Chapter 39 Greer
I’VE MADE THIS WALK a hundred times, but never, in all my years of coming here, have I felt nervous.
That changes today. The prison guard leads me to a private room where Tom’s already waiting.
After he was arrested, we were forced to talk in the visitation room like everyone else—trapped behind thick squares of Plexiglas, our words grainy through telephone receivers.
Only after I passed the bar exam and Tom retained me as his counsel were we finally given privacy.
The guards could watch us through the window, but they couldn’t listen in on our conversation. It was almost like being home again.
Tom has one knee propped against the table.
He hasn’t shaved in a few days; a thick scruff covers his cheeks and chin.
His hair has been carefully slicked back with whatever styling product they sell at the commissary.
It’s moments like this when I wish I had Nic’s artistic talent.
I’d like to capture the way he smiles with all his teeth, including the little hook ones on the left side of his mouth.
“Greer.” He leans forward in his chair. “I’ve missed you.”
“Sorry. Just got back this morning.”
“How was the retreat?”
“Fine.” I slump into the chair opposite him and set my briefcase on the floor.
“That’s not what I’ve heard.”
“Oh?” I shouldn’t be surprised that he already knows, and yet somehow, I am. “And what’ve you heard?”
“That my final victim was killed in a tragic car accident—near your lodge.”
News of her death—and Zach’s—broke yesterday, and while media outlets don’t yet have all the details, the names involved (mine included) are enough to guarantee reporters will be investigating the case for months to come.
One of them will eventually track Audrey Banerjee’s movements all the way back to Maine and, like her, will discover the truth about me.
Tom reaches across the table and takes my hands in his. They’re broad, warm, familiar.
“None of what happened was your fault. You know that, right?”
“I should’ve gotten the hand brake fixed.”
“Classic cars,” he says dismissively. “There’s always something wrong with them.”
He would know. The one he used as his murder weapon was a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda—a vehicle described by one website as a “head-turner that could break necks.”
“Yeah,” I say, but the way his grip constricts means he’s aware that I’m distracted. “I wanted you to know before anyone else. I’m meeting with the police tomorrow, and—” I pull my hands away from his. “I’ve decided to tell them the truth.”
Two little furrows form in his brow. “About?”
“Who I am. What happened to me. Audrey found out; that’s why she came to the lodge. It’s only a matter of time before the public learns that she isn’t your only surviving victim.”
Tom actually looks hurt by that. “You’re not a victim.”
“You drugged me, Tom. Then, you locked me in a shack, and if I hadn’t consented to my own murder—which was super fucked-up, by the way—you would’ve run me over the same way you did all those other girls.”
“You’re nothing like those other girls.”
It’s strange how his words still send a little thrill through me.
Who doesn’t want to be special? Who doesn’t want to be the heroine of her very own fairy tale?
Tom Woods kept me locked in that cabin, like a princess in a tower, but that was fine because I was going to change him.
And for a long time, he led me to believe that’s what I’d done.
But the truth is, Tom never changed. Real life’s not a fairy tale.
I’m just like all those other girls.
“You’re wrong,” I say. “We were all there to prop you up, to help you relive your trauma over and over again. We were all stand-ins for your daughter—”
“Don’t.” Tom puts both feet on the floor and leans forward—the closest he can get to a threat in a maximum-security prison. “Don’t bring her up.”
“I’m not here to argue. I’m here to give notice: I won’t be representing you anymore, but the attorney taking over the case will be caught up on everything regarding your hearing.”
“What do you mean, you won’t be representing me anymore?”
“I can’t, because I’ll be making a victim impact statement.
However, you should know that as my position on the death penalty hasn’t changed, I’ll still be encouraging the Board to commute your sentence to life without parole.
” I stand, fix the front of my jacket. “Honestly, this should be good for you—having your last surviving victim say she wants you kept alive.”
Tom runs his fingers through his hair. One strand comes loose and falls into his eyes. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m serious, Tom.”
“But everything I’ve done—” He reaches across the table again, except this time, there’s nothing for him to hold on to. “Everything I’ve done has been for you.”
I rest my hands on the back of the chair.
“I will always be thankful for how much you believed in me. Before I met you, my wildest dream was to graduate from community college, maybe have my own rent-controlled apartment. Now, I have a degree from law school and multiple houses. One of them even has a swimming pool. That’s crazy to me. ”
“You deserve it. All that and so much more.”
He smiles, and I feel my resolve start to crumble.
I grip the chair harder. “Thanks. But none of that changes the fact that we’re not good for each other.
I’ve never learned to stand on my own, and you—well, you’ve never moved past what happened with your daughter.
That’s why we can’t see each other anymore. ”
His mouth falls open. It takes him a moment to gather himself and repeat the words back to me. “We can’t see each other anymore.”
“We’re keeping each other trapped, Tom.”
“No one’s keeping you trapped. I’m the one locked up in here; you’re free to come and go whenever you want—”
“Yes,” I tell him. “I’m choosing to go.”
For as much as it’s my decision, a little part of me crumples up, a slip of paper tossed into the bonfire, when I turn my back on him and head toward the door. It’s never easy to leave someone you love, even when you know it’s for the best. I raise my hand to knock and alert the guard.
“You know,” he says, “there’s interest from detectives in arranging another bones-for-time agreement.”
“We’ve done three of those. They already know where all the bodies are buried.”
“Not all of them.”
