The small church had drawn Claire from the moment she first laid eyes on it. Atop a small knoll, the white chapel seemed to exude welcome and acceptance. She had hurried to make the nine o’clock service with her grandmother by her side.
They entered the large oak entry and slipped into the back pew. The pain in her chest was some better today. Stained glass windows reflected colored light around the room, and the scent of decades of worshipping history hung in the air. She hadn’t seen a hymnal at the back of a pew in her life, and she lifted it from its slot and turned the yellowed pages. Her church threw the worship song lyrics onto a large overhead screen.
“I like this church,” her grandmother whispered. “It’s been a long time since I was in a church this old and quaint.”
The choir leader directed the worshippers to turn to page 432, and she joined the chorus of “How Great Thou Art” with some awkwardness. The tune sounded vaguely familiar, but even though the song wasn’t one she knew, the sense of holiness in the place reached her where she needed it. Her grandma sang with gusto as though the words resided deep inside her in some half-forgotten place.
A rich baritone voice joined in the chorus beside her, and she turned her head to see Luke and Megan had slipped into the pew with her. Luke’s shoulder brushed hers, and she resisted the urge to lean into his warmth. She drank in the pastor’s message about the importance of family bonds.
Maybe she’d been a little harsh judging the way her parents had kept the incident from her. Their motives had been to save her heartache.
At the final prayer, she rose with Luke and Megan. “This must be your church. It was nice.”
Luke’s red shirt flattered his dark hair and eyes. “We’ve come here since we were babies.” His gaze went past her to her grandmother. “I’m Claire’s friend, Luke Rocco. This is my sister, Megan.”
Her grandmother extended her hand. “Emily Cramer, Claire’s grandmother. You’re a handsome fellow, Luke Rocco.”
Megan snickered and picked up her Bible. “Luke has never figured out that he’s a chick magnet, Mrs. Cramer. He’s not the heartbreaker he appears.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Claire’s grandmother adjusted her spring-green jacket and picked up her cream purse. “Claire, I’m going back to the hotel to rest a bit. I’ll call for room service for lunch. Have fun with your friends.” She pointed a pink-tipped nail at Luke. “Don’t keep her long.”
Claire bit her lip as her grandmother walked toward the door. Why was Grandma evading her? Did she fear Claire’s questions that much?
“You look troubled,” Luke said.
“Grandma knows more about my missing year than she’s telling.”
Megan grabbed her hand and nodded over Claire’s shoulder. “There’s Jenny’s best friend. Let’s see if she has any idea why Jenny sent that letter.”
Claire turned to see a woman in her thirties heading down the church aisle. She wore jeans and heels with a white ruffled top. Her brown hair was cut in a short, sleek bob.
Luke moved to block her path. “Isabelle, you got a minute?”
“Sure, Luke. I have tuna salad waiting for me at home and an impatient cat.” Her eyes flooded. “I was supposed to be in the Outer Banks with Jenny this weekend.”
He put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry about Jenny.”
Isabelle looked down. “Thank you.”
Megan touched her arm. “Let’s move to the corner so we have some privacy.”
Claire glanced at the time on her iPhone. She’d need to leave in the next half hour. The group moved to the west corner under a stained glass mirror depicting a shepherd holding a lamb.
“This is about Jenny,” Luke said. “We heard she sent a letter to the sheriff’s office anonymously. Did you know about that?”
Isabelle’s mouth gaped, and she swiped at her cheeks. “How did you know about that? She didn’t sign it.”
“Fingerprints. Do you know what she heard or why she felt compelled to warn the sheriff?”
Isabelle’s blue-eyed gaze fell on Claire. “You’re Claire Dellamare, aren’t you? I recognized you from your picture in the newspaper.”
Claire’s chest tightened at the condemnation in Isabelle’s voice. “Yes.”
Isabelle turned away from Claire as if to shut her out. “I’m not sure she should be here.”
“I don’t believe Claire has done anything wrong. Whatever Jenny heard probably led to her death. If you want to help us, you’ll tell us what she was talking about and who told her.”
“I tried to get her to tell me the man’s name and she wouldn’t.”
“Who was this man she was talking about? Did you tell Andy anything about this? I know he’s devastated.”
Isabelle shrugged. “I didn’t want to break Andy’s heart. He doesn’t know it, but he dodged a bullet.”
Luke frowned. “What kind of bullet?”
“She was cheating on Andy with this older guy. She was really into him, at least at first. I found out about it and got so mad at her. She was going to break it off with Andy, but then something happened and she ended it with the other guy. She seemed afraid of him and said he had to be stopped.”
