“No.”
“What? I thought . . .” The color fled from Franny’s face. “You tricked me, didn’t you? You still don’t care.”
“Yes, I tricked you.”
“Well, I’m not leaving.”
“Yes, you will.”
“Why should I?”
Kaitlyn turned over the phone. The record function was on, blinking red. “Because if you don’t, this recording’s going to the police.”
“What? You wouldn’t do that . . . You’d be caught, too.”
“I’ll take my chances. You’ll leave tonight. Now.”
“No, I have to go say goodbye.”
“You’re leaving in thirty minutes. I even bought you a ticket. You can e-mail them once you get there. Joshua will be relieved. Trust me.”
“He chose me, you know. I didn’t even have to work that hard.”
Kaitlyn hit the button to end the recording. Franny tried to grab it from her, but Kaitlyn was too quick. She pocketed the phone.
“Don’t bother. See that guy at the door? I paid him five hundred dollars to watch out for me. If you try anything, he will be on you so fast.” She pushed a bus ticket across the table. “Take the ticket, Franny. Eileen. Go home.”
Franny looked at the location. Madison.
“I don’t want to go back there.”
“I don’t care. You can leave and go somewhere else if you want. You just have to promise not to come back to Chicago.”
“How will you know if I do?”
“I have something set up.”
It didn’t take Franny long to get there. “Cecily.”
Kaitlyn didn’t say anything.
“I made sure Joshua knew what you did with Tom. I knew he’d tell Cecily,” Franny said.
“Thanks for that.”
They glared at each other. Kaitlyn had a sickening thought that she and Franny weren’t so different after all. And wasn’t the explosion at least partly her fault? If she’d handled Franny properly, maybe none of this would have happened. They’d both spend the rest of their lives in purgatory. It wasn’t enough to pay for her own sins, but it was something.
“You’d better get going, Franny. You wouldn’t want to miss your bus.”
Franny’s eyes darted around the room, looking for an exit.
“There’s no way out. Take the ticket. Go to Madison. Then go where you want. Start over for good this time. And get some help. Forget about me. Forget about my family.”
“I can’t ever forget about you.”
Kaitlyn suspected the feeling was mutual, but she didn’t want to think about that right now.
“Let’s go. Stand up.”
Franny followed her instructions. Kaitlyn left some money on the table for her drink, then tapped Franny between her shoulder blades, leading her out of the bar. They crossed the street, Kaitlyn with a firm grip on Franny’s arm. She took her to her bus stop. She waited with her until it was time to get on. They didn’t say goodbye.
There was nothing left to say.
Soon after giving her last interview to the production crew, Franny Maycombe disappeared.
She never provided them with a copy of her birth certificate.
A month after filming finished, the production office received an anonymous envelope.
It contained parts of a recording where someone identified as Franny Maycombe is heard confessing to deliberately setting off the explosion on October tenth that killed 513 people.
The production company turned over the recording to the police.
They’re currently investigating the provenance of the tape.
They now believe that the Triple Ten tragedy wasn’t an accident but a deliberate act.
Franny Maycombe is the prime suspect.
Her current whereabouts are unknown.
Epilogue
Anonymous Post from IKnowWhatYouDidLastSummer.com
I have a secret.
Twenty-four years ago, I gave a baby up for adoption.
When I was eighteen years old, I won a contest to intern at a famous magazine in Europe. I was so surprised I won that it took me weeks to tell my parents. I’d lie in bed and stare and stare at the envelope, the letter. I read everything I could about the city. I bought tapes and learned the language. Actually learned it, not just the way you do in school. I loved the way it rolled off my tongue. The way it tasted.
My parents were strict, and I was a bit wild. I thought I was carefree, that they were too cautious. But I can see their point of view now. I was reckless. The kid who’d walk along the edge of the seawall. The one who didn’t listen when her parents told her to step away from the ledge. I scraped knees, broke a wrist, got a mild concussion. They’d frown while I laughed. The pain was worth the experience.
So this, I knew this, even though I was eighteen, would be a problem. I needed to show my parents I could be trusted. That nothing would happen to me. That I’d be safe.
Somehow I did. They hemmed and hawed. I begged and pleaded and promised.
And then they let me go.
I met him the third day I was there. I see the cliché now. An older man, my boss, married. The heedless, naive girl from North America. After, when it was over, I realized he’d manipulated it all from before I arrived. That he’d chosen me because he saw something in my essay. My photograph. Something pliable. Something broken that he could exploit rather than fix. That even the flowers he’d given me—marigolds—were part of the information he’d gleaned from my application. Was he a sociopath? Given everything, I’ve wondered. But then? I thought he was charming. Smart. The man for me forever.
Until the stick turned blue two months into the New Year.
Then he was cold, distant. More clichés upon clichés. I would have an abortion. He would pay, grudgingly it seemed. Of course he wouldn’t leave his wife. Had I done this on purpose?
It was nasty. I was afraid. I didn’t know how to tell my parents. I couldn’t bring myself to end the connection I had to him. I loved him.
I loved him.
I found a place to go. My parents weren’t expecting me back until the summer. I called them once a week with updates, fake stories. Even to me, my life sounded fabulous.
Then, in small towns, there were still places for girls like me. The nuns who worked at the place I went to were kind but censoring. As I grew larger and larger through the spring, I felt as if I was being crushed under the weight of their judgment. I craved my own language, food, city. I wanted to nest.
I wanted to go home.
That was impossible, but I found a place to go that was near enough. A sister organization the nuns approved of. I told my parents I’d been asked to stay on. The university would defer another year, and I could start my courses by correspondence. I made it seem as if it was their choice, and they agreed. They missed me, though. I said I’d call more often.
I flew home in my eighth month, the end of a hot August, passengers staring. I looked so young. A baby having a baby. I remember my hair sticking to my neck. How I could never get cool. How often I had to pee.
The nuns met me at the airport, drove me to Wisconsin. I barely remember anything of the drive, flat land flashing by. Then weeks staring out the window, feeling as if I was forcing myself to eat. Then pain. They never tell you about the pain. A conspiracy of women. I even found myself doing it, so much later, when I was pregnant with my daughter. I must’ve been exaggerating. It couldn’t be that bad.
It was. And then it was over, and I was holding this alien thing. I thought I’d love it. Her. I thought I’d love her because she was a part of him. Instead, I turned my face away. I couldn’t face this, not now, and so the choice was made for me. Forms were signed. The baby was whisked away. I went back to the nuns until the weight had slipped from my body.