Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The next few days are among the strangest of my life. I feel like I’m a teenager again, bouncing between overwhelming feelings of joy, shame, and anxiety. Sometimes I wonder if the intensity of these competing emotions might split me open at the seams.
When I tell this to Bradley in bed Wednesday morning, four days after Grace ‘went missing’—a phrase I’m trying to memorize and repeat—he gives me a knowing smile.
“That’s life.”
“It’s too much,” I say. “I feel like I’ve spent my life in black and white. Now everything’s in color, and I’m not used to it.”
“That’s what it’s supposed to be. You’re not supposed to get used to life.
It’s meant to be uncomfortable, surprising, and overwhelming.
Always. Otherwise, you might as well be dead.
” He puts on his I’m-quoting-a-poem voice.
“‘We have not sighed deep, laughed free, starved, feasted, despaired—been happy.’”
He’s quoted that poem before. I think it’s about a life poorly lived.
Wrong choices, wrong turns, regrets. As he starts getting dressed, I wonder if he’s right.
My life till now has been almost entirely ordinary and routine.
Even the major events in my life, like the death of my mother or moving in with Neil, felt normal.
“I’ll be back around nine,” he says.
“Nine?” I check my phone. “It’s already eight.”
“No, nine at night.”
I sit up, feeling my chest grow tight. “You’re leaving?”
“The roads are open again. I need to visit the police station, then go to work. Classes to teach.”
“I thought you’d quit.”
“Once this is over, I will. But I need to act normal.”
My voice cracks as I protest. “So you’re leaving me here?”
“I’m sorry, darling,” he says, buttoning his shirt. “It’s the safest thing to do.”
“Take me with you.”
“No, you need to act normal, too. Today is a workday. You can’t be seen off the property.”
I try to think of an argument to make him stay, but I know he’s right. We need to be careful. If we slip up now, he’ll spend the rest of his life in jail.
I go downstairs and sit with him at breakfast. He’s unusually quiet, though I assume he’s rehearsing his lecture for the day in his head. At the door, he kisses me.
“I love you. Don’t worry. This will all be over soon.”
As I walk upstairs, I wonder if it’s true that he loves me—and if it’s true now, will it be true forever?
The events of the last week mean that we’ll always be connected, but it doesn’t mean our relationship will last. He says he loves me, but what happens when he doesn’t want me every second of the day? What happens when I say no?
I place my cup down and open Grace’s wardrobe. With every passing day, I feel less guilty about taking her clothes. I’ve started using her perfume, too, and her products in the shower. I’ve even used her makeup.
I tell myself that Bradley’s right. No one is going to care.
If I don’t use them, it will all go to waste.
But I know that’s not why I do it. It’s because I feel like I’m another person in her clothes, a person who isn’t condemned to struggle every day of her life.
I feel like a person with choices. I feel free.
I change into a long black dress, the loosest of Grace’s collection, and walk downstairs to make a coffee.
While the water boils, I run my hands over the marble countertops.
This kitchen cost more than my entire education.
The joinery alone would have cost more than I made as a waitress in a year.
Every item in this house is exquisite and expensive.
When the water is done, I fill a French press and add two spoonfuls of coffee. Just as I’m about to press down, there’s an enormous crash, as if someone’s shot a cannon into the back of the house. A crack like a small spiderweb has formed in the central window.
“What the—?”
I run outside to see a small robin on the deck.
The poor thing must have slammed into the clear glass as it searched for its breakfast. I wait for it to move, but it’s clearly dead.
I rush inside and empty a cardboard box from under the sink.
I place a towel inside, then carefully lift the bird and place it in the box.
“You poor devil!” I mutter gently. The bird is about eight inches long, with a rust-red breast and a white throat.
Its beak is orange with a dark tip. I walk around the side of the house and go into the barn.
I find two thin offcuts in a pile in the corner, then go to the workbench and use the electric drill to screw them together into a cross.
I’m about to take it to the front garden when I see a large plastic container in the corner. I bend down beside it and open the lid.
My battery! So this is where Grace put it. I make a note to myself to get Bradley to put it back in my car when he gets home.
The sound of a bird outside reminds me of my mission. I dig a hole in the flowerbed, place the bird inside, and fill the hole back up. I take the cross outside and stand it on top.
It’s not much, and it’s on a jaunty angle, but it’s something.
“Rest in peace,” I whisper to myself, then close my eyes.
Even though I haven’t been to church since Mom died—and hadn’t gone as a believer for many years before that—I mutter a prayer.
The world is still for a moment, and I imagine that everyone, everywhere, has stopped what they’re doing to pay their respects.
Soccer games in London, traffic in Delhi, meetings in Shanghai, they’ve all gone silent for this little bird.
“Is this Pine Ridge?” I see a woman in a grey suit walking down the driveway. I quickly wipe my eyes.
“Sorry, who are you?”
“Apologies. Alice Gelman. Detective.” She fishes a badge from her jacket pocket. “I’m here concerning the disappearance of Grace Little.”
“Oh,” I say. “Bradley’s not here. He’s gone into work.”
