All the Beautiful Lies(81)

“I’m not complaining,” Paul said, “but we came a long way for this. Are you not planning on trying to see her?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t just come for her. I came to go to the funeral, and we’ve done that.”

“Okay, then. It’s your call.”

They stayed a couple of hours as the place filled up. Paul got a lesson from a group of fraternity brothers on how to play Big Buck Hunter and ended up, as usual, with a bunch of new best friends. Three rounds in, Harry was drunk enough to text Caitlin, saying how he’d been to the funeral, and wished he’d had a chance to say hello. To his surprise, she texted back right away.

I thought I saw you at the back. Come to Kildare’s Pub tonight if you’re up for it. It’s a gathering of all our high school friends. I’ll be there at nine but can’t promise I’ll stay more than one drink.



Harry wrote that he’d be there, and he told Paul to make him go, no matter what. They left the Library at dusk and went back to the motel and changed. Then they walked back toward downtown, getting dinner at a family-run Italian restaurant. They made it to Kildare’s at just around nine thirty. It was a typical faux Irish pub: dark red walls, unvarnished wood floor, the Dropkick Murphys playing on the speakers. There was a separate alcove on the opposite side of the bar, and it was crammed with young people, some still in funeral wear, suits and black dresses. Harry’s stomach hurt at the thought of navigating his way into the crowd to try to find Caitlin, but he knew he should do it. He went with Paul to the bar for a beer and, just before he was about to order, saw Caitlin, in jeans and a black sweater, come out from the crowd, scanning the room. She spotted Harry and came right over.

“You came,” she said, and something about the way she was standing stopped Harry from trying to hug her.

“I did. This is my friend Paul Roman.”

Paul turned from the bar, and took Caitlin’s hand in his, leaning in and saying something Harry couldn’t hear over the music. Caitlin smiled, showing a lot of gum.

“I’m leaving, actually,” Caitlin said. “Harry, can you walk me home?”





Chapter 34





Now



They walked past a succession of crowded bars and restaurants, then hooked left onto a residential side street.

“It’s about two miles. You sure you don’t mind?”

“Not at all.”

“I couldn’t stand being there. Everyone’s saying all the right things, but it still just feels like life is going on without her. Which it is.”

“The funeral Mass was nice. I’d never been to one.”

Caitlin’s phone was buzzing, and she stopped, apologized, then rapidly texted to someone on her phone. “My friend who brought me to the bar is freaking out that I left.” She texted some more, then put the phone away. They kept walking.

“Tell me what happened between your stepmother and Jake Richter,” she said. “I know what the police told me, but that’s it. She stabbed him before you got there?”

Harry told her everything that had happened after he’d been admitted to the hospital. He told her about waking up and thinking that the man he’d seen outside of the motel was John Richards, and how Alice told him that John had once been her stepfather. He told her about going home and using Phone Finder on his phone to learn that Alice was at John’s house, and deciding that he needed to see him one more time just to be sure. He told her in detail what Alice had looked like, the blood on her neck, that he’d seen Jake dead in the kitchen, and that before the police came, Alice told him Jake had said Caitlin was in the trunk of the car.

“You must have thought I was dead,” she said.

“I did. And then when I opened the trunk you were just laying there, not moving at all.”

“I told myself to pretend I was dead, to just be still. For some reason, even though I knew it was you in the garage, I couldn’t make myself move.”

“Why didn’t he kill you, do you think?” Harry asked.

“He came to the motel to find out if you knew it was him, I think. That’s what he was asking me, anyway, and when I didn’t tell him anything, he hit me again and put me in the trunk of his car. I remember that he was gentle, and some part of me was thankful.”

“I think he was insane,” Harry said.

“Ya think?”

Harry laughed. “He didn’t say anything?”

“He did. He said something about being tired after he put me in the trunk, and then he took a tie from his jacket pocket and he rolled me onto my side and bound my hands together. And I let him do it.”

“You’d been knocked out, right?”

“Not really. A little. He’d hit me twice, and my nose was broken. I could have fought back, but I didn’t.”

“Maybe that was the smart move. Maybe if you’d fought back, then he would have killed you.”

“I know. That’s what everyone tells me, but I still can’t stop thinking about it. I just gave up. I think I was telling myself that it was my best chance, that he had somehow changed his mind about killing me, and I didn’t want to do anything that would make him change his mind again.”

“It was a good instinct.”