“You weren’t here, Evvie. You can’t imagine what it was like, the way people looked at her after they pulled those girls up out of the water. And the worst part is nothing’s happened to change their minds. The people who believed it then still believe it.”
“Maybe. But there’s nothing to be done about it now. Once folks make up their minds, there’s not much chance of changing them. Not without proof.”
“What if there was proof?”
Evvie lifted her head. “Where are you going with this, little girl?”
Lizzy scooped a bead from the saucer, letting it roll against the flat of her hand, deep sea-blue flecked with gold pyrite, like a tiny world resting in her palm. Lapis lazuli, for revealing hidden truths. She dropped the bead back into the saucer and met Evvie’s gaze.
“Last night you asked me why I was here, and I said I came back to handle Althea’s personal effects, but the truth is I wasn’t planning to come at all. Then I found a note from Althea tucked into the journal you sent me. She said I was the best of the Moons, and that there were things that needed mending. Maybe that’s why I’m here—to mend things.”
“Mending things,” Evvie repeated thoughtfully. “What does that look like?”
Leave it to Evvie to jump straight to the thorny part of the equation. “I don’t know, exactly. But there’s got to be something I can do, some way to find out what really happened, and clear Althea’s name.”
Evvie slid her glasses off, a crease between her brows. “You think so?”
“I don’t know, but it’s worth a try. Eight years isn’t that long. Someone in this town knows something, maybe something they don’t realize they know. Asking questions might jog some memories.”
“Might jog a lot of things.”
Lizzy glowered at her. “What does that mean?”
“It means there are two sides to every sword. You’ll be digging those girls up for everyone to look at all over again. Folks might not take kindly to that.”
“Maybe not, but I can’t tiptoe around the truth because it might make someone uncomfortable. I did that once. I stuck my head in the sand and let this town bully my grandmother. I’m not doing that again.”
Evvie smothered a snort. “Your gran said you were feisty. She wasn’t lying.”
“Do you think I’m wrong?”
“No, I don’t. In fact, I know you’re dead right. But what you’re talking about—poking around, asking a lot of questions—could get messy, and the odds of getting at the truth are pretty low.”
“I know. But when I leave here, I’ll at least be able to say I tried.”
Evvie returned her glasses to the end of her nose and picked up the half-strung thong of beads. “Any idea where you might start?”
Lizzy blew out a long breath, mulling the question seriously for the first time. “I hadn’t really gotten that far, but I suppose the police station is as good a place as any. I need to get a sense of where the police left things, and how open Chief Summers might be to reopening the investigation.”
“Him,” Evvie grunted.
“I know. Good luck getting any help on that front. But I need to try. I’ll go tomorrow—before I lose my nerve.”
“Your gran would be proud.”
Lizzy’s throat tightened. How she wanted to believe that. “Would she?”
Evvie reached across the table to give her fingers a squeeze. “Don’t you ever doubt it.”
Lizzy had plenty to think about as she slipped out the mudroom door with a pair of secateurs in her pocket and a basket over her arm. Evvie was right. Things would get messy when people found out she was back, and intent on raking up the murders.
Salem Creek had always prided itself on its reputation, proud to be dubbed a “true slice of Americana” by Yankee magazine, and perennially named to New England Journal’s “Best Tiny Towns” list. But a pair of dead girls had put an end to that. She couldn’t imagine the locals being particularly happy to be reminded of Salem Creek’s abrupt fall from grace—or that the blame had been laid squarely at her grandmother’s door. But now that the idea of clearing Althea’s name had taken root, there was no walking away. There were broken things that needed mending—and no one left but her to see to them.
As she crossed the yard, she spotted Andrew down on one knee in front of the greenhouse, rooting through his toolbox. He lifted his head. Their eyes met briefly. Lizzy looked away, quickening her pace on the way to what remained of Althea’s wildflower garden. She’d spotted a few blooms among the weeds and thought it might be nice to bring a few inside.
