by S W Vaughn
Either way, I intend to know the truth by the end of the night.
Jill isn’t coming with me. I talked to her earlier in the day, and she had an incredible time with Hunter, but she sounded absolutely awful. She’d picked up a nasty cold from somewhere. When I said I was going to Hannah’s, she insisted on coming along to help, but I told her to stay home and rest. It’s not like I’ll be alone with the crazy woman. She’ll have a houseful of people, so it’s the perfect time to approach her.
Now I’m pulling up to the curb, about half a block away from the Victorian mansion. It’s about 7:30. I wanted to wait until after the party started, just to make sure someone else would be here. And there are plenty of people now. Cars fill the long driveway and spill out onto the street — it looks like she’s invited half the neighborhood.
Alyssa is home with Tabitha, who’s saved my life once again by being available at the last minute, and I’ve promised to pay her double for tonight.
When I get out of the car, I can hear laughter, splashing, and chatter from behind the house. It sounds like most of them are in the massive in-ground pool that came with this place. The pool is heated, which was one of the major selling features, but tonight is unseasonably warm and they probably don’t need the heat.
I head for the front door I’ve already opened so many times, but I’m not the one with the key anymore, so I ring the doorbell. A few minutes pass before I hear footsteps approaching, and then the door opens and a blonde woman smiles out.
It’s not Hannah. This woman is shorter, curvy instead of slender. Her hair isn’t as blonde, and her eyes are a pretty brown. She has dimples, and she seems very warm and friendly.
“You must be here for the party?” she says.
“Uh. Yes.”
“Well, come on in.” She stands back, and I walk into the foyer.
The house is furnished for the first time in years — and it’s beautiful. A mix of modern and antique, with a lot of pale colors, rich woods, and light, airy accents. The place looks ten times better than it ever did when the Quintaines lived here.
Either Hannah or her decorator has exceptional taste.
“Pretty much everyone is outside,” the blonde woman who greeted me says after she closes the door, and then holds out a hand. “I’m Julie, by the way.”
Shock bubbles through me as I shake it. “Celine,” I mutter.
Julie. That’s the name my daughter said last night, the one I was trying to remember where I’d heard it. Mama Julie. Hannah had mentioned someone named Julie on the phone while I was talking to her about my license problem.
Julie lives with her. Is she family? An employee?
“It’s nice to meet you, Celine,” Julie says, still smiling. And then I finally notice the small hands wrapped around Julie’s leg, and the little blonde head hiding behind the woman. I’m not sure exactly where she fits into whatever arrangement Hannah and Julie have, but I know who she is.
I smile and crouch down a bit, trying to catch the shy little girl’s eye. “You must be Izzy,” I say. “I think you know my daughter Alyssa.”
The little girl gasps in surprise. “You’re Alyssa’s mommy?” she says in a small, clear voice. She still doesn’t look out from behind Julie.
“Oh, my. The famous Alyssa,” Julie laughs. “We’ve heard a lot about her. Izzy loves her to pieces already.”
A swell of pride moves through me as I straighten, thinking that the little girl will come out when she’s ready. “I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual. I’ve heard a lot about your daughter, too.”
“She’s my daughter,” a familiar voice says behind me.
I nearly jump as I turn around and see Hannah watching me warily, as if she expects me to bite. Her nervous gaze moves from me to Julie, and then to the small, mostly hidden figure behind the other woman. “Alice, will you please come out and say hello to Celine?”
“Don’t call me that. I’m Izzy!” The child speaks with surprising force. She leans aside without letting go of Julie’s leg, until her face is in view — a small, delicate face, framed with winter-pale blonde hair. Her eyes are the same shocking pool-blue shade as Hannah’s, and they’re narrowed in anger. “I told you, I don’t like Alice,” she says.
“I’m sorry,” Hannah stammers. “Please, can you just come and meet Mommy’s friend…”
“You’re not my mommy. I hate you!” the little girl shouts, and then runs off into the house.
