Beneath Devil's Bridge(78)
CLAYTON: If so, Maddy would have been lying to Beth. Perhaps Beth bought her lie. Or perhaps Beth knew everything and was backing her friend up.
TRINITY: How did your jacket get cleaned? How did it come back to you, if Leena was wearing it right before she was killed?
CLAYTON: I don’t know. I just don’t. It showed up in my office washed. It was inside a plastic grocery bag. At first I thought Leena had left it there. I didn’t know at the time she was dead. Only that she hadn’t gone home, or come to school on Monday.
TRINITY: So what happened to Leena under that bridge?
CLAYTON: You sound skeptical, Trinity.
TRINITY: I am.
CLAYTON: I really don’t know. All I can tell you is that I’m a sick person. I tried to get help. Several times over the years. Like I said, I was like two people in one body. The good Pelley and the bad Pelley.
TRINITY: Who did you go to for help? What kind of help?
CLAYTON: I was seeing a local therapist in Twin Falls. A psychologist. He was trained in hypnotherapy. I first approached him about my alcohol addiction. He then dug deeper to see if I had an underlying cause for the drinking.
TRINITY: Hypnotherapy? He put you under hypnosis?
CLAYTON: Allegedly so he could speak directly to my unconscious. It didn’t work for me.
TRINITY: Did the detectives ask you about your therapy? Did they pursue this angle at all?
CLAYTON: They didn’t ask me. It never came up. Perhaps they pursued it later.
TRINITY: What was the name of the therapist?
CLAYTON: Dr. Granger Forbes. He was Johnny Forbes’s father.
I hit STOP.
Slowly Rachel raises her eyes.
I say, “Can you see now why I asked you how badly you might have wanted to silence Clayton?”
“You can’t air this.” Her voice comes out hoarse. “This . . . this is not the whole picture. You cannot let this go live until we’ve gotten to the whole truth. If you let this out, it . . . it’ll do damage you don’t understand.”
“That’s the problem with secrets, isn’t it, Rachel? The deeper you bury them, the more collateral damage they do when they’re finally ripped out.”
“You can’t—”
“I already did.” I check my watch. “Episode four went live an hour ago.”
REVERB
THE RIPPLE EFFECT
NOW
Sunday, November 21. Present day.
Maddy and Darren listen to the new episode of the Leena Rai podcast while Lily and Daisy play with Legos in the living room. PAW Patrol is on TV. Maddy’s skin prickles with heat, and she feels faint. Neither she nor Darren make eye contact.
TRINITY: If Maddy Walczak did lie, why did she do it?
CLAYTON: Oh, I had sex in the little clearing all right, off the tiny trail near the outhouses. But it wasn’t with Leena. It was with Maddy. The cop’s daughter fornicated with me. She wanted to. It was consensual. And it wasn’t the first time.
Maddy hits STOP. She sits, unmoving, staring at her phone. So does Darren. Very slowly she looks at him. What she sees on her husband’s face scares her.
“Is that true?” he asks. “Is that fucking true?”
She shoots a glance at the girls in the living room, their little blonde heads bent close together. They’re occupied, out of earshot. “Keep your voice down,” she says quietly.
“How . . . Fuck, Maddy! How could you? What does this mean? Did you—”
“He killed her, Darren. I have not the slightest doubt. I might have slept with my teacher. I . . . I see it now for what it was. That I was his victim. But at the time I didn’t view it that way. He . . . he was only twenty-six, or twenty-seven, and it wasn’t like he was . . . old. He was attractive and charming and seductive and I was naive and it was a terrible mistake that still haunts me. I lied about that. But he’s lying now. He still is. He killed her.” Tears fill her eyes.
Darren’s face is twisted. A thick, sour memory swells between them. It hangs like a sentient, tangible creature. An evil. But neither can voice anything about it. Not even to each other. Darren, as angry as he is, looks as frightened as she feels. Maddy grabs for her phone and starts to wheel down the hall.
“What are you doing? Where are you going?”
“I’m going to call my mother.”
“What in the—” He goes after her, and tries to grab the phone from her.
“Darren!” she barks as she tucks it out of his reach. “Leave me alone.”
He glowers at her.
The kids look up. Lily starts to whimper.
He hurries toward them in the living room. “It’s okay, honey. Daddy is just helping Mommy with something.” He lowers his voice and looks at Maddy in the doorway. “What do you think you’re doing? You haven’t spoken to Rachel in . . . Why are you even calling her? What are you going to say?”
“It’s enough, Darren. I . . . I’ve been thinking. A lot. I can’t do this anymore. The guilt, the secrets, it’s killing me. It’s made me into someone I don’t like. I don’t want to be this person anymore. I can’t be this person anymore.”
“What in the hell are you talking about, Maddy?”
“My whole life I’ve been running. Fighting stuff. Hurting. Tempting fate. Taking risks that should have killed me a million times over, and perhaps I wanted them to. I . . . I think I’ve been trying to kill this thing inside me. This guilt. The shame. And I’ve lashed out at everyone and the world because of it. I . . .” Tears run from her eyes. She swipes them across her cheek. “I just can’t do this anymore. I cannot sustain this any longer. Not now. Not with that podcast out there. It’s time for the truth. I owe it to my girls. And to my mother. She . . . she protected me. She knew something was off, and she protected me anyway. And because I felt that she’d glimpsed my guilt, I’ve hated her for it. I’ve hated myself.” She starts to dial.