Tessa Leoni: Crash And Burn Part 34

I stare at Marlene. "Vero made up stories. Or maybe she did her best to remember her story. It is very hard to be yourself in the dollhouse."

Marlene can't look at me anymore. I'm not sure that I blame her.

"I returned to Ronnie," she continues now, for this is as much her confession as mine, and thirty years later, there's much to get out. "Second they released me, of course I came back. I didn't know how to live alone. I'd been a young, stupid girl, already pregnant when we met. I couldn't support myself, had never managed to hold down a job. Ronnie took care of me. And if he had a temper, sometimes drank too much, hit too hard, well, at least he put a roof over my head.

"But after you were gone, things got worse. Six trips to the emergency room later, the responding officer, Hank, said he'd had enough. I was coming home with him. He'd take the sofa. I got the bed. But in return, no more boozing, no more crying, no more dying. It was hard enough, one year later, to know he'd failed some little girl he'd never met. He'd be d.a.m.ned before he failed her mother, too."

"Girls grow up. Even a beautiful princess . . ." I grimace, feel a spiderweb of memory brush across my mind. He doesn't want you anymore; now what good are you? Madame Sade was angry. You didn't want her anger. You couldn't afford for her to be angry.

I shiver, struggling to shrug off the recollection. When I speak again, the image is gone, safely locked back up, and my voice is matter-of-fact. "Vero moved downstairs. She gained a roommate, a girl several years older than her, Chelsea. Chelsea also had dark hair, blue eyes, because that's what Madame's best customer preferred. Vero was happy to have a roommate, thinking that finally, she wouldn't be alone. But Chelsea hated her on sight. No one had ever loved her the way Vero had been loved. Chelsea's own mother had sold her to Madame Sade for a quick fix. At least at the dollhouse she had been the favorite, living in the pretty tower bedroom. Until, of course, Vero came along. Now Chelsea ripped Vero's clothes, ruined her makeup.

"She made Vero sleep on a rug on the floor. She told Vero she was nothing more than Madame Sade's pet. Except Madame Sade never kept her pets for long. Soon enough, she told Vero, they'd come for her. The only way out of the dollhouse was death, and Vero's time was up."

"The nights were always the worst," Marlene says. "Watching the sun set, knowing another day was gone and I still didn't know where my baby was. I wanted to drink. All the time. Instead, I dreamed of you. I'd sit on Hank's sofa and I'd remember your first birthday, your second birthday, your third. Then, after a bit, I imagined your seventh birthday, your eighth, your ninth. But for your tenth birthday, I made a vanilla cake with blue frosting because you were older now, and I had to believe you were growing up. I had to believe you were okay."

"Vero slept on the rug. She did her best not to make Chelsea angry. And every night, she whispered her stories to herself. Of the secret realm and the magical queen and the evil witch. Except one night, she discovered Chelsea listening. So Vero told another story, of a closet that was a portal between the worlds, and if she could just find the right door, she could escape again. Chelsea kept listening." I close my eyes, and for a moment, I see it clearly. Two girls, both with dark hair, heads bent close as they huddled together. A happy memory, like freshly mowed gra.s.s. A moment when the dollhouse almost felt like home. I hear myself whisper: "Vero didn't sleep on the rug anymore. She moved to the bed, right next to Chelsea, and they began to talk and trade secrets and exchange dreams. They became sisters. And Vero wasn't alone anymore."

I'm crying, slow, silent tears. Why am I crying? Then I see Vero again, twirling across that terrible blue rug, needle in her hand, track marks on her arm. An unbearable pressure grows in my chest.

Marlene takes my hand. I feel her fingers trembling within mine. Giving me strength. Drawing strength. We are in this together.

She goes first: "One day, I fell off the wagon. Just like that. I was out taking a walk and I pa.s.sed a liquor store and I . . . I went inside. I bought a fifth of whiskey. Then I took it back to Hank's place and downed the whole thing. When I finally came to in the emergency room, Hank was a wreck. He made me swear to never do that again. He . . . He told me he loved me. He asked me to become his wife. But there was a condition: I had to make it sober for an entire year. I had to want to live, he told me, because otherwise, I would only break his heart."

