“Just . . . observing.”
“It’s hard to tell the difference.”
Wade ran a hand through his hair, smiling awkwardly. “Look, I’m not trying to be a jerk. I just seem to have knack for it. As you’ve probably guessed, I have a habit of stating my opinion whether it’s wanted or not. For what it’s worth, I usually mean well.”
Christy-Lynn stood looking at him. If he was hoping for a laugh, he had sadly misjudged his audience. He’d struck too close to the bone, and they both knew it. “I think it’s best if we just keep our distance,” she threw over her shoulder as she crossed to the front door. She had said her piece. She just wanted to leave and forget the conversation ever happened. If that meant she was hiding, so be it.
Wade watched the Range Rover’s taillights fade from sight. He’d certainly mucked that up, managing to turn an apology into a confrontation because he couldn’t keep his opinion to himself. But it was she who had opened the door; all he did was walk through it. And in spite of their history, which amounted to exactly one alcohol-induced dissertation on the shortcomings of her husband, he really had wanted to help.
She was in a bad place, questioning her worth as a wife and a woman, blaming herself for things that weren’t even close to being her fault. Because she’d made the mistake of getting mixed up with a bastard. Was it possible to be married to Stephen Ludlow and not know who he was underneath? One thing was certain—he’d left his footprints all over Christy-Lynn.
Behind all the icy stares and prickly responses, she was glaringly fragile, like a broken bit of china that had been haphazardly mended. One careless move and she would shatter. Not that all those fissures were necessarily her husband’s doing. It was possible that she’d earned them long before meeting Stephen, and that he had merely capitalized on them, sensing an easy mark and then moving in. In fact, the longer he thought about it, the more convinced he was that that was precisely how it had gone down. Not that it mattered. She’d made it crystal clear that their truce—all twelve minutes of it—was over.
Wade’s question continued to fester as Christy-Lynn drove home. Could he be right? Did she really not want answers? The accusation rankled. Not because he had no right to make it, but because part of her knew he was right.
It had been months since she checked in with Connelly. Yes, she’d been focused on the store, busy with the renovations, but with the opening finally behind her, would she resume her quest for answers? And what did any of it matter really? Stephen was gone, and she had started a new life. Even the media had moved on. Why shouldn’t she do the same?
Maybe Wade’s theory was right. Maybe the affair hadn’t been about her at all, but about Stephen’s enormous ego and his sense of entitlement. But what if he was wrong? What if it was something else, something missing in her that had actually driven her husband into another woman’s arms? The thought should appall her—and did. To buy into the fiction that she was somehow responsible for her husband’s infidelity was an affront to betrayed women everywhere. And yet there it was, the pebble in her shoe demanding at long last to be dealt with.
Her thoughts were still churning as she pulled the Rover into her driveway and cut the engine. After the events of the day, it was a relief to turn the key and step through the door of the 1920s bungalow she now called home. It wasn’t grand, but then she hadn’t wanted it to be. In fact, it was rather shabby, the rooms still crowded with Carol’s furniture and knickknacks, the bath and kitchen sadly dated. There simply hadn’t been room in her brain to tackle renovating the shop and the house simultaneously. Now, with the opening behind her, she could finally start thinking about making the bungalow a home.
Just not tonight.
At some point during the drive home, her head had begun to throb. The opening had exceeded her wildest hopes, and she had managed to smooth things over with Missy and Dar, and yet she couldn’t shake the niggling suspicion that Wade Pierce wasn’t through complicating her life. But she’d have to think about that tomorrow. At the moment, she didn’t have the energy to do more than swallow two ibuprofen, peel out of her clothes, and fall into bed. She sighed as she slid between the sheets and clicked off the bedside lamp, her limbs suddenly leaden as she drifted toward a strange and watery dreamscape.
The water is icy, a million needles prickling at her skin. And murky. Like tea or dirty dishwater. There is a light in the distance—no, a pair of lights—dismal points in the watery gloom. Lying lifeless along the bottom is a hulk of cold, bent metal. A woman’s face looms behind a square of glass, blue-white and familiar, her pale hair fanned out like a halo around her head. She floats there with eyes closed, a grisly mermaid, the sunken place at her temple strangely bloodless. And then suddenly her eyes are not closed. They’re wide and glassy, vivid violet through all that water. And then the blue-tinged lips begin to move. The words are garbled and indecipherable, but there is a sense of despair in the empty eyes, of desolation and loss as her lips continue moving, as if she is trying to impart some terrible secret. A confession? A prayer? An apology come too late? There is no way to know. And then without warning, the violet eyes are shuttered, the blue lips suddenly quiet. All is still again beneath the waves. But Christy-Lynn does not swim away. Instead, she remains, floating, waiting—willing the dead violet eyes to open again.
TWENTY
Sweetwater, Virginia
May 1, 2017
Christy-Lynn stared at the stacks of papers on her desk but couldn’t make herself focus. The dream had come again last night, as it had nearly every night for the last five weeks—since the night she’d gone up to Silver Lake to see Wade.
