Beneath it was just one sentence.
Trust me.
CHAPTER FIVE
ALICE
August 2, 2018
Four days after the kidnapping
Alice and Nakamura paused just outside the front door of the Burke mansion. She raised an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged for her to take the lead, his decision made. Sometimes she wished he was an asshole, so she wouldn’t have to like him. He never was, though.
After Alice rapped on the thick wood, they waited for several minutes in silence until the door finally opened. Mellie Burke stood on the other side, draped from head to toe in black, even though it had only been three hours since they’d found Ruby.
Mellie, Charlotte’s older sister, was a miniature version of Hollis. She and her daughter, Trudy, shared the signature platinum-blonde hair of the matriarch, though the older women probably relied heavily on the skill of their hairdresser for the look. And like every other member of the family, she was as slim as a reed.
But whereas Alice had found Charlotte and Hollis to be reserved, Mellie was wild dramatics tumbling out over thick mascaraed eyelashes toward a neck that was bedecked with thousands of dollars’ worth of diamonds. Expensive, but somehow gaudy. That was Mellie.
She was a good ten years older than Charlotte, closer to Alice’s own age than her sister’s. The extra years had carved lines around the corners of the woman’s eyes and lips. She would not hold up as well as Hollis had.
“Oh, Detective.” Mellie ignored Alice to drape herself over Nakamura, her long, painted nails digging into the front of his shirt as she buried her head in the nook of his shoulder. “I just heard.”
Ever the professional, Nakamura disengaged himself from Mellie’s grasp without actually appearing to do so, holding her by the shoulders at arm’s length.
“Ms. Burke.” He nudged her upright before letting his hands drop completely. “We’re very sorry for your loss. We’re here to ask Charlotte some questions.”
“Of course.” Mellie cast one last appreciative glance over Nakamura’s lean body, then sighed and turned, gesturing them to follow. Alice rarely thought about it, but she supposed the man was attractive, in an older-gentleman sort of way that called to women who were looking for an authoritative figure.
He was average height but had toned muscles that gave him a certain presence. His hair was jet-black and threaded through with silver. Broad shoulders tapered down to a narrow waist. This wasn’t the first time he’d been hit on in the course of an investigation.
Alice glanced away from his questioning look.
They’d been in the house several times, so it wasn’t unfamiliar to her. It was sparse, like rich houses often were. Knickknacks were kept to a minimum, and white was the overpowering decorative choice. There was a large oil painting of the entire clan hanging in the entryway. Sterling sat in the middle of it with Hollis standing at his side, one dainty hand resting on his shoulder. She wore an ice-blue suit to match his dark charcoal one. Mellie and Charlotte were in shades of gray while Ruby and Trudy matched their grandmother.
Alice’s eyes lingered on Ruby’s smile, the dimples that dented in those round cheeks.
These types of ostentatious paintings were for rich people. But there was a sentiment there that Alice recognized. This is us, this is our family, it said.
The one Alice had hung up in the living room had been a charcoal caricature of Lila and her that she’d bought for five dollars at a local fair. The edges of their faces were a bit smudged from her four-year-old’s grubby hands, but the message was the same: This is us. This is our family.
When Lila had looked at it months later and asked why there wasn’t a daddy in the picture, Alice had wrapped her arms around the girl’s chest and pulled her into a tight embrace. She’d whispered the lie, “Because I love you too much to share.”
Nakamura bumped her shoulder, and she realized Mellie was halfway down the hall to the study.
She flushed at her own distraction.
“The poor love,” Mellie was saying as they caught up with her. Mellie didn’t seem to realize they hadn’t been there the whole time. “She’s almost inconsolable. Not that I blame her, of course.”
“Where were you last night?” They’d have to wait for the autopsy to have an official time of death to confront suspects with, but it didn’t hurt to ask.
The question stopped the woman midstep, and she teetered on six-inch stilettos as she tried to collect herself.
