The Girl Next Door (33 page)

Nina’s heart began to hammer and she stood, undecided, at the top of the stairs. You’re
being paranoid, she told herself. The cop just looked down there. There’s nobody here.
But it was difficult not to be paranoid after what she had seen and learned tonight.

Just turn off the light and shut the door, she thought. It’s nothing. Part of her
wanted to go downstairs and look. Part of her knew she would not be able to forget
the noise, even though rationally she knew it was probably her imagination working
overtime. But it was foolish to go down those stairs. There wasn’t even a light down
there that worked. Nina stood at the top of the stairs, hesitating, and then she had
an idea. In one decisive movement, she switched off the light in the stairwell, closed
the door, and locked it. Then she dragged a chair from the kitchen table to the staircase
door and wedged it under the doorknob.

“All right,” Nina said defiantly. “If you’re down there, stay down there.”

She turned back to the stove to pick up her teacup.

Gemma was standing in front of her, her eyes wild, a gun in her hand. “I’m not down
there,” she said. “I’m right here.”

T
HE
shock buckled Nina’s knees. “Jesus, Gemma!” she cried.

Gemma smiled slightly. “Sorry,” she said. “I was in your aunt’s closet. She was sleeping
when I came in the house so I slipped in there. Now she’s asleep again.”

The thud. She’d heard a thud. But not a gunshot. “Is my aunt alive?” Nina cried. “What
did you do to her?”

Gemma’s smile faded. “I hit her with this,” said Gemma, indicating the gun butt. “I
had to knock her out. I just tapped her. Her head’s like a little egg.”

Nina’s lip trembled, thinking of her frail, gentle aunt. “I want to see her. Let me
see her.”

“Not right now. Right now you have to help me,” said Gemma.

“Help you? Why would I help you?” Nina cried. “You … you …”

Gemma shook her head. “Don’t say anything nasty, Nina. I
can’t take that from you. Now look. If you help me, I’ll leave. And you won’t be
killed.”

For a moment, Nina felt a reckless indifference to her own fate. All she could feel
was hatred. “You are crazy,” she said. “That’s it. That has to be it. You have to
be insane. Nobody could do the things you did …”

“Stop that, Nina!” Gemma cried, and shook the gun at her. “Do you think I won’t shoot
you? Do you think I’m bluffing?”

Nina shook her head slowly and struggled to calm herself down. “No,” she said. “I
don’t think that. I know better.”

“All right,” said Gemma, her voice quavering. “All right. So. I know that I need to
get away from here and I can’t do that unless you help me.”

“Why did you shoot Calvin Mears, Gemma? And Andre? Was it because Calvin saw you that
night? You killed my mother, didn’t you? Did my father figure it out? Did you kill
him, too?”

Gemma pursed her lips and looked away. “This is not a conversation, Nina. I don’t
want to discuss anything with you. Just do what I say. I have no quarrel with you,
Nina. I don’t want to have to kill you.”

“You had no quarrel with my mother. My mother was always kind to you,” Nina cried.
“She worried about you. She used to say how she felt sorry for you, because your father
was always away and Didi was obsessed with wedding frippery. My mother cared for you
…”

Gemma shook her head. “That wasn’t real. As it turned out. Look, I haven’t got time
for this, Nina. Neither do you. Now listen. First I need money. Whatever you’ve got
in the house. Your old aunt probably keeps some under the mattress. And then I need
a car. I know the cops are out there. You may have to drive some distance with me,
until we’re out of their sight.”

Nina felt a stillness come over her. She made a decision.
“I’m not going to do a thing for you until you tell me. I understand certain things.
I understand that Calvin saw you that night. But he probably never thought much about
it until my father questioned him. I imagine you killed my dad when he confronted
you. But why did you kill my mother? I found her body that night, you know. I slipped
in a puddle of her blood. I have had more nightmares than you could count. You have
to tell me the truth. I won’t budge unless you do.”

Gemma looked at her indignantly. “You have nightmares?” She shook her head. “You?
You don’t know anything about nightmares.”

Nina stared at her, trying to conceal her loathing. “Tell me,” she said.

Gemma hesitated and then shook her head. “No. No. I’m not getting into this with you.
Let me just say this. Your mother only pretended to care for me. When it came right
down to it, she turned on me.”

