“What’s ‘how’?”
“Let me tell it, okay? I have to get through it.”
I gesture again. Intrigued, against my better judgment.
“No matter how she came into this world. I would have done anything for her. Anything. None of it mattered, and frankly, I thought maybe God had given me this gift as a way for me to turn my life around. No more partying, no crappy jobs, but a real reason to live. My family. Know what I mean?”
I can’t bring myself to answer that, but she doesn’t wait for a reply.
“And then Tasha Nicole got sick,” Ashlyn says. “Horribly sick. Cancer. And that’s why she was suddenly gone. She was in a private medical facility. Tom had connections, because of his Mercy Flight stuff. But there was no hope for her. No hope for my poor baby girl. And that’s why I was fundraising at the student union, that’s why that photo was so—difficult and wonderful to see.”
I need to be open-minded, but this sounds … well, improbable, is my increasingly skeptical reaction. At best unlikely. Okay, it could be true.
Ashlyn briefly puts her face in her hands again, then pulls her scarf up close around her, shoulders collapsing. “I don’t know, Mercer, sometimes I think God took her, because God knew she was, I don’t know, conceived in brutality, and…”
Conceived in brutality? She’s still talking, and I am utterly fascinated now.
“And she needed blood transfusions, and I was so worried—if they tested my blood, and Tom’s, and what if they somehow found he was the father? Tasha? You know? Her name?”
“Huh?”
“Where’s Mercer from, why’re you named that?”
Where’s this going? “Well, Mercer’s my Mom’s maiden name. She wanted us to preserve a thread of history. But what does that have to do with anything?”
“Yeah. Well. Tasha’s a family name, too.” Ashlyn’s tone is sarcastic. “For Tom and Ashlyn. See? He made me name her that. Made me promise never to tell. But she died, so they didn’t test. And after that, we told the doctors we were taking her to the funeral home, but really Tom and I flew her to Boston, in his plane, we picked it at random, a place with water, where we didn’t know anyone. I knew there had been bodies in the harbor before, even a little girl once. Tasha had been so sick, and … we just wanted her to rest in peace.”
Tom plus Ashlyn equals Tasha? I try to keep the incredulity out of my expression, and probably fail. Besides. There would be some kind of hospital records. So this does not make any sense. I know the world doesn’t always make sense. But still.
“Um, Ashlyn? So you and your stepfather put her in a garbage bag and dumped her in the ocean?”
“It was a burial at sea,” she says. “It was probably illegal, but no one was ever supposed to know. The duct tape was to … keep the fish away.”
Is that what she wants in the book? Too keep the fish away? Is that supposed to be sympathetic? It’s only pathetic. I’m not sure I could write it with a straight face. Unless—is it possible that it could be true?
“What hospital? Why didn’t you have a doctor testify? Does Quinn McMorran know this? Or your mother?”
“My mother? Listen, Mercer. You heard the trial. You heard her admit it. She’s the one who sold my photos. Photos of her own daughter and grandchild! For twenty-freaking-thousand dollars.”
“You think she’s involved? Somehow? Your mother?”
She sits up straight. Takes off her sunglasses. Points them at me. Puts them back on.
“Holy crap, Mercer,” she says. “I never thought of it that way. Until you brought it up. You are so right. And I am so stupid. She knew.”
“Knew what?”
“All her bogus testimony.” Ashlyn opens her arms, encompassing all. “All that totally bogus ‘oh, Ashlyn was a good mother stuff.’ Bull. She wanted to make it look like she was the good mother. Her! Not me. I totally see it now. Thank you, Mercer. She knew it wasn’t me. She knew what really happened. She was lying her ass off. My own mother! To save her precious Tom. Disgusting. Him. Over me. I cannot believe it. She knew.”
“Ashlyn?” Has she gone off the deep end? I wish I had sunglasses to point back at her. “Knew what?”
The patio gate squeaks as more people arrive, and they filter toward the empty tables. A shopping-bag-toting mom and two squabbling preteens. A middle-aged man in a barn jacket, focused on his cell phone. Carmendy, I realize, with another young woman in floaty scarf and short skirt, heads together, giggling over a cell phone screen. Ashlyn and I must look like two chatty suburbanites, sharing coffee on an ordinary Monday.
