I had ultimately played. Why had he railroaded me into doing something so out of character? Why had I put my blinkers on? It had felt to me in that moment I had no choice, but we do have choices.
I had made mine.
As I lay awake each night, agonizing over my rash decision, the spot in the woods loomed like a bruise on my brain, garish and green, its purple intensity pressing on my migraine-tortured mind. It had brought on a new need for the odd sleeping pill—over-the-counter ones, nothing too strong. Then I wondered if I’d been dreaming, imagining voices.
Overwhelmed with guilt and regret and sadness, my days became irregular. Naps here and there. I’d miss dinner sometimes, get up too late for breakfast. Go to work on automatic pilot, Kate dropping me off, picking me up. I’d notice myself drifting off sometimes when I got home, and although it was wonderful to have the triplets around, I felt alienated from everybody. But it was my own doing. Perhaps it was just latent grieving? Knowing I had company and so much help, I could finally let myself go, finally let myself mourn.
But one thing I hadn’t expected was the intense paranoia that stalked my every step, my every thought.
It was midnight on a Friday when I knew the first whispers were real and I hadn’t been imagining things. It was an unusually warm night. Or maybe I had been suffering from one of my unbearable, hallucinatory sweats? I had left the sliding door to my bedroom ajar, and I heard the triplets outside, on the patio above me. They were talking about me, no doubt about it. Indistinct snippets wafted down. I didn’t catch it all.
“So she’s basically saying he died in a car crash but—” It was Jen. The scraping of a chair blocked out the rest of the conversation.
Then five minutes later: “Disappearing? That is so fucking weird, man. Something’s up.” Dan.
More talking, but the whispers were so sparse and faint I couldn’t hear a thing. A few minutes passed of muffled voices.
Then: “That would be the dumbest move of all,” Dan whispered, “getting them involved. We don’t want to get kicked out of here. Where would we live? We need to dig some more. Dig deep. And watch out for ourselves. Be really careful. We don’t even know the woman. Not really. We don’t know what she’s capable of.”
Dig deep. That was the last thing I needed. My blood ran cold.
After a small time lapse, I slipped my way upstairs barefoot, to see if I could catch more. But all I heard was Jen having a conversation with her mother. I could hear Jen smiling into the phone and imagined the animation in her eyes. She had a special voice when she parlayed with her mum. Switzerland was, what, eight hours ahead of California?
“We miss you sooo much. But, you know, things are cool here. What?” A pause. “Sure, we’re studying again. I know, I know, we’ll get back into the swing of it. What? Oh my God, that’s such great news! Your oncologist sounds amazing. Sorry, when? Next week? Okay, we’ll pray for good results. We’ll pray real hard. Miss you, love you.”
Her friendly chitchat made me wonder if I was being paranoid. Had I imagined those whispers? Were my sleeping pills playing tricks on my mind?
Or was my grave secret in grave danger?
Seventeen
I couldn’t resist. Something about the triplets’ conversation got my mind ticking. My inner voice (very chatty as of late) was urging me, once again, to check the spot in the woods. “Dig deep.” Yes, they’d been talking metaphorically, but those two words began to haunt me. Take me over.
Dig deep.
Dig deep.
The red roses flashed into my head. The text. The drone (that had miraculously not been around lately), Jen’s constant questions, Kate’s odd looks. She was a dichotomy, Jen was. Not as airy-fairy as I’d once presumed. I’d catch her rifling through drawers, “Just looking for a pen,” or “Have you seen my phone?” or “I think my earring fell out,” or nosing about the garage or the guest room. I’d put everything in the safe, out of her reach, just in case. Changed the code to a combination I wouldn’t forget.
Just the week before, I’d spotted her rootling around the garden shed. In the dark.
“What are you doing?” I quizzed.
She looked guilty in the way only the guilty do and spun some tale about wanting to surprise me with planting