The door pushed open, shushing on its hinges.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice sailed into the room. “The girl at the front desk said you were filming in here.”
Did Bel know that voice? There was a flicker of recognition, but she couldn’t place it, not without a face. She tried to see, her stomach clenched, slug waiting in her mouth.
Clicking heels on polished wood as the woman approached them.
Ramsey pushed up from his chair, nodding at James behind the camera as he did.
“Hello,” he said in a bright voice. “Thank you so much for arriving so early, I hope your journey was OK. We were just finishing up here, Susan.”
Bel swallowed, jaw unclenching. For a second there, she’d thought he was about to say R—
“Nice to finally meet you in person,” the woman said, walking over to Ramsey, taking his outstretched hand, bracelets tinkling at her wrist as she shook it up and down.
Susan? Why couldn’t Bel think of any Susans?
“Likewise,” Ramsey replied.
She stepped into the light, well-dressed in a dark skirt suit and a frilly emerald scarf, and Bel could finally see who she was. Of course. Because she wasn’t Susan to Bel. She was Grandma. Rachel’s mom.
“Rams, should I—” Ash began, still floating there awkwardly, an unclear hand gesture, thumb pointed at Bel.
“Oh, well now,” Grandma said to Ash, looking him up and down. “Aren’t you quite something?”
Bel stood, cushions falling out of their neat arrangement behind her.
“Hi, Grandma.”
The camera stood up with her, James removing it from the stand and placing it on his shoulder in one swift movement, stepping back to widen the shot.
Grandma blinked back at her.
“That isn’t my Annabel, is it?” she said, voice rising at the end. “Oh my goodness, just look at you.”
In the next moment, Bel’s face was pushed into that frilly emerald scarf, as Grandma folded her into a tight hug, a cloying smell of perfume filling the back of her throat.
“I can’t believe it, you look so grown-up.”
“Well,” Bel said, her rib cage too tight. “That’s because I did grow up. I’ve looked like this for a few years now.”
Grandma stood back to study Bel, bony fingers hooking onto her shoulders.
“God, you look so much like Rachel.”
No she fucking didn’t.
Grandma’s eyes misted over, a tremble in her bottom lip as she bit down on it.
“Grandaddy would have been so proud to see you all grown up. I’m sad he missed it. If only your father hadn’t kept us away from you so much. Cruel, really. My only grandchild.”
She let go of Bel and reached into her pocket for a wrinkled tissue, blowing her nose loudly, a bird-caw filling the room.
“Didn’t even let you come to the funeral.” Grandma sniffed.
Bel wouldn’t let that slide.
“That’s because you told him you didn’t want him there,” she replied, sharpening her tongue, locking her jaw. Was Bel allowed to swear at the woman—how old was she? Early seventies? That was acceptable, right?
“But I wanted you there, Grandaddy would have too. But the only thing he really wanted, before he died, was to finally see his daughter’s killer behind bars. Where he belongs,” she said pointedly, wiping her nose again for effect. And then: “Cancer. Four years ago,” speaking the words in Ramsey’s direction.
“Very sorry,” he said, almost a whisper, like he didn’t want to intrude on the scene, disappearing into the background. Were they supposed to be filming this?
Grandma smiled sweetly at her, but all Bel could think of was Dad calling Susan a Masshole. Because she was from Massachusetts, and she was an—
“Oh, I’ve just had a perfect idea,” she continued, oblivious. “You could come stay with me this summer. It would be so lovely; you can help me out with the horses. Spend some time in the house your mom grew up in, get away from that man. What do you think, Annabel?”
What did Bel think? That it was an empty offer, and if Grandma really cared, she would have visited, or called. But she didn’t. And when these cameras were gone, she’d fly off and disappear again. People did that.
“Sounds too good to be true,” Bel said. See, she could be an asshole too. “And that man is my dad.”
Grandma’s teeth snapped together. “That man is—”
“He did not kill Rachel.”
