Тесс Герритсен - I Know a Secret

For a moment they stood in silence, looking down at the excavated grave. The burial was less than a foot deep, which was why the cadaver dog was able to catch the scent, even twenty years later. Two children could certainly dig a grave this shallow, and at eleven years old, Billy Sullivan had been large enough, strong enough, to wield a shovel.

Strong enough to kill a nine-year-old girl.

Maura brushed away more dirt, revealing a depressed fracture of the left temporal bone. This had been caused by more than merely a glancing blow; this blow had been delivered with full force on the side of her head, most likely as she was lying on the ground. She imagined the sequence of events: The girl shoved to the dirt. The boy lifting the rock, slamming it down on the girl’s head. It was the oldest of weapons, as old as the dawn of murder. As old as Cain and Abel.

“Holly helped him do it. I know she did,” said Jane.

“But how do you prove it?”

“That’s what drives me crazy. I can’t prove it. If we call Everett Prescott to testify against her, the defense will call it hearsay. Worse than that, it’s hearsay while under the influence of ketamine. When we had him wired to record her, she didn’t admit to a thing. She’s too damn smart to slip up, so we have nothing to tie her to this murder.”

“She was only ten years old when it happened. Can she really be held responsible?”

“She helped kill this girl. Okay, maybe it was twenty years ago and she was just a kid herself, but you know what? I don’t think people change. Whatever she was then, she still is. A snake doesn’t grow up to be a bunny rabbit. She’s still a snake, and she’s going to keep striking. Until somebody finally stops her.”

“It won’t be this time.”

“No, this time she gets to walk away. But at least we’ve given Martin Stanek some measure of justice, even if it’s too late for him. Bonnie Sandridge is gonna make damn sure the whole world knows he was innocent.” Jane looked through the trees toward Earl Devine’s house. “Jesus, do you ever feel like we’re surrounded by them? Monsters like Holly Devine and Billy Sullivan? If they think they can get away with it, they’ll slit your throat without a second thought.”

“And that’s where you come in, Jane. You keep the rest of us safe.”

“The trouble is, there are way too many Holly Devines in this world and not enough of me to go around.”

“At least you accomplished this,” said Maura, looking down at the skull of Lizzie DiPalma. “You found her.”

“And now she can finally go home to her mother.”

It would be a sad reunion but a reunion nonetheless, one of several that had happened during this investigation. Arlene DiPalma would soon reclaim her lost daughter. Angela Rizzoli was now back together with Vince Korsak. Barry Frost had reunited — for better or worse — with his ex-wife, Alice.

And Daniel has come back to me.

In truth, he had never really left her. She had been the one who’d sent him away, who’d believed that true happiness could only come from rooting out the imperfect, the way one cuts off a diseased limb. But nothing in life is perfect, certainly not love.

And she had never doubted that Daniel loved her. Once, he had been ready to die for her; could she ask for any better proof?

It was after dark when Maura arrived home from the crime scene that evening. Inside her house the lights were on, the windows bright and welcoming. Daniel’s car was parked in her driveway, once again out in the open where the world could see it. This was how far they’d come together, to a place beyond caring what anyone else thought about their union. She had tried to live without him, had believed she’d moved on and that love was optional. She had thought that being resigned was the same as being happy, but in truth she’d briefly forgotten what happiness felt like.

Seeing the lights in her house, his car in her driveway, she remembered.

I’m ready to be happy again. With you.

She stepped out of her car, and with a smile on her lips she walked from the darkness, into the light.

This, you see, is the way of the world.

There are people like me, and then there are people who consider me evil because, unlike them, I don’t weep at sad movies or funerals or “Auld Lang Syne.” But deep inside every bleating sentimentalist lurks the dark embryo of who I am: a cold-blooded opportunist. This is what turns good soldiers into executioners, neighbors into informers, bankers into thieves. Oh, they will probably deny it. They all think they are more human than I am, merely because they weep and I do not.

Unless I have to.

Certainly I am not weeping now, as I stand over the spot in the woods where Lizzie’s body was found. It’s been a week since the police packed up all their gear and departed, and while the evidence of their excavation is still here — the disturbed soil, the bright scrap of crime-scene tape snagged on a branch — eventually everything will return to the way it was. Leaves will tumble down and blanket what is now bare earth. Saplings will sprout, and roots will tunnel and spread, and in a few years, if left to itself, this patch of ground will once again look like any other spot among these trees.

The way it looked twenty years ago, when Billy and I stood here.

I remember that October day, how the air smelled like wood smoke and wet leaves. Billy had brought his slingshot and he was trying to hit birds, squirrels, anything that had the misfortune to cross his path. He hadn’t hit any of his targets, and he was frustrated and hungry for blood. I knew his moods well, knew how he could lash out like a cobra when frustrated, but I was not afraid of him, because in his eyes I recognized myself.

The worst part of myself.

He had just launched another stone, missed another feathered target, when we spied Lizzie on the road, pushing her bike. She wore her pink sweater and her knit cap with the sparkly beads, the one she’d bought during her family vacation in Paris. How proud she was of that hat! She’d worn it to school every day for the last week, and at lunch I’d stared at it, desperately wanting one just like it. Wanting to be like Lizzie herself, so blond, so pretty, so quick to make friends. I knew my mother would never buy me something so dazzling, because it might bring the unwanted attention of boys, who would do to me what her uncle had done to her. Vanity is a sin, Holly. So is covetousness. Learn to do without. Now there was that sparkly hat perched on Lizzie’s pretty head. She had not yet noticed us in the woods, and she sang as she pushed her bike along the road, sang as if the whole world were her audience.

Billy fired his slingshot.

The pebble thunked against Lizzie’s cheek. She screamed and spun around, searching for the culprit. In an instant she spotted us. She dropped her bike on the road and came scrambling into the woods, shouting.

“Now you’re in trouble, Billy Sullivan! You’re in big trouble!”

Billy picked up another stone. Loaded his slingshot. “You’re not gonna tell anyone.”

“I’m going to tell everyone ! And this time, you’ll—”

The second stone hit her in the eyebrow. Her hat flew off as she stumbled to her knees, blood streaming down her face. Even then, half-blinded by blood, the fight hadn’t left her. Even then, she was not going to yield to Billy. She scooped up a clump of earth and threw it.

I remember Billy’s howl as the dirt splattered his face. I remember the thrill of watching his rage explode, and I remember the sound a fist makes when it slams into flesh. Then they were both on the ground, Billy on top of her, Lizzie screaming.