I do know I read this horrific scene where I was dragged up the stairs, and I don’t remember that happening to me at all.”
Ted nods. “When he pulled you by the hair.”
I lift my head from the wall. “How do you know about that?”
“I read the book.”
“When?”
“Last week. You could hardly walk through Rusty’s without tripping over a copy.”
“But why did you read it?”
“I should think that would be obvious,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to know what happened. And seeing as I never got your account of it, I had to settle for somebody else’s.”
I narrow my eyes. “And you didn’t feel the need to tell me this yesterday, when I mentioned the memoir?”
“I’m sure I would have,” he says, “if you hadn’t run off like you did.”
He scratches at a patch of scaly skin on his neck. I scratch my wrist.
“Well,” I say after a while. “What do you think? About what happened to me.”
I’m careful as I look at him, one glance at a time. I don’t want to see in his eyes how hungry he is for information. Don’t want to see the twitch of his lips as they smile instead of frown.
“I think,” he says, and he’s completely unreadable, expressionless as a chalk outline, “that you should let me help you. You need me, Fern.”
My lips part. The air feels cool as I sip it in. I’ve been waiting my whole life for him to realize this. For him to reverse the words he said to me on the phone last week: I need you, Fern. I came careening back to Cedar because I thought he was saying something new, that he was asking for a closeness between us—but the truth is, he’s always needed me. For Experiments. For interviews. For a spellbound admirer. But now, here he is, finally admitting what a parent should always know, should constantly be driven by. That his child needs him, too.
Eric’s voice jumps into my head: He doesn’t care about you—not the way a parent should. I shove the sound of him away. Ted’s never been a normal parent; it wouldn’t be fair to hold him to the standards of others’ affection. But now I’m watching Ted. He’s looking at the book again, tracing the title with his finger, and my heart sinks.
There it is. That hunger. That vulgar, dripping desire.
“You should let me help you,” he says again. But his voice is dreamy and distant. His eyes don’t leave the book.
Something else Eric said: I have a feeling there’s something he’s not telling us. I picture Ted now, scouring the pages of Astrid’s memoir. Was he really looking for answers to what happened to me in the basement? Or did he want something different from it? Like the satisfaction, maybe, of seeing his friemesis portrayed as a nemesis. An actual monster the whole world will hate.
I picture the man the way I remember him, dressed in his waders and mask and boots. He’s about the same height as Brennan. Same build, too. Which is an average height. An average build. Indistinct enough to be anyone. But still.
“Ted,” I say. “Do you know more than you’re telling me? About my kidnapping.”
His scoff comes quick. “I wish! But no, I told you—you were completely mute about it all. But now…” He places his palm on the top of the book, like it’s a bible he’s swearing on. “I can help you. I know you want to help the girl.”
His eyes flick to the name on the cover. “Astrid Sullivan,” he adds. “So let’s do this together. I can interview you. I can help you remember.”
Nausea snakes through my stomach, and I know it’s not the baby this time. It’s how he answered my question. I wish. And not with gentleness, either. Not with a plea for finding justice. It was an exclamation. The inflection he uses when he’s buzzing with ideas.
Ted doesn’t know anything more than he’s already said—but he wants to. Desperately. He’s probably got a fresh ribbon in his typewriter. Probably waiting for me to sit in that chair as he asks me questions he’s been crafting for twenty years. He wants it so badly that he’s willing to play kind, play soft, play the sort of father who puts his daughter first.
I’m desperate, too. But even without remembering the whole scene that Astrid described, I have other avenues to explore. And I have to try them, I have to exhaust every option before I subject