Bad Memory Read online

  A huge mill with giant cylindrical drums as big as houses appeared on the horizon, and Jessica hooked a right after the concrete-and-metal monstrosity onto Avenue 20 1/2 and then onto Road 22. She stubbed out the cigarette in the truck’s ashtray.

  After she’d driven awhile on the narrow two-lane highway, which was flanked on either side by unexpectedly lush almond trees, the GPS announced loudly that she was almost at her destination.

  The Administrative Segregation block housed some of the most dangerous women in the country.

  Confined to single cells for twenty-three hours a day, most of the inmates who found themselves in solitary confinement, usually for disruptive behavior or violence against a guard or fellow inmate, returned to the general prison population after several weeks.

  Those on Condemned Row, a group of cells behind a special caged-off section of the building, never left.

  The death row mesh cage and the cell doors were painted salmon pink, the metal walkways a clashing mint green. But, despite the unlikely pastel color scheme, the place was clearly no summer camp. Guards wore bullet- and stab-proof vests strapped to their chests, nightsticks swinging lazily from bulky utility belts slung around their waists. Bunches of keys as big as baseballs jangled with each step they took.

  Two things struck Jessica as she was escorted to the visiting room—the smell and the noise.

  The sweet scent of the almond blossom was now a distant memory, replaced by the eye-watering stench of industrial-strength disinfectant and body odor. Maybe just a hint of fear, too, although Jessica was pretty sure that aroma was oozing from her own pores. A dizzying cacophony of noise—yelling and crying and whistling and cell doors slamming shut—was only just louder than the thunderous pounding of her heart.

  Everything Jessica knew about prisons she’d learned from watching TV shows like Orange Is the New Black. She’d expected the meeting with Rue Hunter to take place behind a thick sheet of bulletproof glass in a cramped space where conversations were whispered into sweat-slick telephone receivers and plastic chairs were nailed to the floor. Where damp palms pressed against the partition was the closest prisoners and their visitors ever came to physical contact.

  She was wrong.

  Jessica was escorted to a cinder block room with indiscreet cameras fixed in the highest corners. Cracked leatherette seats oozing foam were scattered around a scarred wooden table. As a “Condemned Grade A” prisoner, Rue Hunter was permitted contact visits, which meant no bulletproof glass. Jessica’s heart beat faster, her stomach flip-flopped, and she wiped her hands on her pants as she awaited the prisoner’s arrival.

  That was her first surprise.

  The second was Rue Hunter herself.

  The mug shot Jessica had seen plastered all over social media showed a skinny young woman with sharp features and empty brown eyes sunk deep into a pale face framed by unwashed blonde hair that hung limp to her elbows. Rue Hunter might have been pretty under better circumstances.

  Once again drawing on her vast experience of bingeing on Netflix Originals, Jessica had fully expected to meet someone with jail-hardened features and a bright orange jumpsuit fitted snugly against a thick body, maybe some prison ink less skillfully applied than her own tattoos, definitely an air of menace or defiance.

  Wrong again.

  Rue Hunter was tall and willowy. Her long blonde hair was steaked with silver and styled in a loose braid draped over one shoulder. Her skin was so pale it was almost see-through, the ghostly pallor of someone who didn’t get to spend much time in natural daylight. However, lack of exposure to the sun’s harmful rays for thirty years also meant a face free of the lines and wrinkles that had been noticeable on her sister. Clearly, a long stretch inside was a cheaper way to a youthful complexion than $200 jars of face cream and regular Botox injections.

  Rue was dressed in loose-fitting blue denim pants and a blue-and-white long-sleeved tee and wore white no-brand sneakers on her feet. Were it not for the shackles connecting the handcuffs on her wrists to her ankles, she could almost pass for a friendly neighborhood power walker, albeit one with slightly dubious taste in leisure wear.

  Despite the metal restraints, Rue moved gracefully as she was escorted into the room. She offered Jessica a small smile.

  “Thanks for visiting, Miss Shaw. I wasn’t sure that you would.”

  “Please, call me Jessica.”

  “Jessica it is, then. I’m Rue. It’s good to meet you. My sister says a lot of good things about you.”

