Chapter Thirty-Three

EAST OF COLDWELL IS BURNING.Fire season has come to the Pacific Northwest. An immolation of red and orange. Smoke hangs in the air above the Washington Corrections Center for Women. Chelsey sits in her car in the parking lot, a sob wracking her body, her hands tightening around the steering wheel.

Over the last seventy-two hours, the entire tapestry of her life has unraveled. She visited the hospital not as a detective but as a patient. Doctors wanted to keep her overnight, but she'd insisted she was fine and caught a cab back to her father's house. Then she'd slept. Fourteen hours without dreams, only to wake to a splitting headache, a burning in her throat. She looked in the mirror, at the black-and-blue bruises, and had her first flashback. Of zip-tying Lydia, leaving her in the woods, unable to look at her sister.

She could not process it. The knowledge Lydia was alive vibrated through Chelsey, hitting her stomach, heart, lungs, and liver like an ugly percussion. On autopilot, she had cleared the compound. Sweeping the rooms—a loft with a television and generator and a king-size mattress on the ground, another building stocked full of weapons and ammunition, and then, the bunker. The rooms underground, with metal doors and padlocks and crumpled sleeping bags. One had stars scratched into the wall, and a mobile made from sticks and dog teeth strung together with fishing wire. Then, after Homeland Security and the police arrived, after Ellie and the girls had been draped with trauma blankets and loaded onto helicopters, Chelsey had followed a marked path into the woods. There she'd found the bus. Opened the hatch. Jesus. The stink that rose up—human waste. It burned the inside of her nose. Days later, she could still smell it and vomited into the sink.

Next came the phone calls from Homeland Security, from Noah—whom she ignored. Because she felt so out of control. The sadness came in waves, giant swells that toppled her while she was showering or trying to sleep or eat. She was vulnerable, confused, as naked and slippery as a newborn baby. Terrified to be seen this way.

Sergeant Abbott resigned and has been calling. She does not answer. But she listens to his long, thick-voiced messages—Abbott had started drinking again. I had no idea, Chelsey. You have to believe me. I don't understand how this could have happened. My boys, my boys… Crying, sobbing. Please call me back. There is more we need to speak about. Things you don't know…

Chelsey knows enough. She sees Abbott clearly now. A man who could not cope with his own fears, so he drove them into his wife, his children. Chelsey has created a timeline in her father's office. You cannot even see the plaid wallpaper anymore, the patch with the Lisa Frank sticker. She worked backward, aligning dates.

Regina Pike wins the popular vote and becomes the gubernatorial elect. Willa Adams is abducted while bike riding. Regina Pike becomes the frontrunner for governor. Ellie Black is stolen from a gravel parking lot. On it goes. Each time Regina succeeded, West took another girl. Most striking is Douglas Abbott joining the force when his mother remarried. Chelsey has put together that Douglas helped kidnap the girls, then tracked their missing cases on behalf of his older brother. It shows a careful calculation on West's part. A Machiavellian effort. But Chelsey still has many unanswered questions. That is why she is here. Today. To see her sister, to seek the unknown.

She flips the visor down, dabs under her eyes, and does her best to clean herself up. She gets out of the car. Press vans are parked along the curb, and Chelsey is transported back to the night Ellie was discovered when she went to the hospital. Then, Chelsey had been anonymous, but now they recognize her and swarm. She keeps her head down, dodging microphones and questions. "Are you here to see your sister? We'd love to have you sit down for an exclusive interview." Media have been at the police station and outside the gates of Paradise Glen. Chelsey has even gotten a call from a documentary crew.

Acrid wind whips up from the east, and the press fall away as Chelsey enters the visitor area. "Who are you here to see?" a female officer asks behind a desk.

"Lydia Calhoun," says Chelsey, voice quiet with disuse.

"No press," she states.

"I'm not press. I'm her… I'm her family. Her sister."

The female officer eyes Chelsey. And Chelsey is reminded that she does not look like Lydia. She hands over proof. Her ID.

