Chapter 36 Nicola
WE’RE JOSTLED OUT of our reverie by the cell phone on the floor.
The screen illuminates with a notification that the battery’s getting low.
Greer switches it off. Greer. Steffani. I still can’t believe that, for all these years, she’s lied about who she really was—not Tom Woods’s daughter, but one of his victims. Hidden under all those tattoos are the scars her real father inflicted on her.
When I’d swept my fingertips across them, I’d attributed each one to a childhood misadventure.
What else could she be hiding? If I can’t even trust her to be honest about her name, can I really be certain she had nothing to do with Zach’s murder, or with Audrey’s disappearance?
“What about Audrey?” I ask. “Where do you know her from?”
I’m expecting Greer to tell me that she’s a reporter, that the two of them met outside a courthouse or on the press junket for To Catch a Killer. Instead, she shocks me speechless by saying, “She was Tom Woods’s final victim, the one that escaped.”
Everything starts falling into place. Those scars on Audrey’s ankle were from the trap she got caught in, then freed herself from moments before the car slammed into her; the ones on her rib cage were from where she rolled across the hood before fleeing into the forest. No wonder Greer looked ill when she turned up at the retreat.
“What did she want?” I ask.
“The same thing you did—an explanation. She wanted to know why I’d agreed to serve as Tom Woods’s counsel, if he’d somehow threatened me from behind bars to ensure my compliance. She seemed convinced that I was under duress.”
“I’m guessing she didn’t take it well when she found out you weren’t.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“What about those?” I motion to the cell phone and the murder weapon. “I found them under the floorboards.”
“I took the cell phone from Connor’s room that first night.
He doesn’t know anything about my past, and that’s how I want it to stay.
He disabled Audrey’s passcode, so I knew I needed to act fast, before he could read through her emails.
As for the statue, I found that downstairs in the foyer the morning after Audrey disappeared. ”
“There was a Post-it note stuck in one of Zach’s notebooks. He was supposed to be meeting up with an Audrey Banerjee at the end of the retreat.”
Greer doesn’t seem surprised. “She was probably going to turn over that research folder—an exclusive for his book.”
“Do you think she killed him?”
“Yes.”
Audrey might’ve been scrawny, but adrenaline can give you the strength to do all kinds of things.
She pried that trap off her ankle as a teenager; she could’ve figured out a way to lug Zach into the trunk of a car.
If that’s what happened, whatever arrangement they had must’ve gone very, very wrong. What could have driven her to kill him?
That question quickly gives way to a far more important one.
“Why didn’t you tell the others?”
If she suspected someone else was guilty, why did she stand by while they accused me of murder? Why didn’t she set them straight instead of letting them exile me from the lodge?
Greer looks away, clearly ashamed. “I owed her. She knocked on our door the night she escaped. I decided not to answer.”
“You called the police, though. You’re the reason why she’s still alive.”
“She never should’ve been out on that road. If I’d opened the door, if I’d let her inside…”
I have a feeling that refusing to open that door isn’t the only regret that’s been tormenting her over the years. If she’d called the police the first time Tom Woods left her alone, all the women who followed her would still be alive.
“You broke the tablet, too, didn’t you?” I ask. “To give her a head start before anyone could call the police.”
“She’s probably long gone by now. I couldn’t give her what she wanted, but I could at least give her that.” Greer stands, brushing the dust off the back of her jeans. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here.” She tilts her head toward the open door, where the sun is climbing across the milky-gray sky.
I scramble to my feet. “What time is it? When’s the bus leaving?”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re not taking the bus back. Connor’s escorting the others to the airport, then coming back to pick us up.”
So, I won’t be catching my flight. “Are you going to call the police?” I ask. What I really want to know is if she’s going to stop Connor from turning over all the evidence he’s collected linking me to the crime. Greer might be convinced of my innocence, but I’d still make a convenient scapegoat.
She tugs her jacket tighter around her. “Don’t know. It feels wrong not reporting a murder, but at the same time, turning someone like Audrey, who was the victim of a violent crime, in to law enforcement seems even worse.”