“How did she turn on you?” Nina asked quietly.

“Oh no,” said Gemma. “Don’t think you’re conning me into telling you some secret.
Because I am too smart for you.”

Nina spoke in a calm voice, a voice trained by years in the theater. “Gemma, haven’t
I been your friend all these years?”

Gemma shook her head. “I have no friends. Every friend I ever thought I had, every
person that I ever tried to care about …”

Tears rose to Nina’s eyes. “I treated you like a sister. Even when other people were
cruel, wasn’t I your friend? Gemma, I have to know what happened …”

Gemma stared at Nina with her expressionless eyes, the gun wavering in her hand. “Fine.
You want to know? Fine. You should know the truth about your mother. She was not the
sweet, loving Marsha everybody remembers. She showed me her true self. I’ll tell you.
Although I’m sure you’ll still take her
side. Your mother called me,” said Gemma matter-of-factly, “and asked me to come
over. Said she wanted to talk to me about Patrick. But that was a lie. When I got
there, she started asking me questions. She started out all kind and solicitous. And
then she pounced. She said she saw me in the Preserve the day before, burying something
in a plastic garbage bag. And then she heard that a dog had found the bag, and when
the police opened it, there was a baby in it.”

“A baby?” said Nina. “The baby in the Preserve? But where did you get a baby? You
weren’t … I don’t … How did you … ?”

Gemma droned on, drowning her out. “It was a terrible experience. I was in school
when the water broke. I felt it coming. So I went home. Nobody was there,” Gemma said.

“You were pregnant?” said Nina, still trying to absorb this information.

“Nobody knew I was pregnant,” said Gemma. “I only ate a little bit. I didn’t gain
much weight.”

Nina remembered now. The baggy overalls and flannel shirts Gemma used to wear like
a uniform, concealing the unwanted pregnancy. And no one noticed. Not her father or
her stepmother. Or any of the Averys. “Did you tell the baby’s father?” asked Nina.

“Patrick?” Gemma asked. “No. He never knew. He’d never even take my shirt off when
he screwed me.”

“Patrick?” Nina gasped. “Patrick was the father?”

“Yes, Patrick,” said Gemma bitterly. “Is it so unbelievable?”

“But he and Lindsay … I mean, you were his tutor.”

“I was crazy about Patrick. I did anything he wanted,” said Gemma bluntly.

“And he wanted …”

“Sex,” said Gemma. “Lindsay was holding out on him. She didn’t love him the way I
did. I never denied him.”

“Why didn’t you tell him about the baby?” Nina cried.

Gemma flinched ever so slightly. “He didn’t want to know,” she said.

Nina recognized the truth in her words and for one brief moment, she pitied Gemma,
who had hoped for love and found herself used instead. Gemma’s loyalty to Patrick
was a kind of madness in itself.

Gemma shook her head. “Your mother reacted exactly the same way. As if I were the
only one to blame. Not her precious Patrick. I thought if I told her the truth she
would understand. Take my side. But all she could think about was the baby …”

Nina winced, and tried not to think about the helpless newborn, buried in a trash
bag by his mother.

“She kept saying it couldn’t be true and asking me why I did it,” Gemma said. “And
then, do you know what she said? ‘That was my grandchild,’ she said. ‘You killed my
grandchild.’ As if the baby was all that mattered. As if the baby was everything and
I was dirt. That’s when I got pissed off.”

Nina could not meet Gemma’s indignant gaze.

“She kept talking about the innocent little baby and its precious little life. That’s
when I picked up the knife and killed her.”

Nina was trembling all over. She didn’t say a word.

“Now,” said Gemma. “I’ve told you. Let’s get going.”

“Miss Avery!” There was a thunderous knock on the front door.

Gemma looked up, startled, and then jabbed the gun into Nina’s belly.

Nina stared at her. “They know I’m in here. They’re going to want to come in.”

“Shit,” said Gemma. She looked around the kitchen frantically. Then she spotted the
chair wedged against the cellar door. “Move that thing,” she commanded. “Quietly.”

“It’s no use, Gemma,” said Nina, but she did as she was told. She freed the chair
from under the doorknob and replaced it by the table.

“Open the door,” Gemma commanded.

Nina pulled the cellar door open and went to turn on the light in the stairwell. Gemma
jabbed her again. “Don’t touch it. Move,” she said.

