Authors: Rebecca Drake
“Walsh. Jill Walsh.”
The woman bustled down the hallway. The minute her back was turned Jill ducked behind the desk and scrolled down the screen. There it was: 115 Fernwood Road. She grabbed a pen and scribbled the address on her hand, heading out the door just as the woman came back. “Hey, wait!”
Jill floored the Impala out of the parking lot. She mapped Fernwood Road on David’s iPhone, shocked when she recognized some of the street names. This house couldn’t be that far from hers—ten miles away at most. But they were hilly miles, and a few hills later she’d lost reception. Jill had to stop once and ask for directions and then double back to find the street, the sign partially obscured by an overhanging pine branch. Underneath
FERNWOOD
the sign said
PRIVATE ROAD
. It ran almost straight up the hillside, roughly paved, as if the cheapest skim coats of asphalt had been laid over it year after year, only to rub away in patches, the potholes never properly filled, so the tires dipped down in spots and the entire car rocked.
Jill drove slowly, peering out the window through a lace curtain of snow, trying to scan house numbers on the mailboxes posted on either side of the road. This area was filled with private homes, but they were back far from the road, at the end of driveways that snaked off into trees so thick that the most she could see were houselights winking in the distance.
She didn’t think this could be right, but it said Fernwood Road and she had nothing else to go on. Finally, halfway up the hillside on the right, she spotted a mailbox marked
115
.
She turned sharply onto the driveway, which was really just another, albeit narrower, road paved with pea gravel, which sprayed noisily against the underbelly of the car. The Impala barely fit. The road snaked deeper and deeper up into the woods, and just as she’d convinced herself that the numbers were wrong, that there was no house at the end of this at all, the road suddenly widened, the canopy of trees parting like a curtain, and through the veil of snow, Jill could see a small stone house. There was a light on somewhere inside; it glowed faintly, but Jill could see no movement.
The snow out here had already covered the woods, and roads would be impassable soon. How would she even get this boat of a car back out of here? Jill pulled up and turned off the engine. She was so nervous she was panting, little white clouds hanging in the air in front of her.
David’s cell phone was on the seat beside her, but there was no signal this deep in the woods. She slipped it in her coat pocket anyway. She thought back to fleeing the townhouse and decided to leave the keys in the ignition. Better to have them ready if she needed to make a quick exit.
She decided to go around the side of the house instead of to the front door, but when she stood on tiptoe to peer in a window all she could see in the dim light was an empty, innocuous bedroom. What if the real-estate agent had been wrong and this wasn’t where Bea Walsh lived? Jill crept along the side of the house, but the next window was blocked with a curtain. She kept going. Around the back of the house, treading carefully across a snow-covered stone patio, only to stop short when she saw a door. Through the inset glass panel, she spied an empty kitchen. She tried the doorknob. To her surprise, it opened.
Jill ducked back around the corner, fully expecting the noise to alert someone, but nothing happened. She came back, stepped inside. The kitchen was deserted, but only just. Cupboard doors stood open. Dishes sat in the sink. An empty wine bottle and a dirty glass sat on the table, a full bottle on the counter nearby. Jill crept across the hardwood floor, waiting for someone to appear, but the house was eerily still. The small rooms were sparsely furnished with what looked like cast-off furniture—a scarred table with mismatched chairs in the dining room, an old velvet couch and even older box TV in the living room. The house was a circle; she came around to the front bedroom, the one she’d caught a glimpse of through a side window. When she turned on the light she saw a suitcase open on the bed with clothes tossed inside. Someone was packing to go.
Jill continued down the hall, trying to walk softly on the old wooden floors and pausing to listen outside another door before slowly turning the knob. It opened with a slight creak and she could see candles flickering faintly in the darkness, but nothing else. She felt along the wall for a light switch and the room came to life. Jill bit back a cry. There, taped to the wall, were photos of Sophia. Of Jill. Of David, too. But dozens of Sophia—at preschool, in the backyard, at the park. Jill felt as if every hair on her body stood at attention. There was a topographical map of Fox Chapel and a scribbled timeline for Jill and David’s daily lives, along with what were obviously surveillance photos of the three of them and of their house and in their house. Jill’s skin crawled. In every photo of Jill or David their faces had been scribbled over with black marker or scratched out.
