By the beginning of February, Becca was deluged with keeping up with her classes and managing the end-of-the-day fatigue that came with her pregnancy. She learned to get her work completed by seven or eight at night since she was rarely seeing a minute later. She fell asleep too many times on her couch—with notes around her and her textbook on her chest—to realistically think she could comprehend material during the evening hours. Instead, she packed her books away and climbed into bed each night around 8:30 and was gone to the world.
On the second Tuesday in February, Milt Ward’s only serious contender dropped out of the race and ended his campaign. One month before Super Tuesday, Becca watched Milt Ward and his campaign race around the country campaigning for votes. By the end of the night his bid as the nominee for his party was inevitable. It was early and unprecedented. The country buzzed with the news, and the party celebrated as it got behind their candidate. Jack called at just past 10:00 p.m. to tell her the official news. They shared a quick conversation before he was off to prepare an acceptance speech. Jack was writing speeches for a man running for president, he reminded her, and potentially someone who would occupy the White House by the end of the year. It was a historic moment, and they shared it from hundreds of miles away.
The next day, Becca lay on the table of her doctor’s office while the technician ran a cold probe over her stomach.
“Strong kid,” the male technician said. “Bigger than normal for twenty-three weeks.”
“Really?” Becca said. “Is that good or bad?”
“Neither, really,” the tech said. “Has a good heart rate, and everything looks perfect. Just a little bigger than usual. Maybe we’ve got the dates off by a couple of weeks. No big deal.”
“A couple of weeks are a big deal. I need this baby to hang out in my womb until sometime after May 4th.” Becca saw the tech squint his eyes. “I’m in law school and I need to finish finals before this kid makes an appearance.”
The technician smiled as he logged information from the ultrasound into her chart. Without looking at her, he said, “If I were a betting man, I’d say this kid’s not gonna wait until the middle of May. But talk to the doctor about it. She’ll be right in and should be able to give you a better idea of the date.”
An hour later, Becca was bundled in her wool coat with a scarf wrapped around her face as she headed to her car. The doctor had determined all was normal and that the baby was just bigger than usual for twenty-three weeks. Still, she moved Becca’s due date up a week based on today’s testing and explained the details of inducement if there were no signs of labor by the beginning of May.
Becca fought hard to figure out how she might successfully complete her 1L year with a baby arriving in the middle of finals week. It was time to tell her parents. It was well past the time, really. They waited longer than they should, and with the due date a week earlier it was time to come clean. It was looking more certain that to get through the year, especially with the recent campaign developments and the fact that Jack would be traveling, Becca would need to rely on her mom to get through her first year of school.
She started her car and cranked the heat. She dialed Jack’s cell phone and he answered on the first ring.
“What did the doctor say?”
“We have a very healthy baby, and one who will arrive a week earlier than expected.”
“Why is that?”
“The baby’s totally healthy, just big. It’s making Dr. Shepherd rethink the due date, which she now pushed up a week. And even if the baby doesn’t want to come out until the due date, she won’t let me go that long if the baby continues to grow at this pace. Delivery would be too difficult, and possibly dangerous because I’m small and our baby is big. So I’m having a baby right around finals, Jack. I don’t know how we’re going to do this.”
“Okay,” Jack said. “We’ll figure it out.”
“I’ve got to tell my parents. I don’t know what we’re thinking. They’re going to find out, so I want to tell them. About the baby and about us being married. Everything. I know you keep saying we should wait, but I don’t want to wait anymore.”
“You’re right,” Jack said. “We’re idiots for waiting this long.”
“What are we doing, Jack? You’re traveling all over the country, I’m barely keeping pace this semester, we’ve got this huge secret sitting on our shoulders, and we haven’t even filed our marriage certificate yet.”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Sorry. Things are crazy here. But it’ll calm down in a week or so.”
“I just feel like, I don’t know. Is this whole thing real? Nobody knows about us being married or about the baby. It feels wrong. Like we’re trying to hide it forever. I know this is going to screw up law school for me, and probably interfere with your job, but we’ve got to do something. This baby has to start taking precedence instead of being something we keep trying to work around.”
Becca listened to Jack breathing through the phone. As he thought things over, she heard him rub his face, which was covered now with heavy scruff from working nonstop.
“Jack! I’m freaking out here.”
“Yeah, I’m just thinking. You’re right, Becca.”
“Listen,” she said. “I need to get out of here for a while. I’ve got a test next week I’ve barely studied for because I can’t stay awake past eight o’clock. I’m going to ask my parents if I can use the stilt house for a long weekend of studying.”
“Good idea,” Jack said. “Head up to Summit Lake. I’ll meet you there on Saturday.”
“How?”
“I’ll talk to Ward. Tell him I need some time. Simple as that. He’ll understand. And if he doesn’t, I’ll quit. Either way, I’ll meet you this weekend to collect our thoughts. Get things straight between us. Then we’ll take a day next week to drive to Greensboro and tell your parents.”
“For real this time.”
“Absolutely.”
“They’re going to freak out.”
