The whooshing sound returns and fire rolls across the hallway ceiling to the library. I look at my pajamas and know I can’t survive.
Cyrus is yelling for me to get out. How? There’s no escape. The kitchen ceiling has collapsed, leaving the claw-footed bath where the table used to be. Flames have reached the front rooms, blocking the hallway. I hear the sound of smashing glass. Hoses are blasting water through the windows, turning spray to steam, but the fire has taken hold.
“Get out, Evie! Get out!”
I pull at the tape around his wrists and run my fingers down the lathe-turned spindle. Bending my leg, I kick hard, but I’m barefoot and don’t have the strength to break the wood. I scramble up the stairs and retrieve the pistol. Holding the barrel against the spindle, I unlock the safety and pull the trigger. The noise is louder than I expect, louder than the guns on TV and in films. Cyrus pulls free, scrambling to his feet, taking me with him.
“This way,” he says, tugging at my sleeve, wanting me to follow.
“What about her?”
“She’s dead.”
70
* * *
CYRUS
* * *
Christ, Evie! Where in God’s name did you get a gun?
We’ve reached the landing. Thick black smoke has filled the stairwell. Evie is coughing so hard she doubles over and curls up on the floor.
“Stay with me,” I yell, making her focus. I put her hands on the back of my belt and close her fingers. “Don’t let go.”
I crawl blindly across the landing, leading Evie. Feeling my way, I find her bedroom door and then her bed. My head bumps against the far wall. I reach for the sash window, pull it up, and lean outside, taking deep gulps of air.
Evie?
She’s let go of me. I drop to my knees and feel for her, touching her hair. At that moment, flames sweep past the bedroom door, feeding on the oxygen from the open window.
I drag her to her feet and lean her body outside, telling her to breathe. Poppy is below us in the garden, barking and leaping up the wall, planting her paws on the bricks as though wanting to climb.
I lift Evie onto the window ledge with her feet dangling out. The garden is twenty feet below us. A jump like that will break her legs. Where are the ladders? The firemen? On the wrong side of the house.
I take Evie’s wrists and lower her down so that she’s dangling above Poppy, but it’s still too high.
“Let go,” she yells as a window blows out beneath us and glass scatters through the shrubbery.
I notice a downpipe to my right, but it’s too far for Evie to reach. Four feet. More. I begin to move my shoulders, swinging her back and forth, building up momentum. She gets the idea and kicks with her legs, swinging out farther, but I can’t hold her much longer.
Her fingertips touch the downpipe, but she’s unable to hold on and slides away. I swing her one more time and let go. She wraps her hands around the black-painted metal and clings on. Slipping down. Safe. It’s my turn. I can’t make a jump like that. I doubt if the pipe can take my weight.
These old houses know how to burn with their dry timbers and drafty rooms. My history is in flames. Family photographs. Books. Heirlooms. Memories.
Smoke billows past me and I can’t see the pipe anymore. I can’t see Evie or Poppy. I can’t breathe.
I hear her voice, yelling at me, but not the words. I lower myself out of the window, clinging by my fingertips, my shoes scrabbling for a toehold in the mortared bricks. I’m ready for the fall . . . for whatever comes. But as I let go, strong hands find my feet, directing me onto the rungs of a ladder, helping me down one step at a time through the smoke. My feet touch soft earth and I wheel around, stumbling a dozen paces before falling to my knees, coughing as though my lungs might slither out of my throat and convulse on the grass.
Evie has her arms around me, her head buried in my neck. The girl without tears is crying. Her wet cheeks are smeared with soot that clings to her like a second skin, except for around her eyes, giving her the appearance of an emaciated cartoon panda.
I wrap my arms around her. Holding her. Feeling her sob.
Meanwhile jets of water arc over the rooftop, falling onto our heads like rain.
“Where did you get the gun?”
“I stole it from Felix.”
“Why?”
“In case they come.”
71
* * *
ANGEL FACE
* * *
I’m sitting on my bed, sticking pictures in a scrapbook. Cyrus will be here soon. He tries to come every day, when he can, bringing me cigarettes and chocolate fingers and pictures of Poppy. Poppy in the park. Poppy chasing squirrels. Poppy drinking from the birdbath. Poppy wading in the pond.
Langford Hall is the same. The food. The routines. The staff. I’m used to it now. I feel safe here.
I once read a story about how inmates sometimes get so used to being behind bars they don’t want to leave. I can’t imagine myself ever getting to be like that, but I can survive this. I’ve lived through worse.
Other girls my age are going to parties or getting a job or hanging out with friends, but I don’t want any of those things. I wouldn’t know what to do with that sort of life. That’s why I don’t have a calendar on the wall or a clock in my room. I don’t want to see time passing. Instead, I’ve become an expert at existing and letting each day play out like the one before.
I miss Poppy. I miss Cyrus. I wish he didn’t blame himself for what happened.
“It was nobody’s fault,” I told him. “Bad luck follows me around.”
