“I heard you sing last night,” the secretary finally says to Freya. “I love those old songs. AndScene of the Crimewas a really good show. But not after you left. It went downhill fast.”
“Thanks,” Freya says, taking my arm.
“What do you think I did?” I ask no one in particular, though in my heart, I suppose I already know.
Freya turns on Gilcrest. “You’re such a possessive, controlling prick, Duncan.”
“Stamoran only confirmed everything now,” Gilcrest says. “I didn’t have a chance to tell Charlie what happened.”
“You had every chance,” Freya says.
Gilcrest faces me. “This morning, our team discovered an abandoned car in the woods a mile outside of town. An hour ago, they uncovered a body in the wreckage of the fire. It was buried under a wall we needed a backhoe to move. The ME made the identification while we were talking. I’m sorry to tell you this, Charlie, but it was your mother. She’s dead.”
Two weeks later
Chapter Twenty-Two
I sit on the end of the dock at Burkehaven with my feet in the water. Behind me, the burned-out shell where my mother’s body was found two weeks ago looms on the shoreline. Reid has returned to work as he attempts to rebuild his crew and kick-start the Burkehaven development. Mrs. Haviland was released from the hospital, Seton patrols the streets, my aunt Hadley canceled her trip to the Mideast, and Paul Burke decided to stick around New Hampshire for a few weeks rather than returning to New York.
The world moves on.
But not for me.
I took a leave of absence from the radio station that lasts another week. Each morning, I follow the path through the woods from Idlewood here to Burkehaven, searching for answers in the ruined house, in the placid lake, in the surrounding trees. I search for peace, too, but I don’t find that, either.
Meanwhile, Duncan Gilcrest continues to probe my mother’s murder. He hasn’t brought me in for another interrogation, though I have no doubt I remain a suspect. After all, I’m the one who ran around town claiming to have seen my long-dead father to distract from the investigation.
I close my eyes, wary of sleep. I’ve had a recurring dream nearly every night since my mother died. In it, she and I lie side by side in the hull of a rickety old rowboat. She’s young, the same age as I amnow, a woman I never knew. A mass of blond curls splays beneath her head, and her skin is clear of scars. The air smells skunky as we pass a joint back and forth. Above us, paper lanterns float like balloons in a darkened sky while, off in the distance, a coyote howls.
“I saw Dad,” I tell her.
My mother props her head on a fist and smiles. “Of course you did. He’s right there.”
I peer over the side of the boat, expecting to see my father coming for us with a bloody knife.
Instead, he stands on the dock at Idlewood, wearing that pink apron. The paper lanterns light up his dark hair and blue eyes. Like Mom, he’s young, the same man pictured in the photo I have pressed between the pages of an old thesaurus. He waves, beckoning us toward shore. “Dinner’s ready,” he shouts. “Bolognese!”
I slump down into the boat.
“Why Bolognese?” I ask.
“It’s a tradition,” my mother says.
“Dad didn’t look like that when I saw him,” I say. “It was recent. Now. When you’re old.”
My mother squeezes my hand. “We’re not old. You only think we are. And cut your father some slack. He watched out for you the best he could. He’ll still watch out for you, but don’t mention seeing him to anyone, especially not Reid. You’ll upset him. He thinks your father’s a bad man.”
“He is, though,” I say.
“More like misunderstood.”
The boat bobs on the water. “Where is Reid?” I ask.
“In the kitchen. Working on his math homework. He wants to be an architect.”
“He’s the only one on the island with Dad.”
“Reid can take care of himself,” my mother says. “Trust me.”
