“Did Martha Woodley note the father’s name?” I said.
Pru shook her head. “No, and Martha didn’t tell me either. Brooke might not have told her. It wouldn’t have been like Martha to pry.”
Mike, the Romeo of Penniman High lived right down the road from Brooke’s house. “Did you ever see Mike and Brooke together? Near the barn?” The usual place.
Pru said slowly, “I don’t remember him with Brooke. We hardly ever saw her, even though she lived up the hill. That doesn’t mean they didn’t date. Teenagers are very good at keeping secrets. And the barn? I had no idea it was a rendezvous place.”
Maybe it was only Mike who knew about his rendezvous place. Well, Mike and the girls he met there. My mind flew back to Emily, how unhinged she’d become, how quickly. Was she reliving her past? I heard her words, “I was always second.” Had she felt a surge of anger because Mike had chosen Angelica instead of her? Had Mike once chosen Brooke over her?
Pru cleared her throat. “Sorry, it brought back so many emotions.”
Flo had told me Martha Woodley was killed by a hit-and-run driver. “Where did Martha die?”
“On the road by the lake.” Pru’s voice was thick with tears. “They never found out who did it.”
Never found out who did it. That wouldn’t be the end of Mike’s story. Not if I could help it.
Her look told me that she was wrestling with the same feeling I was, a feeling of helplessness. We were both searching our memories, grasping for the truth, even though those memories caused pain. How much worse for Pru, now knowing that Brooke’s child might’ve been her own.
“I was just going,” Pru said, “to visit the spot where Martha died.”
“Do you want company?”
She nodded.
Pru ran her fingers through her hair and captured the mass of pewter ringlets into a scrunchie at the top of her head as I drove Sadie to the lake. We turned onto a road that narrowed between towering trees, the green canopy of leaves thickening as we went. At the end of the road we stopped across from the small sandy public beach on Penniman Lake.
“Turn here,” Pru said. I slowly drove the narrow, twisting road that ringed the lake. At one point, I stopped to allow a small parade of children and moms, arms laden with inner tubes, towels, and coolers, to cross in front of us.
As we drove into dappled sunlight around a tight curve, Pru twisted her hands on her lap. “Here.”
I pulled the car as far as I could onto the shoulder of the road and we got out. Pru walked into a blanket of golden daylilies that carpeted a sunny patch not far from the base of a gnarled oak. She absently deadheaded a couple of flowers.
“You planted them, didn’t you?” I touched her arm.
She didn’t seem to hear me. “Hit-and-run. They never caught the driver who did it.”
We stood silent for a few moments. “Who found her that night?”
Pru shook her head. “No one ever said. Someone who lived nearby, I guess.” We stayed for a few more minutes, listening to the far-off sound of children playing at the lakeshore. Pru turned and we got back in the car.