The pickings were slim, not enough for a full arrangement, but they would do for a few small jars on the kitchen sill. She foraged through the overgrowth, gathering speedwell and crane’s-bill, wild clary and musk mallow, dropping the blooms into her basket. She would have liked a few cornflowers—the deep blue would be a nice contrast to the pinks and fuchsias—but there were none to be had.
It made her sad to see this particular garden so neglected. Althea had always had a particular affinity for wildflowers, perhaps because they gave so much and asked so little. For those on the Path—often dubbed pagans by the uninitiated—everything was sentient, fully aware of its role in the divine circle of birth, growth, life, and death. Althea had taken comfort in that, in the tides and seasons that made up their year, the belief that nothing was wasted or useless, that everything had a time and a purpose, and when that time was over, that purpose fulfilled, their essence lived on, and embraced some new purpose.
It was why the Moons chose to scatter their ashes on their own land, so that a part of them would always live on in the soil. Lizzy had never given much thought to the custom but took comfort in the knowledge that Althea had become an enduring part of the ground beneath her feet. Still, she deserved better than a dismal patch of weed-choked earth. She ran an eye around the garden. It wouldn’t take much, a few hours and a handful of tools. Maybe it was silly—like Andrew repairing the greenhouse—but it felt right somehow, a labor of love for the woman who had raised her when her mother couldn’t be bothered.
Before Lizzy could talk herself out of it, she was crossing the field toward the drying barn, where Althea kept an assortment of rakes and spades. She dragged the crossbar from its bracket and yanked at the door. It gave finally, with a rusty groan. She stepped inside, inhaling the ghosts of a thousand harvested flowers. They were gone now, the drying racks and screen frames all empty, but their memories remained, hovering like spirits in the cool, dry air.
It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust, but eventually she was able to make out shapes in the gloom. The tools she had come for hung just inside the door, but she ignored them, moving instead to the long wooden counter along the back wall, where she used to make her perfumes.
It was an amateur’s work space, a dusty collection of borrowed supplies and makeshift equipment, but seeing it again made her strangely nostalgic. The truth was she missed those early days of trial and error, the delicious serendipity of discovering something new and utterly unexpected. There weren’t many surprises at Chenier. In fact, she rarely set foot in a lab these days, spending the bulk of her time on conference calls or in meetings, collaborating with people who didn’t know a floral from an oriental.
Lizzy pushed the thought aside. She’d been incredibly lucky to catch the eye of Jaqueline Chenier straight out of school, and land a job most thought her too young and inexperienced to handle. She should be grateful—and she was. She absolutely was. But she’d be lying if she said there wasn’t a certain wistfulness to being back in the barn.
Tools, she reminded herself sternly as she stepped away from the counter. She’d come for tools, not a walk down memory lane. She grabbed a pitchfork and was reaching for a hoe when a shadow darkened the doorway. She turned, startled to find Andrew silhouetted in the opening.
“You shouldn’t be in here.”
She stared at him, pulse skittering. “That’s the second time you’ve snuck up on me
today.”
“I didn’t sneak up on you—then or now. And I’d appreciate it if you’d put that thing down. You’re making me nervous.”
Lizzy glanced down at the pitchfork she was holding, dismayed to find it pointing straight at Andrew, as if she were preparing to run him through. She lowered it slowly, annoyed with herself for being so skittish. “Did you need something?”
“Yes, I need you to come out of there, please. It isn’t safe.”
Lizzy performed a quick scan of the barn, finding nothing that looked remotely hazardous. “What do you mean, it’s not safe? It looks fine.”
“Well, for starters, this door is about to come off its hinges. You’re lucky it didn’t flatten you when you opened it. And there”—he paused, pointing to the apex of the roof, where a slice of sunlight was visible through a chink in the boards—“we had a storm back in April, pulled up part of the roof, and damaged several trusses. Plus, the loft and stairs are ready to give. That’s not from the storm, just good old-fashioned dry rot. New England barns are built to last, but not forever. Also, we had a colony of bats last summer, and they tend to come back.”
