Charlie stared down into her wine for a few minutes without speaking. Her fingers trembled, holding the glass. When she looked up, her eyes were bright with tears. “I’d never felt so hateful in my life. I don’t know how much time passed. It’s all kind of a blur.”
He waited.
“There was a long period of silence. I thought maybe she had left. Then she was screaming, these horrible high-pitched piercing screams. I still hear her screams in my sleep. I remember standing on the other side of the door with my hand on the knob. I wanted her to suffer but she sounded so pitiful and yet I still thought she was faking it just to get me to open the door. I could just see her laughing, mocking me. I didn’t open the door.”
Charlie finished her wine, set down the glass and got up to walk to the window, her slim back to him as she hugged herself. “Then the screaming stopped. In its wake there was nothing but this unnerving silence inside the house and the wind in the trees outside. I waited for a while longer, still thinking it was a trick before I opened the door.”
Shep found himself sitting on the edge of his seat, half-full wineglass in his hand.
Charlie came back to the couch and sat down. “Lindy was gone. I called for her, but there was no answer. I thought about going out to look for her, but I could imagine her out there hiding, waiting to jump out and scare me. I left the door unlocked and went up to my room. I could imagine what she would tell our parents and how much trouble I would be in even for leaving the front door unlocked. I heard her come into the house and start up the stairs. I was waiting for her to come up to our room and start threatening me when I heard a car pull up out front. I looked out my window and saw a police car. An officer climbed out and headed for our front door. I ran downstairs. I still thought that Lindy was somewhere in the house, but I didn’t see her.”
He held his breath.
Charlie turned to look at him, her face wet with tears. She made a swipe at them. “The police officer gave me the news. There’d been a car accident. My father had missed a curve and crashed into the river. He’d been trapped in the car and had drowned. My stepmother was missing. I was in shock. There was a sound toward the back of the house. I figured it was Lindy. The officer heard it. He asked if I was alone. I told him my stepsister was in the house. He insisted on talking to her.
“The two of us looked around the house, calling for her. She was nowhere to be found. But we found the backdoor was standing open. I had locked it earlier. I figured Lindy had come in the unlocked front door and gone back out when she’d seen the cop. The officer got his flashlight and went out back to look for her...” Again her voice broke.
“He found her back by the creek. She had been attacked and brutally murdered—at least that’s what I heard later. The police thought it might have been some vagrant staying in one of those old abandoned buildings nearby next to the railroad tracks. I just knew that she was dead and it was my fault.”
“No,” Shep said too sharply. “You couldn’t know that there was a killer outside. Anyway, you heard her come back in and go out again.”
She shook her head. “The policeman said she had been dead for some time. I couldn’t have heard her on the stairs.”
He didn’t know what to say for a moment, but she didn’t give him a chance anyway.
“I could have opened the door and it wouldn’t have happened,” she rushed on. “As it was, I never told anyone what I’d done, especially the policeman. At first I was in shock. Later I couldn’t bring myself to tell the truth.”
He sighed. “You were fourteen.”
She nodded.
“You were just a kid. What happened to you after that?”
“Foster care.”
He did the math. “You were sixteen when we met the first time.”
Her smile was full of regrets and guilt. “I had started acting out in foster care, getting into real trouble until I was caught and had to go before the judge.”
“It’s understandable after everything you went through. Did you ever talk to anyone about what happened? Get some help?”
“You mean like a psychologist? I know what you’re thinking. That I’m seeing Lindy again out of my guilt for getting her killed.”
“That’s not what I was thinking.”
“I felt like I deserved whatever bad thing happened to me. I’d killed Lindy—”
“You didn’t kill her.”
She gave him an impatient look. “She would be alive if I had opened that door.”
“You said you heard her come back into the house. She wasn’t locked out then.”
“Maybe I’d just imagined that I heard her come in and start up the stairs.”
“I don’t believe you imagined it. Someone was in the house. If the cop hadn’t arrived when he did... Charlie, it could have been the killer. Maybe he knew that there was only the two of you home that night.”
She paled. “I’d never thought of that. If it wasn’t Lindy...”
“The killer could have been in the house with you.” He raked a hand through is hair. “You could have been his next victim.”
“Maybe I deserved it.”
Shep let out a curse. Why hadn’t she told him all this years ago when they’d first met? He couldn’t bear that she’d been living with this all these years. He put down his wineglass and reached for her, taking her hands in his.
“Listen to me, you can’t think that way. You were unsupervised teenagers. Your stepsister was terrorizing you and you had no one to go to for help. You have to stop blaming yourself.”
Tears filled her eyes again. “How do I do that?”
He pulled her into his arms. “Admitting what happened that night is a beginning. But you need to talk to a professional. You didn’t cause her death.” He smoothed her hair as she cried quietly in his arms for a minute.
She gave him a pained smile as she leaned back to look into his face. “What about now? Are you telling me that I only imagined seeing Lindy out of guilt?”
“You’ve been through so much. I think you haven’t dealt with the past, but I don’t think you imagined what you saw any more than you imagined hearing someone come back into the house that night and start up the stairs. Have you told anyone what happened?”
“Not even the judge knows the whole story.”
He nodded, again wondering how the judge thought this was something Shep could handle. “What I don’t understand is why now? Why are you seeing Lindy after fifteen years have passed. What’s changed?”
“I don’t know unless...” She got up again as if she couldn’t sit still. Couldn’t stay in his arms. “I’m happy with my life, with my job. I have my own apartment. There’s... Daniel.”