They’d never fully know all Simon had done before or after—if he survived—their night at the lake. She’d spent many of her years afraid Simon had lived, worried that he would show up at their door in Cincinnati, but she and Olivia never heard from him again.
When she told Olivia that the Simon Farrow she’d married was neither a widower nor an esteemed professor at Winfield College, the poor woman was appalled. Then God worked in a most mysterious way.
In the months after she and Olivia ran from Haven House, Dr. Farrow and Olivia became fast friends, bonding over their love of writingand their growing faith and probably—though Olivia never discussed it with her—a deep empathy after being deceived by the same man. That revelation had also bonded Isadore and Olivia for life.
After he retired, the professor moved into the restored carriage house behind their home, right beside the swimming pool, and when he passed away, he left everything to Jim. An inheritance that her son turned into a fortune.
“What happened after Simon lost her?” Finn asked.
So Isadore told them the whole story. Not just of that night, starting back to when she first met Simon. How she thought she’d loved him. How she’d lied to him about her parents and how Simon had lied to her, their marriage a farce. Then she told them how she’d escaped to Olivia’s house after the men came for her in Elms and what she’d done with the seeds.
“Louie and his men showed up at Haven House while Simon and I were at the lake,” she continued. “They pulled him out of the water, and then they shouted for me. I thought Greta had drowned by then, but Olivia saved my baby boy. The men chased us down the driveway, but I’m afraid I don’t remember much more. I was delirious from the poison.”
“The newspapers said Olivia drove to the edge of Philadelphia,” Finn replied, reaching down to pet the persistent collie.
“She did. The men followed us for miles, but in the end, the tank on her sedan surpassed their roadster. Even in the hard months ahead, she was always proud of that. The gas stations were still closed when our tank finally emptied. By that time, I was more alert and knew the Cleveland men would look for us at first light, so we hid the car and ran with Jimmy to the nearest train station.”
“Did Clinton Herring help you?” Finn asked.
“He did, dear man. While he didn’t want all the details from Olivia, he told the police chief in Catawba that she was on an extended trip. The next day, Olivia signed a whole stack of papers for her newly formed trust in case Simon or his friends caught up to us.”
“Then the publisher rewrote the end ofMoonflower Lake,” Harper said.
“You found the original?” Isadore asked, impressed that she knew about the changes.
Harper nodded. “In the panel.”
“I hid it there.”
“With good reason, I think,” Harper said. “I read it on our drive over.”
“I hid it initially for Olivia’s sake—I didn’t want Simon to steal it—but then, after the plot inspired me...”
“The moonflowers helped you in your crisis.”
She nodded sadly. “If the mobsters left Simon in the lake and someone recognized the setting in Olivia’s book, the police might have dredged the water and found both Simon and Greta.” A tear trickled down her cheek, one of many that had fallen over her eighty-six years. She’d wrestled within herself for decades, wanting to find Greta’s body and then not, clinging to the smallest hope that her daughter might have lived. “Any investigator worth his salt would link their deaths back to Olivia.”
She never would have let Olivia take the fall for what she’d done, but in the late-night hours, when she couldn’t sleep, she’d envisioned herself on a witness stand, trying and failing to answer an onslaught of questions since she couldn’t remember many details from that night. A judge would surely have locked her up. “I didn’t know—we didn’t know—what to do.”
Even now, they might put her in jail.
“But Olivia still releasedMoonflower Lake,” Harper said.
“She tried to talk Mr. Herring out of publishing it, but stores were already promoting her next novel. With Olivia and I hiding from the mafia, Mr. Herring thought it would make things worse for us if they didn’t release the announced book. And, frankly, we needed the income by then. Mr. Herring had a carbon copy of the first draft. He hired another writer to rework the end.”
When Harper raised her eyebrows at Finn, he smiled at her. “You were right.”
And Isadore wondered if a relationship might be blooming between them. If so, she wished them many years like she’d had with Peter.
“Olivia and I went back to the lake a few years later,” Isadore continued. “We brought Dr. Farrow with us along with flowers for Olivia’s family and a huge bouquet to leave on the shore for Greta.”
Finn told her and Peter about Haven House and its mission to help women and children who needed a place to stay. How Olivia’s legacy lived on with every person who read her books and slept in the safe place that had once been her home.
“She would be so pleased,” Isadore said.
“I hope so.”
She looked back at Harper. “Do you have a picture of my daughter?”
