Beautiful Lies (42 page)

A single light bulb hangs from the ceiling, casting a dim light throughout the tiny room. The walls are gray cement block. There are no windows. The floor is packed dirt.

My sister, Rachel, rests on her side on the ground, in the far corner of the room. She faces the wall, so I can’t see whether or not her eyes are open. Her hands are tied behind her back with a thick plastic cord. It is pulled so tightly around her wrists that her surrounding skin is swollen and purplish. She’s wearing the same outfit from our night at the fair: a white tank top and denim miniskirt. Her feet are bare, their soles black with filth from the basement floor. Her shoes are nowhere to be seen.

There is a bald, bloody circle on the back of her head, near her neck. The wound hasn’t healed properly; it is a painful
shade of bright red, oozing fluid. It’s like she was walking along and somebody grabbed her by the hair, yanking it so hard that it was torn from her scalp by the roots. She isn’t moving. I can’t tell if she’s breathing.

I try to scream, but all I can manage is another weak gurgle. I spit out a mouthful of blood and try again; the sound is louder this time, but I know it’s nowhere near loud enough for Ryan to hear me all the way outside.

“Rachel,” I gasp, struggling to drag myself closer. As soon as I reach her, I turn her onto her side to face me.

Her right eyelid flutters open; her left eye is swollen completely shut.

“You found me,” she breathes.

“Yes,” I manage, my voice barely audible.

“I hoped you’d come.”

“I’m here, Rachel.”

“I’m so thirsty, Alice,” she murmurs.

I lean closer, bringing my mouth close to hers, my body finally coming to rest as we lay there together. I struggle to pull quick, shallow breaths into my lungs. I can feel the warmth of her breath on my face; the pain in my body slips away, replaced by numbness as I bask in the peace of knowing I’ve found her.

My aunt and uncle, I know, will not discover any signs of Rachel at our grandma’s house. What I saw in the barn yesterday was not really my sister, at least not physically. In my dream, she told me about the monkey because she knew
Sean had taken it from her; she knew that I’d understand what had happened as soon as I saw it on his keychain. She waited for me down here. She suffered in my place, never revealing who she was, hoping I would unravel the truth on my own somehow. I have felt so alone in her absence, but I was wrong. She has been with me all along.

As my pain continues to subside, I manage to sit up and pull her close to me. I hold her body against mine until our skin pressed together grows damp. I cry onto her shirt. I kiss her forehead. She remains still and limp, barely moving at all. Her breath stutters out of her unevenly, as though there’s a kink in her windpipe.

“Rachel,” I say, “breathe. Just breathe.”

She tries to speak, but she can’t. Her eyes roll back in her head as her lids flutter shut. Her lips move, but she doesn’t make any sound.

“Rachel, he’s coming back soon. You have to get up.
Please.
We have to go now.”

“I can’t,” she manages to whisper. Her lips are so dry that they’re cracked around the edges.

“Rachel,” I plead, “we have to leave right now. He’ll kill us. You need to get up. You need to try. Please.”

But she doesn’t move, and I know that she truly can’t. She’s too weak.

I know I’m not strong enough lift her on my own, but I think I can make it up the stairs. If I’m going to get help for us, I have to do it
now.

“I’m going to go get the police,” I tell her, easing her body back onto the floor. I am crying. The last thing in the world I want to do is leave her, but I don’t think I have a choice.

She doesn’t say anything else. Her eyelids flutter as she slips into unconsciousness.

Somehow, I climb to my feet and make it up the stairs into the basement. I lean against the wall, listening for footsteps above, but I don’t hear anything. Sean is still outside with Ryan. All I have to do is get to them, and I’ll be able to rest, knowing I’ve saved Rachel.

Once I’m at the top of the stairs, I get a surge of strength and energy that feels electric, and I begin to run. On my way out, I pass the painting of Jamie Slater in the hallway. Even in my panic, pure fear screaming through my body, pushing me forward, I feel her blue eyes at my back, watching me, her smile wide and constant as she stares.