“You don’t believe in luck,” he replied, and I knew that he understood.
Cyrus can’t foster me again. They say he put me in danger and involved me in a murder investigation. The gun would have sealed the deal. I was ready to take the blame, but Cyrus said they’d keep me locked up for longer, or send me to an adult prison or a general psych hospital. Guthrie would love that. So I told the police that Felicity had the gun and nobody could prove otherwise.
Davina knocks on the door. “Your boyfriend’s here.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Well, why are you smiling?”
“Fuck off!”
“I love you, too.” She laughs as she disappears down the corridor, tossing her dreads and swinging her hips.
Cyrus pokes his head around the corner.
“Hi!”
“Hello.”
He hugs me. I stiffen. I wonder if I’ll ever get used to someone touching me like that.
“I have a surprise,” he says.
“More photographs.”
“Better.”
He wants me to close my eyes. I look at him suspiciously, but obey, letting him lead me out of my room and along the hallway. He tells me to mind my step when he opens the sliding door to the courtyard.
Poppy is tied to a baby tree, trying to rip it out of the ground. Let loose, she leaps all over me, pushing me backwards onto the grass, licking my face and hands.
Cyrus sits on a concrete bench and watches while we chase, wrestle, and run. Later, exhausted, I sit beside him. Normally I’d light a cigarette but I’m trying to quit.
“How have you been?” he asks.
“Fine.”
“Are you sleeping?”
“Yeah.”
He always starts this way—with the simple questions—before he begins asking me about my dreams and earliest memories; my fears and regrets.
“Victims of childhood abuse often dissociate,” he says, talking like a textbook. “They block out cognitive links and emotions. Sometimes they do it so completely, it’s as if they never consciously experienced trauma. That could be why you have so few memories.”
“It could be,” I say.
“Whatever was done to you as a child, it wasn’t your fault.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to blame yourself.”
“I don’t.”
I know
what Cyrus wants. Details. Facts. He wants to climb down into the same sewer that I escaped from. He wants to join me in the filth and lead me out again. He wants to know what went through my mind during all those hours, days, and weeks. What I heard. Why I stayed hidden. How I managed to stay alive.
I remember it all. I remember nothing important.
“I can understand you wanting to forget some things,” he says. “But don’t you want to know who you are or if you have family?”
“I have no family.”
“You mentioned your mother.”
“I won’t talk about her.”
“What about your childhood?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me,” says Cyrus. “And it will to you, if you let it.”
I sigh and close my eyes. “You want to go where I have been.”
“Yes.”
“To see what I have seen.”
“I think I’m owed.”
“I can’t go back there.”
“I’m not asking you to go back.”
“Yes, you are. You want to open up my mind and peer inside, but I am not a plaything. I am not an experiment.”
“I know what he did to you—what he took.”
I feel myself getting angry. “You know nothing.”
“Where did he find you?”
“He didn’t find me.”
“Come on, Evie, help me. Don’t let this monster win.”
“He’s not a monster.”
“He kidnapped you. He locked you up.”
“No.”
“He deserved to die.”
“Don’t you dare say that!”
“Hostages often grow attached to their captors, but that’s not love, Evie. Kidnapping a child. Imprisoning her. Abusing her. You can’t think that’s love.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Explain it to me.”
My eyes are fractured with tears that refuse to fall. “You want to know about love?” I whisper. “Love is allowing yourself to be tortured to death rather than tell people where someone is hiding. Love is dying slowly and horribly, rather than betraying them. You think Terry was a monster. You think he locked me in a room and abused me. You’re wrong. He died rather than tell them where I was hiding. He saved me.”
“Saved you from who?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“He made me promise.”
“That’s not a promise, Evie. It’s a threat.”
I give him a pitying stare and shake my head.
“Just tell me your real name,” he says. “Surely I deserve that much.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Everybody I love dies. I can’t let that happen to you.”
72
* * *
CYRUS
* * *
My nightmares no longer involve my family. Evie inhabits my dreams, calling my name, hiding in a dark place as chaos unfolds around her. I cannot save her. I can never run fast enough or jump high enough or reach far enough to grab her fingertips as she falls past me into the void. I wake screaming, damp with sweat, my heart hammering and her name dying on my lips.
I don’t know what triggered the explosion that killed Felicity Whitaker and destroyed part of my house. It could have been the central heating kicking in or static electricity, or maybe Felicity changed her mind. Evie doesn’t believe that. She saw the truth.
I was wrong about many things. Terry Boland didn’t abduct Evie and lock her in a secret room. He didn’t sexually abuse her or force her to live off scraps and dog food. I don’t know what is more disturbing—the notion of his innocence or the knowledge that he died protecting her.
One thing is worse—the realization that she heard it happen. She listened to him screaming as the acid was poured into his ears and hot pokers burnt away his eyelids. She heard them calling her name, ripping up carpets, toppling furniture, punching holes through walls.
How many days did they search for her? How many nights? Come out, come out, wherever you are.
