Page 87 of The Family Plot
“I know, exactly. It’s like: whoa, mystery man.”
Tess’s friend laughs and the two of them take out their phones to snap some pictures. Tess poses in front of the diorama for a selfie, tucking her fist under her chin, angling her face just right. Nausea snakes through me, but I’m finding it hard to care. Not about this, not about the toddler I saw ripping up a murder report, not even about the fact that Andy’s diorama will apparently make it online, whether or not Tate posts it herself. Ever since Fritz left, I’ve been watching the LMM play out before me like shows I’m flipping through on TV—and none of them hold my interest.
Until I see Elijah.
He’s inching between the tables in the living room, frowning at each exhibit. I sit up straighter, wondering when he got here. And how could I have missed him, if he used the front door like everyone else?
The reporter latches onto him, peppering him with questions heseems reluctant to answer. As he talks to her, he keeps glancing in my direction, and I shrink toward the wall, hoping the banister is enough to conceal me. But when he excuses himself, pulling away from the reporter to head toward the foyer, I see what he’s really looking at: the diorama.
Was it only yesterday that I asked him if it was as accurate as the others? He said he wouldn’t know until the body was in place, and now, I wonder what he makes of Tate’s choices: the doll facedown, as if Andy was rolled into the hole; the wound on the back of the head, indicating that the killer struck from behind. She’d have no reason, this time, to know any details, but I wonder how close her guesses are, if Elijah will see something suspicious in them, something that keeps his eyes narrowed on us.
I try to gauge his reaction, but his face remains neutral. A minute passes, people crowding around him to view the diorama. Finally, he pulls his notebook from his pocket, writes something down, and turns away. He breezes past the sign designating the foyer and living room as the only spaces open to visitors. Then he disappears down the back hall.
Should I follow him? I don’t want him to see me, to press me on questions my haunted expression will answer.Did you ask Charlie, I imagine him saying,about being at the crime scene?But it’s a risk, too, letting him walk unguarded through the house, giving his theories space to fester and spread.
Moving away from the stairs, I try to force a decision, but I only make it a few feet before a conversation stops me.
“Should we go? This is kind of boring.”
I jerk my head toward the voice—a man speaking to a woman, standing at the table of Honoring candles. The woman touches the last one in Andy’s row, his sixteenth, the candle he lit and blew out just hours before he was killed.
I step toward them into the living room, the wordboringlodged like a bullet in my chest. This museum is a spectacle, a diversion, but it’s appalling to call itboringas they linger over evidence of what we’ve lost.
“Boring?” the woman says. “Have a little respect. Someone was murdered here, Jack.”
I relax a little, even as I keep inching toward them.
“Yeah, but… this is just a bunch of old movies and papers. I was expecting…”
“What? A confession? ‘Hey, we killed the kid’?”
Jack chuckles. “Something like that.”
“I’m still positive it was the Blackburn Killer,” the woman replies. “Anything else is too crazy. Two murderers on the same little island? No way.”
And there it is: the fear I keep returning to, the knot at the center of my tangled concerns—that when the case is closed on the Blackburn Killer, it will be closed on Andy, too.
The further I get from the moment I learned about Dad, the less vividly I see him as Andy’s murderer. And maybe I’m just fooling myself; maybe I’m pretending there’s a way to absolve my own guilt. Maybe I’m desperate for his killer to be someone still breathing, still capable of suffering the punishment they’ve earned.
All I know is I can’t let Elijah prove that Dad was the Blackburn Killer, not if he could dismiss my brother as one of his victims.
I’m about to head to the back hall to find Elijah, but a hand on my arm makes me pause.
“You’re a Lighthouse, right?” the reporter asks. I stare at her hand until she lets go. “Can I ask you some questions?”
Beside me, a girl in a Rhode Island sweatshirt loudly whispers to her friend. “What’s he doing? He’s not getting rid of it, is he? I haven’thad a chance to see it yet.” I try to follow her gaze, but the reporter steps even closer.
“Ms. Lighthouse,” she says, “do you have any comments about your brother?”
“What’s he doing?” the girl asks again.
“Ms. Lighthouse?”
Turning toward the foyer, where the girl’s attention is pointed, I see Charlie—or the back of him, at least. He’s hunched over the credenza, arm moving like he’s writing something down, and I notice he’s put the diorama on the floor. It’s in people’s way now, an easy target for trampling, and I realize that the only thing worse than seeing the diorama would be seeing it destroyed. I picture a foot crushing the doll’s head, Andy’s skull splintering all over again, and suddenly, I want to throw myself over his fake little body, protect it like I couldn’t do for him.
But the girl’s question keeps my focus on Charlie. Whatishe doing?
A few people wait behind him, trying to see whatever he’s placed on the credenza. In a moment, he steps back, shoves a hand through his hair, and when he spins around, his eyes look wild with hurt.
