The Reappearance of Rachel Price

Bel blinked and Rachel appeared from the darkness behind, up into the container. Not looking at Charlie, eyes only for Bel. Hand twitching at her side like she wanted to reach for her.

“He didn’t,” she said again. “Actually telling the truth for once.”

Bel angled her shoulders, not facing her dad or her mom, halfway between.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked.

“Waited twenty minutes and you didn’t come home,” Rachel answered. “I drove over to your grandpa’s to look for you, saw the books all over the floor. I saw you found my message. I knew you’d come here, to the red truck. I’m sorry.” She dropped her eyes, only for a second. “I didn’t want you to find out like that. Find out at all. This is your family, the people that raised you. I saw how much you loved them, and as much as that hurt me, I didn’t want to hurt you. I never wanted you to know.”

It was too late for that.

“What do you mean he’s telling the truth?” Bel glanced back at Charlie. “He didn’t know you were here?”

Rachel didn’t look at him, spoke about him, spoke around him. “That’s true. He didn’t know I was here the whole time, in this truck. He didn’t know. Because he thought I was dead.”

Now she looked at him, eyes full of fire. The chains rattled as Charlie stepped back, but Rachel wasn’t done.

“He thought I was dead, because that’s what he told Pat to do. That was the plan. You had the rest of it right, Bel. But your grandpa wasn’t supposed to just take me at two o’clock that day. He was supposed to kill me.”

Dad made a sound in his throat, low and guttural.

“Surprised, Charlie?” Rachel threw the words at him, deadly, like her eyes. “Must have been a big surprise when you found me in your kitchen three weeks ago, after being sure I was dead for sixteen years, huh? Everyone else assumed I was dead, but you were the only one who was sure.” She sniffed, a laugh buried there somewhere, deep below. “The look on your face. I thought you’d have a heart attack. Kinda hoped you would.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Charlie croaked.

“Oh, that’s OK.” Rachel clicked her tongue. “Because I do know everything, more than you, in fact. Pat told me everything. Explained it all, so I’d see that it wasn’t his fault. That, really, by keeping me here, he was saving me. He was so desperate to believe that, your dad. So desperate for me to believe it too. That by not killing me, by keeping me here instead, he’d saved me from you.”

“You told Grandpa to kill her?” Bel turned to her dad, almost didn’t recognize him. “Why?” There were too many whys. “Why would Grandpa agree to that?”

Rachel looked between the two of them, eyes hardening one way, glittering the other. “You going to tell her, Charlie?”

Dad darted forward, a crash as he reached the end of his chain. He winced, clutching his chest. “None of this is true, Bel. She’s manipulating you!”

“Right, I’ll tell her, then.”

“Stop talking, Rachel!” he screamed, face reddening, a shadow monster writhing on the ceiling above him. “Don’t listen to her, Bel!”

Bel flicked between her parents, left and right, Mom and Dad.

“She wants the truth, Charlie. She deserves it. And you’re never going to give it to her.” Rachel turned to Bel, eyes soft, teeth away. “Your grandpa agreed to the plan—at least, as far as your dad knew—because Charlie blackmailed him.”

“With what?” Bel asked.

“Another Price secret. What a family, huh?” Rachel said, mouth in a grim line. “When your dad was a teenager, one night, he heard his parents arguing. The night his mom died. He got out of bed just in time to see Pat shove his mom. Maria fell down the stairs, a broken neck, catastrophic head injuries. The coroner reported it as an accident, that she tripped and fell because it was dark. That’s the story Pat told them. But Charlie knew it wasn’t an accident, that she was pushed, his dad killed his mom, whether he meant to or not. He never told anyone, not Pat, not Jeff. Kept it to himself for years, decades, until he saw an opportunity to use it. You probably thought wife-killing ran in the family, huh, Charlie?” she spat in his direction. Back to Bel. “Charlie told Pat that if he didn’t agree to kill me, he would go to the police and tell them what he saw that night. That he’d take it all the way, testify against his dad. That he could make Jeff believe he’d seen it too, and how was your grandpa going to say both of them were lying? That’s why Pat agreed to it. Cowards, all of them.”

Dad’s eyes narrowed on the back of Rachel’s head, taking aim.

