Summer Meyer threw her bag down on her bed, then lay down wearily beside it. She felt desperately tired, but not the kind of tired that would ever lead to sleep. Instead her body twitched with the restless exhaustion of the emotionally shattered. Staring at the ceiling, which was still half covered in glow stars from her childhood, she felt as wired and tearful as junkie in withdrawal.
I have to talk to Mom.
Arnie had told her in the car that Lucy had left on a hike this morning and wasn’t expected back till late afternoon. “She’s with Alexia.”
This brought Summer up short. “What do you mean? Alexia’s in England.”
“Nope. She’s with your mother.”
“Dad, she’s been all over the news in the UK. This business with Teddy. I saw her on TV.”
“Yes, well, all I can tell you is she telephoned your mother and said she had something important to discuss with her. So important it couldn’t be dealt with over the phone, apparently. She flew in last night.”
This threw a major wrench in the works. When Summer confronted her mother, it had to be alone. She would tell Alexia, of course. Alexia had the right to know the truth about her son’s relationship with her so-called best friend. But there was no way Summer could say what she had to say in front of an audience.
On the other hand, the idea of waiting until nightfall was unbearable. She already felt stretched to a breaking point. Six more hours and she’d be foaming at the mouth.
Not sure what else to do, she took a shower, brushed her teeth, and changed into cooler, more comfortable clothes: a pair of cutoff jeans and a thin cotton shirt from James Perse.
“You look cute, honey.” Arnie smiled warmly as she came downstairs. “Shall I get Lydia to make us a late lunch?”
“No thanks, Dad. I couldn’t eat.”
“What do you mean you couldn’t eat. You have to eat, Summer. Are you sure nothing’s the matter?”
“I’m fine, Dad. A bit nauseous, that’s all.”
“You’re not pregnant, are you?”
“Pregnant? Jeez, Dad, no! How could I possibly be pregnant?”
“Well, go sit outside, then, and Lydia will bring you out some cheese and fruit. You can manage that much at least.”
Protest was clearly useless. Summer walked toward the kitchen door.
“Oh, by the way, your mom left this for you.” Arnie handed her an envelope on her way out. “She asked me to give it to you as soon as you landed, but I forgot. Don’t tell her, okay?”
“What is it?”
“Beats me. I usually find, with envelopes, the mystery becomes clearer when you open ’em.”
In normal circumstances, Summer would have laughed at that. Now she took the envelope in silence and walked away.
Arnie Meyer thought, There’s something wrong with that girl. What the hell’s gotten into the women in my family today?
“Get up.”
Lucy Meyer held the gun steady. Her voice was normal again, the same soft singsong that Alexia knew so well. All traces of her earlier hysteria were gone, replaced by a chilling calm. She means business.
Alexia stood up.
“You know, for someone so smart, someone who made it to the top of their game, you can be damned stupid sometimes.”
“That’s probably true. I—”
“Stop talking!” Lucy commanded. “I’m talking. Over there.” She jerked the pistol in the direction of the cliff edge. Slowly, Alexia walked to where she was directed until she heard Lucy say, “Stop.”
“I think the funniest part of all of this has to be you pointing the finger at Arnie. ‘I’m not accusing him of anything.’” Lucy mimicked Alexia’s accent perfectly. “That’s just flat-out hilarious. As if you, YOU, who killed an innocent child, are in a position to accuse anyone of anything! You smug, entitled, self-righteous bitch.”
“You who killed an innocent child.” Alexia’s mind raced.
“This is about Nicholas Handemeyer.”
“That’s right,” Lucy said simply. “Nicholas Handemeyer. The little boy you left to drown. He was my brother.”
Summer ran into the house, Lucy’s letter still in her hand.
“Where did they go, Dad?”
Arnie was slicing bread at the kitchen counter. “Where did who go?”
“Mom!” Summer practically screamed. “Mom and Alexia! Where are they? We need to find them, now! Right now.”
“Calm down, honey.” Arnie rested a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t know where they are exactly. Somewhere on the north of the island. What’s the panic about?”
Summer handed him Lucy’s letter. After a few seconds she watched the blood drain from his face.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered. “Call the police.”
Summer was already dialing.
“But . . . your maiden name wasn’t Handemeyer.” Alexia spoke without thinking. As frightened as she was, her need to understand, to know the truth, was overpowering. “It was Miller.”
