All The Deadly Secrets

by Carol Schaal

  “Relax,” I said. “I think you’ll like it.”

  Before I left Alleton for my Florida visit, Sarah and I had a long talk. “I want to give up working at the shop,” I told her. “I’ll stay here through September, then I’m moving back home.” She was already co-owner of the store, buying in with money she had inherited from her mother, and didn’t need me to make a success of the business she loved.

  “Oh, oh, Lauren, I, oh, I will miss you. But, but it’s a good thing, you should, you need, I think …” she gave up on the verbal calisthenics and threw her arms around me. “You need to go home,” she said. “And, and you can find a new business there.”

  “So,” I finished my announcement after sharing the details of my plan with my family, “I’m coming home.”

  Aunt Raelynn, I saw, was crying, and Garrett gave her a big hug. Mom and Dad applauded.

  “Just in time, Vic,” Greg said as he walked over to stand by me, putting his arm around my waist, “Because you’ll be around to welcome Roberto’s new sibling. Carmen’s due in late September.”

  I looked over at my sister-in-law, who beamed at me.

  It was a beginning.

  * * *

  Early on the day my flight would take me back to Michigan, I went to the cemetery and knelt by Drew’s grave. The words of the scrawled message he left for me on that fateful day were seared in my brain.

  “Never reveal what I did. It would destroy Carmen. Promise me. I love you. Be stronger than me.”

  I didn’t find the note I had tucked in the pocket of my cargo shorts until several hours after Drew died. Sitting alone in our bedroom, overwhelmed by grief, I learned that he could no longer live with the demons of what had happened in Iraq, a nightmare he refused to share. He had leaped willingly to his own death.

  And keeping his secret, protecting his vulnerable sister, became my own nightmare.

  So many times, I had wondered if I should have shown the note to Raul when he accused me of murder. And all those times, I knew I could not trust him with the secret that was not mine to share.

  Leaning forward, I traced the engraving of Drew’s name on the tombstone. “I forgive you,” I whispered. “Rest well, darling Drew.”

  I stood up, took a long look at the gravesite, then walked out of the cemetery, lifting my face to the warmth of the rising sun.

  Acknowledgments

  If you’ve gotten this far, that probably means you read the book. And I owe you a big thank you for giving my novel a chance. If you enjoyed All the Deadly Secrets, please leave a review on Amazon. That would mean a lot to me.

  My early readers were priceless and deserve more than the free lunch I gave them. Heartfelt thanks to my patient husband, Jim Wensits, who listened to me talk about the book for months before I would let him read it; my fabulous sister, Barb Lane; and my dear friends, Gayle Dantzler and Linda Diltz, whose keen sensibilities and sharp eyes helped me make this a better work.

  And special thanks to the extraordinary Kerry Prugh, who designed the cover.

  About the author

  Carol Schaal, who is always surprised and pleased when the perennials she planted in her yard bloom in the spring, lives in northern Indiana with her husband and their cute dog. As managing editor of the award-winning Notre Dame Magazine, she edited articles by such writers as Tom Coyne, Brian Doyle, Paul Farmer, M.D., Heather King, Jamie Reidy, Arienne Thompson, comic Owen Smith, and poets Beth Ann Fennelly and Samuel Hazo. She recently left the magazine world to focus on fiction and discovered the joy of making stuff up.