroline said, “Phil, take it easy. We’re only doing our jobs.”
He turned on Caroline. “You don’t believe in Emma either, do you? Some friend you are. You cops are wasting your time and my taxpaying dollars. I have nothing more to say to either of you. Finish your meal and get out of my joint.” He stormed off.
Phil’s dig about friendship rankled Caroline. She was conflicted. Yet if Emma were innocent, why had she fled? People who aren’t guilty don’t do that. Do they?
Ever So Silent Page 28
