Chapter Twenty-One
Andi
I didn’t tell him. I almost let it all come pouring out—all of the lying and hiding. I almost blurted out what I had just
done, dropping the body of a poor, innocent person into a river. I wanted to tell him that I’m a fucking monster and should
be locked up and he should take me to the station immediately to confess and get it all over with, but I didn’t. Something
stopped me. Something deep inside would not let me do it even though the words were forming in my mouth and were so close
to spilling over and putting all of this to an end.
Instead, I told him how I felt so responsible, so guilty, that I had that big argument with Tia the night she disappeared, and how she would have maybe never gone out to run off steam if that hadn’t happened.
I told him that I was being petty and should have let it go, but I pushed it and now she’s missing, hurt or dead, and I couldn’t take it—I couldn’t handle what it was doing to Ray and the kids, too.
So I went out looking for her. That’s where I said I’d been.
I freaked out—the weight of it was all too much—and so I just went out to the woods and tried to find her in a blind panic for hours.
I told Carson that was why I was wet and muddy with mascara running down my face. He bought it—pitied me, even. He ran me
a hot bath and put on a kettle for tea and had Roxie take my car up to Zato’s to pick up Thai food for dinner and got the
kids to bed, and I’m a horrible absolute wretch of a person.
I lay awake until close to 2 a.m. second-guessing myself—coming close a few times to waking up Carson and telling him the
truth, but by two thirty I took a Xanax to sleep and shut out all the noise and chaos, and now it’s almost nine thirty in
the morning. Carson let me sleep and took the kids to school. I don’t deserve him.
He went into the office and the house is silent and lonely and I almost can’t take the deafening quiet right now. I pull on
a fleece bathrobe and turn up the thermostat a bit before I make my way downstairs to put on the coffee. I almost gasp when
I see my reflection in a glass-framed wall hanging. The dark circles and ghostly complexion look shocking. My eyes are swollen
from crying and sleep deprivation. I can’t be seen like this. Before I can push Start on the coffeemaker, there’s a knock
on the front door. No. Fuck. Who could be here? Maybe the company that’s hauling away the freezer? Or the police? I think
I have a fifty-fifty chance of getting rid of evidence or being hauled off to prison in the next five seconds, but when I
open the door, it’s Ray.
His face is red, and he chokes on a sob as he stands trembling in the doorway.
“Oh, God, Andi.”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t know where else to go. I don’t know what to do. God!” He falls into me and wraps his arms around me, crying into
my neck, and I freeze for just a moment but then I return the embrace and pat the back of his head, saying “It’s okay,” over
and over again because that’s what you do in this situation even when you don’t know what the hell is going on. Finally, I
place my hands on his shoulders and back away from him slightly so I can look at his face.
“What, Ray? What is going on? Talk to me.”
“She . . . They found her body in the river. She’s dead!”
“What? What!” I snap. How could that have happened so fast? How was I so fucking stupid?
“Turn on the news,” he says, walking over to the sofa and picking up the remote. “I had to go down there this morning. It
was still dark and there were lights and police tape. God. I can’t . . .” He chokes on his words as he says this. “Some dog
walker saw her in the rocks. I was warned the news would exploit it the first chance they got.” He turns on the TV and flips
through channels until he finds the news. I sit at the edge of the coffee table, my heart in my throat. There’s a commercial
on, so Ray sits on the sofa and cradles his head in his hands while he waits for the coverage to resume.
“Why! Who could do this?” he cries.
“I don’t know—are you sure that . . .”
Then he shushes me as the news comes back on and there it is. Tia’s face on the screen in a photo Ray gave them to use in
the search. She’s wearing a T-shirt and hiking boots on one of their trips to the bougie cabin in the mountains they stay
in each spring. The reporter gives the overview.
“We’re continuing our coverage on a story we have been following for days now. The body of a missing woman, twenty-eight-year-old Tia Hainsley, was found early this morning washed up on the bank of the Connecticut River about twenty miles south of her home in Cloverhill Lakes.”
