Page 39 of I Know She Was There

There was something wrong with the way I thought. I knew that. But damn it, I still couldn’t sign on the dotted line without knowing I’d tried everything I could to win him back. Our family’s future depended on it.

CHAPTER20

SATURDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 9

Icalled Tim. If he wanted the damned divorce papers signed, he’d have to agree to a meetup. His line rang and rang, and the mailbox in his cell was full. Rising panic battled a flare of anger, fighting for dominance in my chest.

What a nerve!He needed to update me on Emmy, yet even while tendingourchild he went out of his way to avoid me. I started to text him, then remembered the cell service at the cheap motel in Sandy Hook, where we’d stayed that summer and where he was probably vacationing without me, was horrible. Tim had chosen what had to be the only place at the Jersey Shore that didn’t offer complimentary Wi-Fi service. He was so damned cheap.

I paced around my coffee table, the forward motion soothing me even though I wasn’t going anywhere. Seemed appropriate for my state of mind. I sighed and walked faster.

What if Tim had sprung for a nicer place at the beach? One with internet service. What if he was ignoring me? Maybe he was holed up in some swanky place with his girlfriend andmydaughter, strategizing. Thinking of a way to take Emmy away from me for good. My chest felt heavy and tight.

You’re fixating!

I halted, looking around the living room, my eyes bouncing from the worn sofa to the hated knotty pine walls. My mother’s voice again, just like in the foyer at 21 Pine Hill Road. And every other damned place I went. I covered my ears with my palms.I didn’t want to think of her voice or what had happened at the Pine Hill house. But I couldn’t obsess over Tim either.

Suddenly everything was too bright, too loud. The sun streaming through the window was blinding, and voices chattered all around me, but just low enough that I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Conspiring tones, close but far away, like indistinguishable sounds from a television in the next room.

I stumbled to the bathroom, my feet feeling like blocks, making normal walking difficult. I leaned heavily on the tiled vanity top and swung open the medicine cabinet, peering in at the prescription bottles lined up like soldiers standing at attention, ready for inspection. I slammed the mirrored door shut.

A half a pill for you and a half for me.

“Yes, Mom, I remember,” I yelled to the still air around me. “I remember everything.”

But that wasn’t true, was it? I hadn’t been able to recall what had happened that day on the lake when my father drowned. Why not? Why couldn’t I unlock that mystery so deeply wedged in my brain?

I stared at my eyes in the mirror. These supposed “windows to the soul” were blank. My brows hunched protectively above, as if colluding with them to hide any trace of memory.

I pulled open the cabinet door again and reached for the Xanax bottle. My hands shaking, I pressed down on the lid and twisted. The top loosened, fell into the sink, two pills following it like ducklings trailing their mother. My hand swooped down like a hawk, scooping up those baby ducks and devouring them. I turned the faucet handle and bent over until my face was below the running stream, drinking greedily, water flowing over chin and cheeks.

I straightened, water dripping onto the front of my T-shirt like blood drops from an open wound. I thought again of the woman in the window.

No, no, no.

I walked to my bedroom, my thighs nearly too heavy to lift, as though my ankles were encased in leg cuffs. I dropped onto my bed, realizing I shouldn’t have taken two pills. I seldom took two at once, right? I wasn’t sure. I lay back and closed my eyes, praying that the slideshow of faces—Tim’s, Jeffrey’s, my mother’s, Jane’s, Mary’s, the mystery woman’s—would go away; that the monotonous stream of whispers would cease. But they drifted through my mind, even as sleep filtered in, troubled ghosts prodding and pressing. Lodging in the folds of my brain like tumors.

When I awoke, shaking my head to dislodge the unwanted visitors, they vanished. All except the woman. Why was she haunting me? There was nothing I could do to help her. Any effort I made seemed as futile as telling Rod Brockton about his cheating wife. The police didn’t believe me. And why should they? I had no proof a woman had been harmed in the Pine Hill house. No proof at all.

That’s not true.

I stood and crossed the room to my dresser, thankful my legs felt better, lighter. How long had I slept? I opened my top drawer and felt around, fingers sliding through a stream of silky panties. I paused. I usually folded my underthings. When had I abandoned that practice? Uneasy, I shoved my hand to the back of the drawer, until the tips of my pointer and middle fingers pressed against the contours of the box. I snatched it up and removed the top in one continuous movement, peering at the cotton batting inside.

Empty.

I pushed aside the plush cotton square, expecting to see the neon-orange nail tip tucked underneath, blazing like a bright coin against its cardboard canvas, but nothing was inside the small white box balanced in my left palm.

A cold sensation plunged through me like an ice bucket tipped over my head. The hairs on my suddenly shaky arms stood up. Staring into the empty box, I knew what that intruder had been looking for.

But how could anyone know I had the nail fragment? I hadn’t told a soul I’d found it, and nobody had seen me take it—not even Jeffrey, who hadn’t been in the room with me when I’d extracted it from between the floorboards. I’d been alone. Or had I?

I closed my eyes, picturing the layout of the master bedroom, the expanse of wood flooring, and the louvered closets against the far wall. I’d recalled my playful concealment as a child in our similar closet, watching my dad stomp exaggeratedly around the space in front of the closet, knowing I could see his feet through the downward-facing slats.

My stomach dropped. Anyone crouched in the closet could have seen me slide onto the floor, pick up the fake nail, and hold it in front of my eyes, studying it.

My mouth prickled. I dropped the box, turned, and ran to the bathroom, where I promptly vomited into the sink.

I straightened, my eyes catching the look on my face in the vanity mirror. There was fear spread across my features, and a message that pulsated through my brain.

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