CHAPTER 35 - Molly

CHAPTER 35MollyI’M FINALLY HOME. RELIEF SPILLED OFF MY SHOULDERS AS I WALKED through the front door. I don’t ever want to see the mountain house again.Detective Fuller dropped Alice off first, and now he’s waiting for Corrine to show up before he leaves for the station. I’ve switched on all the lights and turned on my laptop to check my security cameras. I can’t seem to settle. At least we beat the media. We passed a white satellite truck going toward the mountain house as we left, and I breathed a sigh of relief that we’d missed it.“Are you sure I can’t make you a cup of tea, Mrs. Bradley?” Detective Fuller stands by the counter, as if waiting for instructions, his brown eyes full of concern.“No. Thank you. I’m fine.” But I’m not fine, and he knows it. All the way back, he asked me questions about myself, but I deflected the best I could. I hope that doesn’t make me look as though I’m hiding something, which I am, but nothing to do with that woman’s murder. I tried instead to talk to Alice, reassure her. She was awfully quiet on the way back, and Hayes was upset when I spoke to him on the phone. But Alice rallied when we got close to her house and told me she was fine. She seemed pretty much back to normal. I hope so.* * *With Detective Fuller gone, Corrine sits with me at the kitchen table. Although I’m not hungry, she brought takeout Chinese and drinks since I haven’t eaten all day.“What happened, Molly?”“They think that missing woman was probably killed the night she disappeared and buried by the river just down from the house while we were asleep inside!” I take a deep breath. Talk myself down, look to Corrine. “Jay might’ve found the necklace in the yard when he went up to fix the window. That’s what I think.” I glance away from my laptop, the camera feed on Jay’s office on the screen. “It was terrifying, Corrine. What Alice and I saw.” I’d already described it to her on the phone and don’t want to think about it again.Corrine rubs my arm. “Try to eat something. Did you ever call that therapist Elise referred you to?”I swallow, poke at my lo mein. “I will. I definitely will.” I try to hold them back, but tears slip down my cheeks.“Hey, I’m here. It’s going to be okay.”I sniff. “What if they think Jay killed that woman? It’s not possible, but I get the feeling they think he was involved.”“That’s crazy. Jay wasn’t a killer.”“What if someone back in Mountclair thinks he did it and that’s who killed him? Why else would someone kill Jay? There has to be a connection, Corrine.”“Didn’t you say the woman had a boyfriend and they were fighting before she disappeared? It’s usually the husband or the boyfriend, right?”“Yeah. That could be, and then maybe he thought that Jay saw him, and that’s why he killed Jay.” This is the scenario that makes the most sense. I know my husband wasn’t a killer.“I let Mom and Dad know what happened.”“Great.”Corrine pauses, chopsticks in her hand. “What was I supposed to do, let them see it on the news?”“No. That’s fine.”“They wanted to rush over, but I put them off. I told them I’d be here with you.”“Thanks. I’ll call Mom later.”Corrine and I finish our dinner. Well, I did the best I could to force a few mouthfuls down. She wanted me to go back to her place for the night, but I didn’t want to. I walked with her through the house, checking that all the doors were locked and lights on. Sadie stuck right by my side. Finally, Corrine left, and I set myself up on the sofa with my computer on my lap, flipping screens, monitoring the house.The doorbell rings, and I go back to the porch feed. A young woman with long dark hair is standing there with a cameraman next to her. She leans on the doorbell again, and Sadie runs down the hall to see who’s there.I don’t move. Maybe she’ll go away.“Mrs. Bradley?” I hear through the door. More bell ringing. “Mrs. Bradley? It’s Ashlyn Davis from Channel 2 News. May I speak with you for a minute?”Go the fuck away. Please.I say under my breath. Please. Please. Please.“Mrs. Bradley?”I watch her take a couple of steps back. Then she walks toward the living room window, leans, and shades her eyes. I go cold, sitting still as a statue, and pray she can’t see me. Eventually, she leaves, and I can breathe again. I set my laptop on the coffee table, pull the throw over me, and burrow into the sofa.* * *My phone jolts me awake. It’s dark outside, and I must’ve dozed off. The clock on the mantel says one-thirty a.m. Who would be calling at this hour? Sadie jumps up from where she’s been lying on the floor next to me.“Hello?”“Melinda Wright?” I shiver. Another reporter? But then the voice continues, muffled, the same caller from before.“I know who you are, Melinda Wright. The girl in the cellar. I heard they found a dead woman near your house. You better take care, Melinda. You escaped once—”I throw my phone on the floor, jump up from the sofa, and run for the laundry room. Sadie trots after me, and I close us both inside the room. I slide down onto the floor. Sadie lies next to me, and I sob, my hand on her bristly back.