“You said Hollis went looking for Darcy when she didn’t come back,” Lizzy prompted, wanting to get back to the night the Gilman girls died.

Helen closed her eyes, as if preparing herself. After a few minutes, she blew out a breath and squared her shoulders. “It took a while, but he finally found her. She was bent over, throwing up from all the smash. She started crying when she saw him, and took off running. Hollis went after her. Not to hurt her, just to keep her from going where she shouldn’t. But it was too late. By the time he caught up to her, she wasn’t in the cornfields anymore. She was in the back fields, where Hollis’s daddy didn’t let anyone go.”

“Because of the marijuana,” Lizzy said quietly, stealing a glance in Andrew’s direction. Not a flicker of surprise. Had everyone known?

“Yeah,” Helen said, nodding. “The pot. There was this big shed out there where they used to dry the stuff. Darcy ran toward it. I guess she thought she could hide. All of a sudden the door opened and out came Mr. Hanley, drunk as a skunk and waving a shotgun. Darcy started screaming. The old man didn’t bat an eye. He just stepped up behind her and smashed in the back of her head with the butt of his rifle. She went down like a ton of bricks.” She paused, a hand to her mouth. “Hollis said he used to hear the sound of her skull cracking when he closed his eyes at night.”

Lizzy fought an unexpected wave of queasiness. Helen’s story fit perfectly with the coroner’s findings. Blunt force trauma to the occipital and parietal regions. But that was what killed Darcy. The ME’s report said Heather had been strangled. “What about Heather?”

“She and Dennis must have heard Darcy screaming, because they came running. Heather took one look at Darcy facedown in the dirt, and started wailing her head off. Even drunk, the old man could see he was in trouble. He told Dennis to shut her up. When Dennis didn’t move, his father pointed the gun at him. He said if Dennis didn’t shut Heather up, he’d do it himself, and then he’d shut the boys up too. Dennis didn’t realize the old man was serious until he pointed the gun at Hollis. He knew Dennis’s weak spot.”

Andrew’s mouth dropped open. “He threatened to shoot his own son?”

Helen nodded. She looked paler now than when she’d first arrived, drained and shaky. “He would have done it too. Dennis knew it, even if Hollis didn’t, so he wrapped an arm around Heather’s throat and just . . . squeezed. She fought but he was too strong. Hollis was horrified at how long it took—nothing like it happens in the movies—but finally she stopped fighting.”

Lizzy remained silent, shaken by the gruesome scene Helen had just painted—and by the realization that Dennis’s determination to keep the truth buried had more to do with his own guilt than with either his father’s or brother’s.

“The pond,” Lizzy said numbly. “How did the girls wind up in the pond?”

“Mr. Hanley told them to fill the girls’ pockets with stones from the wall behind the shed, and then drag them into the pond. When they didn’t snap to, he told them to stop acting like girls. He said a man does what he has to. I guess it worked, because they did what he said. Not that they had much choice. They were in it too by then. It was Dennis who called in the anonymous tip, to make the police think it was your grandmother who’d killed them.”

A man does what he has to.

Lizzy suppressed a shudder. Dennis had used the same words yesterday. His father’s words. That had been his father’s legacy—the murders of two young girls and then covering up the evidence. She frowned suddenly. “You said they were in it—Hollis and Dennis—but Hollis wasn’t in it. He didn’t hurt either of the girls.”

Helen stared down at her hands, her fingers so tightly laced that her knuckles had gone white. A tear slid down her cheek, then another. Finally, she lifted her head. “They loaded the girls into an old cart and wheeled it to the pond. Dennis waded in with Heather first, and watched her sink. But when Hollis picked Darcy up, she let out a moan.”

Lizzy’s stomach did a slow, queasy roll. She’d forgotten the rest of what Roger had said. One of the girls—Darcy—had shown evidence of drowning. She looked at Helen, unable to find words.

“Dennis didn’t say anything but Hollis knew. They had to finish it. Dennis took hold of Darcy’s legs, and they dragged her in. They waited, just to make sure, but she stayed down.”

