by Edie Claire
Mom. No doubt about it, despite the reversal of color. Christi was standing over the same table at which Laney sat now. She was holding a cake on a plate. A single, lit candle shone at its center.
Laney gulped in a breath. There was a child in a highchair. With a little bit of hair. But the face was too small… she couldn’t see! She dropped the negative onto the table and pulled another from the back of the stack. A quick perusal showed several photographs of a toddler; she zoned in on the biggest closeup.
The reverse colors were maddening. Still, she could see the rounded face. The broad chin. The same, recognizable features she’d seen on the earlier baby pictures. With one clearly notable difference. This older toddler had hair. Unruly, wispy, curly hair.
You had the cutest blond hair, Gran had told her last night. Curly like your daddy’s.
Laney’s hair was straight. The very first picture in the family album that showed any hair at all had showed straight hair. Every picture after the time gap had absolutely, definitely, been a photo of Laney. Every picture before the tornado had been—
Laney choked on the lump in her throat. This girl.
The hand that held the negative shook so violently she couldn’t focus. This girl was the baby. The baby was this girl.
You’re the other one.
A moan escaped Laney’s throat. She dropped the negative. Her body went limp, and she slipped off the chair and onto the floor.
It was true.
She could explain everything else away, add up all the little pieces and dismiss them wholesale. But this... this could not be explained. Christi hadn’t lost any pictures. She had taken them out of the album, selectively, and hidden them away. The prints she might have destroyed, but the negatives… well, how could she? They were the last pictures ever taken of her real daughter, hers and Jimbo’s, a child that she herself had consigned to death without a grave!
Huge, racking sobs consumed Laney as the pieces of the puzzle continued to fall, with painful precision, into place.
Laney, honey, Christi had said mere weeks before she died, I want you to do something for me. She couldn’t let anyone — especially Laney — find the negatives. It had been dangerous enough for her to keep them in the house while she was alive. Yet she couldn’t destroy them. So what could she do? I want the pillow and Jimbo Bear buried with me, okay? I know it sounds stupid, but I do.
Of course, Mom, Laney had assured her. It’s not stupid at all. I’ll take care of it.
I’ve already asked your Gran to do it, Christi had said quickly. I think it will be better that way… it will give her something useful to do, when the time comes. I just need you to be sure she remembers. Can you promise me that?
Of course Christi had wanted Gran to do it. If Laney handled the bear, she might notice the new stitches — sewn by Christi’s own, then unsteady hand. But Gran couldn’t be trusted to remember, so there were backups. Laney. June. Amy. All had been appropriately advised.
But Gran had protected the items too well. And now, today, some part of her mind had remembered that urgency. Yet she hadn’t asked Laney to look for the bear; she’d asked June to do it. Gran’s damaged brain still registered the need to keep the damning evidence out of Laney’s reach — never mind that Gran had already, unwittingly, divulged the truth. Gran had been keeping Christi’s secret for twenty-five years. Grandpa Auggie must have kept it too.
The sobs kept coming. Laney lay curled on the floor, hugging her knees.
Did June know the truth? Maybe, maybe not. She had been busy with her own family at the time, and Christi and Jimbo had lived hours away on the other side of the state. Certainly June knew nothing of the negatives, or she would never have asked Laney to search for the bear…
But she could still have known. And Amy too. And Nan and the Turners… did all of Peck know? Had they been laughing at her all along? Throughout her whole, fraudulent, completely unreal life?
Laney’s cheek was pressed against the cold, hard kitchen tile. It felt dusty and dirty.
She didn’t care.
She would never care about anything, ever again.
Two toddlers swirled in circles in her mind. One flew into a haystack. The other, into oblivion. Yet somewhere, way to the north, in Canada, a stone marker stood atop a tiny, empty grave.
She should be in it.
She wasn’t Laney Carole Miller. She never had been. She never would be.
She was Jessica Nicole Macdonald.
