Chapter Twelve
when Adaleigh approached his grandmother’s house ahead of him. He called her name, twice, but she didn’t seem to hear him.
“Lost in thought?” he asked when he reached her.
“David!” She must have jumped as high as a rainbow trout as she turned around.
He laughed. “You seemed distracted.”
She blushed. “The thoughts in my head get loud sometimes.”
He bumped her shoulder with his arm. “What were those thoughts telling you?”
“Just puzzling out your dad’s case.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets, his good mood fading. “Get anywhere?”
“No. Still lots of questions and no answers. I’m rather suspicious of Joe Spelding, though.”
Spelding, huh? His name came up an awful lot. “If he did it and he is one of Buck’s guys, Wilson isn’t going to lose him over a dead girl. He’ll gladly let a handyman take the fall. Has Uncle Mike questioned Spelding yet?”
“I don’t know.”
“Buck Wilson has really good lawyers.” David’s sigh betrayed the defeat he’d felt since talking with Spelding.
“Maybe Amy’s friends will give us another angle.”
David shook his head. “That’s a rabbit hole. What are they going to tell us that will get Dad off?”
“We’ll find something. Keep hoping.” Her smile infused him with just the energy he needed.
The kitchen and downstairs were empty when they arrived. David spooned leftover fish stew into a bowl from where Grandma had left it on a warmer, then invited Adaleigh to join him out back. Thankfully, she agreed, and he made her tea. He’d missed talking with Adaleigh the past few days, and he craved a quiet conversation with her.
The air continued to grow muggy, but the temperature dipped, making the dampness feel as if it could burrow under the skin. Adaleigh grabbed her sweater and laid it over her lap as she settled in the rocker, the cup in her hands.
He waited for her to settle, then leaned back in the lounge chair. “Do you ever wonder how many stars there really are? Some nights, when I’m weary, I take Uncle Mike’s boat out and stare at the stars. With nothing but water in every direction, I can see the horizon on all sides, and the sky stretches like a black dome pricked with more stars than I can fathom.”
Her voice came out a near-whisper. “As a child, I’d sneak out of the house with a blanket and find a dark corner of our garden to stare at the stars. I never fell asleep out there. I’d just study the sky, hoping to see a shooting star among the constellations.”
He rolled his head to study her. “Did you have a large garden growing up?”
She nodded. “My parents had this gardener who could cultivate the most beautiful spaces. The roses were prize-worthy.”
“Our little town must be so different to you.” He spooned a bite of stew into his mouth.
“Yeah. Good different, though. Sometimes, money can feel like a burden.” She cringed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful after hearing how many hours you work to put food on the table.”
“Didn’t cross my mind. Do you miss it?”
“The money?”
“All of it. Your home. Your lifestyle.” He hesitated. “Your family?”
She nodded. “It wasn’t always easy, but now that I can never have it again, I do miss it. At least some of it.”
He took another bite while he considered his words. “You can’t go back because of … your sister?”
“I could probably press charges or something if I really wanted to go back, but what do I have to go back to? My parents are gone. My friends are scattered, starting their own families. My house is just a hollow shell of what used to be.”
His heart hurt for her. “That’s why you let her chase you away?”
“It’s my fault that she came after me.” Pain echoed through her words.
He set his bowl aside. “Tell me what happened?”
She pulled her sweater up to cover her arms.
“Adaleigh, my mom is gone, too. My dad arrested for murder. I get it. You can talk to me.”
“Promise to keep this to yourself?”
He placed his hand against his chest. “My word as a gentleman.”
“It all fell apart the night of my commencement from university.” She rubbed her arms.
“Okay.” He prompted, more to keep himself from tucking her under his arm where he could chase away her fears.
“My sister and I were never on good terms, but our parents tried their best to keep the peace between us. But that night, as they drove to the ceremony, my parents …” Her voice caught.
“Automobile accident?”
She nodded.
“And your sister thinks it’s your fault because they went to your commencement ceremony?”
Tears dripped down her cheeks.
“And maybe you do too?”
Sobs silently shook her body. David placed a hand on her shoulder and slipped the teacup from her hand, but she didn’t look at him.
“I understand.” David squeezed. He wouldn’t take advantage of her emotion, but he needed to do something.
She sniffed and wiped at her cheeks.
“I get the ‘if only.’” He squatted in front of her, letting his own pain show in hopes of helping her. “Perhaps my dad wouldn’t be in jail right now. Perhaps we could have found a doctor who could’ve saved my mom. Perhaps your graduation would have been a different day or different place.”
She raised her eyes.
“I’m not sure I ever quite believed what people would tell me,” he continued, a catch in his voice. “That none of it was my fault. That there was nothing I could have done to keep Mom alive or keep Dad home. Doesn’t make it easier.”
