Quiet in Her Bones Singh, Nalini (the top 100 crime novels of all time .txt) 📖

that I might be about to come face-­to-­face with the perpetrator. But no, that made no sense. Alice couldn’t have locked anyone in here, and if it had been Cora or Elei who had locked the perpetrator inside, they’d have been downstairs calling the police.

“Oh, damn.”

A ­wild-­haired Elei sat slumped against a huge white ­claw-­foot bath, her hand to her forehead. Her fingers were wet with scarlet when she brought them down, her eyes dazed. I couldn’t see any other injuries, so it looked like someone had shoved her in here hard enough for her to fall and hit her head and probably pass out.

“Elei,” I said gently. “It’s Aarav from next door.”

She stared blankly at me before terror blazed to life in the dark of her eyes. “Alice!” Scrabbling to her feet, she pushed past me, almost sending me flying.

By the time I made it downstairs, she was sitting beside her daughter, crying. Her soft, wrinkled hands stroked Alice in the rare areas where her daughter didn’t appear to have wounds or bruises.

“There’s not much else I can do without equipment.” A tightness to Calvin’s voice, his jaw working. It was the first time I’d seen him evidence such open distress. But the man had become a doctor for a reason.

“Why don’t I go outside and flag down the ambulance?” I offered. “Elei, will you come with me? You’re more mobile and can run over if they stop too early on the road.”

It was ­fast-­talking bullshit, but I didn’t have much time.

Elei blinked, but struggled onto her feet. “Yes, we make sure.” Bending, she pressed a kiss to her daughter’s battered face before heading out ahead of me.

Transcript

Session #14

“I’m tired. Sometimes, I want to tell.”

“Tell?”

“About what I did. I know I was justified, but I want the world to tell me I was justified. Isn’t that stupid?”

“You grew up without a lot of external validation. It’s not unusual that you’d feel the need for ­it—­but I’m afraid

I don’t understand your reference to your actions. What did you do?”

“Something bad.”

45

After a short delay while I used the intercom panel in the kitchen to remotely open the Cul-­de-­Sac gates, I found Elei standing in the main drive, ready to wave down the ambulance. The sound of a siren was just beginning to float into the air in the distance. Taking my face in hands made rough by dried blood, she said, “You help Alice. Like pretty mama help Alice.”

The pieces crystalized into a discrete sliver of knowledge. “Cora did this?” When Elei nodded, I said, “Did my mother have Cora beaten as a warning not to touch Alice?”

Another nod. “Beat Alice. Cora beat.” She lifted her left hand, made it into a claw, as Cora’s hand had become after the beating. “This. Cora remember. Long time.”

“Why tonight?”

“Cora hit.” She mimed a backhand slap with her right hand. “No now. Before.”

“Cora hit Alice again before tonight?”

“Yes, yes. Three times.”

And no one had wreaked vengeance, making her bolder.

“Today ­use …” She thrust her hands into her hair, the icy wind blowing her ­blue-­and-­white housedress around her. “Manaia, my Manaia.” It was a sob.

Softball gear abandoned in the kitchen, complete with a ­professional-­weight bat.

Cora’s left hand was damaged, but she could still swing hard with her ­right—­Alice might’ve gone down under the first blow if Cora had caught her unprepared. “Cora has to know this’ll put her in jail for a long time.”

Ducking her head, Elei sucked in a sob. “We no tell.” Tears drenched her voice. “Alice never tell. Shame. Shame.”

It was an ugly thing, but I understood cultural conditioning. My parents had never called the cops, ­either—­what went on inside the home was private. Dirty laundry not for the gawking gazes of strangers.

“You’ll tell this time, won’t you?” It wouldn’t really matter, not with the amount of damage done to Alice and the forensic evidence the cops would no doubt collect, but Elei nodded firmly.

“Jail. In jail.” She stepped out onto the road as the siren began to echo as if it was already in the Cul-­de-­Sac.

“Was Alice angry at my mother for having Cora beaten?” I had to know if my mother had died because she’d tried to help a friend. Even if it had been a violent kind of help that destroyed another human being.

“No angry.” She rose on tiptoe, as if trying to see past the trees. “Inside. Worry. Worry Cora know.”

“Panic?”

“Yes, yes. Panic. But Nina says, she never know. Alice start to think maybe okay. Then Nina gone.”

If some part of Alice believed her wife might’ve murdered my mother in revenge, that’d explain her odd behavior the day I’d sat in her kitchen.

Red and blue and white, bright slashes tearing the veil of night.

A police car pulled up at the same time as the ambulance, and the cops raced inside first, to check that the threat wasn’t waiting hidden in the house. A shouted “Clear!” not long afterward had the paramedics running in, Elei by their side.

A second unmarked police vehicle, blue and red lights flashing behind its black grill, parked behind the ambulance. I wasn’t surprised in the least to see Detective Senior Sergeant Oliver Regan and Constable Sefina Neri step out.

When another marked car pulled up nearby, Regan said something to the uniformed officers and one went to stand by Alice and Cora’s front door, while the other stayed on the main drive.

Regan and Neri came to me.

“Aarav,” Regan said. “Did you make the emergency call?”

“Calvin did.” I nodded to the house across the street, now lit up like a flame against the dark shadow of the bush. The front door opened even as I spoke, Diana stepping out to walk down the path.

While Neri went to head her off, the officer who’d remained on the drive began to set up a perimeter, nudging out the other neighbors who’d finally emerged after sirens pierced the air. Veda was in a thick robe, while Brett had pulled on a puffer jacket. His legs were