Chapter 14
Tofino, British Columbia, Present Day
Laney unloaded her groceries into the rented mini-fridge, then closed the door of the cabinet enclosing it and removed the key from the lock. “Do people steal food if you don’t use the lock?” she asked.
“Steal is a strong word,” Jason replied good-naturedly. “But mistakes happen, and I like to minimize conflicts between my guests. We don’t do drama, here. Not if I can help it, anyway.”
Laney rose to her feet with a smile. She had to admit, she liked everything about the surf lodge, including the price. Jason was a gifted entrepreneur. “What’s the cost for the rental?”
“It’s nominal,” he said dismissively. “I can put it on your tab.”
Something in his tone told Laney that was unlikely to happen. She’d have to make sure they settled up fairly when she checked out. But her leaving Tofino was one of several things she didn’t want to think about right now. She’d just had an absolutely wonderful evening in the company of two sharp, funny, objectively good-looking men. She had a supply of groceries, a kitchen, and a safe place to sleep. And tomorrow morning, the sun would rise to show off the full glory of the Pacific Ocean — right outside her doorstep.
“Before I head out, I wanted to ask you,” Jason began somewhat hesitantly. “We never finished searching your computer. I’d be happy to help you with that again, if you’re having trouble looking at the screen.”
Laney’s happy mood crashed instantly. She didn’t want to think about what might be on her computer. Not now. The black cloud of fear that had assaulted her earlier hadn’t disappeared; it was merely waiting, lurking just beyond her conscious reach. Could she not remain happily oblivious for a little while longer?
“I’m sorry,” Jason said, looking chagrined. “I knew I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
Laney was surprised. She thought she’d concealed her angst. Jason was indeed good at reading people; she would have to remember that.
“No,” she insisted, trying harder. “I appreciate the offer. But I’m sure I can manage the laptop by myself now.”
It was another lie. She’d answered a text from Amy in the car and had thought her skull would split. Since she’d left the hospital, the pain in her head had subsided to an occasional dull ache that was mild enough to ignore. But looking at screens still produced the dagger-in-the-eyes effect, and until that stopped, blue light wasn’t happening.
“So,” she said cheerfully. “Where are you guys going surfing tomorrow? I’d love to watch.”
She wasn’t so bad at reading faces herself. Jason was delighted.
“Probably right out here, at Chesterman,” he answered. “If the doc hadn’t said ‘no physical exertion,’ I’d bring an extra wetsuit and you could give it a go yourself.”
Laney laughed. She couldn’t imagine herself on a surfboard. “I don’t think so. Doctor’s orders or not.”
“Why not?” Jason demanded. “You said you were a good swimmer.”
“In a pool!” she clarified. “With lanes and rules and a defibrillator. I don’t do riptides and sharks.”
“We don’t have shark attacks up here,” he boasted.
“No sharks?”
He smirked. “I didn’t say that.”
“No thanks,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll stick to watching from the beach.”
He didn’t reply immediately. He just stood there studying her, his gray-green eyes sparkling so intently she had to avert her gaze. No wonder the guy had wome
n all over him. A girl could lose herself in those eyes. He was like a friggin’ cobra.
“You wouldn’t last an hour just sitting,” he pronounced finally. “I saw the way you looked, standing up on that rock, facing the wind. You’re a thrill seeker at heart; don’t deny it. I know a fellow adrenaline junkie when I meet one.”
Laney’s mouth dropped open. And she’d thought he was perceptive! “You’re crazy! I’m about as far from a thrill-seeker as you can get. I’m the most boring, do-nothing academic on the planet.”
Jason grinned. “Says you.”
If he’d been one of her grad school buds, Laney would have delivered a playful smack to his shoulder and changed the subject. But she had no intention of touching Jason, playfully or otherwise. The man was too dangerous. Too handsome, too sweet, too attentive. Too easy to fall for. He would make an amusing guy friend. But she would not be any cobra’s midnight snack.
