by Wendy Webb
I pushed back my chair and rose to envelop him in a hug. We stood like that for a long time.
“What can I do to help?” I asked him.
He sighed. I was searching my mind for anything I could do, and then I had a delicious idea.
“You both are exhausted and need some rejuvenation,” I said, looking from one to the other. “Why not take a couple of hours and go to the spa at Harrison’s House? I’ll stay here with Alice, and I’ll find Dominic to stay with me. You could get massages or at least a decadent shave and haircut, and be refreshed by the time your daughters arrive.”
Jason shook his head. “We couldn’t possibly.”
But Gil reached out and took his hand. “Yes, we can. I think it’s a wonderful idea. You need it.”
I reached into my purse and found my phone. “I’ll call Simon right now and make the arrangements if you say the word.”
Both of us looked at Jason. “You are an angel,” he said to me.
I keyed in Simon’s number, and he picked up on the first ring.
“Are you calling to say you hate us?” he said, clearly chagrined.
“Yes,” I said, “and also to make spa appointments for Jason and Gil.”
“Oh!” he said. “I happen to know we have nobody booked in the spa today. What is it with these guests? Our aestheticians are sitting around eating bonbons. Anyway, when do they want to come?”
I looked from Gil to Jason. “Now?” They both nodded. Gil hurried off to get his keys and wallet.
I heard Simon exhale a long breath. “Seriously, darling, I don’t know what got into Wyatt Earp last night, but Kate nearly died of mortification. Me, too.”
I smiled. “It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t,” he said, “but Jonathan and I are still laughing about how you beat him at his own game.”
I laughed. “Hey, you come after one of my own, that’s what you get.”
“Ohhhh,” Simon said, drawing out the word. “So, he’s ‘one of your own’ now?”
“I hope so,” I said.
“He’s a lucky man, if he is,” Simon said. “You send Jason and Gil up to the house. Tell them I’ll have mimosas waiting.”
I hung up and only then realized the two of them were staring at me.
“What happened last night?” Jason asked. “What did we miss?”
I told them about the interrogation, how Nick just wouldn’t let up on Dominic.
“He actually said something to the effect of, ‘We don’t get too many visitors like you here.’”
“Are you kidding me?” Gil said, his eyes wide. “That’s totally uncalled for.”
Jason’s mouth was a tight line. “Dominic is family at this point, as far as I’m concerned. Is he upset?”
“No,” I said. “A little confused, maybe, but he took it all in stride. I got the idea that it wasn’t the first time he had been . . . I don’t want to say profiled, but it felt like that’s what it was.”
Jason shook his head. “I will give that man a talking-to if I see him today. What in the world was he thinking? It’s outrageous.”
“Speaking of Dominic, let me quickly find him before you guys go,” I said. “I know he was doing some errands, but maybe he’s back by now. I’ll just run to his room and see if he’s there.”
I hurried out the door and down the hallway. I knocked a few times, but no answer. I walked back to the suite.
“No luck,” I said.
“I tried him on his cell, and it went straight to voice mail,” Jason said. He exchanged a glance with Gil. “We could cancel.”
I shook my head. “Don’t be silly. I’m perfectly happy to stay with Alice on my own.”
“She hasn’t been out of bed all day today or yesterday,” Jason said. “She’s in a deep sleep. I don’t expect that she’ll get up anytime soon.”
“It’s okay if she does,” I said. “Not a problem.”
Jason looked at me for a long moment. “I’ll keep my phone on. If anything happens, call me, and I’ll be here in five minutes.”
“Foil papers wrapped in his hair and all,” Gil added.
Jason smirked at him and pinched his arm. “Only my hairdresser knows for sure.” He turned to me then. “Obviously, anything in the fridge is yours. On the way out, we’ll let Gary and LuAnn know you’re here with Alice and to send Dominic up if he gets back while we’re gone.”
As they closed the door behind them, I glanced up the stairs at Alice’s closed door.