“She gave you no clue as to who he was?”
“All I know is that he lives near Summer Harbor.”
“Maybe he killed her,” Claire put in.
Isabelle hit her with a sharp glance. “Or you did.”
“I liked Jenny. I wouldn’t have hurt her. I wouldn’t hurt anyone.” She should stop her prattling. Isabelle wasn’t buying any of it.
Kate sat on the porch of her small bungalow looking out at the sun blazing over the blueberry barrens. The stiff breeze in her face carried the sweet scent of blueberry blossoms. Her father’s rejection had reverberated through her heart, and she felt numb. Alone and unloved. Why had she ever gone to see him? She should have listened to her mother’s warnings. She knew just how powerless the young bird struggling to fly in the breeze felt.
How did she tell her mother what she’d done? She thought he wouldn’t go through with his threat, but what if an attorney showed up tomorrow and pulled everything away from her mother?
She stiffened and exhaled. If he dared to do that, she’d follow through on her threat to call the newspaper. What did she have to lose by exposing him at this point? He was not a nice man. That was the hardest thing she had to admit to herself. She’d had him on a pedestal and had been sure if she could talk to him, he’d welcome her with open arms. How foolish and naive she’d been.
Tires crunched on gravel, and her uncle’s old Jeep grumbled to a halt in the drive. The door slammed, and his rangy form loped toward the porch. “Hey, sweet pea, what are you doing sitting out here by yourself?” Uncle Paul mounted the steps and dropped into a chair beside her.
“Just licking my wounds.”
He frowned. “Wounds? What’s happened?”
“I talked to Harry Dellamare today.” She would stop calling him Dad. The sooner she realized there was no real fatherly love there, the better. She’d been living in a dream, but not anymore. It was time to wake up to reality.
He sat forward in his chair. “Kate, you didn’t.”
“Yep. And it didn’t go well.” The boulder in her throat grew as she relived the humiliation and rejection. “He made it sound like I was playing a joke on him, but his father-in-law realized who I was. Harry said he’d call.” Her laugh was hollow. “He won’t, though. He couldn’t get away from me fast enough.”
Paul pulled out his pipe and lit it. The pungent aroma of pipe tobacco curled along the porch. “What about Mary? Did he threaten to take her settlement?”
“No.” Kate glanced at her uncle, haloed in a white fog of smoke. “He was scared. I don’t think his wife has any idea that he had another family hidden away.”
“Did you expect he had told her? I knew he never would. His wife was the one with all the money. If she left him, she’d take his cushy life with her. I’ve always suspected his in-laws heard about Mary and insisted he break it off.”
“Have you ever seen his wife?” Kate couldn’t explain her hunger to know more of her father’s life. His other world had no relevance to hers, so where did this insatiable curiosity come from?
Uncle Paul puffed on his pipe. “I saw her with him at a restaurant once. Pretty woman, fragile, with chin-length blond hair and green eyes. A real looker. She seemed to hang on his every word.” His tone held derision. “I wanted to march in there and tell her what her precious husband had been up to on his business trips here.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Mary wouldn’t let me. She still loved him back then.”
“Do you know what changed? I mean, I remember how he was when I was small. He seemed to, well, to care about Mom and me. Then one day he just quit coming. I think I was about ten the last time he came here. Then I saw him that last time at the festival when I was twelve.”
Uncle Paul rose and tapped the remnants of the pipe tobacco out over the side of the porch into the shrubs. “It was the near exposure at the blueberry festival over in Bar Harbor that did it. I think it shook him up when he saw you both. He realized if he kept it up, sooner or later his wife would find out.”
“How did he ever meet Mom? I mean, how did their relationship happen?” She’d daydreamed about it a thousand times. The course of true love often didn’t run smoothly, but when she was younger, she’d believed her parents would eventually be together.
“I think you’d better talk to her about that.”
“What did he do when she told him she was pregnant?” Kate had asked her mother these same questions several times, but Mom had stonewalled her and changed the subject. There was so much she didn’t know.
“Again, talk to your mom.”
“She won’t talk about it! I can’t believe she stuck with him all those years.”
“She wanted to believe he loved her.”
“Just like I wanted to believe he loved me. He’s nothing but a manipulator. Who knows, maybe he has another family tucked away somewhere else in the country.”
Her uncle gripped her shoulder, then his heavy footsteps went toward the house. When the screen door banged, Kate picked up her cell phone. “Shelley, how about we do a little surveillance?”