But it could be true, too, and Jericho is too angry to see it. With Matty being Carlton’s son, the inheritance is settled. Jericho must see red at that and Julia would become his natural target.
Someone honks their horn, startling me. The light has turned green. I take my foot off the brake and drive, looking at the street names. I’m a few blocks out and my anxiety grows as I drive slower than the speed limit, the car creeping along once I turn onto Marjorie Gibson’s street. I see the house at the far end. It’s nondescript, blends in with the others on this street, the houses worn down, a neighborhood forgotten. They’re all single-story homes with curtains pulled closed over windows. The cars parked along the street and on driveways are older, unloved models.
The driveway is empty. The house dark. It, too, looks empty. Like no one lives there. There’s a garage at the end of the driveway and the door seems to be stuck. I drive by slowly, peering toward it and although I’m too far to be sure I see there’s a vehicle inside. A truck or a van. And I can see it’s white.
At the end of the street, I make a U-turn and creep toward the house. I park Megs’s car and kill the engine. I sit inside for a long minute, my hands sweaty around the keys.
I just need to look at the van. I’ll recognize it. The day is a blur but there was one thing that I remember. And it’s distinct.
I check my watch. I have ten minutes before Megs calls the police, so I dig her phone out of my purse, punch in her code and dial the café. She answers on the first ring. I’m sure she’s been waiting.
“Hey,” she says.
“I just got to the house.”
“And you’re just doing a drive-by, remember?”
“I just need to see inside the garage.”
“Isabelle—”
“Has Anthony figured out I’m gone?”
“He thinks you have an upset stomach but honestly, he won’t buy it too much longer.”
“I’ll hurry. I just need to see, and the house looks empty. There’s no one here.”
“Please don’t make me regret this.”
I don’t have anything to say to that, so I disconnect the call. With clammy hands, I open the car door and step out. I tuck the keys into my purse, walking down the sidewalk toward the house. Lace curtains that may once have been nice hang in the windows and through them the rooms are dark. No one’s here. It’s fine.
But my heart still races. I’m scared. Scared of what I may find.
I look around the street, see the few pockets of people, hear the sounds from inside other houses. Televisions, a dryer knocking against something as it spins, a woman yelling for her child to get inside. Without hesitating, I turn to walk up the driveway as if I belong here.
The garage door is open to about mid-thigh. It’s set farther back than the house. I walk straight up the driveway and when I get closer, I bend to peer inside. My heart rate triples, sweat running down the back of my neck.
It’s a white van. But it doesn’t have to be the van that almost ran me over.
Except that there are too many coincidences here.
I slip under the open door into the garage. The smell of gasoline and stale cigarette smoke is strong here. I walk around the driver’s side of the car. The window is open, and I peer inside to see the mess of old food containers, a packet of cigarettes on the dashboard, the butts and ashes of old cigarettes in the ashtray.
But it’s not any of those things that make me hug my arms around myself. It’s what’s hanging from the rear-view mirror. It gives me a flashback to that day. That moment when I waved to Angelique and turned to find the van coming at me, tires bouncing up onto the sidewalk as if the driver lost control, except that he hadn’t. I’d seen his face. His eyes. I’d just blocked it all out.
He hadn’t lost control.
He’d been coming at me.
And the ratty teddy bear hanging by a noose from his neck on the rear-view mirror had been the most horrific sight. A child’s toy, something meant to give comfort, treated in such a way. I remember it bouncing, hitting the windshield.
I need to get out of here. Clutching my purse to myself when the strap slides off my shoulder, I dig for the keys as I exit the garage.
I haven’t even straightened when I crash into something hard. Rough hands close over my arms to still me. And when I look up, it’s like I’m staring right into Danny Gibson’s eyes. Even though that’s impossible.
I see the flat nothingness I still remember. That abyss of emptiness.