Gilcrest offered a hand as if neither the interrogation nor our conversation from the day before had ever happened. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.
Beside me, Reid said, “Made any arrests, Detective?”
Despite the exonerating video evidence, Reid remained convinced Mrs. Haviland had started the fire.
“It’s an active investigation,” Gilcrest said. “I’ll make an arrest when I can guarantee a conviction.”
I turned to the next person in line and thanked them for coming. I thanked a lot of people for coming, including Seton and her mom.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Reid said to Mrs. Haviland.
“We’ll be gone soon enough,” Seton said, placing a hand over mine and closing her eyes. “You okay?” she asked softly.
There was so much I wanted to say: that I was wrecked, that I hadn’t slept in a week, that I wanted her to tell me why she’d let Gilcrest browbeat me at the station, and that I’d give anything to get a beer with her at the Landing and sit quietly in the comfort of being together without saying a word—but if I said any of it, I’d start to bawl, and I wasn’t ready for that. “I’m fine,” I said.
She put a hand to the back of my head and mussed my hair. “Find me when you’re ready.”
Julian was the last person through the receiving line. He’d driven up from the city with some friends from the station. He wore a slim black suit and had his hair tied in a man bun.
“Take whatever time you need from work,” he said. “We’ll be there when you’re back, and it might be worth sticking around here. You have some great material already. Now’s the time, while the story’s hot.”
It took a moment to realize he was stuck on the podcast, and it was all I could do not to hurl every bit of pent-up rage from the last week at him. If I had, I suspect Julian would have turned my reaction into material for the podcast, too.
“Thank you for coming,” I said, and left the reception, crossing the footbridge and following the path through the woods to Burkehaven, where the burned-out house loomed over the cove.
Here, I pictured the fire raging around my mother’s body, threatening to consume her. And I mourned.
Since then, I’ve come to this dock almost every day to be alone. I used the podcast as an excuse to open old wounds, to start difficult conversations, but what I wanted was to uncover the truth. The one thing I haven’t been able to admit, not even to myself, is that I’m terrified my questions got too close to that truth and forced someone’s hand. Maybe if I’d left well enough alone, my mother would still be alive.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Footsteps echo along the dock. I sit up, expecting to find Reid or Hadley trying to entice me to Idlewood. Instead, Freya Faith stands at the foot of the dock, heels in one hand, a bottle of Scotch in the other, the sun shining off her auburn hair. She pauses, as though assessing whether to intrude. “I looked for you at Idlewood, Harold,” she says. “Your island isn’t meant for heels.”
I turn and face the water.
“Do you want to be alone?” she asks.
When I don’t answer, she crosses the dock and settles beside me, twisting the cap off the Scotch and taking a slug before passing the bottle to me. “Don’t worry. It’s after noon.”
I sniff the liquor and can tell it’s peaty and undrinkable, disgusting, but I take a sip anyway, letting the alcohol warm my insides. Somehow, I avoid spitting it out.
Freya takes another glug from the bottle and lights a cigarette.
“I’ll have one,” I say.
“I don’t think so,” she says. “And I should quit, anyway.”
“Why don’t you?”
She turns her face toward the sun. “I’m on the precipice, see. I’ve been fading away for years. If I stop smoking and get fat, if I stop dyeing my hair and give in to my age, I’ll disappear completely.”
“You won’t disappear.”
“We all fade eventually. It’s just how long we put up a fight and where we land in the end. It’s nice here in this cove, in this little town. It would be a good place to land. A good place to retreat. There are lots of good memories for me here, too.”
My memories of Burkehaven are anything but pleasant.
“We can sit here quietly,” Freya says, “or if you want to be alone, say the word and I’ll take off.”