“Pat told me,” Rachel said, unaware, “that if he didn’t agree to the plan, didn’t take me, he was scared Charlie would eventually kill me himself, so he was saving me from that. But Charlie had to believe I was dead. And he did.” The chain clattered as Dad started pacing. “Charlie thanked him after, can you believe that? Said he didn’t want to know any of the details, how he’d done it, where my body was, just that it was done. He wanted plausible deniability. Pat always said that if Charlie ever showed remorse, if he regretted it, Pat would reveal what he’d really done, that I was still alive. That they’d find a way to bring me back home. Charlie never mentioned it to him once. He thought he’d had me killed and he never had any doubts about what they did, never regretted it.”

Dad burst into laughter, hitching and hollow.

“What are you doing, Rachel? Bel is never going to believe you. She doesn’t even know you! Bel! Look at me, kiddo!”

She did, but only for a second, his eyes red and wild, stalactites of spit hanging from his teeth. She turned back to Rachel, her face wounded but quiet.

“Why would he want to kill you?” Bel asked, looking at both of her parents, head spinning, because she couldn’t see both at the same time.

Rachel sighed. “I’d known for a while that Charlie was going to kill me. It wasn’t just when Pat took me. I knew for weeks, months.”

“Why?”

“You know your dad,” she said, not unkindly, “maybe better than I do. You know how it works. How everything orbits around him, how he’s always right. Controls everyone in the family, even if they don’t know it. You noticed how everyone says sorry to him, but he never says it back, because he’s never wrong. He thought he could control me too. I was too young when I married him, naïve, and he was so much older, so he had to be right about everything. But … being your mom changed me, and I started to see how he really was. I think he saw me pulling away from him, so he tried to pull me back. For months, he tried to make me think I’d lost my mind, so I’d need him, so I’d never leave.” Rachel pressed her eyes together. “Oh, Rachel, you left the front door open. Rachel, sweetie, you left the oven on, house could have burned down. None of it ever happened. I knew that, but he was good at it, I started to doubt myself.” She threw a look at him, bitter and cold. “You made a mistake, though, Charlie, a big one. That last Christmas. Rachel, you left Annabel in the bathtub alone, she could have drowned. Him holding you, you screaming. That’s when I knew. I’d never forget about you, you were my world. I knew he was dangerous, that I had to leave him. I think Charlie could tell he’d lost, that I was going to leave, and he couldn’t live with that, oh no. That’s why he wanted to kill me. The final way to control me.”

“Oh, come on!” Dad strained against his chain, stamping his free foot, the container shuddering. “Do you hear yourself, Rachel? You need help, honestly. These fantasies in your head. Bel doesn’t believe any of this! I raised her smarter than that!”

He had raised her, and she was smart, but he was wrong. She believed Rachel, because Bel never left the front door open, or the trash unsealed, she never smashed that fucking mug, and Dad left her in a Taco Bell parking lot for hours, not minutes. But she was smart enough to see something else too, all the things Rachel left out.

“But you were leaving, weren’t you?” Bel said. “You borrowed three thousand dollars from Julian Tripp two days before you went missing. You were going to use it to leave us, to run away.”

Rachel nodded, a sad smile dragging down the corners of her mouth. “You’re right, Bel. And you are smart, not because of him. Your dad had taken my bank cards off me by that point. For my own good, he said, because I maxed out a credit card and forgot I’d done it. It was a lie. But I didn’t have access to my money, and I needed some if I was going to leave. I knew he was going to kill me. It wasn’t a question of if, it was how long I had left. I didn’t think I had enough time to see this credit card thing play out, especially when he then pretended my car was broken, to isolate me more. I couldn’t wait. Julian was my only friend; work was the one place I was free from Charlie. I knew if I asked Julian, after school, he’d give me the money. And he did, just a couple days later. Three thousand dollars. It was enough. Then Charlie fixed my car for me, and I knew I had to leave, that day, before it was too late. That exact day. Wednesday, February thirteenth. You’re right, Bel. I was running away. And I was taking you with me.”

Bel breathed out the rest of the darkness, a shudder up her spine, but it wasn’t a shiver, it was warm. There they were. The words she’d waited her whole life to hear, never knew it until this moment. Her mom didn’t leave her behind, didn’t choose to abandon her. Bel had always been a part of the plan; they were supposed to leave together.

A tear broke free, clinging to her lashes.

Rachel reached out, stroked her thumb along Bel’s wrist, the warm shiver there too.