When I reach the street, there are no signs of Ryan or Sean. Stumbling across his lawn, I manage to find my voice and scream as loud as I can. The surge of strength I felt just a few moments ago is still with me, but it’s fading fast. I start to run toward my house, but I only make it a few feet before I have to slow down; my whole body buckles in pain, my knees threaten to give out, and I feel like I’m going to throw up any second now. Still, I manage to make it down the street. Once I’m almost to my house I pound on my neighbors’ doors with my fists, ringing their bells over and over again before I move on, so that when I reach my porch there are a handful of people outside, wanting to know what all the noise is about. I trust that at least one of my neighbors will assume that I’ve finally gone crazy and call the police to haul me away.

Our house is locked. The inside is dark. There is no sign of Charlie.

I turn around to face the street. As soon as I lean against the front door, my legs give out completely; when my body hits the floor of the porch, the impact causes so much pain that I can’t even summon the strength to scream; it’s a challenge just to keep myself from keeling over. Fuzzy black dots burst like tiny explosions in my line of vision, each one its own separate wavelength of agony as I look up and down the sidewalk. There are three of my neighbors, peering down at me, their faces alarmed at my beaten face and body. Regardless of the way I look, I’m sure they’re assuming it’s me, Alice, who is in trouble.

Rachel never causes trouble. Not for anybody.

As I look around, my vision grows increasingly blurry. The stragglers outside are growing in number, gathering into a small crowd that is heading toward me.

TJ comes running out his front door, toward my house. I can barely move at all now. Whatever energy I summoned in order to get outside and down the street is gone. I have nothing left. It takes effort just to breathe.

TJ kneels beside me. “Alice, what are you doing? What happened to you?”

I stare at him. He is desperate with worry, I realize. I know exactly how he feels. When I speak, my mouth is dry. It takes all my effort to pronounce my next words. “Sean Morelli took my sister. She’s in his basement.”

TJ’s face crumples. “What?” He turns to our approaching neighbors and screams, “Somebody call the police!”

To me, he says, “Alice, you’re shaking.” I can barely keep my eyes open. Each breath is so painful that every passing second feels like an eternity. There is a fiery pain spreading through my chest. I can feel my heartbeat slowing.

TJ smacks me lightly on the cheek, trying to rouse me. “Alice. Hey. Alice!”

I manage to speak again. “She’s in the sub-basement,” I say. “Go.”

“Alice.” He smacks me again, a little harder. My eyes open and close, open and close, open and close. I try to move my mouth to form words, but I don’t have a voice anymore.

All the way down the street, I can see somebody jogging toward us. There is a large dog at his side.

My heart flutters as he gets closer. He pushes past my neighbors. He’s coming straight for me.

I am not afraid anymore. I feel calm and sleepy. As the jogging man climbs our porch stairs, he reaches behind his back and pulls something from his waist. His dog sits on the sidewalk, calmly observing the unfolding chaos.

TJ turns to look over his shoulder. “What the hell?” he asks, jumping to his feet, taking a few panicked steps backward. “Oh, Jesus. Oh my God.”

The man points a handgun at the space above my head. “Stop,” he says. “Everybody calm down.”

I can feel myself descending into unconsciousness. The periphery of my vision is starting to blur into nothingness.

With his free hand, he reaches into his pocket. He pulls
out a small silver badge, holding it outward in his palm so everyone can see it.

As my eyes fall shut again, a fuzzy pause surrounds me. After a moment, his voice high and incredulous, TJ says, “Holy shit. You’re a
cop
?”

I wish I could see them, but all I can do is listen.

“Yeah,” Homeless Harvey says, breathless. “You need to get off the porch.” I can hear police sirens approaching from a few blocks away.

“What’s happening?” It’s TJ.

