I’m pulled out of the past when I notice Laura is yelling something to Paul, but I can’t hear it; the crackling flames smother the sound. Sweat is running down my face.
We watch as Paul, presumably doing as Laura instructs, picks up a tool from the ground. The drill I saw earlier, on the lumber pile.
“Hurry,” I say under my breath. It’s become too hot this close to the window, and my view is at last obscured by flame and smoke and quivering heat.
The three of us retreat to the center of the room where it’s coolest. We stand, huddled, watching the door. All we can do now is hope.
No, not all we can do. I must’ve dropped the hammer somewhere when I first saw Laura outside, but I search for something else that can be used as a weapon, and settle on the lamp that fell. It’s heavy enough, and I can swing it like a baseball bat.
Noise comes from the other side of the door. A vibration. A muffled whine.
The smoke is filling the room now. “Cover your mouths,” I tell the kids. I pull my shirt up over my nose and stand just inside the door, wielding the heavy lamp. The noise stops. A board falls away. Then the door opens.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Beyond the open door are leaping flames. I don’t have any idea what awaits on the other side, and I’m not letting Joni through first. But before I can dive through, Michael grabs me.
His eyes lock on mine, alive with determination, then he’s gone.
I grab Joni and we go together.
Searing heat, the smell of singed hair — my own — a sudden suffocation. My foot misses a step coming out and I tumble to the ground, losing grip on Joni and the lamp. But I’m on my feet an instant later, screaming into the inferno, screaming for my daughter.
She’s in my arms a moment after that, her own hair smoking, one of her sleeves aflame. I smother it with my body. Someone shouts — it’s Michael. Paul has grabbed him, and the two of them wrestle. Joni screams and jumps on her father’s back and claws at his head and neck. He sends her flying.
Laura Bishop is on the ground a few yards away, curled into a ball. When she looks my way, I catch her eye. She’s bleeding from the face, as if Paul hit or scratched her, but she’s okay. She unfurls her body just enough to show me that she’s still got the gun; she’s clutching it like a football against her midsection. Paul tried to get it from her in the moments before we made it out of the yurt.
He is still grappling with Michael. He’s got his hands around the younger man’s throat. Michael is trying to fend him off with one arm. His legs kick at the air. His face is turning bright red.
I move to Laura, and she hands me the gun.
There is no thinking.
There is only action.
I step toward Paul. I’ve never fired a gun, never even held one. But it looks modern, the point-and-shoot type.
I aim it at Paul. He looks over at me. His eyes are inhuman, his lips pulled back in an animal’s sneer.
The gun kicks in my hand — I wasn’t expecting that. The sound is explosive and crisp and reverberates throughout the hardwood forest. I miss Paul; the shot is only meant to shock him, and it works: Michael manages to get away.
Paul is tense — the bullet went wide, but my inexperience with shooting means the next round might go anywhere. And he knows it. He stands there, hands clutching the air, glaring at me.
The yurt is almost completely engulfed by fire now. Flames shoot up nearly to the tops of the trees. I aim the gun again, this time directly at Paul’s face.
His expression changes. He appears sorrowful, scared. “Honey,” he says. I can barely hear him over the crackling inferno. “Emmy . . . please . . . what are you doing?”
“You tried to burn us.”
His face contorts in agony. He points at Laura Bishop, like a child might. “She’s the one who locked you in.”
“Stop it, Paul. I saw you light the match.”
He’s shaking his head. Blood oozes from his clavicle. “Honey, no. Ever since your accident . . . hitting the deer, you haven’t been the same. You’ve got things all twisted around in your head. Honey . . . Emily — you need help.”
“Stop it, Paul!” I’m shaking again. I’ve still got Starzyk’s gun trained on him, but I’m trembling. Uncertain.
Sirens wail in the distance.