“I’d been planning for weeks, Bel. The entire thing. And now I had the money, it was time to go through with it. That’s what happened in the mall, why I disappeared twice that day. The first time was planned. It’s true, what I told you, how we disappeared in the mall. The recycling bin behind that Staff Only door. But it wasn’t a coincidence, and it wasn’t because I thought a stalker was watching us. I’d been visiting the mall for weeks, working it all out, tracking the cameras, finding a blind spot by that door. What time those bins were taken out the side door every day, where they took them, how long until the recycling was collected, if there were cameras there. I knew if we could get through that door, into one of those bins, and be wheeled out, park the car a few streets over, no one would ever know. The Staff Only door wasn’t left unlocked; I swiped a key from someone two weeks before. I was ready, Bel. And it worked. We disappeared inside that mall, no trace of us leaving. You were so good inside that bin, like you knew it was important that we weren’t caught. I wanted people to think we’d disappeared close to home, an impossible mystery to keep them occupied, so they’d never look for us anywhere else, so Charlie would have no idea where we went.”

Rachel paused for breath, eyes darkening with the story.

“I didn’t know … it was the same day Charlie and Pat agreed to carry out their plan too. Charlie was going to cut his hand around two o’clock, to begin his alibi. That’s when Pat was supposed to get me, at home. Pat arrived just in time to see us leaving, heading for the mall, so he followed us to Berlin. Parked near our car, waited for us to get back. We were gone for hours, Bel, hiding in that bin, waiting to be wheeled out. But Pat couldn’t call Charlie to tell him something had gone wrong with the timing. Charlie’s alibi had to be perfect; no link between them, no phone calls. So Pat waited. Followed us when we finally got back to the car. He thought we were heading home, but we were on our way to disappear for good, to find a new home. That’s why I drove the back roads, so no cameras would pick up our plates. I didn’t know Pat was behind us the whole way. We were on that quiet road and he saw his opportunity, sped up to overtake us, braking in front. I had to swerve off the road to avoid hitting him. You were OK, Bel. Always such a brave girl. I got out of the car to scream at this other driver. Then I realized it was Pat. I asked what the hell he was doing, he could have killed us. He said he had to show me something, it was an emergency. I knew our plan was already ruined, because Pat had seen us after we disappeared. I was distracted, thinking about what the hell to do, so I didn’t see the cuffs in his hand. He opened his trunk. Grabbed my wrists, shoved me inside, closed the door. I screamed for him to let me out, kicking against the latch, but then there was this awful moment, when I realized I’d left you with the door open. It was freezing out. I stopped screaming for me and I started screaming for you, telling Pat I didn’t care what he did to me but he had to go back and close the door to make sure you were OK. He did, he checked that the heater was on, and he shut the door. He says you saw him, Bel, you called out to him. He gave you a juice box and left you there in the backseat. He wanted me to know he’d never hurt his granddaughter, promised to take care of you while I couldn’t. Then he brought me here.” She opened her hands, gesturing at the makeshift prison cell.

Bel took it all in again, the grooved foam along the ceiling, to the chain around Dad’s ankle that disappeared outside. This small, dark room; her mom’s home for all that time. She tried to imagine it as Rachel saw it that first day, the edges growing sharper, shadows deeper, walls closing in. How had she survived all that?

Rachel seemed to read her mind, knowing the look in her eyes, as Bel now knew hers.

“Pat had about a week to put this all together, after Charlie asked him to kill me. Insulated it.” She pointed at the foam. “For the temperature, but I always thought it was so no one could hear me scream. No one ever did.” She sniffed. “I was cuffed around the ankle. Holes for ventilation, in the walls and ceiling. He put a generator out back, ran a cable through the hole in the wall there. So I had an electric heater in winter, a fan for summer. God, summer was awful in here, so hot I could hardly move. Had a lamp I could use those months when the generator was on, so I wasn’t living in darkness. Other times I had flashlights, enough batteries to keep one on the entire time. He came twice a week, with food and water, any other supplies I asked for. Sat with me for a while with the door open; I always thought it was my chance to convince him to let me go. I think I got close, a couple times. But he said it could only happen if Charlie ever came to him, sorry for what they’d done. Otherwise, he said letting me go would be the same as letting me die, that Charlie would kill me himself. He would bring me a new book, every couple of weeks.” Rachel found Bel’s eyes again, anchoring her to here and now, where she wasn’t the one chained up. “But you know that already, found them all. I thought Pat would take them to a secondhand bookstore, or give them to you. Didn’t think he’d keep them all this time. He was never much of a reader.”

