But now was now, and the doors to her past were closed, and if Cassie was going to get out and into the future, this was the time.
The police car continued through the town center, streetlights going by faster now, and then up the hill toward the campus gate, a lofty redbrick arch with curves of dark wrought iron cemented onto mortared stacks of fading smooth stones leading to the rocky cobbles of the main driveway. Closer and closer to Berwick. Closer to her dorm. Closer to freedom. Maybe she should fill the time, not let anyone else talk until they arrived at Alcott’s front door. Then she would get out, say goodbye and thank you, and this would be over. Still, though, she’d have to figure out how to get Marianne to keep her mouth shut. Like, forever.
“Thinking about Mr. Duggan, though.” The detective’s voice from the front seat sounded infinitely casual. “How did you find out what happened to him?”
“Oh, our resident assistant had a big meeting,” Marianne said. The car bumped through a pothole, and she lurched forward, one knee hitting the floor. “Ow. Remember, Cass?”
Remember was all she did. But Cassie needed to close the door on this. It didn’t matter when they’d heard about Jem. This cop was just making conversation. Jem’s death was an accident, and everyone agreed, because of his old concussion and then the new one. They said so in the paper.
“I forget,” Cassie said. So yeah, forgetting about it was exactly what she would do now. Forget about the whole thing. No, she instructed herself. It never happened.
“Cass, come on, you do too remember.” Marianne looked at her, wide-eyed. “By the elevators. Rajit made us all attend. Wasn’t it, like, the day after they—he—right, Cassie? Or was it that day? The day he actually—”
“I said, I forget.”
“Really?” The detective looked over his shoulder at her again, but she was too far into the corner to make eye contact, so she saw only his profile, radiating infinite skepticism. Or maybe just curiosity. “You forget?”
“Well, I guess it was—?” Cassie put a puzzled look on her face, even though he probably couldn’t see it, but it was easier to pretend if you felt the part. And Marianne was staring at her. Definitely. “I’m trying to remember. We were all upset, because it seemed so scary.”
Now it was her turn to find out stuff. “Officer—I mean, Detective—do you think there is something to be afraid of? I mean, like, that they’re not telling us?”
“Cassie? No, wait. Seriously. You totally remember.” Marianne talked over her again. “It was the same night. Like around, eight? Or nine? Totally. Rajit called us to the elevator, and you were about to take a shower. Because of all that alcohol smell. Remember? You’d just gotten home from the—”
Cassie felt the car’s tires rumble over the lattice of snow-edged cobblestones, saw the golden warmth of Berwick’s lighted archway. She saw Alcott Hall, so near, and yet, with Marianne’s certain next word, so far away.
“Hospital,” Marianne said.
NOW
CHAPTER 40
LILY
“Witness protection,” Lily said.
Banning nodded. He and Greer sat next to each other on one long side of a rectangular dining room table, half of its glossy glass-topped mahogany covered with stacks of manila file folders. On the pale gray wall behind them, an oversize watercolor of a murky, dark forest, spiky pine trees slashed with a shaft of moonlight.
Lily, twisting a mug of green tea, sat opposite, staring at these unexpected allies, staring at the misty muddle of the watercolor, staring into her past and into her future. Equally muddled. The home—Banning’s home, he’d told her, but it didn’t feel like a detective’s house—smelled of furniture polish and pencils and old paper; those files, she supposed, that appeared to be thick with clippings and papers. As they’d walked her to the dining room, she’d glimpsed a tweedy living room couch and an expanse of organized bookcases, then a burgundy-carpeted stairway to another floor.
Much as she’d protested, they’d pulled out a curved mahogany dining room chair with a jewel-tone upholstered seat and made her sit down. The bay window behind her, curtained with filmy gauze, softened the afternoon sun.
“You know this,” Lily said. She felt the heaviness in her voice, the finality. “She’s alive. In witness protection.” She’d thought of those words in the past, from time to time, but always discarded them. And had never said them out loud. Alive. Witness protection. Protection from what?
