by Susie Gayle
I take the first step up. It creaks horribly with my weight. So does the second. “Julia, you lied to us. I think that Whitney really did break off her engagement to Diego because she wanted to be with Victor. That night, when Diego attacked him and mistook you for Whitney, that’s when you knew your sister was making her move on Victor. Is that right?”
I ascend the stairs slowly, one at a time, craning my neck upward toward the dark second floor for any signs of life. “It wasn’t Julia and Victor running off to be away from Whitney. It was Whitney and Victor running off to be away from you. Maybe he loved you first, but she was the bold one, right? The adventurous one. He chose her.”
“She stole him!” Her angry, desperate voice shouts at me from somewhere upstairs. “She manipulated him!”
“Oh?” I say, hoping she’ll keep talking. “How did she do that?” Julia doesn’t reply. “You want to know what else I think? See, at first I thought it had to be someone like Diego—someone capable of getting the drop on two people at once. No offense, but you’re kind of small. But now I have another theory. I don’t think they were killed at the same time.”
I reach the top of the stairs and, before fully turning the corner, I peer down the hall. It’s dim, despite the bright sun outside, on account of layers of old, yellowed newspaper stretched over the windows. Particles of dust float in the air, but otherwise, there’s no movement.
“You knew that Victor was squatting in the Estes house, so you went there. You probably called to him from the beach, right? In the darkness, he wouldn’t be able to tell which sister you were. He came down to you, and you killed him first, and then you took your time burying him deep.”
I come to an open doorway and I peek inside. It’s an empty bathroom, the tile floor stained and the sink rimmed with a yellow ring.
“When Whitney came to see him, you did the same thing—and you buried her in the same spot, just not as deep.” The next open doorway is a bedroom, though there’s no bed; just stacks and stacks of empty cardboard boxes.
“Then came the hard part: staging their runaway. You knew everything about your sister, so it probably wasn’t difficult to pretend to be her, but you had to destroy your own life; empty your accounts, pack your bags, get rid of your own car… What did you do? Burn it? Sink it somewhere?”
As I near the end of the hall, running out of doors, I say softly, “Lastly, you pretended you cared where ‘your sister’ went. You filed a missing person report and became a shut-in, cutting yourself off from the world. Not out of guilt, but so you wouldn’t get caught living her life.”
Finally I reach the last doorway at the end of the hall. It opens on a huge master bedroom, the wallpaper peeling in strips and the hardwood floor scuffed and discolored. A king-sized bed sits in the center of the room, and upon it, Carnita, her floppy tongue hanging out as she pants.
Julia stands in the corner, holding a letter opener in front of her.
“Hey,” I say gently. “Let’s not do anything rash. I’ll take the dog, I promise.”
“I’m deathly allergic,” she says quietly. “If any gets on my lips or in my mouth my throat will close. I can’t have her in here.”
“I understand. Can I get her?”
“Are you going to try anything?” she asks nervously.
“No. I promise, I won’t make a move toward you. I just want to take the dog out of here, okay?”
She nods, her gaze flitting between Carnita and me, the tip of the letter opener trembling.
“Do you promise you’re not going to try to hurt me?” I ask her.
“Probably not,” she admits softly.
I take a step into the room. “Hey, Carnita. Come here, girl.”
The dog lies down on the bedspread. Julia flinches. Yeah, I jump a little, too.
“Hey, it’s okay.” I take another step, a wide one, and I scoop Carnita up in my arms. “I got her, see?” Just as slowly, I retreat to the doorway of the room. She lowers the tip of the letter opener slightly, but not completely.
“You know why Diego took the fall, right?”
She nods. “I know.” She sniffs once. “He really is a wonderful man. My sister was foolish for letting him go like that.” Quieter, she adds, “I guess I was too, for letting Victor get to me like that. Tearing me and Whitney apart.” A single tear falls down one cheek, then the other. “I’m so sorry, Whit.” The letter opener clatters to the floor and Julia slides down the wall until she sits on the floor, her head in her hands as she sobs.
“Mr. Sullivan?” A familiar voice floats up the stairs to me—either Rory or Roger, I can’t tell.
“Will?” Sarah calls out. “Where are you?”
“Up here,” I call back. “We’re up here, and we’re okay.”
“Who’s we?” calls back one of the officers.
“Me, Carnita… and Julia Weatherby.”
CHAPTER 16
* * *
“I can’t believe it was Julia the whole time,” Diego says for about the hundredth time, still in disbelief. The three of us—he, Sarah and I—sit in his restaurant the morning after Julia’s arrest and Diego’s subsequent release. In a corner, Rowdy and Carnita do the circular doggie-dance of trying to sniff each other’s butts as Basket teeters along beside them.
“Forgive me for saying,” Sarah says, “but I think that was a monumentally stupid thing for you to do. You’re lucky the police aren’t pressing charges for a false confession.”
