A Slow Ruin

by Pamela Crane

  Praise for USA Today bestseller Pamela Crane’s psychological thrillers:

  “You are not prepared for the twists…Pamela Crane has in store for you. The schemes…are sure to have you at the edge of your seat.” – POPSUGAR

  “Crane succeeds at painting families and friendships in vivid detail; women will see their tussles and triumphs in these pages, and will relish the twists and moments of brave camaraderie and bold revenge... A satisfying read that has echoes of Liane Moriarty and of Emily Giffin's All We Ever Wanted.” – Booklist

  “Pamela Crane's anthem to female friendship and the empowerment of women proves one thing. Friends will do anything for each other...including lie, cheat in bed, and kill. This novel is a read for our tumultuous times.” – Jenny Milchman, Mary Higgins Clark award-winning author of Cover of Snow and The Second Mother

  “One of the most chilling opening scenes I've ever read, and the tension keeps right on building. My advice: don't read this book...unless you're prepared not to put it down until you're finished!” – New York Times bestselling author Wendy Corsi Staub

  “I loved it! It's so well written, with sharply observed characters and the kind of fast-paced, twisty plot that keeps you turning the pages...” –Sunday Times and international bestselling author Debbie Howells

  “There is always great depth to Pamela's writing and this is no exception.” – Bestselling author Patricia Dixon

  “A captivating mystery with prose that fans will devour.” – Literary Lover Reviews

  A

  SLOW

  RUIN

  A

  SLOW

  RUIN

  PAMELA CRANE

  Tabella House

  Raleigh, North Carolina

  Copyright © 2021 by Pamela Crane

  Tabella House

  Raleigh, NC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  www.pamelacrane.com

  ISBN: 978-1-940662-213 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-940662-206 (eBook)

  Thank you for supporting authors and literacy by purchasing this book. Want to add more gripping reads to your library? As the author of more than a dozen award-winning and bestselling books, you can find all of Pamela Crane’s works on her website at www.pamelacrane.com.

  To Talia, for letting Mommy take a million pictures of you for my cover. I know you love the attention.

  To Mary Kaja, my budding creative genius niece. You gave Vera flesh when I only had bones. At age fifteen your talents already far surpass most. Never stop using them…or else give them to me!

  To Linda Milito Martin, the muse behind Barkalicious Boutique. It wouldn’t be the coolest fictional dog shop without you.

  To Noelle Nuzzi, Melissa Borsey, Emily Cheang Wai Kuen, and Vicky Brunner for participating in my Choose Your Own Adventure game to give Marin and Felicity jobs I would never have come up with on my own. I love how you guys think!

  To the real-life Alveras who sacrifice so much for a greater cause. Family, freedom, time, money…all in the pursuit of a better future for others. Your passion is not in vain.

  To all the mothers. It’s the most beautiful burden that we carry. May your shoulders remain strong, your heart soft, and your love wide.

  Author’s Note

  The story you are about to read isn’t just mine. In fact, it’s unlike anything else I’ve written, steeped in personal connections and mystery. While all of my books are rooted in real-life experience and people, this one especially so.

  Depicted on the cover is my daughter, Talia, a child passionate for art and literature (a writer mom’s dream kid!). And my creatively brilliant niece Mary scripted many of the journal entries to offer teenage authenticity to Vera.

  Woven into the newspaper articles are true facts recounted from an actual 1910 missing heiress case that to this day remains unsolved. You may notice the news reporting style is a bit different—and completely authentic of the era.

  Yet the most exciting and intimate part of this book revolves around suffragette Alvera Fields, loosely based on a heroic ancestor of mine who fought passionately for the rights of women. Not only was she the inspiration for this story, but for generations of women who reaped the benefits of her sacrifice.

  Digging into the cold cases of the past, and the lives steeped in mystery, added a layer to this story that makes it one of my favorite books I’ve written.

  And now this labor of love belongs not just to us who poured ourselves into its words, but also to you as you pour yourself into our story.

  The Pittsburg Press

  Pittsburg, PA

  Sunday, April 17, 1910

  WOMAN’S SUFFRAGE VOLUNTEER AND MOTHER OF NEWBORN STRANGELY MISSING

  No Limit to Reward, Husband States

  Mrs. Alvera Fields, wife to millionaire Robert Fields and mother of three-month-old daughter Olivia Fields, disappeared from her home on the evening of April 16, and although a nationwide search has been made for the young woman, no trace of her has been found. She is thirty-two years old.

  Through an announcement by her distracted husband, having hired private detectives and Pinkertons to aid in the search in vain, it was made known that Alvera disappeared mysteriously in the late hours after taking leave from the Fields Estate, heading into town. The private search exhausted every possible clue that the family could advance, and her husband has nearly given up hope in his wife’s return. Her disappearance was casual and apparently unpremeditated that the army of detectives working on the case decided that violence or enforced detention of some kind must be responsible for her absence.

