Chapter 8

“About time,” Tessa muttered to herself as she returned to the master bedroom. She was grateful for Sam’s taking her case to Lee, but having him and Cal underfoot twenty-four/seven was going to be tough, given her plans. She would have to make adjustments.

In the master bedroom, she saw the boxes against the wall and decided there was no time like the present. Before she could stop herself, she ripped the heavy-duty packing tape off easily as the tape was dry and yellowed with age. Tessa assumed these boxes had been sitting there for a very long time. Possibly as long as she had been in prison. Had Sam packed the boxes himself? Did it matter who packed them? Maybe. Maybe not.

Removing several pieces of balled-up newspaper from the box, Tessa dropped them into a small pile on the floor. Not knowing the contents, as they weren’t labeled, she took her time when she reached inside. Carefully, she removed a stack of envelopes held together with a rubber band. The return address read, The Bank of The Cities, where they’d shared a personal checking account. Tessa sifted through a few of the statements. Seeing nothing important, she crammed the envelopes back in the box, along with the old newspapers. No point in making a mess as she would be the one responsible for cleaning the place.

Tessa thought of Rosa and wondered what she had seen on her last day of work. Knowing she had spent more than ten years with information that might have cleared the way for the investigation to focus solely on Liam, or at least on someone other than herself, Tessa wanted to question her privately. She added this to her mental list of people who could have made a difference but, for reasons yet unknown to her, had chosen not to.

The next box held more of the same. She flipped through several file folders, recognizing the deed to the house, car titles, and old vehicle registrations that were once kept in the glove compartment of their cars. She would ask Sam about the cars. Had they been given to charity as she had requested? She had asked her attorney to see to that but had never followed up on it once she had been convicted. She had no use for them now, anyway, because she would need another vehicle when the time was right. Tossing the box aside, she opened the third box and was stunned when she saw what it contained.

With trembling hands, Tessa removed the sheet of green construction paper, crossing the room to stand by the window where she could see clearly. A crayon drawing of a cutout red Christmas tree was glued to the page. Yellow, orange, and purple squares of different sizes had been pasted around the tree as presents.

Tears blurred her eyes as she remembered the day Poppy and Piper had brought the artwork home. It’d been their first Christmas project in preschool at Saint Cecelia’s. Both had been so proud and excited to show her their work. Piper had reversed her sister’s work, using red paper to glue her green cutout Christmas tree on.

Tessa had laughed, telling them they were twins but polar opposites in so many ways. They’d asked her if they were polar bears. Tessa explained what she had meant, and it had confused them even more. She had told them that when they were older, they’d understand.

Knowing that day would never come for her precious daughters sent a jolt of rage through her. She held the construction paper against her chest as she took several deep breaths in order to regain some semblance of calm. In time, she told herself, she would avenge their deaths.

In time.

She placed the paper on top of the boxes she had gone through, then continued her search. There were faded family photos, and they took her breath away. One in particular caught her eye. A weekend spent with the girls. They’d hunted for shells, finding hundreds of the little white clamshells that were so common but each unique in its size, shape, and coloring. The girls broke out in a fit of giggles when she identified one of their finds as a kitten’s paw, a fairly simple-looking shell, that did look like a kitten’s paw, but the name was funny to the girls. Jingle had been another shell they thought silly, and their little-girl laughter had made her day.

She smiled at the memory and placed the photo next to the artwork she planned to take downstairs and hang on the refrigerator door. Why not? It was her home, her children, her memories. She dabbed the tears from her eyes. It was the first memory of her girls that had actually made her smile.

In the next box, several envelopes of photos with their negatives were stacked in neat rows. She put these aside for later—when she could look at her former life without rage and tears, which Tessa didn’t see happening at any time in the near future. In fact, ever since her release, it had been worse, not better. In prison, one adjusted, knowing that her new life in prison was all there was. There was no real life, however long her sentence might be.

Now, it was different. All the emotions she had tucked away in a safe place were running rampant. Just get through this first day, she told herself. One. Minute. At. A. Time.

She pushed the box aside and decided she had to search through one more before going to see the room in which she had spent so many happy days and nights.

Hefting a larger box on top of another so she could see the contents as she peered inside, she pulled the yellowed tape off, then removed more rolled-up newspapers. A man’s watch, one of many probably belonging to Joel, but not the Rolex he usually wore. This was a Bravado, with a royal blue face and tiny diamonds representing the numbers. She didn’t remember seeing this particular watch but was sure it had belonged to him. It evoked no memory or any real emotion. She looked closer and saw the date showing on the watch. To her horror, she realized that it was the day after she had left for the mainland. It had stopped at 6:47 on Saturday, May 3, 2011. Had her daughters been alive then? Had Joel worn the watch while he fought for his life? Their daughters’ lives?

What did this mean? Or did it mean anything at all? Was she being paranoid? Maybe Joel’s battery had failed, and he’d switched watches. That was highly probable. Since their first date, she had rarely seen him when he was not wearing a wristwatch. He’d been extremely punctual, a trait she had admired, as she, too, respected others’ time and thought it quite rude to be late for any event, unless, of course, circumstances dictated otherwise.

She put the watch aside as she made the decision to tell Lee. Maybe it was evidence. Hadn’t all the evidence been collected already? Had this been missed? Tessa decided the watch had to be important though she wasn’t sure how.

With this in mind, she used the tail of her blouse to pick up the watch and place it on the windowsill. Before she went any further, she hurried downstairs. Not bothering to give the slightest glance to the view outside, she found Sam in the kitchen. Apparently, Publix deliveries were fast, too. She had been upstairs just over an hour.

“Do you have a paper bag, or a storage bag of some kind?” she asked.

He turned away from unpacking the groceries to stare at her. “I think I added Ziploc bags to the list.” He rummaged through the three brown bags before finding them.

“Here you go,” he said, handing her the entire box.

“Thanks,” she said, and raced out of the room before he asked her what she needed the bag for.

Upstairs in the master bedroom, once again, she used her shirttail to pick up the watch from the windowsill and drop it inside the plastic bag. Breathing a sigh of relief, she didn’t know if she was being foolish, overdramatic, or just careful.

Maybe a little bit of each.

Tessa went back to the box, this time being more cautious as she removed the contents. A checkbook, with a brown-leather cover. She flipped it open. It was a personal check, but only had Joel’s name, not hers. Odd, she couldn’t remember his having a personal account, either. She saw that the checks were the kind that held a carbon copy of the original. Tessa tried to make out the faint letters on the carbon copies of the used checks, but they were too faded to read. She supposed it wasn’t unusual for a man of Joel’s profession to have a private checking account, and maybe he’d mentioned it to her, but so much time had passed, she didn’t remember. It wasn’t important, but just for the hell of it, she added the checkbook to a fresh Ziploc bag.

The rest of the items in the box were an outdated bottle of Tylenol, the red label faded to a slightly orange-yellow, a box of staples, a comb, and a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses. Nothing unusual. Tessa carried the box across the room and placed it by the window.

Feeling as though she was stalling, she knew she had to do what she had come upstairs to do.

She needed to see the room where Piper and Poppy had spent the last day of their young lives.