The Book of Cold Cases(86)

“There’s no why,” Lily said. “There’s only what happened. There’s only what I did.”

I shook my head. There had to be more. There had to be. “I don’t understand.”

The wind gusted up, hard and cold, and Lily held out her hand. She was standing a few feet away, out of reach, but I still felt the fear begin to grip me again as I looked at that hand. There was no way I was going to take it. “What are you doing?” I asked her.

“You came back here for a reason,” Lily said.

“No.”

“Yes, you did.” Her hand was still held out, and it held the same fascination and repulsion that the view over the drop had. I had the impulse to step toward it, and yet that was the last thing I wanted to do.

“Come with me,” Lily said.

“No.”

“It’s too late. You’re already here.”

I knew I should run, but I couldn’t. I moaned in terror as I tried to make my legs move, but they wouldn’t obey me. “No,” I said again.

“Come with me.” It was a hiss this time, harsh and furious, and then Lily’s hand grabbed mine. I hadn’t moved; I hadn’t seen her move. But she had me, and her grip was icy and so hard, like concrete or bone. Her fingers crushed mine.

“Please,” I begged her, wild with fear as she began to pull me slowly across the grass. “Please, Lily. Where are we going?”

“This is what you came for.” I couldn’t get free of her; she was holding me too hard, pulling me toward the drop to the ocean. “I’m going over, and you’re going with me.”

I started to scream, or at least I tried to. I didn’t know if any sound came out of my throat or if it was all in my head. But I opened my mouth and tried, with everything I had, to scream as she yanked me forward.

I fought her. I really did. But I finally learned what Beth always knew about Lily: There was nothing to stop her when she wanted something. She took what she wanted. And now she was taking me.

She brought me to the edge. The toes of my sneakers went over, and I looked down. It wasn’t a perfectly sheer drop; there were ledges, and brush, and rocks. And far below, the rocky shore and the ocean, the waves crawling up to the foot of the cliffs as the tide came in.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Lily said.

I screamed.

But she had me in her grip, her icy chill moving all the way through me. My struggles were hopeless.

I tried to beg Lily for my life, but my breath was gone.

Her voice was in my ear, as intimate as a lover’s. “Let’s go,” she said. And she pulled me down.





CHAPTER FORTY-TWO


March 1978





BETH


Snow had fallen the night before, and there were wet crystals on the ground, melting into the lawn. Beth’s sneakers were damp, her feet icy as she turned the key in the door of the Greer mansion and stepped inside.

It was three o’clock in the morning. Since the day of her acquittal, Beth had been hiding in a motel for nearly a week while reporters camped on the street in front of her house. Courtesy of Ransom, she’d sat alone in a run-down room, sleeping and sometimes watching television. Thinking.

Eventually, her posh neighbors had had enough; they’d called the police, and now the press was gone. There had been nothing to see, anyway—no dramatic homecoming to report on. Just the same old headlines, day after day:

POSSIBLE “LADY KILLER” GOES FREE. BETH GREER UNREPENTANT. NOT GUILTY VERDICT ROCKS OREGON TOWN.

Whether Beth Greer killed those men in cold blood or someone else did, one of the newspaper editorials said, the result is still the same: A killer is walking our streets right now, free.

Tonight, with Arlen Heights quiet again, Beth had Ransom drop her off down the street so no one would see her come home. She was wearing jeans, an old dark sweater, a wool coat. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she wore no makeup. She had a single bag of belongings over her shoulder. The red shawl and the red lipstick were long gone.

She slipped silently into the house and locked the door behind her.

It was cold in here. Musty. Beth walked to the living room, and the first thing her gaze went to—even before she dropped her bag—was the liquor cabinet. She stared at the gleaming bottles, lined up just so. At the small fridge that contained chilled wine and ice. She could taste it, the cold vodka sliding down her throat, the decadent flavor of red wine. She could taste all of it.

She was out of jail now. She could drink. She could quit drinking forever and start a new life. She could do anything.

From upstairs came the sound of water running from a tap, and a footstep.

Beth closed her eyes. She had expected this. Those days sitting in the motel, waiting, she had known this would happen. It was time.

The cold air grew sharper, as if a door were open or a window broken somewhere, letting in a draft. Ignoring the running tap upstairs, Beth opened her eyes again and walked to the kitchen. She stood in the doorway, looking dully at the scene in front of her. The blood. The body.

Julian.

She hadn’t been home the day he died, so she hadn’t seen it, really. She hadn’t felt the cold air or seen the blood, so this wasn’t a memory. She and Mariana had come home after the cleaning crew that Ransom hired had left, though she imagined the kitchen always had a strange smell after that.