and headed back toward the den. She went into the kitchen. When she returned, she was gripping the pry bar in her hands. She walked down the narrow hallway toward the garage. The distance was around fifteen feet, but Lydia felt like everything was moving in slow motion. The pry bar arced over Claire’s head. It hung in the air for a few moments before coming down on the brass knob. The door opened into the garage.
Claire reached in and felt for the light switch. Fluorescents sputtered on.
She dropped the pry bar.
Lydia couldn’t move. She was ten feet away, but she could still clearly see the wall opposite the doorway—the empty chains bolted to a concrete-block wall, the edge of a dirty mattress, discarded fast-food bags on the floor, photographer’s spotlights, a camera on a tripod. The ceiling had been altered so it looked like the room was in a basement. Wires hung down. Plumbing pipes went to nowhere. Chains dangled onto the concrete floor. And there was blood.
Lots of blood.
Claire stepped back into the hall, pulling the door closed behind her. The knob was broken off. She had to wrap her fingers around the spindle. She kept her back to the door, blocking the way, keeping Lydia out of the garage.
A body, Lydia thought. Another victim. Another dead girl.
Claire spoke in a low, controlled tone. “I want you to give me your phone. I’m going to use the camera to document the room while you go to the road and use the burner phone to call the FBI. Not Nolan. Call the number in Washington, DC.”
“What did you see?”
Claire shook her head once. Her color was off. She looked ill.
“Claire?”
She shook her head again.
“Is there a body?”
“No.”
“What is it?”
She kept shaking her head.
“I’m not fucking around. Tell me what’s in there.”
Claire tightened her grip on the door. “Video cassettes. VHS.”
Lydia tasted bile in her mouth. VHS. Not DVDs. Not digital files. VHS tapes. “How many?”
“A lot.”
“How many is a lot?”
“Too many.”
Lydia found enough strength to start walking. “I want to see.”
Claire barred the door. “This is a crime scene. This is where Anna Kilpatrick died. We can’t go in there.”
Lydia felt Claire’s hand on her arm. She didn’t remember walking down the hallway, moving toward the thing her sister was trying to keep her away from, but now she was close enough to smell the metallic tinge of coagulating blood.
She asked the only question that mattered. “How far back do the VHS tapes go?”
Claire shook her head again.
Lydia felt her throat turn into barbed wire. She tired to push Claire aside, but Claire would not move. “Get out of my way.”
“I can’t let you—”
Lydia grabbed her by the arm. Her grip was tighter than she meant it to be, but then her other hand flew up and suddenly, she was engaged in a full-on struggle with her sister. They shoved each other back and forth up and down the hallway the same way they used to fight over a dress or a book or a boy.
The three-year difference in their ages had always worked to Lydia’s advantage, but this time it was an extra thirty pounds that helped her prevail. She pushed Claire so hard that she stumbled backward. Her tailbone hit the floor. Claire huffed as the breath was knocked out of her.
Lydia stepped over her sister. Claire made one last grab for her leg, but it was too late.
Lydia pushed open the garage door.
Wooden shelves took up one section of a wall. Eight rows went from floor to ceiling, each approximately eight feet wide and a foot deep. VHS tapes were stacked tightly together. Their colored cardboard sleeves divided them into sections. A familiar number sequence was written by hand on the labels. Lydia already knew the code.
The dates went back to the 1980s.
She stepped down into the room. There was a tremor in her body, almost like she was standing too close to the edge of a cliff. Her toes tingled. Her hands shook. She was sweating again. Her bones vibrated beneath her skin. Her senses sharpened.
The sound of Claire crying behind her. The odor of bleach cutting into the back of her nose. The taste of fear on her tongue. Her vision tunneling to the six VHS tapes given a place of prominence on the middle shelf.
A green rubber band held together the green cardboard-sleeved videotapes. The handwriting was angular and clear. The number sequence was easy to decipher now that Lydia knew the key.
0-1-3-9-0-9-4-1.
03-04-1991.
March