Nina grabbed for the wall and began to descend the stairs slowly. Gemma pulled the
door shut behind them.

“Miss Avery,” the voices shouted. “We’re coming in.”

Nina began to shake her head. “It’s no use doing this,” she said.

Gemma grabbed Nina’s long black hair and yanked it back. Nina stumbled on the dark
staircase and managed to regain her balance. “You keep your mouth shut,” Gemma growled,
“or I swear to God, I’ll kill you.”

At the foot of the stairs, Gemma shoved Nina over to the wall beside the staircase,
up against the cardboard boxes and paper shopping bags damp with mildew. Overhead,
they heard the banging on the front door, and then the sound of the door bursting
open. “Put your hands up,” Gemma commanded. Nina raised her hands. Gemma stayed behind
Nina, holding on to her hair and keeping the barrel of the gun pressed into her side.

Nina heard the police thundering through the house. One of them yelled to another.
“In here. The old lady …”

“Is she dead?” she heard a voice demand.

There was a silence. Nina closed her eyes and prayed into the silence.

“She’s breathing. Get an ambulance,” said the voice.

“There’s nobody upstairs,” called another voice.

“The back door’s open. Maybe they went out the back.”

Nina stood with her face pressed against the wall of bags and
boxes, her arms heavy from keeping her hands raised, hovering by her ears. The gun
barrel pressed into her back. Gingerly, hoping for relief, she rested her palms lightly
against the pile of boxes against the wall. Her right palm grazed scratchy canvas.
It took her a moment to realize what it was and then, when she did, her heart leaped.
People were shouting now and there were heavy footsteps from every direction in the
house.

All of a sudden the door at the top of the steps burst open, and the voices were twice
as loud. “Miss Avery. Nina,” they called.

“Turn on the light,” said one voice.

Light flooded the stairwell and two officers began to descend, guns drawn, flashlights
scanning the basement. “There,” one of them cried.

Gemma had dragged Nina by the hair away from the boxes, the gun barrel still pressed
in her back, hiding behind her, using Nina as a human shield.

“Don’t come any closer,” Gemma yelled. “I have a gun. Now get back up those stairs
and get out of my way or I’ll kill her.”

The cops exchanged a glance. “Let her go,” said one. “You can’t get away.”

“Oh yes I can,” said Gemma.

Nina, who had slipped her raised hand into that scratchy canvas bag in the dark while
Gemma was occupied with the police, drew in a breath and said a silent prayer. She
jerked herself away from Gemma, feeling a clump of hair tear away from her scalp.
She turned, wielding her father’s automatic pistol, the gun she had put in the basement,
not knowing how to dispose of it. At her worst moment, she had suddenly realized that
the canvas bag that held the gun was under her hand. Now she pointed it at Gemma.
“No, you can’t,” she said.

For one moment, Gemma gaped at the gun in Nina’s hand. Then she let out a cry of rage
and lunged for it. Nina fired.

N
INA
, who was sitting in a chair beside Andre’s bed holding his chilly fingers in her
own warm hand, looked up as a nurse came into the room. “Don’t tell me,” she said.
“I know. Visiting hours are over.” Aside from a visit with her aunt and with Jimmy,
who had awakened at last, she had spent most of the day by Andre’s side. It was the
best way she could think of to recover from her ordeal.

“Way over,” the nurse said with a smile. “But your brother is outside and he wanted
to know if he can come in.”

“Patrick?” Nina said. She looked at Andre. “Is it all right?”

Andre nodded.

The nurse went out into the hall and in a moment the door opened again and Patrick
came in. He was unshaven. His clothes were rumpled, and there were bags under his
eyes. He approached the bed and looked at Andre sheepishly. “How ya doin’?” he asked.
“I’m really sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. I’m all right,” said Andre. “How about you?”

Patrick stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “My brother’s recovering. That’s
one good thing. But my house is overrun with cops. My kids are freaking out. Lindsay
took them to her parents’ house just to get them out of there.”

“It has to be tough,” said Andre sympathetically.

Nina looked at her brother worriedly. “How are you holding up?” she asked.

“I’m coping. As long as I don’t try to sleep,” he said.

“Oh, Patrick, it must be so difficult to keep going.”

Patrick shook his head. “I just keep thinking, how could I have lived with her and
not suspected … ?”