“Well, we’ll just have to see,” she replied, quashing the subject. “Thanks again for the chauffeur service. Looks like I’m good now, so I think I’ll turn in. Despite the whole coma thing, I feel like I didn’t sleep a wink in the hospital. I’m pretty beat.”
“Of course you are,” he agreed. “Ben and I will probably hit the beach early tomorrow — swell’s supposed to fade by noon. We’ll keep an eye out for you.”
“Likewise,” Laney promised. “Thanks again.”
He shrugged off her thanks, bade her farewell, and exited through the door to his office.
Laney remained in the common room a moment, staring after him, before turning towards her own room. She shook her head in puzzlement as she walked. If she didn’t know better, she’d think the man was interested in her. But she did know better.
She opened the door to her room, stepped inside, and locked it behind her. The lodge was supposedly full tonight, but no one else was around. The others were probably out enjoying the bars and would stumble in loudly later. No matter. As tired as she felt, they couldn’t wake her if they tried.
A smile crept over her face as she remembered Jason’s words. An adrenaline junkie. Her. Ha! This insane road trip to Canada was probably the most adventurous thing she’d ever done. Aside from getting up close and personal with tornados, of course — but that was a part of her job.
She would have loved to travel more. She had always longed to see the ocean, stroll through the forests of the Smoky Mountains, hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Hell, if someone else was paying for it, she’d go just about anywhere, do anything. But no one else was paying for it, and what little money she had had always been spoken for. There was a difference between what she wanted to do and what she needed to do, and the latter came first. It was called adulting.
She threw on her sleep clothes and crawled into bed. It was a comfy mattress for the price, and she caught herself smiling again. She really was looking forward to watching the guys surf tomorrow. Ben’s wife Haley was a very lucky woman. If only Jason—
Well, he’s not. So never mind. She closed her eyes and drew up the covers.
Sleep wouldn’t come. Her mind preferred to replay her pleasant evening. A handsome face. A deadly smile.
She groaned and rolled over. It had been far too long since she’d had a boyfriend… or anything else. But her past relationships had been uninspiring. She’d hardly dated at all in high school, partly because of slim pickings, but mostly because of her own immaturity. In college she’d rectified both those issues, but two long-term relationships had ended with two painful breakups. She’d tried again while working on her master’s, but the result was the same.
She didn’t blame the guys — they were who they were, after all. All three had been steady, responsible, good-hearted, and family-approved. They wanted the same things out of life that she did: a happy marriage, a good job, a stable future. She had genuinely cared for all of them and had thought they might work out. Whether she had loved any of them, she didn’t know. All she knew was that when the marriage talk started, everything else fell apart. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be married someday. She thought she did. The problem was that the thought of spending the rest of her life with any of the three of them made her want to bust out the door and keep on running.
She had tried to explain herself, to let them down gently, but her best intentions had failed. She’d hurt them all, and she wasn’t proud of that. Nor was she anxious to repeat the experience.
She figured she must be missing a gene. She didn’t doubt the existence of the kind of love that lasts a lifetime; she’d seen it in action herself. But acquiring it was more elusive, and she worried that she was incapable. She was destined to be a spinster nerd, eating lunch alone in her cubicle at the Storm Prediction Center, crawling into bed at eight o’clock with her five cats.
She flipped over with another groan.
***
“Looks good for tomorrow morning,” Jason told Ben as he grabbed a handful of popcorn from the bowl on the coffee table, then leaned back into his sectional couch. “Mostly clear, glassy. Waist to shoulder.”
“Just my speed,” Ben replied. “Don’t feel like you need to babysit me all morning, though, if you’d rather be with the big kids at Cox Bay.”
Jason shook his head. “Chesterman’s fine. I’m used to teaching there; it’s my biz. Besides, Laney said she wanted to watch us in action tomorrow.” He grabbed another handful of popcorn. “This is awesome. What’d you put on it?”
Ben smirked. “Sorry. Family secret. You want a repeat, you’ll have to invite me back.”
