“Who would murder us?” Hannah threw her hands in the air. The whole conversation was infuriating! Honestly. They lived in a fairy tale three months a year, and Julia wanted to throw it all away for what? Drama. They both had that at home in spades.
“Please, Han? Please?” Julia placed her hands on Hannah’s shoulders. “Look, I just want something different, okay? We’ll come back and do all the things I know you want to. Just you and me. It’ll be like old times. But wouldn’t it be fun to find other people our age? We could have friends. A summer crew. Who knows? Maybe there’s a cute guy hiding down in Rockwell.”
Julia had gone boy crazy sometime in the last year. Josh Fink was always hanging around, and Hannah watched her sister flirt with everyone from lifeguards at the Y to the grocery baggers. Frankly, it was gross.
“Aunt Fae will kill us, you know.” It was a last-ditch effort, but Julia just shot her a look and shrugged.
“Then we won’t tell her.”
Fine. They’d go.
At the pool, Julia shucked her jean shorts and T-shirt to reveal a black ruffled bikini Hannah had never seen before, showing off a new deep well of cleavage that Julia was always adjusting, scrutinizing. Hannah wore her two-year-old racer-back Speedo and spent half the day pulling it out of her bottom.
Julia spread the towel on the grass and adjusted her sunglasses. She leaned back on her elbows and crossed her ankles. Her oily skin glistened in the sunlight.
“Don’t you want SPF?” Hannah asked her, but Julia didn’t bother to answer. “Is this what we’re going to do? Lie here? Like . . . old ladies?”
Julia dug into the bag, produced a ten-dollar bill, and handed it to Hannah.
“Where’d you get this?” Hannah took it, eyeing her sister suspiciously.
Julia shrugged. “Aunt Fae’s purse. She won’t miss it. Now go get a soda or something, okay? You’re driving me crazy.”
Hannah ambled across the grass toward the snack pavilion and took her place in line. She surveyed the crowd: teenagers and small children being chased by harried parents. Girls lounging like Julia, skin plump and sparkling in the midday sun. Huddled groups of girls being eyed by a line of four boys. One of them laughed and tossed a blue playground ball in their direction. The girl squealed and batted the ball back, but it rolled and came to rest at Hannah’s feet. Gingerly, she kicked it with her toe until it rolled back down the hill.
“Hiya, can I help you?”
She was next. She surveyed the board above her head. “Um, can I get a Coke and an order of fries?”
“Sure. Pepsi okay?” The boy behind the counter had reddish-brown curly hair and an impish smile.
“Yeah, that’s fine.” Hannah didn’t smile back. She moved to the side and let the boy take other orders. After a few moments, the wooden screen door on the side swung open, and the boy emerged holding a paper boat filled with fries and a fountain soda.
“Here ya go!” He was cheerier than he should have been. He was working at the hottest place at the pool, for God’s sake. He held the boat out to her, and as she brought her hand up to retrieve it, her fingertips brushed his hand. A weird little jolt zinged up her arm, and the boy suddenly let go. Fries scattered at her feet. She managed to hold on to the soda but jumped back, the liquid sloshing out all over the front of her old red bathing suit.
“Oh, what the hell, I’m so sorry.” The boy bent down to pick up the paper bowl and runaway fries. Hannah knelt beside him. “You know, it’s not the first time I’ve done that. Not even the first time this week.” He gave her a funny smile, half-raised on his left side, and she realized suddenly that he was older. Sixteen or seventeen, maybe? But still.
“You’d think they’d fire you,” Hannah grumbled but grinned back, teasing. She could flirt too. Take that, Julia.
“Nah, not too many people want to work the fryers on the hottest days of the year with a pool only feet away. Besides, then they’d have to give me a job as a lifeguard.” He pointed to his arm, pale and freckled. “Everyone would go blind. The place would go out of business.”
“Oooor else they could just, I don’t know, fire you for good?” They were both still kneeling, teasing.
“Nah, my dad’s the owner,” the boy said, standing up. He dusted off his shorts and raised the boat of dirty fries in her direction. “Take a seat. I’ll be right back, okay?” Hannah sat at one of ten wooden picnic tables under the pavilion.
He returned five minutes later with a new, hot order of fries and a Popsicle for her trouble. He parked next to her, straddling the bench.
