The next morning Belle’s internal alarm clock failed her. She woke late and lay in a daze entwined in the bedding, until dread seized her as she remembered her life collapsing to shit the night before. Still groggy after a bitter battle with insomnia, she reached for her phone. When she saw neither a missed call nor a text from Ally, her broken heart fused together with steely anger.
What the fuck game was she playing?
She flung the covers off and jumped into the shower, refusing to dignify that passive-aggressive nonsense with a follow-up text. Yes, it was a difficult time for Ally, and Belle’s announcement had compounded her grief, but still it was no excuse to brush her off like they were only casually dating and she no longer fit into the balance of Ally’s world.
By the time she’d concluded her mental rant, she couldn’t remember if she’d conditioned her hair or not. Great. Now what? Skip the conditioner and risk the dry fly-aways or use it and have her hair look like she’d shampooed it with olive oil?
After her hair was blown dry and resembled dead cockspur grass, it suddenly occurred to her that maybe Ally hadn’t called because Bob had died or was in the process.
Now for her next trick: making a sincere, compassionate inquiry of Ally about his well-being after she’d accused him of being a child predator the night before.
Tearing a page from her freshman-comp students’ social handbook, she texted Chloe to ascertain Ally’s whereabouts. When she learned she was at work and not hovering at Bob’s deathbed, she planned a simple, thoughtful gesture sure to diffuse the tension from last night.
Standing outside the station, she popped a breath mint in her mouth and swiped a lip-gloss applicator across her bottom lip. She had to be ready when Ally kissed her for coming by with a plant to cheer her up.
Ally looked up from her computer with a smile. “Hey.”
“Hey, yourself,” Belle replied, smoothing down her fly-away hair. “Thought you might like this.” She placed it on her desk with an expectant smile.
“A red salvia,” Ally said, seeming mildly moved. “How pretty. What made you pick this kind?”
“First of all, kudos for knowing what it is. I’d never even heard of them. And secondly, for a trip to the bonus round, do you know what it represents?”
“Represents?” Ally paused pensively. “Hmm. I’m afraid you got me there.”
“Forever mine.” Belle blossomed into an ebullient smile.
“That’s very sweet, honey. Thank you.”
Underwhelmed by Ally’s tepid reaction, Belle dropped into the chair beside her desk. “Ally, are we okay?”
“Yeah. Why?”
Was she kidding?
“No reason. I guess I dreamed last night.”
Ally sighed and sat back in her chair. “No, you didn’t, but I wish I had.”
“I didn’t mean to cause a problem between us, babe. But it’s the lead you’ve been searching for since Angelo found the baby.”
“And the timing couldn’t be any worse. Shirley called me this morning. She’s been calling everyone to let us know that if we want to say one last good-bye we should come today because they’re upping his morphine level to the point where he won’t be coming out of it.”
“Shit,” Belle whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m here if you need me to do anything. I can pick up Chloe and take her by hospice if you want.”
“That won’t be necessary. She wants to remember him during better days. She’s too upset to even talk about it.”
“Mmm.” Belle uttered her agreement as she wondered if that was a convenient excuse for a girl who’d been creeped out enough by an old perv that she didn’t even trust him in a coma.
This time, however, she knew enough to keep her musings to herself.
Ally glanced at the wall clock. “I have a meeting with Gallagher about Judy’s exhumation, and then I’m going to head over to hospice. I’d ask if you wanted to join me, but something tells me you’re not inclined to pay your respects.”
Belle huffed in exasperation. “Ally, you know I’d go anywhere with you if you asked me.”
“Under the circumstances, it’ll be better if I go alone.”
That one stung. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Doing what?”
“Punishing me like I’ve wronged you in some way.”
Ally’s face turned quartz hard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize my grief was such an affront to you.”
“Please. Don’t go there. You’re angry at what I told you, and you want someone to blame. But you can’t just…”
Belle was about to unleash the full power of her fury on Ally when Gallagher walked into the station for their meeting.