“Out with some friends,” Mellie said, her eyes shuttering. The shadows of the hallway hid half of her face. “I would never hurt Ruby, Detective.”
Alice ignored the second part. “They’ll be able to corroborate that? And how late were you out?”
“Of course, yes,” Mellie said, and she shifted so the light fell along her face once more. It was too harsh against the woman’s pale skin. “I’ll give you a list. I didn’t get home until about four in the morning.”
“Is that usual?” Nakamura asked from where he’d settled by Alice’s shoulder.
“Not . . . every night.” The answer was slow, uncertain, despite the lack of censure in Nakamura’s voice. It was strange, though, for her to go partying three days after her niece was kidnapped. “Charlotte said . . .”
She trailed off, the corners of her mouth tipping down.
“Charlotte said what?” Alice asked.
“That I should go.” Mellie was back to being defensive for her own sake, not for Charlotte’s. It was selfish and stupid when talking to the detectives leading the case. “She said it would help me relax, after a stressful few days.”
Stressful because her niece was missing and possibly dead. Alice’s gut told her that the alibis would come through. But it was interesting that Charlotte had been the one to tell her to go.
Mellie looked between them, her fingers playing with the expensive jeweled ring on her hand.
“Please get us that list,” Alice finally said.
Mellie nodded, then stepped toward the closed door to the study, her hand hovering over the knob. She leaned in to Alice as if they were confidantes.
“I’ve never seen her look so dreadful,” Mellie faux-whispered, the oversweet scent of her perfume making Alice dizzy. “It would do wonders for her if she would just run a comb through her hair. Not that I blame her, of course.”
Alice dismissed the woman from her mind. She was vicious but in a way that was neither clever nor intelligent. Alice didn’t have the patience for stupid cruelty.
Mellie, her smugness dropping a bit at Alice’s lack of response, finally turned the handle to the study.
The room was dark, the blinds blocking the harsh morning rays. It was decorated for a man who considered himself an intellectual. Thick books lined up like soldiers on the shelves running along the back wall; deep burgundy chairs stood sentry by an old-fashioned drink cart that offered up a variety of brown-colored liquors in heavy crystal decanters; and a massive, shiny desk that was surely a metaphor about compensating for something stood prominently in the middle of the room.
Charlotte, by contrast, was a tiny, hunched figure that was all but swallowed up by the dark masculinity of the room. Her legs were tucked against her chest, her thin arms wrapped around her knees, her cheek resting on the tops of them. The long fall of red curls tumbled around her shoulders, partially hiding the vulnerability on her face.
She was barefoot, her toenails painted a bright, shimmery pink. Perhaps it was an inane thing to notice. Alice noticed anyway.
Everything about the woman was fragile, it seemed—the curve of her shoulder, the wet lashes that clung to pale cheeks, the hitch of each breath as if it were painful to drag in oxygen.
This was the worst part. The questions. Alice knew them well.
“Where were you when it happened?”
“What was going on?”
“Did you get distracted? Look away? No? Not even for a split second?”
Those were innocent enoug
h.
The doubt, the judgment, the blame began to creep in with each progressive ask—subtlety giving way to thinly veiled accusations.
“Were you drinking?”
“Were you distracted by a man?”
“On that note, when was the last time you had sex?”
Because that somehow related to how her daughter had been kidnapped.
Alice had taken it, just as Charlotte had that first day Ruby went missing. The repulsion, the disbelief, the confusion, and then the resigned acceptance on the woman’s face had been a mirror of Alice’s so many years ago.
This was what it was like to be a mother who had just lost her child.
“Ms. Burke,” Alice said, keeping her voice even and low so as not to startle the woman.
Charlotte turned damp blue eyes on them. They locked with Alice’s, and Alice could read the pure emptiness that was there. This was not the same woman who had sat across from them in that chair four days earlier.
That’s what people didn’t understand about this grief. It was fundamental. The person you were before this happened was eviscerated, destroyed. In its place was someone unrecognizable.
