The Stillwater Bay Collection (Books 1-4): Stillwater Bay Series Boxed Set

by Steena Holmes

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She could tell this was bothering him, and she didn’t blame him.

  Charlotte made her way through the back garden, keeping to the stone pathway. She always loved the view of the bay from here.

  Jenn lay in the hammock, a blanket over her body and a book open on her stomach.

  Charlotte wasn’t sure whether her friend was asleep or just resting, so she made her way quietly to Jenn’s side before lightly touching her shoulder.

  Jenn’s eyes slowly opened. “Sorry,” she said.

  “You should be. Gina made a great casserole this morning. I think even better than the one you made the last time we had a breakfast get-together,” Charlotte teased.

  “Too bad I missed it.” There was no smile, no regret for not joining them.

  Charlotte frowned. “Is there anything I can do? Anything you need?” she asked.

  One thing she knew from the counseling sessions she’d attended following the shooting was that there was no fix for the emotions people experienced after a tragedy. There were no words you could say to make things better, no magical formulas to turn back time. All you could do, all anyone could do, was validate the emotions they felt and find a way to get through each moment.

  Jenn reached out her limp hand, which Charlotte held. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  “Well, then, good thing, since I’m not in the mood to be alone either.” Charlotte glanced about the yard. “Please tell me you have coffee brewed?”

  “Robert made some earlier.”

  Charlotte made her way to the kitchen door. “Would you like a cup?”

  Jenn responded with a thumbs-up.

  Inside, Charlotte noticed the chaos of Jenn’s kitchen. Dirty dishes were stacked in the sink, rings of…coffee or pop or ice cream stained the white quartz countertops, and the floors looked like they hadn’t been washed in weeks.

  Charity, Jenn’s daughter, sat at the kitchen bar, humming to whatever song was playing through her headphones. She ate a bowl of cereal while doodling in a notebook. She didn’t even notice Charlotte standing at her side.

  Charlotte hip-checked her and Charity jumped, her spoon falling to the counter and soaking a portion of her notebook with milk.

  The girl took the headphones out of her ears. She wrapped her arm around Charlotte’s waist and gave it a squeeze.

  “I’ve missed you.”

  Charlotte leaned her head down on Charity’s. “I’ve missed you too, kiddo. What are you doing today?”

  Charity glanced at the time on her phone and scooted off her bar stool. “Just hanging with friends, and I’m late.” She grabbed her notebook, replaced the buds in her ears, and rushed out of the room.

  Charlotte grabbed her bowl, added it to the pile in the sink, and sighed.

  While she searched for two clean coffee mugs she received a text from Anne Marie.

  Anything I can do?

  She thought for a moment before responding.

  Cleaning services. ASAP.

  There were three people she could count on to help in situations like this: her assistant, Sheila; Lacie; and Anne Marie. They were the ones who were always willing to jump in and offer to help, no matter who asked.

  On it. Keep her occupied or else she’ll feel guilty and want to help. Be there in a few.

  Charlotte rinsed two mugs, poured coffee, grabbed a banana, and headed back outside. Jen had sat up a little in the hammock and had it swinging slightly via her foot.

  “Okay, love, I’ve got coffee for us and a banana for you.” Charlotte added a little bit of cheer to her voice.

  “Thanks. I’m not that hungry, though.” Jenn reached for the coffee mug and took a sip.

  “You know I’m here anytime you need me, right?” Charlotte sat across from her in a lounge chair, her legs pulled up beneath her.

  “I’m okay, Charlie. Really. It’s just a hard day, that’s all.”

  Jenn looked anything but okay. She was losing weight, her hair was listless, and the circles beneath her eyes were darker than a few days ago.

  “Even on hard days, Jenn. If it’s just to sit and have coffee, stare off over the bay or anything…I’m here.”

  “Thank you,” Jenn said. “Robert doesn’t understand that. He thinks…he thinks he should be able to fix this, but he can’t. Some days are okay. Some days it doesn’t hit me as hard that Bobby is gone, you know?” She grimaced at the pain. “Some days it’s too much.” She sighed and leaned her head back.