Bel’s eyes filled with fire, just the two of them in the room … and a British film crew, hiding in the dark. “You got what you wanted, Grandma. He was charged with first-degree murder. He did his time in jail, waiting for the trial. And guess what? They found him innocent.”
“Not guilty is not the same as innocent. And juries can get it wrong,” Grandma said, lips moving too much around the words. “I’m not the only one who thinks so. Everyone knows he did it.”
“He had an alibi,” Bel spat back, throwing in an angry smile. “You seem to conveniently forget this.”
“He still had time,” Grandma scoffed, turning to find Ramsey.
No, Bel would not let her have the last word; not when the cameras were watching, not about Dad.
“He was at work that day. At around two o’clock, he cut his hand. Badly.”
“Injuries sustained when he killed her.”
Bel laughed. “There were witnesses. Multiple people in the auto repair shop who saw him cut his hand, Grandma. He bandaged it up and drove to the nearest emergency room.”
“In Berlin, where you and Rachel were.” Grandma’s eyes lightened, like she’d scored a point. Just wait: Bel was going to bury her.
“That’s a coincidence.” She locked her jaw and took aim. “He’s captured by security cameras the entire time he’s waiting for a nurse to get his stitches. The entire time he’s in the hospital. He leaves at five-thirty-eight exactly and drives home. That takes around sixteen minutes, by the way, like his defense attorney said. Which brings us to five-fifty-four p.m. when Dad gets home. I’m found by Mr. Tripp a couple minutes after six p.m. The police arrive and call Dad at six-twenty-five, once they identify me from Rachel’s ID. Dad was home for that call. Plus an earlier call to Rachel’s phone at six-oh-four, when he’s wondering where we are, which also pinged the cell tower proving he was at home. If you’re saying he drove straight to the abduction site, nineteen minutes away from the hospital, that means he had only eight minutes to abduct Rachel, kill her, dispose of her, and get home in time for that phone call. The drive home itself is six minutes. It’s impossible. He didn’t do it.” Bel caught her breath. She’d learned it all by heart long ago; wasn’t the first time she’d had to use it. “You think that’s enough time to kill someone and hide the body forever?”
Grandma looked pale, skin hanging in creases around her mouth; a life spent frowning. “That’s your mother you’re talking about.”
That word again. Just as unnatural in Grandma’s voice.
“What’s going on here?” A new voice entered the room, one Bel would know anywhere.
“Dad?” she said, searching for him beyond the glare.
Charlie’s silhouette crossed the room toward the film set, boots heavy against the floorboards, shoulders heavy inside his grease-stained shirt.
“You told me you’d be done with Bel at two,” he said, eyes on Ramsey, one dirty hand skirting over his short hair, dark creamy brown like he had his coffee, a touch of gray at the temples. “It’s almost three-thirty. I got worried, her phone’s off.”
“Sorry.” Ramsey bowed his head. “Time got away from us.”
“Charlie Price,” Grandma said, holding on too long to the hiss at the end of his name.
Charlie’s eyes finally found her, widened in recognition.
Bel caught movement over her dad’s shoulder, watching as Ramsey turned to James. Keep rolling, he mouthed silently, spinning his fingers. The camera obeyed.
“What is she doing here?” Charlie asked the room.
“They’re making a documentary about my daughter, why wouldn’t I be here?” Grandma retorted, puffing up beneath her bright green scarf. She glanced down and wrinkled her nose. “I see you still haven’t learned to wash your hands.”
“I was at work, Susan,” Charlie said evenly. “Some of us work for a living.”
“Urgh, there he goes again,” she sniffed. “So combative all the time, Charlie. Must be awful for you to be around that every day, Annabel sweetie.”
“I—” Bel began.
“It’s OK, Bel, you don’t need to answer that.” Her dad blinked slowly at her, his pale-blue wide-set eyes telling her everything he needed to. Angry people look guilty, he had always said.
“Does he not let you speak, sweetie?”
“Susan, please,” Charlie said through gritted teeth, taking a bite out of the stale air.
“Such a temper,” Grandma replied, but she was the only one with a raised voice.
