Chapter 41
“What the fuck is going on?” Olivia’s scream cleaves the darkness as she barrels downstairs.
Confusion and panic flood her face, lit in flashes by the storm outside. I curse Eric for bolting, leaving me to deliver this news. How do you tell someone their mother is dead? I run through different phrasings in my mind. All dead ends. There’s no good way to say it, so I just say it.
“Your mom is dead. Your dad and I found her washed up on the lakeshore.”
She freezes in place. Her lower lip sinks, and then she raises a trembling hand to cover it.
Time stretches and silence grips the house.
She collapses onto the bottom step. I watch as her earthen eyes reveal the gamut of emotions: shock, sadness, grief, curiosity, fear.
“I don’t…I don’t understand. How?” she says, more to herself than to me, her voice cracking.
Rain slams against the roof. A tornado siren whines in the distance. I sit beside her, give her a hug, my tone gentle. “I don’t know. It looks like someone strangled her.”
She pulls away from me like I wielded the rope. “What do you mean, strangled?”
I blink slowly, stalling for time. “When your dad pulled her out of the water, I noticed there were rope burns on her neck.”
“What? How?” Hey eyes squint and her forehead collapses. I can tell from her expression she’s asking herself the same questions that have been running through my mind. How could this happen? Who would do something like this? When?
Her face transforms again, this time swinging from sadness to rage. She surges to her feet. “Where is she? I want to see her.”
“She’s back on the trail. We tried to bring her home, but the storm was too fierce.”
“You left her in the woods?”
I rise to meet her eyes and reach my hand to her shoulder. “I’m sorry. It was too dangerous. We’re going to go get her once the storm dies down.”
She snaps away from me and pulls her hair back from her forehead.
I notice her hands are shaking. A tear slips from her eye, but she remains strong, defiant, like Laelynn.
She stands and paces back and forth, eyes scanning the room as if she’s searching for a magic elixir that might bring her mother back.
As she wears down the floorboards, I see her grief building.
“Is there anything I can do?” I ask, although I already know the answer.
She stops and stares straight through me. “Yeah. Find out who did this.”
I nod and stiffen my chin. “I will. I will find out who did this. But in the meantime, what else? Do you want me to watch the girls?”
She snaps out of her trance and freezes in place.
“The girls. I totally forgot about them.” She springs up the stairs, and I race behind her.
With every creak of the staircase, images flash in my mind.
The killer sneaks past us while we grieve, his rope or hatchet in hand.
Strangling the little ones or dicing them up with his axe.
Sweat pours from my brow, mud dripping into my eyes.
Each step up the stairs feels like a mile.
We burst into the twins’ room, preparing for the worst.
They’re fine.
They sit on the floor in the semidarkness, playing with their nineteenth-century dolls.
The storm flickers outside the window like a broken light, strobing across cracked porcelain faces.
They’ve arranged the dolls around a tiny table set with saucers and teacups, each doll’s face mangled—a missing eye, a gash in the cheek, chunks of hair ripped from their skull.
A tea party of the dead, a gathering of corpses.
Penelope peers at me and squints like, Who dares to disturb the queen while she’s hosting a function? “Is it boat-ride time?”
“Oh, no. The boat’s not working.”
“Why are you all wet?”
I glance at Olivia, who shakes her head, silently telling me not to mention Laelynn. “Oh, I was just playing in the rain.”
She squints her eyes, sensing the lie. “You’re weird.”
Emma looks up at me and makes her own assessment. “What happened to the lights?”
“The storm took out the power. Were you scared?”
Penelope scoffs. “No, we’re not babies.”
Olivia tilts her head, and a sad smile crosses her face. “Yeah, Charlotte, we’re not babies.”
“Of course. How could I forget that?”
A door slams downstairs.
Olivia and I flinch. She nods. “It’s probably Dad. Go see if he found a radio.”
I run downstairs, heart thumping.
Eric hunches over a device, fiddling with the dials.
“You found one?” I ask.
He looks up, his face as stormy as the weather outside. “No. This is just a regular radio. Not a shortwave. But I figured it would at least tell us what we’re up against.” He presses a button, spins dials, and the radio leaps to life. I hear the familiar sounds of static and DJ voices.
The absurdly cheery jingle of a Menards commercial that’s been running since I was a kid drifts from the speakers. “Save big money at Menards,” the chipper singers croon. I almost laugh. The normalcy of it all feels like an insult.
I glance at Eric. He looks hollowed, as though Laelynn’s death has sucked out his essence. His face is pale, his chin scar raw. The wrinkles in his skin run like ravines. Laelynn was inside him, and now that she’s been ripped away, there’s only emptiness.
A weatherman crackles through the static: “A tornado warning is in place for the entire Twin Cities metro. Citizens are encouraged to shelter immediately in a windowless room or basement. Stay inside. Stay alert.”
Eric’s eyes meet mine.
“I have to go get her,” he says.
“What?”
“Laelynn. I can’t leave her out there.” His voice shakes as though it’s surviving on this thought alone.
“Eric, you heard what he said. It’s dangerous out there. We can get her in the morning.”
His eyes darken. “She may not be there tomorrow morning.”
“There’s a killer out there. It’s not safe.”
“I’m getting her. You watch the twins. If the storm gets worse, grab a mattress and take them into the basement.” He zips his raincoat with a dramatic tug that signals the end of the conversation.
I raise my hands. “Okay, it’s your choice.”
“Thank you.” He runs outside into the napalm sky. He walks past the storm-beaten chrysanthemums, hunched against the wind like it’s trying to push him back into the house. I watch until he vanishes into the blur. Part of me worries this is the last time I’ll see him.
“Where is he going now?” asks Olivia, sulking down the stairs. Her voice is removed, dreamlike.
“He went to get your mom’s body.”
“What? But what about the storm? You said it wasn’t safe.”
“It’s not, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”
She shuffles to the patio doors. “We have to go help him.”
I chase after her. “We can’t. We need to stay with the girls.” Her eyes look through me.
She blinks slowly, then relents and slumps onto a kitchen stool. Her gaze never leaves the lake. It’s as if she knows there are answers buried underwater and that if she looks long enough, they’ll rise from beneath the surface.
“Who’s going to take care of my chrysanthemums?” she says. Then she starts laughing. It starts with a subtle giggle, light and wispy, then steadily rises and rises into hysterical cackles. I glance at the water to see if she sees something, but there’s nothing. Only her grief.
“Liv, don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Break down on me. Your dad and the twins need us right now. A tornado’s coming, and we need to prepare for it.”
Thunder shakes the house. A glass crashes to the floor. I flinch. Olivia doesn’t even move. I stoop to clean it, but she interrupts me with a bark.
“Leave it.”
I continue cleaning it up.
She raises her fist, eyes still trained on the water, her voice as calm as a schoolteacher’s.
“Charlotte, leave it.” Then silence, like a lead weight.
“What does it matter, anyway? If the tornado doesn’t kill us, whoever murdered my mom and the Adwanis will.
” More laughter. “They probably knocked off Heathcliff too.”
I ignore her and scoop up the shards of glass with a paper towel and toss them in the trash. A jagged piece catches my index finger. A trickle of blood runs into my palm. Just like it did the day my dad died.
“Liv, we’re going to survive. I promise,” I say, not sure if I really mean it.
She clicks her tongue in a slow, rhythmic beat. Like an antique watch. “I doubt it. But you know what you should do?”
“What’s that?”
“Grab Dad’s knife.”