“And then to have all these people at the funeral who were more interested in where my parents’ money was going or how the business would survive. I didn’t find a friend among the lot of them—the people we spent every social occasion with. They couldn’t have cared less what happened to me or my sister, only what happened to the money.”
David took her hand.
“The night after the funeral, when my sister came into my room …” She clutched his fingers.
Was that when her sister tried to kill her? Should he encourage her to tell the story or would it be too painful to revisit?
Adaleigh rolled her eyes upward and blinked rapidly before continuing. “Why stay to fight? Fight for what? Best to run away. Best to find a new life. But she wouldn’t let me go. She followed me. She tracked me to the hotel I had fled to. That’s when I knew …”
“That’s why you think she’ll follow you here?”
She looked down at him. “I can’t even describe the amount of anger in her eyes that night.”
He wanted to wipe away the fear and sorrow from her beautiful face, but kept his hands still. “I know nothing I say will help you feel better, but you are safe here.”
She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, as if it could clear the heartache from her body, at least for the moment.
“I wish I could show you that you’re safe with us.” David placed his other hand over hers, cocooning them. “People don’t mess with Michael O’Connor’s family.”
That got a smile.
Later that night, after Adaleigh left David in the kitchen, she chuckled about the fishing stories he had told her to lighten the mood after their serious conversation. She also marveled at the differences between her experiences and David’s, at how hard he worked. As a fisherman, winter was a time to repair the boats and equipment. This past winter, he also helped his friend Silas do odd jobs around town. The lumber camps up north were a possibility as well.
She knocked on Samantha’s door. Buoyed by David’s friendship and his commitment to his family, she wanted to return the good feelings by continuing to help him clear his father’s name. Samantha had knowledge of the key players, so it was as good a time as any to talk with her, considering the young woman happened to be home.
Samantha opened the door, wearing a pink dressing gown.
Adaleigh showcased her warmest smile. “Can we talk?”
Samantha hesitated, then waved her inside. Adaleigh stood in the center of the room while Samantha closed the door. It was a simple room with a washstand, a dressing table, and a wardrobe. An old braided rug covered a portion of the worn, wooden floor. No adornments hung on the white plaster walls.
“Sit there.” Samantha pointed to the green-cushioned dressing chair. She sat on her bed.
“I’m hoping you can help me.” Adaleigh took the offered seat. “It’s about Amy.”
“Did my uncle put you up to this?”
Adaleigh crossed her ankles and tucked her feet under the chair. “He and your older brother want to help your dad.”
Samantha folded her arms. “My dad doesn’t deserve help.”
Adaleigh clasped her hands in her lap. “Our courts are supposed to presume people innocent, but that’s not the way of public opinion.”
“Fine, but why you?”
“I get it.” Adaleigh took a fortifying breath and went for shock value. “I’ve lost my own parents recently.”
Samantha shed her cavalier attitude. “You want to help because of that?”
“Yes.”
Samantha narrowed her eyes, then leaned back against the wall. “What can I do?”
Adaleigh’s shoulders relaxed as the tension seeped out. “Can you tell me more about Amy?”
“Amy was Amy.”
Adaleigh chuckled. “One of a kind?”
“You saw her. She was perfect. Everyone lived in her shadow. Vied for her notice. The girls got a few moments of her sun, and the boys got a few moments of her … well, her affections. Everyone knew she cheated on everything from tests to … you know … but even the teachers stayed quiet.”
Sadness washed over her. “Did her parents know?”
“No.” Samantha picked up her comb and ran it through the silky strands of her bobbed hair. “She was their only child. They moved away after the crash last year and she stayed. That’s when she began babysitting the Hitchens.”
Adaleigh leaned closer, hoping to convey a conspiratorial spirit.
“She also began seeing Sean.” Samantha tossed the comb onto the bed. “No one knew why she left Craig. He was our high school football star. He got a scholarship to some university out East, so we assumed she didn’t want a long-distance relationship. How she picked Sean, I don’t know. He was one of our group—the ones who weren’t good enough for Amy. She chased him, and boys just can’t—couldn’t—escape her."
Adaleigh cocked her head. “Why watching children?”
“I know!” Samantha sat straight up. Adaleigh had her hooked. “She hated little kids, which I get, as they’re slimy, messy, and whiny.”
“You must have had a rumor of why.” She kept her on track.
“Oh, we did.” Samantha lowered her voice. “We think she and Mr. Hitchens …”
Adaleigh’s stomach twisted. “An affair?”
Samantha nodded. “She was always seeking a way up the ladder. That’s why Sean made no sense. But dating a successful, married man would be exactly what she’d do. She’d get whatever she wanted that way.”
“And he’d stay quiet.” Adaleigh had seen it in her dad’s company.
“Exactly. No one could confirm it was him, but we all guessed it. He made the most sense.”
