Sarah
SARAH SAT IN DETECTIVE COLLINS’ office and drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. Exhausted and wired, she flipped between drooping eyelids and a desire to pace the cramped office. Sammy’s death had stolen her sleep. She laid awake most nights thinking about Halloween night, scanning the faces from her memory, desperately searching for the shred of evidence that would reveal Sammy’s killer.
“Forensics reported no evidence on Corrie’s dress,” the detective announced, not bothering with introductions.
He swept into the room with two cups of coffee, slopped one in front of Sarah, and dropped into his chair. He fixed her with a cold stare.
“Okay…” She struggled to sit up careful not to spill coffee on her white t-shirt.
“There should have been bacteria from the lake, blood from touching Sammy, sweat, fibers. That dress should have told a story, and it did. It told us that someone had laundered it before we got there.”
Sarah frowned, sipped her coffee, and then shook her head.
“Wait, what dress? I burned the Frankenstein’s Bride dress.”
“I’m sorry, you what?” the detective asked, his eyebrows meeting the sheaf of blond hair that rested on his forehead.
“I burned the dress,” Sarah repeated, feeling a flush rise into her neck.
“It was evidence, valuable evidence, and you burned it?”
“I wasn’t thinking about your valuable evidence, Detective. My sister was half-drowned and someone had murdered my brother.”
“I understand that, Sarah. And I’m not trying to be insensitive, but for Christ’s sakes, Corrie’s clothes could have contained important information. What she wore that night mattered as much as Sammy’s clothes.”
“Well, it’s gone. The dress is gone.”
He sucked in his cheeks and looked away from Sarah.
“Why did you burn it?” he asked, his eyes narrowing on her face.
Sarah opened her mouth and then closed it.
“I didn’t think. After I pulled Corrie from the lake, I stuck it in the bathtub. When I went back to clean the house, it was hanging there. I grabbed it and threw it in the fire. I didn’t want it to remind Corrie. I wanted to protect her. If it was so important, why didn’t you guys take it when you were there?”
“You failed to mention it to us, that’s why. Corrie said her dress was in the laundry room. There was a black dress hanging there, and we took that one.”
Sarah shrugged.
“She probably assumed that’s where I put it.”
The detective sighed and shook his head.
“I’m guessing this means you haven’t made any progress on finding Sammy’s murderer?” Sarah asked, irritated with the detective’s tone.
He set his hands on the table and studied her. Sarah wished she hadn’t asked the question.
“I’m very curious about the block of time your sister-in-law doesn’t remember. I’m also curious about her suicide attempt. In our line of work, that indicates a guilty conscience.”
Sarah glared at him.
“You’re wrong, Detective. And you don’t know Corrie. She loved Sammy, they loved each other. Their relationships was like something out of a fucking fairy tale. Corrie wasn’t trying to kill herself, she was trying to numb the pain. She couldn’t handle finding Sammy dead. She still can’t. I’m terrified for her. Have you considered that Corrie was drugged? What if someone slipped a roofie into her drink?”
“A roofie?”
Oh, come on, don’t make me feel stupid. Isn’t that what the date-rape drug is called?”
“It is sometimes called that, yes.”
“Why didn’t you guys test her blood?”
“Because we had no reason to suspect she’d been drugged. And if I might remind you, you gave her a sedative yourself, and then took her to your mother’s house. If you were concerned, you might have taken her to the hospital.”
“My brother was fucking dead! I was out of my mind. We all were!”
Sarah stood, bit back more angry words, and stormed out of the office.
She sat in her car and blasted the heat. Her hands shook as she gripped the wheel.
“Corrie would never hurt Sammy,” she grumbled, pulling out of the parking lot.
CHAPTER 10
Now
Sarah
A fter she spoke with the detective, Sarah went home and tried to work. She sketched roof-lines until her eyes blurred, but they were all wrong, and ended up crumpled in her recycling bin. Finally, she got in her car and drove to Kerry Manor.
The house was quiet when she arrived. Corrie might be napping, and Sarah had no interest in waking her. She doubted Corrie was getting much sleep, other than little sips stolen when the exhaustion became too much to bear.
Sarah stood in the foyer of Kerry Manor and considered her mother’s ominous feeing upon first entering the house. Did she sense it? Or had the dark premonition already come to pass? The opportunity for an intuitive warning fading as quickly as a dream once the sleeper has awoken.
She stepped into the great room, glanced at the ugly doll house tucked in the corner. Sammy had found it in the crawl space, a dark hole in the butler’s pantry that Sarah had looked in on Halloween night. Sammy had wanted to put huge rubber rats with glowing eyes in the space, and then stack the extra wine behind them so people would be forced to crawl into the black hole to refill their drinks. Corrie had given him a firm ‘no,’ and Sarah reminded him of his lack of liability insurance.
The square of wood contained a tiny metal handle. Sarah pulled up it up and recoiled at the blast of cold, acrid air that gusted out.
She listened for Corrie, and hearing nothing, switched on her phone flashlight and dropped into the hole, crouching and waving the beam across the dirt floor. A few old crates stood further back, thick with cobwebs.
In another corner, her light bounced over a heap of rags. She shuffled closer, recoiling at the dark, red-brown stains marring the light fabric.
CORRIE
I STOOD DRINKING my coffee on the porch. I wore only a thin nightshirt, and the crisp November air had teeth. Shivering, I sipped the scalding coffee, allowing the extremes of hot and cold to burn out the thoughts always gathering like storm clouds in my head.
“Corrie?”
I head Sarah’s voice but didn’t turn. I couldn’t face her today. My dreams had been troubled, flashes of Sammy’s face filled with fear. I doubted there would ever come a day when he didn’t haunt me.
The glass door slid shut and Sarah paused beside me, putting her hands on the rail.
“Corrie, I found something,” she said.
I nodded but trained my eyes on the horizon. The sun had already risen, and the lake was perfectly still, not a ripple in sight.
“I found a towel, Corrie, in the crawl space. It was covered in something that looked like dried blood.”
Sarah’s words hung in the air - not an accusation, but perhaps the start of one.
Sammy had been her twin, her other half. It made sense she would hunt for the truth at whatever cost.
I closed my eyes and felt him there behind me. He’d widen his eyes and say something funny. Uh-oh, Gorey, you’re in for it now.
“Corrie,” Sarah’s tone sharpened.
I wondered how long she’d been saying my name.
“Look at me, damn it!”
She grabbed my arm and jerked me around. Hot coffee spilled from my cup, splattering us both.