“He used to read to me,” Bel spoke around the lump in her throat. “Those same books, after you’d read them.”

Rachel’s eyes glittered again.

“I asked him to do that. Thought when you got old enough, maybe you’d see the marks, find the message.”

“I’m sorry.” Bel’s eyes dropped to the floor, the guilt too heavy, dragging them down.

“It’s not your fault, Bel.” Rachel ran her hand down Bel’s arm, up the other, until her eyes returned. “You didn’t know. I had to make it so faint, barely visible. Honestly, I’m not surprised no one ever found them. There was no other way. Pat had given me a pencil and a notebook, for writing down supplies I needed. Then when he brought me the first book, I just wrote the message out, big letters above chapter one. But Pat flipped through it, found the message right away. He told me he’d burned the book, that he couldn’t bring me any more if I tried that again. So I had to be smarter about it, hide a message that Pat couldn’t find, because I knew he’d be checking, each time I gave a book back. The Memory Thief, that was the second book he ever brought me, the first one I hid that message in. Why it’s my favorite. I used to tell him it was a special book, never told him why. Even though it didn’t work, it gave me something to live for, it gave me hope.”

Bel felt her eyes glaze too, glittering in the same way as Rachel’s, un-cried tears for all those missed chances, years of being so close and never knowing.

“So you and me were running away. That’s why the three thousand dollars, why we disappeared inside the mall. But then Grandpa intercepted us, took you. That’s why you disappeared twice; one was planned, one wasn’t.”

Rachel nodded.

“But what was the rest of your plan?” Bel asked. The chain rattled, making her jump, and she’d almost forgotten Dad was here, watching them. “Where were we going after the mall?”

Bel had to know what life Rachel had planned for them, what the other way would have been. She’d lived one already, the tiny girl left abandoned in the backseat, her life a mystery for others to gawk at, terrified of ever being left again, knowing it was inevitable. Bel needed to know the other way, the other life she could have had, what Dad and Grandpa took from her.

“A few weeks before that day,” Rachel said, “before Charlie cut me off from my money, I’d bought another car. This cheap thing, unregistered, from a couple who just wanted cash. I’d parked it in Randolph, a street with just vacation homes, no one around to report it. We were going to swap cars, sink my old one in Lake Durand. From there, drive to Vermont, a town called Barton.”

“Where Robert Meyer lives,” Bel said, filling in the gap, knowing where the rest of this was going, because she’d lived a version of it the last two weeks.

“Jeff’s friend Bob.” Rachel nodded. “He used to drop him into conversation whenever he could. Told me once that Bob sold fake identities from the dark web, that it wasn’t as expensive as I thought either. Jeff didn’t know how much that stuck with me, how much I’d need it later. I got Bob’s number and address from Jeff’s phone in that final week. Wrote them down on a piece of paper, actually, because I was going to leave my phone behind in the car at the bottom of a lake. That paper is one of the only things I had in my pocket when Pat took me. That and Julian’s three thousand dollars. Pat never found the money, I hid it. But that bit of paper, I looked at it so many times, how close we’d been to our new life. I memorized it all, the phone number, address. Used to recite it sometimes, test myself. We were going to turn up at Bob’s house that night, and buy a full new identity for you and me, Bel. We had the money, and enough left to help us start over. From there we’d go to a private airfield, near the border. Convince someone flying a small aircraft to take us into Canada. We would have had our new passports, for the flight plan, for the authorities, and no one would have known it was really us. From there, with our new names, we would make our way to this tiny town, called Dalhousie, in New Brunswick. Only a few thousand people, not a lot of tourists. I looked it up on the computers at school, so there’d be no trace to me. Charlie would never have found us, no one would. That was going to be our new home. We could have disappeared there. We could have been happy there. A family.”

Bel blinked. They could have been happy there, a way that would have hurt less than the one she’d lived. Rachel had only forgotten one thing: she didn’t just have the paper with Bob’s number and the three thousand dollars when Grandpa kidnapped her, she must have had Bel’s sock too. The little pink frilly one that she’d brought back when she came back from the dead.

“That’s how you knew how to set everything up,” Bel said. “Make it look like Dad left the country, ran away with a new identity. Because it was meant to be our plan.”

“It was meant to be our plan,” Rachel repeated.

“Wait,” Charlie spluttered, pulling against his chain, waving for Bel’s attention. “What do you mean it looks like I ran away?”