“Probably,” Jack said. “They have a right to freak out—we’re idiots. But guess what? They’ll get over it because in a few months they’ll have a grandkid they’re going to love, and after a while we’ll all get over how we handled this. Let me talk to Ward and I’ll call you back. Don’t tell your parents anything without me.”
“Okay.”
“Promise me,” Jack said.
Silence.
“Promise me you won’t say anything to your parents until we see each other.”
“I promise,” Becca finally said. “I won’t talk to my parents.”
“I love you.”
“Me too,” Becca said.
She clicked her phone off and held it to her forehead, thinking of sitting in her parents’ living room and telling them she had run off and gotten married and they would soon be grandparents and she might not finish law school. She shook her head and wiped the tears from her eyes. After her car warmed up, she drove to her apartment in Foggy Bottom. With an oversized purse on her shoulder and a bag of Baked Ruffles in her hand, she shuffled from her car. It was almost 6:00 p.m. and the cold winter days pulled darkness over the city before five each night. She jogged through the parking lot under the yellow glow of halogen while a wicked wind worked to prevent her progress. She struggled with the key as her frozen fingers stabbed at the lock. The frantic nature in which she ran from her car and now grappled with the deadbolt put a sense of urgency and fear into her. There was something else, too—an eerie feeling of another’s presence. All of this transcended onto her in the seconds it took to fight the door open, which she finally did, and then quickly slammed it behind her, reengaging the deadbolt as soon as the door hit the frame.
She dropped her purse on the kitchen floor and threw the Ruffles on the table, running her hand over her frozen cheeks and wiping away the tears the cold night brought to her eyes. Her hands were shaking from the panic of wrestling her apartment door open.
“You’re losing it,” Becca said out loud.
She looked through the peephole and into the dark evening. She needed Jack. That was all. She needed his rational thinking to get her past her fear of attempting to make it through finals with an infant, and his reassuring nature that was able to conquer any obstacle. She found solace in the idea that they would spend the weekend together.
Two hours before fatigue would steal her motivation to do anything but lay in bed, she needed to read three chapters of ConLaw and get caught up on Torts. She jumped in the shower to rejuvenate and warm herself. The panic that overcame her earlier faded as the hot water flowed over her body.
Alone in the bathroom, her eyes closed and the roar of the shower filling her ears, she never heard the front door as the knob was tried from the outside. The deadbolt held and after three attempts, the door went quiet.
CHAPTER 34
Kelsey Castle
Summit Lake
March 15, 2012
Day 11
“Here,” Kelsey said. “Got it!” She was tapping the MacBook with efficiency, staring at the screen.
“Let me hear it,” Rae said. She, too, was staring at her computer, working hard.
“Brad Reynolds. Lives in Maryland. At least his parents do. Father is a big league tort guy. Attended GWU, part of Becca’s freshman year enrollment. But out of all the Brads we’ve looked at, this is most likely the one mentioned in the journal. I found an internship program Becca was part of her sophomore year. Brad Reynolds participated in the same program. He also lived in the same coed dorm as Becca freshman year. No Facebook presence, but this has to be him.”
“Where is he now?” Rae asked.
“No idea. But I have an address and phone number in Maryland. I’ll start there.”
“Okay,” Rae said. “I’ve got two for you. The professor is Thom Jorgensen. Former GWU professor of logic and critical thinking. Becca took his course sophomore year, got an A. Now he’s on staff at Cornell University. Made the change during Becca’s senior year. Phone number is no problem. We can reach him through the university.”
“Easy,” Kelsey said.
“There’s a catch, though,” Rae said.
“What’s that?”
“You say he and Becca had a relationship?”
“Of some sort. He’s mentioned in her journal quite a bit. More in the earlier entries. Why?”
“Professor Jorgensen is married with two kids. So if he was involved with Becca . . .”
Kelsey stared at Rae, then scribbled on her notepad. “Okay. What else?”
“High school boyfriend, I’m almost sure, is Richard Walker. He went to Northwest Guilford High, same age as Becca. Harvard undergrad and now Harvard Law. Which, obviously, you said Becca mentioned in her journal. An old Facebook posting shows him at the prom with Becca. He’s our man.”
“Contact info?” Kelsey asked.
Rae went back to the computer. “Shouldn’t be hard. We can get his phone number at Harvard. I’ll look.”
Kelsey grabbed the phone. “I’ll start with Brad Reynolds.” Kelsey dialed the Reynoldses’ home number in Maryland and held the phone to her ear.
“Check this out,” Rae said, still working the keyboard. “Richard Walker’s family owns a vacation home right here in the foothills.”
Kelsey momentarily dropped the phone from her ear, eyes squinted. “Here? The foothills of Summit Lake?”
“Yep,” Rae said with a smile. “So we might not have to go far to find him. Plus . . .”
“It puts him in the vicinity the night Becca died.”
“Possibly.”
A faint voice captured Kelsey’s attention, and she realized someone had answered the phone at the Reynolds household. She quickly put the phone back to her ear.
“Hello, Mr. Reynolds? Yes, my name is Kelsey Castle. I’m a reporter for Events magazine, writing a story about Becca Eckersley. She was murdered a couple weeks back . . . uh-huh . . . well, I know she attended school with your son, Brad, and I was hoping to talk with him to get some information about Becca.”
