Perfect summer afternoons with a high blue sky and the salty ocean breeze almost made up for the brutal winters that held Boston hostage for nearly one-third of each year. Ellery sat on a shaded bench with Ashley, each of them in possession of a fresh-squeezed lemonade, near enough to see the boats on the harbor. Seagulls swooped in and out around them, patrolling for any piece of lost pretzel or hot dog that a wayward tourist might have dropped. Nearby at a playground, children laughed and chased each other around while tired parents chatted in the shade and called out periodic weak reprimands to stop throwing sand. The parents watched the children. Ellery watched the perimeter out of habit, just in case. Ashley saw her staring and turned her head.
“What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.” There was no one. Not this time. “How’s your lemonade?”
Ashley fiddled with her straw. “It’s good. But we should probably head back soon.”
Ellery gave her a questioning look. They hadn’t been sitting long, and frankly, her bum ankle could use the rest. “There’s no hurry.”
“Yeah, there is.” Ashley squinted out at the water. “I called Dad this morning. He’s flying out to pick me up.”
“Oh. That’s good, I guess.”
“I thought you’d be happy. I’ll be out of your hair.”
“No, I, uh, I’m glad you’ve patched things up with him.”
Her sister snorted and kicked at the grass with one foot. “I didn’t say that. He’s still royally pissed at me for coming out here without asking. But I didn’t have a choice. He wasn’t going to say yes if I’d asked.” She risked a quick look at Ellery and ducked her head. “Neither would you.”
Ashley was right, but Ellery felt guilty that she knew it. “You don’t know that.”
“You didn’t tell me. You came to see me when they did the transplant, but you didn’t tell me anything about who you were. You just left after the procedure and didn’t say a word.”
Ellery pursed her lips. “I wrote to your father. He said you were doing well.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t say anything to me.” Her voice was small and hurt.
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” Ashley looked her over searchingly and then slumped back against the bench. “I know I probably seem like some dumb kid to you.”
“No,” Ellery said with feeling. “That’s not true.”
“I remind you of him. Dad. Of what he did to you.”
“Maybe at first. A little. But now you remind me of you.” She smiled at the girl. “And maybe a little bit of me.”
Ashley smiled back almost shyly. “Really?” She hesitated. “Because I was thinking that I could apply to college out here. Mom says I have a good chance at some big scholarships on account of the cancer. Turns out you can write a kick-ass sympathy essay when you almost die and live to tell about it.”
A laugh escaped Ellery. “Yeah, that’s about how I did it.” She hadn’t considered this commonality with Ashley before. Odds said they should both be dead, and yet here they sat in the summer sun.
“And maybe, if I came out here for school, we could hang out sometime. Almost like real sisters.”
“We’re already real sisters.”
“Yeah?” Ashley smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You said Dad’s not ever going to be your father again.”
“That’s different,” Ellery replied with a sigh. “And it was his decision. He’s the one who walked out and made no effort to contact me for years. Daniel died thinking his father didn’t give a damn about him. Maybe it wasn’t true, but that’s how it felt from our end, and he did nothing to show us otherwise.”
Ashley nodded, glum. “You can’t forgive him. I understand.”
“What he did to us doesn’t matter for you. I’m glad he got his act together and that he’s been a good dad to you. You deserve that. It’s not your fault he settled down and stayed.”
Ashley turned to her. “And it’s not your fault he left.”
Dammit, she was not going to cry in front of this girl. Ellery squeezed Ashley’s hand as hard as she could. “That’s right,” she said, her throat tight. “It’s not. So what do you say we head back and meet the old bastard?”
At the apartment, Ashley gathered her things while Ellery limped around tidying with Reed fussing behind her. “I can do this,” he said as she attempted to fold a blanket with one arm. “Just tell me what you want me to do.”
“By the time I tell you, I can do it myself.”
He folded his arms. “Are you sure about that?”
She cursed as the blanket slipped through her fingers. “I don’t even want him here,” she said in a low voice.
“Then he waits downstairs,” Reed declared flatly. “You don’t have to let him in if you don’t want to.”
“Part of me does want to,” she said, angry at the tinge of hysteria in her voice. “That’s the crazy part. I want him to see this place and know I can afford it. I earned it. I decorated it. I live here by myself and I’m completely fine with it.”
“I know you are,” Reed said, trying to be soothing.
She let the blanket fall to her feet. “I hate that I even care what he thinks.”
Reed stooped to pick up the blanket and he folded it in two seconds with his perfectly good arms. He handed it back to her with a tender smile and she held it against her chest like armor. “You won. He lost. He probably doesn’t even realize how much he lost, and that’s a shame. But it’s his shame, not yours.”
“Right.” She took a deep breath just as the buzzer rang. “It’s show time.”
John Hathaway looked relieved that she opened the door for him. “Ellie.” She still hadn’t adjusted her mental image of him as the big strong man who walked out the door. He was older and grayer now, still tall but not as beefy. His brawn had moved to his gut and stayed there. “It’s good to see you,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets.
