Dismantled (36 page)

T
ESS’S EYES ARE MOVING
from wall to canvas as she tries to capture…what? Surely not passion.

Answers. That’s what she wants: answers.

She’s been working on the portrait for three days now. With no studio to work in, she’s set herself up in the bedroom. The wall opposite her is covered with the sketches she’d done of Claire Novak: pair after pair of Claire’s green eyes follow her everywhere she goes, each version of her face forming the same unspoken question: how could you let yourself be fooled?

As she’s worked from the sketches, filling in details from memory, she’s studied the painting for some sign. She’s recalled each conversation, each meeting, replaying words and phrases, searching for clues. Surely, Suz must have dropped clues. That would have been part of the game.

She’s found herself talking to the portrait, begging for answers. And now, as she adds the finishing touches—the little highlights in Claire’s eyes—she steps back to look and sees that what she’s captured on the canvas isn’t really Claire. Yet it isn’t Suz either. It’s a strange amalgamation of the two: a mythical creature with startling green eyes, blond hair, and a cigarette in her mouth.

“Tess.” Henry’s stumbled into the room, looking pale. He’s holding a hand over one eye the way he does when he has a bad headache. She goes to him, gently moves his hand away and places her fingers on his forehead, her thumb hooked under the ridge of his eyebrow, and begins to rub in slow circles. She knows what to do. How to make this go away.

When Tess woke up this morning with Henry’s arm wrapped around her, she had the feeling for the first time in days, weeks, months even, that things might be all right. Maybe, now that she wasn’t a murderer, now that Henry wasn’t her accomplice, they could start their lives over in some way. Maybe the past would let them go.

She wasn’t an idiot. She didn’t expect that they’d get together again and live happily ever after. But maybe now that things didn’t feel so trapped and stagnant, they could try again. Go out for dinner and a movie: best friends who might, one day, become something more. They could even take that silly gallery owner’s advice and go on a trip: see Europe. Go wine tasting in Provence. Get to know each other all over again.

Tess smiles at the thought as she holds his head cradled in her hands, rubs the pain away with her magic-finger circles.

“It wasn’t her, Tess,” he says. He’s crying now, but trying not to. His whole body heaves and trembles with the effort of holding it all back.

“Wasn’t who?” she asks, her voice calm as a lullaby, her fingers and thumb still doing their slow, steady circles.

“They found…remains. At the bottom of the lake. A female. Trauma to the skull. They’ve been there ten years. All this time.”

“No,” Tess says, the word little more than a weak sigh.

“They faxed over her dental records this morning, Tess. Lunde says it was a positive match. It’s Suz.”

Her fingers slip away from his face.

“But she—” Tess hears herself say, reaching up to touch her shoulder, where her shirt hides a gold-colored bruise marking the place Claire’s teeth met her skin.

“They’ve been down there the whole time,” Henry repeats, as if what remains of Suz is somehow more than she ever was in life.

Tess turns to look back at her portrait. If Claire wasn’t Suz, who was she?

Behind her, Henry slips away saying something about finding a lawyer. “And you should call your parents,” he says. “See if they can drive up and help with Em for a while.”

Tess nods, her eyes still on the portrait.

Tell me your biggest secret. The one thing you’ve never told anyone.

The police will come. And she knows what she’ll tell them, no matter what any lawyer advises: the truth. It’s time for the truth.

She held a rock in her hand. It was the size of a grapefruit. She didn’t realize she was going to throw it until it was in the air. Even then, she never thought she had a chance of hitting Suz. She was so far out. And Tess had such lousy aim. She was just angry. Wanting to scare Suz, shut her up for once, just for one minute.

Tess closes her eyes. Sees Suz on a hillside of brown grass, a crown of oak leaves in her hair. Behind her, the parking lot with Henry’s van, keys lost; the Texaco sign—a bright white star shining down, marking their place on earth, in the universe. And Suz leans toward them, and in a fevered whisper says, “Do you want to hear something that will change your lives forever?”

W
INNIE ROLLS OVER
. T
HE
train is rattling along on its tracks, rocking her, lulling her back to a dreamless sleep. For once, the nightmares are gone. She lifts her head from the pillow, pulls back the curtain to see a brilliant sunrise lighting fields and mountain. They could be anywhere. The truth is, she’s lost track. Isn’t sure which borders they’ve crossed.

Over the intercom, the conductor makes an announcement she doesn’t understand.

“You awake, love?” Amber asks.

Winnie turns, sees Amber’s got the wig on. God, she loves it when Amber wears the wig. It gives her a little jolt, makes her scars tingle.

