After Nightfall

by A. J. Banner

  “Your dad will be here pretty soon,” I say. “Want to sit with me? I could use the company.”

  I’m a few feet away now, so close. I wait, trying not to hold my breath. Forever, I wait. My successes, my failures run through me, and I let them go. An eon passes, the world slowing. Then she picks up her backpack, and head down, she trudges toward me and flops down next to me. I wrap my arms around her and hold her close. “I love you, Anna,” I say, and although she doesn’t say a word, I know what her reply would be.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  “See if you can skip the rocks,” Nathan says to Anna. “It has to be flat like this one.” He takes a stone and flicks his wrist when he throws. The rock jumps across the water a few times before sinking into the calm sea. I watch his profile, his easy, smooth mannerisms. I thought I knew him, but he’s a complicated man.

  Anna smiles. Bundled up in her coat and hat and mittens, she looks small and vulnerable. She runs down to the water’s edge, delighted to search for another flat stone. It’s hard to believe only a week has passed since our traumatic confrontation with her mother. Anna is a resilient child.

  Nathan steps back to stand next to me. “I’ll go with you to see Hedra.”

  “I have to go alone. I still have questions.”

  He sighs. “Okay, but follow the directions I gave you. You won’t find the address on a map.”

  “I know. I’ll try not to get lost.”

  He nods, dejection in his eyes. “I should have done so many things differently. I should have told you about her. I should have fought for full custody of Anna from the beginning. I should have . . . Every damned time she went back to Rianne . . . I’ll never be able to live with myself. Why didn’t I know? I wish I could go back.”

  “We can only move forward,” I say. “We can’t hold on to illusions. Bee Mornay told me that yesterday.”

  “Bee? Your nosy neighbor?”

  “Surprise. She’s moving to Hawaii to live with her daughter. The only reason she stayed, she said, was because she believed the spirit of her husband lingered in her house. She talks to him every night. She thinks he has gone to Hawaii to spend time with their daughter, so she’s going, too.”

  “I’ve heard Brynn outside, talking to her mom,” Nathan says.

  “I get it,” I say. “I still talk to my dad. Sometimes I feel like he’s sitting right next to me. I wonder if Brynn feels Lauren close to her.”

  “Maybe in the backyard. Brynn and her girlfriend planted a memorial dogwood tree back there. Apparently, Lauren loved the white blooms.”

  “So, Jensen knows about the two of them?”

  “I’m guessing so. He was out there with them.”

  I smile inwardly. A step forward for Brynn.

  Nathan bends to pick up another flat rock, sends it skipping across the sea. “I put Anna at risk. And you. I knew Rianne was capable of impulsive, extreme behavior, and I knew what she wanted. The family unit intact no matter what. Borderline personality disorder.”

  “Is that what your therapist told you?” I say.

  “It’s a mouthful, but . . . The feeling of abandonment pervaded her life. You’re either with her or against her.”

  “You couldn’t have known she would go off the deep end.”

  “Why didn’t my daughter trust me enough to tell me?”

  “She’s too young to understand that she isn’t the selfish, bad kid—that she isn’t all of the terrible things her mother told her she was. Maybe she will understand this in time.”

  “What would I do without you?” He reaches out, but I tuck my hands into my coat pockets. He can’t expect more from me. The engagement is on hold, too.

  “I love you like crazy,” Nathan says softly to me.

  I smile at him, but I don’t answer, not yet. A tall man is striding toward us in a long black coat. The detective. We wave at each other as he approaches. “I’m glad I found you,” he says.

  “What’s the news?” I say, letting out my breath.

  “Rianne is under evaluation.” He looks toward Anna, crouched on the beach, watching something in the sand.

  “What about the scarf? The forensic geologists?” I say.

  The detective laughs. “We’re piecing together our case. These things take time. How is Anna doing? She started talking?”

  “A little,” Nathan says. “Mostly to us. She still closes down around strangers.”

  “Did she tell you any more about what happened that night?”