I was looking through the bookshelf for something interesting to read when my phone buzzed. It was Kate.
“Can you meet me at the coffee shop?” she asked. “I talked to Nick about last night.”
“I can’t,” I said. “Jason and Gil are actually on their way up to Harrison’s House to get massages. I’m staying with Alice.”
Kate was silent for a minute. “Can I come over to you then? I just want to talk with you about something, and I think it’s best to do it in person.”
I gave her the room number, and we hung up. I padded up the stairs and opened Alice’s door a crack to check on her. She looked like an angel, sleeping so peacefully. Her blonde hair fanned out on her pillow, framing her face. She had a slight smile. Whatever she was dreaming about, I left her to it, closing her door as quietly as I could.
About fifteen minutes later, I heard a soft rap at the door. I opened it to find Kate standing there, wincing. She pulled me into a hug.
“That’s not how our dinner parties usually go,” she said.
“Come on in,” I said. “Alice is asleep upstairs. Would you like some tea?”
She shook her head, pulling out one of the chairs at the table and sinking down into it. “Thanks, but I won’t stay long.”
All at once, a growing dread settled around me. “What’s up?”
She sighed. “There’s no easy way to say this,” she said. “How well do you know Dominic?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The moment seemed to freeze in time. I became aware of all the atoms buzzing with life around me. It was as though I was experiencing the moment and watching myself experience it at the same time.
There was Kate, my good friend, looking at me with loving concern in her eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, how much do you know about him?”
“Quite a lot, actually,” I said, but even as I said the words, I felt them falling apart in thin air.
When it came right down to it, I didn’t know much. I knew how his face looked and what he whispered in my ear when he was in the throes of passion. I knew how easily he made me laugh. I knew the timeless connection we seemed to have. I knew he had a rough upbringing and was now trying to help others. That was what he had told me, anyway.
I didn’t know why he was in Wharton. I didn’t know where he was at that moment. There was so much I didn’t know.
“So, tell me about him.”
I shook my head, anger mixed with dread and fear bubbling up inside me. “No, I don’t think I will. What are you getting at, Kate?”
She didn’t respond for a moment, holding my gaze. “Nick is really suspicious of him,” she said finally. “After the woman died at the inn, it was too much of a coincidence. First the lady in the hospital in Minneapolis, then the one here at LuAnn’s, now Harrison’s House. The common denominator is Dominic.”
“But he wasn’t here at LuAnn’s when the woman died,” I said, feeling defensive.
“He came shortly afterward,” she said. “Who knows when he really arrived in Wharton.”
A chill ran through me.
“But they all died of natural causes, right?” I asked.
“Nick decided to check him out. Like he alluded to last night, he can’t find any information on him. Nothing. No internet presence whatsoever. Not so much as one tweet.”
“So what?” I said, a bit louder than I intended. “Now it’s a crime if you don’t post on social media?”
Kate shoo
k her head. “Nick ran his prints this morning.”
“Prints? You have got to be kidding. Are you telling me Nick took his prints off a glass he touched last night?”
She winced. “I’m afraid not. At happy hour.”
“Is that why you asked us to dinner? To confront Dominic?”
“No!” she said quickly. “I had no idea about his growing suspicions until this morning.”
The world seemed to be getting smaller, contracting around me. It was like there was nothing else, except for Kate and me, sitting at this table.
“He’s been in prison, Brynn. He has a record a mile long. Assault, grand theft. Juvenile stuff.”
All at once, I wanted to shake her. A violent anger bubbled up inside me.
“How dare you violate his privacy like that,” I hissed at her. “And mine! Who does Nick think he is?”
She gave a strangled laugh. “The chief of police.”
“For your information, Dominic grew up in very rough circumstances. I’m not surprised he ended up on the wrong side of the law when he was younger. It’s what he dedicates his life to now, if you must know, helping people transform their own lives, to rise above the cards they were dealt.”