  Rue sat on the other side of the table, across from Jessica, the restraints clinking tunelessly as she lowered herself into the chair. A male prison guard stood close behind her, while a female officer faced the inmate over Jessica’s shoulder.

  Jessica said, “As you know, I met with your sister yesterday evening. And I have to admit, I’m intrigued by what she told me.”

  “Rose is great, isn’t she?” Rue said. “You know she comes to visit me every other month? Regular as clockwork, all the way from Arizona. And she doesn’t do airplanes, so it’s a hell of a drive. It’s what keeps me sane in here, knowing I’ll get to hug my big sister again soon.”

  “Do you get many other visitors?”

  “I used to.” Rue shrugged. “Not so much these days. Folks would write me a lot in the early days and ask if they could meet me. Then they’d just sit there, gaping. Not offering much in the way of conversation. I think they just wanted to boast to friends they’d sat face to face with a killer. So I stopped sending them visiting orders. I guess I got tired of being a freak show.”

  Jessica nodded and tried not to gape herself.

  Rue went on. “I still like receiving letters, though. There can be as many as a hundred different people writing me at any one time. Some send photos and books; others send marriage proposals.” She laughed. “Can you believe that? None of them are even close to being cute enough to get hitched to.”

  Jessica smiled and felt herself begin to relax a little.

  “Is that what you do to pass the time?” she asked. “Write letters?”

  Rue nodded. “I write, exercise, meditate, read, study. I never graduated high school, so I earned my GED diploma in here. I never bothered with books at school either, but I read two or three paperbacks a week now. My body has never left California, but my mind has traveled all over the world through those pages.”

  Jessica had been granted only sixty minutes with Rue because Rose had also been to visit her sister earlier in the day. She was just about to move the conversation on to the delicate topic of the murders, when Rue’s mood, and the subject matter, changed.

  “Do you know what my name means, Jessica? The meaning of the word rue?”

  “I think it means street in French?”

  “Yes, so it does. It also means regret. As in, ‘Lucas James and Megan Meeks must rue the day they met Rue Hunter.’”

  Jessica didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. Waited for Rue to continue.

  “I think about them every single day,” Rue said eventually. “Sometimes I talk to them too. Does that sound crazy? I bet it sounds crazy, but there’s a hell of a lot of crazy to go around in a place like this. Don’t tell Rose, but I loved them even more than I loved my own family. Megan was just the sweetest girl. The opposite of what I was like back then, I guess. I really couldn’t have asked for a better best friend. We never argued, never had a bad word spoken between us. And Lucas? He was just so goddamn handsome that my heart actually ached every time I looked at him.”

  Jessica stared at her. She was looking at a middle-aged woman, but it felt like she was listening to the gushing nonsense of a teenage girl. She realized she was gaping again and averted her eyes.

  “Did you see his picture in the papers?” Rue asked suddenly. “Don’t you think Lucas was handsome, Jessica?”

  The old newspaper cuttings had carried a few different photos of Lucas James. A smiling senior class photo lifted from the high school yearbook. A family snap with his p
arents and two older brothers while on vacation in Florida. A posed shot standing between Megan and Rue on junior prom night, an arm slung casually over each girl’s shoulders, taken a year before the murders.

  That one had made Jessica’s blood run cold.

  “Yeah, he was a good-looking guy.”

  “He was the only person I ever had sex with,” Rue said matter-of-factly. “Ask anyone in Hundred Acres, and they’d say that’s a lie. They’d tell you I was a whore like my mother. But it’s not true. Lucas was the only one. Thankfully, I didn’t make him wait. Could you imagine if I had? At least I have those memories, the good memories, to turn to when I’m lying in my bunk at night. I mean, it’s not like there were ever going to be any serious contenders in here.” Rue turned in her seat slightly and glanced up at the guard behind her. “No offense, Pedro.”

  The man, a stocky Latino in his early forties, smirked but didn’t say anything. The female guard huffed out a noise someplace between a snort and a laugh, her warm breath ruffling Jessica’s hair. She estimated at least twenty minutes of her allotted hour had been used up already. Time to get to the point of the visit.

  “It, uh, must have been hard when you found out Lucas and Megan had hooked up,” she said.

