I DON’T REMEMBER DRIVING HOME.
Night had fallen completely as I’d stared into Elizabeth Shelly’s swollen eyes, red from weeping and the reliving of her best friend’s death. It had come out as a jumble of disjointed words, partial sentences stammered out between sobs, but eventually I had the story of Brooke Garrett’s death. Or at least Miss Lizzie’s version.
I’d forced myself to remain calm, to try and reassemble her fragmented account into something that I could investigate and verify, although the drowning had been ruled accidental by both the coroner and the local authorities. There’d been no hint or suspicion of foul play, either in the follow-up articles Elizabeth showed me or in the obituary that had run in the same paper from which Lavinia—or my mother?—had clipped and secreted that first brief account of the body’s washing ashore.
The scenario, fantastic and unbelievable as it was, had been supplied by the child. Her hysterical account, however, had been totally believable to Brooke’s friend and confidante. My father had already been cast as the vilest of villains in Elizabeth’s mind, my mother the usurper who had stolen Brooke’s happiness. She was more than prepared—even eager—to accept Julia’s wild story of murder on the beach. . . .
I pulled into my driveway a little before ten, the lights blazing inside seeming like a welcoming beacon guiding me back to sanity. In the garage, I let my head fall onto the steering wheel. I could have slept there until morning except that Red’s face suddenly appeared at the driver’s window. I let him help me from the car.
“My God, honey, you look like you’ve been in a war.”
I winced as his hand brushed against the wound on my arm.
“What’s the matter?” His fingers touched the dried crust on the sleeve of my jacket. “Jesus, is that blood? What the hell happened? Are you—?”
“Red, please! I’m fine. Let’s just go inside before I fall down.”
He guided me up the steps and helped me work myself out of the ruined jacket. I offered no protest when he led me to the sofa in the great room and eased me down beside him. Gently he folded me into his arms.
“Tell me,” he whispered against my hair.
I felt the treacherous tears closing my throat and gulped them back down. “I found Julia,” I said. “I found my sister.”
He leaned back to stare into my face. “Where?” Then, “At Covenant Hall? With the old woman? Why? How on earth—?”
I placed my fingers against his lips. “Sshh. Let me just tell it, okay?” My stomach rumbled loudly in the stillness. “But can I have something to eat while we talk? I’m about to collapse from hunger.”
We walked hand in hand up the steps into the kitchen. Red made me sit at the table while he fussed with a greasy pizza box and the microwave.
“You sure this is okay? I could cook you some eggs.”
“I’ll eat the box if you don’t hurry up,” I said.
A moment later he set a plate in front of me. I wolfed down the first piece and drained half my glass of Diet Coke before I felt strong enough to continue. I looked past Red and fastened my eyes on the calendar hanging over the built-in desk. Only a week, I thought. Seven days since I’d raced to the hospital to find out if my father would live or die and set in motion the events that had altered my perception of my own life forever. Would I ever know the truth? Was I, in fact, the product of a heartless philanderer and a cold-blooded murderess?
“Bay?” Red’s voice seemed to come from far away. “Can you tell me what happened?”
I wiped my hands on a napkin and leaned back in the chair. “Before my parents were married, the Judge had a relationship with a young attorney on Edisto Island. But he wanted more than what that isolated place could offer, and she wouldn’t leave her family and friends. He came back to Beaufort, met and married my mother, and eventually settled into Presqu’isle.”
I finished the Coke, and Red brought a fresh can. He poured it over the remaining ice, his eyes never leaving my face, although I couldn’t bring myself to look directly at him.
“But he still loved Brooke. Brooke Garrett. That was her name. And my mother had turned cold, more interested in her charities and her friends than in her husband.” I laughed, a bitter sound that startled even me. “I can at least believe that part. It formed the basis for my whole damn miserable childhood.” I took a deep breath. “Anyway, he started sneaking back to Edisto, and they picked up their affair where they’d left off. I don’t know how long he led this double life, but Brooke became pregnant. My father was elated. He wanted children. According to Miss Lizzie, they discussed divorce. My father and Brooke. But in the end she couldn’t do it, couldn’t be responsible for breaking up his marriage.”
This part of Elizabeth Shelly’s garbled narrative had struck a false note. It was hard to believe in such altruism, although I desperately wanted to. I would probably never know the complete truth. Only Brooke Garrett could have told me what was truly in her heart. I shook my head. I supposed, in the great scheme of things, it didn’t really matter. It was what Elizabeth needed to believe.
“And Julia is their daughter? Your half sister?”
I jerked my mind back to Red. “Brooke banished the Judge. He told me this afternoon that he hadn’t heard from her since. And he’s never seen Julia. He only knew her name because someone who knew Brooke happened to mention it at some legal conference he attended.” I sighed and absently ran my hand over the bandage on my arm. “It’s all so pointlessly sad.”
“Did you talk to her? To Julia? What’s she like? Does she look like you?”
“She’s the one who stabbed me,” I said, and Red’s mouth dropped open.
“Why?”