Bel set her jaw. “You ran away, bought a new identity from Robert Meyer, ditched your old passport and phone in a private airfield in Vermont and boarded a small aircraft to Canada with a new name. That’s where the police think you are now, they aren’t looking for you anymore.”

Bel watched the change in his face, the shift in his eyes, the panic he couldn’t hide from her or Rachel.

“No one’s looking for me?” he said, voice desperate and raw, on the way to a shout.

“I looked for you,” Bel said, but Dad must have not heard her.

“No one’s looking for me?!” He was shouting now, a flush of angry red creeping up his neck, reaching his eyes. “They think I ran away?!”

“Well, you did run away.” Rachel stepped in front of Bel, her body a barricade between them.

“Liar!” he screamed, tilting forward, swiping his arms. He couldn’t reach her, chain straining behind him. “Bel knows I would never—”

“You left in the middle of the night, Charlie. Packed a bag and took your passport; I didn’t even have to do those things for you.”

“Lying bitch!”

Rachel bared her teeth at him, a cruel smile. “I thought it would make you squirm, me coming back from the dead. I hoped it would. Me, alive, telling the world it was a stranger who took me. You couldn’t even ask your dad about it, the only other person who knew the truth, because he can no longer remember any of it. I bet you tried, didn’t you? Wondering how much I knew, what I was going to do about it. But come on, you only lasted a week. Then you set off in the middle of the night, running away before the consequences could catch up to you. I knew it was a possibility,” she said to Bel. “I wasn’t sleeping at night, in case he tried it. I set off a couple minutes after he did, caught him before he even got to Main Street. Told him it was time I told him the truth, what really happened to me, but I couldn’t say it, I had to show him. Drove us here, led him to the truck. Pretended I only knew it was Pat who took me, working alone, that Charlie must not have known what his father was truly capable of. I saw the glint in his eye, I know how his mind works; he was figuring out a way to save himself, to pin the whole thing on his own dad without a second thought. I showed him where the generator plugged in and while he wasn’t looking, I slipped the cuff around his ankle, locked it. The look on his face, when he knew that I knew.”

“Liar!” Charlie screeched, a line of spit trailing down his chin. “Bel knows I wouldn’t leave. You’re crazy, Rachel! Bel doesn’t believe any of this!”

She didn’t want to, her gut struggling against it, but she had to believe it. Dad had left her, and it wasn’t just his word against Rachel’s, one parent against the other, because Phillip Alves had seen it too.

“Bel,” Dad said, staring through Rachel at her. “Look at me, kiddo. Don’t listen to her, she’s crazy. You have to trust me. What proof do you have that anything she’s saying is true?”

Bel’s heart betrayed her, reacting to his voice, forcing itself against her ribs, trying to get to him. Her eyes flicked between him and Rachel. “The money, Dad. I knew about the three thousand dollars from Mr. Tripp. I found the books at Grandpa’s house, the message she left. It’s what led me here. And Phillip Alves; he saw you leaving that night.”

“You don’t think she could have set those things up?” His eyes softened. “She’s manipulating you, kiddo. She’s unwell. We need to get her help, you and me, OK? But you need to get me out of here, now.”

“Charlie—” Rachel began.

“I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to my daughter!”

“Our daughter,” Rachel said, something new in her eyes, hard and unmovable, staring him down.

“Rachel has the key to the cuff, Bel. You need to get me out of here. I’ve been in this hellhole for two weeks, Bel, please help me.”

“Two weeks.” Rachel forced out a laugh. “You’ve done two weeks, Charlie. You have no idea what I went through in here. Try fifteen years!”

Dad opened his mouth to respond, but Bel spoke over him.

“Fifteen years.” She touched Rachel’s shoulder, turned her around. “Not the first time you’ve said that. Even though it’s been more than sixteen years since that day. So you didn’t get out of here three weeks ago, when you reappeared?”

“No.”

“When did you get out?”

“Last summer,” Rachel said. “August. When your grandpa had his first stroke.”

Bel stared at her, rewriting everything again. She hadn’t stopped to think about it, what had happened to Rachel when Grandpa went to the hospital, when he lost his memory and Rachel along with it.