  Rue’s demeanor changed so fast Jessica almost got whiplash. Her eyes darkened, and her lips pursed in an ugly thin line, and Jessica caught a glimpse of the hardened criminal she’d been expecting to see when she’d first walked into the visitors’ room.

  “Yeah, whatever,” Rue snapped.

  Then, just as quickly, the moment passed, and the scowl was replaced by a broad grin.

  “Hey, you got a boyfriend, Jessica?” Rue leaned forward, as though they were enjoying a gossip over lunch and a bottle of wine. “Pretty little thing like you, I bet you’ve got plenty of guys after you.”

  Jessica shifted uncomfortably. The leatherette seat felt damp under her butt, and a sharp edge where the material had split open jabbed her skin through her pants. She wanted to get the hell out of there. She’d thought the woman was smart, funny, articulate at the start of the visit.

  Now she realized Rue Hunter was crazier than a shithouse rat.

  “Yeah, I’m seeing someone.”

  “Someone from Hundred Acres? What’s his name?”

  “Dylan.”

  “Dylan . . .”

  Rue scrunched up her sallow, unlined face in concentration, trying to place the name from thirty years ago; then her eyes widened under raised eyebrows.

  “Not little Dylan McDonagh?” she asked. “The cop’s son? He sure was cute as a button as a baby. I bet he’s still cute now that he’s all grown up, right?”

  “Right.” Jessica decided she’d had enough. “Time’s marching on, Rue. Why did you confess to murdering Lucas and Megan? Why did you never appeal your conviction?”

  Rue Hunter held Jessica’s gaze for what felt like forever, and then she shrugged in a casual sort of way, as though she was discussing the weather or what to have for dinner, instead of her best friends’ murders.

  “Same answer to both questions,” she said. “I guess I thought I deserved to be punished for killing them.”

  6

  MEGAN

  1986

  Megan squeezed into the stall next to Rue before slamming the door shut behind them and sliding the lock into place.

  Rue leaned a hand on her friend’s shoulder for support and hoisted a foot onto the toilet seat lid, the spiky stiletto adding another deep score to the already scarred plastic. She pulled back folds of pale-pink taffeta and satin until a small silver flask strapped to her thigh was exposed. She slipped the flask from the garter strap, twisted off the top, and grinned at Megan.

  “Time to liven things up a bit.”

  Rue threw back her head and sucked down a healthy gulp and winced.

  “Neat vodka,” she said. “Stolen from my mom’s not-so-secret stash under the kitchen sink. I swear, one of these days, she’s gonna down a bottle of bleach by mistake.”

  “Rue!” Megan giggled from behind her hand. It was a habit she still had even though her braces had been off for a month now. “What if your mom finds out?”

  “She won’t. I topped the bottle off with water. The silly old bitch will never know. She’ll be too wasted to even notice next time she goes looking for it.” Rue passed the flask to Megan. “Here you go.”

  Megan hesitated, just for a second, then took a quick swallow to keep Rue happy. It tasted revolting.

  “Hey, can you believe Darcy Kendrick was voted prom queen?” Rue said, shaking her head. “And what the fuck is she wearing? The only way you’d set foot outside the door in that meringue monstrosity is if you’d lost a bet.”

  “Rue, you’re terrible.” Megan laughed, pretending to be shocked.

  “I’m being serious. They might even withhold the tiara when they see that ugly dress.”

  “Yeah, I suppose it’s not the best.”

  “Not the best? It’s fucking hideous. Jeez, Megan, you’re too nice—do you know that? Now, take a proper slug of that vodka and say something bitchy!”

  Megan did as she was told and took a long swallow of booze. It didn’t taste so bad this time. She handed the flask back.

  Rue stared at her expectantly.

  Megan said, “Um, well, I guess her dress does kind of remind me of the toilet paper cover in the bathroom at home. You know, the creepy little doll with the knitted dress that my mom made?”

  “Exactly!” Rue laughed, screwing the top onto the flask. She slid it back into the garter strap and smoothed down her dress. “We’d better get back before Lucas sends out a search party.”