There was another display to the right of that one, with a headshot of Sophia pinned next to a photo of another little girl. They looked similar, but the other photo was older, and the little girl in it had slightly darker hair and a dusting of freckles. The eyes and the smiles were alike; they could have been sisters. It was only when Jill looked over at a small, lace-covered table in the corner that she realized who it was.
Framed photos lit by votive candles had been arranged on either side of a portable DVD player that was open and quietly whirring. In the first framed photo, a woman sat on a beach chair laughing out loud, smile wide, blonde hair falling forward, her face beautiful and relaxed. The matching frame told a different story: A thin, wan patient in a hospital bed, wires and IV lines running from slack arms to monitors and drips, face puffy and purple-lidded eyes closed. Without the blonde hair, Jill wouldn’t have known they were the same person. Lyn Galpin.
But it was the silent montage playing on the DVD that mesmerized Jill. Footage of Lyn Galpin filled the screen, photos and home movies—Lyn blowing out birthday candles, Lyn learning to ride a bike, Lyn walking across the stage at her high school graduation. Footage of the accident had been spliced together with video taken in the hospital, the camera zooming in on an emaciated Lyn lying there dead to the world. Jill startled as Bea Walsh stepped into the frame, moving to sit beside her daughter and lovingly brush the comatose woman’s hair. It ended with that scene and then started all over again, the footage looped together for Bea Walsh to sit and watch.
For a moment Jill felt the squeeze of sympathy for another mother’s pain. There was love and grief in this shrine, and a fierce longing to go back in time. Jill knew what that felt like, could empathize with the other woman, until she turned and saw the worktable that held wigs on stands, a bowl with familiar-looking keys, a box of latex gloves, and Ziploc bags holding what looked like human hair. Bea Walsh had been watching them for months. All those times when Jill thought she’d heard noises, or thought someone was in her space, in her things—it had been Bea. She’d infiltrated their lives and their house waiting for just the right moment to snatch their child.
And it hadn’t been enough to take their only child—Bea’s biological grandchild. She hadn’t been content with that alone. There was a pile of news clippings on the worktable, too, articles from papers and magazines, all of the ones that questioned whether the Lassiters were murderers. Bea Walsh had planned it all—every single move had been orchestrated to make sure that Jill and David were accused of killing their own child. Jill felt as if she’d stepped in something unbearably slimy. She yanked the cell phone from her pocket and dialed 911 as she fled the room, but she couldn’t get a signal.
There was no one in the house. Jill made it back around to the kitchen and found a door to the basement. She crept down the stairs, listening for something more than the hum of a fluorescent light hanging from the low ceiling. She followed a narrow hallway lined with metal storage shelves that rattled slightly as she crept past. At the end of the hall a door stood ajar. She tiptoed across to it, peering around the corner, but it was only a dingy bathroom. There was a door to the left and a trail of something dark and sticky across the concrete floor that led from that door to another door on the far right, a door partially hidden behind a steel support pillar. Mounted to the top of that doorframe was a large, sliding bolt.
Jill forgot the need to be quiet; she forgot everything except her daughter. She ran to the door calling, “Sophia! Sophia, I’m coming!” The lock stuck; she struggled to open it, desperate to free her child who had to be waiting on the other side. Just as the bolt shot back, in the split second before her fingers fully turned the doorknob, something slammed against Jill’s head.
The blow knocked her sideways. She cried out, clutching the side of her head. A woman with a drooping eyelid stepped back, panting, holding a handgun. “You shouldn’t be here.” Bea Walsh sounded strangely calm, or maybe that was an effect of being hit so hard. The room spun like a carnival ride. Jill dropped to the floor as Bea hefted the gun in her hand.
Jill couldn’t get the room to stop moving. She tried to sit up. “Where’s my daughter?”
“She’s not yours,” Bea said with an edge. “She doesn’t belong to you, she belongs to Annie.”
“Who’s Annie?” Jill tried to say, but the name slurred.
“Lynanne was her full name. She started going by Lyn in college. Thought it sounded more sophisticated.” The woman bent down next to her and started searching for something in Jill’s pockets. “But she was always Annie to me.” Jill tried to move. She pushed up on her hands and knees, lifting her face to look up at Bea Walsh.
