by Molly Greene
“We fell in love.”
Ingburg looked at Gen but didn’t really see her. “They thought it was bad. They sent me away to school. I knew Patrick would come for me, but I couldn’t stand to wait. So I went to him. So we could be together. I knew he’d be at his mother’s house.” Laura’s bleary eyes swung from Gen to Oliver, then dropped to the table. “I knew he would be there, thinking of me.”
Now Laura’s face was distorted with whatever agony she was reliving. Gen worried that she might stop, so she prodded. “What happened?”
“Patrick said we couldn’t be together. That we needed to talk to them and work it out.” Now the tears came. Laura’s face dissolved into an ugly cry, the kind a woman only wants to do in private.
Gen knew it was going to be nasty, but she needed more. “What did Patrick do?”
“I know he didn’t want to let me go,” Laura sobbed. “But Greg insisted. He took my love away.”
“To New York?”
Laura nodded, as though it was natural that Gen should know the story. “And Greg and your mother split up over it.”
Again she nodded.
“I’m sorry.” Oliver reached out and stroked the back of Laura’s hand. “Don’t cry.”
Livvie’s voice was close to breaking. Gen hadn’t realized how deeply Laura’s emotion had affected him. She patted his arm in apology, but he ignored her. And judging by what he said next, he was made of tougher stuff than he was letting on.
“Laura, what was Patrick’s mother’s name? Where was her house?” He was fishing for all he was worth, but Laura was too far gone. Patrons around them were beginning to gawk.
Livvie shook Laura’s arm and she snapped out of it for an instant. “What was Patrick’s mother’s name?” He asked again, this time slowly.
“Ella’s house. Ella Noonan. She was dead.”
Gen’s eyes rounded into dish plates. She stared at Oliver, but he was on a mission. Tonight Livvie had nerves of steel.
“Where was the house?”
But Laura was all the way gone. She burrowed her face into her crossed arms and sobbed inconsolably. “In my spot. My special place.”
Gen tore her gaze from the tableau before her and looked around. The adjacent tables had emptied. The bartender caught her eye and shrugged, as though the scene was normal. He made a sign beside his face, a closed fist with thumb and little finger extended.
He’d called someone. A cab, maybe, which meant they didn’t have much longer. And Gen was right; she was patting Laura’s back when the door opened and Francie Stoddard walked in. They had less time than she thought. She kicked Oliver under the table and their eyes met.
“Francie Stoddard,” she hissed.
He flicked his head toward the restrooms. Good idea. No way did she want to test Harriet out against Francie. Gen gave Laura’s back one more pat and left.
She sat in a stall for ten minutes, then left and washed her hands and threw some water on her face. She was about to peek out the door when Oliver came through it with both their bags on his arm.
“Wow,” he said. “Quite an evening. You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”
“What happened?”
“The woman took one side, the waitress took the other, and they hauled her out of there like they’d done it a thousand times before. Didn’t pay any attention to me.”
“I was surprised to see Francie come in.”
“Quite an array of shocking events, huh?”
“Poor Laura.”
“I know,” Oliver said. “I thought I was going to blubber right along with her there for a minute. But she was really yakking it up, and I felt empathy being overruled by greed. I was dying to know how much she’d say.”
“Well, I’m glad your mean side kicked in.”
“What now?”
“Let’s blow this hot dog stand,” Gen said. “I need to get out of here and put some food in my stomach. Then we’ll go back to our room, crack open the laptop, and check every resource I can think of for Patrick Noonan Prentiss and his deceased mother, Ella.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Gen drove slowly down the highway, nudging the Camry into any rough opening in the shrubs that might lead to the water. It was late afternoon. The sun was riding low over the ocean, sending waves of heat beating through the windshield every time the car faced the sea.
Oliver was in the passenger seat, calm as a nun. How did he manage to look so chill? Her padded middle was leaking like a hose with a faulty coupling. She suspected the rivulets of sweat had as much to do with anticipation as the blistering weather.
