Mr. Tuttle barks.
“You probably need to go outside, huh?” She picks him up again, feeling guilty that she hasn’t given him a thought all day. He licks her cheek. “Just a few more things to get.”
In Diana and Kyle’s room, she sets him on the floor, and he immediately trots up the antique bed stairs that match the four-poster to sit expectantly on the duvet. Has he already forgotten Jenny? She doesn’t know yet if Jenny’s daughter will want him. It’s all so complicated. Kyle and Hadley almost killed. Jenny dead. Her job in serious jeopardy. She can’t even have Gabriel do anything about it because she doesn’t have the paperwork from the station yet! What she really wants to do is go to the guest room, lock the door, and hide beneath the covers for a week. Her body feels heavy and useless. Finally she forces herself to find the comfortable change of clothes and the toiletries Diana asked for, and calls the dog to follow her.
On her way back to the guest room to change shoes and grab a sweater against the hospital’s frigid air-conditioning, she hears a thud from downstairs.
Nervous, she calls down from the landing.
“Hello?”
Mr. Tuttle gives a single bark and looks up at her for approval.
“Shhhh.”
Are those footsteps or just the noises a big empty house makes? Mr. Tuttle trots down the stairs and disappears.
Wanting to get out of the house as quickly as she can, she hurries to the guest room to search various piles of clothes for the heavy blue cotton sweater she wore at the lake. She discovers it’s badly wrinkled but takes it anyway. Remembering the ancient magazines in the hospital’s waiting area, she searches for her tablet. When she doesn’t find it in the bedroom, she opens the bathroom door.
She’s so focused on the tablet that she has it in her hand before she notices the words scrawled across the mirror in her second-favorite shade of lipstick:
murdering whore
Murdering whore.
Is that me?
Yes.
Beside the words in the mirror, she sees a terrified woman whose blond hair floats messily around a pale face shot with lines of fatigue and age. Her eyes look too small, her mouth too wide. Gasping, she grabs one of Diana’s pristine white towels and smears the words, rubbing so hard that the towel squeaks and stutters across the surface.
It doesn’t surprise her anymore that Lance Wilson knows she’s responsible for Michelle’s death. But she has never imagined her sister’s death to be a murder, herself an actual murderer. In her head it’s always I killed Michelle or I accidentally killed Michelle or I took my sister’s life. Stole my sister’s life.
“No! No! No!” She shakes out the towel to find a clean section and goes at the words again until the glass is smeared and both the towel and her hands are splotched with startling color.
Breathing hard, she leans against the wall, grateful she can no longer see her reflection.
Fucking Lance Wilson. I will kill that son of a bitch.
Still shaking, she grabs the things she’s collected and, after listening at the top of the stairs for any movement, cautiously makes her way down to find Mr. Tuttle sitting just inside the wide-open front door.
Please don’t let that man still be here. Please let him be gone.
Kimber shuts and locks the door, and scoops up the puzzled dog. Hurrying through the house to the garage, she twists the lock in the door handle as she leaves.
Lance Wilson in Kyle’s house. Lance Wilson touching Hadley’s things. Lance Wilson waiting for her. But why didn’t he stay to confront her?
He’s a coward. He’d rather play with me.
As she heads for Clayton Road, so she can run a quick errand on the way to the hospital, she passes the curve where Kyle’s car crashed. A section of the guardrail is bent as though a giant sat on it. But there are no other signs of what happened to Kyle and Hadley. Not even a shard of glass or piece of trim on the shoulder.
She calls Gabriel. As soon as he answers, she blurts out, “I can’t stay in that house anymore. I’m not going back.” She doesn’t tell him about the message on the mirror, only that the house is too lonesome, too big and isolated.
“You know you’re welcome to stay with me, but doesn’t Diana need you there now?”
“Her sister and mother are getting into town tonight.” What will they make of the mess on the mirror? With any luck they won’t go into her room. There’s another guest suite, and one of them will probably stay in Hadley’s room. “They don’t need me. This is a family thing now.”
