Page 57 of Go Under

But not tonight. Tonight, Kate had to tear a new wound in her mother’s fragile heart.

“Mom, did Dad ever lie about anyone?”

Catherine coughed, spraying coffee all over the table. Several drops splashed on the beige rug underneath, and Kate winced. She might have to buy her mom a new rug.

“What?” Catherine exclaimed. “Lie about anyone?”

“Yes. Did he ever lie about anyone?”

“What on Earth are you talking about? What brought this on?”

Kate sipped her coffee to give herself time to think of a reply. She wasn’t about to tell her mom that she’d read something to that effect in a letter Elijah Cox had written to another serial killer. “I’m just wondering.”

“Bullshit,” Catherine snapped.

The vehemence in her tone and the vulgarity of her words shocked Kate. Catherine stared at her daughter, eyes flashing. “Did Elijah Cox say that when he was… When you were…”

Her lips trembled, and Kate quickly said, “No, he didn’t.”

Which was true. He didn’t say that when he was trying to kill Kate at St. Anselm’s.

Catherine set her coffee cup on the table, eyes still flashing. “Your father was the most honest man I’ve ever met. God knows he had his flaws, and God also knows we had our trouble, but the one thing William never was was a liar. Unless…” She swallowed. “He tried, Kate. He really did. I know I didn’t always act the best when he didn’t show up for your recitals or take us on the trips he promised, but—”

“I’m not talking about that,” Kate said. “I forgave him for that a long time ago.”

“Then what haven’t you forgiven him for?” Catherine spat. “For God’s sake, Kate, the man died fourteen years ago. Why the hell are you still trying to dig up skeletons? Isn’t it enough that he loved us? That he loved you? That he tried in his own small way to do some good in the world? Why do you have to fixate on everything rotten and… and filthy?”

Sapir and Whorf barked and trotted to the living room, alarmed at Catherine’s outburst. She burst into tears shortly after, which didn’t help their mood. Sapir looked at Kate and whined, his eyes pleading with her to do something, not understanding that Kate was responsible for the state his owner was now in.

Kate looked down at her coffee cup, feeling very small and just about as filthy as could be.

But she had to know. Someone had murdered her father, and everything she could have been, everything she wanted to be, had suddenly and irrevocably changed. At the end of the day, the reason Kate wasn’t with Marcus was because losing her father had broken her, had left her unable to form healthy attachments, unable to let things go, unable to think about the future because her entire existence revolved around the unclear, unanswered, unfair past.

And God damn it, she deserved an answer. She deserved at least that much. She deserved to know why she had been robbed of a life. Not Cox’s bullshit preaching about commandments and plans and destinies. A real reason why, even if it was as mundane and ridiculous as Cox channeling some twisted sexual obsession for her into a convoluted plan to murder dozens of people. Even if it was as mundane as just being in the wrong place at the wrong time when the wrong person was looking at her. Even if—

A tear splashed into her coffee, and she realized she was crying, too. She set her cup down, wiped the tears from her eyes and looked up to see Catherine staring at her. Her lips were pulled down in a petulant frown. On her mother’s elderly face, the look was ugly and pitiful.

“He was a good man,” Catherine insisted. “If anyone says otherwise, then they’re wrong.”

Kate swallowed. When she spoke again, her voice was tremulous and reedy, just like it was the day she was caught making out with Bobby Hostetter in the basement of their home in Chicago. “I just need to know if—”

Catherine grabbed her coffee cup and stood abruptly. More liquid splashed onto the rug, but she ignored it and stomped toward the kitchen, not looking at or speaking to Kate. Kate sat where she was, shoulders rigid, eyes focused on her own cup, which Catherine hadn’t bothered to take.

The dogs trotted after her, casting tentative looks at Kate as they passed. Kate kept looking at her coffee cup, hating that she couldn’t let this go, hating that her mother couldn’t just tell her the truth.

After a minute, Kate heard the soft susurrus of the water faucet and the harsh, muted clink of nickel on porcelain as her mother washed the dishes. She remained where she was for a minute longer before getting to her feet and leaving her mother’s house.

Her headlights cast brilliant beams across the night, illuminating a wide swath of the road ahead. Kate’s eyes followed those beams, allowing her to see oncoming turns and the flat, glossy patches of ice that presented the most dangerous hazards on the road.

Beyond those beams, the world was pitch-black. The lights of Portland proper in the distance only seemed to mock Kate, hinting at a world of brightness just beyond her reach.

It was a mistake to talk to her mother. In her own way, Catherine was as much a slave to the past as Kate was. While Kate couldn’t stop digging, Catherine couldn’t stop burying. Kate wanted to know. Catherine wanted to choose what she knew and what she forgot. She would never give Kate the answers she sought.

Kate’s eyes widened. Maybe she didn’t have to. There was someone else, one other who might know what Cox’s last letter meant and what her father might have done to deserve his punishment.

Kate reached for her phone and dialed a number. When the party on the other end answered, she said, “Yes, this is Special Agent Kate Valentine, badge 0914-BQ. I need to speak to an inmate in your facility.”

“What’s the inmate’s name?”