HER PERFECT SECRET a totally gripping psychological thriller

by T. J. Brearton

  But then I realize something. He’s not alone. Someone else is on the dock with him, farther out. The moon backlights her long hair.

  I slow myself down and stop.

  “Michael . . .”

  “What’s the matter?” he asks.

  I’m focused past him on the woman. Unable to see her clearly, my mind fills in the blanks. I picture Laura Bishop. She takes a few steps toward Michael. “Wait!” I call out.

  Then the woman puts her hand in Michael’s and stands close enough that the light of the house can just reach her.

  * * *

  Joni says, “Mom — just stay there. Calm down.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  She says something to Michael too quietly for me to hear. He nods. The two of them start up the lawn, giving me a wide berth. In my rush to reach Michael, I missed seeing the vehicle in the driveway. The two of them head for Joni’s Subaru.

  “Jo, honey . . .” I start after them. “What’s going on?”

  “Mom, just leave it alone.”

  “Leave it alone?” They must have been texting. While I was unburdening myself to Sarah, then talking to Paul. But the hospital is miles from here. Joni was already on her way, then. Of course she was. Michael never returned to her, so she came looking.

  I call to him. “Please talk to her, Michael. Tell her that we did what we had to. That we need to deal with this.”

  He stops, and then I stop. He stands looking at me in the semidarkness, his face glowing a bit from the house lights, like a phantom. Joni is pulling on his arm. “Michael. Leave her.”

  Joni’s distance, her coldness, is painful. I don’t even know where to begin to address it, so I face her fiancé.

  “We have to fix this, Michael, or it will only get worse. And we’re getting close.”

  Instead of resentment, I see resignation on his young face, his squared features. “It’s okay. We can do more later. But I’ve got to go now.”

  He turns and lets Joni lead him by the hand. She only releases him in order to get behind the wheel of the Subaru.

  The motion-sensor light pours onto the scene. My daughter is just a shadow, sitting in the car. The sight of her prompts me to run after her. I’m feeling old feelings — the hunt for my wayward girl when she was just a teen.

  Joni hits the gas and reverses the Subaru, then does a tight turn around and tears down the long driveway, out of sight.

  I listen until the engine noise has completely faded. Until the chorus of crickets has returned, the occasional burp of the frog down along the water’s edge.

  I know she loves me, but whatever she’s doing, whatever she knows about Michael, it’s clear she’s on his side.

  In a way, I admire it. You have to side with your partner if a marriage is going to work. You have to protect them.

  I wonder at the state of my own union. Paul hasn’t even texted after I hung up on him. I’m alone here, at the lake house, feeling like everything in my life has come crashing down in just a few short days.

  As if I’m being punished.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Mena.

  Her face floats to me out of a dozing haze. Her cheeks flushed, like she’s had a drink or two. The nervous energy she emanates.

  Thoughts of her blend into memories of Maggie Lewis. Young, beautiful Maggie. Not much older than Joni. Stricken with some of the same issues, in fact. Full of guilt, like Michael.

  Even like I was, at that age.

  A thought occurs to me, some edge of a grand pattern, but it eludes sharper focus. Something about how humans repeat behaviors? I know it’s true. We tend to recreate our childhoods, for one thing. We also tend to attach ourselves to a mate similar to our opposite-sex parent.

  Even more bizarre, we also like to create the same situations for ourselves again and again. You’ve heard the saying — insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. It’s a truism, not a real definition, but there’s no question that we can be our own worst enemy — our own greatest obstacle.

  Mena. My faithful and long-time assistant. She’s only ever helped and supported me. And she’s seen everyone that’s ever come into my office. And knows about every police case I’ve ever consulted on . . .

  Why am I suddenly wondering about her?

  Her behavior the night we met at my office, for one thing. The way she seemed nerved up over the Bishop case. Oh, she tried to pass it off as her grief for Maggie Lewis, but I knew.

  Everyone seems afraid of what happened fifteen years ago. As if the hammer that struck David Bishop delivered a blow to us all. At least, it reverberated deep into our lives.

  It’s even affected Sean. Whether Michael did something consciously, unconsciously, or not at all, my son is vegetative, for God’s sake.

  None of us are in our right minds, I suppose. We’re beside ourselves with shock and worry.

  Poor Joni.

  My daughter is protecting herself the best way she knows — she’s retrieved her fiancé and taken control. She’s not answering my text messages, and neither is Paul. Hopefully because he’s getting some rest.

  It’s what I should be doing. It’s after midnight.

  So I lie back again. I try to shut off my mind. To end the parade of faces and din of voices. To stop myself from reliving Michael’s outburst in the bedroom. His gut-wrenching recall of his family history, of the night his father died.

  I push it all away and try to focus on my breathing. On the crickets, and the distant slopping of water against the boathouse docks.

  I want my mommy back . . .

  No, push it away, push it away . . .

  It takes a knock at the door before I rise up from the couch to see the red-and-blue lights flashing in through my windows and feel the frantic buzzing of my phone against my leg.

  PART FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  First, the phone.

  It’s Paul.

  “I can’t find Joni.”

  “She was just here.”

  “At the house?”

