The Winter Sister(99)

She made a soft chuckling sound, one without any humor in it at all.

“I mean, Tommy Dent pointed us right there, didn’t he? ‘Talk to the mother, talk to the mother.’ And now that I finally know what he meant, I keep thinking: maybe if we’d just hit harder when we asked your mom about Persephone’s father—who he was, how long since he’d been in the picture, all that—she would have told us the truth about your sister’s paternity. And then we would have had reason to look closer at Will. And then . . .”

She sighed. “Anyway, I just called to say I’m so sorry I didn’t catch it. But I’m glad you finally know. I hope this can be the start of some healing for you and your family. So take care, Sylvie, okay?”

For a while, I listened to the silence that followed Falley’s message. I stood in the middle of my room, staring at the wall, and when I finally pulled the phone away from my face, its screen was black. Pressing the home button, I watched it light up with my new lock screen photo, the one of a bundled-up Mallory Joy, and I savored the sight of her—how new she was, how beautifully unwounded—until a tap on my bedroom window startled me into dropping the phone. It thudded against the rug as I whipped toward the glass.

Ben’s face peered in at me.

“Jesus!” I breathed. And for just an instant, I saw him the way I used to, nights when he’d creep toward our window, waiting for Persephone to finish getting ready. I saw the scar on his cheek and felt that same old instinct to shudder.

But then I took a deep breath, unlocked the latch, and thrust the window open.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered, careful to keep my voice from reaching Mom in the living room.

“Sorry,” Ben whispered back. “I’m sorry. I needed to see you, but I still don’t have your number, and I didn’t want to go to the door, just in case your mom . . . And so I went to the window to see if you were in your room, but then I saw you were on the phone, so I waited, and now I’m just beginning to realize how stalkerish I’m being. Shit. I’m sorry.”

His cheeks reddened, and though I didn’t know if it was with embarrassment or cold, my hesitation was brief. Waving him inside, I put a finger to my lips in warning as he hoisted himself through the window. I crossed the room to lock the door, and when I turned back around, he was already standing on the rug between the beds.

“That’s a lot harder than it looks,” he whispered, gesturing toward the window. “Persephone made it seem so easy.”

“Persephone was an eighteen-year-old girl,” I reminded him, walking back across the room to close the window and shut out the cold. “Now what are you doing here?”

“Right,” he said, and he reached into his pocket. Pulling out his hand, he revealed Persephone’s necklace in his palm. For a moment, the starfish caught the sun and winked.

“With everything that happened the other night,” he said, “you never actually ended up taking this. But I still want you to have it.” He stared down into his hand. “I think Persephone would want that, too.”

Letting the chain dangle from his fingers, he held the necklace toward me, the same way he’d offered it at his house on Wednesday.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Ben whispered, “and I think it must have been in my dad’s car that night, not mine. I think when he . . .” He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Maybe it fell off in the struggle. Maybe it was caught in his sleeve or something and it fell into the driveway when he got out of the car. So you might end up wanting to give it to the police as evidence, I don’t know, but I wanted that to be your—”

“Ben, I’m sorry,” I cut in.

Meeting my eyes, he cocked his head to the side. “For what?”

I sat down on the edge of my bed, gesturing for him to do the same.

“For accusing you the other night,” I said as he settled down beside me. “For freaking out and running away before you had a chance to explain. I feel really stupid about that, especially given what happened after.”

Ben reached for my hand, and for a second, I thought he was going to hold it. Instead, he flattened my palm, dropping the necklace onto it. The gold shimmered against my skin, and I marveled at how light it felt. All these years, I’d imagined it so much heavier.

“Don’t worry about that,” Ben said. “I get why you freaked out. But now we know.” Even though he was already whispering, his voice grew quieter then. “We know for sure what happened.”

I nodded. Closing my fingers into a fist, I felt the points of Persephone’s starfish press into my palm. I looked at Ben, and the scar on his cheek was like the line of a mountain range on a map.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

His eyes were focused on my window.

“I’m okay,” he said. “I’m moving out of the guesthouse. I haven’t found a new place or anything yet, but I took today and tomorrow off to try to make some headway.”

He chuckled dryly. “The hospital’s cutting me some slack. ‘Take all the time you need,’ my supervisor said. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to fire me. Son of an alleged killer and all that. Sort of a PR nightmare.”

“They won’t fire you,” I assured him.

He blinked a few times and then looked at me, his eyes drilling into mine. “I think that bastard is going to get away with it,” he said.