Shadow of Betrayal

She didn’t know what she expected to feel, but numbness was a surprise. She looked in her sister’s room first. Someone had taken the time to put the duvet back in place. Not a perfectly made bed, but one that was hard to imagine had recently held her sister’s body.

She moved to her parents’ room. The duvet had been straightened here, too. Marion was about to turn and leave, when she spotted the picture on her mother’s dresser. It was a family photo from a cousin’s wedding two years earlier. It was the last formal photo the four of them had taken together. Marion walked over and leaned in for a closer look.

Her parents, happy and still very much in love. Her sister trying hard not to show the effects of her own deteriorating marriage. And Marion, proud of her parents, proud of her new job at the UN.

She reached out with her free hand and picked up the picture, knowing before she even touched it she wouldn’t be putting it back. It was coming with her.

She carried Iris and the picture back into the hallway and walked over to the room at the front of the house. Her room. Like the others, the door was open wide, it, too, having been checked once the first body had been found.

Like the others, her bed was also made. Only instead of looking like a rush job, someone had taken the time to make it look good. Her mother. And the sheets underneath the duvet would be clean, waiting for Marion to come home for a visit.

My God, what have I done?

She slumped down onto her bed, and placed Iris beside her. The child’s mouth was turned down, and her eyes were wide. It looked as if she was about to cry. She must have been sensing Marion’s own desire to let the tears come.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Marion said. “We’ll leave soon.”

Water began to pool at the base of the girl’s eyes. It was the last thing Marion wanted. She tried to think of something to distract the child. Out of desperation she pulled the motel key out of her pocket and waved it in front of Iris. It was a regular metal key attached to a plastic rectangle with the name of the motel and the room number. Iris reached out for it, so Marion let her take it. But the child merely threw it across the room, the key landing near the door.

As Marion got up to retrieve it, she happened to look at her old painted dresser near the door. On top was the stuffed bear her father had given her when she’d been a little girl. Pauline.

Marion smiled at all the memories Pauline represented. She grabbed the bear and handed it to Iris.

This time the distraction worked. The child’s tears began to recede as she focused on her new stuffed animal. Pauline had a way of doing that, Marion remembered. The bear had always been good at pushing the tears back.

Marion realized there were several things she wanted to take with her, memories of her family, of her life. She had no idea how long she would have to stay away from home, from Montreal for that matter. Maybe they would continue to chase her, forcing her to be on the run for months, or maybe even for years. If that was the case, she needed something to give her strength. She needed the power of her memories.

While Iris played, Marion found an old box full of teen magazines in her closest. She pulled the periodicals out and set them in a neat stack where the box had been. At the door to her room, she realized the motel key was still on the floor. She picked it up and put it in the box, then walked through the house picking up items she felt the need to keep. A few more pictures, a scarf her mother had knitted for her, a copy of A Wrinkle in Time that her father had read with her so many years ago, a small wooden box that contained a gold-plated bracelet her sister had given to her for Christmas one year, even the grocery list her mother had started and pinned to the refrigerator with a magnet.

When she was done, she realized there was no way she was going to be able to carry the box and Iris at the same time.

What a stupid idea, she thought, knowing that the box was going to have to stay. She could put the scarf around her neck, and perhaps take one of the pictures out of its frame and stuff it in her pocket, but that was about it. The rest had been a waste of time.

But then she saw the key hanger next to the back door. There were three sets of keys, each on a separate hook. Her father and mother had never been big on driving, choosing instead to take public transportation or ride their bikes to where they wanted to go. So their keys were limited to those they needed for the house and, in her mother’s case, work. But Emily’s keys were different. She’d had a car. An old Saab, unless she’d sold it. The set of keys hanging from the hook on the left had a large key that could only be for a car. It was a duplicate, so there was no company name on it, but the vehicle had to be outside somewhere.