own eyes were burning; I was scared to blink. Scared to look away. Scared of what to say.
“Now you,” he said.
“I didn’t do it,” I whispered, because that was the only truth I could believe, too.
“It could’ve been an accident,” he said. “Maybe you were protecting yourself. I’d seen you sleepwalking earlier that week. Tell me, were you sleepwalking then?”
I swallowed nothing. The truth, then, the thing he suspected but never said. The same thing Bennett suspected, that Detective Rigby must. That Calvin Royce feared. I didn’t deny it; didn’t lie—not to him.
He stood, took a step toward me, holding out his hands like he did that first night when he found me outside, like I was an animal that might spook. “I know it happened when you were younger. I know who you used to be.”
I backed up, placed my hand on the counter. “Detective Rigby told you?” It wasn’t fair, playing us against each other.
“No, no. Child, I knew when your application came through. Ran a background check with a cash offer like that.” He nodded to my arm. “The scars. I know who you are.”
I shook my head. “I was going to tell you,” I said. “I came here to tell you.”
“My wife followed your case. We remembered. She prayed, she—” He stopped abruptly, gestured for me to follow him down the hall, and I did, but still with that box cutter in my hand.
Both of us telling a story and begging the other person to believe it.
We passed the locked cabinet of guns—where one must’ve been used to kill his wife—down the hall, to a room I’d never been in. I didn’t want to go any farther. Didn’t like the narrowing of the walls, the lack of windows, the lack of exits. But then he opened the door, and it was almost unbearably bright. Blue bookshelves, painted lumber, stretching up to the ceiling. A rocking chair in the corner. A china cabinet against the far wall, filled with glass figurines. Books circling the room.
“My son, he’s never coming back. Doesn’t want to face himself. It was a terrible, terrible accident, but I told him we could get through it. That was the last time my son really looked at me, and then you showed up, and I needed to run a check, make sure your funds were legal. It pulled up an old name, and I remembered it. Of course I did. We both followed your story.”
He limped to the far shelf and pulled down the book I hadn’t seen in years. The pale pink cover, the photo on the front—of her and of me. Both of us with the long, wavy brown hair, impossible to tell where hers ended and mine began. Finding Arden.
“Marie, she bought your mother’s book,” he said. “I couldn’t believe you were here, of all places, after everything.” He shook his head, like he was trying to make sense of things that could not be put to words. “Like I was supposed to help you,” he said, his voice barely audible. His eyes drifted to the box cutter in my hand. “To get it right this time.”
“Rick,” I said, begging him to understand. “I didn’t.” But at some point, you have to face the facts and yourself. “I would have defensive wounds, right?”
“I don’t know,” he said, but he gestured to my leg.
“That was after. I remember that. I fell.” I held out my arms, turned them over for him to see. “There’s nothing here. No marks, nothing.”
“Well,” he said, not conceding, not denying. “They’re going to search this house or yours. Nina asked me this morning if I’d let them take a look around. I’ve been through this once before, and I told her not without a warrant. But it means they’re going to get to one of us. They have to make a decision, though. They need probable cause, and that’s no small thing. They can’t just guess. But they’re watching, trying to figure out which of us that stranger was here for.”
I thought of Bennett and his suggestion to talk to his sister, her details sitting in my phone. “Have you talked to a lawyer, Rick?”
“No,” he said. “I remember how this goes, Liv.”
But he had the murder weapon in his house. If they came here with a warrant, he would be in so much trouble. And then I understood: He wasn’t consulting a lawyer because he was protecting me. And I couldn’t let him do it.
“That man