“Can someone really own the public pool?” Hannah asked, unwrapping the ice cream first and taking a bite. Creamsicle was her favorite. How did he know?
“Sure. I think a lot of them are owned. It’s a business like anything else.” He paused and plucked a fry from her plate. “I’m Wyatt, by the way.”
“Hi, Wyatt, I’m Hannah.” She swatted at his hand. “So first you spill my food; now you steal it?”
“I told you about my dad, right? I do anything I want around here.” He nudged her with his elbow and laughed. “So listen: I know everyone in Rockwell, and I don’t know you. What’s the deal with that?”
“Everyone? I doubt that.”
“No, it’s true. There are only about two thousand people in this town. I’m related to half of them. But I’ve never seen you before, and I gotta be honest—people don’t just move to Rockwell. It’s not . . . a highly desirable place to live.” His voice had an edge of bitterness, but it could have been Hannah’s imagination.
“I’m staying with my aunt and uncle at the top of the hill. My sister and I come every summer, actually.” She picked imaginary dirt from her fries and kept her head low, avoiding Wyatt’s gaze. His intensity made her nervous, which was rare. People never made her nervous.
“You mean Brackenhill?” Wyatt’s eyes widened. Hannah realized they weren’t brown, as she’d originally thought, but brown flecked with green.
“Yep, that’s it.” She nodded.
“You live at Brackenhill?” Wyatt asked again, his voice edging higher. He sounded excited.
“Yes. Why? Is that bad?” Hannah started to feel weary. This was why she didn’t want to come here, meet people, deal with their hang-ups. She knew she and Julia would be a curiosity and that interest would be a distraction. She wanted to go back home, up the hill, like Julia had promised her they could.
“No. It’s amazing. I love that place. Would you ever let me see it?” He leaned closer to her. He smelled like sunscreen and something boyish, laundry left in the washer. “Is it haunted?”
Hannah paused. “Maybe?” She watched his mouth and wanted to touch it, run a fingertip along his bottom lip. She’d never just looked at a boy before and wanted to kiss him.
“Maybe what? It’s haunted, or you’d let me see it?” Wyatt’s leg bounced up and down, vibrating the bench. “Do you live with the witch?”
“She’s not a witch. She’s my aunt,” Hannah snapped. Aunt Fae had made comments about the things people said. How people didn’t understand her life, her and Uncle Stuart’s choices. But Hannah had never heard anyone directly call her aunt names before.
“Well, whatever, are they as weird as everyone says? She almost never comes down off that mountain. Once she was in Norton’s—the store on the corner—and I swear everyone talked about it for days after.” His eyes glittered, and he gave her a crooked smile. She studied his face, close to hers, and could see the outline of light-brown stubble along his freckled cheeks. He was definitely older, but by how much? He had the confidence of a popular boy, a class clown, someone who would never normally have paid her any attention. She softened.
Hannah wasn’t ugly, but she knew she wasn’t beautiful like Julia. In the right light she might be pretty. Sometimes. She had wavy dark hair and blue eyes. Long lashes and a slightly too-large nose with a bump that only she seemed to notice. Her eyes were maybe a bit too close together and her chin a bit too pointy, bu
t these were self-criticisms. She was, she supposed, average. Even though she flew under the radar, boys were scared of her. Her tongue was too sharp, her wit too quick. Things she thought were funny came out mean by mistake. She’d never cared until now.
“So which was it? Maybe it’s haunted, or maybe you’d let me see it?” Wyatt leaned toward her, his breath sweet like mint gum and cool against her cheek.
“I don’t know. Both?” Hannah stood, her head spinning. “I have to go. But . . . I’ll be back tomorrow. Are you working?” She didn’t know if that was true, if they’d come back.
Wyatt reached out and touched her arm, almost spilling her food a second time. “I’ll be looking for you, Hannah-Banana,” he teased.
“How original. No one has ever called me that before.” Hannah tapped into the smart-ass corner of her brain again.
Wyatt didn’t flinch. He didn’t seem to mind her edge. And that, if nothing else, rattled her. She wanted to ask him how old he was but didn’t dare. His hand rested on her forearm; he still grinned at her in a way that made her whole insides feel as slippery as butter.
