Page 129 of The Moment You Know

“Damn right.”

“My mother got one, too. On the inside cover of hers, I wrote that my book was the truth, even if she chose to bury her head in the fucking sand.”

David chuckled.

“After she got it, she immediately called Carter to see if he’d received a book, but he didn’t answer,” Paige said. “When he continued to not answer his phone for several hours, she drove over to his house and found him in the basement, dead. None of his neighbors had heard the gunshot, so she ended up being the one to notify the police.

“She called me while she was still at his house and asked if I knew what I’d done. She was crying, so it took me a minute to understand that she was telling me Carter had committed suicide and it was all my fault because of my book.”

“Your mom is a piece of fucking work,” David said, his voice hard. “You know it wasn’t your fault, right?”

“I know,” she agreed with a slow nod. “It was just shitty hearing her say it, and with such venom in her voice. It was actually worse than the day she threw me out of her house. And I’m pretty sure it was because I thought, in some small way, that her getting the book would change things. Make it real. Make her believe me.”

“But it didn’t.”

“No. And I understand that she’d just experienced the trauma of finding Carter with the back of his head splattered all over the couch and the wall, so she had my sympathy there. Her mental state was obviously compromised, but instead of considering that he might have blown his brains out because he was, say, guilty of everything I said he did, she doubled down on her belief that I was lying.

“She said all these hateful things to me: that I was a lying bitch and she was ashamed of me, that I was ‘peddling’ my lies to make money, that I had Carter’s blood on my hands and she would never forgive me.

“And in that moment, I felt this emotional separation inside me. It was like a switch had been turned off and all the love and affection I’d ever had for her just vanished and she ceased being my mother. It was very bizarre, but at the same time, it made things very simple for me. So, I told her I would never forgive her for not believing me and hung up on her.”

David nodded his approval.

“Then I sat in my office—because it was one of my late work days—and thought about Carter’s last moments as he prepared to end his life in his basement,” she said. “I pictured him getting his gun, loading it, putting the barrel in his mouth, and pulling the trigger, and it filled me with peace.”

“I’ll bet.”

“The next day, I drove over to his house.”

“You did? Why?”

“I actually went for two reasons. The first was curiosity, because I wanted to see what it would feel like to be in his house again.”

“So, you actually went inside?”

“Yes. By this time the police and whoever else had been involved—it probably looked like a scene from Law & Order—were long gone and everything was quiet. I found the spare key that was always kept on the front porch under a flower pot, let myself in, and walked around for a little while, just looking. I had expected to feel fear, or anxiety when I stepped inside, but I didn’t feel anything. It was just a house and it looked exactly as I remembered, including my bedroom.”

“You had a bedroom there?”

She nodded. “It was pretty much just for show since I don’t think I actually ever slept in there, but if I hadn’t had one, it might’ve made my staying there so often a little suspect. Carter thought about things like that, so … I had a bedroom.” She gave a rueful chuckle. “He even had Claire decorate it for me, so it looked a lot like the one I had at home.”

“Oh, Jesus,” he muttered, mulling over how much of a sociopath Carter had been, to not only molest his sister’s daughter, but to also have his sister decorate a ‘show’ room for her daughter in his house of horrors. Which reminded him … “You said you went to his house for two reasons. What was the other one?”

“To retrieve the book I sent him, if possible.”

“Really?” He hadn’t expected to hear that. “Why?”

“Because I needed it for something.”

“Oh.” He wondered what she needed it for, but since her answer seemed deliberately vague, he decided Paige didn’t want him to know the reason, so he asked, instead, “Were you able to … retrieve it?”

Paige nodded. “It took me a while to find it, because it was outside in the garbage bin by the side of the garage. I don’t know who threw it away—if Carter did it before he killed himself so no one would see it, or if it was Claire making sure no one coming into the house saw it after she called the police.” She shrugged. “Anyway, I was just glad I got it back because after finding where Carter’s funeral was going to be, I made an appointment to talk with the funeral director. At that meeting, I told him I was aware there wasn’t going to be a ‘viewing’ because of the circumstances of Carter’s death, nor was the casket going to be open during the service, so I asked the funeral director if it was possible to have a keepsake put in Carter’s casket for me.

“He said yes, that he would put it in before it was sealed, so I gave him the book. I thought he’d just take it and send me on my way, but he actually took a minute to examine the cover and read the blurb. When he was done, he gave me this long, sympathetic look and assured me he would personally put it into the casket himself. I thanked him, then very nicely asked if he could also place it so that Carter was actually holding it against his heart, nice and tight.”

David half-chuckled at that.

“The director said he’d be happy to do that for me, so as far as I know, Carter’s buried holding my book against his heart.” She smiled. “And that’s my story.”

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