Dead to Me (17 page)

And I had other questions now, too. For somebody who’d witnessed a murder, Millie was awfully bold to be lingering around her own apartment. Annie hadn’t even been there the night
that Irma was murdered, and look what had happened to her. There was something more to it, but whatever it was, I couldn’t make it out.

I put the letter down and picked up the one that had been calling out to me since the moment I first saw it. There was something indecent about reading a dead girl’s letters, but the
moment I saw that tense, angular penmanship, I couldn’t help myself. It was the postcard that led me to the Stratford Arms; it was the Nihilist cipher at the flophouse all over again. It was
another piece of my sister, only this time, she wasn’t hiding anything.’

It was Annie there on the page, the charming, chatty Annie who’d gossiped with me under the covers long past our bedtime. Only she’d changed. No more dreams of being
a movie star or singing to a crowd of thousands from the middle of a giant stage. All she wanted now was a little breathing room and a little quiet, and maybe a few friends to share it with. The
way she wrote about it, it sounded so nice that I started from the beginning and read it again. By the time I finished, I was crying.

I cried for what Annie had been through to survive. I cried because now I knew that at least once, at least for a little while, she had been truly happy and free. And I cried because it
didn’t last.

I didn’t have it in me to read the rest of Irma’s letters then and there. Instead, I wiped my eyes and blew my nose and hid the letters in my sock drawer. It was another one of
Annie’s old tricks. Everybody thinks to look inside a sock drawer, but nobody ever thinks to look inside the socks. I folded each letter in half long ways, stuffed it inside a kneesock, then
folded the sock with its mate, making sure that no telltale envelope was sticking out. I did this with every letter except one.

Until I figured out what to do with Millie’s letter, I wanted it on my person at all times. I pinned it to the inside of my skirt waistband, checking my profile in the mirror to make sure
it didn’t show. It didn’t. I should have tried moving in it, too, to make sure that the paper didn’t crinkle when I walked, but I only made it as far as the bed, and honestly, by
that point, I really didn’t care. I didn’t bother to turn back the covers.

Falling asleep was like falling down a well. When I hit the bottom, everything went black for a while.

It was still black when I opened my eyes, but even then, I could tell there was something strange about my room. Still half asleep, I propped myself up on my elbows and squinted into the
darkness until I made out the silhouette by the window. I knew that person.

What are you doing here?
I whispered even though we were alone.

You tell me
, she said, stepping into the swath of light that fell across the floor. It bathed her face in a soft, ghostly glow. She wore the same gray shirtwaist dress I’d seen her
in that day at the Stratford Arms, the frumpy headband and the little dab of plum lipstick.

You don’t make sense. You’re not like Annie’s friends.

Of course I’m not.
She stepped away from the window and approached my bed, still ringed in that strange silver light.

I was sitting straight up now, alert, my backbone pressed against the headboard, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to move. It wasn’t exactly because I was afraid. It was that feeling
you have when you’re little, when you know that the horrible thing in your closet, under your bed, can’t touch you as long as you stay tucked under your covers. In bed, nothing could
get me. Ruth couldn’t get any closer. I was safe there.

But the second I got out, it would all start again. The moment my feet touched the floor, they would have to fly.

I don’t understand what you have to do with my sister,
I said.

She sighed, then shook her head and turned away.
Well, then, you’d better wake up.

I gasped and bolted upright, immediately reaching for the clock on my nightstand. It read eleven o’clock. I’d overslept, and now I was late for my phone call to Millie. The dream
left me feeling rattled and off-kilter, but I shoved it aside. I needed to be clearheaded, and I needed to find a pay phone. Wherever Millie was hiding out, I didn’t want to risk giving her
away with a long-distance phone charge.

I flung my legs over the side of the bed and smoothed my skirt. A little rumpled, but I was presentable enough for the hour and my destination. The closest phone booth I could think of was a few
blocks from my house, near a gas station on Santa Monica. Traffic would be light this late in the evening, but at least I’d be out in the open at a big intersection.

Leaving the window unlatched, I stepped out onto the small balcony outside my bedroom window. It was too narrow to be a real balcony, and when Annie and I were younger, our mother had covered it
with flowerpots and hanging plants. Annie had trampled every one of them, sneaking in and out of our bedroom window, and after she was gone, Mother had never thought to replace them. Once I was out
the window, I climbed over the balcony railing and pitched myself off, reaching out in the darkness for the palm tree that grew next to our house. I wrapped my arms and legs around its trunk, then
shinnied down.

When I was on the ground, I saw that the light was on in Cassie’s bedroom. It seemed odd that she’d be up at this hour. The Jurgenses were early risers, all out the door with full
stomachs at the crack of dawn. I was sure Cassie had field hockey or marching band or diving practice, or possibly all three, in the morning. Two weeks into summer, she already had a deep tan and
brassy blond streaks in her hair, while I still had the pallor of a larval worm.

I was still looking up at Cassie’s bedroom window when I heard someone clear a throat, someone standing only a few feet away from me there in the dark. I jumped, and the house keys fell
from my hands.

“Who’s there?” I whispered.

I was relieved when Cassie stepped out of the shadows, but only until I got a good look at her face.

“One day. That’s what you said. You promised.”

She must have been spying on me all night, waiting to see if I’d sneak out and prove once and for all that it had been a mistake to trust me.

“It’s not what it looks like,” I said. “I’m only going to the pay phone.”

“You have a phone.”

She had a glint in her eye that said,
You think you can lie to me, Alice Gates?