“So, you’re going to tell Connor the truth? About who she really is?”
“I don’t see any other option. If I don’t explain why she came to the lodge this weekend, he’ll keep believing you’re the one to blame.”
“I’m surprised he let you come out here alone, what with me being a dangerous murderer and everything.”
She saunters to the corner of the shack and collects the axe. “Let me. As if he could stop me.” My eyebrow lifts, and she reluctantly admits, “He thinks I’m still at the lodge, sleeping in until he returns with the rental car.”
We step into the clearing; the fog has transformed the trees into little more than shreds of shadow. She rubs the back of her neck. “I wanted to ask, since we have to rebook your flight anyway, how would you feel about maybe sticking around for a few weeks?”
Does she want me available in case the police have any questions? She must notice my apprehension because she adds, “I was thinking we could take that trip to California after the hearing, put those playlists we made to good use. I mean, that’s if you don’t need to get home right away…”
We stare at each other in the thin sunlight.
She’s beautiful. So beautiful, like a canvas that’s been stretched in a hurry, with crooked staples running every which way along the wooden frame because you can’t wait to start painting.
Beautiful like a pencil gone dull from sketching, so you can’t quite get the details right, but at the same time, you can’t bring yourself to lift the tip from the paper.
I want nothing more than to push my flight back for weeks, months, years, if it means getting to spend that time with her.
But can I really overlook all the lies she’s told?
Part of me feels like I don’t know her; the other feels like she couldn’t possibly know me.
I used to think we were just the same, she and I, because of our fathers, but none of that was true.
“Let’s just get through today,” I say, then feel guilty when she immediately deflates.
“Yeah, sure.” She props the axe against the shack, bends down to pick up the padlock and chain. “Let me just—”
It’s not until she straightens that we both notice the utility knife sticking out of the door, pinning down a postcard, its corners lifting and falling in the breeze.
Almost like it’s breathing. The picture on the front is of an old-fashioned bridge, the words RED RIVER printed across the bottom.
It’s impossibly narrow, a single lane barely large enough for a truck.
Or a coach bus. “Wait.” I lean forward. “Is that—”
She yanks the blade loose and drops the knife to the ground. A dark red splatter slashes across the address lines and the square in the corner, reserved for a stamp.
Blood.
“Is that the bridge we crossed to get here?”
Greer’s fingers tighten around the postcard, notching little divots in the paper. “My mom gave this to me before she left. She told me it was the most beautiful place she’d ever seen. She wanted to take me here one day.”
Greer hitchhiked across the country to reach that bridge, and when she finally did, more than a decade later, she bought property from where she’d always be able to see it. Where she could always feel close to her mother.
Where she’d always be reminded of how close she’d come to losing everything.
She folds the postcard and tucks it into her pocket. “This was in my car.”
“So, Audrey left it here for us?”
“No.” She picks up the axe. “She left it here for me. She wants me to come to the bridge.”
“You’re not going, though, right?”
When Greer’s eyes rise to meet mine, their steely determination gives me my answer.
“You can’t,” I argue. “She’s unstable. Who knows what she’s capable of.”
“I know, but she needs my help—”
I grab ahold of the axe handle. She tries to tug it away, but I hold on tight.
“I know you feel responsible for her. But if you’re right, she’s already killed one person this weekend. You’re not going out there alone.”
My turn to tug on the axe, but instead of freeing it from her grasp, it pulls her closer to me. Her breath feels warm against my skin.
“She came all the way up here because she needed help. She asked once before, and I turned her away. I chose not to open that door. If you could go back and pick up Claire’s phone, instead of leaving it for your father to find, would you?”
“Yes.” I don’t even need to think about it.
“Then you understand. I have a chance to put things right here.” She slides her hand down and twines her fingers around mine. Now together, we’re holding the axe. “This is a door I can open.”
I let her gently pry it from my grasp.
“I’ll be back soon,” she says, her mouth ghosting over mine. “Promise.”