“We think so,” Banning said.
After an entire day of not answering one thing she’d asked him, Banning had come out with it, with hardly any fanfare, as they’d taken their seats. Lily had peppered him and Greer with demands, nonstop, as they led her into the house. But they’d obviously planned for how and when to tell her, and nothing she could do or say had deterred them.
She’d wondered—worried, actually—whether this was a trap of some kind, or a trick.
But now, here in this suburban dining room, there was nothing to trap or trick her about. These two knew about Cassie. Or said they did.
“I’m listening,” she said.
“Well,” Banning began.
“Because if she’s in witness protection, protected from what? It means she had to be a witness to something. Or part of something illegal,” Lily had to interrupt. “I mean, what would that even be? We’d know that, right? And there’d have been a whole investigation.”
Lily’s mind was going so fast, as if she were a reporter working on a story, that she needed to hurry to the end of whatever sentences Banning was about to say, faster than he could get there. Whatever Cassie had witnessed was not the point. The point was—she was alive. And possibly about to reenter Lily’s life. “So whatever happened, you’re saying, she’s alive. Somewhere. Living as someone else. She could appear at any moment.”
Banning nodded.
Greer nodded.
“Not in a cemetery, or a mental institution, or a hospital. Or in prison.” All those things had plagued Lily as she’d searched, needing to know, needing to prepare for the worst, hideous bureaucratic dead beginnings or dead ends where no amount of being the famous and persuasive Lily Atwood would make a difference. And since Cassie had changed her name—which of course she had, because there were no Cassie Atwoods that could be her—then there was not even a place for Lily to start, let alone finish.
According to the Berwick police, she was a cold case. A missing person. Presumed dead.
“No,” Banning said. “Not any of those places.”
Lily spread her hands, entreating. “So then, where? Is there some reason you can’t tell me?”
Lily heard a noise, like a thump, or a footstep, coming from—upstairs? Banning and Greer exchanged glances.
“Is she here? Is Cassie here?” Lily’s heart fluttered, then pounded, as she almost came out of her seat.
“Oh, Lily, no,” Greer said.
“That’s my cat,” Banning said. “I put her upstairs, but she’s not happy.”
This time, Lily did come to her feet, planted her palms on the mahogany. “Tell me right now.” She used her quietest voice, demanding. “And Greer. What do you have to do with this?”
“Cards on the table,” Banning interrupted. “I told you—as Smith—your sister was in danger, didn’t I?”
Lily felt like bursting into tears. “Danger. From. What?”
“Let me show you this.” Banning turned to the stack of file folders. Each shaped tab was labeled with a colored sticker, the writing on them faded and obscured.
Lily watched as he searched through them, then tried to catch Greer’s eye to see if she could get some signal about what the hell was going on. But Greer kept her eyes on Banning.
“Blue label.” Greer pointed. “That one.”
Banning already had the file open, and pulled out a white business-size envelope. A name and address on the front in blocky printing, a plain flag stamp. Addressed to Detective Walter Kirkhalter at an address in Berwick, Pennsylvania. Personal,
it said in bigger block letters, and underlined. Lily tried to identify the printing, tried to remember the last time she’d seen something Cassie wrote, but only recalled a vague memory of bold strokes and flourishes.
“You recognize this?” Banning held it up.
She shook her head. She wanted to, but she didn’t. Banning lifted the flap of the envelope and drew out a piece of white paper, folded in thirds. The words on it were typed, Lily could tell, but impossible to read.
“This is not signed,” Banning said, gesturing with the still-folded paper. “The postmark is generic. It’s from my father’s correspondence.”
“It is?” Lily frowned. She eyed the stacks of files, remembering. “But your father told me—he told me the files on Cassie were gone. Vanished, somehow, after he retired. Which I didn’t believe, even then. When I pushed him on it, he got angry. So you’re saying these are his files? So he lied to me. And what’s that paper?”
The thump came from upstairs again.
Banning’s face darkened.
“Banning—” Greer began.
