Chapters (51)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Acknowledgments
- P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
- About the Author
- About the Book
- Also by Alison Gaylin
- About the Publisher
AS ROBIN WALKED back to her office, she thought of what Nicola had said, and of what she hadn’t said back: Not remembering someone you’ve seen several times isn’t the dictionary definition of narcissism. Some people simply have bad memories for names.
She hadn’t remembered Nicola either, not at first. She pulled Morasco’s business card out of her bag and called it on her phone. He picked up after one ring. “I don’t know if this information is important at all,” she said, “but my mother’s old friend Nicola used to be friends with Quentin Garrison’s mother.”
“Is that right?” Morasco sounded distracted and strange. She heard voices behind him. People shouting to each other.
“Are you outdoors?” she said.
“Ms. Diamond,” he said. “You have to clear out your voice mail. I tried to call you a few times, but I couldn’t leave a message.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“Listen,” he said. “We found Quentin Garrison.”
Robin stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “You did?”
The shouting got louder. Someone saying, “Stand back.”
“Detective Morasco? Has he been arrested?”
“No,” he said. “Quentin Garrison is dead. He appears to have shot himself.”
Thirty-One
June 20, 1976
Midnight
Dear Aurora Grace,
Jenny is dead. Gabriel told me. He said she’s been dead from the beginning of our trip. He said he killed her before Papa Pete came home, that he buried her body in our backyard.
The times he’s called her on the phone, the times she’s listened to me and I could hear her breathing . . . He said that was just dead air. A random number that he’d called.
I don’t know whether he was telling me the truth, or if he just said it to hurt me. He was angry at me for so many things: Not forgiving him for hitting me. Spending the day with Elizabeth. Getting drunk with Elizabeth when I was supposed to be with him. “You can’t abandon me like that,” he had said. “You’re Bonnie. I’m Clyde.”
And because I was drunk, I didn’t lie and tell him how much it meant to me for him to say that. I didn’t make big sad eyes at him like I normally would. I didn’t say I was sorry, that I’d never abandon him again.
What I did was this: I pointed out to Gabriel that Clyde Barrow couldn’t get it up. Just like him.
That was when he told me about Jenny. Because he knew he couldn’t hit me anymore without Elizabeth cutting him in his sleep with her sewing shears, which she’s sworn to him she’ll do. Because he knew he couldn’t shoot me in the Bristol Arms because there would be too many witnesses. But most importantly, because he knew that telling me he’d killed my sister would hurt me more than hitting or shooting ever could.