“Hey,” he said as he pushed his aviators up onto his freshly-shaven head.
“’Morning.” Suddenly, Ally was all sugar and spice. “You two have met, right?”
He cocked his head sideways. “Like twice already.” He gave Belle a friendly pat on the arm. “Howya doin’, Belle?”
Belle twitched a smile, hoping her face wasn’t as fiery red as it felt. “Great, great. Good to see you. I’ll, uh, let you two get down to business.”
Gallagher pulled a crinkly paper from the back pocket of his khakis. “If you want to hang out for a few, you can sign off on this. They can’t start digging without your John Hancock.”
She searched Ally’s eyes for something, the slightest signal that this was only a blip they’d soon glide past. Nothing.
Belle had reluctantly presented her with the difficult task of choosing sides, and it seemed as though Ally was choosing the wrong one.
“I have to run,” she said to Gallagher. “Ally knows where to find me.”
***
When Belle had whipped her head back and stormed out of the station pumped full of virtuous indignation, she’d expected a text from Ally by the end of her shift, if not sooner.
Three days later, however, she still hadn’t heard from her.
She’d spent the day before with her friends by the shore on an impromptu brewery crawl to take her mind off the debacle that had become her life up in Danville, and also to check in with her realtor regarding her condo sale. She grabbed the laptop she’d left at her parents’ house so she could prepare her course syllabi for the fall semester, which was fast approaching.
All morning she fidgeted at the dining-room table that doubled as a temporary home office, typing and answering work-related emails from prospective students and her department chair. The tasks took longer than usual as her fight with Ally had drawn and quartered her mind, and the section containing the ability to focus was the first casualty. After obsessing over her phone to the point of near madness, she finally turned off the sound and stuffed it into a drawer in the kitchen.
Why hadn’t Ally contacted her? She understood her needing a day or two to process everything, but she was beginning to feel like she’d become her adversary rather than her confidante. Was Ally not as into her as she’d made her believe, and this was how Belle was going to find out? By being ghosted?
If that was how she wanted to play it…
She shifted in her chair and accidentally kicked Red, who was sprawled on the cool hardwood floor under the table.
“Ooh, sorry, pal.” She ran her bare foot over his chest and tummy, then looked under the table at him. “At least I can count on one creature I love to side with me. If I have to blow this taco stand for good, will you hightail it out with me?”
He returned his head to the floor with a lazy groan.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
By early afternoon, she could endure no more of her work-related exile. Her eyes ached, and her stomach kept making sounds like she was about to birth an alien, so she hopped on her bike and rode into town for lunch.
After she’d stuffed herself in at Ethel’s lunch counter between the wall and some guys from Public Works, she propped the menu up in front of her face and scanned the café from corner to corner for Ally. When the sweep turned up empty, she parked her eyes on the door. If Ally was at the station, she was bound to show up near or around that time to pick up the lunch order.
Unless…now that she was sheriff, she sent Camiotti out on food runs. Crap.
Ethel would know. She lowered her menu enough to attract Ethel’s attention through the clamor of the lunch rush. She finally came over to her with silverware rolled in a napkin and a paper placemat covered with ads for every Danville business and a huge congratulatory ad for Sheriff Ally, featuring her mug right smack in the center.
Belle covered it with her water glass and watched the condensation spread over it.
“Hey, stranger,” Ethel said with a bright smile. “Thought you’d finished up the house and vamoosed.”
“You’re half right. The renovations are nearly complete, but I’m still on the fence about vamoosing.”
Ethel cupped her ear. “You’re putting up a fence?”
Belle giggled and raised her voice. “No. I haven’t made any plans to leave yet.”
“Oh, oh, I see. How’s Ally doing?”
“Fine, I guess,” she said with a begrudging jerk of her shoulder. “Did she pick up her lunch order yet?”
“No,” Ethel said, obviously perplexed. “She’s not working today. Didn’t you hear? Bob passed yesterday.”