“We’re sorry for your loss,” Nakamura said, glancing at Alice before settling into one of the seats in front of the desk. It scared him, this new Charlotte.
Charlotte blinked at them, then lifted one slim shoulder. The movement was enough to get Alice to sit.
“Charlotte, we’d like to ask you a few questions.” Alice kept her voice soft in a way she wouldn’t have in any other investigation. Kindness was easily read as weakness. “Charlotte. Do you have any idea who would want to hurt Ruby?”
They’d asked her the question already. They’d asked her many times, and they’d asked everyone who came even into the brief periphery of the case. No, of course not. That was the standard answer.
But sometimes shock rattled repressed memories loose. That man who stood too close at a store, that woman who was a bit too helpful so she could talk to Ruby, the family acquaintance who focused a bit too much on the little girl. So they had to ask again.
Something flickered across Charlotte’s face, but she pressed her mouth tight and shook her head. “No, of course not.”
Nakamura stilled. He’d seen it, too, that flash of something, come and gone so quickly.
“Anything at all you can think of, Charlotte,” Alice said. “No matter how silly or little it may seem to you. It could start us down a path we hadn’t been considering.”
Charlotte’s eyes lingered on Alice, searching. The scrutiny was unnerving, but Alice held her gaze, willing her to say something, anything that could direct the investigation.
“Anyone in this household, perhaps?” Alice said. Quiet, so quiet. She didn’t want to frighten Charlotte into silence.
There was a brief moment, as Charlotte’s lips parted, when Alice thought, Maybe. Maybe this was when the secrets would finally slip out, the ones that confirmed this family was a nest of vipers desperate to sink poisonous fangs into one another. It would be easier if Charlotte verified what they all knew anyway.
But what came out was: “No, of course not.”
Alice covered her disappointment by flipping to a new sheet in her notebook. Charlotte had to already know that it wouldn’t be long before every single officer in the precinct thought she was guilty, and that the rest of the world would be quick to follow. Public opinion, once it took root, was hard to overturn.
“How about Ruby’s father?” Alice prodded. They’d already gone down this rabbit hole in the hours following the kidnapping. Who was he? Was he in Ruby’s life? No? Why not?
Charlotte had given them only the briefest answers. It had been a one-night stand, someone passing through the city on a business trip. He didn’t even know about Ruby.
Alice had pressed. “Are you sure he didn’t find out? Would he be angry if he had? Enough to come down here and do something about it?”
Whatever color had been left in Charlotte’s cheeks at the time had drained, and she’d flinched. “I’m absolutely certain that’s not what happened,” she’d said. There’d been a conviction in her voice that Alice was inclined to believe despite the fact that she was so clearly lying about the father.
Charlotte studied her now but had slipped behind a mask that even Alice couldn’t read. “No. It wasn’t him.”
Nakamura shifted, and Alice knew he wanted to pursue that line. Alice sympathized with Nakamura’s frustration but also recognized a brick wall when she saw one.
So she pivoted in a different direction.
“Where were you last night, Ms. Burke?” Alice asked. If the woman wasn’t willing to play ball, she’d realize their sympathy extended only so far.
Unblinking, Charlotte placed her hands palms down on the wood of the desk. “I didn’t kill my child,” she said finally, everything about her flat, detached.
The words hung in the air as if Alice could reach out and touch them, stroke the downward slashes and curves of each letter.
“Who said you did?” Alice asked.
Charlotte looked away, toward the window that was completely blocked off by the curtains.
“You will.”
CHAPTER SIX
CHARLOTTE
July 22, 2018
One week before the kidnapping
The air conditioner in the church was broken, and the heat sat like a heavy hand on Charlotte’s chest.
The ladies in the pew in front of her had thick paper fans they used to move the stale air, as if that would offer some relief.
She was using every bit of willpower within her not to swipe at the beads of sweat along her temple. Hollis would be livid, and it wasn’t worth the lecture. Charlotte had always wondered if her mother equated sweat with weakness, discomfort with vulnerability.