"Things in the dollhouse started to change," I say. I'm back in my head, walking down the shadowy corridor, steadily closer to Keep Out, Keep Out, KEEP OUT!!! "No more younger, fresher models entered the home. Instead the entertaining became less frequent, Madame Sade more desperate. She needed money. 'Do you think a house like this supports itself?' she'd say. And the food we ate and all the clothes we demanded. We were nothing but ungrateful girls; no wonder no one wanted to play with us anymore. She drugged us. The first time, she simply strolled into the room and jabbed us with the needle. I thought this was it; she'd sedated us again, only this time our bodies would be taken into the woods and left there to rot. Only way out of the dollhouse, right?

"But it wasn't a sedative. Instead it was . . . melting and floating and bliss. We giggled; we smiled; we danced. And within a matter of weeks, we'd do whatever Madame wanted, party, chat, entertain, live it up, more men, lots of men, whatever she wanted, as long as she kept the happiness coming." I pause and it comes to me, what I've been half remembering for a long time now: "Vero learned to fly."

"I took up quilting as part of my sobriety," Marlene says. "In the mornings, I'd visit craft stores, pick up sc.r.a.ps of fabric. I'd pick out the gray of your eyes or maybe the chestnut brown of your hair, or the pink of your first dress. I sewed my grief into quilts, and before I knew it, people were asking if they could buy them. So that became my first job, first honest dollar I earned on my own, selling a quilt to my neighbor. Later, Hank helped me figure out how to sell on the Internet. Then I learned I was pregnant."

"Life in the dollhouse . . . unraveled. You could feel it. The rooms became more frayed. Madame Sade angrier, edgier. And we became . . . tired. We didn't talk anymore, didn't huddle together and tell stories for comfort. We were either up, up, up or pa.s.sed out cold as part of the down, down, down. Dinnertime became more strained. Looking at the two older girls sitting at the other end of the table. Harsh. Gaunt. Knowing. Vero and Chelsea know they must escape. But how?"

"I made a family," Marlene whispers. She sounds embarra.s.sed, having finally put together a life just as her first daughter faced the abyss. "I married Hank. I gave birth to a beautiful little girl. I got a real job at the liquor store. And I haven't touched a drop of alcohol in twenty years. I'm so sorry I didn't sober up sooner. I'm so sorry I didn't learn my lessons quicker. If I could go back in time, if I could undo what I did-"

"You failed Vero."

"I'm sorry-"

"But what I did was worse."

She doesn't talk; her fingers tremble in my own.

I have arrived at the end of my mental corridor, outside the largest door of my memory banks. The one clearly marked "Keep Out." But my hand is on the k.n.o.b and I'm going to do it. I have to do it. Right now, this moment. There's no turning back.

"I stopped shooting up the drugs. Bit by bit, day by day, I took less, stashed more. I couldn't do it anymore. The life, the slow decay. We had to get out. Maybe if I could just think straight.

"I stuffed the vials in a hole in my mattress, where Madame Sade wouldn't find them. My roommate watched me do it, but I didn't worry. We were in this together, her and I. We were sisters. I tried to get her to stop, too, but it was harder for her. She was tired by then, even more tired than me. Even if we got away, she would say, where would we go?

"I tried . . ." My voice breaks. I'm turning the handle now. I can see the door opening, watch the dark crack yawn open before me.

"I knew," I say flatly, staring at no one, my gaze locked on the sight of this woman's hands folded in my own. "I told myself I didn't, but I knew what she was going to do."

"I'm sorry," Marlene whispers, as if she already understands what's coming next.

"She took my stash. Every single vial. One afternoon when I was down in the kitchen, my turn to cook. By the time I returned, she was dead, collapsed on the rug. I didn't know what to do." Screaming, begging, pleading. Don't leave me, don't leave me, don't leave me. I can't do this alone. "Madame came. We'd never had anything happen like that before. She was incensed, furious. Nothing to be done, she announced. Just have to wait till nightfall when the caretaker could deal with the body. Then she left her. Just like that. And I was all alone in the room with my best friend's corpse.

"I brushed out her hair, long dark locks so much like my own. I closed her eyes, a pale blue like my own. And then . . . I knew what I had to do."

Marlene is still clasping my hand, willing me to finish. The cops, Tessa and Wyatt, have moved from the corner table, are standing now, waiting with baited breath.

I will myself to look up. I will myself to stare them all in the eye as I say what I have to say next.