Hannah made her way back to her sister’s towel, where Julia stood with a group of four girls clustered in a circle, and felt a stab of something nasty. Julia got what she’d wanted: new friends, other teenagers, summer crew. A bright redhead was talking, gesturing dramatically with her hands, and the whole group laughed. She pulled her hair off her neck, twisted it into a bun, and let it unspool against her back. She was the center, this girl. The only girl whose name Hannah knew so far: Ellie. She turned, spotted Hannah, gave her a wicked smile.
It was fine. As Hannah licked salt from her fingertip, she felt like she, too, had a secret.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Now
“Hannah,” Wyatt said again. And smiled—all teeth and dimples—and for the love of God, he looked exactly the same.
“Wyatt.” She hoped she sounded composed or at least less ruffled than she felt. “You’re a cop now?”
When Hannah had left Rockwell, she’d left. She hadn’t looked back; she hadn’t kept in touch. It was like Brackenhill had never happened. It was like her sister had never existed. Within two years her stepfather had been gone and her mother had been a shell and Aunt Fae and Uncle Stuart had just vanished into thin air, like Julia. She’d finished high school, moved away from Plymouth, and shut off that part of her life, her whole childhood, as easily as one licked an envelope shut. She’d pressed her fingers against the glue, held all the memories, the smells, the sounds, wonderful and awful and unthinkable, shut tight in a sealed place inside her heart.
And now he was here, standing in front of her, acting as though their parting had been normal.
“I’m a cop, yes.” He exhaled. “I wasn’t expecting you. I don’t know who I thought would be here, but I assumed Fae had other relatives.”
“No. There’s no one. Just me.” Hannah squared her shoulders and forced herself to meet his eyes, hold them, until he looked away.
He eyed the grand tympanum above him, then the foyer beyond her, until he settled his gaze back on Hannah.
She felt her pulse in her throat, and Hannah held the door wide. “Come in, please.”
Behind Wyatt, another man stood, hands in pockets.
“Hello, Hannah,” he said, and it took a moment before it registered.
“Hello, Reggie,” Hannah said, formal and stiff. Reggie Plume looked the same. Didn’t anyone age around here? Was the Beaverkill a fountain of youth?
“We’re partners now,” Wyatt explained, and Hannah barked a laugh. Rockwell stayed the same. Everything stayed exactly the same.
Inside, Hannah remembered Alice, whom she’d left crying. She led Wyatt and Reggie through the foyer, the hall, and the sitting room and into the grand dining room. Behind her, she heard Wyatt mutter, “Jesus.” As far as she knew, he had never been to Brackenhill in the daytime. Only at night and only once. But it had been a very long time.
She motioned toward the dining table for the men to sit. “Do you want a cup of tea? Coffee?”
“No thanks, Hannah.” Wyatt cleared his throat, and she wished he’d stop saying her name. It sent a current through her every single time, a single pulse of electricity up her spine. Reggie stood behind him, silent, taking it all in. He’d never been to Brackenhill. She could see his mind working, his eyes darting around the jumbled furnishings that at first glance seemed opulent.
“I just have to ask you some questions, okay?” Wyatt asked gently.
“About what?” Hannah said.
“Fae Webster’s car accident.” Wyatt cleared his throat again. “It’s mostly a routine investigation, but there are some . . . inconsistencies.”
“What does that mean?” Hannah asked.
“Let’s just sit down,” Reggie said, his voice still smooth. Lilting. Meant to be calming, but something about it set Hannah on edge.
“You’re not in a uniform,” Hannah said to Wyatt, stupidly, and wanted to pull the words back immediately.
“No. I’m a detective. I cover the whole county, but it’s not that populated, so it’s fine.” Wyatt pulled out a chair and seated himself to the right of the table head.
“Okay, let me get Alice.”
“Alice?” Reggie asked and cocked his head to the side. Wyatt withdrew a small recorder from his interior pocket.
“She’s the hospice nurse but probably Fae’s closest friend.” Hannah had no idea if this was true. She should have known who her aunt’s friends were, shouldn’t she? She was suddenly aware of how odd her time after Brackenhill would seem to others. The complete excommunication, Fae’s silence. It could read like anger, and Hannah didn’t want to reinforce the notion that Fae was responsible for Julia’s disappearance.
