AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, come now. Don’t play coy with me. And don’t tell me you didn’t notice. That ferret-looking fellow, the one always hanging around? You must have seen them at the funeral.”
Blood roared in my ears, and I gripped the phone hard. Yes, I had noticed. Of course I’d noticed. But what I’d seen was Jack. There was nothem.
“You’re out of your mind,” I said. “They’re not dating.”
“Oh, I think they’re well beyonddating.My question, to return to the topic at hand, is were theyplotting.”
“What! Mom would never—”
“I know you’re loyal to your mother, Delphine,” Richard said. “But take a breath. She’s been alone for a long time, and loneliness makes a person vulnerable. If that man wanted money and if he managed to ingratiate himself with Dora, how certain are you that she wouldn’t go along with it? Especially if he convinced her that it was somehow for the best.”
“You didn’t see her that morning. You didn’thearher. When we found Mimi’s body, she was—” I broke off.Inconsolable,I had been about to say, and she was. But was it because of what had happened?
Or was it because of something she’d done?
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said forcefully, as if I could will it into being not true. “And why Mom? Why not Diana and William? They need the money more than she does.”
“That’s true,” Richard said mildly. “Hell, maybe they all did it. Together. It would be very Agatha Christie of them.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“Indeed. It’s unsettling, isn’t it? To think there might have been a killer among us. But if that was the extent of it, I doubt I would have said anything. As it is, you’ll notice that I’m calling you rather than the police. And do you know why?”
“Because you don’t care?” I snapped. “That’s obvious. You’re probably glad she’s gone.”
He paused for several seconds before answering. “Gladisn’t the word,” he said. “I have complicated feelings about my mother’s death, and all things considered, I think I’m entitled. But dementia is a horrible way to go. It’s awful and undignified and it takes goddamnforever, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, not even someone I hated. And despite what you may think, I didn’t hate her. I certainly didn’t want to see her suffer a lingering death that turned her into a zombie with nothing left of my mom inside. But more importantly, I didn’t want to see your mother putting her life on hold for god knows how long while she waited around for our mother to die. So if someone did help her into her grave a few months ahead of schedule . . . well, I’m not sure it wasn’t a kindness. Maybe it’s even what she would have wanted. I’m certainly not about to move heaven and earth to see that person brought to justice. But if that someone is a man who’s also trying to seduce my littlest sister, who I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw him? That concerns me. And I have a feeling it concerns you too.”
For several moments, neither one of us spoke. I wasn’t about to tell Richard that of course it concerned me—or that I had no idea where my mother was now. There were so many questions I hadn’t asked, things I desperately wanted to know now. Like who she’d been texting last night and all those other nights. Like where she’d been all day on Christmas Eve.
I thought again of the way she’d fallen to her knees in the cove, slamming her fist against the ice until blood ran, the horrible keening sound she’d made. But behind it was another thought, rising up unbidden from a darker place: that she was the one who found Mimi’s body because she was the one who knew where it would be.
I would not say any of this to Richard.
“I have to go,” I said, and he sighed.
“Of course you do. Look, just think about what I said. We both know Dora isn’t going to listen to me. I could send her an entire dossier—hell, I could probably send video evidence of her boyfriend playing soccer with a severed human head—and she’d just tell me to fuck off and mind my own business. But she might listen to you.”
“Fine, but you’re wrong.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice,” he said. “I’d prefer to be wrong. But I don’tthink I am. As you well know, I have a bit of a sixth sense for this sort of thing. Not that I really needed it when it came to you and the nurse.”
“What are you talking about?” I said. “We were super careful—”
He cut me off with a snort. “Oh, you were. But a word of advice, honey. At night, in an old house like that? Sound carries.”
I should have asked what he meant then. If I’d been listening more carefully, I would have. But it was at this moment that my gaze drifted back to the letter, now stained with coffee, and the postscript, that tentative handwriting. I could picture Mimi so vividly in that moment—waking up and reaching for her pen, trying to capture a thought that was already half-gone, so faded it seemed like it might be nothing at all. And then I pictured her again, that night at the house, the night she’d woken up and run from her room.
I see you,she’d hissed, but when I’d gone to investigate, there was no one. No one and nothing, just a cold room and her unmade bed—only that wasn’t quite right. There had been something else, too. That strange odor, unplaceable—dusky and slightly sweet.
Or am I dreaming?
Something cold and dreadful uncoiled in my stomach.
Because she hadn’t been dreaming. I was sure of that because I had smelled it, too. That night at the Whispers, and at other times. Unplaceable then, unmistakable now. Drifting down the dark hallways, lingering in the air.
Wafting off Jack Dyer’s coat when he came close to me at the Northeast Harbor bakery—and curling above his head as he stood smoking beside his truck.
The scent of pipe tobacco.