“Because, according to Lizzie, Julia told a garbled story about a woman who argued with Brooke on an old pier at Edisto on the Fourth of July. The woman hit Brooke. She fell into the water, and the woman ran away. The tide must have been ebbing, and Brooke’s body was carried out to sea. They found her the next day, washed up miles from where this all happened. Lizzie said Julia had always been high-strung, prone to fits of anger. She’d even seen a child psychologist. Her mother and mine screaming and fighting put her right over the edge into something resembling catatonia.” I forced myself finally to look at Red. “She didn’t speak again for nearly two years afterward.”
“My God! But why does this Lizzie person think it was your mother who argued with Brooke?”
“Apparently Emmaline had been to Edisto a couple of times before, asking questions. She must have had a hint that the Judge had been screwing around.” My laugh held not a trace of humor. “Maybe my mother even hired a private investigator. Wouldn’t that be ironic.”
Red reached across and took my hand. “But it’s still only the word of a disturbed child.”
“I think nowadays she’d have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, but I guess it wasn’t a recognized psychiatric illness back then. Especially in children.” I gently touched the bandage on my left arm. “And it’s hard to argue with her reaction to me. Even before Elizabeth knew for sure who I was, Julia bolted at the sight of me.”
“Do you actually believe all this?”
I let my head fall into my hands. “I don’t know.” I decided it was time to get it all out. “That night we stayed at Presqu’isle? When the Judge was in the hospital?”
“Sure.”
“Well, I did a little snooping that I’m not particularly proud of.” I told him then about Lavinia’s treasure box and the yellowed newspaper clipping that recounted Brooke Garrett’s drowning.
Red squeezed my hand more tightly.
“Lavinia knows something about what happened. Why else would she have that article locked away? My mother may even have confessed to her, although I can’t believe a woman of her strict moral principles would have let even Emmaline get away with murder.”
“You don’t know for certain that’s what it was.” He forced a smile. “Insufficient data.”
We left the dirty dishes on the table and settled again on the sofa. I gave Red the rest of the story: my chance encounter with Elizabeth Shelly on the day I first went to Patience Brawley’s house, my glimpse of Julia streaking away down the driveway.
“She thought I was my mother,” I said against his shoulder where I lay locked in his strong, comforting embrace. “Elizabeth made the connection, too, after she heard my name from Patience Brawley. She’d stalked my mother for years after Brooke’s death.”
“Why?”
“I think she had some crazy notion about confronting her, making Emmaline confess or something. I don’t know. The two of them shut up in that old house all these years. I’m not sure either one of them is completely rational.”
I told him about being taken back to the sagging mansion at gunpoint, about the old woman’s grief and my sister’s attack. I was proud of how even I kept my voice, how orderly and logical I related the harrowing events of just a few hours before.
“When Julia came around, I helped Miss Lizzie move her onto a daybed in the small parlor, and she went back to sleep. It’s funny, but she didn’t react to me at all. She actually smiled. Maybe that one act—coming after me with the knife—purged her mind of it or something.” I sighed. “I have no idea what her problems are, but maybe now that she’s actually confronted me, she can begin to heal. We’re certainly going to do all we can to get her some help.”
“ ‘We’?”
“The Judge and I. It’s his responsibility. And maybe my mother’s fault. I can’t believe Julia’s been allowed to stay in such a state for all these years. It’s monstrous. Locked up in that old house with a woman who fed her illness.”
“There’s nothing to be done about it tonight,” he said and slid his arm from under my head. “Why don’t you take a hot bath and relax? Tomorrow we’ll sort it all out.” He kissed me softly. “Come on.”
“Tomorrow we have to go find Joline’s sister.”
“Damn! I completely forgot.”
I stopped in the bedroom doorway. “What?”
“Dr. Eastman called here. Joline is starting to come around, and she asked for you.”
I stared at him. “Is it too late to call the hospital? God, Red, why didn’t you tell me right away?” I shoved past him into the office across the hall and snatched up the phone.
“Hey! Take it easy. I told him about your finding the sister in Pickens. He says he’ll tell Joline in the morning, and they can decide what to do.”
“You trust him? What if he doesn’t—?”
His warm hands on my shoulders quieted the trembling there. “He’s devastated about both Joline and Kimmie. He’s not a good enough actor to fake that kind of anguish. He kept mumbling about losing them both, how he didn’t think he could go on. I believed him.”
“But what about—?”
“His attitude when he talked to us? Joline’s suspicions? Maybe there was some small grain of truth in all that, but I think his wife’s near death has jerked him awake. Maybe they both went a little crazy under the strain of Kimmie’s illness. It happens.”
I wasn’t convinced, but I let it go. As I soaked in a nearly over-flowing tub, I promised myself that I would be at Kimmie Eastman’s door first thing in the morning. I needed to see for myself how she was doing. Then I’d be in Savannah the minute visiting hours opened. In spite of Red’s assurances, I wanted to hear it from Joline herself. And then I’d drive to Pickens and put it all in front of Contessa Mitchell Girard. She would be tested for a bone marrow match with Kimmie if I had to force her at gunpoint.