“We have to go.” Ashlyn scrapes back her chair, stands up. “Now. Right now.”
“What?” Now I’m beyond baffled. I stand, dig out my wallet, stash twenty bucks for Ken under my saucer. The sunlight changes, slashing a band of light across the table, the spill of sugar sparkling like tiny jewels.
Ashlyn yanks down her ball cap, then reaches out to me, touching my arm. “See the guy who came in? Using the cell phone?” she murmurs.
I start to turn.
“Don’t look,” she says. “Never mind. Let’s just go.”
I have to trot to keep up with her as she winds between tables and out the patio gate. Head down, looking at the sidewalk, Ashlyn is almost running.
I’m almost out of breath as I reach her side. “Ashlyn?” I say. “What was all that about?”
She stops, stock still, on the pavement. The crosswalk light is beeping that it’s our turn to leave the curb, but she ignores it. She tucks her arm through mine, pulls herself closer to me. I smell coffee, and, I swear, my grapefruit shower gel.
“Did you believe that story I told you? Buried at sea, I mean?” Her grip gets stronger. “No, right? I know, it sucks. But you’re the writer. You can help me make it better. You’ve got to create a better story, a believable story about what happened. Or else they’ll get me, too.”
“Create a…?” I extricate myself from her, taking a step back. “Or else—what?”
“Did you see the guy with the cell phone? Emailing or texting or maybe taking a photo?” She gestures back in the direction of Ristretto. “I know he saw you. And me. Of course.”
“Taking a photo?”
“That was a juror. A juror!” She whispers. “I’ll never forget their faces, not ever. That guy’s another one who I always thought had it in for me—he never liked me. How did he find me? Why is he following me? And following you?”
The crosswalk light goes red, the illuminated stick figure now keeping us on the corner. The sun pools shadows at our feet. “And I’m so sorry, Mercer,” Ashlyn says, shaking her head. “Since the cops have my phone, I’m completely out of touch. But I’m so sorry. It seems like you’re involved now.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
A blue-and-gray police car—Boston, not Linsdale—careens by us, blowing through the red light, siren wailing and blue lights ablaze. Our heads swivel as we follow the cruiser’s progress. It’s turned the corner, and is speeding away down Ardella Street. Toward my house? A silly reaction, since it’s not like no one else lives around here, and my neighborhood is hardly off the beaten path. I’d be more worried if it were a fire truck.
Cops come when someone is dead. Everyone I care about is already dead.
Ashlyn’s gone pale. Guess no matter how innocent she might profess to be, the arrival of a police officer will probably always be post-traumatically disconcerting to her. What’s more, I remind myself, no matter what cockamamie story she continues trying to foist on me, she’s not innocent.
As the siren fades, I can’t figure out what question to ask first.
“And you’re saying that whole story you told me—about the—” I purse my lips as we walk, mentally playing back her recitation. “The burial at sea thing. Cancer, and the … assault by your stepfather. Tasha’s name. That’s all not true?”
“Whatever,” Ashlyn says. “That’s not the point. The point is the only way I’ll ever be able to participate
in this world again, to have a life, is if we can use the book to convince people I’m innocent. That’s why I agreed to do it.”
“Are you innocent?” I can hear the birds again, a tweeting chaos of sparrows and grackles crowded in the spindly branches of the municipal maple that occupies a grassy patch in the sidewalk.
“Are you not hearing me?” She stops, jams her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, and looks to the sapphire of the summer sky, rolling her eyes, as if I’m too dense to comprehend. “We both know ‘not guilty’ is not good enough. There’s nothing worse than killing a child. There are people who think I didn’t get what I deserved. Like that juror, maybe. Now they’re out to get me. They’ll take it upon themselves to punish me. And that is so mercilessly unfair. You have to help me. You have to.”
My cell phone rings, buzzing in my purse. I ignore it. It’s certainly Katherine, wondering how we’re doing. And for that, I have no answer.
“The part about Tom is true,” she continues. “But I’m putting all that behind me. The question is, will they?”
