The knife fell to the courtyard below, clattering against the concrete. Alice’s hand shot out, gripped the window frame, her balance failing.
Hannah could have saved her. Reached toward her, grabbed her hand, pulled her to safety. Alice let out a scream. It reverberated through the mountains.
Hannah reached her arms out, not to save her but to push her.
One second, Alice was screaming. The next, she was gone.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Now
1:13 a.m.
Hannah’s mind was blank. She sat on the floor of Ruby’s room, not looking out the window at the courtyard below. She didn’t know how much time passed before she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned her head.
Huck.
Hannah stared at his face. She knew it as well as her own but felt like she was seeing it for the first time. The long, straight nose. The heavy-lidded eyes. His eyebrows creased with worry. His jaw ticcing.
“I called the police,” he said, indicating the window. “What happened?” A task man as always. Taking care of the business of the moment.
Hannah closed her eyes, sank her cheek back to her knee, and said nothing. Didn’t know how to answer the question. Since when? Since 2002?
“I’m sorry I left,” he continued, squatting down next to her. Rubbing his palm on her back. She leaned into his warmth. “I’ve been calling you for days. I finally couldn’t take it anymore and drove up here right after work.”
“I texted you,” Hannah said, her voice floating.
“I didn’t get any texts,” Huck replied softly.
She believed him; she didn’t have a reason not to. She just wanted him to carry her away from Brackenhill, away from Rockwell. She wanted him to take care of everything for her, like he always had. She wanted the life she’d had before: before she’d known what she’d done to her sister, before she’d known that Fae had killed Ellie. She thought of Alice gasping her last breaths on the concrete below.
“Alice killed Fae,” Hannah said to Huck. “So I killed Alice.”
And there it was. She couldn’t just leave it all behind because she belonged here. Could murder be genetic? She was one of them. A killer, continuing the Brackenhill tradition. In fact, she was the worst offender. She’d killed Julia; then she’d killed Alice.
Self-pity had never been her style, but maybe it was time to wallow a bit. Or at least self-sequester.
“Hannah,” Huck said, uncertain what to make of her admission.
“Hannah,” said a voice from the doorway.
Wyatt.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Now
“Hannah, are you okay?” Wyatt said softly. “I’ve been calling you all day. Your phone is never off for this long. I got worried.”
“At one a.m.?” Huck asked amiably, his head cocked.
“I’m fine,” Hannah said, tired of repeating herself. So tired of everything. She wanted to lie down on the plush carpet and go to sleep. “Alice is out there. I pushed her.”
Wyatt held up a hand. “Hannah, slow down. What happened?”
“She had a knife. She killed Fae. I followed her to the shed. She’s been sleeping in there. I confronted her about Fae, and she tried to kill me. I . . .” Hannah didn’t know how to explain the rest. The chase through the woods. The storm shelter. Julia. She closed her eyes. Skipped over it. “She chased me here. Tried to stab me. I pushed her out the window.”
He knelt next to her, replacing Huck. Touched her shoulder, pulled away a bloody finger.
“You should be seen at the hospital,” Wyatt said quietly.
“Why aren’t you surprised?” Hannah asked him. He stood up.
“We put it together today,” Wyatt admitted. “Actually, Jinny tipped us off. She’s the one who told me that Alice was Ellie’s mother. From there, it was easy. She’s not registered as a nurse. We were going to arrest Alice tomorrow. For Fae’s death.”
“I killed my sister,” Hannah said. “I killed Julia.” She felt removed from herself, distant, watching the scene unfold like an outsider. She’d expected the words to be harder to say. She’d expected Wyatt to immediately arrest her.
“Hannah.” Wyatt and Huck exchanged a look. They were saying her name like that again: like the day at the fish fry when they were kids, like Julia had in the tunnel.
“I know what I did. I remember it. I didn’t for a long time, but I do now.” The sob crept up her throat, bubbled out.
“Hannah, you’re not thinking clearly. Let’s not worry about . . . Julia now,” Wyatt said.
“She’s down there somewhere.” Hannah indicated the basement. “I’m sure of it.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw it. I saw her. She told me.” Had it been her mind or her sister’s spirit? At Brackenhill, you could never really tell. Huck ran a palm across his forehead, then through his hair. He didn’t believe her. Why would he? Why would anyone?
“We’ll find her, okay?” Wyatt put his arm across Hannah’s shoulders, and she let him. She looked over Wyatt’s head at Huck, who stood a few feet away, his hands in his pockets. He looked from Hannah to Wyatt and back.
He knew.
Hannah was an adulterer and a murderer. And Huck knew.
Maybe he’d leave her now. The thought was a relief. He could find someone with less baggage. He didn’t do baggage. She could stop pretending to be fine, to be whole. She could be one half again, the way it had felt for the last seventeen years, only this time openly.
She was so tired of pretending.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Five Months Later
Hannah wiped the countertop down in the kitchen, washed her single plate and fork. She gazed out the small window above the sink, sipping her coffee.
The courtyard was no longer bursting with flowers, because February in the Catskills was brutal and killed all living things all the time.
Hannah found that she quite liked the deadening, as she’d come to think of it. Alone in the castle she could hear herself think. The snow was thick and blanketed the grounds such that she could stand outside for an hour and not hear one single sound.
She hadn’t visited Uncle Stuart during the last few days of his life. He’d died alone. With the woman who’d killed his wife. While Hannah chased some version of the truth, slept with her childhood boyfriend, and cheated on her fiancé, Stuart had died. Alice knew he had died and left him in the bedroom to follow Hannah. Had she at least been in the room when Stuart took his last breath? Hannah didn’t know and never would. Some questions haunted forever; that much Hannah had learned.
Huck went back to Virginia alone, with his vague disappointment that she wasn’t who he’d thought she was. She wasn’t stable, reliable, put together. Huck didn’t do anger or rage. Hannah got to keep Rink, who ran around in the snow in the woods around Brackenhill. At Brackenhill, Hannah didn’t have a real job. She was home all day, and Rink could run miles if he wanted. Better for him than to be cooped up in a condo all day while Huck worked. Sometimes Huck texted her, just to check in.
She said nothing to Huck about Julia. She didn’t revisit the topic. She just let him believe whatever he wanted about that night in Ruby’s room. Let him believe her confession was born of delusion. Trauma from the night with Alice. What harm would that do?