Chelsey is checked in, searched, and asked to leave personal items in a locker. It is not busy in the waiting room. A dad with a toddler. A woman with tired eyes. A television behind scratched Plexiglas is on, and Chelsey settles into a seat farthest from the other people. Fox London, the silver-haired anchor, is at a table with two pundits—a black woman in a navy suit and a white man in a tweed blazer.

"It is something you might find in fiction," Fox London says. "But this is all too real. We've been covering this since last Saturday, when an attempt to bomb Washington Governor Pike's mansion was botched. The suspect? Elizabeth Black. If that name sounds familiar, it should. Elizabeth Black went missing a little more than two years ago and mysteriously reappeared only recently. After Elizabeth Black allegedly bombed the governor's mansion, a statewide manhunt ensued. But it was a small-town detective, Chelsey Calhoun, who tied Elizabeth to her abductors—none other than Governor Pike's estranged sons, Douglas and West Abbott—and in a stunning showdown, killed one, arrested the other, and shot and found her own sister, Lydia Calhoun, who disappeared in 2007." Fox London pauses, whiplashed. "Several bodies of missing girls recovered at various state parks have now been attributed to the brothers."

Chelsey ducks her head, but she can still hear the broadcast.

"Honestly, I'm not sure where to start with this," Fox says.

"You didn't mention Oscar Swann," the man in the tweed blazer says.

"Yes," Fox says. "Oscar Swann's car and body were discovered at the bottom of a cliff at a popular lookout point fifteen years ago in 2007. There was damning evidence that Lydia had been with him. Lydia Calhoun's clothing, even a part of her scalp and hair, was nearby. It had been assumed Oscar killed Lydia, then himself, that her body had been washed away in the tide. But questions have arisen whether this was some elaborate setup on West Abbott's part." Chelsey knows there are all sorts of conspiracy threads cropping up online. "For years, Oscar Swann has been criminalized as a murderer. And his family is speaking out with a desire for his name to be cleared posthumously."

"You know what I want to talk about?" the woman in the navy suit interjects. "I'd like to discuss what we think Governor Pike will be doing regarding Elizabeth Black."

"Rumors are swirling that the governor is urging charges be dropped against Elizabeth Black. Which would make sense, given the circumstances," Tweed Blazer says.

"I believe that's the best course of action. It's interesting, too, that Governor Pike is refusing to resign, given this scandal. Unlike her ex-husband, Patrick Abbott, the boys' father, who resigned his position almost immediately as sergeant of Coldwell Police Department," Fox mentions.

"Why is there an expectation she should resign?" the woman in the navy suit slashes in. "She's a victim here, too."

"Lydia Calhoun," an officer announces, swinging open a metal door. Chelsey jumps up. As she slips through the door, Fox London's voice reaches her ears. "Tonight, join me for a special about the Abbott brothers. Raised in a small town, both had good grades and a solid family life. How did two men with such promising futures go wrong?"

Of course, Chelsey thinks, there is the obligatory effort to excuse Douglas and West. Their alcoholic father will be blamed. Their absent mother. But Chelsey saw West on that compound. He was in control the whole time. "We'll also be discussing Lydia Calhoun, who lived with the brothers for near two decades. Was she complicit? Sources say the DA is considering charges."

Chelsey is led to a larger room resembling a cafeteria. Tables and chairs are scattered about. It's completely empty, except for Lydia in the corner. Chelsey gives her sister a nod and walks over. The officer stations himself against a wall underneath a mural of an ocean.

"How are you?" Chelsey asks as she pulls out a plastic chair. It's a stupid greeting, and it sounds strange. As if Chelsey hadn't shot Lydia. Pinned her to the ground. Arrested her.

"The food in here isn't very good." Lydia perches on the edge of her seat, her hands gripping either side. "But it's usually warm, and I can see a nice patch of forest from my window." At last, Chelsey studies Lydia in the light. The years have been mean to her sister. Lydia's face is hard, all the softness of youth gone. Her knuckles are bony, skin scaly, badly chapped. At Chelsey's examination, Lydia curls her hands in.