Lizzy eyed him as she edged toward the door. He smelled of amber and sandalwood, of crisp fall days with the hint of smoke underneath. The combination caught her off guard—not flagrant, but subtly masculine, nudging at memories she preferred to keep buried. He had always smelled like that. Always.
She tipped her head back, noting the smear of caulk in his hair as she sidled past. “Bats don’t scare me. In fact, I find them rather cute. But I draw the line at collapsing roofs.”
Andrew followed her out, easing the door closed behind him. “It’s on the list.”
“The list?”
“Things I promised your grandmother I’d do. I wanted to get them done before . . .” He looked away, shoulders hunched. “I ran out of time.”
Lizzy swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “Me too.”
“She was quite a lady, your grandmother. I had just started working when my father was diagnosed. I was new to the firm and had just landed this big project, so he kept it to himself. Didn’t say a word about being sick until the very end. But your grandmother knew—or guessed. She cooked for him and kept the house clean, drove him to treatments, and made him this special tea to ease the nausea. Stubborn old goat. I didn’t find out until the doctors pulled the plug on his chemo. But Althea was there for all of it. I owe her for that.”
Lizzy managed a fleeting smile, a mix of pride and grief. “Althea didn’t tell me she was sick either. I didn’t find out until she was gone.”
“I wondered why you didn’t come to see her. I’m sorry. I know it’s hard. I was furious with my father for not telling me, but he honestly thought keeping me in the dark was the right thing to do. Your grandmother must have thought so too.”
Lizzy pretended to study the barn door, eager to change the subject. “It’s nice of you to want to help, but the new owners will probably have their own ideas about what to fix.”
Andrew stiffened. “You sold the farm?”
“Not yet, but eventually.”
His shoulders seemed to relax, though not completely. “Yeah. About that. There are a few things you should know.”
“Such as?”
“The place is going to need work before a bank will think twice about financing, and I’m not talking about a coat of paint and some tulips in the window boxes. The house wiring’s tricky on a good day, and the plumbing isn’t much better. The furnace is hanging by a thread, and every roof on the property needs replacing.”
Lizzy stared down at the toes of her boots, registering this unwelcome bit of news. One more complication she hadn’t planned for. And couldn’t afford. “I had no idea things were that bad. I don’t suppose any of that’s going to be cheap. I’m not exactly rolling in cash.”
Andrew shot her a crooked smile. “I’m afraid not. But I know a guy. Friend of the family. Lives close by. Will work for food and the occasional kind word.”
Lizzy squared her shoulders. “Thanks, but I couldn’t accept that. A few panes of glass is one thing, but I can’t let you rewire the house and redo the plumbing.”
“Historic renovation is sort of my thing. Why not let me help?”
Lizzy held up a hand, cutting him off. “No. Thank you. I’ll figure something out. Maybe I can find a cash buyer to take the place as is.” She lifted her chin, meeting his gaze squarely. “I don’t mean to sound callous, but why would you want to waste your time? We hardly know each other.”
He offered a half smile and a bit of a shrug. “Because I told your grandmother I would, and a promise is a promise. I owe her.”
“You can’t owe her. She’s gone.”
“Then I guess I owe you.”
Lizzy found herself at a loss for words. She couldn’t help thinking about her conversation with Luc two days ago, his glib assertion that when he inherited Chenier Fragrances, Ltd., he’d inherited her too, as if she were some shiny trinket in his mother’s jewelry box. And here was Andrew, telling her a promise he made to Althea was a promise he now owed to her. The contrast was hard to ignore.
“You don’t inherit promises,” she said quietly. “It doesn’t work like that.”
He shrugged, smiling again. “My promise. My rules. I’ll nail the door shut before I leave, just to be on the safe side. I’ve got a load of wood coming next week. As soon as I finish the greenhouse, I’ll get started on the loft.”
“I just told you—there’s no money to pay you. And I can’t ask you to work for free.”
