“Wha—” Ricky bit back another sob. “What will they do with—with the body?”
Andrea exchanged a look with Bible. There was a reason they had volunteered to drive Ricky Fontaine home. Nardo had admitted to the rape, but not the murder. On the surface, the difference didn’t have a distinction, but to make a case beyond a reasonable doubt, they needed independent verification. Eric Blakely had drowned forty years ago. Clay Morrow was in prison. Bernard Fontaine certainly wasn’t talking. Jack Stilton had all but proven that he’d had no hand in Emily’s murder. Dean Wexler had invoked his right to remain silent while four Marshals were escorting him down the stairs from the farmhouse.
Ricky might be the only person on earth who could confirm that Bernard Fontaine had murdered Emily Vaughn.
Andrea told her, “Nardo’s body will be taken to the state morgue. They’ll do a full investigation.”
Ricky cried out again. The shaking worsened. She clutched the thin blanket around her shoulders. For once, the silver bangles around her wrists were silent. Ricky had tried in vain to resuscitate Nardo. His blood had formed a glue around the bracelets.
“Here we are.” Bible pulled up the steep driveway to Ricky’s house. He turned to the back seat, telling them both, “Sorry, I need to make a phone call. You ladies let me know if you need anything. Ma’am—”
Ricky looked down when Bible rested his hand on her arm.
He said, “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
Andrea got out of the SUV. She walked around to the other side to help Ricky. The harsh floodlights did the woman no favors. She had aged in the last hour. The lines in her face were deeper. Dark circles ringed her eyes. She leaned heavily on Andrea as they climbed the stairs. The door wasn’t locked. Ricky pulled it open.
Andrea didn’t wait for an invitation. She went around the living room turning on lamps. Then she climbed the short flight of stairs into the kitchen. The chandelier over the table glowed as she walked to the stove. The kettle was already full. Andrea turned on the gas and waited for it to catch.
She called down to Ricky, “Tea will be ready in a minute.”
She listened, but Ricky had no response. Andrea walked to the edge of the stairs. She could see the top of Ricky’s head in the living room. The woman was sitting on the couch. She was rocking herself back and forth, the blanket still clutched tight around her shoulders. The paramedics had said that she was probably in shock.
Andrea was in shock, too, but she had put too much of herself into this effort to let herself give in.
She found a dirty mug in the sink, a sponge on the windowsill. She strained her ears to listen for Ricky. The sound of her soft cries traveled up from the living room. Andrea carefully washed and dried the mug. She walked to the fridge. She looked at the photos, the postcards, the reminders and receipts. Some of them were so old that the ink had faded. None of them felt particularly personal. Most of the postcards seemed to be from tourists who talked fondly about their time at the diner. They reminded Andrea of the anodyne notes in Ricky’s yearbook—
Chorus was a blast! Remember Chemistry II! Don’t ever change!
Andrea picked up one of the red pill bottles on the counter. Instinctively, she reached for her iPhone. She had no way of looking up the generic names on the labels. The only ones she recognized were diazepam, which was Valium, acetaminophen/codeine, which was Tylenol 3, and oxycodone, which was Percocet. Laura had tried all three at various stages of her cancer treatments, but only oral morphine had managed to lessen the pain.
The kettle started to shriek. Andrea turned off the gas. She reached up to search the cabinet, but then she thought better of it.
She walked to the top of the stairs again. She called down to Ricky, “Where do you keep the tea?”
Ricky had hooded the blanket over her head as if she wanted to disappear.
“The tea?” Andrea repeated.
“Cabinet—” Ricky’s voice was scratchy. “Cabinet by the sink.”
There was nothing but spices and a large box of chamomile tea in the cabinet. Andrea sloshed boiling water into the mug, dropped in the tea bag. She found a coaster on the counter. By the time she made it down the stairs, Ricky was no longer sitting on the couch. She was standing at the console table, blanket still clutched around her shoulders. Her face was bloated from crying. The paramedics had tried to clean her up, but Nardo’s blood stained her shirt and clumped in her dyed hair.
Andrea placed the coaster and mug on the console table. She saw that both drawers were open. Ricky had laid out some of the snapshots—the birthday party, the wedding photos, Nardo and Clay sitting at the counter in the same diner where one of them had just died.
Ricky picked up the framed photo of the group. “Only two of us left now.”
Andrea could hear the desolation in her voice. They had been her world, especially Nardo.
Ricky said, “I guess that’s it, right? You’ll tell the judge that Nardo did it.”
Andrea nodded, but said, “I wish it was that simple, but Nardo didn’t confess to everything.”
Ricky took a shallow breath, but she didn’t look up at Andrea.
“Nardo admitted that he had intercourse with her, and the DNA will prove that one way or another, but he didn’t say anything about Emily’s murder.” Andrea waited, but Ricky only stared at the photo in her hands. “Ricky, did Nardo ever talk to you about her? Or about what happened the night of the prom? Did Emily say something or—”
“Clay was the one who brought her into the clique.” Ricky’s voice sounded flat. Her eyes had gone glassy. “Nardo never liked her. She was so boring. She didn’t belong. Emily never belonged.”
Andrea watched as Ricky gently placed the frame back on the table.
“Nardo was eighteen when it happened. I mean, you’ll fuck anything at eighteen, right? Even a mousy little bitch.”
Andrea could hear anger creeping into Ricky’s tone. The woman still didn’t want to believe Nardo had raped Emily.
“What Cheese said—he didn’t know anything. Emily only told her parents that she was raped because they were furious when she got pregnant. She was such a liar.” Ricky looked down at the snapshot of Nardo and Clay in the diner. She traced her finger along Nardo’s boyishly round face. “The night of the party, she was flirting with everybody. She started on Clay, then she tried it with my brother. He ended up locking himself in the bathroom to get away from her.”
Andrea watched Ricky press her palm flat, covering Nardo as if she could somehow protect him.
“Emily was supposed to be my best friend. I hated her for fucking him. Nardo was mine. He belonged to me. And now—” her voice caught. “He’s gone. I can’t believe he’s gone.”
Andrea watched Ricky break down again. She covered her face with the blanket. Her cries were almost like a keening. Her shoulders bowed as if the burden of what she had carried all these years had finally broken her.
“Ricky,” Andrea tried. “Did Nardo ever talk about it? About what happened?”
“Fuck.” Ricky looked around the room. “I need a tissue.”
Andrea gently placed her hand on Ricky’s shoulder. “If you could—”
“Give me a minute.” Ricky shrugged off the blanket before walking up the stairs. Her hand gripped the railing as she pulled herself up. She was still shaking her head when she disappeared into the kitchen