Elizabeth holds the crumpled photo of Peter in her palm, staring into his sea-green eyes. An unnatural shade of beauty, she thinks. His beard is thick, covering up the baby face she’d been so attracted to when they met. Here, she sees the whole of him, what he really was, and everything inside her screams run. Tears prick her eyelashes. Drawing her palms into tight fists, she thinks about Charlotte, wonders what her last moments were like.
Peter, what did you do?
She catches a glimpse of Theo in the kitchen with Gwen, who is helping him smear cream cheese on his bagel. Gwen invited them to have breakfast in the Barkley house, though they’ve been eating the continental breakfast at the hotel. She couldn’t come up with a good reason to say no, and she doesn’t want to arouse suspicion. After the incident in the car, the confrontation with Jimi—it’s time to move on. But she can’t run off yet. Not till she hears back from Alice.
Theo’s bright voice rises high and low, a happy metronome she’s never heard from him. The girls are in school; he is getting Gwen’s undivided attention. Gently touching his shoulder, she crouches to his level. He laughs at whatever she is saying. Her smile is warm and nurturing.
The woman hides her secrets well. Gwen is more complicated than Elizabeth had originally believed. Loving toward children, defensive and irritable with adults. But what about the necklace? What the hell is she missing? Elizabeth can hardly stop herself from screaming. She returns her gaze to the photo as if it holds the answers she needs.
How did he get Gwen’s necklace? She rakes a hand through her hair. Over and over, the question roils through her mind: What happened to Charlotte? It is unrelenting; it keeps her here against her better judgment.
A male voice startles her out of her thoughts. “Elizabeth?”
She jumps and swings her chair around. Jimi stands behind her, hands shoved in his pockets, head angled toward the ground. “What now? I don’t want to discuss your theories about me. Take it up with your mom,” she says.
“I wanted to apologize to you for how I’ve acted.” His voice is raw and very young.
She avoids his watery eyes.
“That’s very kind of you, but I don’t need an apology.” Elizabeth gulps. He shouldn’t trust her. Don’t fall for this, Jimi, she thinks. Don’t believe me.
She doesn’t want to be this crafty.
“And the knife. That was me too. I wanted to protect my mom. I didn’t know—”
Holy shit. “That was you?”
“I’m so sorry,” he says. And then he breaks. “You probably think I’m a terrible person. Maybe I am. But I promise, I was only trying to protect my mom. You have no idea what she’s been like.”
“Please, don’t,” she says, stumbling over her words. “No one broke into the hotel room?”
“Not that time,” he says. “Charlotte. I am so very sorry.”
Gwen stands off to the side, listening. She lifts her chin toward Jimi, arms crossed against her chest.
“I … don’t know what to say.” Elizabeth slumps into the chair. “We don’t need to upset Myra more than she already is. Let’s not tell her about this …” Her words are hollow in her ears. Jimi planted the fucking knife in her room?
Jimi cocks his head to one side, and says, sounding slightly confused, “You aren’t pissed off?”
“No, I’m not pissed off,” she says, glancing toward Gwen. She swallows the bitterness in her throat. It burns a hole in her gut. She feels betrayed, but who is she to speak about betrayal? Hot tears well in her eyes.
Gwen shakes her head. “I know,” she mouths.
He leans down to hug her. She resists the urge to recoil. Patting his back, she says dumbly, “Let’s have a bagel.”
Gwen whispers something into Theo’s ear. He sits down with his plate and takes a big bite of the bagel.
“See, that wasn’t so bad,” she says, addressing Jimi.
He smiles sheepishly. “You forgive me?”
Elizabeth feels the blood rush to her cheeks, relaxes her fists. She forgets about the photo in her palm. “Really. Everything is okay.”
“If you’re sure.” Gwen sounds dubious. “Now we can start again.” She squeezes Jimi’s shoulder. “I’m going to finish helping Theo.” She turns to walk away, but then she stops sharply. “Wait a minute,” she says, focusing on the photo in Elizabeth’s palm. “Is that … I mean, was that him? Peter Briggs?”
Elizabeth nods.
“God, he looks like a boy I dated in high school.” She shakes her head. “Jesus, I must be going crazy. For a second I thought he was my ex. All of this is getting to me.”
Her ears perk up. Elizabeth says, as casually as possible, “What was his name?”
“Jared Henderson,” she replies, a sort of wistfulness to her tone. “I’ve been thinking of him a lot lately, probably because he was with us that night you disappeared …”
“He was there?”
“Yes, he was there,” She shakes her head. “Like I said, I must be losing my mind. Jared has been on my mind a lot, since you’ve been home. But that’s not him.” She inspects the photo more closely and shudders. “Are you okay?”
Elizabeth is up, heading for Theo. “I feel a little woozy from the coffee …”
“I don’t think you should have that photo,” Gwen says. “Talk to the therapist about it, but this doesn’t seem healthy, you know?”
“Right,” she says, staring at Gwen. “It probably isn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” Jimi says again, stroking his chin. “I understand if you’re mad. I’ve been an asshole.”
“I’m not mad,” she repeats.
This is enough. She needs to get to the room, to get Alice on the phone. Patrick J. Henderson. Maybe Jared was his middle name.
“Theo, come on. Let’s go back to the room and change your clothes. Get dressed.”
“But I’m not finished with my bagel,” he says.
“You can bring it with you.” She grasps his hand. “I’m not feeling well, and I can’t leave you out here alone.”