  “She took Michael and left.”

  As I’m explaining things to Paul, I’m headed for the door. The flashing lights are from a police car in my driveway. I rake fingers through my hair and shake it out. “I have to go now. Police are at the door.”

  “Police?” He’s alarmed but also sounds angry.

  “Everything is okay. I’ll call you back.”

  I end the call and open the door to a beefy young man in a dark blue local police uniform. Another officer, female, is halfway between the entrance and the garage, shining a light around.

  The male officer gives me a close look. “Ma’am? Is everything all right?”

  I pull my light sweater around me tighter, though the night is still warm. Memories of Joni continue to surface. Christmas, when she was fifteen and missing. She’d run away from home and was found the next day by a New York City transit cop, passed out on the subway.

  When I speak, my voice is dry, the words broken. “What happened? Did something happen to her?”

  “Happen to who?”

  “My daughter. Joni Lindman.”

  The young cop’s gold nametag reads Fletcher. He’s maybe twenty-five or thirty. Ginger-haired, cut short, with neat sideburns. The type of kid that was doing keg stands at his frat just a few years before turning law-and-order.

  “Ma’am,” he says, “We’re here because of a disturbance call. Someone on the lake said they heard lots of noise coming from this direction. Screaming and shouting and things breaking. They weren’t completely sure it was your house, but with the stuff that just happened yesterday . . . Was that your son?”

  “Yes. My son, Sean. But that was an accident.”

  “Sure. But that’s what caused us to zero in on your house when we got the domestic call. Ma’am, are you all right? You’ve got a bruise there on your face . . .”

  “Oh, that . . .” I start to explain, but I’m distracted by more headlights
coming up the drive.

  Thinking it might be Joni, I walk past the local officer.

  “Ma’am,” he says. When I don’t respond, he whistles.

  The other cop, who’s been wandering around the property with her flashlight, is a little closer. She gets in my path. “Ma’am, let’s just sit tight for a minute, okay?”

  “This is probably my daughter,” I say. But it’s not. The vehicle comes into view. More police. This one is a state trooper’s car, darker with a yellow stripe. Two figures inside. Good grief.

  “That’s our backup,” the female officer explains. “The caller dialed 911, and 911 sends it out to everyone in the vicinity. They’re just checking that everything’s okay.”

  The state troopers exit the vehicle, each sliding a nightstick through their belts once they’ve stood. One’s a little taller, but both are fit and dark-haired, like brothers. They each give me a glance, then start to chat quietly with the female officer.

  “Ma’am,” says the other local cop, Fletcher, easing up behind me. “Who else is in the house?”

  “You can call me Emily.”

  “Okay, Emily. Who else is home?”

  “No one is here. Not right now. My daughter just left.”

  “And who’s your daughter?”

  It goes on like this until they have the basic details down. Fletcher says, “And so it was you and Michael here in the house about a half hour ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you fighting?”

  “No.”

  They’re waiting for an answer. I tell them the first thing that springs to mind. “I’m treating Michael. I’m doing regressive therapy.”

  The woman, identified on her uniform as Coyle, speaks up. “He’s your daughter’s fiancé, and you’re treating him?”

  “Not formally. It’s a long story. I can’t really discuss it all, because of patient confidentiality.”

  Coyle nods. “I see.” She glances at the others.

  One of the troopers says, “Ma’am, we’d like to just take a look around. Make sure everything is all right. Is that okay with you?”

  “No one is here. I’m not hiding anything. I used to work with law enforcement. As a consulting clinical therapist.”

  “That’s great,” Fletcher says. One of the troopers goes past him, and past me, inside. The other starts around the back of the house.

  Coyle asks, “Have you had much to drink tonight, Emily?”

  “No. Why are you asking me that?”

  “Just getting a sense of things. And the bruise on your face?”

  “I hit a deer.”

  Coyle and Fletcher trade looks. Fletcher: “You hit a deer and got a bruise on your face?”

  Coyle points at my forearm, which shows some black and blue. “You got that, too?”

  It’s likely from Candace’s husband, Greg. But they don’t need to know that. “Yes. I hit a deer two nights ago. No, three nights ago . . . I’m sorry. My son is in the hospital. He’s in a coma. And my daughter . . . We’re in the midst of a family crisis here, really.”

  “You feel like you’re in crisis?” Coyle looks concerned.

  “That’s not what I — I mean, we’re dealing with some major things, like families do. When it rains, it pours. I’m sorry that we were loud, that Michael was loud . . .”

  I trail off when Fletcher pulls his phone, as if checking a message. After he reads it, he levels a look at me. “Ma’am — Emily — did you have an altercation on the second floor? The room is torn up pretty bad. Should we go have a look?”

  I take them inside. Coyle and Fletcher are clocking everything as they walk through my house. In the bedroom, both seem to have made up their minds — this is more than family problems. “Did your daughter’s fiancé do this?” Fletcher puts his hands on his hips. We stand in the mess with Coyle and the taller trooper.

  “I told you, this was part of his regression. He acted out.”

  “And his name? You said Michael Rand? Could you maybe find out where he and your daughter went? I think everything’s going to be okay, but we might just like to have a quick talk with him. Then we can leave you to your business.”

