All Good People Here(95)

Billy held an image of Krissy in his mind—she was sorry, she was begging forgiveness, she was promising to be a better wife—and he wrapped his fingers around the doorknob and swung it hard. There was a loud thunk, like a hammer against wood, as the door collided with her. He heard her tumble down the stairs, landing with a crack at the bottom. The silence afterward was deafening.

Billy stood in the darkness, his hand still on the doorknob, paralyzed. He couldn’t believe he’d done it. Panic began to bubble in his stomach. He opened the door and stepped gingerly around it. But something was wrong. The body at the bottom of the stairs was too small. He blinked down at it, his brain working in slow motion. Krissy didn’t wear that nightgown. Her hair wasn’t that light. When he finally understood, he contracted. His stomach lurched. It was January. It was his baby girl.

“No.”

Panic blurred his vision as he made his way down the stairs to her. He tried to move fast but he felt as if he were underwater, the air around him viscous. January’s body looked all wrong—her limbs bent at sharp angles, her face slack. He reached out a hand and softly touched her cheek.

“January?” His voice was tentative.

She didn’t move.

“January?”

Still nothing.

“No,” he breathed, clapping a hand over his mouth. Bile rose in his throat. “No, no, no.”

Shaking, he reached down and scooped her body into his arms, cradling her like a baby. “January, wake up. I’m sorry. Daddy made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

But her body remained limp, her face expressionless. If it weren’t for the extreme angle of her neck, she could have been sleeping. “January.” Now his voice was a harsh command. “Wake up!” His arms tightened around her, shaking her body, trying to get her to open her eyes.

And then, he saw it—the flutter of her eyelids. His heart soared in his chest. He let out a sob. She was alive. She was alive, she was alive, she was alive. In his arms, his daughter let out a little moan, turning her head slightly in his arms.

“Good girl,” Billy said, his voice trembling. “Good girl.”

He shot a look up the basement stairs. He needed to get to the phone in the kitchen to call an ambulance, but he didn’t know if he should move her body. Would that make it worse? He looked into January’s face. By now, she’d blinked her eyes open and was gazing up at him, looking confused. “D-Daddy?”

“Shh, baby. Don’t talk. I’m gonna leave you here for one second, okay? You’re gonna be okay. I’m gonna get you help.” Moving more carefully than he ever had, Billy placed her body down, straightening out her arms and legs.

He stood to leave, but then, just as he was turning to race up the stairs, January’s little voice said, “You hurt me, Daddy.”

Billy froze. An iciness flowed from his head through his body. She knew. She knew what he’d done. He stood, unmoving, for a long time, and then, finally, he turned and knelt down.

“No, no, January. I didn’t,” he said slowly. “Don’t say that.”

January started to whimper, looking scared. “You did.”

“I didn’t. So don’t say that.”

Her eyes widened in fear. “Where’s Mommy?”

“Shh,” Billy hissed. “Be quiet.”

But she was crying now, her voice getting louder. “I want Mommy!”

Billy grabbed the sides of January’s face, his fingers white. “Shut up.”

She began to scream, “Mom—” but Billy clapped a hand over her mouth.

As he did, her head turned ever so slightly, and in his daughter’s face, Billy suddenly saw the shape of Krissy’s eyes, the angle of Dave’s chin, and Billy remembered that January wasn’t his daughter after all—not really. And then, his mind was a blank. He heard himself saying, as if from a great distance, “Shut up, shut up, shut up.” He watched, detached, as his hands tightened around January’s head, his thumbs closing her eyes and pressing them shut so she couldn’t see him anymore, so he couldn’t see Krissy. And then he looked away as he lifted her head and slammed it against the floor. It only took once for her to stop moving.

Billy crouched, motionless, over her body, his breath coming in ragged gulps. From somewhere very far away, from underwater or through layers of glass, he heard someone crying, and then, vaguely, he registered tears on his cheeks, growing sticky on his jaw.

“Oh God.”

What had he done? He gazed down at January and his stomach twisted. What had he done to his darling girl? Then, ever so slowly, he stood as a new question formed in his mind: What was he supposed to do now?

He gazed around at the blackness of the underground room, feeling as if he were standing in the mouth of a monster. He did not want to leave January down there in its jaws, but it was beginning to dawn on him that he had no choice. He couldn’t call an ambulance now. He couldn’t call the police. It was too suspicious—him finding January in the middle of the night, moments after she’d died. He needed to put distance between her body and himself. He needed January’s death to look like an accident. When he and Krissy woke the next morning and found January dead at the bottom of these stairs, the only logical assumption would be that she had sleepwalked and fallen to her death. It would be horrible and believable.