The House in the Pines(71)

“I’m trying, Muffin, but you’ve got to tell me what happened. If there’s something you’re not saying, something you’re afraid to tell the detective, you can tell me.”

“I’m trying to!” Maya wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “It’s like he—he put us under a spell.”

Her mom stares at her in disbelief.

Maya can see Detective Donnelly talking to his partner through the wide glass window. Detective Hunt, a woman in her forties, looks skeptical. She shakes her head.

“I know how it sounds,” Maya says. “I can’t explain how he did it, but I think I know why. Frank caught us talking about him. He showed up just as Aubrey was telling me about something that happened at Dunkin’ Donuts. He said he was going to show her a magic trick . . .” Maya remembers the look on Aubrey’s face as she’d described this, as if she’d just realized something. But what? The key hadn’t levitated—but something had happened, hadn’t it? Some other kind of trick?

“A magic trick?” her mom says. There are tears in her eyes, but her voice is strong. “Look, if Frank did something to you . . . or to her . . . then you need to tell me. But what you’re saying, Maya, it’s not making sense.”

Detective Donnelly returns. He sits across from them. “My partner says Frank’s story checks out. And it matches, more or less, what you told me.”

More or less? Maya’s stomach clenches. His tone makes her feel as if she’s done something wrong.

“The two of you had a disagreement the day before yesterday,” Donnelly says. “Frank went over to talk things out. You didn’t want to talk to him, but there wasn’t a fight—you agree on that. No one raised their voice. Then you left the kitchen—you say it was to call 9-1-1, but Frank says he wasn’t aware that was your intention.”

“He’s lying—I said was going to call the police. They both heard it.” Though even as she says this, it occurs to Maya that no one will ever know what Aubrey heard, or what she thought, or whether she’d actually figured out what Frank had done to them.

“Right,” said Donnelly. “This is where you start to disagree. You say you went to call the police because you were afraid Frank was going to hurt you. But you can’t explain how you thought he’d do it. And no call was ever placed to the police. Am I missing anything?”

Maya’s shoulders sink. She shakes her head.

“Frank and Aubrey continued to talk through the screen door,” Donnelly went on, “at which point she decided to join him outside. They sat on the steps, talked, and again, no voices were raised, no physical contact as far as you could tell.”

Maya nods.

“The two of them had recently gone out for coffee,” Donnelly said, “which was what prompted the fight between you and Frank.”

“No! I mean—yes, sort of—but that had nothing to do with what happened.”

“Did you not catch him with Aubrey at Dunkin’ Donuts?”

“I did, but—”

“Were you upset about it?”

“At the time, but then I got over it.”

Detective Donnelly checks his notes as if to make sure he’s got the next part right; then he looks Maya right in the eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me about the knife?”

The knife. She’d forgotten. “That had nothing to do with any of it.”

A shadow falls across her mom’s face.

“So why did you have it?” the detective asks.

“I just—I picked it up because I was scared—I knew he was going to hurt her. I wanted to protect us both against—”

“Against what?”

“I’m sorry,” Brenda interjects, “but I think my daughter’s in shock. We need some time, please.”

“I understand, ma’am—I just have a few more questions—”

“No more questions,” her mom says. “Not without a lawyer present. My daughter, she . . . she’s clearly not well.”





THIRTY-FIVE




Detective Diaz was different from Detective Donnelly.

She was older and didn’t talk much, and though Maya never saw her smile, her face was kinder than Donnelly’s. She wore her graying hair in a long braid. She had just listened to everything Maya had to say and gave no indication as to how she felt about it, whether or not she believed it. But she’d written it all down, including the date and time of the calls made to Brenda’s landline. She sat across from Maya and her mom in a small white room very much like the small white room where they had sat with Detective Donnelly seven years ago.

They listened to the recording. The sound captured on Maya’s phone wasn’t as good as she’d hoped—Frank had spoken quietly, and most of his words were inaudible beneath the music at the bar—but they could hear some of the conversation.

After the part Maya remembered, she heard herself stop talking. Frank took over. His voice began to change. He grew quieter and quieter, as if someone were turning down his volume.

He slipped into that voice she remembered from the day Aubrey died. The cadence of nursery rhymes. Of spells. Even now, knowing what she knew, she found his voice bewitching. She heard arms and legs and head. Between two songs, they heard him say that her limbs were too heavy to lift. Then he drifted into a vivid description of the place he called home—table, fireplace, loft—and she understood that, although she had never been to Frank’s cabin, a part of her had.