The Night Before(71)

But now I wonder if that’s what happened. I wonder if Gabe invented this story about Rick hurting me, and used it to make his parents send him away.

I don’t know how to ask him. Am I remembering it wrong? Have I lost my mind? I can see Rick holding that knife. I can feel the branch in my hands the same way I can feel the bat in my hands—the bat that killed Mitch Adler.

Gabe’s eyes are wide with something soft and warm. Affection, I think. Affection like I’m his ward. His pet. His child.

“After this,” he says, “you have to stop, okay?”

“Stop?” I ask, cautiously.

“No more of these men who want to hurt you. I know you can’t help it, just like you couldn’t help it when you kissed my brother. When you liked kissing him after everything he did to you.”

I try to make sense of things, but I know I am incapable of making sense.

“And Mitch Adler. He just wanted to use you. And that doctor in New York—he had a wife and children. He was using you too. All of them just trying to hurt you. Don’t you see that?”

The breath leaves quickly but rushes in again. The rest of me remains still. Frozen.

How does Gabe know that Kevin was married? Had children? I’ve told no one because I knew what they would have thought. I knew what they would have said. No one would have understood our situation.

I never told anyone his last name. I never told anyone that he was a shrink.

“Rick is in prison. Did you know that?” Gabe asks me. And I shake my head. I had no idea. Neither did Rosie or Joe. Last we heard, he was stationed overseas somewhere.

“He killed a man in a bar fight. He had a military trial and he’s in military prison. He got what he deserved. But it destroyed my poor mother. My father’s dead. My brother’s in jail. It’s just me now. I’m all she has.”

“Okay,” I manage to say because I’m afraid to say nothing. Our mother told us Mrs. Wallace moved to a nursing home. Surely Mrs. Wallace would have told her if Rick was in prison. Or maybe not. Maybe she was too ashamed.

“We should get you inside,” he says. “You should rest.”

I look out the window at Deer Hill Lane. I can’t see much in the darkness. I can barely make out the frame of Gabe’s house. So many memories live in this neighborhood. Happy memories. Sad memories. Fear and trauma. They twist around one another in a tangled web. I haven’t been back here since I left. Not to this street. I haven’t come back because I want no part of them. I have that one picture on my screen so I won’t forget what this place did to me.

Gabe opens his door and goes outside. He waits by the front of the car for me to join him.

Something is wrong. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if it’s Gabe. If it’s Rosie or Joe. If it’s Jonathan Fielding.

But I get out of the car anyway. I follow Gabe into the dark, quiet house. I let him close the door behind us because I don’t know what it is that I think is wrong.

And because it’s entirely possible that what is wrong is me.





FORTY-TWO


Rosie. Present Day. Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Branston, CT.

Both officers sat with her now, with all of the evidence spread across the table. Rosie cradled a cup of stale coffee in her hands, trying to pull together thoughts amid the exhaustion and emotional turmoil.

“Let’s go back to the very beginning,” Pearson said. Her voice was calm and soothing, unlike earlier when she was screaming at Rosie in the open room. Rosie felt like an idiot for going after that man, Edward Rittle, who wasn’t even with Laura Thursday night. But then she reminded herself of the other women he had lied to and used, and wished she’d gotten in at least one sucker punch. Laura would have done it. She would have leveled him and he would have deserved it.

At least now his wife knew. And his employer. The women he hurt got some payback for the pain he caused them.

“Okay,” Rosie said. “The beginning.”

“Start when she told you about the date.”

Rosie remembered it clearly. Laura had come downstairs from the attic, where she’d been working. She said she’d gone on a website, findlove.com, to look for older, divorced men. Men who had a proven track record for commitment. Men who were eager to settle down, and maybe one who already had his own children.

“She thought that would be perfect—a man with children who only came to visit every other weekend—”

Conway interrupted her. “Doesn’t she like children?”

“She loves my child. Mason—her nephew. But we had a complicated childhood. Our father left when we were barely teenagers. So she’s never been sure about wanting kids.”

“Okay—so she said she found one. Did she tell you his screen name?” Pearson asked.

Rosie shook her head. “No. But she described him. And that description sounds a lot like Edward Rittle, but I guess now that doesn’t mean much. All she really said was that he had a full head of brown hair, tall, in good shape. Handsome face. God, it could be a lot of men, now that I think about it. It sounded specific at the time, but it wasn’t really.”

“What about a picture? Didn’t you ask to see it?” Pearson had obviously been down this road with other women.

“No, honestly. She only had the site on her laptop upstairs, and I didn’t want to encourage it. I didn’t think she should start dating so soon. She’d just been back five weeks after leaving her entire life in New York. And it was over a breakup with a man. It seemed pretty extreme to me.”