“When she was discharged, Mr. Dalton loaded her into his car and brought her right back to Jack. Jack went straight back to his old habits, locking her up and starving her. I couldn’t take it anymore. I slipped the key under the door.” She falls silent, staring into the distance.
The woman in front of me fills me with disgust. She turned a blind eye for two years so her husband could stay hooked up to machines that did the work of his organs. That’s what loves does to you. It makes you selfish and unscrupulous. It makes you dangerous.
“Finish the fucking story,” I grit out.
She flinches. “I thought she would escape, but no. When she unlocked the door, she went to the study, took the hunting rifle from the mantelpiece, and blew Jack’s brains out. He must’ve been on his way out, because he was dressed in a suit, the car keys clutched in his hand, but the face… You couldn’t recognize the face.”
“Then what?”
“Lina collapsed. She was weak from her injuries and malnourishment. I couldn’t call the police, not with being implicated, so I called Mr. Dalton.” She shrugs. “Who else did she know? He came over and staged it like a suicide.”
Which he conveniently held over Lina’s head.
“That’s all I know,” Dora says. “The house was packed up and sold. The staff was paid off.”
“Enough to keep them quiet.”
“Yes.”
Then Dalton sent Lina to Willowbrook and took over the management of her inheritance while conveniently keeping her declared mentally ill.
“Why did you come here, to Switzerland of all places?”
“I was the only one who knew what went on behind the closed door of Lina’s bedroom. The other staff believed what Jack told everyone, that Lina was self-destructive and not in her right mind. They didn’t know the real crazy one was Jack. He was good at acting.”
“Dalton exiled you.”
“I didn’t fight very hard.” She chuckles. “I know when to shut up and do as I’ve been told.”
“You said Dalton took charge of Lina’s admission to a clinic when Clarke threw her out of the window.”
“Yes.”
I get to the crux of our talk, to what I’m really here to find out. “Where’s the baby’s body? What did Dalton do with it?”
She gives me a startled look. “There was no body, Mister. The baby didn’t die.”
My heart jerks to a standstill. “What?”
“He survived. He was in an incubator for a month, but I know he lived because I heard Mr. Dalton on the phone when he brought Lina home to Jack.” Her face twists with uncertainty. “Mr. Dalton was making plans for the baby. I thought he took the little boy. Didn’t he?”
Fuck, no. Lina’s child is alive. He’s out there, somewhere in the world. I swear to God, I’ll make Dalton sing like a canary before I kill him.
“Didn’t he, Mister?” Her eyes fill with panic. “Please.”
I can’t tell her what she wants to hear. All I can see is Lina’s hollow expression and that almost-smile in the church, that perfect beauty in the broken, just like the sublime portrait of Mary hanging under a frame of shattered windowpanes and pigeon shit.
“How many times did Lina ask you for help?”
“Every day in the beginning.”
“When did she stop?”
“A couple of months later.”
A couple of months. “Give me an exact date.”
“I can’t.” She pulls up her shoulders. “I didn’t keep book.”
“Don’t you remember?”
“No.”
Something so profound and she’s can’t fucking remember. She should’ve remembered the month, day, and time. The exact second Lina gave up hope should’ve been carved into her heart.
“You know what has to happen.”
Her voice doesn’t waver. “Yes.”
Taking the knife from my pocket, I place it on the table. “I’ll give you the choice.”
She looks at the knife for a couple of beats before pushing herself up with her palms on the tabletop and fetching something from a cookie jar that she carries back to me. A bottle of pills. I read the label to be sure and give her a nod.
She shakes the lot into her palm and swallows them with her cold coffee. When the mug is empty, she walks to a daybed that faces a window, takes off her shoes, and lies down. The window has a nice view over the green field with the yellow flowers. Grabbing a throw from the sofa, I cover her legs. It’s the most kindness as I can spare her for not doing enough.
“I slipped her the key,” she says, staring at the window, talking to herself.
Too little, too late.
Exiting the warmth of the house, I close the door behind me and leave it unlocked so whoever finds her body won’t have to break it down. I walk back to town slowly, trying to process the information. How do I tell Lina? Do I call her? Do I wait until I see her? Do I tell her now, or after I’ve found her child? Definitely after. He could’ve been adopted. There will be legal shit to sort out. How much dirty laundry is Lina willing to wash in public? How much is she prepared to share with the world?