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Still-she was disappointed in Walter. She really had wanted to believe that he had changed. And she didn’t feel naive or stupid for the hope he had stirred up in her, the ruses he had used to lure her here. This was the way she wanted to be, the way she would continue to be. Like her college-essay role model, A
“You’re not going to tell me about the others, are you?”
“I will if you call the governor and my sentence is commuted to life. Then I’ll tell you everything.”
“No you won’t. Because even if you failed to rape them, you tried, and that would mean the death penalty in those cases, too.”
“Let me worry about that. Isn’t living with my crimes, as an aware and remorseful person, more of a real punishment than killing me? Every day I’m alive, I have to think about what I did.”
“But do you?”
“What?”
“Do you? I mean, yes, every day is an opportunity for you to think about your victims, that doesn’t mean it happens. I have a feeling, Walter, that the only person you’ve ever really thought about is yourself.”
He lowered his voice, and she almost crossed the invisible barrier despite herself.
“I think about you. Every day. The time we spent together-that’s about as happy as I ever was.”
“Then I’m sorry for you. Because that was not a happy time, Walter.”
“You’re the only woman I ever made love to.”
“I was the fifteen-year-old girl you forced yourself on sexually. It’s not the same thing.”
“I cared about you. I still care about you. This is as much for you as for me, Elizabeth. I know you. You always did the right thing. You couldn’t tell a lie to save your life. They tricked you into believing their lies.”
“Walter, I believe you killed Holly.”
“But do you believe that I deserve to die for that? You and your family, that’s not your way.”
“It wasn’t our choice. The prosecutor asked the Tacketts what they wanted. He asked twelve citizens of Virginia if they thought it was fair. They said yes, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“But there is.” His voice scaling up, strangled. “All you have to do is pick up a phone, say you’ve realized, talking to me all these weeks, what you got wrong. I’m not asking to go free, Elizabeth. I’m asking not to die. You can save me. Only you can save me.”
“No, I can’t, and I never could. I’m sorry, Walter, I really am. But you’re asking me to lie.”
“Quite the opposite.”
Worse, he was asking her to do the most u
She almost wept from relief.
“Walter, I could see you. I saw you in the rearview mirror.”
“That’s a nice story to tell yourself, isn’t it? Maybe you can lie, after all.”
“I’m not lying. I looked up, I saw you both. Did I see you push her? No, but I never said I did. I saw you chase her. You were right behind her, almost on her heels. If she had run off that mountain as you claim, you would have been right on top of her.”
Walter’s eyes slid sideways. It was his eyes, that was the tell, what was off in his otherwise handsome face. Narrow and small, they were never looking where they should be. They eeled away when a direct gaze was required, fastened on another’s eyes when it was inappropriate, got caught studying cleavage and legs.
“But it’s plausible, what I’m saying. Worthy of reconsideration.”
“I won’t lie for you.”
“You’d do it for your kids, for your husband. You’d lie for them.”
“I suppose I might, if it came to that. But that’s different. Even you have to realize it’s different.”
He extended his hand through the bars, and the deputy was on his feet, just that fast, shoulder to shoulder with Eliza. He needn’t have worried. She had no intention of moving closer to Walter, although it was hard not to collapse against Deputy Walter, use his bulk.
“I love you,” Walter said, and even the earbudded deputy had to be able to hear that, or read his lips. The deputy shook his head in disgust.
“Walter, you’re lying or you think that’s true. Either way, it’s sad.”
She walked away, gathered her things from the deputy’s desk, turned back. “The others,” she said. “It would be a comfort to their loved ones, if you could make a clean breast of things. I wish you would.”
“Well, that was up to you.” Petulant as Iso.
“No, it was always up to you. I admit it. I wanted to be the hero. I wanted to come out of here with all the names and details. I thought if I could set the record straight about the other girls, I might finally forgive myself about Holly.”
“You did have a chance to save her.” Green eyes glinting. What happens when beauty doesn’t free the beast, doesn’t release him from his curse, knows him but still ca
“I couldn’t see that at the time. I wish I had, but I didn’t. But I couldn’t save her that night, Walter. What I saw might be contestable, but what I heard wasn’t. You pushed her off the side of that mountain. Pushed her because she fought back.”
“That’s right,” he said, triumphant. “You’re alive because you were weak. Because you weren’t worth killing. After I had sex with you, all I wanted to do was take you home, because it wasn’t good, wasn’t good at all. How do you like knowing that? You’re alive because there’s nothing special about you, because I didn’t want you. You’re the one I got stuck with, not one of the ones I chose. How do you feel, knowing that?”
Eliza assumed he didn’t want an answer, but she took his question seriously all the same. “Well, I’m truly glad I’m alive, so I guess I’m glad for the reason, whatever it was.”
She nodded to the deputy, ready to leave. Steps from the threshold, she dropped her purse, all but flung it to the floor, and its contents, a remarkable collection of items that screamed mom-messy, disorganized mom at that-went skittering across the floor. Phone, Kleenex, wallet, change, checkbook, lipstick, comb. Deputy Walter fell to his knees, gathering it all up. She had known she could count on his automatic courtesy.
And in that instance, she stepped back toward the bars, passed her taped mark on the floor, kept going until she was inches from Walter’s face. They were almost eye to eye, he had not grown at all. She brought her arm up and saw Walter flinch, enjoying the look of unease on his face, the fact that he didn’t know what she was going to do. But she didn’t hit him. She placed her hand on his shoulder and said: “I know you’re scared, Walter. You have every right to be. There’s no shame in being scared to die. But I couldn’t save Holly, and I can’t save you.”
He was sobbing as she left. Partly out of frustration, she would guess. He had poured his energy into finding her, taking care to seduce her this time, and he had come so close to getting what he wanted. But he might be crying from fear, too, the overwhelming realization that he had no options, no out. She understood how he felt, was inside his head, experiencing the cold slap of fear and frustration. She knew him as well as she had ever known anyone, including her husband and children. Walter was all the gaps within her, the co