Chapter 35
I step into the house, keeping my movements measured, controlled.
The air is thick with tension. The cops sit at the kitchen table, questioning the girls, while Eric watches, his face a cipher.
The twins seem to delight in the attention.
Gonzalez asks them, “Did you girls see anything unusual last night?” I’d love to stick around for the answer, but the thought of another moment under the detective’s watchful eye makes my stomach churn.
I reach the hallway that leads to my room. Eric’s office sits across the way. I remember what the fortune teller told me. The past haunts your future. Is this what she meant?
What am I talking about? I’m analyzing the ramblings of an antique.
Pigs get fed. Hogs get slaughtered.
I slip into my room, easing the door closed behind me.
My window slides open, and I take a deep breath of the fresh forest air, oak, and lilac.
A horsefly slams against the screen, frantic, its wings buzzing.
I stare at it, thinking of the flies that swarmed Heathcliff’s corpse, now feasting on what’s left of Vivek’s and Freida’s. The grim image sticks in my throat.
I picture the two of them. Their bodies gashed with axe wounds, eyes blank, blood pooling around their corpses. Deep in the recesses of my mind, a voice whispers, somehow, someway, this is my fault.
I pace the room, floorboards groaning beneath my feet. I straighten a tilted picture frame, count the sailboats running along the wallpaper as I try to grasp what the hell is happening. Seventy-four sailboats on the left wall. Forty-eight on the one behind the bed.
It all seems so surreal. Vivek and Freida are dead, and someone butchered them with an axe. Now the axe—which I’m positive was wedged in the butcher’s block when I got here—is missing.
My mind flips through possibilities like a deck of cards.
The notes on the doors.
Is whoever left them making good on their threat?
Eric’s face bursting with rage when I told him about Vivek.
Olivia maliciously encouraging me to take matters into my own hands.
Russ Neuman greedily wanting the island to himself.
Carlos trying to be my hero?
Even my mother, eyes blazing as she eviscerated Vivek and his wife with words.
And where is Laelynn?
With each thought, my pacing accelerates. Each possibility, however remote, feels chillingly plausible.
“You doin’ okay?” Olivia asks in a hushed tone as she materializes in my room. She taps her head to knock the excess water out of her ears.
“Where have you been?” I ask. The words burst out, sharp and accusatory.
“Shh,” she says, her gaze blistering. She checks behind her. “I don’t want the cops to know I’m here.”
“Why not?”
“Because then they’ll ask me questions.”
“And?”
“And I don’t want to talk to them, okay?” She turns away, tugging at a loose curl and watching herself in the dressing table mirror. She smiles, her round cheeks shining, and checks her paper-white teeth, running her tongue along the surface.
I step closer, voice dropping to a whisper. “Are you involved in this?”
“No, don’t be ridiculous,” she says, leaning into the mirror and tapping her cheekbones, pouting her lips. “But I can’t say I’m mourning them.”
“Jesus, Liv. Two people died.”
She snaps around, cheeks flushing. “CharBar, that guy assaulted you! And I’m sure you’re not the only woman he’s ever assaulted.
And his wife is no better. She’s turned a blind eye to whatever he’s been up to.
I won’t shed a tear for them.” A vein rises on her forehead, just like her mother’s.
I notice a rage in her that was never present as a child.
The room suddenly feels smaller. The horsefly slams against the screen, as stubborn as Olivia.
“Fine. But doesn’t it freak you out even a little that there’s a murderer on the island? That we could be next?”
Her eyes narrow as she eases into the guest chair and throws her legs up on the ottoman. “I haven’t been sexually assaulting anyone lately. Have you?”
I slap the windowsill to shake the horsefly loose. Part of me hopes it will shake Olivia as well. “How can you be so glib?”
She runs her hand through her hair as though she’s discussing where to go for dinner. For the first time, I wonder if she’s still the girl I grew up with. “I don’t understand why you’re freaking out,” she says.
“You don’t understand why I’m freaking out?
How are you not freaking out? I knew Vivek.
At one time, I liked Vivek. He was a creep, but he didn’t deserve this.
Not only that, but think about how this looks for me.
I’m the only one here who knew him. You should have seen the detective’s eyes light up when I said we worked together.
Your dad and I were fifty feet from their house last night.
Once the police have more time to investigate, I’m suspect number one. ”
“Okay, so the optics aren’t great for you. So what? Your mom will get you one of her high-priced attorneys, and everything will be fine.”