Paul holds out his hand. His eyebrows are knitted in compassion. He shakes his head. “Emmy, you’ve had issues your whole life. It’s your father’s fault. We’ll get you some help, okay? We’ll call Sarah. We’ll get everything straightened out, and this will all be okay. But right now, we need to get away from these two people.” He casts angry eyes on Michael and Laura. “They’re con artists, Emily.”
He looks at our daughter. “Joni, you’ll understand as you get older. People like this, they—”
His words are cut off as the entire roof of the yurt collapses. It sends up a huge plume of black smoke and hot embers scattering in the air like fireworks. A couple of them land on me, burning like miniature meteors.
Everybody backs farther away from the blazing structure. It’s a skeleton of a building now, oddly like a carousel.
Around and around.
We stand there, watching, mesmerized.
Until I remember Paul.
Amid the distraction, my husband has slipped away.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
“He won’t get very far,” the cop says to me. “Especially if he doesn’t have anything with him — provisions, tools, things like that.”
The place is surrounded; I’ve never seen so many police and firemen and emergency service workers. Since the location is so remote, the dirt road is nearly unnavigable; the fire department could only arrive in smaller vehicles called brush trucks. They had to let the structure burn while keeping it from spreading, shoveling dirt and spraying water to create an impassable perimeter.
Seeing them work in their heavy gear, in all the heat and danger, uplifts my heart.
Once Paul disappeared, I hustled everyone into the rental car. I’d barely put the shifter in drive when the first state trooper showed up. Starzyk — alive, but barely — was whisked away by the first ambulance, and then Michael in the next. Joni went with him.
I almost forget that the cop is still standing beside me. He gazes into the woods. “This property abuts state land. Lots of wilderness out there. He doesn’t even have any water, you said?”
“Not that I saw.”
I feel weak in the knees and find a stump near the chicken coop. The chickens were mercifully — miraculously — saved from the blaze. Only one got a bit singed, its white feathers blackened.
“Are you all right?” The cop, a state trooper, looks worried.
“I’m fine.”
“Can you keep going?” He has a notebook and has been taking my statement.
“I can go on.”
“Okay. So at what point did you discharge the weapon?”
Discharge the weapon. That’s police talk, always so formal. Always so calm and detached. The way I’m supposed to be, too, when administering therapy. Objective. Unattached to outcome.
“I shot at him when he was on top of Michael. Well, near him. To scare him.”
What if you’re wrong? What if Paul is the one being manipulated? Joni, too? What if Paul took you back to Sean just to get you out of harm’s way?
“They were wrestling, you said? Can you show me where?”
“Right over there, I think. There was a lot of smoke.”
“Mmhmm.”
What plans had Laura Bishop made with her son? How long had they been in communication? How can this possibly be my life?
“Let’s move back in time a moment,” the trooper says. His phrasing is so close to what I’d said to Michael during our sessions, it chills my skin. “What about the officer who suffered the gunshot wound? Investigator Steven Starzyk. Were you able to see who fired the weapon?”
No. I wasn’t. I assume it was Paul, but I’m having trouble keeping everything straight.
“Ma’am?”
I try to answer the trooper but am overcome with a coughing fit. I’m sitting here on this stump, wrapped in one of those silver blankets, being interrogated, and I probably have smoke inhalation. Another trooper intervenes. I think I recognize her — but from where? My house the other night? Events are jumbling together.
The first cop says, “Trooper Kane, let’s get her the attention she needs. I’m seeing second-degree burns, and she’s having trouble breathing.”
They help me to my feet. The next thing I know, I’m on a stretcher, breathing in pure oxygen, being lifted into the back of a waiting ambulance. I see a helicopter overhead and feel it cutting through the air. Beside it, a massive column of blue-black smoke.
Poor Madison and Hunter. What am I even going to say to their loved ones?
Sorry, my family is a little fucked up.
The doors to the ambulance close. It’s a tumultuous ride back to the paved road, and I’m wincing with each bump.
