Chapter 40
The room inhales as one, hollowing out the oxygen and thinning it until I can’t breathe. Fred knows what I’ve done, and the rest of Doomwood Falls is about to find out. I had thought three years in prison felt long, but that will be child’s play compared to the sentence I’m about to get.
Stepping toward me, Fred’s finger slices the air and lands—
not on me but on Ivory standing next to me, like a blade finding soft flesh.
“My wife lied,” Fred states, his voice unwavering, “about the abduction.”
Ivory shakes her head, willing everyone watching to side with her. But Fred’s tears and the earnest way he’s speaking is pretty convincing.
“I know my affair hurt you, Ivory, and I regret it more than anything, but I don’t understand why you would fake an abduction to get back at me.
Hate me, kick me out, tell everyone in town about my betrayal—those are normal responses.
But to pretend I abducted you to get me charged with false imprisonment and kidnapping?
Because of that the cops think I killed a woman.
Your lie is destroying me! I want to know why you’d do that to me. ”
The futon beneath me scrapes back so hard it screeches as Ivory shoves her way around the obstacle course of chairs and tables. “You did abduct me, Fred. You’re insane.”
“Am I?” Fred locks in on her, and I feel like I’m eavesdropping on what should be a private conversation. “You told the police I took you. You told them I zip tied your wrists. You told them—”
“I was kidnapped,” Ivory barks. “You don’t get to rewrite that.”
She yanks up her sleeves, both of them, exposing her wrists. Fresh scabs ring her skin with raw, uneven, angry half-moons where skin tried to heal and failed. The marks are thin, but they bit deep enough to testify what happened. The tips of her index fingers and thumbs are cracked and discolored.
“Could I fake these?” Ivory demands, shoving her arms out like weapons. “Could I?” Her voice cracks, then hardens. “I couldn’t possibly put those on myself. Especially not tight enough to do this.”
Silence slams down any argument Fred might have had. But I remember Ivory’s fingers digging into my arm earlier, her breath hot against my ear. Don’t, she mouthed when I pressed Fred to tell his side. As if to say, Don’t let him talk.
At the time I thought she was scared. Traumatized. Protecting herself from hearing his voice again. Now it crawls under my skin. Why did she want him quiet so badly?
Fred exhales like he’s been waiting for this excuse. “You didn’t put them on yourself. I never said that. What I said was you lied about me doing it when you faked your abduction. There very well could be someone who helped you.”
Wren breaks their conversation first. “Fred, if you didn’t abduct her, then who did?”
Fred spreads his hands. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”
My thoughts trip over each other. If Fred is lying, he’s doing it with terrifying calm and conviction. If Ivory is lying, why invent a story so horrible? Could his affair have really driven her to such extremes?
I recall the anger that her ex-husband had planted in her with his infidelity, the wrath that took root and her vow to never let anyone make a fool of her again.
In retrospect, the way she had reacted so calmly after I told her what I saw fit the bill for someone plotting revenge.
As they say, it’s best served cold… or with a cold heart, in this case.
“This is unbelievable. You’re all just going to let him stand there and accuse me of making it up?” Ivory’s laugh is harsh.
“No,” I say. “We’re not letting anything happen. We’re just listening to both sides.”
A subtle twitch shifts her expression from anger to hurt. “Shari, you saw me after I got back. You saw what I looked like. You actually think I could stage that?”
I do remember, and it was awful. She was shaking and bruised, a battered woman who barely escaped. But all of that can be manufactured. I know better than anyone just how skilled we are at pretending.
“Ivory, I understand why you were mad at me about the affair.” Fred steps closer and the floor creaks under his weight.
“And I know your ex hurt you badly. But what I didn’t know until just recently,” he glances at Gillian, and I wonder what that look is saying, “was how badly you needed a villain. Because if you told the truth, your whole story falls apart.”
“And what truth is that?” Ivory’s hands curl into fists.
Fred’s gaze travels from her wrists then to her face where a cut still mars her cheek. “You weren’t abducted by a stranger. And you weren’t abducted by me.”
My mouth goes dry.
Ivory waves her arms violently. “No. No, don’t—”
There it is again—Don’t. What is my best friend hiding?
“I’m not going to tell your story for you, Ivory, because I love you and I’m sorry I betrayed you.
” Fred steps backward toward the door, hands raised in surrender.
“But I’m not going to let you portray me as a monster who would abduct you or kill someone.
My daughter should not have to grow up believing that lie about her own dad.
Freida needs to know the truth. That you were with someone she knew,” he concludes.
“Someone you trusted enough to go with willingly.”
My thoughts spiral. If she went willingly, why the restraints? Why the injuries? Unless the restraint came later. Unless something went wrong. Unless she needed the story to end a certain way.
“Who did this to you?” I ask her quietly.
She looks at me like I’ve punched her. “You think I’d protect my abductor? I’m telling you, it was Fred.”
I don’t answer, because I don’t know if I believe her.
Every certainty I had an hour ago is dissolving.
If Fred is telling the truth and didn’t abduct Ivory, someone else did—or Ivory staged just enough damage to sell a lie everyone, even the police, would believe.
Either way, we all have proven to be world-class liars.
My gaze drops back to her wrists. The scabs are real. The pain had to be real. But pain doesn’t tell the whole truth. It just proves that someone suffered. The question gnawing at me now is sharper than fear: What really happened, and who is Ivory protecting?
Gillian is uncharacteristically silent this whole time, and I suddenly realize why.
She’s gone. She must have slipped out unnoticed, but I catch a flash of pink fast-walking toward a black luxury car.
I rush to the window in time to watch her open the door and step into the vehicle.
Something about the fissure of pink at the steering wheel makes my whole body subconsciously react.
It's the same black Mercedes I’d seen idling outside of my house. And again, it’s familiar from somewhere else, but where? My brain can’t force the memory, even though it clings to the edge of it. Was it in town? Yes, that feels right, but it’s not the whole picture.
She’s backing the car down the driveway when the remainder of faint golden sunlight hits the front bumper crookedly, making the fender appear bent.
Or maybe it’s not a trick of the light. A deep, ugly dent cuts the symmetry of the front hood, right near the hood ornament.
Like she rammed into something. Or someone.
I know that dent. I felt that dent. A flash sears across my vision—headlights blinding, a car lunging forward, my own scream swallowed by impact as the world flips sideways. It’s the same car that hit me.
My mind vomits horrible images and sounds.
The glisten of waxed black metal, the crunch of a fender into flesh, a flash of neon pink behind the window, bone cracking on cement.
It aligns the dots perfectly. I try to picture the driver’s face, but it’s the same blur as always, like someone painted over the memory with watercolors.
The flashback hazily completes itself enough that I can confidently conclude that Gillian Szabo must have been driving the car that ran me over.
Gillian Szabo is going to kill me.