“No,” I said again. “It has nothing to do with her—I just wanted—”
“Nah,” she said. “I think it does. I think you’re just like her. How did she wind up in those hospitals over and over again? It wasn’t just because she was depressed.”
I couldn’t speak.
“She tried to kill herself too,” Mary said. “She tried more than once.”
“I’m not like her,” I bit out.
Mary giggled and sent up a cloud of dust as she clutched the bookshelf again for support. “You’re right! I mean, that’s the part that gets me the most. You hired a professional wetworker to leave you alone.”
“What?”
“Well, he wasn’t supposed to really kill you, right? He was supposed to smack you around, get a few blood spatters on the Honda, and take it for a joyride. Ditch it in one of the arroyos, am I right? Carjacking gone wrong. And then you’re free to start your new life.” She paused. “You wanted your husband to be in love with Elaine. You thought Eli would have a new mommy built right in. You thought you’d be Yvonne.” Mary tilted her head. “Clery said all that cost you forty thousand dollars in cash. Must have taken you all year to get that much cash out of your accounts slowly enough that Dave wouldn’t notice. No wonder you were so pissed when Clery got sent to prison.”
“The pawnshop closed.” I cleared my throat. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“It must have been horrible for you,” Mary said sympathetically. “Now you had to start all over again. By the time I got to this point, I started thinking, wouldn’t it have been easier just to off yourself and be done with it?”
I looked at my hands.
“Oh, so you thought about it,” Mary said. “I figured. Why didn’t you do it?”
It took a long time for me to say, “Dave.”
Mary’s voice warmed. “You didn’t want to break his heart?” She paused. “That’s the part I didn’t understand, I guess. That’s nice of you, Leslie. Okay, so you had one last light at the end of the tunnel. The estate was finally getting settled. That money was just your money, not Dave’s. Maybe you didn’t even tell him about it. You could use it to take off by yourself. Make it look like a carjacking, make sure Dave would never know you’d left him on purpose. But Daddy knew you a little bit better than you thought. He didn’t trust you to give your sister her share. He left instructions to make sure Albert would hand the check to her in person. You were good. You tracked her down. You made it all the way to the house in Henderson. And then you made a mistake.”
“You said you saw me in Henderson,” I whispered. “How?”
“I lived there, silly,” Mary told me.
My head was spinning. “What do you mean?”
“Rachel Vreeland was my roommate.”
I stood up and stumbled away from her. “You mean Robin was your roommate.”
“No, honey,” Mary said. “Come on, step away from the door. You know what I’m saying.” She paused. “I almost thought you saw me in the house, but you were out of there like a shot! Couldn’t wait to leave your sister’s body behind. Made you hungry, huh?”
“You followed me,” I said. “To the restaurant. You were on my car when I came out. You were…” I twisted from side to side, but Mary was watching me. “You were waiting for me?”
“Of course,” Mary said. “I thought I’d mess with you a little. I didn’t expect you to buy it.” She laughed. “Boy, did you ever buy it!”
“But the—the woman in the bed,” I said. “They called me about a credit card. Under her name. Why would they call me if she wasn’t…”
Mary waved her hand. “Rachel had rich parents. She could handle me opening a couple more credit cards for her. They wouldn’t let me open any more under my other name, or even under Daddy’s. So that’s how you found me—the credit cards? No wonder Iker led you to the wrong room.”
“The wrong room?” I echoed faintly.
“He led you to Rachel’s room.” She smiled. “Mine was down the hall.”
50
Robin
Leslie pressed herself against the wall, breathing hard through her nose. “I don’t understand,” she said after a minute.
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t you recognize me? I know it’s been a while, but man. I expected you to know right away! I mean, Rachel kind of looked like me, but I was definitely the prettier one. Especially toward the end, when she got all twiggy. But that was my fault, I guess.”
“Your fault?” Leslie was as white as the wall.
“It’s a long story. My ex traded me in for the new model. So I made friends with her, introduced her to some new drugs, and fucked her life up a little bit.” I blinked. “I guess it wasn’t that long.”
“That girl. Rachel. That was her. But…” Leslie seemed unfocused. “She had my mother’s earrings. They were right there, in her room…”
“Mom’s earrings? I thought I’d lost them until I saw them on you that day. You’d come out of Rachel’s room, and then later you were wearing them in the parking lot, and I realized you’d lifted them right off her, just like she must’ve stolen them from me. She was always trying to find stuff to sell.”
“Stole them. To sell them? For…”
I shrugged. “I really didn’t think a little heroin was going to end up killing her. I just wanted to fuck her up some, you know? I liked that guy.” I stopped and looked at her. “You know, Paul. I told you about him. His brother knew James Cameron. He was going to help me with my career. But then he met Rachel. She looked just like me, but she was twenty-two.”
“So you punished her,” Leslie said.
“No,” I said patiently. “I punished Paul. I followed her around a little at first—just wanted to know what she was like. Why she was better than me. He’d thrown me away for nothing, so I thought I’d show him so. I told her I was new in town, asked her to be my friend, introduced her to her new favorite pastime. I wanted to know how come he fell in love with her, you know? I wanted to fall in love with her. But the more I got to know her the more I knew it wasn’t the same between them. I listened to her talk about Paul, how he was getting more distant, and I knew he was almost done with her. She stopped looking good. She stopped eating anything. It happened so fast. When she kicked it, I wanted to be the first one to tell him the news. I thought now that she was out of the way…But there he was with some new girl already. He called the cops on me, can you believe it? That cop Sam, he’s been following me around for months.” I did my best impression of Sam’s nerdy cop growl. “ ‘Give me all your cash, baby. Otherwise I’ll take you in for stalking.’ I wasn’t even stalking Paul, no matter what he told the police. Talking to your ex isn’t stalking.” I sighed. “At least I got to key Sam’s car on my way out. He deserved way worse.”