“Please,” she said, trying not to slur her words, “please don’t hurt Sophia.”
“There is no Sophia,” the woman said and she swung the gun again.
DAY TWENTY-THREE
Bea loaded the suitcase into the wide trunk of the Impala and got behind the wheel. Her arms were sore from dealing with both the real-estate agent and Jill Lassiter, and her chest ached. She reached automatically toward the glove compartment, only to remember that this wasn’t her car and she’d forgotten to grab the pills. They were on the kitchen table, but she had to leave, there was no time to go back to get them. She’d have to pick up more on the road. Bea glanced in the rearview mirror as she pulled out, catching a last glimpse of the house lit up by the taillights. She’d grabbed what she’d could, taken what was important, but there hadn’t been time to do everything. She’d left evidence behind including the old car, but there hadn’t been time to move this one and come back for the other. Sloppy, Frank would have said, but she’d left him behind, too.
She glanced again in the rearview mirror and saw Annie fast asleep in the backseat covered with a blanket, the dog curled up beside her. “I’m here,” she assured her. “I’ll never leave you, Annie.” She blinked, and it wasn’t Annie, but Avery. “I’m here,” she repeated.
The driveway was treacherous in the snow. The car was too large, too wide. Bea had to concentrate to keep on the curving, narrow path. She thought they could make it to Florida in two days, maybe less if she drove straight through. They would go back home, the two of them, and everything could be the way it once had been.
“We can make your room just like it was,” she said to Annie. “I’ll find that same furniture.” Annie didn’t stir, but Cosmo lifted his head at her voice. Bea had always said no to having dogs in the house. Too messy, she’d insisted when Annie tried to bring a stray home. Too much work. But this dog was different; he could stay with them. “You always wanted a dog,” she said, but the child didn’t answer.
The pain in her chest became deeper. It bore a hole through her, spreading along the lines of Bea’s back like wings. Her hands gripped the steering wheel. In the seat next to her, Annie said, “It’s okay, Mom, it’s going to be okay now.” The fire burning inside her chest roared through her and the car drifted left, finding a gap between the trees. Her body convulsed with a massive heart attack, forcing her foot down on the accelerator. The car surged forward, scraping over a boulder before crashing into something immovable. The windshield shattered, glass spraying across Bea’s face as she slumped against the steering wheel. Horn blaring, dog frantically yipping—Bea dimly heard the cacophony of noise through her dying. Annie reached for her hand and she smiled at her daughter, reaching up to touch her face. “I’ve missed you so much.”
* * *
A thud woke Jill. She opened her eyes, an effort, head throbbing. Darkness. A musty smell overlaid by something sharp and sour, metallic. Dampness, something wet and sticky against her back, her hand. She pressed and felt cold, hard floor. She was lying on her side, something pushed up against her back. She lifted her head and her eyes exploded in red and white starbursts. Her body warred with the pain, but her head landed back on the floor with a faint clunk. It hurt. It hurt like the worst headache she’d ever had. Her chest felt sore, like she’d been punched hard, every breath an ache. Her arm ached, too. She squeezed her eyes shut and that hurt. One hand tapped the sticky wet. She brought it to her face and gave it a cautious sniff. Blood.
Memory rushed back in, overwhelming her. “Sophia!” she screamed, but it came out gravelly, barely louder than a whisper. She had to get up, had to find Sophia. She moved to sit up and something dropped hard from her other hand as whatever was behind her moved. Jill reached out, hunting, and cried out as she touched someone. She scooted away, scrambling to her feet and staggering blindly, arms outstretched, searching for a light. She screamed again as something brushed lightly against her face. A string. She pulled it and light flooded the room, blinding her. A naked incandescent bulb swung back and forth above her. Squinting, she saw sloping concrete floor, a body lying next to the drain. It was a woman with a bloody, mangled faced, one eye barely visible, staring unblinking up at the light, her mouth a frightened
O.
Jill bent over her, trembling hands searching for a pulse, but the skin felt rubbery, inhuman. A gun was lying beside the body; that was what had fallen from Jill’s hand.