"I switched our clothes. I wrestled her into the bed, tucked her in. Then I took her place on the rug." Wet with vomit, rank with urine. "Rolled myself up. Ordered myself not to move again.

"Eventually, the door opened. Footfalls sounded as the caretaker arrived. I couldn't see, only hear, as he heaved me up, tossed me over his back. Thump, thump, thump, down the stairs, his shoulders digging into my stomach. I'm going to vomit. I can't vomit. I'm already dead.

"Outside, he heads into the woods, striding heavily over rocks and tree roots. It's raining. I can feel it through the rug. A dark and stormy night. Perfect for digging a grave. Shortly, he stops. Tosses me to the ground. I want to scream. But I don't. I'm already dead.

"Then, suddenly, he lifts me up. He heaves me in. Just like that. No last visit from Madame Sade, no final words from the so-called family. Just . . . whomp. I am garbage and now I'm gone. Then, of course, he picks up his spade and begins refilling the grave."

Marlene's grip on my hands is so tight now, our knuckles have gone white. I've lost all feeling in my fingertips. But I don't draw back. I stare at her, and I realize for the first time how truly angry I am. Because six-year-old Vero had believed in her, the power of a mother's hugs. Six-year-old Vero had fought to be brave for her, the eternity of a mother's love. Except six-year-old Vero never should have been in that house at all.

It comes to me for the first time. I shouldn't have had to save Vero. This woman, Vero's mom-that was her job.

"The dirt is heavy," I tell her now, my words hard, clipped, biting. "Wet and solid. I can't move my legs. I can't move my arms. I'm trapped. Pinned. Suffocating. I really am going to die."

"I'm sorry," Marlene whispers.

"Just when I think I can't take it anymore, the weight settles. The caretaker leaves. His job is over. Now mine begins. As I wriggle and wrestle and tug and pull. I fight, fight, fight my way out of the grave. I burst out of the dirt into the middle of the storm, gasping and heaving and covered in mud. I return from the dead."

Lightning forking across the sky. The feel of rain upon my head. And air, pure, blessed air, which I draw into my lungs over and over again. I laugh, I cry, then I curl into a ball and completely break down. Because I am alive. And all it cost me was my best friend, my only friend. The sister of my heart.

I let go of Marlene's hands. Suddenly, violently, I push away from her. "I knew what would happen."

She doesn't know what to say. Standing near the table, Wyatt takes a step closer, as if thinking he should intervene.

"I knew she would overdose. She was tired, depressed. She was an addict, unable to help herself. And still I let her see where I hid my stash."

"Baby," Marlene begins.

"Don't! You knew there were dangers in a park. You knew what could happen to unattended children. Still you drank and took Vero there."

She shrinks back, doesn't say a word.

I'm wild. My head is on fire, but worse, my heart is breaking. I've let the memory in, and now it's that day all over again. "Just like I knew, if I h.o.a.rded the drugs, of course she might take them. Only one way out of the dollhouse, and she'd had enough. I knew. And still I did it. Because her death gave me the best shot at freedom."

"Vero-" Marlene tries again. I shake off her hand.

"I'm not Vero! Don't you get it? She's not me. She's just a ghost inside my head. She's a past I'm still trying to save, a mistake I'm still trying to face. I don't know; I don't completely understand it. I wanted to see you, but I never wanted to talk to you, because I can't do this. I can't . . . go back. I can't . . ." Words fail me; I don't know what I'm trying to say. I take two steps forward, rustle beneath the pillow and grab the photo I'd found in Thomas's jacket. "Here." I practically throw it at her. "You want your little girl? This is all that's left."

Marlene takes the photo. She holds it closer, then frowns. "Who is this?"

"Vero, of course. Surely you recognize-"

"No, it's not."

"What?" My turn to draw up short. I blink my eyes, scrub at my temples. Finally remembering what I once worked so hard to forget has hurt me. I know I'm disoriented; I know I'm not functioning on all cylinders. But still.

"That's Vero," I insist. "Taken at the dollhouse. I found it in Thomas's pocket." I say the last sentence without thinking. Now both Wyatt and Tessa have closed the gap between us, studying the photo intently.

"No, it's not," Marlene insists. "I understand this picture was taken later, but that girl still isn't Vero."

"Are you sure?" Wyatt asks Marlene. "It's an old photograph, not the best resolution, but the hair, the eyes . . ."

