Page 80 of The Family Plot
Still, in the wake of everything he unleashed yesterday, it seems obscene, going on as planned, opening our house to hordes of strangers.
I suppose, though, that it makes more sense—why he wants this so badly, why he needs to convince people that the Lighthouses aren’t evil. After everything Dad made him do, Charlie probably believes the islanders are right about him, and he’s desperate to live as if they’re wrong.
“Fine, I’m done,” Tate says from down the hall. “You happy?”
“Thrilled,” Charlie deadpans, and I hear the two of them scurry down the stairs.
I’m lying on Andy’s bed, a half-empty Tupperware of cookies beside me. In the middle of the night, I awoke on his beanbag chair, back stiff, legs sore, and a deep, throbbing hunger pushed me toward the kitchen. There, I grabbed Mom’s cookies, ate two on the way back up, and walked the dark hallway back to Andy’s room. Then I dove onto his bed, where I fell asleep with shortbread in my hand.
His mattress isn’t comfortable. I’d forgotten about that—how he felt most at ease on solid, unyielding surfaces, so much so that he sometimes pulled his blankets off the bed and slept on the floor. Now I wonder if he was punishing himself, if he believed he didn’t deserve any comfort.
My phone chimes with a text from Greta:I’m on the island. Call me when you can.
I bolt upright. Why is she here?
I’m not ready to talk to her, much less see her—not when I still don’t know what I’ll do about Dad. What if she’s getting closer to the truth, realizing that there’s something to Elijah’s theory after all? I squeeze my temples, rocking on the bed. I don’t want to keep Dad’s secret, keep the families of his victims without closure, but maybe even more than that, I don’t want Andy’s murder to be dismissed as retribution.
And what if we’re wrong? What if Dad really didn’t kill him, just like Mom swore?
The thought worms inside me, tunneling a tiny space for hope. Because it’s excruciating enough, knowing that Dad died without ever being punished for the women he murdered; it’s too much to think he got away with killing Andy, too.
Mom was adamant last night about Dad’s illness, screaming and howling her husband’s innocence. In the moment, I wrote it off as shock, an inability to process the truth of who he was. But I do remember how green Dad looked the night of our birthday, how gray the next morning. And if Mom is right that it wasn’t him, then that means Andy’s killer remains at large.
Once the police learn about Dad, I imagine they’ll draw the same conclusions we have, figure Andy’s murderer is already dead. But if that person is still out there, I can’t take the risk of confirming Elijah’s suspicions. At least not yet. Not until I’m certain someone else didn’t do it.
But who’s left on my list of suspects? Edmond doesn’t make sense anymore. If he wasn’t the Blackburn Killer, then he’d have no reason to murder Andy. Same with Fritz—though, I realize with a wince, Fritz isn’t innocent; he knew what Dad kept beneath the shed, and for some reason, he never said a word.
Why would he protect him like that? Why would he work so hard to save birds with broken wings, but wouldn’t even try to save the island’s women?
And then there’s Lyle. Is it enough of a motive, wanting to hurt the boy who hurt his granddaughter? I’m not so sure anymore. But now I think of Dad’s victims, all those women who were strangers to him until he took their lives, and I remember that people have killed for far less than revenge.
I look at Greta’s text. If I see her, she’ll know something’s changed for me. All she’ll have to do is mention the Blackburn Killer, and myturbulent emotions, so close to the surface, will seep through my skin, my family’s secrets puddling all around me.
Turning off my phone, I watch the screen until it blackens, a dark mirror reflecting my swollen eyes, tortured expression.
That settles it then. I won’t face Greta until I have more answers.
But first: I have to face Charlie’s museum.
I can hear him in the foyer, directing Tate. “No, on the credenza,” he says. “I reserved it for this.”
I don’t want to go down there. I don’t want to see the guts of our childhood laid out like organs in an autopsy. I don’t want to know what Tate’s diorama looks like, now that it’s done. I want only, for now, to feel the stiff board of Andy’s bed against my back—my own punishment, for not being who he needed me to be.
I can’t stay here, though. There’s been no talk of a funeral for Andy, so whatever Charlie has planned as the “Memorial” aspect of the LMM might be the only chance I have to say goodbye. And Andy deserves that; he deserves to have me finally let him go, the way I couldn’t when he was here, the way I refused to when he wasn’t.
I roll off his bed, wipe crumbs off my shirt, and head to my room to get dressed. I settle for the closest thing to funeral attire: black jeans and a gray sweater. When I open a drawer for socks, I find Ruby’s embroidery, tucked to the side where I left it days ago. I pick it up, touching the delicate thread, tracing the flowers that encircle her handstitched confession to Andy.
Ruby’s right; it should be in the memorial. If nothing else, it’s proof that my brother was loved.
In the end, I’m glad he had that—someone who loved him, someone who wasn’t tangled up in the brambles of our family, someone he knew would never hurt him. Most of all, I’m glad he had an escape from Dad, someone to laugh with as they wrote their notes beneath the moon.
I take the embroidery downstairs, but I don’t make it past the foyer or have a chance to glance at the tables before Tate’s in my way. She’s stiff as a pillar, facing the credenza. When I follow her gaze, my chest tightens.
There he is: my twin, dead in the hole of the diorama. I take in the clothes she dressed him in—a tiny plaid shirt, little khaki pants, an outfit that could have been pulled and shrunk from his own dresser. Tears cling to my eyelashes. The Andy doll is facedown inside the grave, a miniature ax tossed in next to him, and there’s a bright red wound oozing through the hair that Tate has glued to the back of his head. A sliver of porcelain is visible between the bloody strands, and my stomach sinks as I realize what it’s meant to represent: the skull split open; the aftermath of the ax.
“Are you okay?” Tate murmurs.
I look at her. Her eyes are so blue they seem unnatural.