“He normally came by twice a week, with supplies,” she said. “I wasn’t worried when he missed one, thought he was just busy. Then he missed another. I started to ration food and water, just in case. I didn’t know he was in the hospital, recovering from his stroke. After two weeks, I thought he was leaving me in here to die, that he couldn’t go through with this anymore but wasn’t strong enough to kill me himself. The food was almost gone, water too. The generator went off, no one to fill up the gas. No fan, no light. It was so hot, I was sweating so much, not enough water to save me from it. I thought I was dying, here alone in the dark. Could feel all my bones. I was so dehydrated, so thin, that I didn’t need the key anymore, the cuff slipped right off, over my foot. I was free for the first time, but I couldn’t open the door, not from the inside.” Her eyes were heavy, reliving it: her slow death, right here. “I tried everything. Tried making tools out of empty cans, the fan, something to force the door. Nothing worked. I was going to die in here. It was twenty-one days since I’d last seen Pat. And then I heard someone moving around outside. I was so weak, but I managed to hit a flashlight against the door, over and over, screaming for help.”

Rachel stared at the door, now open into the endless black night.

“It opened. I’d gotten so used to the darkness that I couldn’t see anything for a few seconds. Then I heard his voice, Pat’s, asking who I was.” Rachel shook her head. “I didn’t understand, thought it was some kind of cruel joke. He asked me what I was doing here on his yard and who I was. And I realized; he really didn’t know who I was. Didn’t remember me or that he was the one keeping me here. I figured it must have been a stroke, and there was significant damage to his brain, to his memories. It was my one chance and I wasn’t going to lose it. I wasn’t chained up anymore and the door was open. I told your grandpa that I was a Realtor, looking for a client interested in buying the yard, that I’d accidentally gotten trapped inside the truck and I’d been there all day. He told me he was sorry that happened. He actually apologized to me. I grabbed some things, the three thousand dollars, and then I was free. Pat even held the door open for me as I climbed out. Asked to give him a call if there were any offers on the yard. He didn’t remember me. I didn’t even need to run. I couldn’t have run, if I’d wanted to. I just walked right out of here. First thing I did, drank from the river until I was sick. Found a car parked by the trailhead, across the bridge. They had food and water, clothes and camping gear. I took it all. Stayed in the trees for a few days until I had my strength back.”

Bel nodded, the final pieces coming together now, all the signs and half-truths she’d uncovered, showing her the way.

“You escaped eight, nine months ago,” she said. “Why didn’t you come home then?”

Rachel bit down on her lip, a ghostly imprint of her front teeth when she let it go. “I almost did. Almost went straight to the Gorham Police, I was so desperate to see you again. But I stopped myself. It was like the message in the books. I messed up the first one, and I knew I needed to be smarter about this. I only had one chance to return, and I wanted to be prepared, wanted to do it right. So I left town, left New Hampshire. Dyed my hair in a gas station toilet, caught a Greyhound, then another. Ended up in small town called Millinocket, in Maine. I thought it was far enough away, and people wouldn’t recognize me with my hair, how thin I was. I had those three thousand dollars to get started. Rented a room. Got work as a maid, cash in hand. And I planned. I researched, and I was careful about it. Public computers, not close to where I was staying. I found your old Instagram, Bel. I must have looked at that photo of you with the bracelet a thousand times. More. Kept me going. And I needed it: your grandpa never told me Charlie had been arrested back then, that a jury found him not guilty of my murder. That terrified me; that they had gotten it so wrong, found him innocent of exactly what he had done, or what he’d tried to do. I knew I could never go to the police with the truth, couldn’t trust the criminal justice system to punish Charlie for what he’d done. How would it even work? There was no DNA evidence tying Charlie to any of the scenes because he hadn’t been there. And the only witness I had couldn’t remember any of it, what Charlie told him to do to me. No. The truth wasn’t the way to get to Charlie, to get him away from you. So I came up with a different plan, a different story about where I’d been, and what I’d do to those who’d done this to me. There was more … something else I needed to find before I came back. Took a while. Turned out it was closer to home than I thought.”

“You mean the clothes?” Bel asked. “The red top and black jeans from that boutique in New Conway? That was you, wasn’t it, in January?”

A shift in Rachel’s eyes, sharper. Not like she was angry, like she was proud somehow. Her well-laid plans and Bel unraveling them all, both living a lie under the same roof. Like mother like daughter.

“Yes. That was me. I’d moved closer, staying in a trailer near Lancaster. Borrowed a neighbor’s car when they weren’t home. That’s where I originally bought that red top, those jeans, thought I’d find something similar, remove the labels so police couldn’t date them, turn them into rags. Pat threw out the original clothes, burned them, actually. Brought me new clothes every year. For Christmas.”