“That’s what he told you,” she pressed on. “But what if it’s not true? What proof do you have of it? What if Nick’s right? What if Dominic is the common denominator in all of those deaths?”
A great silence fell over the room then. “Are you saying your husband thinks Dominic is a serial killer?”
Kate reached over and took my hand. I pulled it away.
“I’m not saying that,” she said, her voice soft, pleading. “But he is watching him. Be careful, Brynn. Please.”
“I think you should leave,” I said.
She looked at me for a long moment and shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I had to let you know.”
After she left, I sat at the table silently sobbing tears of frustration, anger, even rage, my head in my hands.
I felt a small hand on my shoulder. I looked up to see Alice standing there, a little wisp of a woman in a floral nightgown, her hair wild. But her eyes were comforting.
“Alice!” I said. Some babysitter I was. I hadn’t even heard her come down the stairs. Wasn’t that baby gate supposed to have an alarm on it?
“He is not a serial killer,” Alice said, her voice faraway and thin. “How silly. Don’t believe that for a minute.”
All at once, I opened my eyes. I looked around wildly. No Alice. What had just happened? I couldn’t have been asleep, could I?
I pushed myself up from the table and hurried up the stairs, unlocking the gate and padding over to Alice’s door. I opened it a crack, and there she was, in a deep sleep, just as she had been when I checked on her earlier.
What in the world?
I went back downstairs, shaking my head. I poured myself a glass of water and realized my entire body was shaking. I drank it down in a gulp and poured another, resting the cool glass against my forehead. It was pounding.
I crossed the room and sank onto the sofa, staring out of the window, not thinking of anything at all, until Jason and Gil returned, refreshed and looking like themselves again.
“How’s Alice?” Jason said, peeling off his jacket and hanging it on a hook by the door.
“No change,” I reported. “I checked on her a few times. She’s been sleeping peacefully. I don’t think she’s even moved.”
I didn’t tell them about my strange vision, or whatever it was. And I certainly wasn’t going to tell them about Kate’s visit.
Jason and Gil exchanged a glance. “Do you think we should get the doctor back here?” Gil asked.
Jason nodded. “Just what I was thinking. That’s a lot of sleeping. I don’t know quite what to make of it.” He glanced up the stairs toward her room. “I’m going to check on her. Will you make the call?”
As Gil pulled his phone out of his pocket, Jason trotted up the stairs and unlocked the gate. A feeling of dread wrapped around me then, and I didn’t quite know why. I wished he wouldn’t go into her room. Please don’t go in there, Jason.
A moment later, we heard the scream.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Gil and I rushed up the stairs and burst into Alice’s room to find Jason cradling her lifeless body.
She was gone.
The next few hours were a blur of sirens, EMTs bustling in and out, the coroner arriving, assessing, and leaving. LuAnn and Gary were there in an instant, offering comfort and support. Just their presence helped. I longed for Dominic’s broad shoulders, wishing he would come.
Alice’s body was taken away. Natural causes, the coroner suspected, especially after the incident in the lake.
“Sometimes a thing like that is all it takes to push someone who is already fragile, already close to the end, over the edge,” she said.
Jason was slumped on the couch, Gil holding him while he wept, when Kate, Nick, Simon, and Jonathan came through the door.
Simon and Jonathan flew to Jason’s side, and Simon gathered him into his arms. The four of them wept together.
“The girls are on their way,” Jason sobbed. “We were going to spend a few days together. We thought the grandkids would . . .”
Kate and Nick were standing in the kitchen, stricken looks on their faces. I wasn’t going to make a scene, not now.
A moment later, Dominic appeared, and I flew into his arms, sobbing on his shoulder. He whispered into my ear and rubbed my back. “There, there, honey. There, there now.” The words were meaningless, but the very sound of his voice quieted my cries. I held on to him as tightly as I could.
Two nights later, we gathered downstairs in the restaurant for a private happy hour: Dominic and me, Jason and Gil, Rebecca, Jane, and their families, LuAnn and Gary, Simon and Jonathan, and even Kate and Nick. In light of what had happened, I softened toward him. Dominic had no hard feelings. If he wasn’t holding any grudges, neither would I.