"What about your leg?" Chelsey glances at Lydia's thigh. Her gunshot had been a flesh wound. One night in the hospital, eight stitches, and then Lydia was transferred here.

"Barely feel it," Lydia says. She smiles. "I'm happy to see you."

Chelsey can't help but smile, too. "Yeah." She remembers them as little girls, nights spent laughing, whispering secrets, sleeping in the curves of each other's hollow spaces. They had not been two halves of a whole but extensions of each other.

"You look tired," Lydia says.

"I haven't…" Chelsey starts. "I don't sleep very well."

"Me either." Lydia leans in. "I've missed you," she whispers with honest ferocity.

Chelsey's hands shake. Her eyes water. All these years, she'd been so lonely without Lydia. Nothing seemed right. "I've missed you, too."

The corners of Lydia's mouth turn up with pride. "My sister, the cop. Just like Dad. He must be proud." There is a slight edge to Lydia's words.

At the mention of their father, Chelsey dims. "You should know that, um, Dad, he passed away about a year and a half ago. Throat cancer." Is it terrible that Chelsey is glad their father is dead? That he does not have to see this is what has become of his children?

"Oh." A shadow crosses Lydia's face, and she turns a cheek. Her head bobs. "That makes sense. He used to smoke so many cigars. Was there a funeral?"

"It was really nice. A lot of his old co-workers came. He's buried on a hill…" Next to you, Chelsey almost says. A memory emerges from the cramped corners of her mind. Chelsey is watching Lydia's casket as it is lowered into the ground. Her empty casket. They decided to have a funeral even though there was nothing to bury. Lydia's body was never recovered. It is the real reason Chelsey hates the beach. Why she won't walk it. Too afraid she'll find the remains, brought in by the tide. Another memory crops up. Her father by the gravesite muttering, Such a waste. A waste of life. Money. Time. All of it. "But Mom… she's still around," Chelsey hurries to say. "She lives in Arizona. She's on her way. And she's going to visit you first thing." Chelsey had been quick to relay the news and hang up. "But I kept the house. After Dad died, I mean. I've been staying there, and your room is the same. Everything is the same."

Lydia screws up her nose. "I always hated that house."

"What?" They'd been so happy there, high on the hill.

Lydia guffaws. "I hated living there. And Dad, he was so mean to Mom." Chelsey blinks and feels the air stir around her, the start of a veil being lifted. "Remember that time he threw a pen at her?"

Chelsey's natural reflex is to defend her father. He'd always been stern. That was his way. "He was working a case—"

"She was bringing him dinner." She shakes her head.

"I don't remember that." The air continues to shift around Chelsey, faster and faster. A memory whips by on a gust. When Lydia had put the Lisa Frank sticker in his office. Their father had yelled, and Lydia had balled up in the hallway, rocking back and forth. He'd sent Lydia to bed without dinner.

"You're married," Lydia exclaims, pointing to the gold band on Chelsey's finger.

Chelsey is grateful to pull back from the memory, unsure what to do with it. Where to place it on the wall of her father's accomplishments. "I am." Time seems to be moving slowly now. It is all surreal. Speaking to Lydia as if the years haven't passed. As if they are still little girls confessing secrets to each other. After Lydia, Chelsey didn't confide in people. No one measured up to her sister. "His name is Noah."

"Maybe you could bring him to visit, and I could meet him?" She beams. "I'm married too, you know," Lydia says, as if telling a secret. A gentle forbidding floods Chelsey's veins. "To West. We had a ceremony in the woods. Douglas officiated… I insisted." She drops her voice. "I didn't want to… do it unless we were married. Did you wear a white dress when you got married? I didn't get to, but it was still romantic."

Chelsey studies Lydia, feeling suddenly unsettled. "How did you two meet?" It's the detective in Chelsey speaking now. Asking questions.

"At the picnic," Lydia throws out.

Chelsey wants to vomit. At the precinct picnic. So much had been set into motion then.

