Beneath Devil's Bridge(91)

She lies silent, and for several moments I can’t speak, either, as the enormity of what actually transpired sinks in.

Maddy then clears her throat and says, “After episode four of the podcast, Darren confessed to me. He said that he and Beth followed Leena, who was staggering back over the bridge, severely injured. Dazed. And they took her down the path on the other side of the bridge and . . . he said they ‘finished the job.’”

I stare at my child as images of Leena’s naked body on the slab resurface so vividly in my mind that I can smell the morgue. I can feel Luke at my side. I can see Tucker’s trembling hands as he aims the camera. I see Leena’s damaged liver. Her cut-out heart on the scale. I hear Dr. Backmann’s voice.

This is similar to what I’d expect to see in a crush convulsion injury. Which is something that often occurs with car-crash victims. This girl went through hell.

Very softly Maddy says, “Until Mr. Pelley confessed, I thought we’d killed Leena. I thought I’d helped do it.”

“You did. You all did. You all helped.”

She turns her head away again and just lies there. Like she’s given up all will to live. I think of Lily and Daisy. I need to help my child. We all need to find a way through this.

“Why, Maddy? Why did Beth and Darren go back and do this?”

“Beth—she . . . she can be sadistic. Evil, even. She’s got a mean streak. It’s in her blood. And I think she took out her anger with me for having slept with Mr. Pelley on Leena. Perhaps she was taking out her frustration with him, too, because he liked Leena, and cared for her, and had admonished Beth before for bullying her.” She inhales deeply. “Darren . . . he told me that he and Johnny planned to lose their virginity on the night of the Ullr sacrifice. They were both desperate to. And because Leena was so drunk, they sort of coerced her, and she agreed to do it with them, earlier that night, in the woods.”

Nausea rises in my gut. Bile is bitter at the back of my throat. “So she was raped, prior to the bridge beating, by two of her classmates?” My daughter’s husband and my partner’s son.

“It was sort of consensual. She was always trying to do things in order to feel needed, or liked. She misread everything socially.”

“That’s not consensual and you know it, Maddy.”

She closes her eyes. Tears leak from beneath her lashes.

“But why—why did Darren go back with Beth?”

She swallows. “He . . . he said he’d hoped that I would be his first lover. He said after being with Leena, he was so disgusted by what he and Johnny had done with her in the woods that he just wanted to bash her out of his existence. Make her go away. He was drunk, and probably high, and full of bloodlust from the beating.”

I can barely breathe. My heart aches for Leena. For her parents, her family.

“What happened at your house last night, with the fire? What happened with Darren?”

She swallows. “He . . . said it was all over. It was going to come out in the podcast that he killed—drowned—Leena with Beth. And he couldn’t have his girls growing up knowing. He’d basically downed a bottle of Scotch. He locked us up and set the house on fire. He said it was all finally over. He tried to kill us all. Like he was trying to burn the memory of the whole thing, including us.”

I surge to my feet, walk to the window, and hug my arms tightly across my chest. I stare resolutely at the granite face of Chief Mountain. It glistens wet. Tattered curtains of mist blow across it in the gray dawn.

No wonder Johnny remained silent on the issue. And washed the jacket. He’d raped Leena, the dead girl. He loved Beth. He’d have done anything for that manipulative young woman. No wonder all the other kids lied. They knew what they’d done. They’d all had a hand in Leena Rai’s demise.

No wonder they were happy to throw their teacher to the wolves, if he seemed prepared to take the rap.

“Maddy,” I say, still facing the window. “The cops—RCMP—will be here soon. You need to tell them everything. All of it.”

Silence.

I turn. “You must. This has to stop here. There can be no more collateral damage. You have to think of Lily and Daisy.”

“Beth has kids, too.”

“You need to do what’s right. The truth is right.”

She nods. “I know,” she says softly. “I know that now.”

I hear a strange noise and spin to face the door.

Eileen. She stands in the doorway, white as a ghost.

“Eileen? Did . . . How long have you been standing there? Did you hear everything?”

“She’s gone,” she whispers. “Beth. My baby’s gone and she’s taken the kids. There’s an AMBER Alert out. Police everywhere are looking for them. Johnny said Beth also got a call from Darren. Just before the fire. By the time Johnny arrived home, she was gone. One of their neighbors said a guy with a big maroon truck came to pick them up. It had a spiderweb design on the side. I . . . Rex thinks it’s Zane Rolly, one of the bikers who hangs out at the pub.” She wobbles and reaches for the doorjamb to support herself. Her voice cracks. “Johnny thinks she might have been . . . seeing Zane on the side.”

“Oh, Eileen. I’m so sorry.” I go up to my friend and gather her into my arms. She rests her head in the crook of my neck, and she begins to sob. I stroke her hair as her body shudders and her tears wet my T-shirt. “You need to trust that the police will find them. You need to believe that they’re going to find Beth and the kids, okay?”