That night, we ate, we drank, and we shared stories about Alice. There were a lot of tears but a lot of laughter, too. I learned more about her that I hadn’t known. Stories about her childhood growing up in a small town, more tales of her early life with Jason. Funny stories from the childhoods of her kids. Alice had had a life well lived, despite the heartbreak. It was just too short. Too terribly short.
As the evening was winding down, and Bec and Jane took their children back to the house they were renting, I found myself standing with Dominic, Gil, and Jason.
“Have you made plans yet for any kind of service?” I asked.
Jason nodded. “There’s so much to do after someone you love passes away,” he said. “I think it’s just to keep you busy, to force you to put one foot in front of the other.”
I could completely relate to that. The service would be in two weeks’ time, in the church where Alice and Jason had been married, and where their children and grandchildren had been baptized.
“We wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I said, putting a hand on Jason’s shoulder.
On the day, Dominic, Gary, LuAnn, and I drove to the small-town church where Alice would be laid to rest. The service was beautiful and heartfelt, filled with loving tributes, music, laughter, and tears. A fitting send-off for a lovely woman who had touched so many lives. Including mine.
“She was a woman well loved,” Dominic said as he hugged Jason on the church steps. “I was honored to have known her.”
“Me, too,” Jason choked out, his voice strangled into a sob. “Thank you for all you did for her. For us.”
I hugged Gil, and we held each other for a long time.
“You’re not coming back to Wharton for the rest of the summer,” I said. It wasn’t a question. I knew somehow.
Gil shook his head. “We think it’s best to stay here with Jason’s family,” he said.
I wondered if they’d ever go back to LuAnn’s, with the memory of Alice haunting its halls. I wondered if Alice would be
come a passer-through.
Jason enveloped me in his arms. “Don’t be a stranger,” he said. “You’ll be in the Cities after the summer, and I want to hear all about how much your students are annoying you.”
“You’ve got a deal,” I said.
After Alice’s funeral, something changed for Dominic and me. Even though we’d known each other only a short time, we felt as if we had lived a lifetime together, and we both simply dropped the pretense that we hadn’t. Life was too short for artifice.
When we got back to LuAnn’s, I moved into his room, freeing up the Yellow Lady for rental, and we got down to the business of living and loving, appreciating every moment together.
The rest of the summer passed gently, quietly. Dominic and I kayaked around the islands, Simon’s hilarious story about his experience ringing in our ears.
“It happened on his birthday!” Dominic called out to me as we paddled, laughing about it. “Insult to injury!”
We had dinners with Simon, Jonathan, Kate, and even Nick, the rift between him and Dominic, if not healed, then sufficiently smoothed over. We helped out with the Friday fish boils, with Dominic becoming master of the boil over, much to Gary’s delight. We came to view LuAnn’s ever-eccentric outfits as a little treat for us every morning, a funny way to start the day. We grew to love happy hour, feeling a part of this warm community of wonderful people.
But mostly, it was about “we.” Just being together. Reading on the beach, taking lazy walks around town hand in hand, simply living where our hearts and souls had always resided—within each other.
It was like we were suspended out of time, given an impossible gift, a dream summer, one I knew would come to an end. We would leave LuAnn’s and drive out of Wharton, leaving its glorious peace behind us. I would go back to my students; he would go back to his clients. Our “real lives,” the worlds we had created for ourselves outside Wharton, were waiting for us. I tried not to think about that day, but I knew it was coming. I hoped we could live those real lives together.
One night, I awoke, hearing a voice whispering my name.
“Brynn. Brynnnnn.”
I noticed a warm glow under the door, coming from the hallway. I slipped out of bed, Dominic sleeping deeply next to me, and opened the door. It was Alice. She was wearing her signature sweater set and pearls and was smiling. She took my hands.