“Will you tell me?”
“What’s that?” Finn leaned against the back of the couch and tucked her feet beneath her.
“Tell me why. Mum would never tell me anything. I want to know why she left her family behind and changed our name. Why we never saw any of you again.”
Finn’s smile faded. She swallowed. “I don’t know if you want to hear this. I’ve never told anyone.”
“Please,” Charmaine begged. “I’ve come all this way to find the truth. Mum is dead. There’s no one left to protect.”
“No one but you.” Finn’s jaw clenched.
“What could happen to me?” She was sincerely confused. What could’ve driven her mother away so long ago that might still be a threat to Charmaine’s safety now?
Finn chewed on her lower lip. “Okay, fine. I suppose it doesn’t matter now. So much time has passed. I’m the only one left who knows.”
“Thank you,” Charmaine said with relief. “I have to know the truth.”
“Before I tell you, whatever happened to your brother?”
Charmaine sighed. “He’s still hanging around. Unfortunately, he’s not the man I hoped he’d be. He managed to fool Mum while she was alive, but he’s not someone I trust. Not anymore.”
“He didn’t fool your mother as much as you thought he did. She sent me letters every now and then. I know she was worried about him. She worried about you, too. She thought you weren’t strong enough to handle the hardships of life without her — she called you her sweet girl. But it seems to me you’re tougher than she knew.”
Charmaine choked back a sob. “I don’t know about ‘tough.’ But I’m getting better with each day.”
“That’s all any of us can do. Let’s see…” Finn played with her hair, flicking it behind her ears with her fingertips. “A long time ago, when your mother was a girl living here on Coral Island, she witnessed a crime. A friend of the family was babysitting her. She’d objected, saying she wasn’t a baby and didn’t need anyone to watch her, but my mother wouldn’t listen. They’d gone to the mainland to meet with an accountant, and they didn’t want to leave Helen at home alone. I went with them because I was a baby. Mum pushed me onto the ferry in my pram.”
“What kind of crime?” Charmaine asked, perched on the edge of the couch, breathless.
“A murder.”
“A murder? Really?” Charmaine’s thoughts whirled. A murder? Surely it couldn’t be the same one she and her friends had been investigating since she arrived on the island.
“That’s right — Mary Brown. It’s the only murder on the island in my lifetime, so it was a big deal at the time. They tell me the whole island was in uproar. Of course, I don’t recall any of it.”
Charmaine’s stomach tightened into a giant knot. “I can’t believe this.”
“She was terrified. A little girl, witnessing something so violent — it impacted her. She didn’t process her feelings, didn’t know how to deal with what she’d seen. She was scared all the time. My parents weren’t sure what to do with her. There was a baby there too, but the baby didn’t see anything from what I recall. She was sleeping at the time.”
“Do you mean Penny St James?”
“Yes, that’s her. Do you know her?”
“We’re friends,” Charmaine replied. This seemed impossible. It couldn’t be true — her mother had witnessed Penny’s grandmother’s murder?
“Helen was hiding in a storage cupboard at the time. Mary had been playing hide-and-seek with her, trying to get her to cheer up. They were on the back porch of the beach house. There were slats in the door, and she saw right through them. But the killer couldn’t see her—didn’t know she was there. Penny was a baby, asleep in her cot in the nursery. Helen stayed in the cupboard even when Penny started crying. She was too scared to move. That’s what she told me years later. Said the memories came back to her in flashes.”
“I can’t believe it. All this time, she never mentioned it. I didn’t know. And when I arrived on the island, I met Penny and her friends. They’re curious about the murder, trying to find out what happened. I thought it had nothing to do with me, that I was an outsider looking in.”
“Your mother’s statement was given to the police. But it seems they didn’t believe her, or they didn’t understand. I’m not sure what the communication breakdown was. She was young and they didn’t take her testimony seriously — they didn’t think her words could be used as evidence. And that was the end of it.”
“That must’ve been so frustrating for her.”
“It was, but she put it behind her for years. Until she was an adult. When she was pregnant with your brother, she started thinking about it all over again. She was angry that the perpetrator had gotten away with it, that no one had listened to her or believed her. It started to eat her up. She talked about it too much, and one day she received a death threat in the mail.”
“A death threat?” Charmaine’s stomach flipped. “What did it say?”
“I don’t know exactly. Something about keeping quiet, that they knew where she lived. It freaked her out.”
