Brynn’s heart is pounding.
“Where are you staying again?” she asks Deirdre.
“At Cedar Ridge Inn. It’s up on Tower Hill Road.”
“Is that the road that branches off of Mountainview?”
“No, that’s on the opposite side of town.” Deirdre looks slightly piqued at Brynn’s confusion.
Still holding her coffee in one hand and her black clutch purse in the other, Brynn asks helplessly, “Can you just write down the directions for me?”
Deirdre looks at her for a long moment. “You know what? How about if I just come over to your place later instead? I don’t want to hang around at that hotel anymore than I have to.”
She knows, Brynn realizes, and the icy, awful truth slithers in and seems to coil around her torso, squeezing the breath out of her. She knows what I’m thinking.
And that means that I’m right.
PART V
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR BRYNN
CHAPTER 22
“Hello there, Mrs. Saddler. Beautiful day to be outside, isn’t it?” Arnie gestures at the bright sun in a piercing late-October sky. “Waiting for the school bus?”
“How’d you guess?” Brynn rises from the front steps on liquid legs and walks halfway down the sidewalk to greet the smiling mailman.
Jeremy, kicking his way through a heap of dry leaves on the lawn, yells, “Happy Halloween!”
“Not yet, sweetie. But only three more days,” Brynn tells him.
“‘Only’? When you’re a kid, three days is an eternity.” Arnie flips through his satchel.
Yes, and when you’re an adult, every precious moment can seem all too fleeting.
Especially when you’re living in sheer dread as the days fall away on the calendar.
“Looks like you’ve got a stack of cards today, Mrs. Saddler.” Arnie hands over several bright-colored envelopes. “Is it your birthday or something?”
“Tomorrow.” She manages to keep her voice steady and a smile pinned to her face.
“Well, Happy Birthday. Got any special plans?”
“I’m going up to my friend Fiona’s cabin in the mountains,” she tells him. Loudly. Mindful not just of the police officer concealed around the corner of her house, keeping an eye on her and Jeremy, but also of old Mr. Chase standing in his front yard next door, trimming his shrubs.
“Fiona Fitzgerald?” Arnie shakes his head. “That was such a shame, what happened to that poor woman. I knew you were friends, but I didn’t want to say anything to upset you. I’m really sorry for your loss,” he adds awkwardly.
“Thank you.” She can’t meet his gaze.
“Have the police figured out who did it yet?” Arnie asks.
“No, not yet.”
“I bet you’re shaken up.”
“Yes. That’s why I’m going to get away tomorrow.”
“I don’t blame you.”
Brynn can sense the wheels turning in his head. She imagines him later, back at the post office, sorting mail or whatever it is that the carriers do when they finish their routes. He’ll gossip about Fiona’s murder, because that’s what everyone in town has been doing for days, and he’ll recount what Brynn just told him.
She hopes.
And Mr. Chase over there across his leafless lawn, pretending to be engrossed in his precision shrubbery, will do the same thing later inside, with his wife. Sheila Chase is a notorious gossip…And her social calendar is full every night. When she goes off to play bridge or whatever she has scheduled for tonight, she’ll mention Brynn’s birthday plans to leave town.
And she’s going to stay in her dead friend’s cabin, can you imagine?
But Sheila Chase and Arnie the mailman certainly don’t have an exclusive on that tidbit. Brynn has been talking about it for a couple of days now, telling anyone she sees. Caleb’s teacher, Mrs. Shimp, Thelma the supermarket checker, Barney the gas station attendant.
With any luck, her birthday plans will make their way to the right pair of ears. Just in case they don’t, she’ll be leaving a note for Garth right there on the kitchen table.
He, of course, is aware of what’s going on.
And he doesn’t like it one bit.
In fact, when Detective Quincy first proposed that she help to bait a trap for the killer, Garth flat-out vetoed the plan, and Brynn did, too. But she came around pretty quickly when she realized that it might be the only way for the police to apprehend someone and put an end to this caged hell she’s been living in.
“Why not just do it right here at home?” she asked Detective Quincy.
“Because that’s too obvious. Nobody would ever believe that you’d sit here at home alone on your birthday after what happened to your friends. You’ll be expected to run away, like Cassie did, and Fiona wanted to do.”
At the mention of Fiona’s name, Brynn had to fight to maintain eye contact with the detective.
She hasn’t breathed a word of her suspicion to anyone—not even Garth.
And it isn’t her place to reveal this secret.
She’ll leave that to its keeper.
Garth finds Brynn standing in the doorway of the boys’ room, watching them sleep.
She gasps when he puts his hands on her shoulders.
“Sorry,” she presses her palm against her chest, “I’m just jumpy tonight.”
Of course she is.
So is Garth.
Not just because of the dangerous responsibility that lies before her tomorrow, but because of the one he faces tonight.
Right now.
“Come on.” He quietly pulls the boys’ door closed. “Let’s go to bed.”
“You’re coming, too?” she asks in surprise. He’s gone back to his old nocturnal habits since Fiona’s funeral.
“Don’t you want me to?”
“Yes,” she says quickly. “That would be good. I don’t want to sleep alone tonight.”
