Murder House Read online

  “You ready?” Joe asked after we parked.

  I wasn’t. But more time wasn’t going to change that. “Yeah,” I told him. I led the way inside and gave our names—our cover-story names—to the woman at the front desk. “Nina’s doctor will take you back,” she said. “She wants to talk to you before you see Nina.”

  Was Brynn—I still thought of her as Brynn—okay? She’d been in here for a couple of months. Had her doctor been able to help her at all? Would she be happy to see me? And Joe? Or would we just be part of a horrible memory?

  “Hi, I’m Dr. Bastajian.” A short woman with a ponytail walked over and shook our hands.

  “How is Brynn—I mean Nina?” I asked in a rush.

  “She’s making progress,” the doctor answered. “But she still has a long way to go. She’s just beginning to remember what happened when she was back in the house.”

  “She blanked everything out? Trying to stab herself? Stabbing Georgina?” Joe asked.

  “It’s more complicated than that. Being back in the house where she saw her mother killed by her father was extremely traumatic. Nina began to dissociate, have blackouts.”

  “So she wasn’t even aware she was doing things like putting pieces of glass in with the ice cubes?” I asked. We’d figured out that that’s when Brynn had started breaking down. Mary had insisted she hadn’t been responsible for the glass that cut up James’s mouth as well as the fire in Bobby T’s room and the knives in Brynn’s makeup bag, and it turned out she was telling the truth. Mary had been doing a lot of sabotage—but nothing violent. Sending us e-mail death threats was more her style. But Brynn . . . She’d even done things to hurt herself!

  “She absolutely wasn’t aware,” Dr. Bastajian said. “I think in some way, she was trying to make the demon story that her father told her true. It was too horrific to accept that her father had simply killed her mother.”

  “So the demon story . . . ,” said Joe. “I mean, I know it wasn’t true, but are you saying that Brynn’s mother didn’t actually try to attack her?”

  “No. Nina was beginning to remember what really happened that night,” Dr. Bastajian explained. “Her mother hadn’t started using drugs or alcohol again. But she had decided she wanted to leave her husband. They fought, and he killed her.”

  “And he came up with that story about the demon and convinced Brynn—Nina—that that was what happened,” I said.

  “Exactly,” the doctor agreed. “Nina grew up with her grandparents in Indiana, living a quiet life away from all of this. Her grandparents helped her change her first and last name to Brynn Fulgham, so that she would be safe from nosy media hounds. Then, when Nina realized a reality show was going to be filmed in her old house, the house where the murder happened, she was determined to go back. She thought being there would somehow allow her to remember everything that really happened that night. The pieces she was starting to remember were haunting her.”

  “So are we supposed to not mention the old murder or the stuff Brynn did when she was having one of her episodes?” Joe asked.

  “Just follow her lead. Don’t push. But if she wants to talk, it’s fine,” Dr. Bastajian said. “Come on. I’ll take you to her room.” She led us through a maze of hallways, then tapped on a closed door. “Nina, you have visitors.” She swung the door open.

  And I saw Brynn. For the first time in months. She sat in front of a small desk in the corner of her room. And she looked . . . she looked like Brynn. Clear-eyed. A little smile on her face. “Hi,” she said, without quite looking at me or Joe.

  “Hey, Nina,” said Joe. I guess he could tell I was having trouble getting words out.

  “You can keep calling me Brynn,” she said.

  “So, uh, how are you?” I asked. It was like I had just learned English a few days ago. It was hard to find any words.

  Brynn lifted her hands, then let them fall in her lap in a helpless gesture. “Let’s talk about you guys instead. So I guess being in the house was good for you two at least.”

  Joe and I glanced at each other.

  “I mean, you two, you got to know each other. And you’re here, together. So I guess you finally kind of became friends,” Brynn explained.

  “Yeah, I guess we finally kind of did. Getting winning or losing out of the picture helped,” Joe told her.

  Dr. Bastajian’s cell beeped. She scanned the text message. “Nina, your father is here. I’m assuming—”

  “I don’t want to see him,” Brynn answered, her voice hard.

  The doctor nodded. “I’ll go speak to him. Enjoy your visit.”

  “I can’t believe he thinks I’d want to see his face!” Brynn burst out. “Now that I know what he did. And he’ll never have to go to prison for it. He’s already had his trial. He can’t be tried again for the same crime. And it’s my fault. It was my testimony that got him off.”

  “You were a little girl. You believed what your father told you,” I said. “Pretty much anyone would.”

  “I just hate that he gets to live his whole life as this man who killed his wife to protect his daughter. No one will ever know the truth.” Brynn took a deep breath. “Sorry,” she said. “I know I’m going off. I’m working on dealing with it. And dealing with what I did too. I wrote to Georgina. I tried to explain. She was actually really great about it.”

  “Did you hear the movie option on Bobby T’s blog got renewed?” Joe asked. “It’s getting an insane number of hits a day.”

  I guess Joe was having trouble knowing what to say too. He was kind of babbling.

  “If I wanted to get info out there, Bobby T’s blog is where I’d want it,” Joe continued.

  He wasn’t babbling. “I’m sure Bobby T would be happy to put the real story about your dad on his site. At least then people would know the truth,” I told Brynn.

  “You think he’d do that?” asked Brynn.

  “Are you serious?” Joe replied. “He’ll have it on there today if you want.”

  “I want,” Brynn said. “I want to tell what I did too. I want to try to explain. Apologize.”

  “You weren’t even aware of what you were doing,” I reminded her.

  “I still did it,” Brynn told me. “I have to take responsibility. I’m not going to be like my father. I’m not going to try to come up with a story that makes me a hero. Or that just makes what I did seem okay somehow.”

  She was an amazing person. No wonder she was the first girl I fell in love with.

  But I’d never be able to see her again. Frank Dooley didn’t really exist. I’d only been able to be him for a couple more hours. To say good-bye.

  “Are you okay?” Joe asked me when we left.

  “Yeah. What about you? Are you going to be okay?” I climbed on my bike.

  “Me? Yeah,” said Joe.

  “Are you sure? You know you’re not going to be able to wear the Diesels again,” I reminded him.

  Joe grinned. “Even without them, I’m still the more happenin’ Hardy. And someday a girl is going to realize that absolute truth!”