“I can watch him, Elizabeth,” Gwen says.
“No, it’s fine,” she says absentmindedly, dragging Theo toward the door. There is no way she can trust this family. Out—they need to get out. She can investigate Jared from somewhere else.
“Well, okay …”
They trudge outside. The breeze is cool and damp on her face. Once they slip back into the hotel room, she draws her boy into her arms and inhales his scent. She runs her fingers across his cheek.
Her stomach flutters, thick emotion rising in her throat.
“Sit on the bed, Theo.” She speaks in her most firm voice.
He flops on the bed. “What’s wrong Mommy?”
“We’re going for a little drive in the new car.”
“Where to?”
“We’re going on another adventure.”
“No more adventures, Mommy.” His face is crestfallen.
“Not a long one.” She forces a smile. “Just to visit Alice.”
She bends down to tie Theo’s new red shoes, steels her mind. She throws her possessions in the duffle bag. Elizabeth scrawls a quick note. It’s inadequate, she understands. And it’s not over. She has to find whoever is working for Peter, on her own. It began with Jared. It must have. Gwen had been deeply intertwined with him. She has to have more information than she’s letting on. Maybe she’s messing with the cameras, trying to scare her away. Jimi could be part of it too. Especially since he planted that knife. He tried to make her look guilty of slashing that painting.
But why apologize at all? Her head is swimming. There are too many possibilities. Gwen and Jimi are trying to kill her or save her—and the truth is blurred, obscured.
She has to find out more about Jared. “It’s usually someone you know, someone close to the family. Stranger abductions are rare.” That’s what Sarah Marlow said.
Jared was close to the family.
“Let’s go.” They get into the car and drive toward the crumbling yellow trailer, past the beach where her memories of that night hang thick and sorrowful.
Myra and Herb are loving parents. But Elizabeth’s mother worked and fought and persevered with almost nothing at all.
She rushes inside her mother’s home, tears streaming. Charlotte pulls at her. Like the girl is begging her to solve the mystery of the necklaces, to find her for Myra. Elizabeth is stitched into the fabric of the Barkley tragedy, through the man she married and the lies she told. Her mind races. Alice would know what to do, but she can’t reach Alice.
They sit on the ragged carpet together, shivering in the cold. He is the boy she lives for, runs for, dissolves poison for. She sobs over his delicious head, and he pats her back in gentle little thumps, like she does for him.
“Oh, my mommy,” he says, over and over. “My sweet mommy.”
She finally rubs her eyes and begins to rise. “Button your coat,” she says absentmindedly. She notices a thick stack of envelopes covered in dust. She almost ignores it, thinking it must be some tenant’s mail.
Instead, she slides back to the floor and picks it up. Her name is written on a manila envelope at the bottom. “Something for me,” she explains to Theo dryly. “They managed to leave a bill or two.”
Theo shrugs again.
She slides her fingers underneath the flap, loosening the old glue, and slides out a stack of papers.
“What on earth is this?” She squints at a paper filled with many numbers. It will require much interpretation from someone more qualified than she is, but one thing is obvious.
It is a deed to the house. Signed to her mother. Behind it, is a will.
Mom owned this trailer? It occurs to Elizabeth that if she hadn’t, it would have been foreclosed on by now. She wouldn’t have used her own key to walk in the door.
But how? Someone had rented it out after she left too. At least for a short time.
She’d met Peter right after her mother died. Stage four pancreatic cancer. Even if it had been diagnosed earlier, before she came home from work writhing in pain, it would have been fatal. The mass of cancer infiltrated her pancreas and spread to her lungs, announcing its death sentence long before the fateful trip to the emergency room. She remembers stroking her mother’s sweat-soaked forehead with a cool washcloth.
She paces, holding the deed in her hand. The envelope and the rest of its contents flutter to the ground. How much is this place worth? Probably nothing. It’s practically in ruins. It might have been worth something had she known about this before she left for Washington. Even the smallest amount of money might have helped her get out of town.
There’s no time to think. She dials Alice’s number, holding her breath. Answer, answer. Please.
“Elizabeth,” Alice says breathlessly. “I have looked everywhere. So many Patrick Hendersons in the world. I can’t find any living relatives, if that’s the real name. The driver’s license is old. It’s not enough to go on. I’m sorry girl. I tried—”
“I know, Alice. I need you to look for a Jared Henderson. Maybe a Patrick Jared Henderson. He would have grown up in Rocky Shores.”
“All right,” she says. “Getting online right now. I swear. Why can’t you let this go?”
“Something is happening at that inn. I don’t know how far it goes back, but it has to be years,” Elizabeth says. “I need to know exactly what ‘it’ is, and how it relates to me.”
“No, you really don’t. The man is dead. You are impossible to deal with.” Alice sighs. “Please. Let’s just get out of here.”
“Not yet. Because in that you’re correct. I have been following along with endless bullshit my entire life. So, now, I am choosing to be impossible to deal with, because an eight-year -old child died.”
“Fine. If you insist.” Elizabeth hears Alice clacking on the keyboard. “Wait a minute,” she says. “You think he went to school with Gwen?”
“If Jared is Peter, he must have. This is a tiny town. Rocky Shores High.” She laughs. “Wait a minute. We’ll just get a hold of the school. See if they have contact info.”
“Christ, you’re good,” Alice says, breaking into a guffaw. “Hang up this phone. I’ll pick you up at the bus stop—”
“Alice? Alice?”
The call drops.