“Your grandmother was a special woman, Lizzy. She had a great big heart, and she used it to take care of people. Not everyone understood that, and toward the end, even the people who knew her forgot it. I’m not one of those people. I’m repairing the greenhouse and the barn for the same reason you’re about to carry a pitchfork into that wreck of a garden. I can’t bring Althea back, or change how things went down, but I can do this for her—I can look after the things she cared about.”
Lizzy fought the urge to look away, rattled by the sudden intensity in his voice. Or maybe it was his kindness that made her feel so defensive. He’d been with Althea at the end, where she should have been. He had to have an opinion about that.
“It isn’t that I don’t care, Andrew. I do. But I can’t stay. I know what you think. I know what Evvie thinks too. But I have a job—in New York.” She shook her head, hating that she felt the need to defend herself. “Althea was Moon Girl Farm. I’m not. That’s why I’m selling. Because it should belong to someone who’ll love it the way she did.”
Andrew scrubbed his knuckles over the stubble along his jaw, as if weighing his next words carefully. “What about Rhanna? She doesn’t want it?”
Lizzy stiffened at the mention of her mother’s name. “We haven’t heard from her in years. I think it’s safe to say she isn’t interested.”
“Sorry. I didn’t know. Althea didn’t mention her much.”
“The last we knew she was in California somewhere, singing for her supper.”
And god only knew what else.
She didn’t say the last part out loud. She didn’t need to. Everyone in town knew Rhanna’s story. The drinking and the drugs. The revolving door of one-night stands. The frequent run-ins with police. And Andrew knew better than most, since he’d seen it firsthand. Lizzy tightened her grip on the pitchfork, trying to fend off the memories. They came anyway.
A crowd at the Dairy Bar on a sticky summer night. Families with children. Kids from school looking for a place to hang out on a Friday night. A ruckus at the back of the line. People scurrying, moving like a school of minnows, across the parking lot and around the corner.
She had followed them, because that’s what you did when people started running. When she rounded the corner, there was a police car in front of city hall, blue lights strobing dizzily. A burst of laughter. A smattering of catcalls. A prickle of dread as the crowd peeled apart. And th
en Rhanna, stripped down to her panties and knee-deep in the fountain, belting out “Me and Bobby McGee” at the top of her lungs.
One of the officers kicked off his shoes and waded in after her, chasing her around in circles until he was red-faced and panting. It had taken a full fifteen minutes, but finally she was hauled from the fountain, high as a kite and still singing as they wrapped her in a blanket and folded her into the squad car. A wave of relief had washed over Lizzy as she watched the black-and-white pull away. The spectacle was over.
Only it wasn’t.
There was a boy from school, a football player named Brad or Brett, who spotted her in the crowd. He rounded on her, pointing with an outstretched arm. Hey, that’s her kid! Maybe she’s next! What are you gonna sing, sweetheart? More laughter. More pointing. She had wanted to melt into the pavement then and there, to run, to die. But her feet wouldn’t move. And then, out of nowhere, there was a hand on her elbow, steering her through the crowd, down the street, around the corner.
She finally yanked her arm free and stood glaring at her rescuer—the boy from next door, whose father did odd jobs for her grandmother, the guy with the grin and the Twizzlers.
He’d meant to be kind, to spare her from further humiliation, but his face, thinly lit from the streetlamp overhead, was full of pity, and she had hated him for it. She’d told him so too, before leaving him standing alone on the sidewalk.
She’d been humiliated twice that night. The first time by a crowd of jeering onlookers, the second by someone trying to show her kindness. Strangely, it was the latter that stung most, which was why, from that day on, she had redoubled her efforts to avoid him. Growing up a Moon had prepared her for pointing and whispers. Kindness, not so much. And here he was, being kind again, looking at her the way he had that night under the streetlamp, dredging up emotions she’d just as soon not feel.
“I have to go,” she said, hoisting the pitchfork up onto her shoulder. “I have things to do.”
Let him think what he wanted. If she’d learned anything over the years, it was not to let herself care what anyone else thought. But as she turned and walked away, she couldn’t help wondering what he’d think if he knew she was planning to pay the police chief a visit.
The Last of the Moon Girls Page 6