The Family Game by Catherine Steadman (92)

I’m momentarily back-footed by a question no one has ever asked. I think about obfuscating, but there is little point, and part of me desperately longs for the release of unfettered honesty. “Because I wanted him to pay, to suffer, to understand what he did.”

“And do you think he did?”

I consider the question for the first time in my life. “Yes, actually. Yes, I think he understood.”

“So you got what you wanted?” he asks simply.

“In a way, but I have to live with that. That a momentary whim of mine cost an entire human life.”

“His whim cost you two lives, though, didn’t it?” he argues, and I see what he is doing.

“We aren’t the same, Edward.”

He tilts his head to one side. “No, we are not. You meant to kill your first; mine was a mistake.”

The distinction smarts. “But the second wasn’t, was it?”

“The second was necessary. Lucy was there the day he died; she heard everything. I had little choice.”

“And Alison. She was your first real girlfriend, wasn’t she? Did you have no choice then?”

He flinches at my words. “Yes, I had no choice. I thought I loved her, that she loved me. I tried to tell her everything, about Bobby, about Lucy; I tried to be honest. She ran from me. I don’t know what I expected; she was young and good and it was na?ve to think she’d forgive anything, but I had to try. You know that impulse, I’m sure, even if you’ve never followed through. I thought it would be safe to share my secrets, but it was not. I had no idea what she might do, who she might tell. And then Gianna. I pulled her close in the hope I might be able to uncover how much she knew or suspected. But she had a strange way about her. I could never be sure what Alison had told her; how much she knew. Is this what you want to hear?” he asks suddenly. “The why of everything?”

There’s a pragmatism to the question that I suddenly realize means he is still hoping for the other shoe to drop with me. There’s still a part of him certain that if he is honest enough, open enough, I will somehow understand and I will be able to continue loving him. But what if I don’t?

“Are you going to kill me, Edward?” I ask.

He studies me silently. “I know what’s been going on between you two,” he says gently, looking to the slumped Robert in the chair beside him.

He knows about the tape. He must have heard Robert’s voice that night I found him with it in his hands. He must have known what it was as soon as he heard that list of names. He knows I’ve lied to him for weeks.

“You heard him on the tape?”

Edward nods. “I expected it from him. But not from you. He tried to avoid me, to manipulate the situation. To gain your trust.”

In my mind, I desperately rewind the events of the past few days. I recall Edward getting a phone call and leaving me with Eleanor to see the new wing, then, moments later, Robert arguing and smashing something in his office. He was on the phone with Edward. It is possible Edward confronted him in that call, which resulted in dinner being canceled.

“I brought you here to force the point,” he continues. “I hoped you might listen to the tape and tell me who you were of your own free will. I hoped maybe it could be good for us. Has it been good for us?”

In the chair beside Edward, Robert straightens slightly as he takes me in, a muted smile blooming on his face. “Harriet,” he croaks, his voice hoarse. “You made it, just in time.” He shifts in the seat with difficulty, nursing a wound on his side. “Did you find your final clue?” he asks hazily.

Edward watches intently for my reaction, clearly as invested in the answer as Robert. I try to recall what my final clue was—the game now a distant memory. Then I remember the well, the stench, the weight of Melissa’s body in my arms.

“Harriet, I need you to tell me if this relationship is still what you want,” Edward says with disarming simplicity.

Robert gives me a pointed look and I force my mind back to the final clue.

Your present is under what’s around her neck.

My gift is under a star, I’m guessing a Christmas tree star. Though the house is full of them and unless my gift is another shotgun, I don’t see what use it could possibly be to me now.

I nod to Robert. I understand the clue. His eyes flick behind me and suddenly I recall what lies there, in the corner of this very room.

A Christmas tree!

“What happens tonight if I say yes? If I say I still want this?” I ask Edward, with care.

He pauses before responding. “If you say yes, what happens here tonight is an accident. We walk away, we survive, everything becomes ours. Together, like Mitzi and Alfred.”

I do not want what he is offering. I do not want that life. I do not want to be that person. It must only be a micro-reaction I give, but it is enough. He sees it, and I cannot pull it back. I watch the disappointment crest inside him as his last hope fades and a cold calm settles over him.

“Okay,” he says after a moment. “I need you to sit in that chair, Harry.” He tips the barrel of his gun toward the armchair opposite Robert’s. “Can you do that for me?”

Robert is silent beside him but everything about this situation tells me not to do as Edward says. I think of the star, and it takes every ounce of willpower I have left not to spin around and look straight up at the star sparkling on top of the Holbeck tree behind me.