“That’s right. Very good,” said Lucy. Finishing her bottle of drinking water, she dropped it on the ground. “Bobby Miller was my high school sweetheart. We married at eighteen. It only lasted six months, but I kept the name. Handemeyer held too many sad memories by then. Terrible memories.” She lifted the gun again, shaking the barrel at Alexia like an angry fist. “Do you have any idea, any idea, what you did to my family? You and Billy Hamlin?”
Alexia said nothing. Her eyes were fixed on the gun.
“Nicko was the sweetest kid in the universe, so trusting, so darling. It broke us all when he died, but my mom . . .” Tears filled Lucy’s eyes. “My mom was shattered. She never recovered. She killed herself two years later, on the anniversary of Nicko’s death. Did you know that? Hung herself in our barn with Nick’s old jump rope.”
Alexia shook her head in mute horror. She remembered Mrs. Handemeyer from Billy’s trial. Ruth. How dignified and gracious she’d been in the courtroom. How pretty she was, with her butterscotch hair and brown eyes, so like her dead son’s. She tried to remember Lucy back then, but drew a total blank. There had been a sister at the trial, a girl clasping the mother’s hand. But Alexia hadn’t focused on her at all. She couldn’t bring her face to mind now.
“Dad died less than a year after. His heart just cracked. You took everything from me. And you thought I was just gonna sit back and let you disappear, dance off into the sunset and live happily ever after, without paying for what you’d done? Of course, for decades, the longest time, I didn’t know it was you. Like everyone else, I thought Billy Hamlin murdered my brother. He was the one I needed to punish.”
“But Billy was punished,” said Alexia. “He went to jail.”
“Fifteen years? In a comfortable, safe cell with three decent meals a day? Are you kidding me? That wasn’t punishment. That was a joke.” There was no mistaking the loathing in Lucy’s eyes. “I thought about shooting him in the head as soon as he got out of prison.” Her tone was totally deadpan. “But that was way too swift and painless. Do you know how long it takes a person to drown?”
Alexia shook her head.
“No? On average. Have a guess.”
“I don’t know.”
“Twenty-two minutes. That’s twenty-two minutes of blind terror poor little Nicko went through, praying, pleading for someone to rescue him. No way was his killer gonna get a clean death. He had to suffer, the way my family suffered, the way I suffered. He had to know what it felt like to lose everyone he loved, to lose a child. So . . .” She shrugged. “I had to wait. I waited for Billy Hamlin to get married, to have a child, to build a business. The bastard had to get a life before I could start to destroy it, the way he destroyed mine.”
Except he didn’t destroy yours! Alexia thought desperately. I did. Poor Billy never hurt you, or your family. He never hurt anyone. It was all me!
Lucy went on. “I watched him for years and years before anything happened. And life went on in the meantime. Arnie and I married. I had Summer. We bought the estate here. But I never lost sight of Billy Hamlin. Not for a day, not for an hour. Anyway, the Lord must have been looking out for me and helping me. Because around the time Billy was released, I discovered that I wasn’t the only one spying on Billy Hamlin. An Englishman by the name of Teddy De Vere was sniffing around him too. The PI I was using at the time was the one who first alerted me. If it hadn’t been for that”—she smiled—“I’d never have found you. I’d never have gotten to the truth. ‘And you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.’ John, Chapter Eight. ”
Alexia gasped. “The voice. The threatening phone calls. It was you!”
Lucy bowed theatrically. “You got there at last. Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Teddy. When I learned Teddy was in the private equity business, I found a way to set up a meeting between him and Arnie. I thought a business connection might help me figure out what this guy’s interest was in Nicko’s killer. But of course, it didn’t. I had no idea, and in the end I gave up trying to figure it out. The rest you pretty much know. Arnie and Teddy became friends. Teddy bought the house on Pilgrim. And you and I met. You could say it was fate.”
Alexia’s skin tingled with adrenaline. It was an odd sensation, a combination of physical fear—Lucy’s gun was still directed at her head—and intellectual excitement. Every word Lucy told her was like a puzzle piece slotting into place. A sick puzzle. A terrifying puzzle. But the satisfaction of solving it remained.
From her position on the cliff edge, Alexia could see the rocky path down to the cove more clearly. It was steeper than she’d first thought, and more treacherous. The only possible escape would be to return the way they’d come, through the moorland brush. But that would involve getting past Lucy and somehow disarming her before she had a chance to shoot. There was no way.
I’m trapped.
Bizarrely, this realization made Alexia relax. The certainty that she was going to die here, in this spot, emboldened her. She needed to know the truth, the whole truth, before she left this world.
“So it was you who drove Billy out of business?”
“Of course. That was just the start.”