There was silence for several seconds as Kelsey listened to Mr. Reynolds. “Oh,” Kelsey finally said, looking at Rae. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
PART IV
THREE KNOCKS
CHAPTER 35
Becca Eckersley
Summit Lake
February 17, 2012
The day of her death
She skipped her Friday morning class and didn’t worry about her afternoon study session. With the car packed the night before with anything that wouldn’t freeze, Becca was on the road by 8:00 a.m. It was a five-hour ride to the mountains and another hour or so to Summit Lake. She talked to Jack before she left. Milt Ward offered Jack all the time he needed, and Jack was arranging a flight for Saturday morning that would get him there by late afternoon. He settled on four days off, which were closely plotted to include two days in Summit Lake—Saturday and Sunday—one day in Greensboro for the long overdue talk with Becca’s parents, and one day to get back to DC before he hit the road again with Senator Ward. That was the plan he offered, and Becca hungrily ate it up.
She called her parents on the way up to let them know her progress and promised to call again when she arrived. With the extra bathroom stops, the trip took seven hours. It was almost 3:00 p.m. when she pulled into the small drive at the front of the stilt house. She dragged her bag from the trunk and dumped it in the bedroom, then ran out and brought in the groceries she bought the night before. Once she settled in the house and had the thermostat adjusted to a comfortable level, she pulled on her heavy coat, threw her backpack over her shoulder, and headed to one of her favorite spots. By the time she came back, the house would be warm and cozy.
She set the alarm and locked the door behind her, then headed into town. It was a two-block walk to Millie’s Coffee House. Livvy Houston was a family friend, and over the years Becca grew to love the café, the coffee, and especially the sweet tea—a secret recipe Livvy said was passed down from her mother. It was Friday afternoon and the café was mostly empty when Becca found a table by the window, not too far from the warmth of the fireplace. Though a latte would keep her alert, she had been off caffeine for four months and instead settled on a sweet tea, which she was sure had enough sugar to compete with the coffee. Pulling out her textbook and notes, it was not half an hour before Becca was lost in ConLaw and the intricacies of various Supreme Court rulings. The more she read, the more notes she produced. She pulled other research materials from her bag and soon the little table at Millie’s was a cluttered mess. Even the chair next to her contained dog-eared notes and a soft-back research book.
Becca logged two hours and a couple of sweet teas, along with multiple trips to the bathroom, before she leaned back in her chair and stretched. She needed a break. From her purse she produced a small, hardcover journal. She wasn’t always a diary girl. The thoughts and desires and fears that found the pages of her journal were private things shared with no one. Not even Gail, and certainly not published on the journal blogs she often read. Becca hadn’t chronicled her entire life, like many of the girls who took to the Internet to share their entries, but she was very consistent since freshman year. She made daily entries, sometimes every other day. Some were long descriptions of her life and feelings, others short quips about love and the goings-on of a college student. This afternoon at Millie’s Coffee House, she chronicled the last days of her life—her recent trip to the doctor, her fears of an early delivery, and the way Jack had talked her through and calmed her down—the way he always did. She wrote about her impromptu trip to Summit Lake and of the weekend she hoped to spend with the man she loved. She filled two pages before Livvy Houston appeared from the back of the cafe.
“Hello, Becca,” Livvy said.
Becca looked up from her journal with a large smile. She stood and hugged her old babysitter.
“What are you doing up here?” Livvy asked as she sat down at the table across from Becca.
“Studyin
g, unfortunately.” Becca sat also. “I have a big test next week and needed to get away to make sure I absorbed it all.”
Nervous that Livvy would ask about her journal, Becca slipped it under the table and onto the empty chair next to her.
“Are your parents with you?”
“No, my dad starts a trial next week so he’s been super busy. They said I could have the house to myself.”
“So you have a great big, quiet house to study in, and you’re here?”
Becca smiled. “I love this place. It’s perfect for studying. But I’m about to head back to the house, I’m almost done.”
“How’s school going?”
“Good.” Becca nodded. “You know, it’s law school. Some things are interesting, some things are terribly boring.”
Livvy pointed to the papers on the table. “This?”
Becca shrugged. “Constitutional Law? It’s okay, not my favorite. I guess that’s why I’m up here. Making sure I get it straight.”
“I talked to your mother a week back and she said you’re dating a bright and polite young man. Works for a senator.”
Becca smiled. Her mom and Livvy were good friends and Becca remembered spending many hours at the Houston household while growing up. Becca and Jenny Houston were one grade apart and close friends during grade school. But it was with Livvy that Becca always felt closest. The two had a special relationship, and Becca supposed it started with the day—as a ten-year-old—she wet her pants while at the zoo with the Houston family. The ride was almost an hour and by the time she told Livvy of the emergency that was brewing, there was not enough time to get to the bathroom. A potentially mortifying experience was handled with such swiftness by Livvy—who brought Becca to the parking lot and changed her into an extra pair of jeans she had in the minivan, then concealed the evidence until it was washed and folded the next day—that not only did none of the kids find out, but Becca never had to tell her parents.
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