Page 65 of This is Why We Lied

“So am I.” Delilah used a tissue to dab under her nose. She asked Will, “Have you found Dave?”

“I searched the empty cottages. He’s not there.” Will glanced around the area. “Have you seen Jon? He ran away.”

“God,” Delilah breathed. “Can things get any worse? Why did he run away? Did he leave a note?”

“Yes,” Sara answered. “He said he needed time and that we shouldn’t try to find him.”

Delilah shook her head. “I have no idea where he’d go. Is Dave still living in the same trailer park?”

“Yep,” Nadine answered. “My granny lives across the way. I told her to keep an eye out for Dave. I’m sure she’s sitting up in her chair by the window. She watches that place like it’s one of her shows on TV. If she sees Jon, she’ll call me.”

“Thank you.” Delilah’s fingers played with the collar of her pajama top. “I was hoping Dave would show up here. I would gladly drown him in the water.”

“Wouldn’t be much of a loss, but you probably won’t get the chance,” Nadine said. “Those bully-bitchy types, they kill their wives, then they usually kill themselves. Am I right, doctor?”

Sara couldn’t say that she was completely wrong. “It happens.”

Will didn’t seem happy with the prospect of Dave committing suicide. He clearly wanted to drag him away in handcuffs. Maybe he was right. Everyone was treating it as a foregone conclusion that Dave had killed Mercy.

“Whelp,” Nadine said. “Might not be a good idea to yap in front of a cop about how you want to murder somebody who might wind up dead. Should we get started?”

Will took her down to the shore. Sara stayed back with Delilah because they didn’t need another set of footprints on the already compromised scene. She tried to conjure up any memory of what the ground had looked like when she’d first arrived. The moon had been partially obstructed by clouds, but still offered a spray of light.

There had been a large pool of blood at the base of the stairs. More blood had puddled into the drag marks that made a straight line toward the shore. Blood had turned the water red as Mercy’s life had drained away. Her underwear and jeans had been pulled down. She had likely been assaulted before she was stabbed. There had been too many wounds to count.

Sara mentally prepared herself for the autopsy. Mercy had been strangled earlier in the day by Dave. She had accidentally sliced open her thumb on a broken piece of glass during dinner. Sara imagined there would be multiple signs of injuries past and present. Mercy had told Sara that she had married her father. Sara assumed that meant that Dave was not the first man to abuse her.

She turned to look at the closed cottage door. The body had already started to decompose. There was the familiar odor of bacteria breaking down flesh. The door was still barred with the two-by-four Will had taken from a pile of lumber by the worksite. They had laid Mercy’s body in the center of the room. There was nothing to cover her but Will’s bloodied shirt. Sara had resisted the need to make her more presentable—smooth back her tangled, wet hair. Close her eyelids. Straighten her clothes. Pull up her torn underwear and jeans. Mercy McAlpine had been a complicated, troubled, and vibrant woman. She deserved respect, even if it only came in death. But every centimeter of her body could bear witness to the person who’d murdered her.

Delilah said, “I should’ve fought harder to stay in her life.”

Sara turned to look at the woman. Delilah gripped the tissue in her hand. Her tears flowed unabated.

“After I lost custody of Jon, I told myself that I walked away because he needed stability. I didn’t want him to feel pulled between me and Mercy.” Delilah looked out at the lake. “In truth, it was my pride. The custody battle turned deeply personal. It stopped being about Jon and started being about winning. My ego couldn’t accept the loss. Not to Mercy. I saw her as a worthless junkie. If I’d only given her time to prove that she was more than that, I could’ve been a port in the storm. Mercy needed that. She always needed that.”

“I’m sorry that things ended badly.” Sara spoke carefully, not wanting to pick at a fresh wound. “It’s a lot to take on, the raising of someone else’s child. You must’ve been close to Mercy when Jon was born.”

“I was the first person to hold him,” she said. “Mercy was carted off to jail the day after he was born. The nurse put him in my arms and I … I had no idea what to do.”

Sara heard no bitterness in her dry laugh.

“I had to stop by Walmart on my way home. I had an infant in one hand and a cart in the other. Thank God some woman saw me looking perplexed and helped me figure out what I needed. I spent the entire first night reading message boards about how to take care of a baby. I never planned on raising a child. Didn’t want to. Jon was—he is a gift. I have never loved anyone as much as I loved that boy. Still do, actually. Haven’t seen him in thirteen years, but there’s a giant hole in my heart where he belongs.”

Sara could tell the loss was weighing on Delilah, but she still had questions. “Jon’s grandparents didn’t want to take him?”

Delilah gave a sharp laugh. “Bitty told me I should leave him outside the fire station. Which is something, considering Dave was abandoned by his own mother at a fire station.”

Sara had seen evidence of Bitty’s cold-bloodedness toward her own daughter, but this was an unconscionable thing to say about an infant.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” Delilah asked. “You hear all this talk about the sanctity of motherhood, but Bitty has always hated babies. Particularly her own. She would let Mercy and Christopher sit around in their own shit and piss. I tried to intervene, but Cecil made it clear I wasn’t to interfere.”

Sara hadn’t thought it was possible to be more disgusted with Mercy’s family. “You lived here when Christopher and Mercy were babies?”

“Until Cecil chased me off,” Delilah said. “One of my many regrets was not taking Mercy when I had the chance. Bitty would’ve gladly handed her over. She’s one of those women who says she gets along better with men because she doesn’t like other women, but the truth of the matter is other women can’t stand being around her.”

Sara was very familiar with the pick-me type. “You seem convinced that Dave is guilty.”

“What was it Drew said? I’ve seen this Dateline before? It’s always the husband. Or the ex-husband. Or the boyfriend. And in the case of Dave, my only surprise is that he took so long to get to this point. He was always an angry, violent little thug. He blamed Mercy for everything bad in his life when the fact is, she was honestly the only good.” She folded the tissue before wiping her nose again. “Besides, who else could it be?”

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