“And Arnie knew nothing about it?”
“Not a thing. I’m the primary shareholder in HM Capital, not Arnie. HM is short for ‘Handemeyer,’ by the way. I guess your little foray into Internet research didn’t get you that far.”
No. It didn’t.
Somewhere behind them, in the moorland, a twig cracked. Both women froze. Alexia contemplated screaming for help, but she knew if she did that, Lucy might shoot. It wasn’t death itself that frightened her, as much as dying before she knew the truth, before Lucy had finished her story.
“Down!” Lucy whispered, pointing at the shingle path with her gun.
“It’s too dangerous,” Alexia whispered back. “We’ll fall.”
Lucy released the safety catch on her gun with a faint but audible click. “Down,” she repeated.”
Alexia crawled toward the cliff.
Officer Brian Sullivan read the letter. He’d seen suicide notes before. But nothing quite like this. If any piece of Lucy Meyer’s confession was true, any one piece of it, the Martha’s Vineyard Police Department was way out of its depth.
He told Arnie Meyer, “We’ll need help. Helicopters. Dogs. I’m gonna have to call Boston. You’ve no idea where they are, you say?”
Arnie shook his head helplessly. He was clearly still in shock.
“But it was somewhere to the north of the island?”
“Yes. Lucy knows those paths like the back of her hand, but it’s a maze out there. Summer’s already gone out to look for them, but I haven’t heard from her.”
Officer Brian Sullivan looked alarmed. “Your daughter went after them alone?”
“I couldn’t stop her.” Arnie Meyer started to cry.
Alexia lost her footing, gasping as the scree and talus crumbled beneath her. Instinctively she clutched at the rock face to her left. Behind her, Lucy Meyer did the same.
“Keep going!”
It was unnecessary advice. The “path” above them, such as it was, had already flaked away to almost nothing. Even if Alexia somehow overpowered Lucy, she’d have no way to get back up the cliff now. Once the tides rose, the cove would be flooded. The only way out would be to swim, but the currents on this side of the island were lethal.
Alexia tried not to think about it as she scrambled down the bank, falling the last ten feet onto the sand and twisting her ankle painfully. She let out a sharp cry.
“Be quiet!” hissed Lucy. Sliding down after Alexia, she landed comfortably on her feet, her pistol still clasped firmly in her hand. They were completely hidden from view now, tucked beneath the overhang of the cliffs. While Alexia shuffled backward, dragging her legs painfully across the sand, Lucy resumed her earlier monologue.
“By the time I was ready to act against Billy Hamlin, he was already getting divorced. He’d destroyed his marriage on his own. So the next thing to destroy was the business.”
Alexia had her back against the cliff now, pressed to the smooth stone. Her ankle throbbed, but if she kept it still, the pain was bearable. She focused on what Lucy was saying.
“I figured I’d start small, then move on to the things and people Billy really cared about.”
“Like Milo Bates?”
“Like Milo Bates.”
“So you did kill Milo?”
“Not personally.” Lucy smiled. “I weigh a hundred pounds. Milo Bates was a big man, bigger than Arnie. But I arranged his death, yes.”
It was like listening to Teddy talking about Andrew Beesley’s murder. Lucy seemed to have no remorse at all.
“But Milo Bates was completely innocent,” said Alexia. “He had a family of his own. A wife and three children.”
“DON’T YOU DARE PREACH TO ME!” Lucy roared. “No friend of Billy Hamlin was innocent. Bates knew about Billy’s conviction. He knew what that bastard had done. But he still went into business with him.” She took a few deep breaths, eventually regaining her composure. “Milo Bates’s death was strike one. It was actually very easy. Even kidnapping Billy afterward, showing him the tape of what we did to his friend . . . Hamlin was so paranoid by then. A few phone calls, a little pressure on his business, that was really all it took. By the time he told the cops what we did to Milo, no one believed a word he said.”
She said it with pride.
Alexia thought, You’re insane. Completely insane.
“What about Jennifer Hamlin? I’m assuming you killed her too?”
“I’m getting to that,” said Lucy. “You really must learn to be patient, Toni.”
Alexia recoiled. Even now, she hated being called by that name.
“So, Hamlin had lost his wife. He’d lost his business. And he’d lost his only real friend. But there had to be something more. I’d looked into his birth family years earlier, but they were all dead. His father passed away shortly after the trial, and he had no mother or siblings. There was his child, of course, Jennifer. But I wanted losing his daughter to be the grand finale, the last thing the son of a bitch suffered before his own death. It wasn’t her time yet. I needed someone else.”
