Pretty Girls

Lydia grabbed her sister by the collar and pushed her toward the narrow opening. Claire couldn’t fit through the gap with the tapes. Lydia slapped them out of her hands. She pushed Claire again. Her feet slipped. Her shoes were melting into the concrete. Lydia made one last push. Claire went flying outside. Lydia was right after her. They both landed hard on the driveway.

The sudden fresh air shocked Lydia’s system. Her collarbone had cracked against the concrete. She felt like a knife had jammed into her throat. She rolled onto her back. She gasped for air.

Videotapes rained down around her. Lydia swatted them away. She hurt so bad. Everything hurt so bad.

“Hurry!” Claire was on her knees. She was reaching her hands back into the garage, trying to save the videotapes. One of her shirtsleeves caught on fire. She shook out the flame and kept reaching in. Lydia tried to push herself up, but her left arm wouldn’t work. The pain was almost unbearable as she lifted herself with her right hand. She grabbed Claire by the shirt and tried to pull her away.

“No!” Claire kept reaching for more tapes. “We have to get them.” She used both hands to gather the tapes the same way she used to gather sand to make castles. “Liddie, please!”

Lydia got on her knees beside Claire. She could barely see more than a few inches in front of her. Smoke was furling out the opening. The heat was suffocating. She felt something drop on her head. Lydia thought it was a spark from the fire, but it was rain.

“There’s just a few more!” Claire kept pulling out the tapes. “Get them away from the house!”

Lydia used her good hand to toss the videos out into the driveway. There were so many. Her eyes scanned the dates on the labels, and she knew the dates corresponded to missing women, and that the women had families who had no idea why their sisters, their daughters, were gone.

Claire fell backward as flames shot out from the garage. Her face was black with soot. The fire had finally engulfed the garage. Lydia grabbed her collar and pulled her away from the house. Claire stumbled as she tried to stand. Her melted shoes fell off her feet. She banged into Lydia. The jolt sent pain straight up into Lydia’s shoulder, but it was nothing like the hacking coughs that wracked her body. She bent at the waist and let out a stream of black water that tasted like piss and cigarette ash.

“Liddie.” Claire rubbed her back.

Lydia opened her mouth and let out another foul, black stream that made her stomach spasm. Mercifully, there wasn’t much more. She wiped her mouth. She stood up. She closed her eyes to fight the dizziness.

“Lydia. Look at me.”

Lydia forced open her eyes. Claire stood with her back to the garage. Fire and smoke raged behind her, but she was looking at Lydia, not the fire. She had her fingers pressed to her mouth. She looked stricken.

Lydia could only imagine what her sister was seeing: the bruises, the welts, the electrical burns.

Claire said, “What did he do to you?”

“I’m okay,” Lydia said, because she had to be.

“What did he do?” Claire was shaking. Tears cut white tracks into the soot on her face. “He promised he wouldn’t hurt you. He promised.”

Lydia shook her head. She couldn’t do this now. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

“I’m going to kill him.” Claire’s bare feet pounded into the ground as she stalked around to the back of the house.

Lydia followed, holding her useless left arm as still as she could. Every step sent her collarbone clashing against the base of her throat. Her joints had filled with gravel dust. Rain had turned the soot on her skin into a wet, black ash.

Claire was just ahead of her. She had a revolver stuffed down the back of her jeans. Lydia recognized the gun, but not the fluid way Claire pulled the weapon, cocked the hammer, and trained the sights at the man crawling on the ground.

Paul had pulled himself about twenty feet away from the house. A streak of dark blood showed his progress through the wet grass. His right knee was a bloody pulp. His ankle was shattered. The bottom half of his leg hung at an unnatural angle. Bone and sinew and muscle glistened in the light from the still-­roaring flames.

Claire had the gun pointed at Paul’s face. “You fucking liar.”

Paul kept moving, using his elbow and hand to pull himself away from the fire.

Claire tracked him with the gun. “You said you didn’t hurt her.”

Paul shook his head, but he kept crawling.

“You promised me.”

He finally looked up.

“You promised,” Claire said, sounding petulant and devastated and furious.

Paul managed a shrug. “At least I didn’t fuck her.”

Claire pulled the trigger.

Lydia screamed. The noise from the gun was deafening. The bullet had torn open the side of Paul’s neck. His hand clamped down on the wound. He fell onto his back. Blood seeped between his fingers.

“Jesus Christ.” Lydia breathed. It was all she could say. “Jesus Christ.”

“Claire.” Paul’s voice gurgled in his throat. “Call an ambulance.”

Claire trained the gun at his head. She looked down at him with an utter lack of emotion. “You lying piece of shit.”

“No!” Lydia grabbed Claire’s hand just as she pulled the trigger. The shot went wild. She could feel the recoil travel through Claire’s hand and up her own arm.

Claire tried to aim the gun again.

“No.” Lydia forced her hand away. “Look at me.”

Claire wouldn’t let go of the gun. Her eyes were glazed. She was somewhere else, somewhere dark and menacing where the only way out of it was to murder her husband.

“Look at me,” Lydia repeated. “He knows where Julia is.”

Claire wouldn’t look away from Paul.

“Claire.” Lydia spoke as clearly as she could. “Paul knows where Julia is.”

Claire shook her head.

“He told me,” Lydia said. “He told me in the garage. He knows where she is. She’s close by. He told me he still visits her.”

Claire shook her head. “He’s lying.”

Paul said, “I’m not lying. I know where she is.”

Claire tried to move the gun back to his head, but Lydia stopped her. “Let me try, okay? Just let me try. Please. Please.”

Slowly, Claire slackened the tension in her arm as she gave in.

Still, Lydia kept an eye on her sister as she struggled to kneel down. The pain nearly took her breath away. Every movement sent a sharp knife into her shoulder. She wiped the sweat from her brow. She looked down at Paul. “Where is Julia?”

Paul wouldn’t look at her. He was only interested in Claire. “Please,” he begged her. “Call an ambulance.”

Claire shook her head.

Lydia said, “Tell us where Julia is and we’ll call an ambulance.”

Paul squinted up at Claire. The rain was pelting his face. Spraying his face. Streaming into his face.

“Call an ambulance,” Paul repeated. “Please.”

Please. How many times had Lydia begged him in the garage? How many times had he laughed at her?

Paul said, “Claire . . .”

“Where is she?” Lydia repeated. “You said she was close. Is she in Watkinsville? Is she in Athens?”

He said, “Claire, please. You have to help me. This is serious.”

Claire held the gun limply at her side. She was looking back at the house, staring into the fire. Her lips were in a tight line. Her eyes were still wild. She was going to crack. Lydia just couldn’t tell which way.

Lydia looked back down at Paul. “Tell me.” She tried to keep the begging tone out of her voice. “You said you know where she is. You said you visited her.”

. . . rotten bones with long strands of dirty blonde hair and those stupid bracelets. . .

“Claire?” Paul was losing too much blood. His skin had turned a waxy white. “Claire, please—­just look at me.”

Lydia didn’t have time for this. She jammed her fingers into his shattered knee.

Paul’s screams pierced the air. She didn’t let up. She kept pressing until her fingernails had scraped raw bone.

She said, “Tell us where Julia is.”