“Are you in pain?” a paramedic asks me. “Can I give you anything for it?”
I nod gratefully. A moment later, I ask, “Where are we going?”
“Adirondack Medical Center. Saranac Lake.”
At least, I think, I’ll be back with my son.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
It’s getting late, going on nine p.m. The hospital room is quiet. Just the sound of my heart monitor, the mumble of people in the hallway.
It doesn’t last.
Two detectives come into the room saying they’re from state BCI. They ask me all the same questions the state troopers did at the scene.
I ask about Paul. They assure me that they’re looking for him, that it’s a full-on manhunt. He’s a fugitive from justice. But I also get the impression that, for them, my husband is just one piece of a mysterious picture.
“We’re trying to reconstruct events,” one of the detectives says. His name is Parker and he has a scar over one eye, splicing his eyebrow. The other detective is just inside the room, by the door. He stands like a marine.
“We’ve got a lot of information,” Parker says, “but it’s a matter of putting it all together.”
I get it. The fire erased any ironclad evidence that Paul killed Madison and Hunter. And whether he shot Starzyk can’t be corroborated. Neither can the fact of him locking us in the yurt, attempting to burn us alive. It’s just my word. And Joni’s. And Michael’s. Are our stories the same?
The detectives inform me that Michael and Joni are in the same hospital. Michael has been treated for a broken arm, as well as minor cuts and bruises and some smoke inhalation. Joni is in better shape and will be released presently. But until all their questioning is complete, the police are asking that we remain separate. Someone from the state troopers has even been posted outside my door as a gatekeeper.
My injuries are apparently more extensive than Joni’s. At least, the doctor I saw about a half hour before the detectives told me that he wanted to check on a few things. He asked me if I’d had any other accidents prior to the fire, because he suspected a recent concussion. I told him about hitting the deer.
The detectives ask me about that, too. They want to know why I’m driving a rental car. Explaining about the deer makes me feel like I’m on less stable ground with them than before. Once again, an unreliable — or at least questionable — witness.
“What about Laura Bishop?” I ask.
They exchange looks. “We’re talking to her, too,” Parker says.
I worry that’s all he’s going to say, but then he adds, “Mrs. Bishop gave us quite a story.”
The detective by the door, Reynolds, speaks up. “According to Laura Bishop, she’s innocent.”
“But she pled guilty.”
Parker arches his spliced eyebrow. “She says she pled guilty only to spare her son. She didn’t want to contest his statement to the police, to fight it in court, to drag the family through a lengthy trial.”
Bullshit, I think.
What I say is, “She doesn’t seem like the type to spare her family.”
“No, I agree,” says Parker. “I think she knew she was cooked. She may have hoped to sell a jury on an alternative suspect, but there was no evidence to support it. And the DA had witnesses that she might’ve been cheating on her husband. Plus, there was the kid. If she went to trial, it would basically be his word against hers. And who was a jury going to believe? A sweet eight-year-old kid, or his unfaithful mother who threw swanky, drug-fueled parties in the city?”
“And who had a temper,” Reynolds adds.
“Right,” Parker says. “A temper. Plenty of witnesses to say she was a feisty character. So? Her counsel advised her to take a deal. She pled to a lesser offense and got twenty-five years with the possibility of parole. I guess she’s been an angel inside, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been stewing. About what happened, about the cops, her son . . .”
“You,” adds Reynolds.
“You,” Parker agrees, looking at me with a kind of pity in his eyes.
“Me,” I say.
“And your family. Your daughter.”
Reynolds comes forward. “We think that Laura Bishop got herself back in her son’s good graces some time ago. A couple of years—”
“And what?” I ask. “They concocted some whole elaborate thing? Joni met Michael at college . . .”
Reynolds nods. He’s taller than Parker, with a mole on his jawline. Short, dark hair gelled to perfection. “We think he was already enrolled. That’s the one true bit of serendipity in all of this. He met your daughter there and told his mother. Otherwise, every bit of this has been calculated. Laura and her son have conspired to . . . well, essentially break into your life, for some time.”
