“Obsessive?” Susan supplied bitterly. “Only because it was. It was like she was a saint or something. It didn’t help that the girls were the spitting image of her—Heather especially. Every time he looked at her, he saw Christina. I think that’s why he couldn’t deny her anything. Even when he should have. I tried to tell him. I warned him that she was growing up too fast, that they both were, but he wouldn’t listen. He’d just give me that look and tell me to mind my own business.”

Susan’s cheeks had flared a dark shade of red as she spoke. Lizzy was almost relieved. It was easier to witness her anger than her pain. Still, she needed to tread lightly if she wanted her to keep talking. “I know this is hard, Susan, and that it’s the last thing you want to talk about, but I truly want to find out who hurt your daughters, and talking like this might help me piece something together that the police missed. Do you feel up to answering a few more questions?”

Susan was starting to look a little ragged around the edges, but she managed a nod. “Ask whatever you need to.”

“You said Heather was growing up too fast. What did you mean?”

“Exactly what you think I meant. She was breaking curfew, sneaking around with boys, wearing trashy clothes, drinking. All the things a girl does right before she comes home and tells you she’s pregnant.” She paused, shaking her head. “Can you believe that’s what I was afraid of? That she’d come home one day and tell us she’d gotten herself in trouble? Back then I thought that was the worst thing that could happen.”

“Did your husband know all this was going on? The drinking and the boys?”

“Yes, he knew. I told him—or tried to. He wouldn’t listen. The night they . . .” Susan closed her eyes briefly. “The night they disappeared, I wanted to call the police, but Fred wouldn’t let me. He said we didn’t need the police in our business, and that the girls would come home when they were ready. We argued. It was awful. I couldn’t believe he was being so cavalier. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I got in the car and drove around. I hit all the spots I knew the kids went, but there was no sign of them. I knew something was wrong. A mother knows. I went home and ransacked their rooms, looking for something—a diary, a phone number—anything that might help us find them. I found a box of condoms in Heather’s nightstand. Three were missing. When I showed Fred the box, he told me he bought them. He bought our fifteen-year-old daughter . . .” Her eyes welled with fresh tears. “To keep her safe.”

Lizzy stood and went to the counter, returning with a handful of paper napkins. She waited while Susan blotted her eyes and pulled herself together.

“I’m all right,” she said finally, still clutching the crumpled napkins. “Please go on.”

“Do you know any of the boys she was seeing?”

“I wish I did, but Heather and I were barely speaking at that point. You know how teenage girls are. As far as she was concerned, I was the enemy. And she’d gotten very good at covering her tracks. She’d even recruited Darcy as an accomplice.”

“What about her friends? Did any of them know who she was hanging around with?”

“She’d split off from most of her regular friends by then, and was hanging with some new kids. Older kids I didn’t know. I talked to several of the parents. Fred was furious. He accused me of trying to paint his daughter—his daughter, like I had nothing to do with raising her—as a tramp.”

This brought Lizzy to the question she’d really come to ask, uncomfortable though it might be. “When I spoke to your husband the other day, I was struck by the fact that he didn’t seem at all interested in finding out who really hurt your girls.”

“Probably because he already knows—or thinks he does. In his mind, there was never anyone but your grandmother. But I always had my doubts. Two beautiful girls. Why would she do it? But Fred grabbed the story with both hands. He needed someone to blame. Someone who wouldn’t make his precious Heather look like a bad girl—or him like a bad father. Your grandmother was the perfect scapegoat.”

“Speaking of scapegoats, I’ve been wondering . . .” Lizzy broke off, not sure how to form the question. Bad-mouthing your ex was one thing. Admitting he might be capable of harming his own daughters was something else altogether. And yet it had to be asked. “Do you believe your ex-husband might be capable of violence?”

Susan had been staring at the wadded napkins in her hand. Her head came up sharply. “Are you asking me if I think Fred killed our daughters?”

“I suppose I am.”

“Then no. My husband was a lot of things, but he would never hurt those girls. I know it sounds bizarre, but hurting them would have been like hurting Christina.”

