over, she’d felt a bubbliness on the surface of her mind, a lightweight feeling, not of her body, but of her brain. And she’d liked that, because since she’d found the letters a month earlier, her brain had been heavy as lead.
She’d lightened her mind, and she’d kept on doing so, day by day, testing her limits, making a survey of what her over-twenty-one coworkers were willing to offer, from wine to beer to vodka to gin to—her favorite poison—Jack Daniel’s. She’d vomited, she’d rambled incoherently, she’d raced Asher around the parking lot in a shopping cart, once. She’d figured out what worked, and what accomplished the job of brain-lightening most efficiently.
She’d stopped drinking with coworkers and started bringing the booze straight home. She’d figured out how much to swig before driving, and how much before bed. Some nights, like the night she’d opened Mr. Knutsen’s letter, she overdid it. For fun. She only lived once.
But somehow along the way, despite Eileen’s gained knowledge and expertise, the alcohol began to be less of something she measured out and more of something that measured her out.
She’d considered the word. The one that began with an “a.”
That wasn’t her, though. That wasn’t what this was.
Eileen’s need to drink didn’t make her an alcoholic. Plenty of teens her age got shit-faced, and no one was dragging their asses to rehab. She was fine. And she could drink from this flask. Hell, she could drink it all down, if she wanted, in one go.
Eileen headed for the parlor wall stacked with filing boxes. She took down the first of them, tugging off the lid and inspecting its contents. There were folders filled with papers and labeled with the words “Utilities,” “Bills,” and “Receipts.” Eileen didn’t trust labels, though. The prosaic had fooled her before.
She opened the first of the folders, and as she did, a sound reached her ears. It was forceful and even and everywhere at once, pinging against the windows and juddering on the roof, two floors up.
Rain. Not everyday Oregon drizzle; hard, driving rain.
Funny, Eileen thought. She hadn’t been looking skyward earlier. Had a storm been building?
She glanced from the box to the parlor’s threshold, where Murphy stood.
“Whoa,” said Murphy.
“Yeah,” Eileen replied.
She listened longer, and as she did, she noted the jagged way the rain hit the house. She looked to the window and found the world outside was a mess of bouncing bits of white. Sleet.
There was rain in Oregon—a usual occurrence, abundant as dirt. Then there were storms—occasional, warranting your best parka. And there was this—not a storm, but a storm. A coastal tempest, sent straight from hell.
“Claire!” cried Murphy.
Eileen turned, and there indeed was Claire, at the French doors, ghost-faced and shivering like a junkie.
“Well, this is perfect,” Claire announced.
Inside, Eileen thought, Sure, Claire. Sure.
This time, though, she meant it. She agreed.
The van had been one thing, but now there with this: a heavy-duty storm, sleet, forcing them inside. Allowing Eileen the time she needed to find her document. To discover the truth of her secret, once and for all.
That was as perfect as perfect could be.
SEVENTEEN Claire
We’re leaving.”
Claire spoke with authority. She had allowed Eileen and Murphy their fun. She’d told herself it was a fair compromise, since the Caravan was, technically, Eileen’s. She’d stood outside, tapping out of open apps to save her phone battery, which was at a threadbare 11 percent. She’d tried not to think of the gruesome things Cathy had told them at the diner. Before, walking the halls of this house had felt akin to discovering Atlantis. It had been her golden moment. Now, Claire felt she’d been conned—though by who? Patrick Enright? William J. Knutsen, attorney-at-law? Harper Everly? The house itself?
Whoever was to blame, it wasn’t fair, falling in love with a home only to be told it was the setting for heinous crimes. The gables no longer looked elegant, but severe. The wraparound porch was hardly romantic. The turret, jutting proudly from the house, struck her as malevolent.
It wasn’t as though Claire would ever live at 2270 Laramie. Doing that would require living in Oregon, and Claire still planned to get out of the purgatorial Pacific Northwest. She guessed what was bothering her, deep down, was that she’d wanted to believe her world was righting its wrongs. She’d thought, Okay, Claire, you’ve been summarily rejected by your dream college, but there must be good waiting for you in Rockport. She’d thought, mere hours ago, that she could sell this place