“Dude,” Jason said with appreciation, “anybody who cooks likes you and cleans up has a standing invite. Besides which, the more you stay with me, the more cred I’ll build toward that Maui condo offer.”
Ben chuckled. “No need. You can cash in anytime. And it’s not me Laney wants to watch in action.”
Jason shook his head. “Hate to downgrade my own rep, but I don’t think she’s interested.”
“Oh, no?” Ben replied. “That wasn’t my impression.”
Jason refused to take the bait. “Laney’s great, but like I said before, she’s not my type. I can see us being friends, though.”
“Can you?” Ben asked. “You have a lot of female friends?”
“Sure,” Jason answered immediately. He searched for an example. “I get along great with my sister-in-law, Mei Lin. And her sister Ri, of course.”
Ben nodded. Ri, a marine biologist in Alaska who’d done an internship on Maui, was the mutual friend who had introduced them. “They’re both married. I’m talking about single women.”
Now Jason smirked. “Well, you met Natalie earlier. She was pretty friendly.”
“Single women who aren’t exes,” Ben clarified.
Jason thought a moment and came up empty. Hell, there had to be someone. “The woman who manages my equipment rental—"
“Is old enough to be your mother,” Ben interrupted.
Jason frowned. “Is there a point to this?”
Ben laughed. “Sorry. Just saying it isn’t easy to manage a friendship with someone you’re attracted to when you’re both single. I should know. I tried hard enough.”
“So what happened?”
“I married her.”
Jason harrumphed. He heard enough blabbering about wedded bliss from his brother. “Well, I’m not marrying anyone. And Laney is the marrying kind, so that’s that. Is this all the popcorn?”
“No, there’s more. What’s so bad about marriage?”
“Nothing,” Jason said, growing frustrated. “I just like my life the way it is.”
Ben grabbed the empty bowl and rose. “Well, that makes two of us,” he said cheerfully. “Aside from all the other reasons I like being married to Haley, it makes it easier to have female friends. Whenever I meet an interesting woman, I throw my marital status out there, first thing. Taking sex off the table makes people act differently, you know. They’re more themselves.”
Ben headed into the kitche
n, and Jason stared after him. Was that why Laney had seemed so comfortable with Ben so fast? Interesting.
But hardly relevant for his own life. He couldn’t very well walk up to Laney and say, “Hey, you’re cute and all, but due to differing life philosophies I’m not interested in sleeping with you, so will you relax already?” He chuckled at the thought. He had enough experience with women to know how that would go over. It didn’t matter if it was true; it wouldn’t even matter if she specifically didn’t want to be pursued. He’d still get some handy object upside the face. Women liked to feel they were attractive to a man.
Men liked that too, of course. He got his fair share of female attention, and he enjoyed it. He frowned suddenly, remembering his first introduction to Laney, pre-concussion. She had gone out of her way to show disinterest. Why?
He wondered, for the first time, if she might have a guy back where she came from. A guy she no longer remembered. His frown deepened. If she did have somebody, and the guy wasn’t concerned enough about her whereabouts to track her down and get his ass up here, he didn’t deserve her.
Jason ground his teeth for several seconds before realizing that scenario wasn’t possible. Laney remembered everything up to the last few days — she could hardly have acquired a boyfriend in that amount of time. No, if she wasn’t interested in Jason, she had another reason.
His brow furrowed. And what might that reason be, anyway? She did seem to enjoy his company. He wasn’t marriage material, but she didn’t know that. Not yet, anyway. So what was her problem?
“Damn, you look serious,” Ben said lightly, reentering with a fresh bowl of popcorn. “Something I said?”
“No,” Jason replied, scooping up another handful before the bowl hit the table. “Just thinking about an accounting issue at the lodge.” He crunched a mouthful of kernels. Laney must not be looking for any kind of relationship, with anybody. Well, that was fair. He just needed to make clear — somehow — that he was perfectly capable of enjoying the company of a single woman without sleeping with her. Then they could be friends.