  “That’s today, isn’t it?” Charlotte asked. She couldn’t see Jenn’s face anymore but she didn’t need to. She knew.

  She hoped that just being here would be enough for her friend. To know she wasn’t alone. That she was loved and didn’t always have to be strong.

  Charlotte had her back, no matter what. Always. It was what she did, who she was.

  She heard the sound of a car door slam and knew Anne Marie must have arrived. She waited a few moments before she stood.

  “I’m just going to use the washroom. Need anything while I’m inside?” She kept her voice low in case Jenn had fallen asleep.

  “I’m good. Don’t mind the mess, okay?”

  Charlotte chuckled. “I came to see you, not your messy kitchen.”

  “Good. Robert’s going to look into hiring a cleaning service for a little while.”

  Charlotte was careful to fully close the sliding door before she greeted both Anne Marie and Lacie in the kitchen.

  “You guys, thank you.” She gave them both hugs.

  Lacie looked around the kitchen. “This is what friends are for. To be strong when others can’t be.”

  “Amen, sister, amen.” Anne Marie put on a pair of bright pink rubber gloves and got straight to work on the dishes in the sink. “You go on and keep her out of the house. We’ll be quiet and clean things up. Between the two of us we’ll rig up some lunch as well. Now go, scoot.”

  Charlotte blew them both a kiss before she went back to the lounge chair.

  “Did you know Camille and Anne Marie are going on a vacation together?” Charlotte asked.

  “Serious? Our Camille?”

  “First Paige moves out and now Camille is becoming a world traveler. I think Anne Marie’s a bad influence on those girls,” Charlotte teased.

  “Is Jordan busy today? Robert’s cut his hours at the office thinking I need him home with me, but to be honest, what I need is for him to be out of the house, to give me some space, and was hoping maybe the boys could go golfing.” Jenn continued to swing in the hammock and stare out over the bay.

  “He’d probably love that. We went away for the weekend, which meant no golf, and you know Jordan. He’s itching to play a round.”

  “Put the bug in his ear, will you?”

  Charlotte sent her husband a quick text and then gave Jenn a thumbs-up. “Done.”

  “So…about that weekend away…” Jenn said. “What changed your mind? What happened to the woman who would rather stay here in our tiny town and was happy being surrounded by the people she held near and dear to her heart?”

  Charlotte rubbed the back of her neck, feeling uncomfortable. “I said that?”

  Jenn chuckled. “‘Near and dear’ is a direct quote.”

  “I sound like my mother.” Charlotte grimaced before joining Jenn in the hammock. She lay the opposite way and looked at her friend, who watched her with concern.

  She didn’t like Jenn looking at her like that. She was fine.

  “The truth is, there’s no place I’d rather be than here; you know that,” she said.

  “Here” could mean a lot of things. Home. Stillwater. In the hammock with her friend. This was where she was needed. This was where she felt safe. In control of her life.

  She nudged her friend slightly in the side with her foot. “Besides, who else would come by to bug you when all you wanted to do was sleep in your hammock?”

  Jenn popped open one eye. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m pretty sure L
acie and Anne Marie would find ways to keep me entertained. You did tell them to come out and say hi, right?”

  Charlotte’s face flushed. “How did you know?”

  “What? That they’re in my kitchen cleaning up my mess because I’ve been too lazy to care? You should close the window next time.” Jenn winked.

  Charlotte couldn’t believe she’d forgotten all about the window by the table. “Don’t think of it as cleaning your mess but more wanting to show you some love.”

  Jenn held up her hand, giving her the thumbs-up, and then closed her eyes.

  “Don’t tell them I know, okay? Not right away.” Jenn’s voice had dropped; it was quieter and full of sadness.

  “It’s just us today, Jenn. Just us and the sound of the waves below.” If that was what her friend needed from her, then that was what Charlotte would do: just be here with Jenn, so she knew she wasn’t alone.

