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The next time the bus stops, I look up and an old woman takes the seat next to me. She glances at my papers and chuckles to herself. “I haven’t seen that kind of shorthand in a long time.”
“Shorthand?”
She nods. “It was commonly used about fifty years ago. I used it when I was a secretary in my early twenties, but then I married the boss.” She nudges me with her shoulder and laughs.
“So you can read this?”
She nods. “Of course.”
“Can you show me how?”
“Sure, it’s not hard once you understand it.” She takes a page and smiles. “The woman who wrote this was Italian, or at least she knew enough that it poked out now and again. Like this word, it’s not English, so that probably makes it harder for you to translate. Do you know where these documents are from?”
I shake my head. “They were my mother’s. She died and I found them while going through her things.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, dear.” Her old eyes scan the papers with renewed interest. She begins to laugh, shaking her head. “Well, your mother was a pip. She interchanged things. See this word? Iron? It’s a name, not a piece of metal. This mark here means it’s an account, see?”
Shaking my head, I look at the papers. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t get it.”
She points, “This column lists names, and this one has notes about them. See, Iron means Ferro—oh, that’s odd. Did she know the Ferro family? This mark here means that a sum of money was received and added to this account. Here’s the total. She’s made a notation that those funds weren’t found when closing the store—she must have been a bookkeeper. She matched the slip tape with the customer number. Smart woman. It’s just an account record, dear. Boring reading materials for a pretty little thing like you to be reading on the bus.” She smiles again, and pushes up. “Well, this is my stop. I’ve got to go to CVS before heading home. Have a good night.”
I watch her walk down the aisle toward the exit, wondering if she’s a threat. I stay on the bus for the next few stops and am able to make out some of the names, including more entries for Ferro, the iron family. I wonder if Constance did this, or if it was Sean’s father.
Stuffing the papers back in my jacket, I jump off at the next stop. I've traveled east for a comfortable distance from my parents' house and it’s getting late. Exhaustion starts to cloud my brain. Near the bus stop, I find a rundown motel. I walk up to the front desk, pay cash for the next few days, and before long, I’m in an old room that smells as bad as it looks. The walls are covered in wood paneling and there’s an old orange carpet on the floor. This place has hourly rates and it sounds like a couple is making use of that feature in the room next door. Stomping from the room above causes plaster from the dated popcorn ceiling to fall on my head, but I’m too tired to care. The second I hit the bed, I pass out.
Chapter 12
***SEAN***
Wooden boards, blistering and sun-bleached, are warm under my feet. The ocean laps quietly at the small dock, making it sway slightly, as I take one step and then another. A lighthouse flashes in the distance, spinning its narrow beam of light, momentarily blinding me. I take another step. There are very few left before I fall. Time is failing me, and the inky waves will swallow me whole.
Pulse pounding, I take another step, placing my bare foot on the splintering wood, cursing my inability to go back where I was, back to that place with her. I felt safe there and thought I could be someone else. For her I changed, and for her, I’ll die.
I step forward, inching toward my demise. My throat tightens in fear, but my feet won’t stop. My end is inevitable. I won’t turn back and I have no other way out.
“Sean!” His voice startles me at first, but when I hear him again, clearly calling my name, I shield my eyes and peer through the darkness. I see nothing for miles, no land, and no place to rest. “Sean,” he says again, “step out.”
I hear his voice, but I can’t see his face. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Neither should you. I did what I had to do; now you need to trust me. Have faith, Sean. Step out. The waves will carry you to the other side.”
A flicker of light catches my eye and a familiar voice comes from behind me. I turn, looking back at the lingering rays. “Come back to me, Sean.” Amanda’s words cut through me, and I fall to my knees on the dock. “Come home.” She repeats the last words she ever said to me, over and over again, beckoning me back.
Their voices clash like clanging cymbals, each pulling me in a different direction. The mistakes of my past call me back to my wife, while my cousin calls me forward. I failed him. Avery knows. She figured me out.
She belongs with Trystan.
“Come home.”
I cringe and lean forward, resting my head on the dock. Everything within my body is screaming out for me to turn back, to return to Amanda. I did this to her. I caused her death.
“Sean, step out. Keep going! Don’t stop!” Bryan calls to me again in that tone he used so often. I can’t bear what happened the night we went to get Hallie. Everything went wrong and before I knew what happened, he was gone.
The certainty of Amanda’s light beckons to me, calling me back, but Bryan’s voice is strong, pulling me forward. “It was my choice, Sean, not yours. It was my choice, not yours. Don’t waste this chance. Step into the water and you’ll be safe.”
It takes every ounce of strength within me to pull my leaden body up off the dock and haul my feet forward. Every moment is agony, every second is torture, but I finally step off the end. Amanda’s voice falls silent and the only sound remaining is the ocean. When my foot hits the water it sinks. I turn to look back at the dock, but it’s gone. Amanda’s light has disappeared. There’s no way back and no way forward. I’m sinking. The cold water is swallowing me whole.
I picture the liquid noose rising around my neck, cold and strong. I picture the waves pulling me under as if they were the arms of a giant. I picture gasping for air but never finding enough.
Suddenly my feet hit rock, as if I were standing in a shallow puddle. It’s an illusion, the way the darkness plays off the top of the water makes it look like an ocean, but it isn’t. I take off at full-speed, running toward the lighthouse, wanting her, knowing she’s there. Avery is my rock in the storm. That’s what Bryan was telling me.
Elated, I push further ahead, faster. When I make it to the lighthouse, I race up the steps to the room at the top and throw open the door. The woman I love turns to look at me, and my heart tears in two. She’s naked, standing wrapped in the arms of Trystan Scott. I try to say her name, but my voice fails me. I move my mouth, but she regards me as no more than a speck of dust. The light turns toward me once more, blinding me.
I shield my eyes, calling out to her. “Avery! Wait! I lied. I want you; I want a life with you. Please, Avery…”
But it’s too late. When the light spins around again she’s gone.
Chapter 13
***SEAN***
Drenched in cold sweat, I dart upright in my bed, gasping air as fast as I can swallow it.
“Avery.” I say her name without thinking, and a chill goes up my spine. Clutching my head in my hands, I throw my feet off the side of the bed and sit for a moment, willing my pulse to resume a normal rate. My stomach twists in knots, twisting increasingly harder and tighter, even though the nightmare is over. But that’s the problem—the nightmare is not over, it never ends.
“God, I hate this place.” I can’t believe I let Pete talk me into coming here. The house I grew up in conjures more nightmares than anywhere I’ve ever slept, but Peter insisted on it. There’s no getting it out of his head that I’m injured, and since I need them to believe I am, I allow him to take me here.
If I see my mother, I’ll lose it. I know I will. Our last discussion was less than amiable. Just one disagreement with her would be a fucking cakewalk, but that woman is ruthless. Her scheming never ends and it wouldn’t shock me in the least to see her
name at the top of Avery’s damned papers.
A promise is a promise, blood be damned. I did this, but Avery doesn’t know why. I intend on keeping it that way. Lies suit me. I’ve told so many lies the truth is irrelevant at this point. There’s no way she can possibly navigate her way between fact and fiction. For that, I feel sick. She didn’t deserve this, not any of it, and she wouldn’t be in this goddamn mess, were it not for me.