“I suppose I am,” he replies. “But when you confronted me with everything you had discovered, obviously I knew I was not the killer—and that only Whitney, or rather the woman pretending to be Whitney, could be the culprit.”
Sarah presses him, “Would it really have been worth throwing away everything, your whole life, just to keep someone safe?”
“For that psychopath? Absolutely not.” He smiles warmly. “But for the real Whitney, my Whitney? Yes, a thousand times over.”
I guess in the end Julia was right about one thing; Diego loved her dearly, and far more than she could ever love him.
“I suppose it is time for me to stop living in the past,” he adds. “One thing is for sure: the two of you have earned free meals for life at my restaurant.”
I laugh. “No offense, Diego, but I don’t think we’re ever going to come back to Angler Cove.”
“I understand. I also noticed that your car is packed up, but you would still have, what, three more days here? Are you leaving so soon?”
Sarah and I look at each other. “Actually,” she tells him, “the police have cleared the beach house, so we’ve decided to stay and see this vacation through.”
Diego grins. “Well, I can only hope that it is as relaxing and worry-free as can be.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Let’s hope.”
***
Before arriving, I have to admit that I had a few trepidations about returning to the beach house—you know, on account of the murders and the bodies found on the beach outside. Would it feel the same as it did? Could we relax there and enjoy the rest of our trip?
It turns out the answer is yes. Once we get back inside, we’re greeted by that same tidiness and scent of clean linen as when we first arrived. We drop our bags and open the French doors to the balcony, each of us grimacing a little at what might be waiting out there—but the beach looks almost as it did before the excavation. With the exception of a few patches of discolored sand, the crew did a really good job of cleaning up their mess.
“Phew,” Sarah breathes a sigh of relief. “I was kind of worried we’d come back to a big giant hole in the ground.”
I shrug. “I wasn’t worried.”
“Sure you weren’t.” She rolls her eyes. “Now, I am going to go take the longest, hottest shower of my adult life, and then, how about a nice walk down the beach?”
“Sounds great. Though… you think you can still enjoy the sand knowing what was under there?”
&
nbsp; “I don’t know, but I think I can try.” She heads inside toward the bathroom. I stand out on the balcony for a few more minutes, just enjoying the warm sea air, and then I, too, go back into the house.
I notice Sarah left her cell phone on the dining table. I listen for the sound of running water to make sure she’s definitely in the shower before I pick it up and make a call.
It rings twice before Karen answers. “Hey you,” she says brightly, assuming it’s Sarah calling her. “How’s vacay? Did you find out who killed the skeleton yet?”
“Karen, it’s Will.”
“Oh,” she says simply.
“Don’t sound so happy to hear from me.”
“Well,” she says, “I can only assume that you’re calling because of my message yesterday.”
“You’re half-right. Sammy called me; he said he’s aware that you’ve been snooping around Seaview Rock, which means that other people are, too.”
“Mm-hmm,” she prods me to continue.
“Karen, listen. I know you want to know, but please… just hold off for now, would you?”
There’s a long pause on the other end of the line, and then Karen asks quietly, “Did he make some kind of threat?”
“No. No one’s threatening you—at least, Sammy’s not. And I’m not. But to be honest, I’m not even entirely certain of everything that’s going on; I don’t know who all is involved. And we both know that you’re a lot of things, but discreet is not one of them. So please, just put it on pause, and when I get back, we’ll talk.”
“And you’ll tell me everything you know?”
“I didn’t say that—”
“Then no deal.”
I sigh, exasperated. “Fine, I’ll tell you what I know.”
“Promise?”
“Yes. I promise. But only if you’ll just pump the brakes for another three days.”
“Deal,” she agrees.
“And you have to tell me what you plan to do with the information,” I add.
“Nuh-uh, the deal’s been made. Talk to you in three days.” Karen hangs up.
Well, that could’ve gone smoother, I think as I put Sarah’s phone back on the table. At least that’s one mini-crisis averted, even if just for now.
CHAPTER 17
* * *
After a nice long walk along the surf, Sarah and I stretch a couple of beach towels over the sand and lay in the warmth of the sunshine. Turns out that yes, we can still enjoy the beach despite what was found beneath it.
“Should we be at all concerned that it doesn’t bother us?” Sarah asks me.
“Nah,” I shrug. “They could find an entire burial ground under here and I wouldn’t be any less relaxed than I am right now.”
She snorts a little and eases back, closing her eyes against the bright sky. I use the opportunity to reach under my towel and take out the small box hidden there.
“By the way,” I tell her, “happy one-year anniversary.”
“Oh, right! That’s today. With all that excitement, I almost forgot.” She opens her eyes and sees me holding out the box to her. “What’s this?”
“Keys to your new Corvette.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Yes.” I roll my eyes. “It’s a present. Open it.”