"I'm lucky I found West," Lydia goes on, undeterred. "He never lays a hand on me unless he's truly angry. The first time was the worst." She lifts her hair up to reveal a bald patch.

Chelsey curls her hands into her fists. "West do that to you?"

Lydia hums. "It wasn't his fault," she says. "It was years ago. I went out with Oscar to make West jealous." She drops her voice. "West doesn't share his girls. I should have known better. West was angry. He bashed in Oscar's head." Chelsey blanches, and Lydia rolls her eyes. "He didn't suffer."

"Then West pulled out your hair?" Chelsey asked.

Lydia smooths her hand over her hair. "We had to make it look like I died with Oscar. His dad said—"

"His dad?" Patrick Abbott, Chelsey's former sergeant?

Lydia nods. "He said we had to leave some evidence behind. He told West it was the last time he'd cover for him."

A flush of adrenaline courses through Chelsey at the knowledge Sergeant Abbott was involved in all of this. How long has he been covering for his sons? She remembers Abbott denying her the resources to track down the blue station wagon. Had he known then? Or before?

"It's been so difficult for West, not being able to see his father. So sad."

Does the affection in her sister's voice mean Lydia would do anything for West? Even help him steal and keep girls? How did this happen? Why did no one ever tell Lydia that the most dangerous thing in the world isn't natural disasters or wars or weapons? It is unremarkable men with beautiful smiles and even bigger promises.

"Lydia," Chelsey says quietly, "do you know what's happened? What West has done?"

Something shutters across her sister's face. "He said it was my fault. I couldn't have a baby." She opens her hands. "I got pregnant once." Her eyes shimmer with tears. Each word falls, heavy and absolute, a barrier between the sisters. "He wanted a family. One that couldn't leave him like his mom did."

Chelsey shakes her head, realizing Lydia has not grown up. She has warped. Twisted. And is very much still fifteen in some ways. "I can't hear this," she says, but then she thinks of Gabby. Of Willa. West isn't speaking, and Chelsey needs to know. "Why did he take Willa?" she forces herself to ask.

"Who?" Lydia's face screws up.

"Grace. You called her Grace."

"Oh, that? He wanted someone younger. I think he wanted to mold her. The other girls could be very rebellious. He wanted someone who would be devoted. And since I couldn't have a baby…" She trails off, her eyes sad, then changes the subject. She puts a hand near her mouth as if whispering a secret. "But then he saw how Destiny loved Grace and figured he'd use that instead. He can be so impatient sometimes." She grins. "Do you want to know about the rest of them? Charity got into the car with Doug. All he had to do was offer her a ride. And Hope… West loved her and then hated her so much. She broke his heart—"

"That's enough." Chelsey's face is a rictus of revulsion. She wonders how it is possible to still love someone who has done such horrible things.

"Right," Lydia says. "Sorry, I forgot. The trial. Hey, do you think I might be able to see West? Have you seen him? Is he okay? He doesn't like sleeping alone. Also, I need a nail file. West hates ragged nails. He likes our nails rounded. Smooth. Like yours but a little longer."

"Lydia," Chelsey says, hesitating, unsure how to handle this. "Don't you get it? What West has done? To those girls? To you?"

"He loves me," Lydia says. Then, more harshly, "He loves me."

For one second, Chelsey hates her sister, but the feeling is gone in a flash, replaced by pity. The tide is coming back again, threatening to sweep Chelsey away. She stands, the chair scraping and nearly toppling over. "I have to go. Mom will be here to visit tomorrow, and I'll come back soon." Without another word, Chelsey walks away.

Chelsey drives from the prison but pulls over a few minutes later, skidding to a stop on the shoulder. She inhales, screams, beats the wheel, then collapses in a sob. She thinks about the subjectiveness of memory.

She reaches for her phone and presses dial on her most recent missed call.

"Chelsey." Noah's voice is like a hand reaching for hers.

"I'm sorry." She half ventilates the words, lost in a whirlpool of reckoning and awakening. "I've been wrong about so many things."