Still gripping Peggy’s hair, he raises my dad’s shotgun with his other hand.
He points it at me.
My thoughts ricochet around the basement, searching for a weapon, a way out. Then they ping back ... to the baby in my arms, to the gun in Dickie’s hand. And to Peggy, whimpering beside him.
No choice. I have no choice.
I set the baby on the floor. Little Daniel starts to cry, a terrible, urgent, siren-squall and I feel like I’m going to shatter. The gun. The screaming baby. Peggy cowering, babbling, begging Dickie to release us.
“Please let us go,” I whisper. “Please.”
“I don’t think that’s going to work.” Dickie gives me a sad smile, raising his voice above the cries of the newborn.
“You can’t do this, Richard,” Peggy begs.
He yanks her hair, and she shrieks.
“Enough!” he snarls. “Into the shelter or I pull the trigger.”
I scuttle backward, into the small room. Peggy sobs, clinging to Dickie’s leg while the baby screams, mouth wide, face purple.
That’s the last thing I see. The baby on the floor, howling in a bundle of towels, Peggy, babbling and pleading, with Dickie’s fist embedded in the hair at the top of her scalp, his other hand clutching the gun. And Dickie’s face. Blank. Expressionless.
He releases Peggy’s hair, pulls the door shut, and bolts it from the outside.
Then I hear the blast of a gunshot on the other side of the door. Followed by a heartbeat of quiet. Then curses streaming from Dickie’s mouth.
I sink to the floor, shaking, suffocating in the awful silence.
And now a tapping sound as fragments of chipped concrete fall from the growing hole in the ceiling.
Chapter Ninety-Seven
Kiersten
“It’s happening again,” Margaret muttered.
Kiersten looked up. Concrete fragments, dead leaves, and a yellow piece of insulation fell through the hole in the upper corner of the ceiling.
“Margaret, is this how it happened?” Kiersten asked, pointing to the writing scribbled on the back of the yellowed scorecards.
“Peggy. I’mPeggy,” she said vehemently, pointing a clawlike finger to her chest. “That’s what everyone called me. Until I became Richard’s wife. He said ‘Peggy’ wasn’t dignified enough. Too lower class. Then I had to go by my given name. I’ve been Margaret ever since.”
“What happened to Dottie?” Kiersten forced herself to take a deep breath, trying to stave off the panic rising up through her body, leaching into her mind. “After Dickie locked her in this room?”
“I tried to save her.” Peggy’s hands twisted in her lap. “I reached for the gun. It went off. Missed him. Missed me and the baby too. He was too strong. Too evil. All these years, living with thatmonster. And then you came along.”
The tiny woman turned to look at Kiersten. “I didn’t know Dottie kept a diary. And then you came over that day and brought the first one. I recognized the handwriting the minute I opened it. From her recipes. Richard recognized it too. He told Chip and Trey everything. And they redoubled their efforts to drive you away from Beaverbrook Lane. To get your children into trouble. To make you sell that house and go away. And to get the diaries back.”
“Have you ever told anyone about Dottie? About what Richard did?”
She hung her head. “I was too scared of Richard. He told me I imagined it all. That I’d made it up. That Dottie died in childbirth. He threatened to have me locked up in a psychiatric hospital if I told anyone. And my son ...” The rims of her watery eyes turned red. “He’s not Richard’s biological son. They don’t know that. But it doesn’t matter. He grew up to be just like Richard. And my grandson too. This was my punishment ... to watch the son I conceived with Daniel turn out just like the man who made my life a living hell ... the man who killed Dottie.”
“And this room?” Kiersten asked.
Margaret wiped away the tears that trailed down her wrinkled cheek. “This room was the price of my silence. I said I wanted to keep it just like it was, for her. And he agreed to that. He and Chip. It was my only demand in fifty-nine years of marriage. They shut the door and locked it, and no one has been in here in sixty years, except me. I came down here sometimes, when Richard was at work. Just to sit and feel close to Dottie, the only one who understood the hell of living with Richard.”
“Is that when you found her writing, on the back of all these scorecards?”