Belle’s stomach soured before she even placed her food order. He’d died, and Ally couldn’t even trouble herself to call her. It was apparent now how little she’d meant to Ally, how dumb she’d been for allowing herself to fall so hard and so fast for the Baroness of Baggage. The former player had been played.
The warning signs had to have rained down like a meteor shower, but she’d simply refused to see them.
Again.
“Jeez. I’m terribly sorry. I know how everyone here feels about him.” Belle realized as she spoke she sounded more bored than bereft. “Can I take my order to go? I want to check in with Ally and see how she’s doing,” she lied.
“Tell her I was asking for her,” Ethel said when she returned a few minutes later with a wrapped sandwich.
Belle nodded, then stood outside the café, frozen in the swelter of mid-August heat like a small girl lost among big strangers.
Bob’s straw sat pristine, its Baggie tucked inside her draw-string knapsack. A weightless piece of beach litter to the unknowing eye, it likely contained the answer she and Ally had searched for together all summer. It represented closure—maybe for more than one thing.
Was her love affair with Ally only meant to be fleeting? Summer passion ignited by the mystery of the Ashford place? And now that the mystery was about to be resolved, so would their connection?
When her eyes started pooling, she paced the sidewalk between Ethel’s and the sheriff’s station, clutching the sandwich in one hand and the knapsack in the other. She loved Ally with all her heart and soul; that she knew for sure. For her, it hadn’t been an interlude that spiced up a summer of home renovations and self-imposed exile. She’d thought she was starting the second half of her life on a positive note, with a woman who’d not only ignited passion and desire in her body and soul but also warmed her heart with a stability and contentment always lacking with other women.
She wanted the investigation to be over, but not her relationship with Ally.
Now Bob was dead. He’d never be confronted or held accountable, never tried and never convicted for what he’d done, to Charlene or anyone else—not in this lifetime.
What message would it convey to Ally if she gave her the straw she’d swiped without her knowledge? What if Ally took it from her but, instead of following through with the analysis, destroyed it to protect Shirley and his immaculate public legacy?
The situation was untenable. In either scenario, one of them would end up hopelessly disillusioned.
She exhaled and rested against the bicycle rack outside the sheriff’s office, watching a crow pick at the remains of some type of roadkill.
“Isabelle?”
She turned to see Gallagher holding the door open.
“Are you looking for Ally? She’s with Shirley now.”
“Yeah,” she said and looked down at the sandwich. “Actually, I stopped by to bring you lunch.”
“Oh. Really? Thanks.” He looked puzzled as he held the door for her, and she breezed past him into the office.
“Hope you like chicken cutlets.”
“I love ’em. Have a seat.”
She sat in the chair next to the desk Ally normally occupied.
“Can I get you a water or something?”
“No, thanks.” She looked around Ally’s surroundings, absent of her, and felt herself seeping into the fabric of the chair.
“Chicken cutlet, notwithstanding, I’m glad you stopped by.” He bit into the sandwich before finishing his thought.
“It’s comforting to know someone in law enforcement is happy to see me these days.”
He arched an eyebrow, then, “Yeah, uh, we’re going ahead with the exhumation Thursday. If they can extract a viable sample, we’ll know by the end of next week. The lab’s gonna fast-track it for us.”
“That’s great.” She choked back emotion.
“I know this must be tough for you,” he said as he chewed, a dollop of mayo lingering in the corner of his mouth.
“It’ll be a relief for me and my family.” She offered a wan smile of gratitude as she watched him pinch his fingers together to pick up and eat shredded lettuce strands that had fallen onto the paper wrapping.
“Are you okay?” He asked in that I care about you, but I’m scared you’re going to emotionally unload on me way.
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind if this summer had a restart button.”
“It’s probably none of my business, but shouldn’t you be with Ally now?”
“Things have gotten a little complicated between us. She hasn’t told you anything?”
He shook his head. “You didn’t have to be a detective to sense the tension between you two the last time you were here, but she hasn’t mentioned anything. She’s been really preoccupied with Bob and Shirley the last few days.”
