Rachel Goddard 01 - The Heat of the Moon

like this.” 
    He led me over the events of that night again and again, approaching it from a different angle each time. Hoping to trip me up. My story never altered.
    “She wouldn’t talk to us. We couldn’t get through to her. She grabbed the knife and I tried to get it away from Mother and that’s how I got cut. I was so surprised, and it hurt so much, I let go of Mother. She ran into the bathroom. I had to jimmy open the door. She’d already cut her wrists. She was bleeding—”
    I stopped to suck in a deep breath. Tears ran down my cheeks, silent, unstoppable. “My sister was still out in the hall, I think. That’s when Mother—she cut her throat.”
    I swiped at my wet face with the back of my hand. Rodriguez watched me for a moment, then scribbled in his little notebook.
    “Did you get along with your mother?” His voice was quiet, almost soothing, encouraging confession. So much like Mother’s. “You have any differences of opinion? Most mothers and daughters do, don’t they? It’s only natural.”
    “We got along.”
    “Kind of unusual, isn’t it, two grown daughters living with their mother?”
    “My sister’s a student, and I’m just starting out in my work. It made sense for us to live at home. Besides, I missed my family when I was away at school. I was glad to be home again.”
    “You stand to inherit a good bit, don’t you? You and your sister’ll be pretty well-off.”
    What did he think? That we were the female version of the Menendez brothers, butchering our mother for her money?
    Yes, I realized with a jolt, that was what he thought. In my fear that revelations about kidnapping and a lifetime of lies would be dragged into the open, I’d forgotten how Mother’s death and my injury must look to the police.
    I couldn’t let him see the turn my thoughts had taken.
    “Detective Rodriguez,” I said, looking him directly in the eyes and trying to keep my voice level, “if I had the choice between an inheritance and my mother’s life, I think on the whole I’d rather have my mother back.”
    ***
    Over the next few days the detective came to see me twice more. I guessed from his attitude that he wasn’t satisfied with the story Michelle and I told him, that he sensed something bigger swimming below the surface. A shiver ran through me when I considered what he might learn if he dug into the distant past. But he would need a reason to do that, and I was careful not to give him one. I spoke only of recent events in our lives, and when the detective asked about my father I replied indifferently that I couldn’t really remember him.
    ***
    The reporter on the evening news was tall, blond, perfectly made up. She stood in the street where we had lived, and the camera was angled to show part of the house behind her, as much as could be seen past the tall screen of yews. At the end of the driveway someone had placed a wooden sawhorse with a NO TRESPASSING sign attached.
    I sat forward on the couch, listening.
    “Inside this home in an exclusive section of McLean, a tragedy unfolded…” The reporter went on mouthing words that disguised her lack of knowledge. 
    The press was playing up the story for all it was worth—prominent psychologist cuts her own throat while daughters try to wrest the knife from her—but neither Michelle nor I made statements or gave interviews, and without our cooperation little personal information had surfaced. Stories appeared about Mother’s practice, filled with statements of dismay and sadness from her colleagues. A couple of neighbors said we’d always seemed like a close family.
    I felt a shock each time I saw our names in print and heard them spoken by strangers on the TV news. How ironic it was, I thought, that Mother, so private, hiding so much, was the subject of all this publicity. Yet even in death she concealed the truth. These people who wrote about us and spoke sententiously about our tragedy on television had no idea what a story they were missing.
    I heard Luke unlocking the door, coming home from work. I rose and switched off the television set just as a photo of Mother flashed on the screen.
    I was conscious of Luke lurking at the very edge of the boundary he’d set for himself, giving me space and privacy and freedom from pressure, but always watching for signs that I needed him. In fits and starts, I told him about the old newspaper story I’d found and what really happened the night Mother died. He nodded, silently