Burn Our Bodies Down(43)

“Like what?”

Connors eyes me. I try not to let him see how nervous it makes me. Finally he sighs and straightens. “How do you think she died?” he says. “That girl?”

I can picture her there, in the field, curled on her side. And then later, on her back on the side of the highway. There was no blood. There were no bruises. She just wasn’t alive anymore. “Smoke, I guess,” I say. “Or something like that.”

It was bad enough out there with safety just behind me. How would it be to be trapped, to know you’d never get out? To feel the life fade from you, and to think that even if you managed to keep breathing, the flames would swallow you whole?

“You’re right,” Connors said. “And I know you said you’d never seen her before.” I open my mouth, and he holds up one hand. “I believe you. I mean, we haven’t either. So I’m asking. Do you know why your grandmother’s lying to us?”

Because she doesn’t trust them with the truth. That much is obvious. But she’s lying to me, too, and I don’t want her reasons to be the same. I shrug, look away.

“The girl, then,” Connors tries. “Let’s start with her. I’ll even do you a favor and ignore your resemblance, for the moment. Do you know why she might’ve been out there?”

“Wrong place, wrong time.” That’s what Gram said.

“Well, that’s definitely true,” Connors says, cracking a smile. He’s easing back, trying to manipulate me into feeling comfortable. I spare a thought for Mom, a thank-you, because she may not have taught me much but she taught me how to understand this. “But the fire wasn’t an accident, as it happens.”

“How do you know that?”

His smile fades. “We do. It’s hard to tell sometimes, but there are people who know what to look for. And they found it.”

Okay. Okay, okay. The fire wasn’t an accident. But that doesn’t mean someone set out to kill that girl. There has to be some other explanation. Because if there isn’t, I don’t know how to handle that along with everything else.

“Why are you telling me this?” I say instead. Maybe it’s not wise to turn this into a fight. But I’m too busy holding myself together to hold on to my patience too. “I’ve been with Tess from the second I got here. I’ve never even been to Fairhaven until yesterday.”

“Take it easy,” Connors says. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I know you didn’t do this, okay? I know that.”

I let out a breath. It’s a relief to hear someone say it. Growing up with Mom, all the guilt she put on my shoulders—you bear it long enough, you start thinking it belongs there.

He nods to the boxes of files. “I’m telling you this because none of it’s simple, Margot. Vera denies all knowledge of this girl. We have no idea where she came from. But I’m fairly certain that somebody set that fire on purpose, and it ended up killing her. And I think I’m beginning to see how this fits together, except for one piece.” He looks me straight in the eye. “I need your help for that part. Can I show you what I’m talking about?”

I don’t think I can say no. And more than that, I don’t want to. If this is pointed at Gram, or at Mom, I need to know. Whether that’s so I can protect them or so I can be the first to knock them down, I’m not sure. But I don’t have to be right now. Not yet.

“Yeah,” I tell him. “What is it?”

“The girl.”

I snatch a quick breath. “She’s still here?”

“Sure. Phalene County’s not big. We do everything in the same place.” He winces good-naturedly. “Puts a bit of a damper on lunch hour when you know the coroner’s only one floor down.”

I let his ease push away some of the tension hanging around my shoulders. Right now all I have to do is follow Connors. That is the only thing in the world, and I’m used to this part, to putting things away until I need to feel them. It’s already happening. Katherine farther and farther away, the thought of her like pressure on a healing bruise.

I follow Connors out of the records room and to the right, along the hallway and around the corner to where a set of swinging doors leads to a large open space, about the size of the bullpen upstairs. We must be underneath it.

Inside, the halogens wash the world in yellow. A whiteboard stands streaked and dull in the corner, and a bland painting of a vase of flowers is hung crooked over a metal sink, like somebody put in the bare minimum effort at cheering the place up. But none of that matters. Because along the wall facing us are rows of metal berths, their rectangular doors shut tight. Stacks of metal coffins.

My breath catches. She’s in there somewhere.

It’s all right, I tell myself. I saw her once. I can see her again. And this time I know what she is.

Between me and the far wall is a long silver table with a channel around the edges. Despite my reassurances to myself, my throat goes tight at the sight of something there on the metal, dull and black against the shine. What is that? I don’t think it’s blood.

“Okay,” I say, and I flush at the tremor in my voice. “I’m here. Let’s get on with it.”

Connors skirts the metal table and the little tray next to it holding a pair of magnifying glasses and a clean scalpel. I don’t follow. There’s a drain in the middle of the floor. I can’t take my eyes off it. This windowless room, cold and empty—I could be here. It could be me. What’s really different between me and her?