Chapter 47
I CAN’T brEATHE. I DON’T UNDERSTAND, BUT I KNOW IT’S HER, DESPITE the blond hair. I do recognize her now from the photos, the painting in Spencer House’s hallway.
“How can that be?” I manage.
Nina—Mary gets up and goes to the counter. She holds on to the edge, her back to me, her knuckles white. “I know this is a tremendous shock.”
“Does anyone know? Does Alex know you’re still alive?” I want to throw a thousand questions at her. I’m confused, angry, but thrilled. Here is the aunt I had so wanted to know, thought I would never know, and she’s here. She exists.
“Yes, he knows.”
I glance toward the door. “Does he know where you are?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”
I slump back in my chair. “What happened?” My voice is a hoarse whisper.
Mary pours herself more coffee. The German shepherd whines and pokes at her hand with her nose. Mary pets her. That seems to calm the dog, and she comes back to the table. “Max—Maxine is huge, but gentle as a lamb,” Mary says. “Anyway, I owe you the whole story. But first, are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” I lie. “How did you know I was at Spencer House?”
“The news. Because Alex is a celebrity, he gets more coverage than the average person. When I saw that Simon had been killed, I started paying more attention to what was going on at Cheshire Lake. Then I saw that you were there from an article on Alex’s long-lost daughter.
Then I saw that they’d found Carol’s car.
I was worried. So, I had my friend who’s good at internet sleuthing track down your phone number.
That’s when I started texting you to leave.
I couldn’t give you much of an explanation by text.
It would’ve been too much.” Her gaze settles on her coffee.
“Why did Alex tell me that you died? I saw your gravestone!” My voice rises an octave.
Mary nods. “I know. No one knows that Mary Spencer is still alive except Alex—and Ruth, of course.” She glances at a photo attached to her refrigerator with a magnet and smiles. “And Wyatt, my friend. Well, my partner. That’s more accurate.”
“I don’t understand.”
Mary squeezes my hand. “I was there that day. The day that you and your mother were at Spencer House. Do you remember?”
“Yes. A little.”
Mary nods and sips her coffee. “What else do you remember, Emma?”
My legs tremble like an electric current is running through my body. I’m tired of people asking me what I remember. “I found a photo of my mother taken that day at Spencer House. That helped trigger my memories.”
“What photo?”
“Your camera. I found it in a box in your room. I developed the pictures. That’s how I knew that my mom had been there. And I remembered the doll. The doll you let me play with.”
“My camera?” She seems to be thinking. “Yes. I took her picture.” Mary’s eyes meet mine. “I’d forgotten.”
“But what happened? I don’t remember much more than that. I don’t remember you.”
Mary takes a deep breath, her gaze shifts to the window over the sink, where weak rays of light are filtering through.
“You and your mom showed up out of the blue one summer day. I had no clue that Alex had fathered a child. You were a little doll. Only three years old. Lana was a nice woman. I found out, well, Wyatt found out for me, that she recently passed. I’m sorry. Is that why you went looking for Alex?”
“Yes. She’d never tell me anything about him.”
Mary nods. “You showed up at Spencer House to meet him?”
“We emailed first. He had me take a DNA test.” The dogs, who’d been restless, flop down on the floor near Mary. “But what happened that day? I have no memory of it except … I heard screaming from downstairs. Horrible screaming.”
Tears shimmer in Mary’s eyes. There’s a furrow between her brows. “That was Carol.”
I’m shaking so hard, I need to stand. The chair scrapes against the floor.
I pace, reliving the last twenty-four hours.
“He wanted me to lie to the police. He wanted me to say that I remembered Carol leaving the house that day and that she was fine.” I swing in Mary’s direction, my eyes finding hers.
“But I don’t remember that. I lied and said I did because he wanted me to and I was scared, but the detective didn’t believe me and Alex was angry.
He … he drugged me and locked me in the attic. ”
Mary rises. “Oh my God. Are you okay?”
“Fine now.” I shake my head.
She huffs out a breath. “You don’t remember Carol leaving that day because she didn’t,” Mary says angrily.
“What happened?” I ask, my voice nearly a whisper.
“He killed her, Emma. My brother killed his fiancée.” Mary collapses back into her chair, leans back, and closes her eyes as if all her strength has fled her body.
“And you knew?”
“Yes.”
Hysteria creeps into my voice. “Did you know that she wasn’t his only victim!”
Mary’s eyes flutter open. “What?”
“I found pictures. Trophies …” I can’t breathe.
“He killed other women?”
I sink back into my chair. “You didn’t know?”
Mary’s mouth falls open. She tries to speak, but she can’t seem to form words for a moment. “You know this for sure?”
I rub my eyes with my hand. “I’m not completely sure.
But he must’ve.” I describe what I found in the turret room.
Mary’s face drains of all its color. “And my friend, he’s been going through cold cases, women dead across the country starting with my mom’s hometown when Alex was there.
My friend thinks that Alex killed women and then used those details in his books. ”
“Oh, Jesus.” Mary’s head falls into her hands.
“What happened that day? What happened to Carol?”
She clears her throat, bangs on the table with her fists as if to gather her strength.
“The day before you and your mother arrived, Alex called Carol and broke up with her over the phone. He had just sold his first manuscript and was on top of the world. He’d been a little less enchanted with Carol after our parents died.
They didn’t approve of her, so that made her more enticing to him.
Anyway, she was livid. And I didn’t blame her.
Alex didn’t treat her very well. You and your mother were only there an hour or so when Carol pulled up, angry as a wet hen.
When she saw you and your mother there, she was even more upset.
Alex had been talking with Lana, trying to make excuses, saying that he wasn’t ready to be a father and that she had no proof that you were his.
” Mary shakes her head. “Even though you looked just like him. Anyway, that’s when Carol arrived.
They got into a huge fight. I took you and your mother up to my room to get away from them. ”
“That’s when you gave me the doll.”
Mary smiles slightly. “I don’t remember that. I hope I helped you. The scene downstairs was escalating. So, I told your mother that you guys better leave. I walked you down the backstairs and out to your car. Then you and Lana drove away.”
“My mother never knew that he killed Carol?”
“No.” Mary lets go a deep breath. “When I went back inside”—her eyes meet mine—“everything was quiet. Deadly quiet. Then I heard Alex sobbing. I went into the front room … there was blood everywhere. On the fireplace hearth, all over the floor, on the poker that lay beside Carol’s lifeless body.”
“Oh my God.”
“He’d killed her,” Mary whispers.
“Then what happened?”
“I told him I was calling the police. He begged me not to. Said that it was an accident. That Carol fell and hit her head.”
“And you believed him?”
“No. There was no way that happened. But Alex … he’s strong-willed. He wants everyone to do as he says, believe what he believes. He was always the golden child who could do no wrong.”
“What happened next?”
“I went for the phone in the kitchen. He followed me. He grabbed the receiver from my hand and told me he’d kill me, too.
When I wouldn’t let go of the phone, he put his hands around my neck and choked me.
” Mary’s hand covers her mouth. Tears roll down her cheeks.
“I begged for my life, Emma, and he let go. I collapsed on the kitchen floor. I didn’t know what to do.
I stayed there curled up in a ball while he went back into the front room.
I heard noises, terrible scraping sounds.
I found out later that he’d taken Carol’s body to the cellar. ”
Mary gets up and I think she’s going to pace again, but she sits on the floor between her dogs, her arms around them. “Then Alex called Ruth.” Mary tips her face up; her gaze meets mine. “We sat around the kitchen table with tea and muffins and made a plan.”