As Darkness Falls

17

When Zoe was ready, Sara drove back to the house. She parked outside, where they had stopped the first time, and then they sat there, quietly, looking at it.

Neither of them spoke for a while.

Zoe didn’t move. She didn’t get out of the car, and she didn’t tell Sara to drive away, either. She just sat there, looking at the house, apparently deep in thought.

“We don’t have to go inside,” Sara said, eventually. “We can come back another time, if you’d rather. They can wait. They can all wait as long as you need them to.”

“No, I’m going in.”

“Are you sure?”

Zoe nodded.

“Do you want me to go first and check?” Sara said, suddenly thinking of Robert. “Check everything’s okay, I mean, and that they’re ready for you?”

“No, it’s fine,” Zoe said, but she didn’t actually move.

Zoe hadn’t moved, so Sara waited too. She would sit there all day if Zoe needed her to, until Zoe was ready to go inside.

“I’m just…” Zoe said, and then stopped, and thought some more.

“It’s fine,” Sara said. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“No,” Zoe said. “There’s something else. Something I didn’t tell you, about why we’re really here.”

“Oh,” Sara said. “For closure and everything? To see your family?”

Zoe shook her head.

“Okay,” Sara said. “So why are we here?”

“To make sure my sisters are safe.”

Sara sat there for a moment, thinking. Then, carefully, she said, “How do you mean?”

“To make sure they’re both still safe. From him.”

“Aren’t they…?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I need to make sure. Because he isn’t a paedophile, not really. I mean, he is, but only because we happened to be children. He’s really just bully and a rapist, and I don’t think he much cared how old any of us were.”

“Oh,” Sara said again.

“That’s what I think anyway,” Zoe said. “And my sisters are still in that house.”

Sara sat there for a moment. Oddly, what Zoe was saying fit with what the police psychologist had thought. That there was a chance Robert had raped Zoe first, simply because she was there, because he could victimise her and thought he’d get away with it. At first his offending might have been opportunistic and selfish, and not especially planned, but then later, after he had been doing that to her for a while, that was when he’d become interested specifically in children and started making his videos.

“Is there likely to be a problem?” Sara said. “If there is…”

“I don’t know.”

“Then we should call the police. Right now. If you think other people are at risk, we should contact the police here. They’ll come and check.”

“Maybe. Except that my sisters didn’t make complaints, and everyone thinks he was just a paedophile, and now we’re all well over eighteen, so there isn’t going to be a problem, is there?”

Sara didn’t answer.

“I told people this years ago,” Zoe said. “And no-one listened. So now I want to make sure.”

Sara nodded slowly. She made herself keep calm. “I’m here with you,” she said. “I’m here for you. We’ll do whatever you want to do.”

“I want to do it this way.”

“All right. Then we will.”

“Thank you,” Zoe said.

Sara shrugged. “I’m here for you,” she said, trying to make it sound obvious.

Zoe nodded, and then kept sitting where she was.

Sara waited.

“And the other thing we talked about,” Zoe said, after a moment. “You remember what I mean?”

Sara assumed she meant killing Robert. “I know.”

“That’s for if they aren’t safe. And only then. If they won’t leave, and he won’t leave them alone, if there’s no other way, then we need to do that.”

Sara didn’t answer.

“It’s not for revenge,” Zoe said. “It’s not about me. It’s to keep my sisters safe.”

Sara nodded, but she wasn’t completely sure. Zoe probably believed that, Sara thought, and completely meant what she was saying, but Sara had seen this kind of thing at work, and that made her wonder. Cops out for revenge, chasing down crims, but only because they were terrible criminals and needed stopping, not because of anything personal. It was complicated, and confusing, and what Zoe was saying seemed a little like that. Zoe might not completely know her own feelings, Sara thought, but she didn’t bother arguing. She just nodded, and let Zoe talk.

“So we need to make friends,” Zoe said. “Is the point. Sort of friends, anyway. I need to get back into their lives, and find out what’s going on, and I love you, and need you here, so you need to do that too.”

Sara nodded. “All right.”

Zoe nodded, and took a slow breath. She looked around. She looked over at the house. “Okay,” she said. “I’m okay. Let’s go.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Let’s go now, before I change my mind.”

“Of course,” Sara said, and they both got out the car.

They got out, and then Zoe stopped, beside the passenger door, and looked across the roof at Sara.

“And hey,” Zoe said. “When we’re inside, be as confrontational as you want about us. Hold my hand. Kiss me. Whatever the fuck you want to do. Don’t spare their feelings.”

Sara nodded.

“If you want to, I mean,” Zoe said. “Don’t unless you do. But if you do, then go for it.”

Sara closed her door and locked the car and went around it to Zoe’s side. She kissed Zoe, carefully, intensely, pressing forward with her hips, kissing Zoe like she wanted to fuck her. “I love you,” she whispered. “And I’ve never met anyone braver than you.”

Zoe smiled, and nodded, and seemed grateful, so Sara let her go.

They walked up the driveway, towards the house, holding hands as they went. Someone inside must have been watching. The front door opened as they reached it.