She replied with a curt nod. “Come in. Ashley’s about ready.”
Bump read her body language and hung back behind her rather than giving his usual enthusiastic greeting. Her father tried. “Hey there, boy. Aren’t you a handsome fella?”
Bump gave two perfunctory thumps of his tail and looked to Ellery for guidance. “Oh, go ahead,” she muttered, and he went almost sheepishly, his tail between his legs, to collect his ear rubs and pats on the back. He returned immediately after to her side.
Her father looked around her loft apartment with naked curiosity. “This is a nice place you have here. Right downtown? Must cost some serious dough.”
He had left them with no way to pay the rent. Her mother had worked two jobs just so they didn’t get evicted. “I get by,” she said evenly.
“Hi, Dad.” Ashley appeared with her backpack in hand, and he broke into a wide grin at the sight of her.
“Ash, I missed you, kid. You about gave me a heart attack, running off like that.” She let him hug her but did not return the embrace.
“Running off with no warning,” she said. “It must be in my genes, huh, Pops?”
He became uneasy once more and let her go. “At the airport, all the TVs were playing some story about a kidnapped girl,” he said to Ellery. “They say you found her.” Ellery said nothing. Her father nodded at the sling. “Looks like you went about twenty rounds with the guy, eh? I always knew you were tough.”
Ellery looked away. Whatever you have to tell yourself to make it through the night, she thought.
“Dad, shouldn’t we be going?” Ashley said pointedly.
He looked to Ellery like he wanted to say more but didn’t have the words. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said at length. “Thanks for looking after my girl.”
“She’s part mine now,” Ellery replied.
Ashley beamed and rocked on her toes with happiness. She bounced in front of Ellery and then sized up her injuries. “A half hug for a half sister?” she suggested, holding out one arm.
“Give me a second.” Ellery grimaced as she slowly removed the sling. “There,” she said, cautiously extending both arms. “The whole tamale.”
Ashley teared up again as she moved in for a cautious embrace. “Thank you,” she whispered against Ellery’s uninjured shoulder. “For everything.”
Ellery touched the back of the girl’s head. “Text me when you get home.”
She watched from the window as they climbed into a ride share and drove away. She turned to find Reed had disappeared into her bedroom again, and she dragged herself to collapse on the couch. Bump joined her and she closed her eyes, enjoying the quiet of her mostly empty apartment. Her father’s remarks made her curious about the newscasts and what they might be saying about Bobby Frick. She located the remote and clicked around until she found the local news, where, to her horror, she found her own face. A woman with a frosted-blond bob and impossibly red lipstick was opining about her relationship with Reed.
“You have to remember, Cindy, they met under extremely emotional circumstances. Frightening circumstances. The moment of her rescue would be supercharged in their brain circuitry forever. Strong emotions like that can take on different emotional shading with time.”
“I’m sorry. She was fourteen back then. A child. Are you saying he was attracted to her?”
“No, probably not then. I’m saying that because of their history they both get a brain buzz, so to speak, when they are in each other’s presence. Over time, that buzzing may turn into attraction.”
“I don’t get it,” said the anchorwoman. “Imagine having a serial killer for your matchmaker.” An image of Francis Coben from his federal trial flashed on the screen and Ellery shrank back into the cushions. She grabbed the remote and clicked the television off, but her heart continued to pound even in the silence. She screwed her eyes shut and tried to breathe. She’d been an idiot to think it would ever work with Reed, that they could invent whatever relationship they wanted. Their story only ever went one place.
“Ellery?” Reed poked his head out from her bedroom.
She jerked up. “Yes?”
“Come see what I’ve done with your bedroom wall.”
“I’m not sure I want to,” she grumbled as she gingerly got up from the couch. “I like my wall the way it was.”
“It’s a temporary redesign.”
She discovered he’d tacked up a bunch of yellow sticky notes. Each one had his handwriting on it, and she moved closer to inspect them. “‘Irma Goodwin breaks her leg,’” she read off the first note. She turned to him. “Who is Irma Goodwin?”
“That’s the start of it all,” he said, a glint in his eye, the satisfaction of a man who had cracked the puzzle. He seemed to want her to play along now, but her head hurt.
“Reed, just tell me. What is all of this?”
“It’s the answer to who killed Trevor Stone and Carol Frick,” he replied, and she looked with fresh eyes across the long string of sticky notes. She limped along, barely reading them until she got to the end.
“Oh my God,” she breathed as she pulled the square of paper free from the wall to stare at his conclusion. No wonder the cops had been running in circles for fifteen years. They had the theory of the crime wrong from the very beginning. Reed had discovered the answer to a question no one bothered to ask.
Reed put his hands on his hips and surveyed his handiwork. “Mind you, I can’t actually prove any of this yet. I’m not sure it would ever rise to the level of a criminal prosecution.”
“Who would you even prosecute? Bobby Frick was right about one thing—we’re far too late.”
He made a beleaguered gesture at the timeline. “Yeah, but if this is true, Bobby Frick was wrong about everything else.”