in on a cat and it’s purring and you feel bad because you thought it only purred for you.”
Claire laughed so that Lydia would keep going.
“And then she got older, and …” Lydia shook her head. “Having a teenager is like having a really, really shitty roommate. They eat all your food and steal your clothes and take money out of your purse and borrow your car without asking.” She put her hand over her heart. “But they soften you in ways you can’t imagine. It’s so unexpected. They just smooth out your hard lines. They make you into this better version of yourself that you never even knew was there.”
Claire nodded, because she could see from Lydia’s tender expression the change that Dee Delgado had brought.
Lydia grabbed Claire’s hands and held on tight. “What are we going to do?”
Claire was ready for the question. “We have to call the police.”
“Huckleberry?”
“Him, the state patrol, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.” Now that Claire was talking it out, she saw a plan. “We’ll call everybody. Tell Homeland Security we saw someone making a bomb. Tell the FBI there’s a kidnapped girl inside the house. Call the EPA and say we saw a barrel of toxic waste. Tell the Secret Service that Lexie Fuller is planning to assassinate the President.”
“You think if we can get them all here at the same time, no one can cover up anything.”
“We should call the news outlets, too.”
“That’s good.” Lydia started nodding. “I can post something about it on the parents’ message board at Dee’s school. There’s a woman—Penelope Ward. She’s my Allison Hendrickson without the kneecapping. Her husband is running for Congress next year. They’re really connected, and she’s like a dog with a bone. She won’t let anyone drop this.”
Claire sat back on her heels. She knew the name Penelope Ward. Branch Ward was running against Congressman Johnny Jackson for his seat. Jackson was the same congressman who’d started Paul on his road to success. He was also the reason Jacob Mayhew had given Claire for his presence at the house the day of the burglary.
Mayhew had told her, “The Congressman asked me to handle this,” and Claire’s mind had wandered into kickbacks and fraud because she had assumed Jackson was covering his ass. Was there another reason? If Mayhew was involved, did that mean that Johnny Jackson was, too?
Lydia asked, “What?”
Claire didn’t share the revelation. They could let the various state agencies figure this out. Instead, she looked back up at the house. “I don’t want Julia’s tapes to be part of it.”
Lydia nodded again. “What are we going to tell Mom?”
“We have to tell her that we know Julia is dead.”
“And when she asks how we know?”
“She won’t ask.” Claire knew this for a fact. A long time ago, Helen had made a conscious decision to stop seeking out the truth. Toward the end of Sam’s life, she wouldn’t even let him mention Julia’s name.
Lydia asked, “Do you think it’s Paul’s father in the video?”
“Probably.” Claire stood up. She didn’t want to sit around trying to figure this out. She wanted to call in the people who could actually do something about it. “I’ll get the tapes with Julia.”
“I’ll help.”
“No.” Claire didn’t want to put Lydia through seeing any part of the video again. “Start making the phone calls. Use the landline so they can trace the number.” Claire walked over to the wall-mounted phone. She waited for Lydia to pick up the receiver. “We can put the Julia tapes in the front trunk of the Tesla. No one will think to check there.”
Lydia dialed 911. She told Claire, “Hurry. This isn’t going to take long.”
Claire walked into the den. Mercifully, the picture on the television was black. The videotapes were stacked on top of the console.
She called to Lydia, “Do you think we should drive back into town and wait?”
“No!”
Claire guessed her sister was right. The last time she’d left this to the police, Mayhew had managed her like a child. She pressed the EJECT button on the VCR. She rested her fingers on the cassette. She tried to summon into her brain an image of Julia that wasn’t taken from the movie.
It was too soon. All she could see was her sister in chains.
Claire would destroy the videos. Once they were safe, she would spool out all the tape and burn them in a metal trashcan.
She slid the cassette out of the machine. The handwriting on the label was similar to