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She wanted to burn it down. All of it.
Rae went to the back bedroom and found Katelyn gripping her purple bear, her eyes glued to the TV screen as if she hadn’t heard all the commotion down the hallway.
“Katelyn, I need you to come with me now.”
She slung the duffel bag over her shoulder and took Katelyn’s tiny hand. She quietly led her outside and told her to wait next to the darkened house next door. Then she went to the detached garage, searching around in near darkness until she found a plastic gasoline container, the one she saw when Clint or Bobby would mow the lawn. There wasn’t much fuel in the container, so she poured it all over the recliner in the living room, hoping it would spread to the rest of the house. Then she took a Bic lighter from Clint’s pocket, lit a paper receipt she found on the coffee table, and threw it on the chair, which exploded into flames.
She left the house, using her shirt to wipe down the doorknobs, same as she had done to the garage handle, doing her best to remove any trace of her prints, praying the fire would burn any inside.
Once outside, she stood a moment and watched the fire glow orange through the living room window, the curtains starting to catch.
Rae found Katelyn waiting where she’d told her to stay.
“Are we going to find Mommy and Daddy now?” she said, her voice so small.
“Yes, honey. We’re going to find them.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie. She wasn’t sure how to find Katelyn’s parents, but she remembered how people back in Oklahoma would leave newborn babies at fire stations with no questions asked. She didn’t know if California was the same, but she had no choice. She knew there was a fire station near them since she’d hear the sirens going off down the street several times per week. So, they walked in the direction she’d heard the sirens before. It felt like an hour passed before they came up to the station. There were lights on inside.
“Okay, Katelyn, I need you to go inside that building and tell the nice people your name. If you know your mommy’s or daddy’s name, tell them that, too, okay?”
Katelyn looked confused, but she nodded.
“And, Katelyn, don’t tell them my name.”
She watched as Katelyn’s stubby legs walked across the lawn past a towering palm tree. Once she was inside the glassed entrance, Rae waited until she saw a firefighter approach the girl.
Viv’s face processed everything Rae had told her. “Then I found a way to the bus station and met you.” Now that Rae had told her friend everything, she felt completely drained.
Viv had kept a hold of Rae’s hand the entire time she spoke. She let her hand go and downed her white wine.
“Are you sure they’re dead?” she asked.
If there was one thing Rae was sure of, it was that Clint and Bobby were dead, and it was because of her. As soon as she’d moved in with Viv, she had searched about the fire to see what the police knew. They had found two unidentified bodies in the house that was reportedly owned by a company called Felton Holdings LLC; the fire was deemed to be arson.
She nodded at Viv.
“And you think these bad men, the rich ones, are going to track you here?”
“Yeah.”
Viv was quiet for a long time, her eyes staring at her plate of half-eaten salmon and rice. She looked up at her, and Rae couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She hoped she wasn’t about to tell her to get the hell out of her home.
“Hon, you did what you had to do. You saved that little girl, and you prevented those men from hurting more people. And the bad men.” She paused. “I think if they were coming after you, they would’ve found you by now.”
Rae didn’t think that was true, but she said nothing.
“But now,” Viv said, “you have to make a decision. Are you going to do the work to heal from this trauma, or are you going to let this turn you into the kind of monsters you escaped from?”
As much as she hated it, she knew Viv was right. She thought of Farrow and how blissfully out of control she had felt as she hit him. She had wanted her hate to consume her, but she couldn’t afford to allow it again. Soon, she would be a mother. A mother with secrets, like her own. Maybe all mothers had secrets. The thought gave her an uneasy comfort.
CHAPTER 22
RAE
2024
After her meeting with Dayton Clearwater, Rae came home to find Lily and Gabby in the living room, huge Starbucks drinks sweating condensation all over the live-edge wood coffee table a friend had made for her, no coasters, with some annoying YouTube video blasting on the TV. When Lily finally noticed her standing there, she quickly looked back to the TV screen as if she had never seen her but not before subtly nudging her friend.
