Chương 5
My borrowed sweatshirt smelled like fabric softener.
I pulled the sleeves over my hands.
“What happens if Garrett believes we died?”
Tobias looked at Evelyn.
She looked back at him.
I hated that too.
“He moves,” Tobias said.
“Money, documents, people, whatever he prepared for after our deaths.”
“Penelope.”
“Yes.”
“She’s pregnant.”
“I saw.”
“You knew about her?”
“No.”
That answer came too fast to be prepared.
I believed it, which somehow made things worse.
I closed my eyes.
Penelope was nine years younger than me.
Our father’s affair had produced her during the ugliest year of our parents’ marriage, and our mother had nevertheless insisted she be treated as family after Penelope’s mother died.
I had spent half my childhood resenting a child for existing.
Then I had spent most of adulthood trying to make up for it.
I paid her college tuition when she lost a scholarship.
I helped her move apartments twice.
When Garrett proposed to me, Penelope cried harder than I did.
She had stood beside me at the wedding in pale blue silk and held my bouquet while I signed the marriage certificate.
“She knew I was in that car.”
Tobias said nothing.
“She stood there.”
“Yes.”
“She watched.”
His silence was kinder than agreement.
I opened my eyes.
“Give me a phone.”
Tobias did not move.
“I’m not calling police.”
“Who are you calling?”
“My voicemail.”
Evelyn handed me one of the prepaid phones.
I dialed my own number.
For three years Garrett had teased me because I still used an embarrassingly formal outgoing message.
After the tone, I entered the remote-access code I had not used since college.
There were already eleven messages.
The first was from someone at the shipyard asking whether I had arrived in Georgia.
The second was from a dentist reminding me about an appointment.
The third was Garrett.
I almost dropped the phone.
His voice shook beautifully.
“Rosalind, if somehow you get this, if somehow they find your phone before they find you, I need you to know I tried.”
Tobias moved closer.
I raised one hand to stop him.
Garrett continued.
“The current took you so fast.”
His breathing broke.
“I went back under twice.”
A pause.
“I couldn’t reach you.”
I covered my mouth.
He sounded devastated.
He sounded exactly like the man who had held me after my mother died.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“I’m so sorry, baby.”
The message ended.
Nobody spoke.
Then the next voicemail began.
This one was from a deputy in Chatham County asking any family member who received the message to contact the sheriff’s office.
The next three were from board members.
Then came another from Garrett.
His voice was steadier.
“They found the vehicle.”
I stopped breathing.
“Rescue divers are going down.”
Behind his words I could hear people talking and an engine idling.
“I don’t know what to do.”
He inhaled.
“If Tobias’s body is with you, I promise I’ll bring you both home.”
Tobias reached past me and paused the voicemail.
“We need to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because when divers search the SUV, they’ll find the open rear door.”
“They might assume the current opened it.”
“They’ll also find your cut restraint.”
I looked at Evelyn.
“The wire.”
She nodded.
“That changes things.”
“How?”
“Garrett planned a locked-car drowning,” Tobias said.
“He didn’t plan for forensic evidence of escape.”
“So he’ll know.”
“Not immediately.”
“But soon.”
“Yes.”
My skin prickled.
“Then why are we standing here?”
Evelyn was already moving.
She opened a closet beside the refrigerator and pulled out two small bags.
“I have somewhere safer.”
Tobias took one.
I remained beside the table.
“No.”
He turned.
“Ros.”
“I am done being transported without explanations.”
“We don’t have time.”
“You always say that right before deciding something for me.”
His jaw tightened.
Outside, tires hissed over the road.
All three of us looked toward the front windows.
The vehicle slowed.
Then stopped.
Evelyn killed the kitchen light.
Nobody moved.
A car door opened outside.
My heart started hammering.
Tobias reached beneath his shirt.
I expected another tool.
Instead he drew a compact handgun from a holster at his back.
I stared at him.
“You have a gun too?”
“Not helping, Ros.”
“You think?”
Footsteps crossed Evelyn’s front porch.
Three slow knocks sounded against the door.
Evelyn did not approach it.
The prepaid phone was still in my hand.
The voicemail resumed because my thumb had slipped from the pause button.
Garrett’s recorded voice filled the dark kitchen.
“I love you, Rosalind.”
The person outside knocked again.
Then a woman called through the door.
“Evelyn, it’s me.”
Tobias lowered the gun by an inch.
I knew that voice.
I had heard it at Christmas dinners, birthday lunches, and once through a bathroom wall while she cried because she thought nobody knew Garrett had stopped answering her messages.
Penelope said my name softly from the other side of the door.
“Rosalind, if you’re alive, please don’t let Tobias shoot me.”
Tobias’s gun lowered another inch, but he did not put it away.
Evelyn crossed the kitchen without turning on the light and stopped beside the front door.
“How did you find this house?”
Penelope’s answer came through the wood.
“Because I followed you years ago when you were still following Garrett.”
Evelyn looked at Tobias.
He looked at me.
I could feel all three of us recalculating.
“Open the door,” I said.
“No,” Tobias said.
“She came here knowing I might be alive.”
“Exactly.”
I stepped toward him.
“If she wanted Garrett to know, he would already know.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know she’s standing outside instead of calling him.”
Penelope knocked once, softer this time.
“I can hear you whispering.”
“That’s reassuring,” Tobias muttered.
I reached for the deadbolt.
He caught my wrist.
“Ros.”
“She is my sister.”
“So am I, apparently, and you slapped me.”
“That argument is not helping you.”
May you like
Evelyn unlocked the door before either of us could continue.
Penelope stood beneath the porch light with wet hair plastered to her cheeks.
