Though he still studied the file, he did not do it as regularly as he once had. As the months from the accident had increased, his compulsion to find me decreased. It wasn’t that he cared any less, it had more to do with the reality of what he faced. By then, I knew the case was at a standstill; Miles, I suspected, realized this as well. On the anniversary, after Jonah had gone to bed, he did bring out the file. He didn’t, however, brood over it as he had before. Instead he flipped through the pages, this time without a pencil or pen, and he made no marks at all, almost as if he were turning the pages of a photo album, reliving memories. In time, he pushed it aside, then vanished into the living room.
When I realized he wasn’t coming back, I left the tree and crept around to the porch.
There, even though he’d drawn the shades, I saw that the window had been left open to catch the evening breeze. From my vantage point, I could glimpse slivers of the room inside, enough to see Miles sitting on the couch. A cardboard box sat beside him, and from the angle he faced, I knew he was watching television. Pressing my ear close to the window’s opening, I listened, but nothing I heard seemed to make much sense. There were long periods where nothing seemed to be said; other sounds seemed distorted, the voices jumbled. When I looked toward Miles again, trying to see what he was watching, I saw his face and I knew. It was there, in his eyes, in the curve of his mouth, in the way he was sitting. He was watching home videos.
With that, recognition settled in, and when I closed my eyes, I began to recognize who was speaking on the tape. I heard Miles, his voice rising and falling, I heard the high-pitched squeal of a child. In the background, faint but noticeable, I heard another voice. Her voice.
Missy’s.
It was startling, foreign, and for a moment I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. In all this time, after a year of watching Miles and Jonah, I thought I had come to know them, but the sound I heard that night changed all that. I didn’t know Miles, I didn’t know Jonah. There is observation and study, and there is knowledge, and though I had one, I didn’t have the other and never would. I listened, transfixed.
Her voice trailed away. A moment later, I heard her laugh. The sound made me jump inside, and my eyes were immediately drawn to Miles. I wanted to see his reaction, though I knew what it would be. He would be staring, lost in his memories, angry tears in his eyes.
But I was wrong.
He wasn’t crying. Instead, with a tender look, he was smiling at the screen.
After that visit, I honestly believed that I’d never return to their house to spy on them. In the following year, I tried to get on with my life, and on the surface, I succeeded. People around me remarked that I looked better, that I seemed like my old self.
Part of me believed that was so. With the compulsion gone, I thought I had put the nightmare behind me. Not what I had done, not the fact that I had killed Missy, but the obsessive guilt I had lived with for a year. What I didn’t realize then was that the guilt and anguish never really left me. Instead they had simply gone dormant, like a bear hibernating in the winter, feeding on its own tissue, waiting for the season yet to come.
Chapter 29
On Sunday morning, a little after eight, Sarah heard someone knocking at her front door. After hesitating, she finally got up to answer it. As she walked toward the door, part of her hoped it was Miles.
Another part hoped that it wasn’t.
Even as she reached for the handle, she wasn’t sure what she was going to say. A lot depended on Miles. Did he know that she’d called Charlie? And if so, was he angry? Hurt? Would he understand she’d done it because she’d felt she didn’t have a choice?
When she opened the door, however, she smiled in relief.
“Hey, Brian,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Sure… come in.”
He followed her inside and sat on the couch. Sarah sat next to him.
“So what’s up?” she asked.
“You ended up calling Miles’s boss, didn’t you?”
Sarah ran a hand through her hair. “Yeah. Like you said, I didn’t have a choice.”
“Because you think he’ll go after the guy he arrested,” Brian stated.
“I don’t know what he’ll do, but I’m scared enough to try to head it off.”
He nodded slightly. “Does he know that you called?”
“Miles? I don’t know.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“No. Not since he left yesterday. I tried calling him a couple of times, but he wasn’t home. I kept getting the answering machine.”
He brought his fingers to the bridge of his nose and squeezed. “I have to know something,” he said. In the quiet of the room, his voice seemed strangely amplified.
“What?” she asked, puzzled.
“I need to know if you really think that Miles would go too far.”
Sarah leaned forward. She tried to get him to meet her eyes, but he looked away.
“I’m not a mind reader. But yeah, I’m worried, I guess.”
“I think you should tell Miles to just let it go.”
“Let what go?”
“The guy he arrested… he should just let him go.”
Sarah stared at him in bafflement. He finally turned to her, his eyes pleading.
“You’ve got to get him to understand that, okay? Talk to him, okay?”
“I’ve tried to do that. I told you.”
“You’ve got to try harder.”
Sarah sat back and frowned. “What’s going on?”
“I’m just asking what you think Miles will do.”
“But why? Why’s this so important to you?”
“What would happen to Jonah?”
She blinked. “Jonah?”
“Miles would think about him, wouldn’t he? Before he did anything?”
Sarah shook her head slowly.
“I mean, you don’t think he would risk going to jail, do you?” She reached for his hands and took them forcefully. “Now wait, okay? Stop with the questions for a minute. What’s going on?”
This was, I remember, my moment of truth, the reason I had come to her house. It was finally time to confess what I had done.
Why, then, did I not just come out and say it? Why had I asked so many questions? Was I looking for a way out, another reason to keep it buried? The part of me that had lied for two years may have wanted that, but I honestly think the better part of me wanted to protect my sister. I had to make sure I didn’t have a choice.
I knew my words would hurt her. My sister was in love with Miles. I had seen them at Thanksgiving, I had seen the way they looked at each other, the comfortable way they related when they were close, the tender kiss she’d given him before he left. She loved Miles, and Miles loved her-she’d told me as much. And Jonah loved them both.
The night before, I finally realized that I could keep the secret no longer. If Sarah really thought Miles might take matters into his own hands, I knew that by keeping silent, I was running the risk that more lives would be ruined. Missy had died because of me; I couldn’t live with another needless tragedy. But to save myself, to save an innocent man, to save Miles Ryan from himself, I also knew I would have to sacrifice my sister.