“I’m going home to scream into a pillow.” Stella pulled her keys out of her pocket.
“I’d like to take one more look at the pond. Sort of a final goodbye before I leave.” Aubrey didn’t ask for permission. She basically told Hanna and Jeremy.
Jeremy nodded. “Sure.”
Hanna, Stella, and I stood with Jeremy while Gabe loaded the car behind us. Aubrey marched over the wet ground slowly freezing, probably from the air but maybe from her presence. She didn’t look back or say a word.
“I feel like we should call Penn State and warn them,” Jeremy whispered.
“Her true identity will excite some members of the faculty.” Stella sighed. “They’ll learn the hard way because Aubrey isn’t the type to hide her pathology. She enjoys causing chaos too much.”
“Are you going back to school?” I asked Jeremy.
Jeremy shot his mom a quick look before answering. “I missed a lot but I’m going to try to catch up.”
Which would leave Hanna alone a lot of the time. Even with the café and her plans for the property that left a lot of downtime. “What about you? Any plans?”
“I was hoping you two would come over. We could have tea.” Hanna smiled. “And by that I mean wine and pastries.”
“I don’t need to be here for this part.” Jeremy rolled his eyes as he headed over to Gabe at the car. They stood with the bags and box. Had a discussion on the best way to load the items.
“Stella? Are you up for it?” Hanna sounded wary, like she already regretted making the offer.
“One condition.” Stella hesitated. “No talk about the Tanners.”
Hanna laughed. “We are allowed to talk about literally any topic but the Tanners.”
The first hint of a smile crossed Stella’s lips. “I’m in. Marni?”
We’d been through fire together. Been threatened and scared witless. I clearly sucked at female friendships, but maybe this would work. We didn’t have to pretend. We were all flawed. We’d all made poor decisions. We all survived.
Xavier would hate us being together. Victoria would be furious. Patrick would panic. Aubrey probably preferred us hating each other.
Yeah, this felt right. “I’ll bring the wine.”
Chapter Seventy-Four
Aubrey
I stood at the edge of the pond on the back of Gramps’s property and inhaled the scent of incoming snow in the crisp air. The once pristine area bore the tire tracks from law enforcement vehicles. Torn-up slabs of earth and a slick of drying mud and hard ground now ushered guests to the watery edge. Carefully placed rocks that once outlined the water had been overturned, sitting now in stacks. Out of place.
This is where the nightmare started and ended.
The memories I’d clung to for years spilled through me now. Everyone still had the timeline wrong. The horror didn’t come and go in an afternoon fifteen years ago. It was a confluence of events that occurred over two days. It took more than twenty-four hours for my mom to reach the tipping point and my family to disintegrate.
My gaze shifted to the dock. Noah loved to sit there, dangling his feet off the edge. Staying out until the sun dipped and thefireflies appeared. He’d dive and propel his body through the water. Start at one side, then pop up on the other.
It had been warmer than usual that day. Mom and Dad spent all the night before fighting. She shook a bracelet in his face. I assumed it was Hanna’s and always blamed her for the beginning of the end, but now I knew it linked to Marni. The dual betrayal clearly devastated Mom. She wasn’t just furious. She was hurt. That was new. The other women ticked her off. Marni’s lack of loyalty probably pushed Mom off the edge.
She drove away and didn’t come back until the next day. Dad’s job was to watch Noah. At eight, he liked to jump off things and play with the stove. Two events that ended in near disaster more than once. I wanted all of them to shut up and leave me alone. I didn’t even know Mom hadn’t come back home when I headed to Gramps’s house the next morning. This house with its vintage charm and impressive history. With the pond.
I’d walked along the outside wall. Then I ran, burning the sound of their voices out of my head. When I stopped, breathless and still pissed off, I saw him. Noah. He should have been asleep or watching television, but he’d followed me. He was crouching on the dock, staring at something in the water. He wasn’t supposed to be near the water alone. He wasn’t supposed to be there, annoying me. Ready to ask questions. Wanting to do stuff.
Then he fell. Splashed and yelled. He could swim, so the panic didn’t make sense. The water was freezing, which might explain it.
He tried to grab the boards to the dock and lift himself out, but something tugged at him. A stick or rock. I never knew but it held him in the water. Sucked him under.
I watched Noah bob up and down. Watched him sputter and yell. Watched his hands wave in the air. Watched him go under and not come up again. I waited to feel... something. The way his voice sort of wound down to nothing intrigued me but that was it. I knew on some level, at least to my parents, this would be bad.
