“I’m sorry,” Tish said.
“So you see, it’s a choice I have to think about. That’s what I face. A death that’s fast and free, or one that’s slow and painful. What would you do?”
“I don’t know.”
Rikke’s hand tightened on Tish’s thigh. She squeezed hard, her nails cutting into skin. “I never understood what Laura saw in you. I know you were beautiful, but you never understood her like I did. I was the one she came to for comfort. I was the one who helped her understand who she was.”
“You’re hurting me.”
“Good. You deserve to be hurt.” She took her eyes off the road. “Look at you, you’re still so attractive. Me, I’ve gotten old. My body is a joke now. My breasts are ruined. My thighs are all pebbled over with cellulite. I can hardly bear to look at myself. I was beautiful then, do you remember? My students all wanted me.”
Tish sat frozen, saying nothing.
“Laura wanted me, too,” Rikke said. “Did you know that?”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, but it is,” Rikke went on. “Laura told me about your affair. She told me how she ran away from you. She came to me because needed a friend. A mother. She was so scared, so lonely. I was there for her when you weren’t. I spent hours letting her cry in my arms. We became close. And one night, when I knew she was ready for it, I showed her that I could love her in a special way.”
“Oh, my God,” Tish said. “No, you’re lying.”
Steel cables dropped from the span around them as they neared the summit. Ghosts of fog drifted around the car and reflected back in the headlights. She could hardly see the road. Overhead, the diamonds of steel looked like spiders viewed through a gauzy web.
“There was nothing evil about it,” Rikke said. “Laura never should have run away from me. Not to you.”
Rikke spun the wheel and jammed her foot on the brake, turning the nose of the car until it bumped against the concrete shoulder. The car jerked to a stop at the peak of the highway. They were at an angle, with barely two feet of rock and dirt outside the door between Tish and the long drop. Other cars buzzed by like hornets, their horns squealing.
“What are you doing?” Tish held on to herself, trembling. “Keep going, keep going!”
“It was always you, wasn’t it?” Rikke snarled. “Laura didn’t care about me. Or Finn. It was you she wanted.”
“Drive, drive!” Tish screamed. “Please!”
Rikke turned off the car.
Tish felt herself hyperventilating. She squirmed away from the car door. She couldn’t stop looking at the steel overhead and the shining rows of white lights. She felt the pull of heights again, the insane urge to leap from the car, to jump.
“Are you crazy? Go, go now, please! I’ll do anything!”
“Why did you come back here?” Rikke asked. “Was it revenge? Is that what you wanted? I tried to scare you away, and you stayed.”
Tish shook her head mutely. Panic and terror ripped through her nerve ends.
Rikke slid the keys out of the ignition and opened the driver’s door and got out, slamming it behind her. Traffic wheeled around her through the fog and night. She walked around the back of the car and came up to the open window on Tish’s side. Inside, Tish cowered near the opposite door. Rikke sucked in a lungful of the whipping breeze and peered over the barrier at the inky blackness of the channel. Then she reached her upper body in through the window, grabbed Tish’s wrist, and yanked her bodily across the car.
Tish wailed. “Don’t do this!”
“Look at me!” Rikke insisted. When Tish buried her face in her chest, Rikke grabbed Tish’s chin and wrenched it up until their eyes met. Tish’s stare was glazed with tears. She saw violence and desire fighting in Rikke’s face. “This is what you deserve for coming back to torture me. For driving Finn crazy. You killed him, do you know that? It was you. You may as well have been the one to put the bullet in his brain.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Rikke took Tish’s skull in both hands, twisted her face, and forced her mouth up, then bent down and covered her lips in a fierce kiss. “Is that so horrible? Does it scare you? Laura was afraid of me after we made love. Afraid! That was Finn’s fault. He never should have interfered, but he was jealous that I was the one she chose.”
Tish wiped her mouth. “Stop this!”
“Finn watched us make love in his bed that night. I knew he was there. But the next day, he went and told Laura what happened in Fargo. It was our secret, his and mine. He had no right to tell her. He just wanted to split us apart. To scare her away.”
Rikke’s face was black. Horror descended on it like a shadow off the bridge.
“Finn never told Laura that I did it for him. For him! I knew what our mother was doing. I had to put a stop to it, and I knew Finn would never lift a finger to protect himself. He just crawled into his little hole and let her keep coming back for more. So I was the one who had to be strong. I was the one who had to save him.”
If Dad were abusing me, could you kill him? Do you have to be insane to do it?
Tish finally understood. Laura wasn’t talking about her father. She was talking about Rikke. About her secret.
“I came back to our farm,” Rikke went on, “and I took that bat, and I beat our mother until she was nothing but mush and pulp. Finn watched me do it. He knew I didn’t have a choice. No one was ever supposed to know. But then he went and spilled his guts to Laura. I heard him. The stupid, jealous bastard! Laura should have let me explain, but she ran away. What was I supposed to think? If she had stayed, I would never have hurt her, but she left.”
Tish’s eyes were wild. “She never told me.”
“Oh, but she would have told you eventually,” Rikke said. “I don’t blame her. I don’t blame Finn, either. We could all have worked it out if it weren’t for you. You’re the one who destroyed us. Now it’s my turn.”
Rikke let the car keys dangle from her finger in front of Tish’s face.
“This is the end for both of us.”
As Tish screamed, Rikke casually flicked the keys out over the side of the bridge, where they fell in a silver flash.
49
As Stride and Serena drew closer to the glowing white arch of the Blatnik Bridge, brake lights turned red, and traffic around them ground to a dead stop. The bridge lights over their heads were bathed in fog. Ahead of them, horns blared in a singsong whine as cars trickled forward, slowly merging into a convoy over the span. He lowered the window of his truck and leaned out to study the highway, but he couldn’t make out the summit of the bridge through the white cloud.