Hannah flinches and rests a hand on her heart with the other arm folded protectively across her stomach, her eyes wide and hurt.
“Oh, no. I’m so sorry, Miss Byers,” Julie says in a small voice. “It’s been stressful for her today. I’ll speak to her about her manners.”
“No. Don’t reprimand her.” Hannah sips in a shaking breath and stares after the little girl as the hand on her chest trembles. “I know it’s going to take time. I just … after the other day, I thought we’d made progress.”
Julie walks up to her and rubs her thin shoulder. “You did. She just had a setback,” she says. “I’ll go and get her.”
Hannah shakes her head. “See if she’s okay, but don’t make her come out if she doesn’t want to,” she says. “We can try again tomorrow.”
“All right.” Julie gives her a gentle squeeze, nods to me, and then hustles off.
Now it’s just me and Hannah in the foyer. She stares at me, biting her lip, and then lowers her arms to her sides in defeat. “My daughter. Alice Isabel,” she says. “In case it’s not obvious … she hates me.”
She buries her face in her hands and bursts into tears.
I don’t know what to do. I put an arm around her shoulders and steer her into the parlor off to the left, which is furnished but empty of people. She’s crying harder than ever, and my pity outweighs any lingering doubts I have about her. And there’s no one else to comfort her.
So I hug her. At first she stiffens, but then she starts to relax against me. Soon she’s resting her head on my shoulder, clinging to me like an anchor as sob after heartbreaking sob wrenches from her chest.
She finally dwindles into wretched sniffles and pulls back, swiping at her ruined face. “Oh, God, I’m such a trainwreck,” she says in a voice like a foghorn. “This party was a stupid idea. And this house, and this town, and …”
“Hey, take it easy.” I try to smile as I dig around in my purse and find the pack of travel tissues I keep for emergencies. This qualifies. “Do you want to sit down?” I say, handing them to her.
She nods, fumbles a tissue loose and blows her nose, a big, honking blast. “Ugh. That’s so disgusting,” she says as she walks unsteadily toward a rich, cream-colored Chesterfield sofa with walnut trim. She practically collapses at one end and drops the used tissue into an oval vanity wastebasket tucked discreetly beside the back leg. “I’m sorry, Celine.”
“No, I’m sorry.” I take a few steps in her direction and gesture at the couch. “Mind if I sit with you?”
She shakes her head as she wiggles another tissue free. “Please. Have a seat.”
I take the other end, leaving a bit of space between us so it’s not too weird. “I shouldn’t have said all that to you yesterday,” I tell her. “I was just …”
“Yes, you should have. I deserved it.” She wipes her cheeks, blows her nose again, and tosses the tissue, immediately taking a fresh one out. “I’m awful,” she says, staring at her lap. “I’m the worst kind of person — a fake everything with a lot of money. Fake mom, fake friend, fake real estate agent.” She lifts her head slowly with a terrible, watery smile. “Fake app developer. I lied to you about that,” she says.
For some reason, that surprises me more than anything else she’s said so far. “You pretended that you made an app?”
“Yeah. Stupid, right?” She looks down again. “I read somewhere about how easy it was supposed to be. And I did watch some tutorials, and I tried. But I couldn’t make anything work,” she says, laughing bitterly. “So I download
ed this dumb, obscure app that hardly anyone knew about and started saying that I developed it. I guess … I wanted people to think I was smart, or cool, or something.”
I can sympathize with that.
“Anyway, now you know the truth. I’m sad and worthless,” she sighs. “Alice — I mean, Izzy — I can see why you thought I was lying about having a daughter. It must’ve been weird seeing me hang around the school by myself, right?”
“Yes, it was pretty weird,” I say.
“Julie does everything for her. Takes her to school, makes her meals, tucks her in at night. I just go to watch sometimes, that’s all.” Hannah closes her eyes. “Everything you said about me was right. I was at Seton-Frischer before I came here, and I … don’t have a daughter. Not really.” She shudders.