She was no stranger to dark dreams—she had suffered night terrors well into adolescence—but this was different, the images so disturbingly vivid they often left her gasping and drenched with sweat. But the dreams had begun to take a physical toll too. She’d been lethargic of late and punchy, the by-product of being afraid to close her eyes for fear of being jolted awake in the wee hours.
It didn’t take a PhD to figure out what had conjured that first dream—or to understand why she was still having them. Wade may have strayed into prickly territory, but his observations had thrown a floodlight on things she’d been trying very hard not to see—primarily that she had purposely been ducking questions about Stephen’s Jane Doe. And now, more than a month later, she still hadn’t plucked up the courage to pick up the phone.
On impulse, or perhaps out of defiance, she reached for her cell. For better or worse, it was time to stop wondering. “I’d like to speak to Detective Connelly,” she said briskly when a Sergeant Wood answered on the second ring.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Detective Connelly is no longer with the department.”
For a moment, she thought she’d heard him wrong. “Did you say he’s no longer with the department?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What does that mean?”
There was a pause, as if he didn’t quite understand the question. “It means he’s not here, that he’s taken early retirement.”
“When?”
“First of the year, I believe. Is there someone else I can connect you to?”
“No—yes! I’d like to speak to whoever has taken over Detective Connelly’s cases.”
“And may I have your name?”
“Christine Ludlow. I was Stephen Ludlow’s wife, and I was hoping . . .”
“One moment, please.”
The line abruptly went silent. A moment later, there was a new voice in her ear. “This is Captain Billings, Mrs. Ludlow, with the Office of Public Affairs. How can I help you?”
“Are you Detective Connelly’s boss?”
“Not exactly, though I did outrank him, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Christy-Lynn fumbled for a response. The truth was she didn’t know what she was asking. She was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that Connelly was gone when she was almost certain he’d told her he was still two years from retirement.
“Mrs. Ludlow?”
“Yes, I’m sorry. I was hoping to speak to whoever was handling Detective Connelly’s cases. I’ve been trying to get some information about my husband’s accident. Particularly about the woman who was in the car with him that night.”
“Your husband’s case was closed months ago, Mrs. Ludlow. There was no indication of foul play, and the tox levels all came back within legal limits. The ME’s finding was accidental death by drowning.”
“And the woman?”
There was a brief stretch of silence. “The woman?”
“Yes, Captain, the woman. I’m sure you remember her. Her pictures were in all the tabloids thanks to someone in your department.”
The captain cleared his throat, a halting, awkward sound. “Yes, of course. That was . . . unfortunate. But I’m afraid we’re not releasing any information with regard to the second victim. It’s a rather sensitive matter, after all, particularly in light of your husband’s high visibility, and the family has a right to privacy. Perhaps it would be best to simply . . . let it lie.”
Christy-Lynn’s blood began to simmer. “It’s a little late to be worrying about sensitivity, don’t you think? And where was all this concern for privacy when the press was camped out in my driveway, passing around photos that someone in your department leaked?”
“Mrs. Ludlow.” His voice was sharper now, more like a lawyer’s than a police captain’s. “There has been no confirmation that those photos were leaked by anyone in this department, though I do understand how difficult this must be for you. And despite what you might think, we take a family’s right to privacy very seriously. Which is why we won’t be releasing any information we may or may not have on a second victim.”
“And what about my rights as a wife? Do you not take those seriously?”
“Forgive me for sounding unfeeling. I don’t mean to be. But that really isn’t our concern. I hope you’ll understand. Goodbye.”
There wasn’t time to protest before the line went dead. Christy-Lynn stared at the blank phone screen with a mixture of confusion and annoyance. They were clearly eager to put the leak behind them, but where did that leave her?
Her hands shook as she scrolled through her contacts for Connelly’s cell number. If the good detective was no longer a member of the Clear Harbor police force, he might finally be willing to help.
Unfortunately, the number was no longer in service, which seemed odd. She could see a home phone being disconnected if he had moved, but most people kept their cell numbers, didn’t they? Her next call was to directory assistance, but the home number they gave her turned out to be disconnected as well. She remembered him saying something about a sailboat in the Keys, but trying to locate Connelly on one of the forty islands that comprised the Florida Keys would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
She was still contemplating what to do next when Tamara appeared with a tall to-go cup in her hand.
“What’s that?”
“A triple-shot latte,” Tamara said with an unmistakable air of pity.
“Do I look that bad?”
“Nothing a little caffeine and concealer won’t fix. By the way, you have a visitor.”
Christy-Lynn smothered a sigh. At this rate, she was never going to get to the invoices. “Who is it?”
Tamara flashed a grin. “I’ll give you a hint—tall, dark, and scruffy.”
“Wade’s here?”
“Of course he’s here. He’s here all the time—as if you didn’t know.”
“Yes, but not to see me.”
Tamara rolled her eyes, as if she were dealing with a particularly dense child. “Yeah. Whatever. Anyway, consider yourself informed.”
Wade was in the café when she stepped out of the back room. He nodded as she approached. “Hello.”
“Hello.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “You okay? You look tired.”
“Yes, I’ve been told. What’s up?”
“I came to ask you to lunch.”
It took a moment to process the words, and she still wasn’t sure she had it right. “What?”
“I said I came to ask you to lunch.”
