Beneath Devil's Bridge(85)

I swipe tears from my cheek and give him a smile. “Yeah. Thanks.” My gaze holds his, and I feel that rush of warmth in my chest again. I see his pupils darken. He smiles gently. I think we both know in that quiet instant that we will sleep together. Tonight.

“See you in a few?”

I nod.

When Gio steps out the motel room door, and I hear it click shut behind him, I phone my grandmother.

As I wait for her to answer, I listen to a distant, rising wail of sirens, and I try to imagine what it must have been like in Twin Falls twenty-four years ago, at this same time of year. Sirens going to arrest my father. Me being cared for by a woman from the church while my mother gave up my dad. Chief Mountain, omnipresent, looming, lurking, watching from behind ever-shifting curtains of mist.

“Trinity?”

“Gran, I’m sorry I’m calling so late.”

“Is everything okay, hon?”

“How’s Mom?”

“She’s the same, Trin. Are you all right? What’s going on?”

“Did you listen? To the last episode?”

“I did. It doesn’t surprise me that the Maddison Walczak girl lied, you know?”

“He’s dead, Gran.”

A beat of silence. More sirens join the distant, wailing chorus. Something big must be happening.

“What do you mean, ‘He’s dead’?”

“Clayton. It’s my fault, Gramma. I . . . My podcast, it got him killed.” Complex feelings surge through me like a tsunami as I voice the words. “Either the inmates learned he was a pedophile and took him out. Or someone on the outside who knows who the real killer is had him killed. I’m going with the hit orchestrated from the outside. Because I believe him. He didn’t kill Leena. And someone out there did. If I hadn’t started this podcast, he’d be alive. I did this.”

“No, Trin, no. Clayton played his own role. He wanted to talk to you. He participated. He wanted to tell his truth to the whole world, through you. You offered him a medium. He had to know what chances he was taking in order to share that with you in that way. If you ask me, Clayton might have expected this.” She pauses. “Maybe he even wanted it, Trin.”

“He . . . he knew who I was. He didn’t tell me, but I learned after his death that he’s been keeping an eye on me and Mom. He knew where we were at all times.”

My gran is silent for a long while. “Well . . . then. He wanted to meet you and see what and who his baby girl had become. He wanted to tell you to your face that he didn’t kill that teen. To say sorry in his way. To let you know why he confessed—to save you and your mother.”

“My mother helped put him there.”

“Lacey had to survive, Trin. She was twenty-two years old. She was locked in a nightmare. She survived. She made you thrive. They both did what they did for you.”

Tears flood my eyes again. Very quietly I say, “Thanks, Gramma.” I struggle to speak as another wave of emotion swamps me. “Thank you for everything. For taking me and Mom in all those years ago. For helping us all move east. For . . . for telling me the truth.” I choke as my throat closes with the sudden pain of loss. “I can only imagine how lonely and how hard it must have been for you. You . . . you gave me what I needed. You helped me learn who I am. And now I need to figure out who I want to be—where I want to go from here.”

My gran falls silent again. I feel she is crying. I feel her aloneness as she sits beside my mother, who is, in most senses, gone from our lives. When she speaks, her voice is thick, quiet. “I love you, Trin. Now get some rest. I’m going to sleep. I think I will sleep tonight. A proper sleep.”

“I love you, Gramma.”

I end the call, and on my phone I pull up the photo of my dad with a tiny me in his arms. I zoom in to his face, his big smile. I touch the image. I hate him and grieve him. But I am glad he didn’t kill Leena.

Gio knocks and opens the door. The smell of food, hot and delicious, comes in with him. I’m suddenly ravenous.

“Hey, that smells so good,” I say as I get up and go to him. I kiss him on the cheek. But something in his face chills me. I step back.

“You okay? What is it?”

“Those sirens,” he says, setting the bags on the kitchenette counter. “The people in the restaurant place—they heard on the radio—everyone was talking in the shop. They . . . they’re saying it’s Maddy and Darren’s place. Their house. It’s completely engulfed. And a gas line has ruptured.”

Shock, horror, slams me.

“Are they okay?”

“I heard they’re inside.” His voice cracks. “Maddy and Darren are in the burning house, with their girls. They’re all inside.”





RACHEL


NOW


Sunday, November 21. Present day.

I sink to the sidewalk at the side of the road and sit and stare blankly ahead. A fine mist of rain descends over me. I can’t seem to register or absorb anything. They’ve taken me to a makeshift command center of sorts, about two blocks away. Traffic to the neighborhood has been cut off. Two ambulances are parked nearby. There are marked police vehicles everywhere. Cops are interviewing people. Someone has given me a coat and a woolen hat. A silver survival blanket has been draped over my shoulders, but I’m still shivering, teeth chattering. Two neighbors are with me. A man and a woman. I don’t recognize them.