“Ashlyn?” I’ve stopped now, almost can’t walk and digest her ever-changing stories at the same time. She thinks people are out get her? Since she can’t be referring to me, even though I am, who’s this “they”?
“Who is ‘they’?” I ask her. “Who do you think—?”
“Look.” She puts up a palm, like a STOP sign. “You remember the day I was sick in court? You know how that happened?”
“Food poisoning?” That’s what Joe Rissinelli reported.
“Yup.” She nods. “And you know from what? From a sandwich they brought me in jail. It was right after Tom tried to come visit. It has to be connected. That was the only time he showed up—my mother never did. Did you know that? She turned her back on me. He tried to poison me. Or got someone else to. Crap. They’re completely cutting themselves off from me.”
“What did you start to tell me about your mother, though? In Ristretto?”
“Gimme a break,” she says. “Anyway, fine. If that’s how they want it.”
She whirls, and starts up the sidewalk.
Ashlyn’s a complete nutcase. That’s all I can think as I catch up and fall in step beside her. If she’s trying to get me to believe everything, how can I believe anything? I’ll call Katherine back, resign from this whole thing, return the money, count my blessings. Extricate myself from her. Pure crazy.
“Hey.” She pokes my arm with one finger as we walk. “Think about the break-in at Quinn McMorran’s house. You know they were looking for something. Or trying to kill me. The graffiti’s like, a diversion.”
Ashlyn waves a hand across the horizon, as if pointing, past the guy mowing his lawn, past the kid on the trike, past Jenna and Bob Emerson’s famous pink hydrangeas and across the Mass Pike to the shattered windows and profane scrawls spray-painted on her defense attorney’s home. “I mean, that alone’s gotta convince you. But making me sick? Threatening my lawyer because she defended me? Didn’t you think it was bizarre she just—left town?”
“They caught those people, right? Kids.”
“Come on, Mercer. Exactly. Kids. They’re not the big fish.”
We’ll turn the corner onto Norwalk Street in a minute, and be home, and then I’ll sort this out. I’d also been perplexed by Quinn’s departure, but thought maybe she was escaping the scrutiny and pestering reporters. Or remorseful she’d let a child killer go free. Or celebrating her victory.
“I tried to explain it to Joe Rissinelli, okay?” Ashlyn says. “He wrote about the food, remember? But I don’t know, he seemed sort of—out of it. Maybe it’s his divorce thing. But he told me about you, that he would contact you, and so when Katherine brought your name up, too, I thought, okay, perfect. We can all work on it together. That’s why Joe came to see you. Didn’t you wonder why he just showed up?”
Wait, wait, wait. Now it’s my turn to stop in the middle of the sidewalk. “What does Joe Rissinelli have to do with this?” He’s getting a divorce? Obviously that isn’t the most important question, but I need a way to keep track of the players in whatever game this is. The sun is blasting full steam. New England can be as brutally hot in early September as it is brutally cold in February. “Does he know you’re working with me on the book?”
“Of course he does.” Ashlyn takes off her cap, lifts her hair from her neck, puts the cap back on. “But listen, can we talk inside? I don’t see anyone, but I’m worried that juror guy is following us. Or he sent someone else to. Or someone sent him.”
Despite myself I look around. Juror guy? Someone else? Ashlyn is speaking a language I don’t understand. But besides the rumble of that lawn mower, nothing and no one disturbs the suburban mid-morning now, not even an idling mail truck or a nanny trundling a stroller.
We round the corner. I see my willow tree. I see my house.
I see that Boston Police cruiser parked across the street. In front of the Rayburns’ house? Did something bad happen to Ezra and Liz? Or their son Derek? There’s no one inside the cruiser.
“Shit.” Ashlyn hisses, then repeats the word under her breath again, and again. “This is about me.”
“This isn’t about you!” I whirl, whispering, almost losing it. The woman is a one-person tug-of-war between paranoia and ego. The world is not about Ashlyn Bryant. “That police car is at the Rayburns’. Probably Derek got in trouble for speeding again. Or their cockapoo is lost. Or both.”
But Ashlyn runs ahead and I have to keep up. She races up my flagstone walk, takes the two porch steps in one, and at the front door turns to me, holding out her hands, imploring.
