The Broken Girls(58)

Jamie went still and said nothing.

“You knew,” she said to him. “That night we met at the bar. You knew who I was. You knew more about my sister’s case than I did. Your father was the first on the scene with my sister’s body. How did you think this would work, Jamie? Why the hell did you talk to me at all?”

“Don’t put this on me,” he shot back, furious. “You’ve always known, Fee. From that first night, you knew who my father was. He was chief of police in 1994. You knew he worked that case. You sat through the entire fucking trial, all the testimony, read the papers. So why the hell did you talk to me?”

The silence descended, heavy and tight.

This is why, Fiona thought. This is why I haven’t done this, ever. Not with anyone. Why I’ve always said no.

Because there was always Deb. And there always would be. Easy or no easy.

She looked at Jamie and wanted to tell him that his father had made Richard Rush lie about Tim Christopher’s alibi. There was no way to prove it. Garrett would deny it, and so, she was sure, would Richard. There was only Mike Rush’s word, and Mike had already said he wasn’t interested in invoking his father’s anger. Mike hadn’t known he was talking to Deb Sheridan’s sister when he told the story, because Fiona had lied to him. She had lied without a second thought, and if she had to do it over again, she would do it without a second thought again. And again.

But she wouldn’t tell Jamie. There was no point. He was a cop; his father was a cop; his grandfather was a cop. There was no need to make him believe. There was just hurt and anger, and confusion. Even if they patched it up, she’d hurt him again. Or he’d hurt her. Again.

“Jamie,” she said.

“Don’t.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, then dropped it again. “Fee, we can’t do this. Just . . . for now, okay? There’s too much shit going on. Just for now.”

She stared down into her lap. The anger had gone as quickly as it came, and now she felt shaky and a little ashamed. But Jamie was right. She couldn’t do this right now. Not even for Jamie.

Still, the idea of getting out and going home alone made her ill. For the first time, she wondered: When will this be over?

But she already knew the answer to that. So she got out of the car.

When he drove off, she stood watching for a moment, her hands in her pockets.

When his taillights disappeared, she turned and climbed the stairs to her apartment.





Chapter 19


Barrons, Vermont

November 2014

Malcolm had given her a phone number, of a woman in England who was at the helm of a research project focusing on Ravensbrück concentration camp. The woman answered after the phone rang for nearly a minute. “Ginette Harrison,” she said in a clipped upper-crust accent.

“Hello,” Fiona said. “My name is Fiona Sheridan. My father, Malcolm, referred me to you?”

“Yes,” Ginette said. Fiona heard the whistle of a teakettle in the background, as if she’d just dialed the direct number into a BBC show. “Fiona. I remember.”

“Is now a good time?” Fiona asked. “I have some questions about Ravensbrück, if you have a moment.”

“Well, yes, I do,” Ginette said. She sounded a little bemused. Fiona tried to guess her age from the sound of her voice, but with that dry English accent, she could have been anywhere from thirty-five to sixty. “Pardon, I know I sound surprised,” she said. “It’s only that it’s just after nine o’clock in the morning here, and Malcolm told me you live near him, in Vermont.”

“I do,” Fiona said.

“That means it’s about four o’clock in the morning there, does it not?”

Fiona looked around her dark apartment. She was sitting on the sofa, wearing a sleeping shirt and a pair of women’s boxer shorts, surrounded by the boxes from Idlewild. She’d given in and called England after fruitless hours of trying to sleep. “It is,” she admitted. “I just . . . It seemed urgent that I talk to you. Did my father tell you we found a body here?”

“Yes.” There was a rustling, as if Ginette Harrison was sitting down somewhere, getting comfortable. Perhaps she was putting sugar and milk in her tea. “A girl found in a well?”

“She disappeared in 1950,” Fiona said. “It was presumed she was a runaway.”

“I see. And no one looked for her?”

“According to the police record, no. Not after the first few days.”

“I see,” Ginette said again. “I’m intrigued. Not because I’m a ghoul, but because if you’ve found a verified Ravensbrück inmate, I’d like to add her to my research.”

“What do you mean?”

“The records from Ravensbrück were destroyed,” Ginette said, her voice clipped with calm anger. “They were incinerated right before the Russians liberated the camp in 1945. Records survive from many of the other camps, but Ravensbrück was obliterated. Willfully forgotten, if you will.”

“Everything?” Fiona asked, her heart sinking.

“I’m afraid so, yes. The Nazis dumped all of the prisoner records into the crematorium, alongside the bodies, before they left ahead of the advance of the Soviet army. And when the Russians took over the camp, they made no effort to preserve anything that was left.”