I bite my lip. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I think I should explain it, at least,” she says, and looks at me. “She is my daughter. I was pregnant when I got committed, but I couldn’t keep her. You know, mental hospital and all.” She flashes a dark smile. “I didn’t want to give her up, either. So I found Julie and hired her to work for me. To take care of my daughter until I was released. I figured that once I had my shit together, I’d take her back and we’d be a happy little family. But … Julie’s the only mother she’s ever known,” she finishes in a whisper. “I keep trying, but it’s so hard to get through to her.”
“Well, I can see that you love her,” I say. “You’re doing a great job, being very patient in difficult circumstances. I think she’ll come around eventually.”
“Really?” A tentative smile lifts her lips. “Thank you, Celine. That means a lot to me,” she says. “And I’m so glad that our daughters are friends.”
“Maybe we can be, too,” I say.
“I’d like that.” She sniffles and looks away again. “By the way … about Brad.”
My breath catches. “What about him?”
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am for the way I treated him,” she says in a paper-thin voice. “I was a terrible, spoiled child who never had to grow up, so I didn’t. I acted out in high school, a lot. And poor Brad was right in the middle of my shitstorm.” Her shoulders tense as she hunches away. “I lost my shit when his family moved away, and my parents sent me to a ‘teen retreat’ for my senior year,” she says, making air quotes around the words. “That place actually helped me a lot. I was so much better … at least, until the fire. Then I lost it even harder.”
I’m starting to feel really awful for her, and guilty for thinking of her as a crazy rich bitch. She obviously has reasons to act the way she does. “Every kid makes mistakes,” I say. “Sometimes they make really bad ones.”
“Yeah. But my mistakes were the worst.” She unclenches and looks at me tentatively. “How is he doing? Brad, I mean.”
“Surprisingly well.”
“That’s good,” she says. “He hates me, doesn’t he?”
I decide not to answer that.
She takes my silence as assent. “Of course he does. Why wouldn’t he?” she rasps. “Ever since I heard he woke up, I’ve thought about going up there. To apologize for being so horrible. But I don’t think he’ll listen to a word I say … and I don’t blame him.”
I can’t bring myself to contradict her, because she’s probably right. Instead I say, “The most important thing is for you to forgive yourself.”
“That’s what my therapist says.” She laughs weakly. “Oh, well. I guess I’d better get back to the party, if I can manage to make myself presentable,” she says. “Thank you for talking to me, Celine. I don’t … really have any friends.”
“Well, now you do,” I tell her.
She smiles. “Do you think you can stay? Just for a little while. If you can’t, I understand.”
“Sure,” I say. “I’ll stay.”
I’m convinced that Hannah isn’t behind the texts or the murders. But even though I’m relieved that the police haven’t let the real culprit go, I’ve got a whole new layer of worries to replace that relief.
Because if it’s not Hannah, then who is it?
Chapter 24
Alyssa is watching cartoons, and I’m in the kitchen making pancakes for a lazy Sunday brunch, when my phone rings. I almost don’t bother looking at it since my hands are covered with flour. But I wipe them on my jeans and pick up the phone from the counter, and see Detective Chambers’ number.
I figure I’d better answer.
“Ms. Bauman, I’m actually calling with good news,” he says after I greet him. He sounds exhausted. “We’ve made an arrest for the murder of Teryn Holmes.”
“You have?” My mind races as I try to guess which of Brad’s ex-girlfriends has flipped her shit. But I can’t come up with any likely suspects. “Who?”
“Kate Engle. She’s a nurse at Hayhurst, a co-worker of Teryn’s,” he says. “Apparently they’ve had some kind of rivalry for years, and Teryn attempted to file a restraining order against Engle. We found Nembutol and chloroform hidden in Engle’s work locker. The poisons that were in Teryn’s system.”
I didn’t recognize the name at all. “So she’s not Brad’s ex?”
“No. This was completely personal,” Chambers says. “Nothing to do with Mr. Dowling.”
Something about this seems wrong. I have no idea who Kate Engle is, but it seems convenient for the detectives to find a murder weapon, or whatever they considered poison, in a locker five days after the murder was committed. But if I mention that to Chambers, he’ll probably remind me that I’m not a detective.
