Contents ( 85)
- Contents
- Part I
- 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
- Part II
- 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
- Part III
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
- Sixty-Seven
- Sixty-Eight
- Sixty-Nine
- Seventy
- Seventy-One
- Seventy-Two
- One
- Two
- Reading Group Guide
- A Conversation with the Author
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
I glance briefly at the clock, the digital time glowing blue and bold, the car’s heat still pumping into my face from the vents. I take this pit of shame, this thing that has done nothing but grow like a cancer in me for the last two decades, and I choose to take a scalpel and cut it out of my body, right here in this car, hoping I’ll be strong enough to survive the operation.
“Cora killed him,” I say. I don’t even let him react or ask questions. I just talk. I tell Pearson everything I’ve always wanted to say. Everything that happened back then, every gory detail that I relive in my endless nightmares. Everything about Riley, his affair, his unraveling, and the night he died. About my books and how the scene with the husband dying from alcohol and sleep meds was no more than a simple chapter in a mystery novel, but I couldn’t say for sure that Max hadn’t read the book. I admit I did write my new novel hoping to confess my complicity through fiction, but that backfired.
I tell him about my move back to this horrible little town. My father and his insistence on family above everything, a trait I have quite clearly inherited.
I talk about Cora. Our relationship, the sisters of Bury. I pass the point of worrying about what I’m saying, and it’s the most beautiful feeling I’ve ever experienced. Maybe it’s my moment of touching the rainbow, a release, followed by freedom.
I tell him I think she might have killed others. Perhaps many. Undoubtedly a poodle and a long-ago family pet. I tell Pearson that Cora is dead, and I killed her, an act of self-defense, inasmuch as that even matters. That my father buried her.
He takes all this in, saying nothing. I want to cry, but perhaps like him, I have nothing left to give.
I look at the clock.
Eleven minutes have passed.
Eleven minutes. The weight of all I carried for so long only took eleven minutes to unload. That alone is singularly painful.
“Where is Caleb?” From all the things I’ve just told him, this is the only question Pearson asks me.
“I don’t know. I think in the woods leading from the Chester Woodall trailhead. Maybe…maybe Cora is there, too.”
“Do you have anything else to say?”
“No. I’ve told you everything. I have to go. My son…”
The digital clock counts off another passing minute. Pearson says, “I’m going to get out of this car and go up and knock on the door of that house. Maybe they’ll answer, maybe they won’t. If they do, I’m going to ask for a bit of their time. If they’re kind enough to let me in and hear me out, I’m going to tell them a long story. One that ends with where I think their boy is buried. Once I leave that house, I’m going to drive directly to the Bury Police Department and tell Chief Sike everything I know. So, Rose, by my best estimate, you have anywhere between ten minutes and ninety to get going.”