Half the day had passed before she’d found snippets of the story online that eventually led her to the Noonan place, protected by a trust that obscured Patrick’s ownership.
Gregory Prentiss and Patrick’s mother, Ella, had never married. Gen wondered whose idea that had been, but assumed it was hers. From the looks of it, she’d been financially secure in her own right and hadn’t needed a man to take care of her. Gen found an obit that revealed she’d died when her son was about eighteen. After a few years, Greg must have moved on to wed Laura’s mother.
They were south of the estate now. Driveways were few and far between along this stretch of the 101, and most of the west-facing rutted roads turned out to be primitive beach access.
Gen was frazzled by the time she nosed the sedan through a fringe of stunted pines, then up to a padlocked gate emblazoned with a no trespassing sign. Prickles on the back of her neck told her this might be it.
She glanced at Livvie. “I think we found it.”
“How are we going to play this one?”
“We?” Gen shook her head. “No. You stay put. I’ll try to think of something clever while I’m looking for a way in.”
“You’ll need help. I don’t think you’ll be able to climb that gate.”
“You give me too much credit. Actually, I’m surprised there isn’t broken glass attached to the top. No, I’ll walk along the fence line and see what I can see.”
“Sure you don’t want me to tag along?”
“Positive. I’ll need you to bail my butt out of jail if Noonan finds me and calls the cops. If that was him we saw when I snuck into his father’s place, he might not be so casual this time. Even if I do look like mild-mannered Harriet. With any luck he won’t know me, but still. He might be a tad upset, since I promised not to come back.”
She thought about it for a minute, then reached beneath her shirt and unfastened the batting. She skinned off the wig next and tossed the whole shebang into the back seat.
“On second thought, I don’t need to be Harriet for this. Something’s going down, and who I am will come out in the end anyway. I don’t care if Noonan knows I was at his father’s place. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“You’ll be careful, right?”
“Are you kidding? I could use a pair of Depends right now. Trust me, I’ll be as vigilant as a mouse in a house full of cats.”
“Have you got your cell? I want you to call me the minute anything starts to look dicey.”
Gen nodded again. “I think you should move the car back out onto the two-lane. If you see me burst out of the bushes and run like my heinie’s on fire, crank up old Bessy and be ready to kamikaze out of here.”
Oliver laughed. “You got it.”
The chain link was unbreachable all the way to the sea. Gen was about to double back and scan its condition on the other side of the entry road when she leaned over the edge and saw the trail. Chopped into a stony ledge four feet down, it climbed up into Patrick Noonan’s property just past the fence line. All she needed now was a safe way to get there.
Twenty feet to the south she found it.
An animal track cut the shoulder of the bluff and merged with the path. She didn’t want to think about what kind of creatures were coming and going here, or the possibility she might have their company on the ledge.
She scrambled down the hill, stood uprigh
t, and shuffled sideways up the trail with her back to the cliff. The waves rolled in and out thirty feet below, sliding over kelp to crash against the rocks.
Gen didn’t look down.
Fifteen agonizing minutes later she reached the Noonan side and clambered up onto safer ground. A Spanish-style hacienda was set back among the trees, painted a deep ochre that reminded Gen of tarnished gold doubloons. Lush plantings crowded the building. Overhanging trees imparted a tropical feel. Apparently, the Prentiss clan liked their housing substantial and impressive.
Gen was crouched in the shrubbery trying to formulate a plausible scheme when she saw her. The kid had to be about twelve. She was less than fifteen feet away, standing in profile and staring at the sea.
The sound of the waves must have muffled Gen’s approach, because the girl gave no indication she’d heard anything. When she looked Gen’s way, she was only trying to let the breeze blow the hair from her face, but it was enough. Gen knew right away.
It was Shannon’s daughter.
Surprise registered on the child’s face when she saw a stranger in the bushes, but there was nothing about her Harriet attire that could be construed as harmful.