I stand numbly and go and sit next to Ray. We both stare, wide-eyed and still as the reporter continues.
“There are still a lot of questions to be answered about the circumstances, but all we can say now is there was certainly
foul play involved. Hainsley suffered multiple wounds to the back of the head, police say likely bludgeoned with a blunt object.
Although she was found in the water, drowning was not the cause of death, and there are no suspects in custody as of yet. More on this as it develops.”
“What?” I say under my breath, picking out the word bludgeoned. She was shot. How are they not saying she was shot? Before either of us can speak, Ray’s phone rings. I see Detective Morrison’s
name pop up on the screen and he answers immediately. He walks into the kitchen to take the call. I only hear a series of
“Okay, uh-huh. I don’t know. Okay.” Then he hangs up.
“I gotta go,” he says, wiping his tears on his sleeve.
“Ray, wait. What did they tell you? She was . . . They said she was beaten?”
“Yes.” He hangs his head. “I had to identify her.” He hugs me again, as if to steady himself from falling or fainting. I hold
his weight.
“It’s okay,” I mumble. “I’m so sorry. They’re sure?”
“What do you mean?” he asks, pulling away and looking at me.
“Well, that seems . . .” I think of all the murder shows I’ve watched in my life and come up with a reason to bring this up.
“It seems so personal. If a stranger robbed her or something, I would think maybe she’d—I’m just saying, they’re sure she wasn’t shot?
Maybe hit her head to cause those injuries?
” He blinks at me, not comprehending why I’m asking this, because it probably is wildly inappropriate.
But there is no way she didn’t die of a gunshot wound.
“I saw her. The whole back of her head was . . .” He stops. He can’t speak the words. “There was no gunshot, no sexual assault.
She didn’t drown. That’s what I was told. I already went through all this with them. Why would someone do this? She wasn’t
even robbed—wasn’t raped. So why? What would be a reason?”
“I don’t . . .” I stand with my mouth hanging open, unable to even complete my sentence. He moves to the door before he starts
sobbing again. I can tell he’s trying very hard to hold it together.
“I have to go. I’m sorry. Don’t tell the kids yet—that’s all I really wanted to . . .” He swallows the last word and then
he rushes out the door. I close it behind him and turn around, leaning my back against it, then slide to sit on the floor.
I stare down the front hallway and my mind reels, trying to understand what the fuck is really happening here.
Is this a trap? is the first thing I think—do they know and I’m being set up or something? Tia was shot. I shot her. Oh, my God. What if
it’s possible? What if someone killed her and left her on the edge of our property and I assumed . . . Oh, God. It was dark.
I just saw blood on her face. I’d just shot a gun in her direction. There was no other scenario to consider in the moment.
But now the reality of the situation is surfacing in my mind. I wrapped her up in the dark. I never saw the gunshot wound,
but I never doubted for a second what must have happened.
I jump up with a racing heart. I need to get the facts firsthand.
I need to talk to the detective and know for absolutely sure this is all true.
It wasn’t me. It wasn’t my fault. I just can’t absorb this—it just can’t be possible.
I grab my handbag and coat and go to look for my keys, but they’re not in their spot by the door.
I check my pockets, purse, drawers, and then I remember Roxie took my car to get food last night and maybe left the keys with her stuff, so I take the stairs two at a time and go into her room, which I don’t often do, so it feels a bit like a violation of her privacy, but I need those keys.
I dig around in a couple of drawers and then see them on top of her writing desk. As I move to grab them, I see a paper sticking
out the top of a school folder with Drew’s name on it. The words I see stop me in my tracks. In Roxie’s handwriting, the words
Who killed Tia? are scrawled across the page. I didn’t think my hands could possibly shake any more than they already were, but then I shakily
pick up the folder, sit in her desk chair and look inside.
There are pages and pages of handwritten notes and printed articles, and a photo of Regan’s dead husband. There are stories
about Rafael “Raffy” Carro and a Mexican prison sentence. Who the hell is that? I look at his photo and then stuff it back
inside with the papers. There is research on car bombs—and then I see something that makes my heart stop.