Except. Why is Lance Wilson messing with Diana and Kyle? Why not just run her off the road if he wants to hurt her? The answer whispers in her head: He wants to make you suffer.
Was he the one who took the photographs? Was he really there? Only a few years older than she, he was about Michelle’s age. Who is he? All through the week, that’s been the unanswered question. The who will surely answer the why. His skin was cool under her hand when she grappled with him. Grappled like they were wrestlers or angry lovers.
“I need to go, Gabriel. I’ll call you later.”
“Wait. Let me come and get you. Did something happen? You don’t sound like yourself.”
Which self am I? Which self am I supposed to be?
The idea that anyone might think they know her well enough to say she’s not herself strikes her as funny. “I can stay at Mom and Don’s. They won’t mind. Don’s always trying to get me to visit. Mom and I can hang out. It’ll be just like old times.” Her tone borders on the hysterical, but there’s a tiny part of her that wants to be with her mother right now. As tense as they often are in each other’s company, something inside her yearns to have her mother tell her everything will be okay. To make her feel safe. The kid inside her wants to be someone’s daughter—especially since her father is really, truly gone forever. All that time, she was still his daughter, even if he didn’t want her around. Maybe her desire to be with her mother and Don was piqued by the latest photograph. Seeing herself on that day. In that place. The day she made her choice. The day she killed Michelle.
“I don’t think you should be alone, Kimber. Stay with me.”
So like Gabriel. Thinking of her. Worrying about her. It’s weirdly nice to have someone give a damn. She could’ve had this feeling long ago and remembers having it with Shaun. If only she’d appreciated it. Now she’s too late, and her entire life is screwed. She laughs self-consciously.
“Are you really sure you want me? You know I have Mr. Tuttle. I couldn’t leave him there with Hadley and Diana gone.”
There’s a pause. Gabriel’s pristine condo has never had an animal inside it that she knows of. She tries to imagine him waking up to Mr. Tuttle’s furry butt on his pillow.
“Listen, I’ll just go to my mom’s. It’s not a problem.”
“Mr. Tuttle is welcome at the condo. The old ladies down the hall will get a kick out of him. They have that bald Chihuahua. Mr. Tuttle will look like a rock star compared to that little rat.”
It’s a weirdly rude comment for Gabriel—who is usually so kind, so politic—to make. But everything is strange now.
“Okay. I’ll drop the things off at the hospital and come over.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
September 199_
Michelle stopped Kimber in the hallway outside their bedrooms. Today they were getting the proof of their father’s cheating. She wasn’t telling Kimber they’d be meeting their half brother, Kevin, because she suspected Kimber wouldn’t come. Seeing their father in Union with that other woman hadn’t convinced Kimber of much. Or at least she wouldn’t admit it to Michelle.
“Don’t forget. Ten minutes before one at the trailhead by the last pavilion. Make sure you’re by yourself.”
“Ooooooh,” Kimber said, rolling her eyes. “So mysterious. I’ll make sure I’m not followed.”
Michelle felt an urge to slap the snotty look off her sister’s face. But they were at the very top of the stairs, and it wouldn’
t be a soft landing if Kimber lost her balance. She settled for a quiet “Stop being such a bitch. I’m doing this for you.” That wasn’t quite the truth. She was doing it for herself too.
Downstairs they joined their parents at the kitchen table to eat blueberry pancakes. The morning sunshine bathed the room and their faces in cheerful white light, but Michelle sensed a shadow hanging over them all. Something dark and false and ugly.
Her father teased her mother because she’d thawed way too many of the blueberries they’d picked back in July than they needed for pancakes. “Claudia, honey, will we be having pasta with blueberry sauce for dinner?” he asked. He winked at Michelle, including her in the joke. She looked away. As her mother gave an abashed smile, a pretty shade of pink spread over her face. But the smile seemed thin and forced. Michelle realized her mother didn’t like being teased. Was this something new? Or had she just never noticed before? Michelle shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
Kimber was eating quickly, barely taking time to chew.