Together, they go into the master bedroom. Garth closes the door and Brynn reaches for her nightgown on the hook behind it.
“Wait.” He touches her arm. “I need to talk to you.”
“About tomorrow,” she says heavily. “I know, and, yes, I’m scared out of my mind, but you know that I have to do—”
“Not about tomorrow, Brynn,” he cuts in.
They’ve been over that enough times. She keeps insisting that going along with Quincy Hiles’s plan is her only option, and Garth finally pretended to agree. He’s going to drive the boys out to stay with her father and Sue first thing in the morning.
“If it’s not about tomorrow, then what is it about?”
“Sit down, Brynn.”
“What’s wrong?”
What isn’t wrong? he thinks, leading her over to the bed. They both sit, on the edge of the mattress, angled toward each other.
“Garth?”
I don’t want to do this.
It doesn’t matter. You have to.
He takes a deep breath. Exhales.
Begins. “You know how you kept that secret from me for all these years? About Rachel?”
A shadow crosses her eyes before she closes them. “Yes.”
“I had one, too.”
Her eyelids fly open. “One…what? You mean…a secret?”
He nods.
“What?” The word is barely audible, tainted with dread.
“Tildy…She was…She and I were…”
She and I.
At that phrase, Brynn seems to instantly comprehend what he’s trying to say. He can see the realization sweep through her. With it comes disbelief…then pure anguish.
“You had an affair with her?”
“No. Not an affair. You and I weren’t married when it happened.”
“So it was before we met?” Now she’s relieved.
He forces himself to admit, “No. Not before we met. I mean, it was going on before we met, but…It didn’t end when we did.”
He wants to turn away from the stark pain on her face, but he
won’t let himself.
“But…” She pauses, swallows hard, tries again. “But you said that was against your rules.”
“It was different with her. She wasn’t somebody I wanted to…be with.”
“But you were.”
“Not the way I wanted to be with you, the way I was with you. When I met you, I knew you were different. I knew you were someone I wouldn’t want to let go—and, my God, Brynn, that scared the hell out of me.”
“So you cheated on me.”
“No! Not when we were married.”
“It’s still cheating. It was still me. Still us.”
Don’t say that. This is hard enough.
“It didn’t happen very many times. I was stupid.”
“Yes,” Brynn’s tone is brittle as black ice, “you were. I can’t believe you would—”
“It happened a long time ago, Brynn.” He chooses his next words carefully. “Almost ten years ago.”
Ten years ago.
Just like Rachel.
She closes her mouth, swallowing whatever she was poised to say next.
“I swear to you that it never happened after we were married. I never broke our wedding vows.”
“I don’t know if I can believe that,” she says, as though she’s reading his mind.
“You have to. It’s true.”
“How can I trust you?”
“You always could. Since we’ve been married. Tildy even tried, once, to—you know. In Boston last summer, she—”
“You saw her in Boston?”
“We ran into each other. Fiona was there, too, and—”
“She didn’t tell me? And you didn’t tell me?”
“I couldn’t. I was afraid to. I was afraid you’d think something happened.”
“Why would I think that? Why would I suspect that my husband would ever cheat on me with my friend?” She shakes her head and swallows audibly. “I can’t believe I was so damned stupid. And blind. And that the three of you kept this from me. Especially Fee. Especially you.”
“Nothing happened,” he repeats. “Tildy tried. But nothing happened. I didn’t kiss her, I didn’t touch her. I love you, Brynn. I would never jeopardize our marriage.”
She says nothing.
“Look,” he says, reaching toward her, “let’s—”
“Don’t touch me.” She moves back. “And don’t sleep in here tonight.”
“But—”
“You never do anyway. And now I guess I know why.”
“That isn’t true. And it isn’t fair.”
“Fair? Don’t even say the word fair after what you—”
“You kept something from me, too,” he cuts in icily. “Remember? And I forgave you.”
“That was different.”
“Not at all. You had your secret. I had mine. Now it’s all out in the open.”
“I wish it wasn’t.” She’s crying now. “I wish you had never told me.”
So do I, Garth thinks grimly, as he leaves the room.
“That was such a good movie.” Ashley leans her head on her aunt’s shoulder as they watch the closing credits of Mary Poppins.
They’re in the small parlor at Cedar Ridge Inn, where Aunt Dee is staying.
Aunt Dee—that’s what she asked Ashley to call her. “Dee was your mother’s nickname for me when we were kids,” she said, her eyes flooded with tears. “When I grew up, I decided I hated it…but not anymore. Now I miss it. And her.”
There’s a DVD player and television here, so Aunt Dee rented Mary Poppins and invited Ashley to spend the night.
She figured Daddy wouldn’t be crazy about that idea, especially on a school night, but Aunt Dee talked him into it somehow.
Maybe she pointed out that she’ll be leaving soon, to go back to her own life. She hasn’t said anything yet about exactly when that will happen, but Ashley knows she can’t stay forever.
She only fervently wishes it, every chance she gets.