Rachel approached the pile of clothes, taking her within the boundary of Dad’s chain. He didn’t move, watching her closely as she kicked out at the old tops and sweaters, breaking apart the small mountain of fabric.

“When I was ready, when it was time, I cut my hair off, put on those ruined clothes. Fresh wound on my ankle I’d been working on, like I just escaped the cuff. I destroyed every last trace of me from that trailer. Left a tote bag I’d worn over my face on that road. Then I walked home. I know I messed the story up a couple of times, Bel. It was so hard, lying to your face, like you were being punished too. But I didn’t think you’d accept the truth if I told you, you weren’t ready. These people raised you, you love them. I thought I had to do it all on my own, the only one who’d ever know. Well, me and your dad, because he had to go, of course. But I’m so glad you’re here with me now. That I’m not alone anymore.”

Rachel breathed out and so did Bel. There it was; the whole truth. Bel had been right about everything, and wrong about more. Rachel had lied, had planned both her disappearance and her reappearance. Just not in the way Bel could have ever guessed.

“And what’s your plan now, huh, Rachel?” Charlie spat in her direction.

“This.” She sharpened her chin, opened her arms. “That you go through the exact same thing you did to me, Charlie. Fifteen years, five months, twenty-five days. You’ve done thirteen days. Bit of a ways to go.”

“You’re fucking crazy!”

“Think of it like I’m saving you, Charlie. The only other option was to kill you.”

“Are you listening to this, Bel?” He forgot to take the edge out of his voice, the fire out of his eyes. “She’s fucking crazy. Talking about killing me.”

“You killed me first, honey,” Rachel hissed.

“Bel!”

“Stop!” Bel raised her hands, coming to stand between her parents, stopping in the middle. “Stop it!”

Rachel held her hands up too, a flash of fear in her eyes. “Careful, Bel. Don’t get too close to him.”

There was fear in Charlie’s eyes too, but it didn’t take the same shape as her mom’s. “Rachel has the key,” he said. “We can sort everything out, kiddo, OK? Get everyone the help they need. But you have to get the key from her. You need to set me free.”

Bel glanced back at Rachel, hooking onto her eyes, so much like her own. She’d always hated that, always wished she’d been born with the Price eyes.

“Bel, get the key!”

Dad’s voice in one ear, Mom’s in the other.

“It’s OK, Bel,” Rachel said gently, one hand disappearing behind, to her pocket. She brought it back, opened it. A small silver key on her outstretched palm. “It’s right here.”

Charlie strained against his chain, swiping toward Rachel, the disturbed air fluttering her hair.

“I can’t reach!” he screamed. “Grab the key, Bel. NOW!”

Bel stared down at it, against Rachel’s pale skin. Her fingers twitched, Dad’s heavy breath in time with her own.

“You’ve told me everything, right?” she asked, still looking at the key. “No more lies?”

A twitch by Rachel’s mouth, the truth in her eyes. “No,” she said. “There’s something else. There’s more I need to tell you, but not here, like this. I promise to tell you everything. I will never lie to you again.”

“Bel, grab the key!” Dad screeched. He put a heavy hand on her shoulder, thumb pressing against her bare neck. He gave her a gentle push, one step toward Rachel, out of the middle. “Get the key, kiddo,” he whispered, letting her go.

“What do you mean there’s more?” Bel stared at Rachel. “What haven’t you told me?”

“She’s trying to manipulate you. Stop listening. Just take the key.”

“I’ll tell you everything. Not here. He can’t know.”

“Shut the fuck up, Rachel! Bel, get the key.”

His fingers against her back, another nudge, pushing her farther out of the middle, toward Rachel.

“You can take it if you want,” Rachel said, a tear falling, catching at the crack in her lips. “I won’t try to stop you. It’s your choice. You haven’t had a lot of choice in your life, Bel. Now you do.”

Bel looked over her shoulder at Dad, then back to Mom.

“Take it, Bel. Come on.”

“It’s OK, sweetie,” Rachel said. “I’ll understand.”

But Dad wouldn’t.

Bel took a step forward.

“Yes, that’s it, kiddo.” His voice hovered behind her, urging her on, her heart throwing itself against the bars of her rib cage, pulling both ways, and neither.

“It’s OK.” Rachel watched Bel take another step toward her.

“She knows it’s OK, stop talking to her, Rachel!” Dad’s voice seemed farther away now.

Bel’s eyes watered, holding the key in place, there on Rachel’s hand.

