MacKinnon led the dog to another room and closed the door, and Livia had the strangest sense the woman didn’t want it to hear what she might say. Whatever the reason, she was glad it was gone for the time being.
Then the water had to be poured, the tea had to steep, the honey had to be stirred in. And Livia had to take a sip, and acknowledge that it was delicious, thank you. And then she waited again, letting the silence do its job.
MacKinnon took a sip of tea, then set the cup back on the saucer. Livia waited. It was so quiet she could hear the hum of the refrigerator.
MacKinnon put her hands on the table and looked at them. “My father was a monster,” she said quietly.
Livia didn’t speak, or even move. She did nothing except wait.
“He…” There was a pause. MacKinnon was still looking down, and Livia couldn’t see her face. But she sensed the woman was crying.
“He…” She exhaled sharply, then looked at Livia, her eyes glistening. “Please don’t make me talk about this. Please.”
The woman’s expression was so dignified, and her pain so poignant, that Livia might have felt compassion for her. And maybe she did feel something. But she pushed it away. This woman was the key to Nason. And that’s all that mattered.
“I had a sister,” Livia said evenly. “Her name was Nason. Sixteen years ago, she went missing. I’ve been searching for her ever since. What you know could help me find her. So please. Go on.”
MacKinnon took a deep breath and let it out. She adjusted herself in the chair. “My father. He believed… daughters belong to their fathers. Do you understand?”
Sometimes, euphemisms and other vague references could help a reluctant victim give a statement. This time, Livia sensed brutal truth would be the better tool. “Your father believed fathers should be able to fuck their daughters.”
MacKinnon winced. “He believed a daughter’s body was her father’s right. Until she was married, when her body would belong to her husband. And he believed… that brothers, also…”
“He believed brothers should be able to fuck their sisters.”
MacKinnon sobbed. “Please don’t make me talk about this,” she whispered.
“Your father. Your brothers. They were abusing Ophelia, weren’t they?”
MacKinnon got up and tore off a length of paper towels from a rack on the counter. She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, wadded up the towel, and threw it into a garbage container under the sink. Then she grabbed another length and came back to the table.
“My father started abusing Ophelia when she was thirteen.”
She paused for a moment, as though collecting herself.
“Your mother?” Livia said, already knowing the answer from having worked too many cases of fathers raping their daughters and stepdaughters.
MacKinnon shook her head. “She was terrified of my father. And she blamed Ophelia for what was happening.”
She paused again, then said, “When Ezra turned thirteen, my father made Ophelia service him, too. And when Fred turned thirteen, it was the same. All three of them.” Her voice cracked. “Using her. Whenever they wanted. However they liked. Her father. And her brothers.”
She wiped her eyes. “Then, when I turned thirteen, it was my turn to be put to use. And…”
Her voice cracked again, and she broke down for a moment, her face downcast, her shoulders shaking. Then she took several deep breaths and wiped her eyes again. “And Ophelia… she wouldn’t let them.”
“Your sister tried to protect you,” Livia said, and for a moment, she wasn’t sure who she was referring to, herself or Ophelia. Both, maybe. Despite all the years of professional reserve, she felt her own eyes well up.
MacKinnon nodded. “She fought them,” she whispered.
Livia could imagine her little bird so clearly. The blood between her legs. Her thumb in her mouth. Her vacant eyes. Her unresponsive body as Livia held her and cried.
“But they did it anyway,” Livia said.
MacKinnon looked at her, her face twisted. “They made her watch,” she said, and her voice cracked again.
Livia made no attempt to hide her own tears. “I’m sorry, Becky.”
“And then they made me watch. My father said, ‘You see, boys? This is what we do to disobedient girls.’”
Livia remembered Fred Lone’s fixation on her own “disobedience.” She forced away her disgust.
MacKinnon wiped her eyes again. “So. Now you know about my family.”
There was a long pause while they both collected themselves. Then Livia said, “I think your brothers, at considerable risk and expense, arranged for my sister and me to be shipped to Llewellyn from our village in Thailand. Could what you’ve been telling me be why they wanted sisters? I was thirteen. Nason was eleven. Could your brothers have wanted to… I don’t know, recreate what they were doing to you and Ophelia when you were a similar age?”
MacKinnon looked like she might be sick. “Oh, my God,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
It made sense. It fit. And as horrible as it was, there was satisfaction in piecing it all together.
She thought of how she had felt after what Skull Face and his men had done to Nason. How she had wanted to die. How the only thing that had made her keep eating, made her keep herself alive, was that Nason might need her. Looking back, she was amazed she hadn’t succumbed to her longing for oblivion. For Ophelia Lone, it seemed, the sirens of oblivion had sung louder.
“Is that when Ophelia jumped from the window?” she said.
MacKinnon looked at her, her face slowly contorting. “That’s a lie,” she hissed.
Livia blinked. “What?”
“They told everyone she jumped. But she never would have. Never.”
Livia stared at her for a moment, feeling like she’d been hit by a throw she hadn’t seen coming and slammed into the tatami. She had been remembering her own despair, her own longing for death, and had projected it onto another tormented teenage girl. And the projection had blinded her to another, even more horrifying possibility.
She would never have made a mistake like that as a cop. But this, she realized… this was too close to her. It was interfering with her judgment.
She shook her head, as though doing so might clear it. “You think your father-”
“I think it was Ezra. But”-her voice cracked again-“she was the only one who loved me. She would never have left me alone to them. Not for anything.”
“Why do you think it was Ezra?”
“Because he was the most horrible. For my father and Fred, it was mostly about power. And sex, of course. But Ezra… he liked to hurt us. And… he told Ophelia he was going to do something to me. Something he liked to do to her. And she told him if he did that, she would tell. She would go to the police. He could do what he liked to her, but not to me. And you know what he told me after she died?”
Livia was afraid she did know. But she said nothing.
“He told me, ‘That’s what will happen to you if you ever say anything.’ And then he did the thing to me anyway. I begged him. I was screaming. I told him he was killing me. And he just laughed and did it harder. After that, I don’t even remember. I think I blacked out.”
A moment went by. Then MacKinnon said, “I knew better than to scream, but I couldn’t help it. Whatever made me scream became his favorite thing. So I learned not to. Just to be passive, and wait for it to be over. But really, that only made it worse. It frustrated him, and made him look for new ways to make me scream.”
Livia looked at her. “Why didn’t you ever tell anyone?”
MacKinnon returned her look. “Why didn’t you?”
Livia scrubbed the back of her hand across her wet cheeks. “Because no one would have believed me. I was just a little refugee girl. And your brother was the most revered man in Llewellyn.”
“Well then, you already know why.”