Evie stayed hidden. She’s still hiding. It’s why she took the gun. It’s why she slept with a knife beneath her pillow. It’s why she constantly looks over her shoulder, searching for figures in the shadows, people watching her from doorways or parked cars or white vans.
Sometimes late at night, when I hear a car door slam or footsteps on the pavement, or the scaffolding rattle, I imagine someone is climbing towards Evie’s old room, trying to find her. I get up and navigate around the paint tins and bags of plaster, wishing the builders would finish soon. I check the windows are locked and go back to bed, but I won’t sleep again.
Evie will stay at Langford Hall, at least until next September, when she turns eighteen. I won’t be allowed to foster her again, but Caroline Fairfax is quietly hopeful that Evie’s release date will be honored. After that, I don’t know what will happen. Maybe they’ll send her to a secure psych unit like Arnold Lodge in Leicester or she’ll begin a program of day release. I’m hoping for the latter.
Will Evie ever be free? I wish I knew. It’s like that old story of the man who falls into the river and is dragged downstream towards the waterfall. A fisherman holds out a rod and says, “Grab hold, I’ll pull you in,” but the man replies, “It’s OK, God will save me.” Then a hiker leans from a fallen log and says, “Grab my hand, I’ll lift you out,” but the man waves to him and says, “God will save me.” Finally, a helicopter hovers overhead and a crewman throws down a rope ladder. The drowning man ignores the offer, saying, “Don’t worry, God will save me.” Moments later he crashes over the waterfall and perishes on the rocks below. Later, at the Gates of Heaven, he says to God, “Hey, didn’t you see me down there? Why didn’t you save me?” And God replies, “I tried three times, but you turned me away.”
I’m the last person who should be telling religious jokes, heathen that I am, but Evie Cormac cannot do this on her own.
Many years ago, a university lecturer of mine, Joe O’Loughlin, told me that a truly effective psychologist is someone who commits, who goes into the darkness to bring someone out. “When a person is drowning, someone has to get wet,” he said.
I’m ready to get wet, Evie. Hold on.
Acknowledgments
* * *
Writing is a solitary profession, but publishing is a team effort. I am supported by a wonderful group of editors, agents, designers, marketing reps, and publishers who release my stories into the world. Without them I’d be the proverbial tree falling in an empty forest.
I do want to acknowledge Colin Harrison, Lucy Malagoni, Rebecca Saunders, Alex Craig, Mark Lucas, and Richard Pine, who read the early manuscript and gave me their fearless and considered advice.
This book introduces a new character, Evie Cormac, a brilliant, engaging, damaged, and self-destructive teenager. I have helped raise three daughters who are nothing like Evie, yet are responsible for her parts. Thank you Alex, Charlotte, and Bella.
My partner in life, if not crime, deserves equal praise. Vivien is the glue that holds us together and that beacon that brings us home. She is our family.
A Scribner Reading Group Guide
Good Girl, Bad Girl
Michael Robotham
This reading group guide for Good Girl, Bad Girl includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
From internationally bestselling author Michael Robotham, Good Girl, Bad Girl is a psychological thriller about a forensic psychologist caught between two cases—one girl who needs to be saved, and another who needs justice.
A girl is discovered hiding in a secret room in the aftermath of a terrible crime. Half-starved and filthy, she won
’t tell anyone her name, or her age, or where she came from. Maybe she is twelve, maybe fifteen. She doesn’t appear in any missing persons file, and her DNA can’t be matched to an identity. Six years later, still unidentified, she is living in a secure children’s home with a new name, Evie Cormac. When she initiates a court case demanding the right to be released as an adult, forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven must determine if Evie is ready to go free. But she is unlike anyone he’s ever met—fascinating and dangerous in equal measure. Evie knows when someone is lying, and no one around her is telling the truth.
Meanwhile, Cyrus is called in to investigate the shocking murder of a high school figure-skating champion, Jodie Sheehan, who dies on a lonely footpath close to her home. Pretty and popular, Jodie is portrayed by everyone as the ultimate girl next door, but as Cyrus peels back the layers, a secret life emerges—one that Evie Cormac, the girl with no past, knows something about. A man haunted by his own tragic history, what price will Cyrus pay for the truth?
Topics and Questions for Discussion
1. Good Girl, Bad Girl opens with an epigraph from Oscar Wilde, “The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” After reading the novel, do you agree with this assessment?
2. How did you feel about following two points of view throughout the entire novel? How does the Michael Robotham establish distinct voices for Cyrus and Evie/“Angel Face”? Why do you think he chose to use Angel Face as chapter titles, instead of Evie Cormac? Did this change how you viewed the character?
3. Even though Cyrus says his doctoral thesis disproved the existence of “truth wizards,” do you think he still believes they exist? Is it possible that Evie is a truth wizard? Or is she just extraordinarily perceptive? If she is a truth wizard, do you think it’s a gift or a curse?
Good Girl, Bad Girl Page 35