“That’s OK. We got his statement this morning, actually, so I was hoping to talk to you.” She looks past me to the cross planted in the garden. Her eyes narrow. “What’s going on? You having a funeral?”
“Yes.”
“For Grace?”
“No, no.” I force a laugh, though her expression doesn’t change. “What? No. For a bird, actually.
“You’re having a funeral for a bird?”
Her skepticism makes me bristle. “Yes. He flew into the window. I couldn’t save him—”
“Got it,” she interrupts. “Right, I should tell you why we’re here.”
“We?”
“Oh, yes. My colleague Detective Holland is just taking a look around.”
I feel a surge of panic. Are we prepared for this? Can he do that? “Don’t you need a warrant?”
“Interesting question. Not if the owner of the property invites us, Ms. MacKenzie.”
Did I tell her my name? No, she knows who I am.
Bradley said he was visiting the police this morning.
He must have given her permission to come.
There’s an awkward silence—awkward for me, at least—but I resist the urge to invite her inside.
I don’t know what Bradley has permitted them to do, but I’m not about to give them more access than they need.
“It’s Brie,” I say, after far too long a pause.
“Brie. Great. Is there somewhere we can talk?”
I look around, then decide on the veranda out front. I point to the wooden chairs, and the detective nods. I feel her eyes on me as I walk up the steps. How much can detectives tell from body language? Does she already know I’m hiding something?
“How long have you known Grace and Bradley?”
“Just from the start of summer. I applied to an ad at college and got the job.”
“You’re a student?”
“I was. I graduated. But the economy isn’t great, and I had difficulty finding something permanent.”
“Really?” She writes in her notebook, and I feel like I’ve already been caught in a lie. “And what are your responsibilities?”
“Gardening. Cleaning.”
“You work in this?” She points to the dress. “It’s very pretty. Looks expensive.”
“I’m not working today.”
“Still. Not many students wear designer clothes. Especially people with money trouble. Do you have family to help out?”
“My mother died four years ago. There’s no one else.”
“I see.” More writing. “Tell me about your relationship with Grace.”
I remember Bradley’s advice: Tell the truth as much as possible.
But now that Detective Gelman is sitting across from me, telling the truth seems like a wildly stupid thing to do.
Because if I tell her the truth about everything Grace did to me, then I’ll be suspect number one.
The detective will dig and dig until she discovers what happened on the bridge.
“She was fine.”
“Fine? Mr. Little said you had a difficult relationship.”
Bradley. I’m going to kill him. Why didn’t he tell me how much he was going to tell them?
“Yeah, she was a bit strange, I guess,” I say, trying not to stammer. “Eccentric. She could be mean.”
“Mean how?”
“Just… It’s hard to explain.”
The detective leans closer, elbows on her knees. “Try.”
“She would just make comments.” I notice that I’m picking my cuticles. Is fidgeting a sign of guilt? Or is it worse to be perfectly still? “It just didn’t seem like she liked me.”
“Why wouldn’t she like you?”
“You’d have to ask her.”
“And what about the marriage between Mr. and Mrs. Little? How would you describe that?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I wasn’t around them both very much. I guess I wouldn’t know enough to describe it at all, really.”
“I see.” She looks down at her notebook for a moment. I feel like I’m in a doctor’s office, waiting for her to deliver a terminal diagnosis. “Tell me about what happened the day she disappeared.”
“There’s not much to tell. I stayed in the cottage. I was thinking about going into town, but decided not to. Later in the day, Bradley asked if I’d seen her.”
“I’m guessing you hadn’t?”
“No, but Bradley had said she’d been acting strangely for a few weeks. He’d mentioned she was coming off medication?” I wonder if the detective sees what I’m doing. It doesn’t seem very subtle. “I guess he told you all this himself?”
“But you didn’t think she was acting strangely?”
“I did, though I didn’t know if that was just who she was. She’s a writer, you know. They’re weird people.”
“Did she do anything that stands out in your mind?”
“No.” The answer comes out quickly.
She flicks back a few pages in her notebook. “Mr. Little mentioned that you complained that Grace had locked you in the basement and left town?”
Bradley! I could kill him.
“I over-reacted,” I say. “I was just scared. I jumped to conclusions.”
“That’s quite a jump.” She continues to stare, her expression one of focused curiosity.
I instruct myself not to fill the silence, and eventually she takes a card from her pocket and holds it out.
I don’t want to reveal how much my hands are shaking, so I snatch it quickly from her hands.
“If there’s anything else, just call that number. ”
I follow her down the steps and back up the driveway. A tall, blond man, presumably the other detective, steps out of the old barn and walks quickly towards us.
“Nice place,” he says, nodding to me. He’s holding a small plastic bag that looks to be filled with red soil. Of course, he saw the lamb’s blood in the barn. “All done?”
Detective Gelman waves him off, and he continues up the drive.
“Thank you for your time,” she says. “Those earrings are stunning, by the way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Diamond earrings. Where did you get them?”
“They’re from an ex,” I say quickly.
“He didn’t want them back?”
I shake my head, and she lets out a low whistle. “He must be loaded. They’re worth five figures, easy.”
She stares at me, waiting for my response, and when I don’t give one, she turns and walks away.