Page 85 of The Family Plot
“That was a mistake. I mean, look what you’re doing, coming to the island without asking me first—”
“Asking you? I didn’t think I needed your permission.”
“—talking to people when you know you’re not supposed to.”
“The police already questioned him. It’s not a big deal.”
“It is to me!”
A woman, bending toward Tate’s paintings, looks my way. I lower my voice before continuing. “I want you to leave.”
Hurt blares in Greta’s eyes. “But… it’s your brother’s memorial. I came here for you.”
“That’s not why you’re here.”
I couldn’t help myself, she said about Lyle. And I don’t expect her to, if she learns the truth about the Blackburn Killer. She’s been hunting him since before we met. I can’t imagine our friendship would be enough to stop her from telling the police, from blasting this news to the internet. And I’m not ready, not yet, for Andy’s murder to become more of a spectacle. I’m not ready for Greta to look at me, the daughter of a serial killer, and wonder what’s in my blood.
As she searches my face, I’m terrified of what she sees.
“Greta, please go.” My voice is small but firm. In my lap, my hands shake. I clasp them together to hold them still.
“Are you sure?” she says after a moment.
I’m not sure of anything. But I tell her yes. Then I watch her leave, exactly as I asked.
Something strange is happening with Charlie.
I expected him to be puffed up, proud of his work, parading around to prove that—though quirky—our family is nothing to be afraid of. Instead, he’s slouched in a corner of the foyer. Tate keeps trying to talk to him, pull him into the center of things, but he waves her away to wilt even further. As he glances around, gaze skipping over me on the stairs, he winces like he’s in pain.
I wonder if he’s realizing that all this was only a Band-Aid, that changing the islanders’ minds about us won’t help him change the past. From what I’m hearing, it doesn’t even sound like he’s swayed too many islanders. “It’s all so morbid,” one of them mutters at the portrait of Andrew Borden. Another, near the door, says to her friend, “We should wait outside where it’s less busy. I hear they’re doing a ceremony at the end.”
“What kind of ceremony?” her friend asks, readjusting a toddler on her hip.
“I don’t know, some witchy thing.”
“Oh my god, I can’t wait.”
As they walk out the door, someone else steps inside. I recognize the shuffling of the person’s feet as they cross the threshold. Slowly, I raise my face to his, my ankle suddenly aching where he bruised it.
“Fritz,” I say.
His shoulders are slumped as he shuts out the wind, and at the sound of my voice, he looks my way, then limps toward me on the stairs. I stand up, planting my feet on the bottom step to better match his height.
“Dahlia.” He bows his head, his long hair curtaining his face. “I came to pay my respects.”
“Your respects,” I scoff.
He nods soberly. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what? For grabbing me in the shed”—I scan the foyer, checking for eavesdroppers—“or for keeping my father’s secret?”
His eyes widen as he stumbles back.
“You knew,” I whisper. “What was down there. And you never told.”
“N-no,” Fritz stammers. “No, I swear, I didn’t know.”
“You called them trophies,” I hiss.