The knot was there again, in Bel’s gut, tightening and tightening, chasing its own tail.
“Why are you still filming?” Charlie switched his attention to the boom microphone floating above his head, positioned in Saba’s steady hands. “Stop recording, please.”
“Why, Charlie?” Grandma said. “You don’t want the world to see who you really are?”
The air in the room thickened, clotted and gummy as Bel forced it down, feeding that knot in her stomach.
“And who am I really, Susan?” Charlie turned back to her.
“You want me to say it again?”
Charlie backed off, lips pressed into a stiff smile, fingers skimming the stubble on his chin. “No, that’s OK. You’ve said enough over the years. Surprised you aren’t bored of talking to the cameras by now.”
“I’ll stop when everyone knows the truth,” Grandma bit back.
“This is pointless,” Charlie sighed. “You lost your daughter that day, Susan. I lost my wife, life as I knew it. Come on, Bel, grab your things and let’s go. You must be hungry.”
She must be, but she couldn’t feel it around the terrible knot in her stomach.
“I worry about Annabel,” Grandma said then, grasping for her arm again, but Bel stepped out of her reach. “I worry about her in that house, alone with you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Charlie said. “Bel, come on.”
“Coming.” But she didn’t move; she was blocked in between them and the table with the chessboard, stuck in no-man’s-land.
“Ridiculous, is it?” Grandma said, closer to a shriek, the edges of her words crashing together. “Ridiculous how the women close to you all seem to end up dead.”
The room dropped into silence, sickly as it closed in.
Charlie narrowed his eyes, the movement creasing his face the same way as a laugh. “What do you mean by that?”
Grandma’s neck stretched out of her green scarf, like she thought she was winning the war.
“Your mother, she died when you were sixteen, didn’t she?”
Bel tried not to gasp. Grandma couldn’t be implying that …
“That was a tragic accident,” Charlie said, voice low, a muscle ticking in one cheek. “She fell down the stairs and hit her head. I was asleep at the time.”
“Of course you were,” Grandma said, a mocking coo in her voice, like she was soothing a child. “But here’s the thing, two tragic deaths starts to look like a pattern, Charlie.”
Charlie laughed, a hollow sound to hide the hurt, shaking his head. “Great,” he said. “So I’m a wife-killer and a mother-killer now too. Awesome.”
Fuck. He shouldn’t have said that. It was obviously sarcasm, anyone could see that, anyone with sense, but the camera was rolling and in the wrong hands someone could make that look very bad. Why had Dad agreed to this documentary anyway? Nothing good could come of it. Bel needed to do something bigger, something worse, to help him now.
“Fuck you, Susan. Fuck off back to your fucking horses, you horsefucker,” she said.
Now someone in the room did gasp.
Grandma retracted her neck, staring at Bel open-mouthed. Winning shot. Battle over.
“Come on, kiddo,” Charlie said, suppressing a smile as they caught each other’s eyes. “Let’s go.” His face hardened. “Ramsey, I need a word with you, outside. Leave the camera.”
“Yes, sure,” Ramsey replied, emerging once more from the background. “Ash, see if Susan would like a drink. Cup of tea? Coffee?”
“It’s far too late for caffeine,” Grandma sniffed, dropping down on a corner of the couch, defeated.
“Oh, right,” Ash said, shuffling in awkwardly. “Um … beer?”
“No, Ash,” Ramsey hissed, following Charlie to the door. “Get her water or something.”
“Water or something, coming right up.” Ash pointed an assured finger to the ceiling, spinning on his tartan legs to follow Ramsey out.
Grandma wasn’t looking at Bel, avoiding her—no change there, then—digging around for something in her purse. In fact, no one was currently looking at her, Saba and James turning their attention to their respective devices, fiddling with buttons and switches, the camera pointed away. Now was Bel’s chance.
She reached down, fingers outstretched, and swiped the black queen from the chessboard, tucking it up her sleeve before anyone looked. Hers now. The knot came undone in her gut, the pressure easing, a new lightness in her head as she felt the cool marble against her skin. A strong feeling, but it never lasted. At least the thing itself was permanent.
