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After that, we slowly walk Kit back to the VW. Paul heads back to his own car, but before he can get there, I grab his sleeve. “Hey. Thanks.”
He turns and looks at me. “Of course,” he says.
There’s a lump in my throat the size of a baseball. There’s so much more that I want to say, but I don’t know how to say it. I realize the preciousness of finding a man who will wake up from a dead sleep in the middle of the night to drive to an abandoned park with you to save your sister—and that’safteryou’ve rejected him. I realize how good a person he could be for me—for so many reasons, including helping me through the things I’m keeping from him. But that’s just the thing—I’ve never consideredanyonehelping me.
I reach out and give his hand a squeeze. It’s all I can do right now. Tomorrow I’ll call him, and we’ll talk more, but now I have to get my sister home. Paul seems to understand this, and he waves at both of us and disappears into his car. I don’t really remember the drive home except that it was very quiet. Kit sat slumped in the passenger seat, arms clenched tightly across her breasts. I keep picturing the strange, angry man in the woods, trying to configure him with someone Kit could love. It just goes to show there are so many sides to a person. It’s always so hard to know whom to trust.
We pull alongside the curb and Kit leans into me one more time, letting out a whimper that seems to be her way of saying thanks. “Come on,” I say, climbing out of the car. “Let’s get to bed.” We walk across the lawn arm in arm, shivering in the middle-of-the-night chill. The police car sitting at the back of the driveway has its lights off, which is why I don’t notice it at first. That’s what I’ll tell myself later, anyway. It’s only when I hear a slam and footsteps ringing out that I whirl around.
“Freeze!” voices bark. “Hands up!”
Kit and I stop in our tracks. They’re right next to us now,grabbing my arm, twisting Kit around, and—inexplicably—snapping handcuffs on her wrists. “What’s going on?” Kit bleats, trying to wrench away. “I’m Kit Manning! Ilivehere!”
“We know you’re Kit Manning,” one of the officers says, pinning Kit’s arms behind her back. “We’ve been looking for you.”
Kit’s eyes bounce all over the place. “Why?”
“Ms. Manning, you’re under arrest for the murder of Greg Strasser. We found the murder weapon in your garage.”
41
WILLA
SATURDAY, MAY 6, 2017
This is impossible,” I repeat again and again as I pace around the police station waiting area the following morning. “Freaking impossible.”
Then I look helplessly at a man named Colton Browne. He’s Kit’s lawyer, a fact I only vaguely recall my father sharing with me when I first came into town. It’s my first time meeting the guy. He’s dressed in a suit and bow tie as though this is his normal attire for a Saturday. He also looks a little bewildered, like he isn’t ready to defend someone who’s on trial for murder. It doesn’t give me much confidence.
“Can’t you see what’s taking them so long?” I hiss at him. The guy’s sitting comfortably in a chair in the waiting area like he’s hoping to take a little nap.
Browne glances toward the closed door that leads to the booking area, a bunch of interrogation rooms, and the jail. My poor sister spent the night in ajail. And that was after they took her mug shots, fingerprinted her, and filed her into the system. Now we’re just waiting around until the magistrate gets off his lazy ass this morning and decides to hear her case.
But thereisno case. It’s such bullshit. Clearly,clearlythe kitchen knife, with the dried blood on its blade and with Kit’s fingerprints on the handle—because ofcourseKit’s fingerprints are on the handle,she used it to cook with—had been planted. Obviously, Ollie took the knife with him the night he’d murdered Greg. Maybe he held on to it for a while because he felt conflicted—he wanted Greg dead, but perhaps he didn’t necessarily want an innocent person charged. But I have a weird feeling my phone call changed his mind. How he figured out I was onto him, I’m not sure. But once he knew I’d put two and two together, he dropped the knife into the garage, called in an anonymous tip, and we were off and running.
The lawyer’s phone beeps, and he studies the screen. “That’s your dad. He’s on his way. He’ll attend the bail hearing, and then we’ll get her out. It’ll all be over soon.”
But not soon enough. I shift closer to the lawyer. “Look, someone else killed Greg. I might have proof.”
His eyes widen. “Who?”
I give a sidelong glance to the young cop at the front deskclackingon his computer keyboard. I’m not so idiotic that I’m going to accuse a fellow officer in a police station. “Greg impregnated another man’s wife,” I whisper. “And I think the husband found out about it... and snapped. We could run a paternity test to make sure.”
Colton looks skeptical. “Are yousure?”
Of course I’m not sure—if I was, I wouldn’t be sitting on my ass, helpless. But I’ve done enough reporting on murders and jealous spouses and terrible crimes that these sorts of things begin to take on a pattern. If we had proof the baby was Greg’s, it would be a great start. But why would Laura offer her baby up as a piece of evidence? I don’t know ifsheknows Ollie knows. Nor do I have any idea how she would take the news that her husband killed a man. For all I know, she will want to protect him. Even warn him that I’m onto him.
Browne eyes me with pity. “I hate to say this; you might need to start really considering the fact that Kit might have done it.”
Bile rises in my throat. “Are you kidding me?” I rise and slam out of the building.Note to self.Find Kit a new fucking lawyer.
I walk across the parking lot, unlock the car, and climb in. Kit’s handbag, an expensive leather bucket that gapes open at the top, is still in here from last night. Inside it, I see her leather wallet, a pouch full of makeup, a pack of Trident gum. Her phone’s tucked into a little pocket in the side; the screen keeps lighting up with texts. I haven’t checked the news this morning, but I bet there are reports that she’s been taken into custody. Are these texts from nosy people seeing if it’s true?
I glance at the phone, feeling curious... about more than just the texts. What if there’s a message buried in there that indicates culpability? Maybe I have it all wrong—and she and Patrick planned something together? But no. I don’t trust that Patrick guy, but I do trust Kit. I really do. Yes, she was hiding the Patrick thing from me... which is disappointing. But she doesn’t have it in her to kill. And she’d certainly never devise a scheme to run away, leave her daughters.
Tires crunch. In the rearview, I notice my dad’s BMW pulling into the lot. My father’s, Sienna’s, and Aurora’s faces flash behind the windows, their expressions grave. My heart aches for all of them. I know I should wait with them for Kit’s hearing, except it feels so inactive. I want to do something beyond sit on a bench and wait for a judge to decide Kit’s fate. I need toprovesomething.
I scan the parking lot. Lines of police cars flank the perimeter, but what I figure are the officers’ civilian vehicles sit farther to the back near a small grassy island and a picnic table. In a sea of vehicles, I instantly locate the white Subaru that Ollie and Laura Apatrea climbed out of the morning of the funeral. He’s here, then. In this very building. Working on the weekend. A shiver runs from my neck all the way to my tailbone.