There had been a fair amount of suspicion thrown on Aunt Fae and Uncle Stuart at the time, or at least that was what her mother had said. “Everyone thinks they did it” had been her exact words, but Hannah could never be sure who “they” were in either case. Had it been the police or just town gossip? She remembered asking her mother, “Well, did they?” Maybe to get a rise out of her, something besides that listless presence, the relentless clucking of her tongue at every little thing that went wrong (dropped plate, spilled water glass, missing daughter).
Her mother had fixed her with a stare, uncomprehending, eyes narrowed. Finally, she’d said, “Of course not.” But she’d said it softly, whispered, as though trying to convince herself. Hannah had taken pity on her, told her, “Ma, she ran away. I saw her leave. She’ll be back. She and Fae had a fight.” But there had been nothing on the bus station cameras. No cash missing from Aunt Fae or Uncle Stuart, and certainly no credit cards missing. Where would she have gone with no money at all? Her mother had mouthed the word fight before wandering listlessly back to her bedroom, her head shaking.
It was shocking how many people simply vanished into thin air. No body, no indication of a purposeful disappearance, little evidence of foul play. Their cases remained open, files gathering dust on the desks of grizzled detectives, or perhaps passed on to rookies years later. Or even more common, relegated to cardboard boxes in station basements. Scant bags of evidence jumbled in with other bags of evidence until all that was left was rumor and suspicion and diner chatter that, in the absence of a newspaper headline, became fact.
Alice sat opposite Wyatt—did Hannah have to call him Detective McCarran?—and Hannah took the seat between them at the head of the enormous dining table. Reggie rested his back against the wall, a spectator. Hannah wondered if Wyatt always took the lead on their cases—was he the senior? She couldn’t remember who was the older of the two when they had been boys, always together.
The dining chairs were throne style, high-backed and ornately carved walnut, with red leather seats, and Wyatt had studied them before sitting down.
“It was all inherited,” Hannah needlessly explained. “Fae would have lived in a box. All she needed was her garden.” She felt compell
ed to paint her in this light: wonderful, warm, simple. She had been those things when Hannah was fifteen, but as she kept reminding herself, she had no idea who Fae had become once Hannah had left.
“She was very humble.” Alice jumped in, her eyes tearing again.
Wyatt clicked a button on the recorder and opened a notebook. He asked the basic questions: names, ages, relationship to victim. Victim. The word sat in Hannah’s mouth like sour milk.
“Married?” Wyatt was looking at Hannah, unblinking. His expression remained unchanged. Hannah wondered if the question was truly standard.
“Engaged,” Hannah nearly whispered, and next to her, Alice said, “Yes.”
“When was the last time either of you saw Fae Webster?”
Alice said, “Two days ago.”
Hannah paused and then said, “2002.”
Wyatt finally reacted, snapping his head up and holding Hannah’s gaze. “Really?” He seemed to not believe her.
It was amazing how much he looked the same: same freckled skin, reddish-brown hair, but with a hint of graying around the temples—and what was it about gray that made men sexier? His hands, as he wrote, looked like his eighteen-year-old hands. She didn’t chastise herself for noticing his lack of wedding ring, but she should have. And just like that, a man she wouldn’t let herself think about for seventeen years was insistently, steadfastly here, to occupy her thoughts for the next however many days until she could get back home, with Huck—Huck! For a moment she’d forgotten about him—and Rink and her life, her real life. Her simple, predictable real life.
“Really,” she finally said.
Alice stood, and Wyatt and Hannah looked up, the spell broken.
“I have to go to my next appointment, if that’s all? Maybe we could continue this later?” She was brusque, done with both of them. “They’re expecting me”—she checked her watch—“a half hour ago.”
From the back, through the kitchen, Hannah heard her name being called, and Huck burst through the door, filling the space with his presence and his smell and his bulk—broad shoulders and a slight outward curve to his belly, only a little, large hands and a thick neck and all the things that had made her feel small, dainty, loved, now seeming crude and boorish, which was ridiculous; Hannah knew this. But next to Wyatt, whose eyes were widening in surprise, his mouth open like the fish they’d caught in the Beaverkill, Huck looked like a caricature of a giant. Rink ran behind him, barking and growling.
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