“It’s okay.” Banning took a deep breath, his dark eyes flinty. “My father was a good cop, Lily. He was honest, and reliable, but above all, wanted justice. Even though sometimes it was his own brand.”
“That’s the cat, you promise.” Lily felt frayed around the edges, besieged. The possibility that Cassie was upstairs made her knees unsteady. That Cassie might come down those carpeted steps made her brain go thin.
“Yes,” Banning said. “Cassie’s not here. Like I said. But if she were—”
“But she’s not.”
“She’s not. But if she were—well, there’s no one else but you who’d recognize her, that’s the thing. Corroborate her identity. Especially if she wanted to hide it. No one else who might know things that only Cassie would know. If we ask her, and she denies it, there’s no way to prove it.”
“We?” Lily searched their faces, but both were looking at her without expression. “Who’s we? And if? So you’re not sure.”
“Everyone else who knew her as Cassie is long gone or dead,” Banning went on. “Your mother. Your grandmother. The few people she knew in college—they can’t help.”
“She’s been gone for more than twenty years, Lily,” Greer said. “She was at Berwick for—not for very long.”
Lily pressed her lips together, thinking of family, and loss, and how the only reason families stayed families, stayed in touch, was that they wanted to. If they didn’t, the bonds were easily broken, relationships ignored, memories forgotten. Family became a random coincidence of genetics, mutated by time and distance and desire.
“Eighty-three days,” Lily said. She envisioned Cassie’s calendar in that spiral notebook. The crossed-off days. She and her mom had counted them and calculated with them, wondering what Cassie was waiting for. “She had a calen—never mind. So why do you think she’s in witness protection? What’s the letter? And are those your father’s files, Banning? Why did he tell me they were gone?”
“I know what he told you,” Banning said. “He explained it to me—your visit, and your questions, and your persistence. But I, like everyone else, thought your sister’s case defeated him. And when his files went missing—”
“Did he think someone was interfering with the investigation?” Lily interrupted.
“He never spoke of it again. Where she was. Why he’d stopped looking. No matter how often I asked. But I had to find out exactly what happened to her. Kind of why I became a detective. Then after my father died, this letter arrived.”
He held it up again.
“We were all distracted, and the unopened mail piled up, and my mother—” He handed it to her. “We didn’t find it until later.”
Lily flapped open the top, then the bottom. No date, no signature. The words were typed in the middle of the page.
Thank you so much, the letter said. You have given me a perfect life. And I am grateful for it every day. But I want to be me again. And I miss my little sister. Watching her is not enough. Is it finally safe now? Let me know. I want to come home.
BEFORE
CHAPTER 41
CASSIE
Cassie stared at her own hands, fingers interlaced, clenched in front of her on a long rectangular table. She sat, alone, in a metal folding chair in a windowless room at the Berwick police station, her puffer vest draped around her. It was too chilly in here to take it off, but too stifling with it on. Strips of fluorescent lights buzzed above her, and an empty chair waited across the table. Someone had tried to soften the room, unsuccessfully, by sticking a tilty plastic ficus in one corner. She’d taken a chance coming here, understanding it was risky, understanding the stakes. And now there was no turning back.
Hospital. Marianne had said that word just as they’d turned onto Berwick’s cobblestoned driveway. Cassie hadn’t responded. Neither had the detective. Cassie thought she’d seen the detective’s shoulders stiffen as he steered them farther into the campus. But he’d said nothing, not a word in response, and driven in silence up to the front doors of Alcott Hall. Maybe he didn’t hear her say it, Cassie had hoped. Or didn’t care. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe she’d worried about nothing, and she’d get out of the back seat and never see this person again.
The detective had stopped the car, kept the engine running, shifted into park.
“Thank you,” Marianne had said, “so much. It’s incredibly cold, and I’d probably have gotten the flu or something if…” She’d rattled at the handle of her door. It didn’t open.
Cassie did the same thing. Her door didn’t work either. She kept her hand on the molded plastic.
“I control the back doors.” The detective had sounded congenial, even amused. “Don’t want the bad guys getting away, right?”