Salt and stagnant water . . . like a mud flat at low tide. Or a pond.

“She was alive when she went into the water,” Lizzy whispered, registering the horror of it. “She might have survived the blow to the head if she hadn’t been dragged into the pond.”

“Hollis never forgave himself.”

And there it was. The reason Hollis had driven his car into a tree. Lizzy closed her eyes, trying to blot out the image in her head. “When he . . . died,” she said haltingly, “there was a note. You gave it to the police, but they left it behind. Then it disappeared.”

Andrew pulled several tissues from the box Rhanna had placed nearby for Lizzy and passed them to Helen. She took them with a grateful nod. “That was Dennis,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. “He told me to burn it, to say I never saw it. He was afraid people would tie what Hollis wrote back to the girls.”

“It was never about Hollis. All of it—the note, the fire—was about protecting himself. Because he killed Heather.”

“I’m not sure Dennis knew the difference anymore. His whole identity was wrapped up in being Hollis’s protector. When Hollis died, he lost that. Then he lost the farm. And then he heard you were back, and asking questions. That’s when things got bad. When the stories started showing up in the paper, I knew it was him, but I couldn’t say anything. He said he’d take Kayla, and I’d never find her.”

“Did he mean he’d take her and run, or that he’d hurt her?”

Helen’s eyes flashed with remembered panic. “I don’t know. I just knew something terrible would happen if I went to the police. That’s why I bumped into you yesterday and said what I did. I didn’t know what else to do. And then last night, the police came to the door, and I thought . . .” She paused, pressing a hand to her mouth. “When they told me you got out, that you were okay, I knew I had to tell the police everything—and give them the letter Hollis wrote before he died.”

Lizzy gaped at her. “You have the letter?”

“It was the last thing he ever wrote, and he wrote it to me. I couldn’t just burn it. I’m going to take it to the police and tell them everything. But I needed to see you first. I felt like I owed it to you—and your grandmother. I know I can never be sorry enough, but I had to say it anyway.”

“Thank you for that,” Lizzy said quietly, knowing just how hard today must have been for her. “The bruise on your cheek—that was Dennis?”

She touched the discoloration gingerly. “He came home drunk, making a lot of noise. I had just gotten Kayla to sleep and I asked him to be quiet.”

Andrew blew out a slow breath, like a pressure cooker releasing steam. “I know Dennis was helping you financially. Will you and Kayla be able to manage?”

Helen shrugged, wadding the tissues in her hand. “I don’t know. I haven’t had time to think about it. My parents are in Florida. They’d probably let me come, but I have to talk to the police first. I might end up in jail for not telling them what I knew.”

Andrew scrubbed a thumb over his chin as he mulled over her response. “Why don’t you wait a day before talking to the police? Lizzy and I have a friend, a detective, who might be able to offer some advice. And you need to get yourself a lawyer before you say anything.”

Helen’s face fell. “I can’t afford a lawyer. Especially now.”

“Let us worry about that.”

Helen blinked at him, genuinely stunned. “I don’t know what to say. After everything . . . I don’t deserve that sort of kindness.”

Lizzy met Andrew’s eyes briefly, then laid a hand on Helen’s. “There’s been enough harm done, Helen. You ending up in jail won’t undo any of it. Let us help you if we can.”

“All right then. Thank you.” Helen stood, sniffling, and pushed her crumpled tissues into her pocket. “I’d better find Kayla and go. I work at two, and I have things to do. Should I just wait to hear from you?”

“I’ll make a call. It shouldn’t be long.”

Andrew took Helen out to the garden to find Kayla. Lizzy remained on the settee, drained and numb. She’d wanted the truth, and she’d gotten it. All of it.

The twisted lives of the Hanley boys, the by-product of a drunken and morally bankrupt father. Two girls brutally murdered, because one of them was afraid to go home. Her skin crawled at the thought of Fred Gilman standing over his daughter’s bed. At some point, she’d need to call Susan. She deserved to know the truth, and not from a headline in the Chronicle.