Take the key or don’t.

Choose Charlie or Rachel. Mom or Dad.

Her lies or his.

Eyes on the key.

One way or the other, because Bel couldn’t have both. One couldn’t exist if the other did. She’d made this choice already, head and heart and gut. Chose the man who’d raised her, because they were a team, always had been. Both had lied to her, Mom and Dad, standing here in no-man’s-land between them, lost, the after-ring in her ears, and an ending that was hers to choose.

So choose.

Bel took another step, feet unsteady.

And what would it come down to, in the end? The one she knew more, the one she’d loved longer, loved harder, the one who came back from the dead for her? One all her life, one for just three weeks. Second thoughts pitted themselves against each other, streaming behind her eyes.

But maybe only one truth really mattered, when you took it all away, threw out those memories or the space where they should have been. Who had chosen to leave her behind and who hadn’t. Bel tore her gaze from the key, circling Rachel’s eyes, the color and shape of her own. Back to the key.

Rachel nodded.

“You have to get me out of here, kiddo. Please!”

Blurred edges, eyes crossing, splicing the key into two. She blinked until her vision righted, because there was only one. She could only choose one.

Mom.

Or.

Dad.

His.

Side.

Or.

Hers.

One.

Or.

The.

Other.

Bel chose. And she chose right this time. Head and heart and gut.

She closed the gap between her and Rachel, eyes fixed on the key, watering because she couldn’t blink, blink and everything might disappear. Bel reached out, fingers gliding through the air, a shiver as she touched the skin of Rachel’s palm. Warm, not cold.

She closed Rachel’s hand around the key, into a fist. Skin to skin, bone to bone. Held it there, tight.

Eyes on her mom’s.

She chose her.

“Bel!” Dad screamed. He couldn’t see.

Bel let go, though something of her stayed behind, there in Rachel’s closed hand. She stood beside her mom.

“No, Dad,” she said, darkly, meeting his eye.

“What are you talking about?” He blinked because he didn’t understand. She knew he wouldn’t. “Don’t be stupid. Get the key.”

“I said no.” And she didn’t say sorry.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” he screeched, backing away, chain clattering. “You can’t be serious. You have to let me go! She’s brainwashed you.”

“I’ve made my choice, Charlie.” Bel’s heart didn’t waver, not at the pleading in his voice. She didn’t know this man, not really, and her heart didn’t either. Family first, and he wasn’t her family anymore. He never was.

“Bel, stop, you must be fucking crazy!”

“Yeah, I must be,” she said, shutting him out, doing that thing she did, the thing she’d gotten so good at because she’d had to, to survive. She pushed him away.

Charlie sucked at the stale air. “No, no, no,” he said to himself, a crescendo building in his chest. “No!” he barked. “No!” he screamed, strings of spit holding his teeth together, an animal look in his eye. “You can’t leave me in here! YOU CAN’T!”

“Why not?” Bel said. He’d left her. He’d decided to kill Rachel. He’d chosen for Bel, that tiny babbling girl, picked the way that hurt less for him but ruined her. The knot in her gut she hadn’t felt so much since he’d been gone.

“I’m begging you!” he screamed, hands in front of his chest. “You can’t leave me in here!”

Bel glanced at her mom.

A blink, a hidden message inside it. Yes, they could leave him in here. A new family secret, dark only because of the ones that came before, one that bound the two of them together. Mother and daughter. Mom and Bel. A team.

“No!”

A roar as he bounded toward them, chain pulling taut with a crash of metal. Charlie’s hand scrabbled the air, fingers closing around Bel’s sleeve, pulling her toward him and those desperate, hungry eyes.

Bel dug her nails into his flesh, scratching deep. Rachel stamped on his foot, pulled Bel out of his grip. She bared her teeth, eyes glittering the same way they had when another man tried to hurt her daughter.

“Do not touch her!” She stood in front of Bel. “I can make it even worse for you!”

“Don’t leave me here!” he howled, empty swipes at the air, slipping, crashing to his knees. “I’ll kill you, Rachel! I should have fucking killed you!”

Mom reached back, took Bel’s hand. Gave it a squeeze.

It was time to go.

“I’ll fucking kill you!”

Bel turned toward the open doorway, a black frame, the empty night beyond, waiting for them.

But it wasn’t empty.

A white ball of light, floating up the tires. A dark shape looming behind it.

A new voice and a pair of eyes, glowing in the night.

“What the fuck is going on here?”