It was one of a handful of houses rimming a small lake. Thick hedges bounded her house, shielding her from the neighbors. A vacation home, with privacy. There was a light on in one of the big windows, her Ford Explorer in the driveway, but the houses on either side of hers were completely dark. The days were still warm, but it was September, after all, and there was a very good chance her neighbors had closed up their houses for the season.
Still, Kevin didn’t want to take any chances. It was ten P.M. The neighbors could be home and asleep.
After he’d pulled in behind the Ford Explorer and slid the duffel out of the front seat, he was careful to close his car door very quietly, to walk up the brick pathway that led to her house with the same soft step he used to employ in his nature photography. He glanced at the property as he walked. The small lawn was cut short and bristly. There were sturdy shrubs pressing into the house, but no flowers planted anywhere — nothing that needed nurturing.
He unzipped the duffel bag, placed it next to him on the front step, and rang the doorbell. He hadn’t intended to do this. The one part of the plan he’d yet to come up with was how to get her to open the door, and he had been hoping to come up with an idea first. Too late now.
Kevin heard footsteps approaching the door. He was aware of her studying him through the peephole and raised a hand in a weak wave. He had grown a thick beard since she left town and much of his hair had gone gray. He used to dress differently back then too. The clothes he wore under his new name of George Fisk were all dark and tired-looking. Nondescript. Would she remember?
The door opened, and Sarah Jane Ledbetter was standing in front of him. She was still wearing the pink T-shirt and jeans, and this close, he could see how her collarbones pressed against the cotton, how the sleeves swirled around her bony arms without touching them. The eyes were huge and black in the gaunt face, and they carried within them a hint of recognition. Kevin thought, She remembers.
“What did I leave?” Sarah Jane Ledbetter said.
“What?”
“You’re from Cumberland Farms. I saw you there today. Did I leave something behind?”
Right. Of course. “You didn’t leave anything.”
“Then why are you here?”
Kevin took a breath. “Rachel Murphy.”
“Who?”
Kevin’s jaw tightened. He felt his right hand balling into a fist Stay calm. Don’t let her get you... “Rachel Murphy. Larchmont High.”
Sarah Jane Ledbetter took a step back. She put her hands on her bony hips and cocked her head to one side and peered at Kevin, as if he’d just told her a joke she didn’t get, and she was trying to decide whether or not to admit it.
“She tried out for cheerleading.”
Her eyes went flat. You remember me, Kevin thought. You’ve remembered me ever since I said her name. She said, “You’re the father of the anorexic girl.”
The words pushed into his ears like broken glass. Kevin punched her in the stomach. She doubled over, gasping, and Kevin punched her again. He hadn’t intended to do this. He’d never hit a woman before, but she wasn’t a woman, was she? She wasn’t even a human being.
Ledbetter wheezed. Kevin yanked the small burlap sack out of the duffel and threw it over her head, binding the bottom with duct tape. He duct-taped her hands behind her back and pushed her like a prisoner to the car. She’d found her voice by now, but the thick burlap muffled her screams. Once he’d thrown her in the trunk and gotten it closed, Kevin stood there behind his car for several seconds, listening to the quiet. Well, that was easy, he thought.
It wasn’t until he was driving home that, for the first time in years, Kevin allowed himself to think of that whole, awful day. He stared ahead at the empty road, glowing beneath the spotlight of a nearly full moon. He kept both hands on the wheel and he recalled that day, the day of cheerleader tryouts, the day that Sarah Jane Ledbetter had killed his daughter. All of it. And unlike any other time that he’d recounted that day, Kevin’s eyes stayed dry.
There was a reason for this, Kevin knew. His plan was working. His daughter’s murderer was in the trunk of his car, and the night was clear and cool and beautiful, a night to be photographed. A night to remember.
The Larchmont High gym had held in it the same smell as Kevin’s old high-school gym — antiseptic, sneaker soles, basketball rubber, sweat. It had been a good smell for Kevin in the past. He’d never been a gloating jock but he’d always been good at sports and for Kevin, the gym had been a place to escape that feeling he always had in high school, that sense of being continuously tested — by teachers, by girls...
No more.
“Not everyone can make the cheerleading squad, Mr. Murphy.” The coach’s voice had echoed against the gym walls — the two of them here alone at seven P.M., four hours after tryouts.
“I understand that.”
“Do you?”
“What I don’t understand is why you would want to hurt a child.”
“She’s not a child. She’s fourteen years old, and if she’s going to live in this world, she’s going to have to toughen up.”
“She’s locked in her room, crying. She won’t come out. She won’t speak to me. And then my wife... she told me what you said to Rachel.”
“Mr. Murphy. Your daughter didn’t make the cut. She asked why and I told her.”
“It was cruel.”
“It was the truth.”
“You told a sensitive fourteen-year-old girl that she’s fat. Don’t you understand that children take these things to heart? She won’t eat dinner, Coach Ledbetter. She won’t—”
“I think we’re through now, Mr. Murphy.” Coach Sarah Jane Ledbetter had stood up, her eyes trained on him. “Just so you know. I’m not naturally thin. I watch what I eat. Exercise. If your daughter skips a fattening dinner one night, I don’t see where that’s such a bad thing.” She’d then turned and left the gym, her sneakers squeaking as they hit the gleaming floor. It was the last conversation they ever had.
“You’re crazy,” Sarah Jane Ledbetter said. To Kevin, it felt ironic. She was on the mattress in Kevin’s homemade cell, forced into a sitting position with the burlap sack still over her head. If anyone looked crazy, she did, though Kevin didn’t bother pointing that out. Sarah Jane Ledbetter had stopped screaming around ten minutes ago, once Kevin had gotten her down the stairs, once he’d let her know that he had equipped the whole space with soundproofing tiles. “What is wrong with you?” she said. “Why can’t you just let it go? I didn’t kill your daughter.”
“Do you remember when we spoke in the gym?”
She said nothing. The burlap fluttered with her heavy breath.
“You told me that if Rachel missed a dinner, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”
“Yes,” she said. “So?”
“Rachel was a sensitive girl. Cheerleading was supposed to give her confidence. Instead you... you stripped it from her. You killed her spirit.”
“It’s a hard world. If I didn’t let her know, then someone else would have.”
“Let her know what? That she didn’t meet your ridiculous physical standards?”
“If your daughter took constructive criticism too seriously, then that isn’t my fault.”
“Constructive? You told her she was fat.”