  I’m trembling slightly. My words have a bite I can’t quite control. “I don’t know where they are. I can’t keep track of my daughter every five minutes. She’s a grown woman.”

  The three cops in the room give each other knowing looks, then Fletcher leads them out.

  After we return downstairs, I try to make amends by offering them all something to drink. Each politely declines.

  It’s after one in the morning when they finally have filed out of my house and returned to their cars. The last one, the trooper, is coming up from the boathouse. He stops and talks to Fletcher and Coyle, his words lost under the sound of the idling engine. Fletcher gets out. He and the trooper approach me. The trooper says, “Mrs. Lindman, can you come with me for a minute?”

  “What is it?”

  “Just come with me, please.”

  * * *

  The state trooper walks me to the boathouse. Our feet make hollow noises on the wooden dock as we walk to the door and open it.

  The dinghy and the sailboat are bobbing in the water. The water gently slops against their hulls and the wooden boathouse foundation. The trooper snaps on a flashlight and shines it on the sailboat.

  The blood is dark, having mostly dried. It spills over the wales and then smears alongside the hull. I can almost discern a handprint.

  “That’s my son’s blood,” I say, answering the unasked question. “That’s Sean’s blood.”

  The trooper: “You said this happened out over the water?”

  “Yes. Sean took Michael sailing. Show him a few things.”

  “Uh-huh. And Sean was hit in the head? By . . . that big thing there?”

  “Yes. The boom.”

  “Is that a common accident in sailing?”

  The resentment starts to build. I’d already had these feelings, these suspicions, and put them away. Now it’s being re-litigated by the police. “Common enough,” I say.

  “Uh-huh. And so the boom hits your son in the head, and he goes into the water. Is that right? Michael then gets in the water, swims to him, and then what? Keeps his head out of the water? Tries to get him to shore?”

  “They were picked up.” My voice sounds slightly muffled. My eyelids flutter with momentary lightheadedness. “Picked up by someone passing by.”

  Officer Fletcher grabs me. “Whoa. Emily. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Didn’t Paul say there was someone? Someone who took Sean and Michael aboard, called 911, and brought them to the boat launch? My thoughts are fuzzy. So much has happened in just a few days.

  The trooper asks, “Who returned the sailboat to the boathouse?”

  “My husband must’ve . . . he would’ve gone out in the rowboat. And towed it back.” But I doubt my own words. Would Paul have gone out on the lake to retrieve the sailboat before rushing to the hospital? That doesn’t make any sense.

  My gaze seeks the symbol scratched into the wood near the boathouse opening. The heart with the arrow through my daughter’s name. Michael’s name. I can’t quite make them out from here. I want to move closer, verify them, and take another look at the words etched into the windowsill just above.

  But the next question from the state trooper causes me to forget all about it.

  “Mrs. Lindman, do you know Laura Bishop?”

  My skin starts to crawl. “Yes.”

  “In what capacity?”

  A pause. Then: “She was part of a case I consulted on. Years ago.”

  The trooper pauses, looks at Fletcher, then back at me. The boats bob in the water; the water makes its hollow sounds. “We’re notified when an inmate is about to be released from state prison.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “We also receive a cross-report on anyone that inmate may have contacted on the day before his or her release.” The troope
r nods to Fletcher, who leads us out of the boathouse and up the hill.

  The trooper says, “Laura Bishop is going to be out in a few hours. Eight a.m. this morning. And the last phone call she made was to a Michael Rand. Your daughter’s fiancé.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  So they’ve been in touch.

  Or maybe she just left a message? The police weren’t able to tell me more. No specifics on the time. But I know calls from prison are recorded, so it’s got to be on file somewhere.

  What matters more: Michael knows who he is. That seems definitive now. He knows he’s Tom Bishop — why else would he be in contact with Laura? And if he’s been in touch with her, it strongly suggests that the whole “memory loss” thing has been a charade.

  I remember him in our driveway, right after I told him I believed him to be Tom Bishop. How he said, “I’m not ready.” Now it makes sense. He wasn’t ready for me to lift the veil off his identity just yet.

  I manage to convince the police that they can go. I’ll be all right. They’re skeptical, but since I’m not about to press any charges, and they’re not going to arrest me for a noise complaint, they eventually leave.

  As soon as they’re gone, I light a cigarette. Not Joni’s brand. I can’t seem to recall when I bought them or where they came from. But the crackling burn of the tobacco soothes. The smoke cycles through me as I text Joni. Where are you? A familiar pull of frustration and despair is settling into my neck and shoulders. An old feeling. My intractable daughter. Rebellious, unresponsive.

  I text Paul, too, apologizing for my earlier abruptness, explaining what happened; the watered-down version. Police checking on things. Everything is okay.

  Nothing could be further from the truth. And the fact that I’m withdrawing from Paul, rather than banding together with him in this time of multiple crises and uncertainty, makes things all the bleaker.

  Resolving to start anew in the morning and get my life back, I put out the cigarette in the driveway and return to the couch. After a few fitful minutes, I say a prayer. I’m not a particularly religious person, but I ask that my son be looked after. My daughter. And Michael, too.