I call Roxie, but it goes to voice mail.
Probably because she’s in class. So I call the school and they tell me she’s ill and was signed out.
My heart starts to race. I text her to call me—that it’s urgent.
Then I sit down at her desk and look at her computer.
It only takes the touch of the space bar to wake up the sleeping screen, and she stays logged in to all her usual sites, so I see a tab for Facebook and look at her recent chats.
Drew was the last person to send a message, early this morning.
Meet me at my dad’s today. She responds, what time?
and he says, by ten. She gives a thumbs-up.
Who the fuck is Drew’s dad? I scroll up to see older messages, but it looks as though they purposefully
don’t communicate over apps. It’s all mostly cryptic. A lot of call me instead of conversations in writing. What the hell is she up to?
Drew’s dad. I think a minute. His last name is Carro. Sasha took Blanc when she got married, but I never once thought about
who his dad was. I assumed he was dead. In fact, I think I asked once and that’s what Tom said, or maybe I’m making that up
in my head and have no idea. Drew’s dad? Shit. Rafael “Raffy” Carro. I just read the name. Oh, my God.
I try Roxie again, nothing. I try Sasha. Will she tell me if her ex is this Raffy guy? Does she know what the kids are mixed
up in? She doesn’t answer. Then I call Regan and fuck if she doesn’t answer, either. I text her the photo of Jack and tell
her I need to talk to her. I send the other photos of a man, Dominic, whom Jack testified against. I need to get Regan’s attention
so she calls me back. Where is everyone? I’m starting to panic. I need to ask her why my daughter would know anything about
Jack and be researching his whereabouts. It’s like the rapture came and everyone has ascended or something.
Roxie and Drew are obviously in whatever this is together and that’s what they’ve been up to—all the whispering and hanging
out at the BBQ place till all hours. Nobody is answering, so I grab my car keys, taking the whole folder with me and rushing
to my car. I decide I’ll just drive to Sasha’s house because she’s usually home during the day, and I pray.
Adrenaline surges through me as I make the short drive to her house.
There is evidence pointing to one person being responsible for both the car bomb and Tia’s murder.
There is a long string of facts that all tie together somehow, but I can’t tell exactly what it means.
But something is very, very wrong. Everything has turned upside down in minutes.
When I pull into Sasha’s drive, I don’t see her car. I peek into the garage, but it’s too dark inside to tell if she’s here.
I knock on the door and wait. Nothing. Then I walk around to the side door of the garage and squint again to see if there’s
a car inside. There could be, but I don’t know, so I holler anyway. She should be here this time of day. I know her normal
schedule.
“Sasha! You gotta be home. I have to show you something. It’s important.”
Then the side door of the garage swings open, and I jump and hold my heart, startled. I drop the folder in my hand and the
papers go all over the floor.
“Oh, sorry. I thought . . .” I stutter, taking a moment to put together who I’m looking at, because it’s not who I expected.
And then I realize what’s happening; the man’s face looking back at me is one I recognize. I watch him glance down at the
scattered papers and something like fear registers on his face.
“I was just looking for Sasha,” I say, taking a step back, not understanding for a moment or two that he has seen something
that points the finger at him. He has put together that he is a suspect in these pages strewn across the concrete garage floor,
and the only reason for him to react the way he does . . . is if he’s guilty.
I freeze, wondering if I should kneel down and collect them or back out the door, or say something.
I’m suspended in terror when I see the flash in his eyes, but by then it’s too late.
He comes at me so fast, I don’t even have time to scream.
Before I can even think about running, he has his hands around my neck.
He shoves me back against the wall of the garage so hard a box of tools falls from a shelf and makes a shocking crash, and it all happens so fast. He’s pushing his thumbs into my trachea, and I can’t breathe.
I can’t fight because I don’t have the oxygen to move.
And in an instant, it’s all over and the world goes dark.