When they met in the hospital two years ago, Winnie knew that her luck was about to change. Here was a person who understood everything Winnie said, everything she had to offer. A mysterious woman with deep green eyes and the highest cheekbones Winnie had ever seen.
Nefertiti,
Winnie called her.

Now that she knows her better, she calls her
My Little Chameleon,
because Amber has this uncanny ability to change her look, her voice, to turn into someone else.

In the beginning, Winnie started with the story of her scars. And to tell the story of her scars, she had to tell the story of Suz. The story of the Dismantlers. Amber wanted to know everything. Every detail. She became enraptured with Suz, even secondhand.

And everything they’d done together had all started with Amber’s idea: “You know,” she said, “we should really find a way to make the others pay for what they did to Suz. And the baby.”

When the postcards arrived it was an unbelievable stroke of luck. A miracle.

They hadn’t started out with much of a plan. Just that Amber would play Claire Novak—Suz in disguise—and somehow, they’d pull off an act of revenge worthy of the Dismantlers, of Suz. And things had fallen into place so perfectly: the moose, the canoe, Emma’s doll, Tess’s seduction; it was as if Suz herself was guiding them, pulling everyone on invisible puppet strings.

Winnie loves to imagine the look poor Tess must have had on her face when Amber came into the bedroom dressed as Suz, syringe in hand. She wishes she could have been there to see it instead of hiding out at Henry’s, moving the damn doll around. She joined Amber as soon as she and Henry finished putting the moose on the canoe; got there in time to see Amber give Tess the final dose of tranquilizers before stitching her up inside Emma’s doll. For an instant, Tess seemed to come to, opening her eyes to see them both standing there in their matching blond wigs and silk tunics. Tess had the oddest look of being both puzzled and suddenly understanding everything.

“What if she recognized me?” Winnie had asked Amber once Tess was out again.

Amber had shaken her head. “If she even remembers, all she’ll think is that she had double vision, and instead of one Suz, she saw two. Besides, it’s not as if it matters now. Once she’s in the moose, it’s all over. Now come on, we’ve gotta hurry up and get her over to Henry’s barn.”

“I’
M GLAD YOU BROUGHT
the wig,” Winnie says, running her fingers up the bumps of Amber’s spine, a train track all its own. Bumpity, bump.

Amber turns to face Winnie. They kiss. Amber’s kisses are all tongue; hungry dog kisses.

“What wig?” Amber says, breaking away from the kiss and using the mysterious Claire Novak accent.

And Winnie thinks it again: Suz would have loved this. She’d love Amber. Wherever she is right now, she’s pleased.

Winnie reaches for what’s left of the bottle of champagne and refills their glasses.

“To Suz,” Amber says, as if reading Winnie’s mind.

“And to the new Compassionate Dismantlers,” Winnie says.

“Tear it up, babycakes,” Amber whispers, so like Suz it gives Winnie shivers. “Let’s tear it the fuck up.”

I
N ORDER TO TRULY
understand something, you have to take it apart.

This is what the moose tells her.

“No,” Emma argues. “You have to put things together. That’s the only way to make sense of the world.”

Francis the moose is whole now, all nine paintings hung in the entryway of their house, taking up the entire wall.

“Nine,” Emma whispers again, smiling as she stands in the front hall, dwarfed by Francis in his entirety.

He gives a little shuffle. A happy whole-moose grunt.

Sometimes, like now, Emma’s sure she can even smell him—his thick, musky scent of fur and dung; wild, far-off places. Places like
A Long Time Ago
.

Yesterday, she watched a fly land on the painting, crawl along the entire length of his body, moving carefully, prodding with its proboscis, apparently unsure whether it was tasting actual moose or paint-covered canvas.

It makes her dizzy to think of it.

Emma has heard the hushed conversations her parents have been having this morning. She knows about the skeleton pulled from the lake. She understands what it means.

Emma goes upstairs to her room, locks the door, then lays down on her bed with her eyes closed tight.

“Danner?” she calls. “What if they take my parents away?”

Emma’s skin gets prickly and she opens her eyes. There, in the chair by the computer, is Danner. The real Danner—the one she’s known her whole life, has grown up alongside, not some stupid doll.

“Don’t worry,” Danner tells her. The light coming through the window seems to shine through her, make her glow and sparkle. “We’re sisters, after all. We’ll always have each other.”

Jennifer McMahon
is the author of
Island of Lost Girls
and
Promise Not to Tell.
She lives in Vermont with her partner, Drea, and their daughter, Zella.

www.Jennifer-McMahon.com

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Island of Lost Girls

Promise Not to Tell

Jacket photograph © Photodisc/Veer

Jacket design by Jarrod Taylor