Chapter Twenty-One #2
Emmy pointed the flashlight along the rafters directly above the hole.
The insulation was thick with deep folds, the same as you would find on a hoodie or a shirt collar or the cuff on a pair of pants.
She trailed the light back and forth along one section, then moved to the next, then the next.
Back and forth, until she saw a glint of light bounce off a piece of metal.
She felt light-headed, like her heart had stopped beating.
Most people call the thing that’s loaded into a gun a bullet, but what they’re referring to is technically a cartridge.
A standard 9mm cartridge has two main parts: the casing and the projectile, both of which separate into two distinct pieces.
When the trigger on a Glock is pulled, an extractor inside the gun grabs on to the rim of the casing to hold it in place. A firing pin hits the primer, causing the powder to explode, which sends the projectile down the barrel at a rate that’s faster than the speed of sound.
That projectile is the part of the cartridge that is commonly referred to as a bullet. The remaining bit, the casing, is ejected out of the side of the weapon so that another cartridge can take its place.
The fifth casing wasn’t in the woods. It was in the attic.
Emmy turned her head to the left. Toward the hallway where Jude had been standing.
Toward the wall where the bullet had stopped.
She turned off her flashlight. A single beam of light shone like a spotlight through a narrow hole in the ceiling.
Suddenly, the crime scene made sense.
No stranger had slipped through the back door, stolen Allison’s Glock from her purse, and started shooting. Bill hadn’t lost control of his temper. Reggie hadn’t sent his team. The Rawleys hadn’t put out a hit. Russell hadn’t sought his revenge.
Mandy had killed Allison.
Emmy grabbed one of the rafters to steady herself as bile rushed up her throat.
Bill had said that Allison and Mandy had been fighting for two days. He’d left the house the morning of the shooting because they were still arguing. By then, Allison had told Mandy that they were leaving town with Bill.
Emmy couldn’t imagine the girl’s desperation.
Trapped inside a decade-long nightmare with Bill Garrison.
Praying that the fantasy father she’d always dreamed about was going to save her from an impossible situation.
Knowing that her actual father was not just a bad man but as sadistic and cruel as the man she kept begging her mother to leave.
Realizing that Allison had the power to save them both but was choosing not to.
Impulsively grasping at any means of escape.
Was that why Mandy had grabbed the gun in Allison’s purse?
She couldn’t have meant to kill her mother.
She’d just wanted it to stop. The first bullet had gone wild, shearing off Allison’s thumb and finger.
It was too late to stop by then. Allison had run.
Mandy had chased her. The second bullet had hit the wall by the cabinets.
The third shot had hit Allison square in the chest.
What had that moment been like, both of their nightmares come true? Mandy had been terrified of losing her mother. Allison had always known that she would eventually be killed.
The blood told the story of what happened next. Mandy had rushed to Allison. Her mother’s blood had soaked her hands. Had Allison told her to call an ambulance? Or had Allison told her baby how to get away?
Between the pop of the third bullet that had killed Allison and the fourth pop from upstairs, Emmy’s cruiser had screeched to a halt outside.
Allison had been a cop. She would’ve known what was happening in the street, understood the clock was ticking.
She must have known the wound was fatal.
Had she used that fleeting time to tell Mandy that she loved her?
Or had she used some of those seconds to tell Mandy how to stage the scene?
That’s why Mandy had grabbed the black glove from Allison’s purse.
She’d left bloody footprints crossing the den to the back stairs.
She had gone into Allison’s bedroom. Shot out the window.
Tossed the black glove onto the roof. Smeared bloody handprints on the windowsill. Gone to her safe space in the attic.
Then Emmy had busted through the front door. Moments later, Jude had walked into the hallway, and the girl in the attic had felt the jaws of the trap snapping down all over again.
Emmy slowly bent her knees. Looked closely at the ceiling joists. She could see where the blood wicked into the wood. Mandy had been lying on her side. Legs splayed to keep her balance. Hands holding the Glock because she didn’t know how to get rid of it.
The decision must have been quick. Once the panic and the anger had burned off, and the enormity of what she’d done finally started to sink in, the guilt and shame must have taken hold, and she’d made one last desperate mistake.
It was a terrible thing to put a gun to your head. Mandy’s hands must have been shaking. Her palms too sweaty to form a proper grip. Maybe she’d lost her nerve, but it was too late, because the trigger had been pressed. The firing pin had ignited the powder. The casing had ejected into the rafters.
And the bullet had spun out of the muzzle, torn open the left side of Mandy’s skull, pierced the ceiling of Allison’s bedroom, grazed Jude’s temple on its way through the hallway, then lodged into the wall by Mandy’s bed.
Emmy clamped her hand to her mouth to stop the bile from spewing out. She lost her balance. Her head banged into a rafter. She blindly reached out, ripping away a section of insulation. She skipped over two joists before she found her footing again.
“Emmy?”
