Waters’s stomach flip over. “You’re not Mallory Candler. Your name is Eve Sumner.”
“Legally, that’s true.”
“What do you mean? Were you born under another name?”
“I was born Mallory Gray Candler, on February fifth, nineteen sixty.”
“You got that off her gravestone.”
Eve looked skyward. “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to listen to what I have to say.”
“I’m listening now.”
“You say that, but your mind is closed. To hear what I have to say, it’s going to have to be open. To anything. Everything.”
“I’m open.”
Eve smiled sadly, then without a word turned away and walked toward the strip of grass behind Catholic Hill. Waters stood in the shadow of the woods, his eyes following her vanishing figure as though chained to it. He hesitated for nearly a minute. Then put the jar and the note back in the hole and went after her.
He found her lying on the grass, her eyes open to the sky, her arms outstretched like Christ on the cross. The navy skirt suit seemed totally incongruous with her relaxed posture.
Without looking at him, Eve said, “Ask me anything you like, Johnny. Things only you or I would know.”
“I’m not playing that stupid fact game with you. God only knows how you found all that stuff out, and it doesn’t matter anyway. No matter what secrets you know, you can’t negate the single most important fact: Mallory Candler is dead, and has been for ten years.”
Eve sighed and turned her head to face him, her eyes empty of artifice. “That’s not true.”
The boldness of her statement left him speechless for a moment. “Are you seriously trying to tell me you’re Mallory Candler returned from the dead? Are you mentally ill?”
Eve bit her bottom lip, and Waters had the eerie feeling that he was talking to a small child concealing a secret.
“I’m not back from the dead,” she said. “I never died.”
Waters shivered at the conviction in her voice. “What?”
“I never died, Johnny. Not for more than a second or two, anyway.”
“You may not have died, but Mallory Candler had an open casket funeral.”
“And her body lay in it.” Eve rolled up onto one elbow and propped her head on her hand. “Do you think that’s all a person is, Johnny? Has science jaded you so much? A woman is the sum of her flesh?”
“What else is there?”
“What about the soul? For lack of a better term. The spirit?”
“You’re telling me you’re the soul of Mallory Candler?”
Eve bit her lip again, as if seriously considering this question. “Maybe. I don’t really know what a soul is.”
“If you’re the soul of Mallory Candler, where is Eve Sumner’s soul?”
“Here. With me. Only …”
“What?”
“She’s sleeping.” Eve shrugged with childlike wonder. “Sort of.”
“Eve Sumner’s soul is sleeping?”
“That’s what I call it. I’m awake now. Most of the time, really. It’s something that’s taken me a long time to learn. Years.”
Three days ago, Waters could not have imagined having this conversation. “Is this craziness what you wanted to tell me?”
“Partly. But I knew it wouldn’t convince you. I really wanted to tell you a story.
“About what?”
“My murder.”
“Do you know something about Mallory’s murder?”
Another sad smile. “Mallory’s, mine, whatever. But she wasn’t murdered. A man tried to murder her. Tried and failed.”
“This is pointless, Ms. Sumner.”
“Is it? You’re still here.”
He wanted to walk away, but he couldn’t. And she knew it. He sat Indian-style on the grass a few feet away from her and said, “Talk.”
Eve sat up and gracefully folded her legs beneath her, exactly the way Mallory had two decades before. Her smile disappeared, replaced by a look of deep concentration. Waters was reminded of Annelise when she tried to recall details of the house they had lived in when she was a small child.
“It was summer,” Eve said. “We were living in downtown New Orleans. I’d driven across the river to the Dillard’s Department Store in Slidell. On my way back, my Camry broke down. I couldn’t believe it. That car was so reliable. This was nineteen ninety-two, and I didn’t have a cell phone. I wasn’t too worried, though. It was only nine-thirty, and I thought I could flag down a cop. I turned on my flashers, locked the doors, and started watching my rearview mirror. After forty-five minutes, I hadn’t seen a single patrol car. I hoped my husband would come looking for me, but I’m not exactly the punctual type, and I knew he wouldn’t really start worrying till at least eleven.
“I was a mile from City Park – the projects – and wearing a fairly skimpy outfit, so I didn’t want to get out and start flagging people. But I did. After about five minutes, a truck with a blue flashing light pulled in front of me. It had a camper thing on the back, but it looked official. Like one of those canine units, or maybe a fire department thing. Anyway, I was blocked by a concrete rail on one side and zooming traffic on the other. A man got out and waved, then called out and asked if I needed help. I asked if he had cell phone. He said he did, and I saw the little funny aerial sticking off his back windshield. He reached in and held out a phone on a cord, and I took a couple of steps forward. I knew it might not be the smartest thing to do, but I didn’t want to have to jog down into the projects if I could help it.
“When I got close enough to reach the phone, he sprayed me with something that burned my eyes. Mace, I guess. I wanted to run, but traffic was flying past and I couldn’t see where I was going. He hit me on the side of the head, and suddenly I was lifted and dropped onto metal. There was a roaring sound, and then … I don’t remember anything else until I woke up in the dark. The truck was parked somewhere, with nothing but moonlight coming through the windows. I couldn’t hear any traffic – just woods sounds – and I was more afraid than I’d ever been in my life. My hands were tied behind me, and I was lying on them, so my arms were numb to the shoulders.
“I thought at first that I was alone. Then I heard quiet breathing in the dark, and I knew he was in there with me. Close. I felt something touch my leg – fingers, I think – and I realized I was naked from the waist down. He started talking to me. In the dark like that. A voice in the dark. He told me he had a knife, and he pressed the blade against my thigh. It was cold. He said he was going to free my hands, because he wanted me to use them, but if I fought, he would cut my throat. He rolled me halfway over and cut whatever was tying me. Before the circulation came back to my arms, he climbed on top of me and started—” Eve’s voice cracked and went silent, then returned. “Started to do what he wanted. It was terribly painful, and my arms were paralyzed, burning from the blood coming back into them. I could hardly see, and he was grunting and saying things I couldn’t understand – something about how beautiful I was – and I remember thinking then how strangers had been leering at me and saying suggestive things since I was thirteen, and I was so goddamn angry that I’d been stupid, that one of them was finally doing what they’d all dreamed of doing.
“Anyway, I was trying to keep my head together, to decide how best to survive. Just lie there and wait for it to be over? Or fight? I mean, it was already happening. And he was holding the knife in one hand, right at my throat. As it went on,