  Her phone buzzed with a text message. Samantha. Charlotte ignored the woman who wanted to rummage through her secrets and who, despite all good intentions, had the power to destroy the life Charlotte had built.

  She wasn’t about to let that happen. Not now, not ever.

  5

  Julia stood at her son’s bedroom door—the door she had refused to open since the day after her son destroyed his life—and gripped the knob in her hand. She wanted to open it, needed to open it, but she was afraid to.

  She knew the feeling was silly. It was only a room, after all.

  Once upon a time she’d believed that nothing could come her way that she couldn’t handle.

  She’d honestly believed that. After all, she pulled herself up from humble beginnings, raised a child on her own, created a life for both herself and her son out of nothing. She thought she was Wonder Woman.

  This experience taught her she was anything but.

  Camille said she was strong. Lacie called her a survivor. Charlotte had considered her a friend.

  Her heart twisted.

  She wasn’t strong. She wasn’t a survivor. She was a liar and a horrible mother. There were signs—there had always been signs—but she didn’t want to accept them. She’d been too afraid to.

  Since May she’d been living in a fog, one full of denial, self-doubt, fear, and sadness.

  Her son died on May thirty-first. Killed himself, actually. Along with ten other children and two adults.

  There were thirteen lives on her conscience. Thirteen lives destroyed because of her failure to raise her son properly.

  Where had she gone wrong? He’d been a happy boy, full of compassion and love as a small child. Sure, being a teenager had changed him, but wasn’t that normal for all teenagers? She’d made a lot of mistakes—she knew that, accepted that—but wasn’t that a part of being a parent?

  Who was to blame? Herself for being a failure as a parent? Her son for his actions? His father for not pushing to be part of his life?

  Julia pushed open his door and was assaulted by the stench of a boy’s room that hadn’t been aired out regularly. She swung it open and closed a few times to help circulate the air and disrupted dust balls that tickled her nose. Ignoring everything else around her, she walked to the window, pulled back the curtains, and pushed open the window until the warm breeze off the bay filled the room.

  Words spray-painted across her son’s bedroom window greeted her.

  Devil. Murderer.

  The words meant nothing to her now. She’d seen them so many times, those and so much more, it was as if she’d built up a wall to surround her heart so they wouldn’t hurt anymore.

  They were only words. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never kill me.

  No, but bullets would.

  Her shoulders slumped at the thought and she turned to face Gabe’s tiny room. It wasn’t very large, big enough for his single bed on one side and a desk on the other. His dresser was stuffed into his closet, with a small area for him to hang shirts that he never wore.

  The walls were full of zombie renderings. At one time she’d been worried about his obsession, but Pastor Scott had soothed her fears by telling her it was a boy thing, natural and healthy. Knowing what she knew today, she wasn’t sure she saw the healthy aspect to it. His walls were plastered with blood-splattered, flesh-eating beings that all resembled one person. She hadn’t realized who, just knew the image looked familiar, but she realized yesterday who her son had drawn.

  His father.

  How Gabe found out she wasn’t sure, but she hoped to find the answers.

  Somewhere in this room, she knew she’d be able to find the key to unlocking her son’s brain, to find out why he’d done what he’d done. Why he’d stolen the gun she’d hidden away in a box at the back of her closet, taken it to school, and unloaded it on children who had never hurt him.

  There had to be an answer.

  She pulled out the drawers of his desk and riffled through the papers, the pencil crayons and notebooks he kept there, looking for one thing in particular. But it wasn’t there. She did the same with his dresser drawers, pulled out the clothes, searched beneath the underwear and socks, T-shirts, and pants to see whether it was there, hidden from her, but it wasn’t.

  There weren’t many places for him to hide things from her.

  She dropped to her knees and looked beneath his bed, sliding her arm and pushing away magazines and unmatched socks.

  Nothing.