  “She said she was going to delete the video, but her phone got wet. She could see the screen, but it stopped working. She was taking owl videos. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be out. But some owls only hunt at night.”

  “She put the phone in rice,” the detective says. “But it would’ve dried out on its own.”

  Anna holds up a flat rock and waves it at Nathan. He smiles at her. “If the video came back, someone would see it. She didn’t want to let anyone see it.”

  “She could have destroyed the phone altogether then,” the detective says.

  “She worried Rianne would get upset, or that it would get her in trouble. Better to bury the phone and give it time to dry out. Then she could retrieve it later and delete the video.”

  Anna crouches to search for more stones. She looks over toward me, as if to make sure I’m still here. I smile at her and nod while I try to hide my sorrow. I hate that she felt so alone, so vulnerable and scared. I hate that she felt she had to bury her phone inside her jewelry box. I wish I could reach into her mind and remove the memory of her mother pushing another human being off a cliff.

  I still feel Lauren close by. Sometimes, when I step into a room, I smell her perfume. When I walk the beach, I see her ahead of me in the distance, always out of reach. But she visits me in dreams. She laughs, raising her wineglass. Once, she apologized. That day in the apartment. We were young and stupid. I wish I could undo it. When I woke, her words scattered in the wind.

  I’ve walked to the bluff a few more times, seeking answers that will never come. In the video, she passes the gazebo, strides toward the cliff, although she was afraid of heights. If Rianne had not pushed her that night, would she have jumped? Or would she have turned around and returned to her family? I’ll never know.

  Anna throws her stone in the water. It skips twice, then sinks. “See what I did, Dad?” she shouts at Nathan.

  “Perfect, Sugarplum!” He grins.

  We all clap, and she gives us a thumbs-up.

  I look at my watch. It’s nearly three o’clock. I told Hedra that I would visit her at four, and the drive takes nearly an hour.

  “I have to go,” I say to the detective. He knows where I’m headed. “Will you keep me in the loop?”

  “You know I will,” he says as he walks me to the stairs. “Be careful. You don’t know what you’re going to find when you get there.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  His words echo in my mind as I navigate the back roads into the foothills of the mountains, civilization growing sparser the farther I drive into the wilderness. I make two wrong turns onto narrow dirt roads before I backtrack and find the house, an unmarked Victorian mansion painted deep green to blend in with the forest. I ring the bell and wave up at a surveillance camera mounted above the door. A minute later, Hedra lets me in. She looks pale and thin, a ghost of herself. She gives me a weak smile, leads me up to the second floor to a large living room. We pass two other women on the way. She gestures to armchairs next to a gas fireplace, and we sit across from each other. Everything here seems run-down—weathered paint on the walls, a threadbare mauve carpet. A slight stale odor.

  “It’s good to see you,” I say, half a lie. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m okay. I’ve been here only a few days, but it feels like a lifetime. And you? How are things?” She clasps her hands in her lap, looking in my direction, but not at me.

  “I’m back at work, taking life day by day.”

  “I heard about
Rianne. Will she be charged with murder?”

  “I don’t know. There are so many questions. About the video, her muddled confession, what Arthur Nguyen saw.”

  “How is he?”

  “He’s still in the hospital recovering. If I had found him any later, he might have died.”

  “I’m glad he didn’t,” she says, but she’s looking toward the window now, shoulders tense, hands twisting in her lap.

  “How is your life here? Is your room comfortable?”

  “Like a dream.” She touches the healing wound on her forehead, from where she hit the nightstand in the hotel. “Nice to have a clear mind for once. Since I got here, all I’ve felt like taking is an aspirin.”

  I hear the words she doesn’t say, that she meant to take the Sinequan. “Aspirin’s a safe bet.”

  “Over the counter,” she says. “My choice, not his, not this time.”

  “Keith prescribed the Sinequan?” I say.

