Chapter 8
Ethan looked at him.
“What did you say to that?”
“I said okay.”
“Also good.”
Noah buckled his seat belt.
“Can we get fries?”
They got fries.
Two weeks after the funeral, Lauren asked to visit the house.
Ethan offered to go first.
She said no.
He offered to call Reynolds and make sure investigators were finished.
She said she had already done it.
He offered several other things until Lauren looked at him.
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Trying to turn me into a project.”
He put his keys back in his pocket.
“What do you need?”
“I need you to come with me and not solve anything unless I ask.”
“That sounds difficult.”
“I have faith in you.”
“Unwise.”
She smiled briefly.
They drove in silence.
The house looked insulting in its normality.
Mail filled the box. The neighbor’s maple tree had dropped wet leaves across the driveway. A package of replacement air filters Ethan had ordered before everything happened sat swollen and ruined near the porch.
Lauren stopped outside.
Ethan waited.
She unlocked the front door with a key from her replacement ring.
Inside, the house smelled stale.
Lauren stood in the entryway.
Her eyes moved toward the basement door.
The padlock was gone. The damaged frame remained where deputies had forced entry.
Ethan had not seen it before.
Neither had Noah.
Lauren walked into the kitchen instead.
She opened the refrigerator.
Ethan watched her.
“What?”
“The milk.”
He looked.
It had expired eleven days earlier.
Lauren took it out and poured it down the sink.
Then she threw away old spinach, half a cucumber, yogurt, and a container of chicken Ethan no longer trusted.
He understood after a while.
She was not cleaning.
She was proving that the refrigerator belonged to her.
Ethan handed her a trash bag without comment.
She accepted it.
They spent forty minutes doing ordinary things.
He changed the air filter.
She opened windows.
He found a wet towel in the washing machine and threw it away after Lauren smelled it and declared it beyond civilization.
At some point she stood at the top of the basement stairs.
Ethan was in the hallway.
She looked at him.
“Come here.”
He did.
They went down together.
The storage-room door had been removed as evidence.
Without it, the room looked smaller.
Lauren stopped five feet away.
On the concrete floor, forensic tape marked places where items had been collected.
The old camping mattress was gone.
A dark scuff remained near the wall.
Lauren’s breathing shortened.
Ethan stayed beside her.
After perhaps a minute she said, “I asked Claire why.”
He looked at her.
“When she came down the second day. I asked why she didn’t just leave me somewhere.”
“What did she say?”
Lauren’s face tightened.
“She said I never let anybody have a mistake.”
Ethan waited.
“She said Mom got sick and I got to keep my career and my husband and my clean house while she dealt with everything ugly.”
“That isn’t true.”
“Some of it is.”
“Lauren.”
“She did more for Mom.”
“That doesn’t justify—”
“I know what it doesn’t justify.”
He stopped.
She walked into the room.
“She was angry before the money.”
Ethan leaned against the unfinished wall.
“Did you know?”
“I knew she resented me.”
“Same thing?”
“No.”
Lauren looked around.
“There’s a difference between knowing somebody is resentful and believing they can do this.”
She touched the place where the hasp had been screwed into the frame.
“I keep trying to find the moment she became capable of it.”
“Maybe there isn’t one moment.”
Lauren looked at him.
“That’s worse.”
“Yes.”
They stayed only another ten minutes.
On the way out, Lauren removed the basement light bulb.
Ethan watched her put it on the kitchen counter.
“Why?”
“I hate that bulb.”
“Okay.”
“It buzzes.”
“I know.”
“You’ve known for four years.”
“I was going to replace it.”
She gave him a look.
He nodded.
“Fair.”
The following week Marisol Velez asked to meet them.
Lauren almost refused.
Then she said yes.
They met in a quiet room at a community center chosen by a victim-services coordinator. Marisol arrived with her husband and a younger woman who introduced herself as Teresa’s daughter, Elena.
Ethan had rehearsed several sentences.
He used none of them.
Marisol sat across from Lauren and said, “I need to know whether you saw her.”
Lauren’s hands tightened in her lap.
“I saw the car.”
“Did you see Teresa?”
“I don’t know.”
Marisol’s face hardened.
Ethan understood immediately why detectives had warned them that grief did not make people gentle.
“You were there.”
“I was drugged.”
“I know what they told me.”
Lauren swallowed.
“I remember a woman’s arm through the broken side window.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Marisol stared at Lauren.
“Was she alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must know something.”
“I don’t.”
“You heard something?”
“Marisol,” the coordinator said softly.
“No. I need—”
Lauren leaned forward.
“I heard Claire scream. I heard glass. I remember trying to get out. Then I remember waking up at my house.”
Marisol looked away.
“I’m sorry.”
The apology sounded angry.
Lauren’s voice broke.
“I’m sorry too.”
Marisol looked back at her.
“For what?”
Lauren had no answer.
There was no correct amount of guilt for surviving near someone who had not.
Elena spoke for the first time.
“My mom hated driving that road.”
Everyone looked at her.
“She said the curves were stupid.”
Marisol laughed once, tears appearing immediately.
“She complained every night.”
“She wanted to switch shifts.”
“I know.”
The room loosened by one degree.
Not reconciliation.
Not forgiveness.
Just four people sharing the useless fact that Teresa Velez had hated a particular road.
Before leaving, Marisol handed Lauren a folded piece of paper.
It was a photocopy of a photograph.
Teresa stood beside a picnic table wearing a bright yellow sweater, laughing at something outside the frame.
“She wasn’t the body in your coffin,” Marisol said.
Lauren looked up.
“She was Teresa.”
May you like
Lauren nodded.
“I know.”