Jude’s voice was barely audible over the pounding of Emmy’s heart. She stumbled toward the attic access. Sat on the edge. Kicked her feet until she found purchase. All she could do was try to control her fall.
“I’ve got you.” Jude held on to her legs, helped lower her gently to the floor.
“Mandy did it.” Emmy heard the incessant ticking again. She realized it was the sound of her own teeth chattering. “Mandy killed her.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
“She couldn’t take it anymore. She was all alone.
She couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t eat. No one would help her.
Russell was abusing her. She didn’t trust her friends.
Every time she thought she was going to get away, that she was gonna have some peace, her own mother pulled her right back into it.
She couldn’t escape. She had nowhere to go. ”
“Let’s go outside. Get some air.”
“I don’t need air.” Emmy’s knees could barely hold her up. She lurched into the hall. Stood in the doorway to Mandy’s bedroom with its K-pop posters and rainbow stickers. “How did this happen? Why didn’t Allison take her away?”
“Emmy Lou.” Jude spoke to her like she was a child. “You need to breathe.”
“I’m not having a panic attack!” Emmy yelled.
“I’m outraged. You should be outraged. Look at this house.
Look at this neighborhood. Mandy was part of this town.
There’s a teacher living across the street.
She had friends and a community all around her.
Cops on her doorstep and at her dinner table.
Everyone saw her pain. No one tried to save her.
She was completely alone. She didn’t have a father. Her own mother didn’t even see her!”
“If you look at this through the lens of—”
“There’s no fucking lens!” Emmy yelled. “Allison chose Bill. She always chose Bill. She abandoned her own fucking daughter. How can you justify any of this?”
“I’m not justifying it.”
“Yeah, you are. Of course you are. You know all about abandoning people.”
Jude’s face went ashen. Emmy had finally landed a blow. She should’ve felt ashamed, but she was suddenly, inexplicably exhilarated.
“‘Followed a bad man to a good city,’” Emmy quoted.
“Living the rock ’n’ roll dream. Drinking yourself into oblivion.
Screwing every guy in the band. Then you got tired of it, and you turned it all around, right?
Cleaned yourself up. Got all your fancy degrees.
Became a model citizen. Jude the obscure becomes Jude the renowned. That’s your story, right?”
Jude looked down at the floor.
“You could’ve come back here any time. You could’ve been here for Tommy.
For me. For Mom and Dad.” Emmy was infuriated to find herself crying.
“You were too busy being a hot-shit FBI agent tracking down pedophiles and child murderers. Hunting a serial killer in your free time. Writing textbooks and papers. Lecturing at Quantico. Earning accolades. Do you want to know what I was doing? Do you?”
Jude finally looked at her.
“I was taking care of my parents. Our parents.” Emmy pounded her fist into her chest. “Our mother. Our father.”
Jude drew in a shaky breath.
“I was standing right beside him when he was killed. His blood sprayed into my eyes. Pieces of his skull went into my mouth. I can’t get the grit out of my teeth. I taste it every time I try to eat. I close my eyes and I see him on the ground over and over again.”
Tears spilled from Jude’s eyes.
“Don’t you dare start crying,” Emmy warned.
“You haven’t earned the right to cry. I’m the one who changed our mother’s diapers.
I bathed her. I fed her. Held her while she sobbed.
Ran to her when she started screaming in the middle of the night.
Fought her off when she attacked me. Took all her hate when she called me vile names.
Cleaned up her shit when she smeared it on the walls. ”
Jude’s lips started to tremble. “I hated her.”
Emmy couldn’t take back the awful truth.
That’s why she was mad at Allison and couldn’t find any rage for Mandy.
She knew what it felt like to want to put a gun to your head.
There had been times when Emmy had been so exhausted, so pushed to her limit, that she had looked at the shell of the woman who had once been her beautiful, brilliant, complicated mother and been consumed by loathing.
“Do you know what kind of monster you have to be to wish that your own mother would die?” Emmy waited, but Jude didn’t answer. “Of course you do. That’s the only reason you came back, right? To watch her die.”
Jude started to shake her head.
“She begged for you, Martha. She called me by your name. She wanted you and all she had was me, and I was completely alone. Dad was useless. Tommy checked out. Celia turned everything into a joke. I couldn’t let Cole see what was happening.
I left the only man I ever loved. Turned away my best friend.
There’s your lean horse, Dr. Archer. I couldn’t carry the load.
You want to lecture me and psychoanalyze me when the only reason I’m breaking apart right now is because there was nobody to hold me together back then. ”
Jude wiped her eyes.
“You could’ve held me together.” Emmy jabbed her finger in Jude’s face.
“All this time, I never even knew you existed. But you knew. You’ve always known exactly who you are to me.
And you wanna know something insane? My body knew it, too.
I’ve been feeling this wrongness ever since you walked into my life.
My blood remembers your blood. I feel your absence to my marrow.
Your selfishness is woven into my DNA. I needed you, and you abandoned me. ”
Emmy turned and walked away.