The Book of Cold Cases(88)

Those words sliced her, the injury that went deepest and wouldn’t heal. Lily had already stormed off that night. Yet she knew that Beth had stood there, watching their mother leave. Maybe they really were two halves of the same person, like Lily had said.

If Lily was a killer, then so was Beth. If they stayed here together, it was a matter of time before Lily made Beth do the next murder herself. And if Beth tried to go to the police, the first man on Lily’s list would be Detective Black. The second one might be Ransom.

“Why?” Beth asked her sister. “Why do you do these things? Can you at least tell me why?”

Lily looked at her curiously. “Do you want a reason? I can pretend there is one, if you like. I can tell you it’s because of my childhood, or the fact that my father raped my mother. I can tell you it’s because of the foster homes. Or I can tell you I’m simply bad. Take your pick, Beth. I can tell you whatever you want.”

“That’s all?” Beth cried. “After everything, that’s all you can say? Did you do it all just because you wanted to?”

“I don’t know,” Lily said. “I did want to. It was easy, you know. I thought it might be hard.” She shook her head, frowning. “It’s a high, killing someone. But sometimes . . . sometimes there’s a moment where you have the power of life and death, and then you realize it doesn’t make you any different than you were before.” She rubbed her temple. “I’m going to take a bath. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

She turned her back, and just like that, everything died in Beth. Love, loyalty, even fear. She saw Mariana’s face that last day they went shopping, the scarf in her blond hair. She saw Julian’s face in the rearview mirror as they drove to the Christmas party when Beth was sixteen, the crinkles at the edges of his unhappy eyes. She saw Paul Veerhoever crumpled at the side of the road, his face a bloody pulp in the darkness.

I loved you more than anything, she heard her mother say.

She felt nothing. Nothing.

No one is coming to save us.

We’re two halves of the same person.

No one is coming.

She had known she would have to do this, no matter how hard it was. It was time.

She did it quickly. As the water ran in the bathtub, as Lily turned away, Beth grabbed her father’s ashtray from the nightstand. The housekeepers had emptied the ashtray some long-ago day, but it still smelled like ashes, the smell that was Julian and Mariana. It was big and extremely heavy, made of solid thick glass. She swung it with every ounce of her strength at the back of Lily’s head.

It was hard. Hard. Lily stumbled forward, but she didn’t quite fall, and Beth had to hit her again. Again. Her hands were icy and numb. Her arm ached. Her brain had gone somewhere else, somewhere this wasn’t happening, where time had no meaning. Maybe it had taken a few seconds to hit Lily with the ashtray; maybe it had taken hours. Beth would never know.

There was blood, and Lily was on the floor, but she wasn’t dead. She twisted onto her back and hit Beth in the face, her fist smashing into Beth’s cheek, and this time Beth had to hit Lily in the forehead. She thought she might be screaming.

When Lily went quiet, bleeding and moaning softly, Beth dragged her into the bathroom. The bathtub had started to overflow, water running onto the tiled floor. Beth pulled Lily’s body to the tub and shoved her under the water, holding the back of her bloody head until her sister finally went still.

It was easy, you know, Lily said. I thought it might be hard.

There’s a moment where you have the power of life and death, and then you realize it doesn’t make you any different than you were before.

Beth wasn’t crying now. She wasn’t screaming. She wasn’t making any sound at all.

She couldn’t feel her hands in the warm water. Her knees were soaked. Her arms ached, and her stomach was hot and liquid. For a humiliating second, she thought she might shit herself, but somehow she didn’t. Somehow she turned the water off and sat back, gasping breath after breath as if she’d been running.

The house was quiet, so quiet. If Beth had been screaming—she thought she might have been screaming—none of the neighbors would hear. She was alone.

No one was coming.

She breathed for a while, and then she thought about it, feeling strangely calm. There was the ashtray. Blood on the bedroom floor. The crumbs of old ashes. The water sloshing on the bathroom tile. The body.

She would need to clean up all of it.

She would need to put Lily somewhere no one could find her. She would have to do that alone.

But she thought maybe she could do it.

She looked at Lily’s slumped body, still in the kimono, and she thought about crying. She thought about taking her sister’s cold hand in hers, telling Lily she was sorry. She didn’t do any of those things, because Lily would have hated it.

She reached out and touched her fingertips to the small of Lily’s back, leaving them there for only a second before pulling them away again. Lily had always hated to be touched.

Beth got to her feet and got to work.





CHAPTER FORTY-THREE


October 2017





SHEA


I was drowning. I opened my mouth, and salt water rushed in, pushing its way down my throat. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t open my eyes. Every part of my body was in pain.