To Catch a Killer(58)

The evidence box from up in my attic.

My bag thunks to the floor.

“Erin,” he says, “we need to talk.”

Giant Blue Angel jets filled with every lie I’ve ever told scream through my head at Mach speed. They fly loops and angles across the back of my brain. I force my mouth closed because I have nothing to say.

Victor pulls out a chair at the table. “Please. Have a seat.”

Numb, I walk to the chair and flop down.

He doesn’t look mad or crazy-psycho, which is how I imagine Rachel would look. Instead, there’s softness around his eyes. He seems truly interested in what I have to say.

“I think you know what this is and I think you know where I found it.”

I prop my elbows on the table and bury my face in my hands.

Victor sits back in his chair. “So, what would you like to tell me about it?”

I tilt my head back, pushing my chin out and getting just the right sweep of the hair veil over my eyes. “You haven’t been around even once in my whole life and now you show up and start going through my stuff?” My voice cracks with emotion, which I hope he will believe is anger, not fear. My expression is scornful. “I can’t believe you cut the padlock off.”

Victor reaches into his pocket and pulls out my combination lock. He lays it on the table. “It was sitting out on the desk.” He pokes a finger in his chest. “My old desk, in case you’d like to know.”

I sink lower in my seat. I was so flustered when Rachel came home early yesterday that I forgot to lock everything back up.

“I know it seems like I’m spying on you, but honestly, I wasn’t. I kept hearing noises in the attic late at night. I thought maybe there were rats up there or something. I went up there to help you and Rachel.”

I hear what he’s saying, but I’m too tired to process it. A huge blanket of brain fog settles around me. Nothing has been the same since I brought that box home. Maybe Lysa’s right. Maybe it is my Pandora’s box.

I can’t think of anything to say, so I stare at my hands. Victor gets up and paces the room.

“Look,” he says, “I get the violated privacy issue and all that. Maybe if I had found something else up there, I might have turned a blind eye to it. Or, if I thought it was serious enough, alerted Rachel.” Victor plants his hands on the table and leans across until we’re almost face-to-face. “But Erin, this is the evidence from your mother’s murder.”

“Yes.” My eyes become watery.

“And there’s other evidence up in that attic, too.”

I nod.

“I am a forensic expert. You want to talk to me about this. In fact, there is no better person for you to talk to.”

He’s right, of course. This is my dream come true. He uses his foot to pull out the chair across from me and sits down, pressing his elbows into the table.

“I knew your mother.”

I study his eyes. They’re a rich blue with a slight shimmer of gold.

“She was a fixture around here. She and Rachel were inseparable. I called her my other little sister.” He gets a faraway look. “She was quite the beauty, too.”

His gaze settles back on me.

He doesn’t say it, so I do. “I know, I don’t look like her, but she was strong and independent and in that way I’m just like her.”

His mouth twitches up at the corners. “I think you look quite a bit like her, actually. Even when she was nine or ten years old she was tall for her age, and she walked with this regal attitude. I used to call her the queen. You have her height and shape: slender like a dancer, and you move with that same regal attitude. I’ll bet Rachel tells you that all the time.”

I try to imagine what a regal attitude looks like. “Rachel never mentions her at all.” I take a moment to wonder if what I’m about to do makes any sense or if I’m just too tired to try to stay ahead of things. “Okay. I’ll tell you about the box, but you have to promise not to tell Rachel.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t make that promise. How did you get this, by the way? Through some access with Rachel’s job?”

I slink my shoulders up around my neck. I know how bad it sounds and how much I have put Rachel at risk for my selfish needs. Victor softens at my reaction.

“Okay. I can’t promise to keep this from Rachel, but I will help you present things to her in a way that won’t send her too far over the edge.”

I grip the edge of the table. I want to speak … tell him everything … spill my guts. But I can’t seem to get the words swirling in my brain to come out of my mouth.

“Erin,” he says. “Just say it. It’s okay.”

“Why? Because you say it is?” It’s not what I expected to say, but it’s what comes out. I sound like I’m blaming him.

“I know you don’t know me very well, but you can trust me with your feelings … especially about this.”

“You don’t get it.” My whole body begins to tremble.

“I don’t have to get it. Just tell me what you’re feeling.”

“I’m not allowed to have feelings!” I bellow the words as loud as possible, and when the words are gone I just keep making the sound of rage until all the air in my lungs is expelled and my voice fades. When it’s gone, my anger leaves with it. I flop back in my chair, spent.