“Why?”
The detectives trade another look between them. Parker picks up the thread. “To mess with you. It seems as simple as that. To mess with you and your husband. The way it seems, to kind of tear you apart. The way it seems to us, she blames you for her conviction. We know Thomas, or rather Michael, has been visiting with her for years. We think she sort of sent him in to destabilize you and your family. Put you through all this business about remembering his past.”
Reynolds chips in, “Of course they must’ve figured you would, you know, recognize Michael, which is why he did the whole partial amnesia thing.”
“They’re just messed-up people,” Parker adds.
I’m shaking my head with disbelief. My throat is so dry. I ask for a drink.
Detective Parker tilts his head. “I’m sorry? I didn’t catch that.”
“I need water,” I whisper.
Parker glances at Reynolds, who leaves to run the tap in the bathroom. He brings me back a plastic cup and I drink from it greedily, water running down my chin.
“Easy,” Parker says. “Careful.”
I set it aside and wipe my mouth. My mind goes blank with overload.
“Listen,” Parker says. “Why don’t you get some rest? We’ll come back and follow up with you a little later.”
“Where is Laura now?”
“In custody,” Reynolds assures. “We’re keeping an eye on her.”
“And we’re still talking to her,” Parker says.
For some reason, that scares me more than anything.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
When the detectives leave, another pair of investigators enter, this time a man and a woman. They’re better-dressed in more expensive suits. They tell me they’re with PSB — the Professional Standards Bureau — and start asking me questions about Steven Starzyk and Rebecca Mooney.
Now’s my chance. I tell them about the transcripts I was given prior to evaluating Tom. Transcript of his interviews. And one of them which, toward the end, has Mooney and Starzyk talking about contamination of the scene. On the tape, Starzyk tells Mooney to erase the last minute, but she never did.
“Interesting,” the woman says.
Once I’ve told them everything else I can, I
ask them to do me a favor.
“It depends,” the man says.
“Can you check on Frank Mills for me? He’s in Yonkers — he’s a private investigator. I asked him to help me out when . . . when this thing all began. And then he stopped responding to my texts or calls.”
“Do you have a phone number? Address?”
I give them what I have for Frank.
Once they’re gone, I try to get some rest. I doze for perhaps fifteen, twenty minutes. When I wake up, I’m briefly disoriented.
Then:
Mena . . .
She called, way back when Paul was driving me out of the woods to see Sean, and I let it go to voicemail. Then my battery died. Someone at the hospital was nice enough to loan me a charger, so I can now return her call.
She answers on the second ring. “Dr. Lindman?”
“Mena . . . how are you? Is everything all right?”
“I heard about Sean . . . I’m so sorry. How is he?”
We go through it, with me giving her the abridged version of events, and Mena gasping and sighing and worrying about me. To divert her, I ask about things at the office. “It’s been quiet. Everyone knows you’re on vacation.”
Vacation. Is that the word for what I’m on?
“Maggie Lewis’s funeral was today,” Mena says, tentative. “I didn’t want to bother you. I sent an email to remind you but didn’t call . . .”
“It’s fine, Mena.”
“I went,” Mena says. “I hope that’s okay.”
“Really? You went?”
“People saw that I was there. I thought maybe it . . . I’m sorry. I think about it now, and it was the wrong decision . . .”
“No, Mena. Not at all.”
“People will understand,” she says. “With everything you have going on. Your own family . . .”
“Mena, it’s okay. I’m not worried about appearances.”
Silence follows. I sense Mena is stuck on something. She was acting strangely when I saw her during the past weekend, too. Mena has always been introverted, even skittish. But this is something else. “Mena? Is there anything you want to talk to me about?”
HER PERFECT SECRET a totally gripping psychological thriller Page 26