  On Saturday morning Mrs. Fields remarked to her husband that she would be going out that day to purchase a dress for an upcoming debutante party. When he offered to go with her, she said, “It will be a bore for you. I’ll telephone you when I find the right dress.”

  Alvera left her house that evening at five o’clock wearing a tailor-made blue serge suit and black velvet hat, she wore low black shoes, black silk stockings, and a dark blue silk waist with a white jabot and tan walking gloves. She has not been seen since by her family or friends. She carried between $20 and $50 in her handbag and wore her usual jewelry, a diamond ring and plain gold earrings. In her hair she wore a shell comb, a carved barrette, and a dark blue hatpin with the head of a lapis-lazuli. Her hair was worn in a full pompadour.

  Mrs. Fields was last seen stopping at the Women’s Equal Franchise Federation, a women’s suffrage group she volunteered at until her daughter’s birth three months prior. Her last known whereabouts were at eight o’clock that evening, where Mrs. Fields spoke with a friend, Miss Cecile Cianfarra, who attested that Alvera showed no signs of distress.

  Every known relative of the family was called upon, branches of the detective agencies were set to work upon the case, hospitals were searched, and trains and even steamships were watched, but to no avail. She had received from her husband a monthly allowance of $100 and had a small bank account. She withdrew $40 on April 14, but as the investigation showed similar withdrawals frequently, no significance was attached to that.

  Her description was given to the police as follows: Thirty-two years old, 5 feet 6 inches in height, light brown hair, blue eyes, well developed, striking appearance, weighed about 150 pounds.

  A handsome reward has been mentioned
by her husband, a silk importer, who stated, “Money is no object, and any information leading to my wife’s safe recovery will be greatly rewarded. I beg of my fellow Pittsburgers to help bring home my wife and my daughter’s mother.”

  Due to the family’s wealth, social status, and Mrs. Fields’ involvement in the women’s suffrage movement, detectives are considering the possibility of harm having befallen the missing woman for financial gain, or as a political statement.

  Prologue

  THE BEGINNING OF THE END

  Certain moments cleave a life in two, killing off one life in order to birth a new one. This labor and delivery sometimes creates a phoenix. Other times it creates a monster.

  These pieces of myself I sorted into before and after. Before marriage I was an untethered version of myself. After the “I do,” I slipped on new flesh that resembled my husband, every decision captained by compromise. “Leave and cleave,” my mother once told me. She never mentioned how painful the rip could be.

  Then my firstborn child arrived. The most vicious tear, separating me from my husband, my sleep, my friends, my dreams, my life as I recognized it. Before the baby, my time was mine. My body was mine. My life was mine. After the baby, everything was hers, as this tiny suckling infant wrapped in perfect creamy skin owned my entire world. And I willingly let her take it.

  These were the thoughts that had followed me across the backyard of a house that wasn’t mine. Then in through a creaky door that should have been locked but wasn’t. I stepped into an unfamiliar kitchen, with only the purr of the fridge and the dim light from the oven hood orienting me. I shouldn’t have been in that kitchen. I shouldn’t have brought that letter. It was that single ill-fated choice that cleaved my life for the last time:

  Before, when my daughter was alive.

  After I killed her.

  All it took was one ruinous secret, one deadly mistake to cut my life into pieces. The transgression was a scythe, and one swing of the sickle took everything away from me. The worst part? It was All. My. Fault.

  The envelope holding my confession was still in my pocket when I flicked on the light, then slipped my way across the bloody floor to my daughter’s fallen body, her legs and arms splayed out between the sink and oven. Red smeared across the linoleum like a child’s fingerpainting. I dropped to my knees next to my daughter, coating my kneecaps with two crimson blossoms. She slumped in my arms, eyes fluttering closed like morning glories bidding farewell. Gently lifting her neck and head, I rested the weight of her on my lap, trying to figure out where the bleeding was coming from.

  A stickiness seeped into my pants, staining my skin. Slowly working my hands across the back of her skull, my palm sank into a matted mess of wet hair. My fingers traced a gash where her skull should be, but instead gaped open. Trying to pull her upright against me, her body slid across the floor. So much blood. Too much. I hefted her up to my chest, cradling her as best I could, as our groans joined in unison. I felt my back pocket for my phone, feeling instead the thin crumple of the envelope. My reason for being here. The same reason my daughter was bleeding out.

  Pain swept across my temples as the stress intensified. I needed to call 9-1-1 now. Where was my cell phone? Had I brought it with me? No, I couldn’t remember where I’d left it. The car I’d hidden down the street, maybe? I didn’t have time to run that far.

  Slowly lowering her head to the cool floor, I rose high on my knees, my gaze darting across the room. Where was her phone? Nothing but a mess of dishes and countertops strewn with mail. My body thrummed with the pulse of terror.

  It frightened me that I didn’t know what to do. It frightened me more that my own child might die in my arms.

  Her eyes flicked open, not registering me. Thank God she was conscious.

  “Where’s your cell phone? I need to call 9-1-1.” I didn’t want to scare her, but the calm wouldn’t stay put in my voice.