  It had to be here. She knew it had to be. She’d searched her room this morning for it and hadn’t found it. That was when she knew. He had her journal.

  She knew why he’d gone to the elementary school when he should have been on the bus heading to his high school.

  The weight of it hit her. She curled up into a ball on his bed and, with her head on his pillow, breathed in the stale scent that lingered there. The scent of her son. Tears gathered in her eyes and she pulled the pillow closer, wanting to be close to something of his, when her fingers nipped the edge of paper.

  She pulled it out and stared at the folded sheet, torn from a notebook.

  Mom.

  Her hands shook as her eyes traced the printed words her son had written.

  She was almost too afraid to open it. Afraid of what her son’s last words were to her. Afraid to read what her heart already knew.

  There were so many questions, so many things she’d wanted to say to him, wished she’d said to him.

  It had hurt to know he’d never said anything to her, no goodbyes, no last “I love you.”

  But maybe he had.

  Mom.

  She pictured him sitting at his desk, notebook in front of him, shoulders hunched over while he held a pen in his hands, thinking about what he’d write. What would she find inside? Would he explain why needed to take the gun with him to the school? Why he felt violence was the only way to right a wrong? Would he tell her he was sorry? That he loved her? That he’d see her soon and hoped she’d understand?

  It didn’t matter what he said, as long as he said it. His last words to her.

  With trembling hands, she opened the note and slowly read every word he’d written, and like a newly planted tree ripped up by the force of a hurricane, her life, her world, her heart as she’d known it was destroyed, ripped to shreds by a force more powerful than she’d ever known.

  Mom.

  I love you. You know that, right?

  No matter what happens, I need you to know that.

  This isn’t your fault. If you found this note, then I went through with my decision to end my life. There’s no reason, nothing you’ll understand at least. I just can’t do it anymore.

  You’ve done a good job. Nothing that happens today is on you. None of it.

  I understand now why you kept the truth about my father from me. I wish I hadn’t found out. I always thought I wasn’t worth his attention but now I know it to be fact. I don’t blame him though.

  He has nothing to do with this. I need you to believe that.

  Sometimes ther
e’s no reason, no answer for why I feel the way I do. I just do. I don’t want to feel this way anymore though. I hope you’ll understand that.

  You used to call me your angel. Now it’ll be true.

  Gabriel.

  6

  Just my daily reminder that I’d like to sit with you and Jordan.

  Samantha. The woman was persistent. Charlotte would give her that.

  Persistent held nothing against stubbornness, however. She and Jordan weren’t sitting down with Samantha. Not Jordan, anyway, that was for sure.

  Interview me about Jordan. I’ll tell you all you need to know. That was as good as Sam was going to get.

  Charlotte would steer the conversation the way she needed it to go, in the direction that would help to continue the healing process for their town. No one would ever find out Jordan’s truth.

  It’s better if it comes from him, Sam replied.

  No, it wasn’t. If it came from him, he’d spill his guts and that was the last thing she’d let happen.

  “Hey.” Jordan stepped onto their back porch, giving her a strained smile as he dropped his briefcase, his hair in disarray from running his fingers through it multiple times, something he often did when stressed.

  “Bad day?” Charlotte handed him her glass of wine while she flattened his hair out of habit.

  “I’ve had better.” He downed the wine in one gulp.

  “That bad, huh?” She took the glass back and refilled it with the bottle she’d brought out with her. It was the wine they’d opened last night, after he’d returned from the bar after talking with Tyler. There had been maybe two glasses left. Now there were none.

  She didn’t like the look of him. He was worn and weary, worry lines more evident than before, a few more grey hairs in his scruff, and the circles under his eyes were more pronounced.

  They were quite the team, haggard and rough-looking. They needed to pull themselves together, not look like they were at the precipice of falling apart.

  Fake it till you make it. She could, but could Jordan?

  She knew she needed to be the stronger of the two, knew that in order for him to move past what happened and his role she needed to be the one to carry most of the weight.