Page 130 of Not a Word

His mother shook her head wearily. “I didn’t know about that. She was . . . regretful, evidently. Wished she’d never given you up.”

More to himself than to Catherine, Holden said, “She was my mother . . .”

His shoulders trembled as he struggled to regain his composure. Gage had gotten out of his chair and walked out into the yard, facing the pond, his back to the deck, but still close enough to hear their discussion.

Holden whispered, “I should have guessed. Figured it out on my own.” He paused, wanting to take a breath before moving on. “Things were never the same between you and dad after that night.”

“No,” she said. “But we were bound to each other by . . . shame and guilt. We were each other’s alibi. They could never compel us to testify against each other, not as long as we were still married.”

Catherine shot a wary look at Gage, hoping he was out of earshot.

“It’s okay. He knows.”

Catherine seemed to sink even further into herself. “He’s not the only one you told. A woman.”

“From Sharnwood,” he admitted, “I kept your secret as long as I could. Alicia—” The name caught in his throat. “She’s dead. Someone shot her in the head.”

Holden had expected some glimmer of surprise, but there was nothing from Catherine.

“This was there,” he said, picking up the magazine, pointing to the address label. “Right near her body.”

Catherine paled.

Holden said, “If she’d died yesterday, or the day before, I’d have had to wonder if Dad did it. But she was alive this morning.”

“How . . . you were there?”

“Gage and I went to her place. We found her.”

Catherine fumbled her scotch, the tumbler hitting the deck and shattering into a hundred pieces, the scotch dispersing like blood the color of mahogany. She put a hand to her chest.

“Mom?” Holden said. She seemed to be struggling for air. Holden got up, knelt in front of her. “Are you okay? Mom?”

She’d lowered her head, and when she looked up, she couldn’t meet his gaze but stared off into the distance, her eyes glistening. “I’ve done such terrible things,” she whispered.

Holden had nothing he could say to make her feel better about that. But this was something new.

“What have you done?” he asked her gently, standing, towering in front of her.

“Your father . . . never knew that woman. He was never there.”

“Then how could—”

“I filled a box with old magazines,” she said. “That’s what he said to do.”

“Who? What are you talking about?”

Catherine got to her feet, slowly stepped off the deck, and walked out into the yard, past Gage and toward the old rowboat. She talked as she walked.

“She’d been calling me. Harassing me. Saying I’d pay for what I did.” Her eyes narrowed when she looked at him. “Because you told her.”

The words I’m sorry almost came out of Holden’s mouth, but he didn’t know for sure that he was. He wasn’t the first domino in this tragic series of events. She was.

But it was all starting to make sense, how Alicia had played him.

His mother was still talking.

“Just threatening calls at first, that I was going to get what was coming to me. But then he said, offer her money, and she went for it, but it wasn’t money, it was a box filled with old magazines to feel like it had money in it.”