“Somebody set off the hostage code from this address. I have to get inside.” To me, Harvey says, “Miss, are you okay? Miss?”

I remember his straight, white teeth. It seemed so odd that a homeless man would have such good dental hygiene.

I am slipping away. The sounds around me grow fainter, turning into indecipherable murmurs, dissolving into nothing. In my mind, the last thing I see before everything goes blank is the steep hillside beside my parents’ car, the big rock in the valley below with its plea scrawled in cursive spray paint:
I loved you more
.

Death is a funny thing. It comes for every last one of us eventually, no matter how we might try to avoid it. Despite its inevitability, we are all so afraid of what might happen to us once we’ve passed on. Why? I remember being young, maybe seven or eight years old, and asking my mother what happens after we die; it must have been obvious to her how much the idea frightened me, because she put her arms around my shoulders, brought her face close to mine, and explained that I already knew the answer—I just couldn’t remember it.

“Imagine you’re a grain of sand floating in the ocean,” she said, “and one day a wave washes you onto the shore. It’s a whole different world, like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. You stay there for a while, but eventually the tide comes in and carries you back to the sea. What’s scary about that? You aren’t going anywhere you haven’t been before.”

Her reasoning didn’t bring me much comfort. “I’m still scared. I don’t want to die.”

She smiled at me. “That’s not why you’re scared, honey. Being dead isn’t anything to be afraid of.
Dying
is what’s worrying you.”

I told her I didn’t understand the difference.

“Every person who ever lived is united in death,” she said. “The hard part is dying, because each one of us has to do it alone—just like when we’re born.”

Her words sent a flutter of excitement through my body. “That’s not true. I wasn’t born alone.”

I expected her to explain why I was incorrect, but she didn’t. She smiled instead, and pulled me closer to her. “You’re right,” she whispered. “My girls are special.” She kissed me on the forehead. “Neither of you will ever be alone. No matter what, you will always have each other.”

This morning was my sister’s funeral, which was followed by an informal gathering for friends and family at my grandmother’s house. I’ve managed to slip away from everyone else for the time being, and I am sitting at her kitchen table, thinking about that conversation from so many years ago. I’m surprised by how much comfort it brings me. The grief I’ve been feeling for the past few days is still present, so consuming and fierce that right now it feels like it will never release its grip on me. And even once it subsides—which seems unimaginable—I know it will stay with me, to some degree, for the rest of my life. There are so many
emotions today, and each one feels so distinct and wicked, so powerful, that I can’t imagine trying to resist any of them. I am weak and brokenhearted, and I’m more lonely than I’ve ever been in my life.

Lonely, yes. But not alone. That would be impossible.

When our parents died, my grandmother held a similar gathering in this house after their funerals. I can remember sitting on the living-room love seat, my sister by my side, the two of us silently holding hands as we watched my parents’ friends and relatives wandering around the big house, nibbling from Styrofoam plates of finger foods and making awkward conversation with one another. I remember people stealing glances at the two of us, looking on with such pity. We stayed close to our grandma for comfort that day, hiding behind her as she introduced us to the aunt and uncle we’d never met, even though they’d lived only a few miles away our entire lives.

Right now, the kitchen door creaks open, and I turn in my seat to see Kimber stepping into the room. Her long hair is pulled away from her face in a ponytail. She wears a white dress shirt and black pants, along with a somber but nervous expression. Her face is clean and free of makeup. The skin around her eyes is spotted with tiny red dots that are the result of burst capillaries; I’m sure she’s been crying just as much as the rest of us in the past few days. I can also see faint, feathery scarring on her jawline, which is usually covered in foundation: marks that map the crawl of fire as it tried to consume her whole so many years earlier.

She sits across from me at the table. There is an empty water glass beside me. I’ve probably refilled it half a dozen times this afternoon so far. I feel incredibly thirsty, like my whole body is dried out, like I’ll never be satisfied no matter how much I drink.