Slowly it dawned on Alexia where this was going.
“I’d heard rumors about a woman,” said Lucy. “Someone Billy had loved in his youth and apparently still carried a torch for. He was drinking quite heavily by then, and he used to talk about her—about you, Toni—in bars and at pool halls, to anyone who’d listen. I dimly remembered the name from the trial. Gilletti. But it wasn’t until I finally saw an old picture that I was able to put two and two together. Well, you can imagine my shock. My horror. You, my neighbor, probably my closest friend in the world. You and Hamlin had been lovers! You were there when Nicko died! Now I finally knew why Teddy had been tracking Billy all these years, just like I was. It was because of you. I was torn at that point, I’ll admit it. Billy had gone to England to try and find you. I guess he wanted to warn you. Maybe he sensed you were next in line, I don’t know. But the truth is, I hadn’t decided.”
“Decided what?” Alexia asked.
“Whether to kill you or not. Oh, I scared you a little. With the phone calls, although those worked a lot better on Billy . . . and getting someone to do away with that awful little rat of a dog that used to follow Teddy everywhere. What was his name?”
“Danny.” Alexia felt sick.
“But I honestly didn’t know if I had the heart to go through with killing you. The problem was, I liked you. Loved you even. Our kids grew up together. You were like a sister to me. It was hard.”
Is she asking for my sympathy?
“But once again the Lord opened my eyes. He brought you to me, here, on this island, and you told me, told me to my face, that it was you all along. You were the one who let my brother drown! Billy Hamlin, the man I’d devoted my entire adult life to destroying—he was merely your accomplice. An afterthought.” Lucy shook her head in disgust. “Can you imagine what that felt like, Toni? Can you even imagine? I’d shared dinners with you. Laughed with you. Cried with you.”
“Terrorized me,” said Alexia angrily. “Butchered my dog.” Lucy’s cloying self-pity was too much to bear, like being drowned in a vat of cream. “Your brother’s death was an accident. An accident.”
“No! It was murder. The court said so.”
“The court? The court that convicted the wrong man, you mean?” Alexia scoffed. “What the hell did that court know about the truth? They wanted a scapegoat and Billy Hamlin provided one. I was there when Nicholas died, Lucy. I don’t need to guess what happened. I know. It was an accident and that’s a fact.”
“Be quiet!” Lucy commanded. Walking over to Alexia, she kicked her hard in the ankle, her heavy hiking boot zeroing in on the pain like a drone missile. Alexia screamed in agony. “You do not speak, do you hear me? You do NOT speak. You listen. You’re not in Parliament now. No one’s hanging on your every word. There’s no one left who even cares if you live or die. I’m talking now.”
The pain in her leg was so excruciating, Alexia didn’t even have the strength to nod. Instead, whimpering quietly, she allowed Lucy’s insane ramblings to wash over her.
“After that, I knew I had to kill you. Of course, in the end that taxi driver, Drake, almost beat me to it! Can you imagine if he’d succeeded? But the Lord didn’t let that happen. He spared you such a clean, painless death. He was saving you for me. He knew I had to make you suffer first, just like Billy had suffered. And that wasn’t easy, what with your position and all.” She spat the word out tauntingly. “For a while I wondered if I’d done the wrong thing by persecuting Billy Hamlin for all those years. But then I figured, no. Billy Hamlin lied for you. He protected you. He knew you were responsible for Nicko’s death and he did everything he could to help you evade justice. So now you both had to suffer equally. Billy had to know what it felt like to lose a child. And so did you.”
“Michael.” Alexia breathed the word softly.
“Oh, yes, well, Michael.” Lucy waved a dismissive hand. “Michael survived, unfortunately. Although I try to comfort myself with the knowledge that he’s as good as dead. Perhaps, in a way, that’s more painful,” she mused.
Alexia felt a rush of hatred so strong she could have choked on it.
“My biggest disappointment wasn’t that your worthless son survived,” Lucy continued. “It was that Billy Hamlin never got to see his child die. After decades spent patiently watching and waiting, biding my time, I was robbed of the chance to make Billy suffer the ultimate loss. Some junkie in London stuck a knife in his heart and gave him a clean, easy death.”
Lucy shook her head bitterly. The evil spewing out of her mouth was breathtaking.
“That was hard to take.”
“I’ll bet,” said Alexia, through gritted teeth. The pain in her ankle was unbearable. “But you had Jennifer Hamlin murdered anyway. Just for the hell of it. A wholly innocent young woman.”