  She didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Then recognition dawned in her eyes. Her mouth cracked open.

  “Do you know what happened?” I asked her.

  She didn’t speak at first, then her mouth parted just enough to let a word escape. “No.”

  “Don’t close your eyes. Stay awake until an ambulance arrives. I need your phone!”

  Her body shivered with a weak breath, her face seemed to empty its color onto the floor, mixing with the blood that leached out more each second.

  “Not…until I get answers.” Her jaw clenched. I recognized the stubborn teen in her.

  I clucked in irritation. Of course she was going to make me barter for her life. Didn’t she realize she was dying?

  “What do you want to know?”

  Her chest rose with a breath. “I want to know why. Why you lied. Why you did what you did.”

  The eternal question, one I asked myself daily for the past fifteen years. The question I couldn’t answer.

  “Tell me where your phone is first. You’re not looking good, honey. I need to call for help. Now, please!”

  “No!” A grunt slipped out with the effort of speaking. “First tell me the truth.”

  “Will an answer take it all back? Will it make everything better?”

  “No…” Her words were slowing, slurring. “But maybe I’ll understand.”

  I reached into my back pocket and slid the envelope out, letting it hang between us.

  “Here,” was all I could muster. “This explains everything.”

  She weakly accepted my offering, then her arm dropped to the floor. A trickle of red ran down her nose, sliding over her top lip. She was drifting on the fringes of consciousness. I was running out of time. I searched her pockets, feeling for the hard case of a cell phone. Nothing.

  I stood and scanned the kitchen, finding a 1970s-avocado green landline phone hanging on the wall near where the kitchen poured into the dining room. I picked up the receiver and listened for a dial tone. Dead.

  “Your cell phone—where is it?” I screamed, begging her to answer me, to save her own life.

  “Living room…table,” she breathed.

  I rushed through the dining room, blindly circling into the living room where the kitchen light couldn’t reach. The faint glow drifting from the hallway upstairs was enough to identify the shape of a lamp. I fumbled for the knob, fingers slipping until I heard a click. I found the cell phone, in a pink plastic case, next to the sofa and swiped up. It demanded a passcode.

  I ran back into the kitchen, adrenalin-fueled panic pushing me. “I need your passcode.”

  “0509.”

  I gasped. The significance of that number didn’t escape me. Only I knew what it meant, only I knew how it bound us together in chains.

  I dropped to her side, punched the passcode on the screen, swiped until I found the green call icon, and dialed 9-1-1. Pressing my fingers to her wrist, the radial artery barely thrummed with a weak heartbeat. I hadn’t prayed in so long, but the entreaty poured out to whoever was listening as my child bled out, that for once in my pathetic life full of regrets, help me save her. With the phone to my ear, I glanced down at her ashen face. Peaceful. Sleepy. Dead?

  No, she couldn’t die. I wouldn’t let her die. I felt her neck for a pulse and found nothing, not even a faint throb against my fingertips.

  “Don’t leave me!” I cried as the phone line connected.

  The operator calmly asked, “What’s your emergency?”

  My fingers lost all feeling. The phone cracked against the floor. The screen went black. I saw my tear-stained reflection mouthing the word goodbye.

  My daughter was dead.

  We had loved each other through everything, through all the mistakes and broken promises. Through laughter and tears. Through fights, hugs, joyrides, and late-night movie marathons. Why couldn’t she have held on for me? We had even loved each other through murder.

  After all, I’d already done it once before.

  Chapter 1

  Felici
ty Portman

  OCTOBER

  A good mother knows when she’s needed and starts running. But I was not a good mother. When a daughter needs you, when she’s in pain or struggling, a mother hears her cry and goes to her. Saves her. So why hadn’t I heard Vera’s cry for help the night she disappeared? Why couldn’t I save her?

  This thought nudged me awake every morning from fitful sleep. It taunted me throughout each day when I passed Vera’s bedroom, or found strands of her blonde hair embedded in the sofa cushions. Every little thing reminded me of Vera. And it suffocated me every night when I lay restless in bed beside a snoring husband oblivious to my suffering. I shouldn’t have resented Oliver for that; it was to his credit that he was able to move on, where I couldn’t, over the past six months since Vera first vanished. But I hated him nonetheless. It wasn’t fair that I alone carried this burden of guilt. I alone hefted the what-ifs on my fragile shoulders. What if we hadn’t gone out that night? What if I had checked in more with Vera? What if…what if…what if.

  That same thought pushed me into Vera’s bedroom when I was supposed to be getting Sydney a Band-Aid for her paper cut. While my three-year-old daughter wailed in the background, clutching a bloody tissue to her fingertip, I told Eliot to keep an eye on his little sister and continue cutting colorful construction paper ghosts and pumpkins to make Pappy Joe and Nana a Halloween card. Maybe I expected too much of an eight-year-old boy as I headed upstairs to the bathroom to grab a Paw Patrol Band-Aid. But I needed my fix.