Тесс Герритсен - I Know a Secret

For Holly anyway, thought Jane. If only there were an ending for Arlene DiPalma, but Billy Sullivan had taken the secret of Lizzie’s fate to the grave with him, and they might never find the girl’s body.

Jane had one more stop to make in the hospital, and after she left Holly’s room, she continued down the hallway to look in on Everett Prescott. Last night, when he was loaded aboard the ambulance, he’d been too stupefied by ketamine to mumble more than a few words. This morning, she found him awake in bed and staring out the window.

“Mr. Prescott? May I come in?”

He blinked a few times, as if coming out of a daydream, and frowned at her.

“You may not remember me. I’m Detective Rizzoli. I was there last night, after you and Ms. Devine—”

“I remember you,” he said. And added quietly: “Thank you for saving my life.”

“It was a very close call.” She pulled a chair to his bedside and sat down. “Tell me what you remember.”

“Gunshots. Then you were standing over me. You and your partner. And the ambulance ride. I’ve never ridden in an ambulance before.”

Jane smiled. “Let’s hope that’s your one and only time.”

He didn’t share her smile; instead, his gaze drifted back to the window, to a dreary view of gray skies. For a man who’d almost died, he seemed more troubled than happy about this fortunate outcome.

“I spoke to your doctor,” said Jane. “He said there shouldn’t be any long-term effects from a single dose of ketamine, but you might have flashbacks. And maybe you’ll feel a little unsteady for a day or two. But as long as you don’t use any more ketamine, the side effects will be temporary.”

“I don’t do drugs. I don’t like drugs.” He gave an ironic laugh. “Because this sort of thing happens.”

He certainly looked like a man with healthy habits. Lean, fit, and clean-cut. Last night they had run a background check on him and learned that he was a landscape architect who worked at a well-regarded Boston firm. No warrants, no criminal record, not even an unpaid parking ticket. Should there be any doubt that the shooting last night was justified, Everett Prescott would be an excellent defense witness.

“You’re being discharged today, I believe,” she said.

“Yes. The doctor said I’ll be good to go.”

“We need a detailed statement from you about what happened last night. If you can come down to Boston PD tomorrow, we’ll record it on video. Here, let me give you my card.”

“They’re both dead. Does it really matter now?”

“The truth always matters, don’t you think?”

He thought about this for a moment, and his gaze turned back to the window. “The truth,” he said softly.

“Stop in at Schroeder Plaza tomorrow, say around ten A.M.? Meanwhile, if any details come back to you, please write them down. Everything you remember.”

“There is something.” He looked at her. “Something you need to know.”

Everett is coming for cocktails.

I haven’t seen him since we were discharged from the hospital a week ago, because we both needed time to recover. Certainly I needed time, because I’ve had so many details to attend to: The reading of my father’s will. What to do with my father’s dog, who’s still in the kennel. The cleanup of his house, with its blood-spattered bedroom. Multiple interviews with the police. I have spoken to Detective Rizzoli three times now, and sometimes I feel she wants to vacuum my brain, sucking out every detail of what happened that night. I keep telling her that there’s nothing else I remember, nothing more to share with her, and finally she seems ready to leave me at peace.

The apartment bell buzzes. A moment later, Everett stands in my doorway, holding a bottle of wine. As always, he’s right on time. That’s Everett — so predictable, but also a little boring. I suppose I can put up with boring, since in this case it comes in such an attractive and affluent package. It never hurts to have a rich boyfriend.

He seems tired and subdued as he walks into my apartment, and the kiss he gives me is only a halfhearted peck on the cheek.

“Shall I open the bottle?” I offer.

“Whatever you’d like.” What kind of response is that? I’m annoyed by his lack of enthusiasm tonight. I take the wine into the kitchen, and as I rattle around in the drawer for the corkscrew, he just stands there watching me, not offering to help. After what we’ve been through together, you’d think he’d be ready to celebrate, but he’s not smiling. Instead, he looks as if he’s in mourning.

I pop out the cork, fill two wineglasses, and hand him one. The cabernet smells rich and meaty, and it’s probably expensive. He takes only one sip and sets down his glass.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he says.

Goddamn, I should have known. He wants to break up. How dare he break up with me? I manage to keep my cool as I eye him over the rim of my wineglass. “What is it?” I ask.

“That night, in your father’s house — when we almost died...” He releases a deep sigh. “I heard what you said to Billy. And what he said to you.”

I put down my glass and stare at him. “What, exactly, did you hear?”

“Everything. This wasn’t just a hallucination. I know ketamine can fog your mind, make you see and hear things that don’t exist, but this was real. I heard what you did to that little girl. What both of you did.”

Calmly, I pick up my glass and take another sip. “That was your imagination, Everett. You didn’t hear anything.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Ketamine clouds your memory. That’s why it’s used for date rape.”

“You used a rock. You both killed her.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Holly, tell me the truth.”

“We were only kids. Do you really think I could have—”

“For once, just tell me the fucking truth. ”

I set down my glass, hard. “You have no right to talk to me that way.”

“I do have that right. I was in love with you.”

Oh, this is rich. Just because he was stupid enough to fall in love with me, he thinks he can demand honesty. No man has that right. Not from me.

“Lizzie DiPalma was only nine years old,” he says. “That was her name, wasn’t it? I read about her disappearance. Her mother last saw her on a Saturday afternoon, when Lizzie left the house wearing her favorite hat, a beaded cap from Paris. Two days later, a child found Lizzie’s hat on the Apple Tree school bus. That’s why Martin Stanek came under suspicion. That’s why he was accused of kidnapping and killing the girl.” He paused. “ You were the child who found the hat. But you didn’t really find it on the bus. Did you?”

“You’ve reached a lot of conclusions based on absolutely no evidence,” I answer, coldly logical.

“Billy handed you a rock, and you hit her with it. You both killed her. And then you kept her hat.”

“Do you think this fairy tale would ever hold up in court? You were drugged with ketamine. No one would believe you.”

“That’s your answer?” He stares at me in disgust. “You have nothing else to say about a little girl who’s been missing all these years? About her mother, whose heart must have been broken? That will never hold up in court? ”

“Well, it won’t.” I pick up the wineglass again and take an unconcerned sip. “Besides, I was only ten years old. Think of all the things you did when you were ten.”

“I never killed anyone.”

“That’s not how it happened.”

“How did it happen, Holly? You’re right, this will never hold up in court, so you might as well tell me the truth. I don’t plan to see you again, so you have nothing to lose.”