“She hasn’t said anything to you about Bob regarding the case?”
“Which one? Yours?”
Gallagher’s genuine confusion was a full-on gut punch. Ally hadn’t even told him what Charlene had said. They were partners on the case. Surely he should’ve been kept in the loop concerning all the details, not just the ones she thought relevant.
Belle’s worst fear about Ally’s moral rectitude was being justified, and her rage at the multi-level betrayal it represented impelled her to take matters into her own hands. “I need your help,” she said. “But I also need you to make me a promise.”
“I’ll do my best, but it depends on the promise.”
“I knew you’d say that.”
“Obviously, I’m not going to promise to do anything illegal or unethical. You know that.”
She tightened her lips in indignation. “Detective Gallagher, I’m surprised at you. I’d never ask you to do anything illegal. I’m not stupid.” She leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “The ethical part is where it gets a little murky—but only because another member of your team may or may not be dancing on that line herself.”
“Ally? You have to be mistaken, Belle. There’s no way—”
“Just listen to me for a second. A few days ago I shared some new, pertinent information with her that she should’ve given you.”
“Tell me what it is, and I’ll discuss it with her.”
“It involves Bob, and I’m concerned that right now, given her grief over his passing, her judgment may be a little off.”
He popped the last piece of the first half of the sandwich into his mouth and smiled with reassurance as he chewed. “I can’t help you unless you tell me what’s going on.”
“Will you promise me you’ll handle it on your own and won’t involve her unless the test comes back positive?”
“What test?”
“Promise me, Gallagher,” she shouted, startling them both.
“Okay, okay, I promise.” He scratched at his goatee in apparent frustration. “I can do that,” he said, as though bargaining with himself. “I can call you a confidential informant. There’s nothing unethical about that. It’s not like I’ll keep Ally in the dark forever. Sooner or later it all comes out in the wash…”
“Bob was a child molester, and I’m positive he’s the father of my cousin’s baby.”
“Holy fuck.” Gallagher finally refocused his attention on her. “You gotta be shitting me. How do you know this and nobody else does?”
“I found one of his victims—accidentally. My cousin’s childhood best friend.”
“Would she make an official statement?”
“She lives in California now, but yes. She said she would.”
“Give me her number then. I’ll call her right away, get her back here.” He picked up the other half of the sandwich and went for it.
“Can’t you run his DNA first and confirm it’s a match before you make her fly all the way across the country?”
The cutlet slid out the bottom of the bread and landed on the paper. “You have DNA? Why didn’t you tell me that first?”
She fished through her knapsack to retrieve the straw. “What did you think I meant when I mentioned a test coming back positive?”
“To be honest, at first I thought you were being dramatic about your spat with Ally. And I was really enjoying the sandwich.”
She glared at him and dangled the Baggie in front of him. “This is his straw.” When his hand extended toward it, she yanked it out of his reach. “Please send it in without telling Ally. I’m reserving the slightest bit of hope that it won’t be a match. Then Ally won’t have to know I doubted her.”
Gallagher sighed. “Okay. I’ll get it off to the lab today.”
“Thank you.” She squeezed his forearm and got up to leave.
“I still think she deserves the benefit of the doubt,” he said.
Belle smiled and crossed her fingers. “I so want to believe that.”
She hopped onto her bicycle and pedaled home hard, vigorously, until her quads and shins burned and the loose strands of hair from her ponytail stuck to her sweaty neck. Nearing her house, she savored the woodsy smell of the tree-lined road and the death-metal drumbeat of a woodpecker riveting a tree.
Hopefully, Gallagher wouldn’t “lose” the one and only piece of evidence that could tie Bob to such a horrid crime. Without it, Charlene’s claim, Judy’s scrawled revelation, and the baby’s remains would be nothing more than parts of a suburban myth that began and ended with Belle.
She’d done all she could for them. It was out of her hands now.