Something clicked, and Marianne’s door unlocked. Cassie’s didn’t.
“Can you un—” Cassie began.
“Ms. Atwood will join you in a moment,” the detective told Marianne. He pushed something, and the grated screen between them purred down, leaving the space between the front and back seats open. “I have a question or two for Cassie.”
He twisted his body to look at her, one jacketed elbow bent over the curve of the front. A blast of cold hit Cassie from Marianne’s open door, and the distance of sidewalk between her and her dorm’s front entryway seemed as far as the moon.
Hospital, Marianne had said. Cassie could almost hear the dominoes falling.
“Cool.” Marianne turned, bent her head back inside of the cruiser. “Questions because she was at the explosion thing, right? And knew Professor Shaw?”
“Something like that.” The detective pointed at Marianne. “Can you close that, please? Getting chilly in here. The heater can’t compete.”
Cassie tried her door again, expecting nothing, got nothing, and winced as Marianne’s door slammed closed. She watched her roommate stride up the front walk, then turn, smiling in the lamplight, to give her a last finger-flutter of a wave before she went inside to innocent safety. Cassie, heart sinking, had given up on the door handle, and sat as deep into the corner of the back seat as she could. This would be a turning point, she knew it. That one word, hospital, had given everything away. There would be no more cross-outs on her calendar. She’d been free, but that was all over.
She’d been in the freezing back seat of a police car, with a detective who was only pretending to be nice. She’d seen drugs. She’d left a man, unconscious, without even calling for help. He’d died, and she could have saved him. But she hadn’t. She’d had her chance, been smart, and made herself pretty, and worked hard to get where she was. And now—after that one tiny word from her oblivious roommate—it would all come out. She’d destroyed her own life along with Jem’s.
She wondered if there’d be a trial. How she’d pay for a lawyer. She wondered what jail was like. Her mother would pretend to be sympathetic, but no matter what Cassie said, or how she tried to explain, Mumma would never tr
uly believe her. And Lily. Lily, little innocent Lillow, would grow up with a sister in prison.
“My name is Walt Kirkhalter,” the detective had introduced himself in the car. “Detective Kirkhalter.”
“Hi,” she’d said, ridiculously. She was eighteen, so she guessed he could talk to her without her parents and ask her stuff. There must be rules, but she didn’t know them.
Kirkhalter shifted in his seat, apparently trying to see her. He unclicked his seat belt. Turned to face her. “It’s difficult to talk like this, Ms. Atwood, with you over on that side. And no need to cringe away from me. You can leave the car at any time. Would you like to go inside the dorm? I’m happy to come back. Stop by and see you at your convenience.”
“That’s okay.” Come back? The police? To her dorm? No, thank you. She undid her own seat belt and scooted over to the middle of the back seat, compromising. Put a cooperative look on her face. “You said you had questions?”
The rumble of the engine and the whir of the heater filled the space between them. Kirkhalter buzzed down his window, just a crack, letting in a sliver of the night. Through her own window, Cassie saw dark shadows move across the campus paths, silhouettes of students in pairs or packs, randomly illuminated by the ranks of gaslights lining the walkways. Cassie heard a peal of laughter. It felt like she would never laugh again.
“We would have found you, you know.” Kirkhalter broke their silence. “I’ll give it to you straight. Jeremy Duggan’s building has a pretty suspicious super, lives on the ground floor. And this guy, well…” Kirkhalter shook his head as if amused. “Some people, you know? Don’t have enough to do. Anyway. He does a lot of watching. He saw you go in with Mr. Duggan. The Friday he died. And then he saw you come out. Alone.”
“He saw me?” Cassie, frowning, tried to envision it, remembered a wrought iron fence with—maybe—basement windows below. She didn’t remember windows. But she didn’t remember no windows. Now it was almost too late to deny it. “Um, it was Jem’s apartment, so he lived there, so of course he wouldn’t come out. Wait. How did he know it was me, though?”
Her Perfect Life Page 21