  She opened the stall door, and they both froze when they saw Darcy Kendrick standing in front of the sink applying lipstick the same color as the bright pink spots of anger on each cheek. She dropped the tube into her purse and eyeballed Rue and Megan in the mirror. Then she turned and headed for the restroom door, satin lemon-yellow ruffles swooshing with each step. Just as the door swung shut, Darcy Kendrick spoke without looking back.

  “Fucking bitches.”

  Megan and Rue just stood there for a stunned moment, not moving or saying anything. Then they looked at each other and collapsed into a fit of giggles.

  “Shit.” Rue wiped away a tear. “Do you think she heard us?”

  “Um, yes!”

  Rue pulled a paper towel from the wall dispenser and dabbed at a smudge of mascara under her eye. She balled the paper towel, trashed it, and appraised them both in the mirror.

  Rue had opted for a strapless pink satin-and-taffeta dress with a sweetheart neckline and a full skirt that fell just above the knee. She wore matching fingerless fishnet gloves, and her hair was curled and swept to one side, just like Madonna used to wear hers before the singer cut it short and dyed it peroxide blonde.

  Megan’s choice was a full-length gown with a side slit and chiffon-capped sleeves. It was the same shade of blue as her eyes, and, her mom said, complemented her long, dark, permed hair. She was curvier than Rue and about five inches shorter, and she felt like a frump in comparison.

  Rue said, “I know I’m biased, but, damn, we look hot.”

  “Well, you do anyway,” Megan said glumly.

  Rue surprised her then by grabbing her in a tight hug and kissing her cheek. Megan could smell the booze on her breath as she said, “You’re beautiful on the inside and out, Megan. Don’t you dare let anyone ever tell you any different.” Then she pulled back, gave Megan a woozy smile, and took her hand and led her to the door. “Let’s go. Lucas is waiting.”

  The events committee had been tasked with transforming the gym from a sweaty jock haven into a fancy party space, and Megan had to admit they’d done a pretty good job. The color theme was blue, white, and silver, and the room was filled with balloons and streamers and a dozen round tables topped with real linen tablecloths. A huge glitter ball had been strung up on the ceiling, dappling dancing couples with tiny rectangles of light on t
he makeshift dance floor. A four-piece band was performing recent chart hits on a small stage that had been erected at the front of the gym, while the long folding tables that took up much of the back wall held bowls of fruit punch and soft drinks.

  Lucas strolled toward them, a cup filled with punch in each hand.

  Megan thought he looked handsome in his smart white tuxedo and pink bow tie that matched the wrist corsages he’d presented them both when he’d picked them up. When they’d first arrived at the school, the three of them had had their picture taken at the photo area under a balloon archway and a banner declaring “Hundred Acres High School Junior Prom 1986.” Lucas had stood in the middle, an arm slung casually over each girl’s shoulders, and Megan had noticed he smelled good too. Probably his daddy’s expensive cologne, but still.

  “Finally,” he said. “I was beginning to think my dates had ditched me. I was just about to send out a search party.”

  Megan and Rue were just friends with Lucas, but he’d taken to calling them both his dates this evening, and Megan felt like giggling every time he said it.

  “What did I tell you?” Rue said, rolling her eyes at Megan. “We can’t even pee in peace.”

  Lucas grinned and handed them both a drink.

  “Here you go,” he said. “Rumor has it, Rudy Turner emptied a fifth of JD into one of the punch bowls when Mr. Jackson was distracted. It’s got a hell of a kick to it.”

  “Excellent,” Rue said. She tossed back the drink in one go, while Megan sipped hers. It tasted almost as bad as the restroom vodka.

  As she went to dump the empty cup on the nearest table, one of Rue’s spiky stilettos skidded on the polished gym floor, and she grabbed hold of Lucas’s tux sleeve to steady herself. Megan guessed Rue had drunk a fair amount of her mom’s booze before she’d filled the flask at home earlier.

  The band launched into a cover of “Alive and Kicking” by Simple Minds, and Rue squealed something about it being her favorite song and dragged Lucas onto the dance floor. Megan noticed she hadn’t let go of his arm after her near fall. She slumped into a seat, drank some more of the revolting punch, and felt a bit weird as she watched her two best friends wrap their arms around each other.