Hollis, in her perfectly tailored blazer, was immobile beside her, eyes locked on the priest. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t see even the smallest movement from any one of the Burkes. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t catalog the grave offense in the little scorecard she kept tucked away in her head.
But Charlotte was functioning on almost no sleep. When she’d crawled into bed to curl around Ruby that morning after talking with Trudy on the porch, she hadn’t been able to still her thoughts long enough to slip into the darkness. Instead, she’d watched the light as it crept across the carpet, up along their legs, until it cradled Ruby’s face. The girl had blinked awake, disgruntled for the second before she realized Charlotte was there with her. Then she’d smiled—bright, happy—Charlotte’s absence in the night forgiven or forgotten.
Now, Charlotte pressed the tip of her finger to the white painted wood of the pew, searching for the sharp point of a wayward splinter. Perhaps the pain would let her focus on something other than the loose board of the lazy fan above them that rattled at each turn, and the dampness under her breasts. Ruby banged the back of her heel against the underside of the seats in a rhythm that was off, just slightly, from the beat of Charlotte’s heart. It raced trying to catch up and then trying to slow down, but Ruby’s foot stayed at that same steady pace, and Charlotte couldn’t quite match it.
Everything was itchy. If only she could dig her pointer finger into her scalp and let the jagged nail do its work. To let it scrape at the dried skin cells there, to leave raw, angry red lines, to draw blood, to create scars. Anything to stop the fire that burned just beyond her actual reach.
The waistband of her skirt cut into her hip bones, and she arched her spine, shifting to ease at least that discomfort.
Hollis’s fingers found Charlotte’s wrist, her thumb pressing against the pulse point there. It was a warning, and Charlotte stilled immediately, the memory of countless bruises a strong incentive to listen.
But the tension in her muscles remained, the fibers nearly tearing from the bones with the tightness of it all.
The grip on her wrist didn’t release, so she couldn’t move and she couldn’t relax and she could
n’t breathe and she couldn’t think and she couldn’t, she couldn’t, she couldn’t.
Then she was floating. The air became soft, and it glittered in the light that streamed in from the windows. She chased one of the dancing sparkles with fingers that weren’t her fingers and giggled when it escaped her. Her body was wrapped in a cool sheet, and her lashes kissed her cheeks in delight. The fabric caressed her limbs, draping itself along her thighs that were no longer slick with sweat, over the stretch of her ribs, into the valleys of her collarbones. It was lovely. Everything was so lovely.
It was Hollis who brought her back with a simple tug. Charlotte blinked. The fogginess lingered, but it was no longer pleasant. All that was left was a grogginess that weighed on her spine, and she didn’t know what had just happened.
She’d been in the church. But she hadn’t been.
Her first instinct was to scoop Ruby up and run. Run and never stop. She looked at her baby girl, who was watching Charlotte, her little bow lips turned down at the corners, her foot paused midair, her head tipped to the side. It was like Ruby could see her so clearly.
Something caught in the back of her throat. Children were not supposed to see their parents clearly.
So instead of pulling her from the pew in a panic, Charlotte crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue. She was rewarded with a giggle that was easy and relaxed. Wind chimes on the first day of spring. And everything snapped back into place.
The odd tension drained out of Ruby, and she was once again a five-year-old, bored and hot and uncomfortable, quiet only because of the threat of her grandmother and the whispered promise of ice cream if she held on a little longer.
Charlotte’s fingers, her teeth, her knees—they were all hers again. The waistband that had been the final trigger still dug into her flesh. The heat was still unbearable.
The world hadn’t tilted along with her, it seemed.
Each of the final minutes of the Mass were heavy and loaded. Charlotte counted the seconds in her head, and the task kept her tethered to reality. That floating place stayed in the back of her mind, though, seductive as any drug-induced oblivion. It was a terrifying desire, to go back there, but she wanted it anyway.
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