Confessions on the 7:45(99)

“They were working together,” said Selena. How could that be? Selena met Geneva on the playground. She alone had invited Geneva into their lives. But maybe that was the plan all along. Maybe that was all part of a long game that started years ago.

Crowe went on. “Maggie Stevenson’s murder was never solved. Gracie was never found. And the man who was part of their lives, they knew him as James Parker, another ghost. Not even a picture of him left behind. They all disappeared.”

“I don’t understand.”

Outside, the volume was coming up, voices raised a little, news vans arriving.

“Charles Finch, Pearl, Grace—they’re con artists,” said Crowe. “Working their way into people’s lives and taking what they can get.”

Con artists. It seemed like such an old-fashioned idea, something almost amusing, harmless, a minor scam like a shell game or three-card monte. An email that you might get from a Nigerian prince. Not this. Not lives destroyed, women hurt and killed.

“So, Geneva works her way into my home, becomes our nanny, then seduces Graham with the intent to blackmail him. And Pearl? What’s her role in this? And why?”

“That I can’t answer,” he said. “Only she knows what kind of game she was running, what she wanted. Maybe she was just trying to hurt you.”

There was more to it than that, wasn’t there? Selena thought. More than a game with my life?

“My guess is that they didn’t know what your husband, Graham, was capable of. They misjudged him. Geneva tried to blackmail him like she did Erik Tucker. And he killed her.”

A jolt of sadness, a rush of tears to her eyes. She moved to wipe them away.

“You think she’s dead,” said Selena.

Crowe rubbed a hand over the crown of his head.

“We have some footage of Graham disposing of something in a dumpster a few miles from his brother’s apartment the night Geneva went missing. We have the body of another young woman connected to your husband. He has a history of violence against women. And tonight you barely escaped him.”

Her husband was a monster. She heard Pearl’s whisper: The worst of your problems is about to go away. Was there compassion and tenderness in Pearl’s voice when she said it? Had Pearl, on some level, thought she was helping Selena?

The ambulance Graham was in pulled from the drive, sirens whooping to clear people and other vehicles, then going silent as it proceeded out of view. A police car and an unmarked sedan followed. Crowe’s gaze traced the vehicles.

“Do you have anything else you need to tell me, Selena? About Graham, about Pearl Behr, about Geneva?”

“No,” she said. But there were things she wanted to say. Things he probably wouldn’t understand.

Geneva was a blackmailer and a home wrecker, but she was a good nanny; she took great care of Oliver and Stephen. She tended to them, played with them, and cared for them as well as Selena could have. The boys loved her; and they were going to miss her. Under other circumstances, Pearl might have been a good friend, a good sister; and she’d saved Selena’s life, even as she’d essentially destroyed it. Graham had been a good husband much of the time, a decent father. She’d loved him, forgiven him, believed in him. Then, he’d tried to kill her, take her from her children.

They were bad people who had done unconscionable things. But there was more to them than that. Detective Crowe could never understand all the layers, all the facets, all the glittering good folded in with the bad. How complicated we all are; even the worst among us might still be worthy of love.

“No,” she said again. “You know everything I know.”



FORTY-THREE

Geneva

The footsteps grew closer, and Geneva held her breath. She’d had a lot of time to think, about the Murphys, the Tuckers, all the things she’d done. She’d made some decisions.

Closer, louder. Then she heard the outer door unlatch. It swung open with a squeal and then someone was coming down the stairs to the cellar. She roused herself from the cot, sat up.

Pearl turned on lights and came into view, stood slim in the doorway.

“You can’t just lock me in here every time you don’t know how to handle me,” said Geneva.

The truth was, she didn’t hate it down here in the root cellar. At least it was quiet. There was time and space to think about all of your mistakes, how you wanted to change, what you would do if you ever got out. She’d made some decisions.

“You were getting squirrely,” said Pearl. “You had to be managed. Be happy you were in here. Things got ugly.”

“Are the boys okay?” she asked, feeling a stutter in her heart. “Selena?”

A shrug, a wrinkled brow. “They will be.”

Pearl approached, boots knocking on the floor, the sound echoing off the concrete walls. She carried a heavy black duffel bag on her shoulder.

“I’m done,” Geneva said. “I’m done with this. For real.”

Probably she should have just kept it to herself. She couldn’t best Pearl in a fight; that had been proven time and again. What was to keep her from locking Geneva in here forever?

“You know what?” said Pearl. “So am I.”

Geneva rubbed at her eyes. She was exhausted. How long had she been in the root cellar? Maybe not more than a day or two. It felt like a month.