“Kimber. Slow down,” their mother said. “You’re going to choke.”
“We have to leave,” Kimber said through a mouthful of syrup-soaked pancakes. “If we’re not on time, the buses will leave without us. The whole school’s going. Three schools are going!” She gave Michelle a mock-meaningful look. “It’s very important that we’re there.”
“We’ll be there in plenty of time,” Michelle said with all the calm she could muster. She would not let Kimber get to her. A part of her was anxious to get the day over with. Another part of her wanted to run back upstairs and hide in her bedroom. Everything would change today, and she wasn’t sure she was ready.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The St. Louis Bread Company in Frontenac is quiet and nearly empty. Kimber orders an Iced Caffe Mocha for herself and almost orders a lemonade for Hadley, as she has so many times before. But there’s nothing she can do for Hadley now. Then she fills a large cup with ice and the green iced tea Diana likes so much, and sweetens it with stevia. It’s the very least she can do. She owes Diana. Owes Kyle. Maybe she should try to see him. Diana can’t be in two rooms at once.
But what if Diana thinks it’s strange? What if she suspects I need to be with him?
It’s not, she decides, a good idea. They wouldn’t let her in anyway because she’s not family. Not family. Not the kind of person who belongs in their beautiful house, in their beautiful lives, even for a short time. She’s screwed up their lives as much as she’s screwed up her own.
Murdering whore.
Remembering that Mr. Tuttle didn’t have time to pee before they fled the house, she sets him on the grass at the edge of the hospital parking lot. Once he does his business, she puts him back in the car with water in a paper soup cup she got at the restaurant and opens the windows a few inches. With the dog waiting, she won’t be able to stay at the hospital for very long. She texts Diana to let her know she’s arrived and gets an immediate, terse answer: ICU entrance.
Ten minutes later she finds Diana in the waiting area just outside the ICU with her arms around a small dark-haired woman about Kimber’s mother’s age. A man who looks like a rougher, older version of Kyle, in khakis and a bright green golf shirt, stands by looking puzzled and lost. These are Kyle’s parents, whom Kimber met at Hadley’s sixth birthday party. When the shorter woman pulls away, Kimber sees how pale Diana is, as though she’s been drained of half her blood. Her tangerine dress is marred at the hip with a jagged splash of something dark. It’s not exactly brown but looks organic. Blood, with something else. Something born of violence and pain. Hadley and Kyle are Diana’s life. If Kimber guessed it might be true before, she’s certain of it now.
Diana speaks slowly but without tears. “When she started to wake up from surgery, they put her in a coma so she’ll heal. Both of Kyle’s legs are broken, and they did the surgery on his lung. They have him in some kind of tent. I think that car has twenty air bags, but they don’t do very much if you’re sitting on your buckled seat belt. Hadley always fusses at him if he doesn’t put it on. They said she might have been asleep, and that it’s why her injuries weren’t worse. That her body wasn’t…” She doesn’t finish. Her eyes move to Kimber.
“She’s going to be okay, though?” Kimber can’t stop the rush of words. “That’s what the surgery was for. They can control the coma. They’ll bring her out of it soon, right?” Kyle’s parents turn around, their eyes dull with shock. No one offers a greeting.
“Is my mother at the house yet?”
“You said she’s coming later tonight.” Kimber is confused.
Diana continues without noting Kimber’s answer. “They said it’s too soon to tell, but they were able to save Hadley’s liver. They had to remove her spleen. Kimber, the extra booster seat was still in your car. Why didn’t you put it back in the garage? He couldn’t use it in his car if it was in your car!”
Her lovely face is pinched as though she’s in physical pain. She lives in a different world now. One that only has room for Hadley and Kyle. Hadley isn’t just her mini-me, a toy for her to dress up and wind up to perform, as Kimber imagined her to be before she got to know Diana. Hadley is Diana’s creation. Her heart. Kimber finds the naked pain on her best friend’s face unbearable.