“Are you okay?” the kid asked, then took a step forward. “Did you hurt yourself or something?”
“No.” Gen straightened and stepped clear of her hiding place. “I’m looking for your mother.”
“She’s in the studio. But you’re not supposed to be here.”
“I need to talk to her. Will you show me?”
“I’ll get in trouble.”
“So will I. But it’s important, so we’ll have to risk it.”
The girl hesitated, then turned and ducked through a copse of flowering plum. She beckoned to Gen, then led her up a gravel path that twisted away from the house.
“What’s your name?” Gen asked.
“Ella Sophia. Who are you?”
“My friends call me Genny.”
The trail broke free of the landscaping and the pair was facing the ocean again. Gen drew in a sharp breath before she could stop herself. She knew immediately where she was; she’d stared at the scene incessantly for weeks now. They were on the cliff where Shannon stood in Sophie’s painting.
The girl halted and looked at her curiously.
“It’s beautiful here,” Gen explained.
“Mom thinks so, too. She paints it all the time.”
Several more paces brought them to the open studio door. They were at the back, and the side that faced the ocean was all glass, just like the building at the Prentiss place. A woman sat at an easel, brushing pigment onto a canvas. A photograph of the scene she was working on was clipped on a board to the left of her line of sight.
“Shannon,” Gen called.
The brush stopped in midair. Shannon Keene’s shoulders straightened. She slowly turned her body toward the door.
“Ella. Who is this? What have you done?” Patrick Noonan’s unmistakable voice, still tranquil, came from behind.
Gen stiffened, then spun around and flattened her body against the exterior wall. “I came for Shannon.” Her voice was as hard and clear as she could make it. “It’s over. I’m taking them out of here. You need to let us leave.”
Ella gasped and slipped into the studio. Gen didn’t turn her head to watch, but assumed she went to stand with her mother. She kept her eyes on the man, waiting for him to make a move.
An odd look crossed Noonan’s face, half pain and half anger. “You’ve made a mistake.”
“Don’t try to stop us,” Gen warned. “Kidnapping is a felony, and you’re going to jail.”
It was only then that Shannon spoke, and what she said rocked Gen’s certainty that she understood what was going on.
“That’s not what happened.” Shannon’s voice was tender, borderline loving. “We know who you are. You’ve got it all wrong, it’s not like you think.”
“Daddy, what does she mean?”
The anguish in Ella’s voice drew Noonan past Gen and into the studio. Gen followed him, moving through the open door in time to see the girl run out the other side and dash to the edge of the cliff. Noonan rushed after her, then caught and held Ella when she threw herself on a bench to cry.
Shannon’s eyes were moist when she faced Gen again. The now forty-year-old was as lovely as she’d been at twenty. Time had been kind; her face did not appear to have endured suffering or hardship. The lines around her mouth and eyes were not etched by unhappiness or stress.
Gen stared and tried to make sense of it.
She was about to demand an explanation when she caught a movement outside. Her eyes were drawn to the pair on the bench. Shannon caught the tension in her gaze and pivoted to find the source of it.
Sophie Keene stood on the bluff facing Patrick and Ella. Her eyes glittered. Her face was twisted with emotion, a kaleidoscope of expression that cycled between torture and resolution.
Patrick stood.
He must have spoken, because the girl vaulted to her feet and clung to him. He hugged her, then nudged Ella away. She moved. But before she could get clear, Sophie lunged and grabbed the child, then shook her like a rag doll and dragged her toward the edge.
Noonan darted forward.
“Stay away, or you’ll be sorry.” Sophie’s words stopped him cold. “I’ve wanted to make you sorry for a long time.” Her voice was harsh and ragged with misery. “Move back, Patrick.”
He obeyed.
Sophie stared into Ella’s face. “She should have been mine.”
Shannon moved outside then, floating like someone in a dream. Gen trailed her but stayed to one side and kept distance between them. She wanted Sophie’s attention on her sister.