Lizzy nodded, not because she accepted Susan’s answer at face value, but because she was right about it sounding bizarre. What she’d just described was a complete reversal of the usual paradigm: the overprotective, chastity belt–minded father at odds with the seemingly too-lenient mother. In this case, Fred Gilman had not only not threatened his oldest daughter with a chastity belt; he’d given her a box of condoms, all the while claiming to be worried about her reputation. It boggled the mind. Which brought up another question.

“I’m not making any judgments, Susan. I can only imagine how horrible that time must have been for you, but I do wonder why you never spoke up about your doubts. You were on the news nonstop, always being quoted in the papers, and I never once heard you contradict your husband’s assertions that Althea was responsible for what happened to Heather and Darcy.”

Another ragged breath. A fresh rush of tears. “I was afraid of him back then. Still am, I guess. And I was drinking. Not just enough to get numb anymore. Enough to get unconscious. It was the only way I could get through the days, through the pain, and the guilt, and Fred’s constant rages. I kept my mouth shut and I drank. And I went on drinking. And Salem Creek went on believing your grandmother killed my daughters. I live with that too.”

There was plenty for Lizzy to think about as she drove back from Peabody. The troubling dynamics of the Gilmans’ marriage for starters. Not only had Fred Gilman been emotionally abusive; he’d been obsessed with his daughters as well—or at least with Heather, because she’d looked like his dead wife. And there was something about the condoms and his paranoia about Heather’s reputation that didn’t square. Yet Susan had been adamant when she said her husband was incapable of harming his daughters, which basically left her nowhere on the question of Fred Gilman.

But she had come away from the meeting with something—a pair of names scribbled on a paper napkin. Cynthia Draper and Jenny Putnam had been friends of Heather’s until a few months before the murders. It might come to nothing, but it was a place to start. Teenage girls didn’t take being dropped—ghosting, they called it now—lying down. They would have known exactly who had replaced them—and why. Now all she had to do was track them down and get them to talk.

FIFTEEN

July 27

Lizzy wasn’t expecting to find Andrew on the front steps the next morning when she went out for the paper. She was used to him coming to the mudroom door. She was also used to seeing him in jeans, not a blazer and freshly ironed khakis. It was a new look. A good look.

She pulled back the door, running her eyes over him. “What are you doing here?”

“Good morning to you too.”

“Sorry.” She was annoyed to find herself rattled by the sight of him. “I’m just surprised to see you. I was expecting the real estate agent. He’s supposed to come by this morning to discuss my options, none of which are likely to be good.”

Andrew registered this without comment. “I just stopped by to tell you I’m heading out of town for a few days. And also to tell you the barn is now safe. Well, safe-ish. I replaced the cocked-up hinge yesterday, but I need to show you something if you have a minute.”

Lizzy checked her watch. Bundy wasn’t due for another twenty minutes. She grabbed her coffee mug and followed him to the barn.

Andrew lifted the crossbar and pulled the door back easily, nodding for her to go ahead of him. The interior was cool and dim, fragrant with the smell of fresh sawdust. He flipped on the light switch just inside the door. “There,” he said, pointing to the loft. “I took down the old ladder, but I noticed the frame around the window is ready to fall in. I’d steer clear of it for the time being. I’ll get to it as soon as I’m back from Boston.”

Lizzy tipped her head back, eyeing the loft window. “Fabulous. What’s in Boston?”

“Potential clients. They’re interviewing architects to renovate their Back Bay townhouse, and I’m on the list. It’s a big job, but it’s right up my alley.”

“That explains the clothes.”

He grinned, grasping his blazer lapels and striking a pose. “You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.”

Lizzy took a sip of coffee, cold now, but welcome after a week and a half without. “How long will you be gone?”

“A week, maybe ten days if all goes well. Anyway, that’s the other reason I’m here.” He reached into his blazer pocket and pulled out a business card. “I wanted to make sure you had my cell, just in case.”

“In case what?”