“Aren’t you listening to me?” Lucy screeched. “That bastard never got to see his daughter’s death, her suffering, the way that my mother had to with Nicko. He’d already evaded so much justice. You both had. I had to put things right. An eye for an eye . . . it was what God wanted. One child’s death deserves another.”
There was no point trying to reason with Lucy. Alexia could see that now. Years of grief had been carefully nurtured till they morphed into hatred, then rage, and ultimately psychosis. Yet she couldn’t allow Lucy to end her life without striking back, without making Lucy suffer in some small way for what she’d done to Michael, and all the other victims.
“You talk about truth,” Alexia said. “But you still don’t know the truth. After all those years of watching and waiting, you missed so much! It’s pathetic.”
Lucy’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Billy Hamlin wasn’t killed by ‘some junkie.’ ”
“Yes, he was. The police report said so. He was stabbed by an addict looking for cash.”
“Rubbish,” Alexia taunted. “The police didn’t have a clue who did it. They still don’t. But I do. It was Teddy!”
A look of profound confusion passed across Lucy Meyer’s face.
“No. That’s not possible.”
“Of course it’s possible. It’s a fact.” Alexia relished twisting the knife. “He confessed to me privately, after he was charged with killing Andrew Beesley. He did it to protect me, to protect our family. Teddy thought Billy was trying to blackmail me, you see. He knew the truth all along and he forgave me. So after all those years of waiting, Teddy beat you to the punch!”
“Shut up!” Lucy shouted. “I don’t believe you.”
Alexia smiled. “Yes, you do.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. Who cares? Hamlin’s dead, his daughter’s dead. And soon you’re going to join them.” Reaching into her backpack. Lucy pulled out a set of handcuffs. “Get on your knees.”
Alexia shook her head.
“DO IT!” Lucy pressed the barrel of the gun to Alexia’s temple.
Alexia said calmly, “I can’t do it, Lucy. My ankle. I can’t move.”
“Fine,” Lucy snapped. Lifting up her own left foot, she stamped down hard on Alexia’s ankle. The last thing Alexia heard was her own screams as her bones shattered. Then everything went black.
Summer stopped and listened, as still and alert as a deer in the forest.
Was that a seagull shrieking? Or a human scream?
She froze, hoping, praying to hear it again. But there was nothing.
She’d walked these paths before with her mother, but not since her teens. They were more of a maze than she remembered them, and the heat, combined with her own exhaustion and panic, made it hard to concentrate.
She tried not to think about her mother’s letter. Part suicide note, part confession, it was the rambling product of a truly addled, broken mind. The tone shifted wildly throughout. There was the matter-of-factness with which she wrote about Michael—I know it’ll hurt you darling, but I’m afraid it had to be done—the eerie biblical references woven through the text that showed how wholly deranged and psychotic Lucy had become. She’s ill, Summer thought. She needs help. But nothing could excuse or conceal the bald facts of what her mother had done, and what she intended to do.
I have to find her. I have to.
If she sees the police, she’ll panic.
Summer was close to the ocean now, could hear the rhythmic crashing of the waves against the cliffs. A crunch beneath her feet made her stop. She stooped down and picked up an empty plastic water bottle. It was Nantucket Springs, the brand her mother bought.
“Mom!” she shouted into the wind.
Nothing.
“Mom, it’s me, Summer. Can you hear me?”
But her words were swallowed, not by the wind or the tide, but by another noise.
A noise coming from above.
Lucy Meyer looked up.
Helicopter. That’s all I need.
It was probably just the coast guard on a routine flight. Then again, Summer would have read her letter by now. She couldn’t take any chances.
Alexia was still unconscious. Pulling her hands behind her back and locking the cuffs into place, Lucy dragged her back under the brow of the cliff. She was so frail and malnourished it was like pulling a rag doll. No chopper would see them here. But they couldn’t hide out forever. Already the tides were rising. Within an hour, the cove would be completely submerged.
“Wake up, damn you.” Lucy shook Alexia by the shoulders. A faint movement of the lips, little more than a flutter, but it was enough. Lucy felt relief flood through her.
She’s coming back.
Arnie Meyer spoke into his mouthpiece.
“See anything?”
The police reconnaissance officer shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Can you ask the pilot to go lower?”
“Not really. We have to be careful. Winds can be very changeable out here and these cliffs are no joke.”
“Yes, but my daughter . . .”
The policeman reached across and put a hand on Arnie’s shoulder. “If she’s out here, sir, we’ll find her. Doug, take her down a little, would you?”
They swooped lower over the waves.