She sits up, takes the box from me, and with a wide smile, she opens it. Her smile fades and her wide eyes meet mine.
“Will. This is a ring.”
“Relax. It’s not that ring.”
“Okay, but… giving a woman a ring, any ring, is a pretty big deal.”
“I know it is.” I take the box from her gently and tug the ring from it. It’s nothing fancy; just a sterling silver band with three small blue sapphires, her favorite stone, embedded in it. “Think of it as a promise ring.”
She laughs a little. “Aren’t we a little old for promise rings?”
“No,” I say earnestly. “Look, I don’t know where we’ll be a year from now, or five years from now, or ten. You know I’ve been through some things. Maybe we’ll take this to a new level; maybe we’ll decide that we don’t need to do that, and just being together is enough. If that’s the case, I want you to know that I can still be devoted to you, and you can be just as big a part of my life as…”
“As a spouse would be?” she finishes my thought.
“Yeah. That.”
“Okay.” She holds out her hand and lets me slip the ring on her finger. “You know, all that rambling was kind of adorable.”
“Thanks. I prepared a big speech, and then left it in my other swim trunks.” She laughs, but I don’t. “There’s more. I need to tell you about something.”
She studies my face. “Are you sure?”
I nod.
“Is it your secret?”
I nod again.
“You don’t have to tell me if you’re not comfortable with it,” she insists.
“Yes, I do. You’re my partner, in more ways than one, and I think you deserve honesty.” I don’t say it out loud, but I also don’t want Sarah hearing it from someone other than me, should the secret get out. “So here goes…”
I tell her everything, and I mean everything. I start with my investigation into my friend Jerry Brahms’ death, and about how I accidentally discovered that my best friend, Sammy Barstow, is blackmailing a Seaview Rock town councilman into pushing the funding of specific proposals.
I tell her about how said councilman, Tom Savage, left a little gift for me in the form of Petunia, the tiger rattlesnake that is currently sitting in my shop eight hundred and sixty-five miles away.
I tell her how I suspected that Mario Estes’ death had something to do with the town council and the blackmail scheme—and how even though it didn’t, that led to my discovery that Rachel Stein, CPA, is equally involved (and being equally blackmailed).
Finally, I tell her that Karen, my ex-wife and Sarah’s current best friend, is aware of at least some of this and pushing hard to find the truth, and that if she does and it gets out, I don’t know what will happen.
“Though I imagine that, at the very least, Sammy would be arrested,” I say. “And right now my biggest concern is that if this whole house of cards falls, everyone involved will also point a finger at me, and I won’t be able to deny it.”
Sarah is quiet for a long time, hugging her knees and staring out at the water. I have to say, if there’s an environment ideal for breaking bad news, it’s a warm beach on a sunny day.
“Please, say something,” I tell her softly.
She takes a deep breath and lets it out very slowly. “I’m just… digesting all this,” she says. “I mean, that’s a lot to take in at once.”
“I know. I’m sorry…”
“But it’s also a lot to keep inside.” She looks over at me and shakes her head. “God, you must have been tearing yourself up over all this.”
“You’re not… angry?”
“No. I mean, your main reason for getting involved at all was to help Sammy, and now your reason for staying involved is to try to keep him out of trouble, right? Even though it’s bad, your heart is in the right place.”
“You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”
“Of course not. You know I love Sammy, too. But… this will definitely have to be dealt with very carefully.”
“You can’t tell anyone that you know anything, Sarah,” I tell her gravely. “I don’t know enough to keep you out of trouble if need be.”
“I understand.”
For a few minutes we both sit there, watching the waves roll in, over and over, hypnotically.
“I have an idea,” Sarah says suddenly. “How about, for the next three days, we pretend there is no Seaview Rock. It doesn’t exist. We don’t talk about it, we don’t mention anything or anyone to each other; we just enjoy these few days and get the most we can out of this trip.” She pauses before adding, “Because when we get back, we’re going to have to dea
l with all this.”
I nod slowly. “Okay. Sounds good.”
“But just promise me one thing. When we get back, we deal with it together.”
“Agreed. Together.” We fall quiet for a little while, and then I clear my throat and ask, “Say, what’s the punishment for mentioning that town which shall not be named?”
“Hmm, good question. I think you’d have to let Rowdy bury you in the sand.”
“What, so a different dog can find me in three years?”
Sarah winces. “Ooh, too soon.”
I laugh, and behind us, Rowdy digs a hole in the sand, content to try to undo all the excavators’ hard work of putting our little beach back together again. Basket, the shop-cat, basks in the sun at the foot of Sarah’s towel, and I lay back and close my eyes and watch the swirling colors of sunspots dance across my otherwise darkened field of vision.
Yeah, life is weird and tough and confusing, but every once in a while you get three perfect days to forget about all of it.
And I’m going to make the most of them.
THE END