Tana French - The Likeness

“We’re telling you now,” said Rafe.

“Fuck you,” I said, and the shake in my voice sounded like I was an inch from more tears. “Fuck the lot of you. How stupid do you think I am? Mackey was a total dickhead to me and I still kept my mouth shut, because I didn’t want to get you into trouble. But you were just going to let me keep being the idiot, for the rest of our lives, while all of you knew-” I pressed the back of my wrist over my mouth.

Abby said, very quietly and very carefully, “You kept your mouth shut.”

“I shouldn’t have,” I said, into my wrist. “I should’ve just told him everything I remember and let you bloody well deal with it.”

“What else,” Abby asked, “what else do you remember?”

My heart felt like it was about to slam straight out of my chest. If I had this wrong, then I was going down in flames, and every second of this month had been for nothing at all-crashing through these four lives, hurting Sam, staking my job: all for nothing. I was throwing every chip I had onto the table, without the slimmest clue how good my hand was. In that instant I thought of Lexie: how she had lived her whole life like this, all in on the blind; what it had cost her, in the end.

“The jacket,” I said. “The note, in the jacket pocket.”

For a second I thought I had lost. Their faces, upturned to me, were so utterly blank, as if what I had said meant nothing at all. I was already whipping through ways to backpedal (coma dream? morphine hallucination?) when Justin whispered, a tiny devastated breath, “Oh God.”

You didn’t usually bring your cigarettes on your walk, Daniel had said. I had been so focused on covering the slipup, it had taken me days to realize: I had burned Ned’s note. If Lexie didn’t have a lighter on her, then-short of eating the notes, which was a little extreme even for her-she had no quick way of getting rid of them. Maybe she had ripped them to tiny pieces on her way home, thrown the bits into hedges as she passed, like a dark Hansel-and-Gretel trail; or maybe she hadn’t wanted to leave even that much trace, maybe she had shoved them into her pocket to flush or burn later, at home.

She had been so fiercely careful, standing guard over her secrets. There was only one mistake I could imagine her making. Just once, hurrying home in the dark and the lashing rain-because it had to have been raining-with the baby already turning the edges of her mind to cotton wool and escape hammering through every vein, she had pushed the note into her pocket without remembering that the jacket she was wearing wasn’t all hers. She had been betrayed by the same thing she was betraying: the closeness of them, how much they had shared.

“Well,” Rafe said, reaching for his glass, one eyebrow arching up. He was trying for his best world-weary look, but his nostrils flared, just slightly, with each breath. “Nicely done, Justin my friend. This should be interesting.”

“What? What are you talking about, nicely done? She already knew-”

“Shut up,” said Abby. She had gone white, freckles standing out like face paint.

Rafe ignored her. “Well, if she didn’t, she does now.”

“It’s not my fault. Why do you always, always blame me for everything?”

Justin was very close to losing it. Rafe raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Do you hear me complaining? As far as I’m concerned, it’s about bloody time we got this over with.”

“We are not discussing this,” Abby said, “until Daniel gets home.”

Rafe started to laugh. “Oh, Abby,” he said. “I do love you, but sometimes I wonder about you. You have to know that, once Daniel gets home, we won’t be discussing this at all.”

“This is about all five of us. We don’t talk about it till we’re all here.”

“That’s crap,” I said. My voice was rising and I let it. “It’s such crap I can’t even listen to it. If this is about all five of us, then why didn’t you tell me weeks ago? If you can talk about it behind my back, then surely to God we can talk about it without Daniel.”

“Oh God,” Justin whispered again. His mouth was open, one hand trembling inches from it.

Abby’s mobile started to ring, in her bag. I had been listening for that sound all the way home, all the time in my room. Frank had let Daniel go.

“Leave it!” I yelled, loud enough to stop her hand midreach. “It’s Daniel, and I know exactly what he’s going to say anyway. He’ll just order you not to tell me anything, and I am so fucking sick of him treating me like I’m six! If anyone has a right to know exactly what happened here, it’s me. If you try to answer that bloody phone I swear I’m going to stamp on it!” I meant it, too. Sunday afternoon, all the traffic was headed into Dublin, not out; if Daniel floored it-and he would-and managed not to get pulled over, he could be home in maybe half an hour. I needed every second of that.

Rafe laughed, a small rough sound. “Attagirl,” he said, raising his glass to me.

Abby stared at me, her hand still halfway to her bag.

“If you guys don’t tell me what’s going on,” I said, “I’m phoning the cops right now and I’m telling them everything I remember. I am.”

“Jesus,” Justin whispered. “Abby…”

The phone stopped ringing.

“Abby,” I said, taking a deep breath. I could feel my nails digging into my hands. “I can’t do this if you guys keep leaving me out. This is important. I can’t… we can’t work this way. Either we’re all in this together or we’re not.”

Justin’s phone rang.

“You don’t even have to tell me who actually did it, if you don’t want to.” I was pretty sure that if I listened hard enough I’d hear Frank banging his head off a wall, somewhere, but I didn’t care: one step at a time. “I just want to know what happened. I’m so sick of everyone knowing but me. I’m so sick of it. Please.”

“She’s got every right to know,” Rafe said. “And personally, I’m also pretty sick of living my life on the basis of ‘Because Daniel said so.’ How well has that been working out for us, so far?”

The ringing stopped. “We should call him back,” Justin said, half out of his chair. “Shouldn’t we? What if he’s been arrested and he needs bail money, or something?”

“He hasn’t been arrested,” Abby said automatically. She dropped back into the chair and ran her hands over her face, blew out a long breath. “I keep telling you, they need evidence to arrest someone. He’s fine. Lexie, sit down.”

I stayed where I was. “Oh, God, sit down,” Rafe said, on a long-suffering sigh. “I’m going to tell you this whole pathetic saga anyway, whether anyone else likes it or not, and you’re getting on my nerves, fidgeting there. And Abby, chill out. We should have done this weeks ago.”

After a moment I went to my chair, by the fireplace. “Much better,” Rafe said, grinning at me. There was a reckless, risky gaiety in his face; he looked happier than he had in weeks. “Have a drink.”

“I don’t want one.”

He swung his legs off the sofa, poured a big sloppy vodka and orange and passed it to me. “Actually, I think we should all have another drink. We’re going to need it.” He topped up glasses with a flourish-Abby and Justin didn’t seem to notice-and raised his to the room. “Here’s to full disclosure.”

“OK,” Abby said, on a deep breath. “OK. If you really want to do this, and it’s coming back to you anyway, then I guess… what the hell.”

Justin opened his mouth, then shut it again and bit his lips.

Abby ran her hands through her hair, smoothing it hard. “Where do you want us to…? I mean, I don’t know how much you remember, or…”

“Bits,” I said. “They don’t fit together or anything. Just go from the beginning. ” All the adrenaline had dissolved out of my blood and I felt so calm, all of a sudden. This was the last thing I would ever do in Whitethorn House. I could feel it all around me, every inch of it singing with sun and dust motes and memory, waiting to hear what came next. I felt like we had all the time in the world.