Instead I ask, “What about Rosalie?”
“We’re revisiting that case, but we’re considering the possibility that it may have been a suicide after all,” he says. “Handwriting matches are rarely conclusive. And to be honest, it was only a hunch.”
“What was a hunch?”
Chambers clears his throat. “The suicide, thinking it was murder,” he says. “It was my hunch, actually. After we interviewed the family and friends, the suicide note didn’t make sense — the idea that she killed herself over a man she hadn’t been involved with in years. That’s why I had the handwriting analyzed.” He sounds awkward and embarrassed as he explains. “Things seemed to fit when there wasn’t a match. And then Teryn Holmes was apparently murdered, and there was a connection between the two victims. A thin one.” He blows out a breath. “I was following my instincts. But it must’ve been a coincidence.”
“Maybe you should trust your instincts.”
“I did,” he says, startling me a bit. I hadn’t realized I’d said that out loud. “Unfortunately, the chief trusts evidence, not instincts. We found evidence. So the case is closed.”
Suddenly I hear the bitter note behind his words, and I realize he doesn’t buy the convenient poison-in-the-locker theory either. They’ve arrested the wrong person — again. But this time it’s not Detective Chambers’ fault. “What if the chief is wrong?” I say.
“The chief is never wrong. Just ask him,” Chambers says with a rueful laugh. But then he grows serious. “As a police officer, I’m officially telling you that the case is closed. But as a guy who’s interviewed a woman clearly terrified for her life, a guy who trusts his instincts … I’m telling you to be careful.”
I close my eyes as a chill prickles my skin. “I will be,” I say. “Thank you, Detective Chambers.”
“Oliver. Ollie, if you like that better,” he says. “I’m just a concerned guy now.”
“All right. Ollie.” Something close to despair wells inside me. If he’s just a guy, and the killer is still out there, I have no one to protect me. “And I’m Celine,” I say. “Just a woman terrified for her life.”
My voice cracks on the last few words, and Ollie says, “I’m so sorry, Celine. If there was anything I could do …” He trails off, and I hear him curse in the background. “Look, you have my number. You can still call me if you need anything.”
“Maybe I’ll do that.” I manage a smile.
“I’d better go before my pancakes burn.”
“Mmm, pancakes. The perfect breakfast,” he says. “Celine, I hope you’ll keep in touch.”
“I will,” I tell him.
We say goodbye, and I tuck the phone in my pocket as I turn back to breakfast-in-progress. At least I have my pancakes. But I don’t have what I need the most — a clue about who’s been killing my friends and threatening me with vague promises to ruin my life.
I freeze with the spatula in my hand. The texts. If a woman I’ve never met killed Teryn, and no one killed Rosalie … then who’s been texting me?
It’s too late to point that out to Ollie. Even if I had, he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. The police have closed the case. But there’s still someone out there, with me in their sights, and I don’t think this false arrest is going to stop them.
In fact, it’ll probably encourage them.
I finish making the pancakes and bring two plates to the living room. Sundays are quiet days for me and Alyssa, and we almost always have a late, casual TV breakfast, and then hang around the house or go to the park for a while, with no big plans.
But today I think we might do something different. I told Brad that if I didn’t visit him yesterday, I would today. And I could leave Alyssa with a sitter, but I always feel guilty doing that.
So maybe it’s time for my daughter to meet her father.
Alyssa is her usual bubbly self as we walk down the fifth-floor corridor to room 548. She doesn’t fear hospitals yet, because she’s never had to be in one. All she knows is that we’re going to visit Mommy’s friend, who was sick but is getting better. I want her to meet him, but I’m not ready to explain who he is yet.
I’ve called ahead to make sure Willa won’t be there for a while, and Brad assured me that she’d only come in for a brief time that morning and wouldn’t return until after dinner. I also told him that I was bringing Alyssa but didn’t want to break the news to her, at least not this time. He seemed okay with that.