“My mom? My mom’s got her own problems. She was at the Adwanis’ house last night. She was the last known person to see them alive.”
“Shit. I forgot about that. You don’t think she—? No, what am I saying?” Olivia’s left eye twitches, and I spot a crack in her carefree facade. She fiddles with her necklace. “Have you talked to her?”
“Not yet.”
“You should call her. Knowing your mom, she’ll have a five-point plan laid out already.” Her face brightens. “You’ll be fine. We’ll be on the lake laughing about this in no time.”
“So that’s what you’re thinking? That we can just keep on vacationing like nothing happened? I think I need to go, Liv.”
She clutches her necklace. “Look, I get it. But I’m pretty sure my dad isn’t going to leave, and I’m not going to leave him. We’re a package deal. And given what we’ve been through together, I would hope you wouldn’t either.”
Her words hang like a threat.
She continues. “Plus, how will it look to the cops if, right after they visit, you skip town? You might as well hang a sign around your head saying, ‘I swung the axe.’”
My mind flickers to the empty chopping block. “Liv, do you know what happened to the axe?” I ask, evaluating her expression as the words tumble from my mouth.
Her eyebrows pinch. “Axe? What axe?”
“When I arrived, an axe was wedged in the chopping block by the woodpile. Now it’s gone.”
She tugs her hair behind her ear, and her eyes shift. “No, I don’t. Why? You think it’s the axe that killed Vivek and his wife?”
“It seems a little coincidental, doesn’t it?”
Olivia nods warily. “Dad might have put it in the toolshed to keep it dry?”
I picture the toolshed tucked on the side of the house, right by where Laelynn found Heathcliff. “Yeah, that’s probably—”
She raises a finger to her mouth to shush me. We hear Eric saying goodbye to Detective Gonzalez and company.
Olivia sighs, and she flashes that mischievous smile.
“Now that our friends from the police are gone. I’m going to take a hot shower, ’cuz I’m freezing.” She gives me a long hug, squeezing the oxygen from my lungs, per usual. I inhale the tropical scent of her hair and bask in the buttery soft skin of her cheeks. “You’ll stay?”
“I’ll stay.”
“We can talk more later. But trust me, everything is going to be fine. Call your mother.”
I nod. “I will.”
She disappears, and once again, I’m left alone with my thoughts.
My mind returns to my mother. To the look on her face as she lambasted Vivek and his wife.
The suspicion carves a path through my mind: Could she?
Is she even strong enough to butcher someone with an axe? I pull out my phone to call her.
But before I can, it rings. It’s her, as if she can read my mind.
“Hi, Mom,” I say. My voice falters.
“What hap…d?” She asks, the line cracking. She sounds less like a concerned mother and more like a businesswoman with a problem to be solved. An engine roars in the background, and wind whips through the receiver.
“Mom, I can barely hear you. How did you know something happened?”
“The police…” The call breaks. “Questions…about Vivek and Freida… ‘An incident’?”
I step outside to catch a stronger signal. “Someone murdered them last night.”
The line goes quiet. “…God.”
“Yeah, it’s awful.” A lump forms in my throat. “What did you tell the police?”
“I’ll…I’ll get there.”
“Here? You’re coming to the Parkers’?”
“Y…thirty minutes. In the meantime…don’t say…word to the police. I’ve called Tom Kim.”
“Our family attorney?” Why would she call him? She has nothing to hide. Unless… “Okay. I’ll wait for you on the patio.”
A buzz.
Before I hang up, I have to ask her. “Mom, is everything all right?”
“Everything’s…sweetheart. E…going to be fine.”
The words I can hear are sweet and calming, but underneath them, lurking in the static, is a simple promise: Everything will not be fine.
I hang up the phone, head inside, and sink into my bed.
I watch the fan spin, casting shadows on the ceiling.
It reminds me of this island, turning everyone here into shadows of themselves, magnifying the worst qualities in everyone.
Laelynn’s protectiveness. Olivia’s immaturity.
Russ Neuman’s eccentricity. Carlos’s impulsiveness. Eric’s naivete. My paranoia.
It feels as though Vivek and Freida’s murder was less a shocking spurt of violence and more the inevitable conclusion to something that’s been simmering on this lonely rock for ages. And the longer I stay here, the more likely I am to fall victim to that same inevitability.