“Why?”
It was hardly a gracious reply, but she was too surprised to search for the Miss Manners response. They saw each other several times a week—or perhaps avoided each other was a more accurate way to describe the curt nods that passed for a greeting whenever they happened to make eye contact in the café. How had they gone from that to lunch?
“I’m proposing a truce. I’ve decided it’s silly that we keep bumping into each other and never know what to say.”
“I don’t keep bumping into you,” Christy-Lynn pointed out coolly. “You keep coming into my store.”
“Fair enough. Sometimes I need a change of scenery, and this works. So what do you say? Lunch?”
“I’m working. Or trying to. It’s not going very well.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Not unless you want to unpack and shelve three boxes of books.”
“Tempting, but I’ll take a rain check.”
“So it was more of a hypothetical offer then.”
He grinned, suddenly looking very boyish. “Something like that. Maybe we can do lunch another time?”
Christy-Lynn gave him a half-hearted shrug. He was obviously intent on clearing the air between them, though after so many years, she wasn’t sure why he cared. Maybe he was one of those guys who needed to be liked. She, on the other hand, was perfectly willing to keep him at arm’s length. “Yeah, maybe.”
She watched him leave, waiting until he had climbed into the Jeep and driven away before turning back to Tamara, who was quietly grinning from ear to ear as she pretended to wipe down the counter.
Christy-Lynn shook a finger at her across the counter. “I know what that smile’s about, and you can get that idea right out of your head. We don’t even like each other.”
“He’s hot though, isn’t he?”
“I’m not paying you to ogle the customers.”
“No,” Tamara said, smirking. “But it’s a nice perk.”
“Hey, what’s going on in here?” Aileen had appeared, a feather duster in hand. “You’re not supposed to be having fun without me.”
“I don’t know about fun,” Tamara said saucily. “But I’m pretty sure the boss has an admirer.”
“No, the boss doesn’t,” Christy-Lynn snapped. “Now get to work, both of you. I’ll be paying bills if you need me. And no whispering behind my back, or I’ll know.”
She could hear Tamara and Aileen already giggling as she walked away. For weeks now, they’d been making snide remarks about the frequency of Wade’s visits, though they clearly had the wrong idea about his motives. It was understandable, she supposed, seeing what they wanted to see. They were young and still starry-eyed, too naive to know that true love and happily ever after were the stuff of fairy tales—and that sometimes the line between frog and prince got pretty blurry.
TWENTY-ONE
Monck’s Corner, South Carolina
April 12, 1998
It usually starts over cigarettes—who smoked the last one, whose turn it is to buy—and eventually shifts to beer. Tonight’s sparring match is no different, the petulant sniping, the petty slurs, the raised voices escalating into full-on tirades. Christy-Lynn is in her room, nose buried in a history book, U2 on full blast to drown out the ugliness going on in the kitchen.
It’s hardly a new occurrence, although Derrick, the latest in her mother’s recent stretch of live-in losers, is louder than the last few. He scares her sometimes when he drinks, which is most of the time. He swears and throws things and is quick with a slap when her mother talks back. It’s better when they’re both high—or at least quieter—but that’s only when there’s money for a score. They’ve been on COD status with their dealer since her mother lost her job at the Piggly Wiggly.
Borrowing.
That’s wh
at her mother had called it when they caught her skimming money from the register. Her boss had called it embezzlement and fired her. The only reason she wasn’t locked up is because he dropped the charges when she told the police she had a little girl at home that she was raising on her own.
They’re letting her pay it back fifty dollars at a time. Except she isn’t having much luck finding another job. Someone from the Piggly Wiggly must have let the cat out of the bag, which means it’s just tip money from the Getaway Lounge and whatever Derrick brings home when he’s sober enough to work.
Christy-Lynn puts in as many hours as they’ll give her at the doughnut shop. It’s not much, but it helps with food and maybe the lights. Not the rent though. That’s past due again. Two months. But no one talks about that. Because no one knows what happens next. And they don’t seem to care. They just drink and fight and get high.
The yelling from the kitchen ratchets up again, unintelligible except for the occasional string of profanities bleeding under the door. Christy-Lynn cranks up the music another notch and returns to her history book. She knows only too well the folly of intervening in her mother’s squabbles. Not that she hasn’t tried. For her efforts over the years, she’s been kicked, slapped, and punched in the head. But that isn’t the worst of it. The worst is that her mother always ends up resenting her the next day, as if she’d rather wake up with a black eye or a broken jaw than risk driving away her latest Prince Charming.
Suddenly, over the rhythmic grind of “Bullet the Blue Sky,” comes the shattering of glass, three explosions in rapid succession, followed by a howl of rage, and then a bloodcurdling shriek. Christy-Lynn’s history book tumbles to the floor as she scrambles off the bed and down the hall toward the war-torn kitchen. But she’s already too late.
Charlene Parker is sprawled on her knees like a heap of broken kindling, a bloody hand clutched to the left side of her face. Christy-Lynn stares in horror at the steady ooze of red trickling through her mother’s fingers and onto the grimy kitchen floor. Above her, Derrick stands with legs wide apart, weaving a little on his feet.
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