Diana’s right about the booster seat. Even as Kimber noticed it in her car, she didn’t think about it not being available to Kyle. Why would she? She doesn’t have kids. Hadley was sick. She shouldn’t have been going anywhere.
“I…I didn’t think about the seat. I would never do anything to hurt Hadley.”
Diana’s stare is skeptical. Kyle’s parents stare as well, dislike glimmering through their grief. You almost killed our granddaughter, you bitch. Finally Diana looks away and touches her mother-in-law’s shoulder.
“Hadley’s in the second room on the right. Kyle’s at the end of the hall.” She presses the speaker button and tells the attendant who’s coming in. With a soft buzzing from the door, the couple disappears inside.
“Oh God, Diana, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think about the car seat. I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”
“Just give me the damn bag and get out of here. I can’t even look at you.” The steel in Diana’s voice stuns her.
“Listen. I saw orange paint on the side of the car. I’m sure it was Lance Wilson who did it. I don’t know why. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you got dragged into this.”
“Shut up. Just shut up.” Now Diana has her phone out. Her hands shake as she presses and swipes at the screen, looking for something. When she finds it, her mouth closes in a hard line. She shows the screen to Kimber.
It’s the contrast of cool sunlight and shadow that Kimber notices first: the man outlined by the filtered light of the expensive hotel room’s filmy white curtains. But there’s not so much light behind him that you can’t make out his roughly handsome features. He’s naked, smiling into the camera like a mischievous teenager. Kimber is standing right next to him, her shoulders bare, her hair tousled.
When she took the picture, she didn’t stop to think it might be incriminating. Incrimination wasn’t an issue because she didn’t feel all that guilty for sleeping with Kyle. It was her life, her phone, her picture, her lover. Not somebody’s husband and father. Diana and Hadley were just names, pictures on Kyle’s phone, framed photographs in the grand house she’d been in just for fun. Just because his wife and daughter were out of town and Kyle wanted to show the house off and make love to her in the pool, in the guest room, on the same deep, comfortable sofa on which she was sitting when he kissed her shoulder just the other evening. Everything was different when she took that picture.
Diana is waiting for her to say something, but she can’t speak. She’d long ago taken the picture off her own phone. Did she ever send it to Kyle? Think! Think!
Yes, she’d sent it to him along with so many others. And they were also saved on her computer at home. At that moment she realizes that she’d meant to put a password o
n her desktop when she broke into the house, but there was the incident with the gun and Gabriel, and she’d forgotten. How easy it would have been for Lance Wilson to find her photos, given all those hours alone in her house. He didn’t have to look at porn. He was looking at her.
“Are you the one he’s screwing right now? Has he been screwing you in our house?”
Kimber shakes her head, trying to dispel the idea, clear the air. “It was over a long time ago. Over two years. Nothing’s happened since then. I swear. You have to believe me. Please. I didn’t know you, Diana. I didn’t know Hadley.” She wants to continue, but she knows whatever she says isn’t going to make a difference.
The obvious truth of Kimber’s revelation seems to awaken something in Diana. Her face clears. The many months of friendship, trust, and mutual adoration fall away, shattering in the space between them.
“Stay away from us. So help me God, if that son of a bitch in your house doesn’t kill you, and I find out you and your dumpster fire of a life had anything to do with this, I’ll kill you myself.”
“Wait! Please listen to me.” Kimber reaches for Diana, but Diana slaps her hand away.
“I’m done with you.”
There’s a cough behind Kimber, and she turns to see an unshaven elderly man in a cardigan a dozen feet behind them, probably wanting to go into the ICU.
Diana picks up the bag at Kimber’s feet and presses the speaker button to be let inside. “Diana Christie.” The lock buzzes, and she disappears into the world briefly revealed by the open doors. A world of beige tile and beeping machinery and industrially lighted cubicles containing the dying and barely surviving. The old man scuttles in behind her, leaving Kimber alone, the plastic cup of green iced tea sweating and cold in her hand.
The Stranger Inside Page 19