“I can’t believe you’ve never seen this movie before, Ashley. Especially since your mother always loved it so much. She knew every word to every song, and she used to go around singing them all day long. It drove everyone crazy.”
“No way! I can’t even imagine that.”
“Oh, your mother drove people crazy all the time,” Aunt Dee says with a chuckle.
“No, I believe that. She drives a lot of people crazy now, too. Especially me.” Ashley hesitates. “I mean, she did. But anyway…I just can’t imagine her singing.”
“She doesn’t sing?”
“Never. Not around me, anyway. She hardly even talks to me. I mean, talked to me. Not unless she was telling me what to do.”
Aunt Dee doesn’t say anything to that. She’s probably thinking Ashley shouldn’t be saying anything bad about her mother.
And you shouldn’t, she tells herself guiltily.
“She was a great mom,” she says aloud, to make up for that. “I loved her so much.”
“Really?” Aunt Dee seems happy to hear that. “Tell me some stuff you loved about her.”
“Well, she was really good at her job. She built a business from scratch. Not just anyone can do something like that. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication.”
“You sound just like her.”
“That’s ’cause she used to tell me that all the time. She said I could make anything happen, if I worked hard enough.”
“That’s true. What else was great about her? As a mom, I mean.”
“Um…Well, she was really good at telling me stuff about how I should look. You know, about standing up straight, and keeping my hair around my face, and which clothes to wear. Not to eat sweets because of my cavities. Stuff like that.”
Aunt Dee nods. “What else?”
Ashley thinks about it.
“Ashley?” Aunt Dee prods after a minute.
“There were just a lot of good things about her,” she says with a shrug, looking down at her hands twisting around each other in her lap.
Aunt Dee puts a hand under her chin and forces her to turn her head and look at her. “I know she wasn’t the perfect mom, Ashley. And so did she.”
“No, she—”
“You don’t have to pretend she was. I know she wishes she had spent more time with you.”
To Ashley’s surprise, Aunt Dee is starting to cry.
“Did Mom really say that?”
Aunt Dee hesitates before she nods, and Ashley shakes her head.
“She didn’t say it. You made that up.”
“It was how she felt, whether or not she ever actually said it to me, or to you, Ashley.”
“I don’t think it was. She didn’t seem like she wished she could spend more time with me. And even if she wanted to…”
Cut it out, Ashley tells herself sternly. You can’t say that.
“Even if she wanted to spend more time with you, what?”
Ashley blurts, “I wouldn’t really have wanted to spend more time with her. She made me nervous sometimes because I felt like I wasn’t good enough.”
“At what?”
“At anything. And sometimes I used to wish…” She trails off.
No, that’s too horrible. Don’t you dare say it.
“What did you wish, Ashley?”
It sounds like Aunt Dee is holding her breath, waiting for an answer. Ashley doesn’t dare look up at her, afraid she’ll be able to read the terrible thought in Ashley’s mind.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s really bad.”
“You can tell me anything.”
“Not this.”
“I promise I won’t tell anyone. And sometimes I wish really, really bad things, too.”
“You do?”
Aunt Dee nods.
Ashley takes a deep breath. “Sometimes I used to wish something would happen to my mother, so that I could have a new mom,” she says in a rush, then collapses against her aunt in a rush of tears
and guilt.
Aunt Dee holds her close and strokes her hair, exactly the way a mother does…
Exactly the way Ashley always wistfully longed for her own mother to hold her.
But she never did.
And now she never will.
Brynn saw Fiona’s mountain retreat once before, when the two of them were driving around in a realtor’s Mercedes SUV looking at houses for Fee to buy.
Nestled on a wooded lot along a steep, winding road, the three-bedroom log cabin has painted green shutters, a pair of dormered windows, and a porch with wooden rocking chairs.
Brynn thought it was infinitely charming that warm spring afternoon, in dappled sunlight.
This frosty autumn morning, shrouded in cobwebs of heavy mountain mist, the cabin has a foreboding air.
Seven lonely miles from Cedar Crest, out of the nearest cell phone tower’s range, Brynn feels completely isolated from the rest of the world.
But you aren’t. Not really.
She should be reassured, aware that a couple of armed officers lurk just out of sight in the woods.
Instead, the palpably eerie sensation of being watched only makes her more apprehensive. Even the two dormered windows loom like hooded eyes as she walks slowly up the path from the car, tucking her keys into the back pocket of her jeans.
It’s going to be okay.
At least, that’s what Garth had the nerve to say this morning, when they faced each other in the kitchen after a sleepless night.
He didn’t look any more convinced than she felt.
Even if this turns out okay…they might not be, together. How is she supposed to ever look him in the eye again, knowing about him and Tildy?
But he did forgive you for what you did so long ago, a small voice reminds her. Are you really unwilling to forgive him for something he did back then?
It isn’t just about that, though. It’s that he never told her. That he and Tildy and, yes, even Fee, shared this sordid little secret behind her back.
Then again, now that the initial shock and humiliation have worn off a bit…
No. You can’t just forgive him for something like this. It was wrong.
Hugging and kissing her sons good-bye before Garth drove them out to the Cape was the hardest thing she ever had to do.
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