It said,
You push me around, you shut me out, you take every kindness I’ve ever shown you for granted.

It said,
I am done feeling sorry for you, and really, isn’t that all our friendship has been since we were twelve? Me feeling sorry for you and your sad, rotten life.

For a second, it felt like there was a fist wrapped around my heart. My life floated up before me, and I saw what it would look like without even the illusion of a friend, a sister, a family.
Cassie was my safety wire. As long as she was there, I didn’t notice how completely alone I really was.

“What?” Cassie said in a tone that sounded more like an accusation than a question. “What is it?”

I whispered, “It’s Annie. Someone tried to kill her.”

I told her about MacArthur Park and the days I’d spent in the hospital with her and how I’d met Jerry there.

“Do you have any idea who did it?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I’m not sure, but I think it might have been Conrad Donahue.”

Cassie’s eyes had been wide with amazement as she took in my story. Now they narrowed.

“Is this a joke to you?”

I took a step back and held up one hand to her, a truce. A promise.

“Annie knew something about him, Cassie. Something bad. He was afraid it was all going to come out.”

Biting her lower lip, she asked, “If that’s true, then aren’t you in danger, too?”

I didn’t answer her. Was I in danger? Sure, I’d had a close shave with Rex, but it was nothing like the kind of danger Annie had faced. I was like Cyrus. I wasn’t part of this.
I still had the option to stay out of sight.

“I’m fine,” I said at last.

“Then why are you sneaking off in the middle of the night to use a pay phone?”

I was beginning to be worried that I’d told her too much, that the more I told her, the more she’d want to know. Nothing good could come of that.

“I’m going to call a friend of Annie’s. Someone who doesn’t want to be found.”

“Is it someone we know?”

“It’s Camille Grabo,” I said.

I regretted the words the instant they were out of my mouth.

Cassie gasped, then drew back her hand and slapped my cheek. “You’re unbelievable, Alice. Camille Grabo? Conrad Donahue? Do you think I’m stupid?”

Before I could stop her, before I could convince her I was telling the truth, she stormed onto her porch steps and through the front door. A few seconds later, she appeared in her bedroom
window. Looking down at me, she pulled the curtains shut and turned out her light.

And then I was alone, just like I’d always wanted.

I used to dream about disappearing and leaving a mark on someone like the one Annie had left on me.

But Annie left her marks in different ways. She loved people; she took care of them. The only marks I ever left on people were the kind they regretted.

I took one last look at Cassie’s darkened window, then pulled myself away and set off toward the gas station.

I didn’t pass a single car on the road as I crept through the quiet residential streets of my neighborhood. Not even a porch light was on. Santa Monica was better lit but almost as
desolate. I threw back my shoulders and crossed the street to the gas station, trying to look like a perfectly respectable person with a very good reason for making a phone call in the middle of
the night. Which, I reminded myself, I was.

Picking up the receiver, I inserted some change and dialed the phone number Millie had given me. I wondered if it was in Las Vegas and whether she’d made it there or not.

The phone rang at least ten times. I was about to hang up when I heard a click, a flare of static, and then a voice that sounded like it was coming from the bottom of the ocean.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t going to call, Alice.”

“Where are you?” I asked.

“About as far away from Los Angeles as you can get in six hours,” she said. “My life might be forfeit and all, but I’m not going to make it that easy for them.”

A husky laugh filled my ear, then suddenly there was nothing on the line but the static and the sound of Millie’s shallow breaths. A snarl entered her voice. “No one’s
listening in, are they?”

“I’m on a pay phone,” I said. “There’s no one listening.”

“So, what did you think of my letter? Colorful reading, wasn’t it?” And just like that, the cheery, easy manner was back in her voice. “Pity it isn’t
true.”

I gasped. “What do you mean, it isn’t true?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. Irma’s dead and Conrad did it, sure as sunshine. I just didn’t actually see it happen.”

I processed this for a moment, and then it dawned on me what Millie was saying and why she’d been in such a hurry to skip town once her letter was in my hands.

“You’re protecting Gabrielle,” I said.

She heaved a sigh. “An ill-considered promise I made to your sister. Annie has handled some pretty desperate cases in her day, but I’ve never seen her this
fixated
on rescuing
anyone before. I swear, her backup plans had backup plans.”

“And you’re one of them.”

“A dozen people saw me leave the party with them,” Millie said. “But Conrad and Gabrielle are the only ones alive who saw what happened next. I’d had a bit too much to
drink that night, and Conrad feared I was going to upchuck on his leather interior. He told me to get lost. Not that I mind in hindsight.”

Suddenly I felt like I had a stick of dynamite pinned into the front of my skirt. Millie could have been a hundred miles away by then or across the border, where no one could touch her. Yet it
was hard to fault her—she could have done that the night Irma was murdered. Instead, she stuck around, wrote that letter, and made sure it got into my hands because that was how Annie and her
friends operated. They were loners, except when it came to protecting one another. Then they were like a pack.

It was then that I noticed the black Rolls-Royce idling in the gas station parking lot. Had it just pulled in, or had it been sitting there the whole time? I tried not to stare, instead taking
in as much detail as I could from the corner of my eye, memorizing the plates, the face of the man at the wheel.

“Alice, knock the wax out of your ears. I asked you a question.”

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s just that…”

She ignored me. “Did you show it to Jerry or not?”

“No,” I said. “What am I supposed to do with it, anyway?”

“Know any honest cops?”