“Open the damn door,” she says. “And do not say one word to the police about me.”
My key clicks the door open, and Ashlyn almost pushes me to get inside.
“I’m not going to lie to the police,” I say, closing the door behind us. I move the front curtains apart, feeling absurdly cautious, and peer out. “Besides, the police aren’t here. There’s no one in the car, Ashlyn. The police are somewhere else. You’ve had too much sugar and caffeine.”
She’s taken off her sunglasses, and hangs them on the collar of her black T-shirt. Now I can see what looks like fear in her eyes. “I didn’t say lie. I only said don’t mention me. I’m going to my room. Let me know when the cops are gone.”
Was it really fear I saw? Hard to tell, and now she’s gone. I hear “her” door shut. Setting my canvas totebag on the entryway table, I scan the living room, ridiculously looking to see if anything is out of place. But of course it isn’t.
And then the doorbell rings.
The last time I heard the doorbell it was Katherine, with Ashlyn in tow. This time, when I check the peephole, it’s not Katherine.
It’s—and I only know this because I saw him on the witness stand—Boston Detective Bryce Overbey. I remember that face. “Dissolute,” I’d written in my manuscript. But up close, he’s more attractive, almost gentle. He’s wearing maybe the same brown tweed jacket he wore to court. My mind is racing to figure out why he’s here. Her paranoia aside, it’s got to be about Ashlyn. Have they come up with new evidence? What if they’re here to arrest her? For what, though?
Or wow, what if they found the real killer? Except—that’s Ashlyn. Funny how I have to keep reminding myself of that. And if they’d arrested someone, no reason for them to come tell me. Oh. Is it about the accident? It can’t be about the accident. That was an accident.
The doorbell rings again. He’s got to have seen me checking. I can’t stall any longer.
“Detective?” I say as I open the door.
“Detective Bryce Overbey,” he says at the same time. “Boston Police.” He flips me a gold badge in a black-flapped wallet. “Mercer Hennessey, correct? May I come in?”
There had been two people in the car. Where’s the other cop?
I open the door wider, but not quite letting him in. Trying to catalog my rights and his legal responsibilities, but I haven’t done anyth
ing wrong so there’s nothing to fear.
“How can I help you?” I ask. I look over his shoulder, but he’s alone. His partner, at one point, was Koletta Hilliard, the detective who tracked down Baby Boston’s identity. And the origin of the duct tape. Not that it mattered.
Overbey somehow walks by me, into the entryway. I watch him scan the front closet, the hallway, then the living room, almost faster than I can follow. Has Ashlyn left any of her possessions around? But I suppose they’d look just like mine. Be ironic if Ashlyn were hiding in the closet so she could listen. But I know she isn’t.
“We’re checking on the whereabouts of Joe Rissinelli.” Overbey takes a spiral notebook from an inside pocket. “No one has seen him in the past few days. His wife’s upset. More than upset. Any idea where he might be?”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
“Is he okay?” Not a brilliant question. If the police don’t know where Joe is, they certainly don’t know if he’s okay. “I mean,” I say, gesturing Overbey to the couch, “I mean—I guess I don’t know what I mean. Why would you think I had any idea?”
“Yours was the last number he called. On his cell phone. But that phone’s at his house. So’s his car. He”—Overbey sits on the couch, without invitation, crosses one leg over the other. Jeans, black leather shoes—“isn’t.”
Two things I’m juggling now. One, of course, concern for Joe. He’s not old, maybe late forty-something? And certainly world-savvy. Is he dead in a culvert somewhere? Or mugged? Couldn’t be a car accident, they’d already know about that. But he’s a reporter. He’d never leave his phone. Especially if he’s on assignment. Unless he has another phone.
The other thing is not exactly fear, but apprehension and confusion. My number is the last he called? I never got a call from him. That I know of.
“Hey!” I say. I wasn’t sure whether to sit, so I’d stood by the wing chair, but now I take a few quick steps to the entryway table. Grab my purse, paw through it. “I did get a call, Detective, a little while ago? But I was in the middle of something, and ignored it, so could be that was—”
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