When she saw Shannon, Sophie’s eyes blazed open, reflecting relief and, for an instant, joy. “I’m sorry, Shan.” Sophie broke down. “I’m so sorry. About everything.” But when Patrick advanced toward her once again, her happiness turned to fury, as quickly as that.
Shannon saw it, too.
“He’s my husband, Sophie. He loves me.” Shannon’s voice brimmed with pity. She must know what was at stake. She stretched both hands to her sister, and her legs moved with them.
“Please let my daughter go.”
Gen glided forward, staying clear of Sophie’s sightline, and watched as Sophie’s control crumbled.
“She should have been mine,” she growled again, then loosed Ella and ran at Patrick, screaming, “You did this. It was all your fault.”
But she stopped and stood stiff as a mannequin before she reached him, then whipped around and raced to Ella and dragged her away toward the cliff.
The girl screamed and thrashed against her aunt.
Gen saw a possible scenario as though it was a vision from the divine: what if Sophie jumped and took the girl with her? She leaned over and whipped the stun gun from its holster. Adrenaline jacked her strength as she raced to intercept them.
“Ella, fall to the ground,” she cried. “Now! Do as I say!”
Ella went limp and slid from Sophie’s grasp.
Gen leaped and plunged the gun against Sophie’s side, then held fast until her knees buckled.
Sophie fell.
Gen released her hold and collapsed, kneeling on the earth beside her.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Nobody batted an eye when Oliver walked out of the shrubbery. He stood there, breathing hard with his hands on his hips, observing the stunned group around Sophie’s inert form.
“I saw her drive in,” he said. “I got out of the car and followed, but she cut the fence and was through before I could reach her.”
“Did you call the cops?” Gen asked.
“Yes, I went back to the car for my phone. That’s what took me so long to get here.”
Gen rose, holstered the gun, and filled her lungs with salt air as though it could heal her. “Thanks, Liv.” Her knees trembled. She worried they wouldn’t hold her, so she sank back to the ground.
P
atrick and Shannon took Ella into the house and called the police again. When they returned, the four of them dragged Sophie’s unconscious body from the edge and onto the studio couch. Patrick locked the bluff-facing door from the outside.
Shannon held her sister’s hand until she came to.
“I wasn’t going to hurt her,” was the first thing Sophie said. “I wanted Patrick to see how it felt to have someone take away what you love.”
The women both cried then, and held one another and whispered. It was the reunion Gen envisioned when she first imagined Shannon might be alive. The circumstances, of course, were vastly different.
When the weeping subsided, Gen took a seat beside them. “Sophie.” Her voice was gentle. “You killed Corey Uribe, didn’t you?”
“It was an accident,” Sophie replied. “Corey told me Patrick was in love with somebody else. I didn’t know it was Shannon until that night.”
“How did you find out?” Gen asked.
“I was in the back corner when Shan and Corey met in the bar. I followed her there. When I saw them talking together like that, I knew. I took one look at Shannon’s face, and I knew it was her.”
“Tell us what happened after that.”
“I trailed them back to Corey’s. I needed to talk, to find out how my sister felt about him. I came in after Shannon left. Corey tried to tell me it was for the best. I hate it when people say that. The best for who? Not for me. I lost it.” Sophie covered her mouth and wept.
Gen gave her a minute and started again. “Did you hit her?”
“No,” Sophie cried. “I was angry and I pushed her. Corey fell and hit her head. I thought she was dead, so I ran away. It was an accident, but I kept quiet. I just didn’t know what to do.”
Shannon reached out and stroked her hair.
“I was an alcoholic,” Sophie moaned. “All these years I’ve tried to get free of what I did. I blamed Shannon and Patrick, even though I know the responsibility was mine. I thought I’d overcome everything, but when I saw the painting I knew what had happened. That they were together. I was angry they’d let me suffer alone all this time.”