If that was true, Mark and Lizzy Hitchens could both be suspects. “She kept seeing Sean?”
“That’s what makes no sense. What he saw in her …”
“She might have picked him because he was loyal,” Adaleigh mused aloud. “Perhaps she had him twisted around her finger to keep suspicion off her when it came to the affair.”
“Now that sounds like her.”
Adaleigh hated that Samantha had witnessed such goings on. “What about the new man, Spelding? She was with him the day she died.”
“You’re good.” Samantha looked impressed. “Heard Uncle Mike mentioned his name, but no one can find out more. Amy always had an angle. Maybe she moved on since she got fired on Friday.” She snorted. “Fired! Amy Littleburg was fired!”
“I take it everyone was happy about that?”
“Oh yes.” She sighed contentedly.
Samantha had given her so much information already, but since the girl was in such a chatty mood, Adaleigh pressed for more. “Any ideas what she did from the time she was fired on Friday until she died?”
Samantha considered it. “Just that she met that Spelding person, whoever he is. Uncle Mike thinks he’s bad?”
Adaleigh concurred. “Think anyone else would have an idea?”
“Sean.”
Not helpful, considering she already talked with him. “Anyone else who might be able to help?”
“Amy’s best friend, but you’d have to talk to her yourself. She ain’t in my circle. But I could introduce you to Sean’s friend. However …” Samantha twirled a short strand of hair. “What’s in it for me?”
Adaleigh held back a laugh. “You, Miss Martins, get to be a keeper of secrets.”
Samantha grinned. “You’re not so bad.”
Quite proud of herself, Adaleigh settled into bed a few minutes later. Not only did she have good information and solid leads, she’d won over Samantha. Maybe it was residual feelings from her talk with David, but Samantha’s change in attitude toward her made her positively giddy. It was like having a little sister—the kind Adaleigh wished Ashley had been.
Adaleigh had never gotten along with her sister. People would tell their parents it was because they were so close in age. But Adaleigh knew the real reason for their fighting. Adaleigh was afraid of disappointing her family, conscious that she was an impostor. And Ashley continually showed her up, trying to win over their parents by putting Adaleigh down.
Perhaps a psychologist could have predicted that one day something would snap in Ashley so that she used something worse than words or fists to hurt Adaleigh. Perhaps Ashley’s slew of boyfriends betrayed some deep, unmet inner need.
Their parents weren’t oblivious to Ashley’s attitudes against Adaleigh, but neither had they realized how deeply Ashley hated her. Adaleigh wasn’t sure she did until Ashley tried to murder her. Yet, even though Adaleigh was through taking her abuse, she would always consider Ashley her sister. Adaleigh loved her and hoped that one day, Ashley could love her, too.
Did Amy’s murderer have a similar story? Did something snap inside him or her? Was it jealousy? Resentment? Adaleigh shuddered and tried to distract herself from those dark thoughts, to return to the cocoon of safety she’d felt a short while before. But as she drifted off, she kept seeing knives flung this way and that. Sometimes Amy was the victim—sometimes it was herself. Then a phantom of Ashley would appear, the anger in her eyes jolting Adaleigh awake.
Day after day, these waking nightmares had stolen her sleep. Finally, she took the quilt to the east window. The eloquent way David had spoken about the stars stirred an intense desire to stare at them as she had when she was a child. Since she was a guest here, however, Adaleigh settled for watching them from inside the house.
It’d been a month since she’d really looked at the stars. Ever since Ashley appeared like a specter in her bedroom, come for her accounting.
Stars had blanketed the inky sky then as they did now. The warm breeze caressed the curtains. Lightning bugs still dotted the backyard, and crickets sang in the night.
Adaleigh could almost hear the large grandfather clock at the base of the front stairs in her childhood home chime out midnight. A floorboard outside her bedroom creaked. The door scraped open.
The gleam of something in Ashley’s hand made Adaleigh’s greeting wither on her lips. Her chest tightened, and she eased herself up on her elbows. Ashley left the door open as she tiptoed toward Adaleigh. Suddenly, she stopped, inhaling sharply.
“Ashley?” Adaleigh searched her sister’s face, trying to understand her purpose. Even in the darkness, Ashley’s eyes glowed with the malice that had multiplied for the last decade.
“You’ve never been one of us.” Ashley’s voice quivered.
Adaleigh reached out a hand as if that motion could calm her sister. “I know you’re angry.”
“You don’t know anything!” Ashley’s nostrils flared.
“It’s going to be okay.”
“It will be once you’re gone.”
Adaleigh’s eyes followed the knife as her sister raised it. “Ashley!”
Ashley leapt toward Adaleigh, bringing the knife down over her stomach. Adaleigh twisted in her blankets to the floor. The knife sunk deep into the bed, and she let out a guttural scream.