  She heaves a sigh and holds up her hand, looks dispassionately at the fading bruise on her wrist. “He kept telling me to stop complaining and ice it, like it was nothing. Can you believe that?”

  “So, Keith was the one who injured you. It didn’t happen at a—”

  “Photo shoot? No.”

  “I need to know the truth about what you said. You said, ‘Lauren knew.’ Did she know about what Keith was doing? Or were you referring to something else? The night she died, she told me she needed to talk to me about Nathan.”

  Hedra rests her hands in her lap, lightly touches the bruise. “When Keith did this to me, I drove myself to the ER. I waited until he’d left for work. Lauren was on duty. I was surprised to see her all the way out in Bellevue. Shocked, really. She was shocked to see me, too.”

  I feel something turning over inside me. “What was she doing out there?”

  “She had taken some shifts there when Cove Hospital cut back on her hours. The minute she saw my wrist, I could tell she knew.”

  “What did you two say to each other?” I shift in my chair, looking into the flickering flames of the gas fireplace, then back at her.

  “She tried to get me to leave Keith. But I wasn’t ready. I mean, I sort of was. But I wasn’t. She encouraged me to leave him.”

  “So, the key card in the closet—”

  “Was mine. The hotel manager gave me two keys. I had an extra one.”

  “Nathan didn’t know what was going on.”

  “Not back then he didn’t. But Lauren urged me to talk to him. She said he could help me.”

  “Why did she think he could help?”

  Hedra twirls her hair around her index finger the way she did the morning after Lauren died. “She said she had seen him in action, bringing patients to the ER at Cove Hospital. She said he was a good man, compassionate and discreet. He would keep my secret, she said.”

  “Even from me,” I say dryly. A good man, to everyone but his fiancée?

  Hedra glares at me. “I don’t think that was what she meant.”

  “I hope it wasn’t.”

  “I think after dinner she was going to tell you . . . about me. But then she had to pick up Brynn from the party. She was going to tell you to talk to Nathan, to get him to help, because I wouldn’t. I still had the hotel room, but I had gone back to Keith.”

  I don’t ask why—although the question burns on my tongue. “And at dinner at Nathan’s place—”

  “She sent me a text, asking how things were going. Keith saw what she wrote. You couldn’t tell, but he was furious . . .”

  “All of this went over my head. Or under the table.”

  “I took off to the bathroom . . . I had to keep from falling apart. She texted me again much later that evening, to try to convince me to go back to the hotel. She was going to confront Keith. By then he knew that she knew.”

  “You could have talked to me. I would have helped . . .”

  “I didn’t want anyone to know. I still don’t.” Her words come out dry and brittle, like branches ready to snap. “It took me a while to realize she was right. It was when Keith threatened to break my other wrist. That was when I asked Nathan for help. He extended the hotel rental for me . . .”

  “And you and Nathan . . .”

  “There wasn’t anything going on,” she says, but a touch of regret creeps into her voice, and I hear the words she doesn’t say. But I wished there was.

  “Something was beginning. Right?” I still see Nathan burying his face in her hair. “You sent him texts, the ones he said were from Rianne. Late that night, when he got out of bed. Were you the one who texted him?”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “But you texted him the next day.”

  She shrugs, looks around at the room, at the worn carpeting.

  “You did.” Another thought dawns on me. “Why did you take those pills?”

  “I was feeling down.” She refuses to meet my gaze.

  “Could it also have been because of Nathan? You wanted to be with him, and he refused you?” I’m only guessing, but I see I’ve hit a nerve. Her lips tremble, and she focuses on the fading paint on the walls.

  “He did, didn’t he?” I say.

  “I wasn’t thinking,” she whispers.

  “No, you weren’t,” I say, trying not to sound harsh.

  “When I get out of here . . . I need to stand on my own two feet. I need to get my divorce, figure out if I want to press charges . . . You know why I finally came here to the shelter? Keith threatened to break all my bones.”

  “If he doesn’t pay for what he has done to you, he could do it to someone else.”