Bel walked away without a backward glance at the queen-less board, or the woman she hardly knew sitting behind it.
“Bye, Grandma,” she called over her shoulder, cheery and bright. “So good to see you! Come visit again sometime.”
Outside in the parking lot, the cool April breeze tickled Bel’s face, the relief already on its way out, a new baby knot of tension ready in her belly, biding its time. Main Street was loud; the noisy whisper of cars, the seismic rumble of a passing eighteen-wheeler, and some kids squawking across the road, playing with the plastic moose outside Scoggins General Store.
Bel spotted her dad and Ramsey, halfway down the lot, close to Dad’s gray four-by-four, dusty and mud-flecked.
“I swear to you,” Ramsey was saying, hands clasped together in front of his chest. “It was not intentional. We went overtime with Bel, it took a little while for her to loosen up. And Susan arrived an hour earlier than we told her. They were not meant to overlap, I promise.”
Bel knew he was telling the truth, but Ramsey hadn’t helped her out back there, so he was on his own.
“That didn’t stop you taking advantage of the situation, keeping the camera rolling,” Charlie said, wiping at the stain on his shirt. “Look at me: I didn’t know I was being filmed today.”
“I’m sorry, but we are making a documentary. That’s literally our job, to keep the cameras rolling. You agreed to all this, you signed a contract.”
“Not like that, and you know it.”
“Come on, Charlie, it’s not like you’re being unfairly compensated here. And I emailed you to let you know about Susan’s interview.”
Charlie scratched his head in frustration.
“Look.” Ramsey leveled his gaze at him. “This film is about you and your family, the first time you’ve ever spoken publicly, a glimpse into your lives, and how they’ve been affected by Rachel’s disappearance. What Susan thinks of you—that’s all part of it. The world has heard from her before. But it’s up to you to shape the narrative you want to tell. And, for what it’s worth, I thought you handled yourself very well in there.”
Whatever Ramsey was doing, it was working. Charlie sighed, blew out his top lip.
“Fine,” he said. “Just no more overlaps. No more surprises.”
Ramsey held up his hands in surrender. “No more surprises, you got it. So we’ll see you and the rest of the family at your house tomorrow? We’ll start setting up at eleven, if that’s still OK?”
“Yes, fine,” Charlie said, ready to go; Bel could read it in the shift of his shoulders.
“You were great today, Bel,” Ramsey said, sharing his smile with her. “Really great. Thank you.”
Had he already forgotten all the times she’d answered I don’t know? Maybe the Grandma stuff made up for it. Shame, Bel had probably appeared nice and sweet up until that point. Oh well. She was allowed to look bad.
They were almost at the car when Dad finally turned to look at her, locking eyes.
“Horsefucker,” he laughed. “Who raised you?”
“Oh, some terrible person.”
Dad laughed harder. Good, she wanted to make him laugh, after that. Then, shaking it off, he asked: “Was it OK, the interview? Nothing too difficult, too upsetting?”
“Nah, it was fine. Just long. And I wasn’t allowed to touch the fake water.”
She reached for the door handle.
“Oh wait.” Dad stopped her. “I’ve got a bunch of tools and stuff on the front seat. Why don’t you hop in the back instead, kiddo?”
Bel stared at the backseat, through the grimy glass of the window. She swallowed, eyes pulling away.
“No, I’ll sit in the front,” she said quickly, opening the passenger-side door.
“Bel, there’s crap all over it. Just go in the back.”
“No, no, no, it’s fine. See.” She climbed in, over the bulky toolbox and piles of papers, food packets and bottles of Mountain Dew—because Dad was a child who still drank Mountain Dew. She lifted the toolbox and settled into the seat, placing it on her lap. It was heavy and uncomfortable, no space in the footwell between the junk and her backpack. “See, plenty of room.”
Dad shook his head, started the engine. “Bacon sandwiches for lunch?” he said, not looking for the answer, because he didn’t need to.
“You know me too well.”
