Claire opened her mouth to tell Lydia not to touch anything, but the words never came out because there was no point anymore. She had known from the minute she saw the wall of videotapes that there was no turning back, just as she’d known that this had all been inevitable. Paul had been obsessed with Claire for a reason. He had been the perfect husband for a reason. He had manipulated their lives together for a reason.
And all the while, Claire had refused to see what was right in front of her.
Maybe that’s why she wasn’t feeling shocked. Or maybe she was incapable of feeling shocked anymore, because every time Claire thought she’d seen the worst of Paul, some new detail emerged and she was struck not just by the horror of his deeds, but by her own willful blindness.
There was no telling what Lydia was feeling. She stood completely still in the middle of the cold garage. Her hand was reaching toward the six videotapes, but she had stopped just shy of touching them.
Lydia said, “March fourth, 1991.”
“I know.” Claire’s eyes had locked straight onto the labels the second she’d opened the door.
“We have to watch it.”
Again, Claire did not tell her not to. There were so many reasons to leave this place. There were so many reasons to stay.
Red pill/blue pill.
This was no longer a philosophical exercise. Did they want to know what had happened to Julia or not?
Lydia obviously had her answer. She slowly became unstuck. She grabbed the stack of green VHS tapes with both hands. She turned around and waited for Claire to get out of her way.
Claire followed her sister back into the den. She leaned against the wall as she watched Lydia load a tape into the ancient VCR. She had chosen the last tape in the series because that was the only one that mattered.
There was no remote control for anything. Lydia pulled the button to turn on the TV. The tube popped on. The picture faded from black to snow. She twisted the volume dial to turn down the staticy noise. The console had two knobs—one for VHF and one for UHF. Lydia tried channel three. She waited. She tried channel four.
The screen went from snow to black.
Lydia rested her thumb on the big orange PLAY button. She looked at Claire.
Red pill? Blue pill? Do you really want to know?
And then her father’s voice: There are some things you can’t unsee.
Maybe it was Sam’s warning that haunted her most, because Claire had seen the other movies. She knew there was a script to the abuse that the girls endured, just as she knew what she would see on the last tape, the tape that Lydia was waiting to play on the VCR.
Julia Carroll, nineteen years old, naked and chained to the wall. Bruises and burns riddling her body. Electrocution marks. Branded flesh. Skin ripped apart. Mouth open, screaming in terror as the masked man walked in with his machete.
“Claire?” Lydia was asking for permission. Could they do this? Should they do this?
Did they really have a choice?
Claire nodded, and Lydia pressed PLAY.
There was a white zigzag down the black screen. The image rolled too quickly to make out any details. Lydia flipped open an access panel and adjusted the tuner.
The image snapped into frame.
Lydia made a noise somewhere between a groan and a gasp.
Julia was spreadeagled against a wall, her arms and legs shackled apart. She was naked except for the silver and black bangles she always wore on her wrists. Her head was down. Her body was lax. The only thing holding her upright was the chains.
Claire closed her eyes. She could hear Julia’s soft whimpers through the console TV’s single speaker. The place Julia had been held was different, not the staged basement but the inside of a barn. The slats were dark brown, obviously the back wall of a horse stall. Hay was on the floor. There were droppings of animal feces at her bare feet.
Claire remembered the Amityville-looking barn from the picture she had painted. She wondered if Paul had torn it down out of disgust or if, in his typical, efficient way of thinking, he’d found it more expedient to keep everything under one roof.
On the TV, her sister started to whimper.
Claire opened her eyes. The masked man had entered the frame. Claire had seen photos of Paul from 1991. He was tall and lanky with too-short hair and a painfully straight posture that