Tyler leaned back in his chair. “Jackson Porter was with me when Nic called. He saw me leave. Knew I was coming here.”
Hannah leaned across the table. “Your father has a gun registered in his name.”
“He does?”
“Yes. Any idea where it might be?”
“I haven’t seen it anywhere.” I shrugged. “We moved him out last year. The back door lock’s been broken for a while—I need to get it fixed. Someone was actually messing around in here the other day.” I stared at Detective Charles. “It could’ve been anyone.”
Hannah’s jaw shifted. “The concrete was fresh in the garage. What were you doing in there, Nic? Tyler? I’m assuming she had help.”
“We’re refinishing it,” Tyler said.
“To bring my dad home,” I added. I smiled at her. “He always liked you, Hannah.”
She frowned. “I thought you were getting married to some lawyer in Philadelphia.”
“Do you see a ring?” I asked.
She shifted in her seat. “You’re filing guardianship to sell the house. We’ve seen the paperwork.”
My mind drifted, but only for a second. I shook my head, smiled to myself. “No, not to sell. There’s no sign. It’s not on the market. We have a court date for guardianship. I’m bringing him home with me.” As if this had been my plan from the start.
The distance, like time, just a thing we create.
All the pieces falling in a beautiful crescendo—lining up to bring me safely home.
Three Months Later
Somewhere there’s a storage unit full of painted furniture. And when the money runs out and they can’t reach me because I’ve left no forwarding address, they will auction it off or cart it out to the Dumpster in the parking lot behind the building.
That person will disappear. A ghost in their memories.
I changed my number. It’s just easier this way.
The ring hasn’t turned up. Maybe Annaleise’s brother found it before the police swept through. Maybe her mother hid it to save her from something she didn’t understand. Maybe it’s buried in her purse along with everything else, wherever Daniel left it. Maybe it will turn up one day in the form of a new car, or a redone garage, or a year of college.
Nothing stays lost forever here.
* * *
THEY TOOK ANNALEISE’S LIFE apart, put it back together again. Broke open her family and the people she went to school with, tracked down leads from college, dug into her past. As for me, I was done talking. I didn’t have to speak again. I knew that much from Everett.
Tyler stopped talking, too, and then Jackson and Daniel and Laura, until we slowly became a town without a voice. Could they really blame us after last time?
There were whispers about us. But the whispers I could deal with.
If the entirety of Annaleise’s investigation existed in a box, I imagine this would be all you’d see: a folded-up letter, addressed to the Cooley Ridge Police Department; an autopsy report with the findings: gunshot wound to the chest, bled out, clean and simple; all other evidence washed away; her phone records, which Daniel explained away—I told her to stop calling. She was harassing me—as he rocked his baby in his arms; and lies: He was home with me, Laura swore. Came home from Kelly’s just after midnight. We were here together. I was up sick with heartburn from the pregnancy. He made me pasta to settle my stomach. We were here together the rest of the night.
* * *
THE HOUSE WAS COMING along. We completed the garage first, for Dad. Sometimes I thought maybe there was nothing wrong with him—he was doing better back home, surrounded by the things he knew. But occasionally, he’d wander off, end up across town. Someone always brought him back. And sometimes he’d walk inside in the morning and sit at the kitchen table and call me Shana, like he was existing in some other time. His eyes might drift to my stomach those days, and he might say something like I hope it’s a girl this time. He needs a sister. Someone to protect. It will make him a better man.
* * *
IT WAS A WEEK after we brought Dad home when I noticed I was four days behind on my pills. It was two weeks later when I noticed the same nausea, the same feeling of bone-tiredness, that I’d felt in Corinne’s bathroom two days before everything changed.
Tyler’s been renovating room by room, making a place for us. My