  “I know that. I just need time.”

  “Of course.” I get up, feeling my welcome wearing out. “You’re brave for leaving him.”

  The rumble of an engine approaches outside. She gets up, dashes to the window, and pulls back the curtain. Her face pales. Her hand develops a tremor.

  “What is it?” I go to stand beside her.

  “He must have followed you.” Keith’s Mercedes creeps up the drive, pulls up in front of the house and comes to a stop. Oh no. Hedra hits a buzzer on the wall, and a woman in a white dress flies up the stairs and rushes to Hedra by the window. Her name tag reads, “Winnifred, Manager.”

  “That’s my husband,” Hedra tells Winnifred in a shaky voice.

  He gets out of the car in a bespoke black suit. Always impeccably groomed.

  “Stay here,” Winnifred says. “You’re safe right here, inside.”

  “This is my fault,” I say.

  “It’s all right,” Winnifred replies. “It happens. It’s happened before.”

  Keith strides up the walkway and knocks on the door. Rings the bell. Rings and rings.

  Winnifred calls out the open window. “Dr. Black. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  Keith backs up so he can look up at us. “Is my wife in there? Hedra. She needs to come home. Marissa, what are you doing here?”

  “She doesn’t want to see you,” I say, my heart pounding.

  Hedra trembles all over. I pull her away from the window. Keith backs up even farther. “Where is she? Tell her to come out.”

  “She’s not coming out,” Winnifred says. “Please leave. The police are on their way, and I’m sending out security.”

  “The police! I’m her husband.”

  We hear the front door swing open and closed. A large man steps out into view, clad in a blue private security uniform. “Sir, please go on your way.”

  Keith tries to pass, but the hulking guard holds him back. “Open the damned door. I’m taking her home.”

  “Sir, please get back into your car,” the security guard says.

  “I’m not getting into my car! Send her out here.”

  “Or you’ll do what?” Hedra says softly. She draws a deep breath.

  “Your wife is not coming with you,” the security guard says, gesturing toward Keith’s car.

  Keith’s face contorts into a grimace. He loo
ks up at the window, his hands in fists. A lock of hair falls over his forehead. “Give. Me. My. Wife!” He punches the side mirror of his car, cracking the glass and knocking the mirror askew. He rubs his bloody knuckles. “Give me that fucking bitch whore!”

  I recoil at his words. I’ve never heard him speak this way. Hedra lets go of my hand and crumples to the carpet, breathing fast. Winnifred lifts her from beneath the armpits, helps her to the couch.

  The security guard steps closer to Keith. “Sir, leave the premises. Now.” Keith hesitates, takes one last look up at the window, his eyes dark, then he gets into his car and drives away. I’m shaking, shot through with adrenaline.

  Winnifred kneels in front of Hedra. “He’s gone. Can I get you anything, honey? Water? Herbal tea?”

  “Tea would be nice,” Hedra says weakly.

  “I’ll stay with her,” I say.

  Winnifred nods and heads down the stairs. I sit next to Hedra and take her hand. Her fingers are cold and clammy.

  “I’ll have to move again,” she says. “He’ll keep coming back.”

  “You need to tell the police when they get here.”

  “I know, it’s just . . .” She draws a shuddering breath. “I can’t believe I protected him. I thought I was doing something good. I thought . . .” Her hand grips mine tightly.

  “Protecting him from what?”

  She looks up at me, her eyes desperate. “That night, I went out.”

  “What do you mean, you went out? What night?”

  “After dinner at Nathan’s place. A noise woke me. I thought Keith had gone out, but he was already back in bed with me. He was still pissed off about Lauren’s texts. My wrist hurt so much, I couldn’t sleep. So, I went for a walk.”

  My heart is beating out through the room. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “I didn’t bring walking shoes, so I borrowed yours.”

  My wet shoes, the grass on the soles. The shoeprints on the path the next morning. “You went out in my shoes the night Lauren died. Is that what you’re saying?”