"Look at her left forearm," Marlene instructs him. "There's no scar."

"What scar?" Me again, my voice strangely high-pitched.

All of a sudden . . .

Vero is back in my mind. Vero is grinning at me with her gleaming white skull. Vero, who has always felt separate from me.

"Wait for it," she whispers. "One, two-"

"Vero has a scar," Marlene says. "From, um, an accident, when she was three. She was pretending to be an airplane. She um, hit the coffee table."

Except that's not how Vero tells the story. In Vero's story, told night after night to her roommate, Chelsea, Ronnie the wicked knight tossed the princess into the air. He hurtled her into the table: "You wanna cry, little s.h.i.t? I'll give you something to cry about . . ."

Marlene turns to me now. Real time. Real life. No memory to forget.

"Show him," she instructs me. "Your left arm. The scar."

I move in slow motion. I raise my left arm. I roll back my long sleeve.

I expose what I already know will be there: a long, pale expanse of perfectly unblemished skin.

I realize at last, the final secret remaining in that yawning black box of memory. The tidbit I withheld even from myself, because all these years later, I still didn't think I could handle it. Vero lives inside my head, not because she is some dissociated version of my past. Vero lives inside my head because I'm the one who killed her.

As Marlene gasps. "You're not my daughter."

And Vero, triumphant as ever, yells: "Surprise!"

Chapter 30.

WHO ARE YOU?" Marlene Bilek had her hand wrapped around Nicky's wrist, gripping tight. Across from the older woman, Nicky winced in clear discomfort. "You know things. How do you know such things? What did you do with my daughter?"

"Ma'am, please." Wyatt hastily inserted himself between the two women. He had to forcefully pry Marlene's fingers from Nicky's wrist.

The older woman turned on him. "What kind of sick game is this? You told me you had found my daughter. You said you had proof!"

"We have fingerprints, Mrs. Bilek. Fingerprints that match your daughter's-"

"But she's not Vero! She doesn't have the scar. Vero has a scar-"

"Okay, okay. Everyone, deep breath. Let's take a step back for a second."

Wyatt got Marlene to one side of the room, Nicky to the other. Marlene appeared nearly wild-eyed with grief, rage, betrayal. Nicky simply looked bewildered. And she was already rubbing her temples, a telltale sign of an impending migraine. Wyatt could feel a killer headache coming on himself, and he hadn't even suffered three concussions.

Tessa took over Nicky, helping the woman into one of the wooden chairs to one side of the room, while Wyatt positioned Marlene Bilek in a chair on the other side. Tessa retrieved cold bottles of water from the mini-fridge. She handed the first to Nicky, the second to Marlene.

Both women took a long drink.

Wyatt used the minute to regain his own composure. It was creepy to him, but watching the two women, sitting in one hotel room, not just their similar coloring, but the way they moved, the way they held themselves. He could believe they were mother and daughter, no problem.

Except according to Marlene Bilek, that was impossible.

"Let's start at the beginning," he said, after another moment had pa.s.sed. He turned to Marlene. "You're saying Veronica has a scar."

"Left inside forearm. Right below the elbow. Two to three inches long. From the coffee table."

"Ronnie threw her into it," Nicky intoned. "Picked her up. Vero was just a little girl and he tossed her into the wooden table like a piece of trash. The table broke. One of the legs gouged her arm."

"How do you know that?" Marlene demanded.

"Vero wants to fly," Nicky whispered. "She just wanted to fly. How could you stay with him? How could you let her suffer like that?"

Marlene paled. She didn't say another word.

"You're sure about the scar?" Wyatt asked again. He couldn't help himself. Vero couldn't have a scar. Because if Vero had a scar, none of this made any sense.

"Check the missing persons report," Marlene informed him crisply. "It's listed under identifying marks."

Tessa did the honors. She pulled her copy of the report from her computer bag, gave it a quick perusal. When she glanced back up, Wyatt saw the answer in her eyes. She nodded once, an affirmation that, yes, they had pa.s.sed into the land of crazy.

He turned to Nicky. "Who are you?"

"I'm lost. No one wanted me, even before the dollhouse. No one loved me, even before the dollhouse."

"You're Chelsea," Wyatt put the pieces together. "You're the roommate." He thought he got it: "Who killed Vero in order to escape."

"Except I've been trying to save her for the past twenty-two years."