It takes me a moment to figure out what he’s talking about, but when I do, it feels like I’m falling through the sky again, except this time, there’s no net to catch me.
I turn back to look at him. “You wouldn’t—”
“I don’t want to.” His hand again pats the empty space on the table where mine used to be. “But I can’t let you jeopardize my hearing.”
“I already said I’m arguing against the death penalty—”
“But why should I take that chance? Especially when there’s one body the police still haven’t found.”
“It won’t make a difference,” I say, unsure whether I’m trying to convince him or myself. “They’ll assume you killed him since, you know, you’re a serial killer.”
“Except for one small problem.” He smiles, but the smile has changed.
All the warmth has drained out of it, and those hook teeth look like they belong in the foamy jaws of the pit bull that lived down the street.
“He might look harmless,” my mother had said about that dog.
“But you won’t know for sure until it’s too late. ”
“The rock. I kept it.”
I keep falling. “You kept it.”
He nods. “Somewhere safe. Don’t worry.”
Don’t worry. That rock is soaked in my father’s blood, and it has my fingerprints all over it.
I’d been so traumatized after bashing his head in, I hadn’t stopped to consider what happened to the murder weapon.
Of course Tom picked it up and stashed it somewhere to be used against me at a later date.
“Why wait until now?” I ask. “Why didn’t you use it earlier—during the trial?”
Tom looks genuinely confused. “Why would I have used it during the trial? I don’t want you to get in trouble. Greer, there’s no one in the world who matters more to me than you. There’s no one I love more.”
The temptation has never been greater. Not just to sit back down, but to curl up against him, the way I did before he was arrested.
I’d press my cheek against his chest, measure out the rises and falls, attempt to portion my breath the same way.
Inhale for four, exhale for four. I always expected that if we sat like that often enough, eventually, our breaths would align—a sign that we belonged together.
But no matter how many years passed, his inhales were always a little longer than mine, his exhales a little shorter.
It was never a problem, though. I simply tailored mine to fit.
“There’s no need for us to fight.” Tom motions to the seat opposite him. “Why don’t you sit down, and we can talk about what’s really bothering you?”
It’s so clear, then, what I need to do. I turn around and once again raise my hand to knock on the door.
“If you walk out of here,” he says, his words rushing into one another, “you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering when the police will show up on your doorstep, when you’ll be dragged away in handcuffs. And you will never, never, know when it’s coming.”
I don’t turn back to him—merely look over my shoulder when I say, “I’ll live with not knowing.”
Then I knock on the door, and the guard pulls it open. As I’m escorted down the hall, Tom’s shouts echo around me. “Greer! Greer, come back! You can’t leave me here! Please, I’ll do anything!” I wish I could say it feels good, triumphant even, but it doesn’t.
It just feels empty.
I PULL OFF THE HIGHWAY somewhere in Idaho—at a gas station that’s long since fallen into disrepair, its windows boarded up with plywood, the numbers announcing how much unleaded costs stripped away.
Grass, yellowed and brittle, sprouts up around the pumps.
I get out of the Challenger, which, apart from a large dent in its trunk, emerged from the accident unscathed.
An approaching eighteen-wheeler slows, and the man in the front seat, a trucker with a beard like a Brillo pad, rolls down his window to ask if I need help. I give him a thumbs-up, which he cheerfully returns before speeding back up.
In the trunk are three red plastic gas cans. One at a time, I take them out, unscrew the caps, and douse gasoline all over the car. The windows are rolled down, making it easy to drench the seats. I toss all three cans by the empty pumps and take a matchbook out of my pocket.
It looks like Tom’s car. That was the first thing I thought when I saw the Challenger online.
A few quick clicks, and it belonged to me: black, sleek, a dead ringer for the car that had ended so many lives with a press of the gas pedal.
A car that looked like Tom’s car, a lodge that looked like Tom’s cabin.
After his arrest, I tried so hard to rebuild the life we’d shared together, brick by painstaking brick, without ever asking myself if that was what I really needed.
If maybe it wouldn’t be better to raze it all to the ground and start anew.
Fuck it.
I pull the match across the striker, and the tip bursts into flame.
Then I toss it through the window.
The flames spread quicker than I thought they would. They race across the leather seats before moving on to the dashboard. Heat sweats off the aluminum frame.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the folded postcard.
The photograph of Red River Bridge has a white crease running through its center.
The edges are crumpled, but it still looks just as epic as the first time my mom showed it to me.
I wish I could tell her I got there in the end.
I wish I could tell her I jumped off the edge; she’d be furious with me.
But I’ve long since come to terms with the fact that I’ll never see her again.
I fold the postcard—first into halves, then quarters—and just like we all did on the first day of the retreat, I toss it into the bonfire. I’m expecting a bright flash of light, something to mark the significance of the moment, but there’s nothing.
Tires crunch their way up the road. It’s the same eighteen-wheeler from before. The man rests his forearm against the window’s ledge.
“Well, shit,” he says. “I saw smoke in the rearview mirror and figured I should turn around, make sure you’re all right.”
“Aw. Thanks.”
“You need a lift?” He places one palm flat against his chest and raises the other. “Promise I’m not a serial killer.”
We both laugh, and he pops the passenger-side door open. I stare through his dirty windshield into the distance. At acres of grassland. At telephone poles and rusted exit signs. At the vanishing point—the little dot where the impossible happens.
Where you finally break free.