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Her Mother's Shadow
Diane Chamberlain


Lacey’s mother was shot twelve years ago.Her killer is about to be released on parole. Only Lacey’s statement can keep him in jail. Lacey is facing the biggest decision of her life. Then her best friend dies in a car crash, leaving behind a grieving eleven-year-old daughter in need of a mother – a role Lacey’s not sure she’s ready for.Two lives rest on Lacey’s choices. Two lives only she can save.Praise for Diane Chamberlain ‘Fans of Jodi Picoult will delight in this finely tuned family drama, with beautifully drawn characters and a string of twists that will keep you guessing right up to the end.' - Stylist‘A marvellously gifted author. Every book she writes is a gem’ - Literary Times’Essential reading for Jodi Picoult fans’ Daily Mail’So full of unexpected twists you'll find yourself wanting to finish it in one sitting. Fans of Jodi Picoult's style will love how Diane Chamberlain writes.’ - Candis










Praise for

Diane Chamberlain

‘Emotional, complex and laced with suspense, this fascinating story is a brilliant read.’

—Closer

‘An excellent read’

—The Sun

‘This complex tale will stick with you forever.’

—Now

‘A hugely addictive twist in the tale makes this a sizzling sofa read … a deeply compelling and moving new novel.’

—Heat

‘This exquisite novel about love and friendship is written like a thriller … you won’t want to put it down.’

—Bella

‘A bittersweet story about regret and hope’

—Publishers Weekly

‘A brilliantly told thriller’

—Woman

‘An engaging and absorbing story that’ll have you racing through pages to finish’

—People’s Friend

‘This compelling mystery will have you on the edge of your seat.’

—Inside Soap

‘A fabulous thriller with plenty of surprises’

—Star

‘Essential reading for Jodi Picoult fans’

—Daily Mail

‘Chamberlain skillfully … plumbs the nature of crimes of the heart.’

—Publishers Weekly

‘So full of unexpected twists you’ll find yourself wanting to finish it in one sitting. Fans of Jodi Picoult’s style will love how Diane Chamberlain writes.’

—Candis

‘The plot is intriguing and haunting revelations will have you glued to the very end.’

—Peterborough Evening Telegraph

‘I was drawn in from the first page and simply could not put it down until the last. I think I have found a new favourite author.’

—Daily Echo

‘[A] gripping summer read that’s full of twists and turns

—5 stars’

—Woman’s Own

‘The compelling story of three friends who are forced to question what it is to be a friend, mother and a sister.’

—Sunday World

‘A gripping novel’

—The Lady (online)

‘Diane Chamberlain is a marvellously gifted author. Every book she writes is a gem.’

—Literary Times

‘A strong tale that deserves a comparison with Jodi Picoult for, as this builds, one does indeed wonder if all will come right in the end.’

—lovereading.co.uk

‘I couldn’t put it down.’

—Bookseller


Also by Diane Chamberlain

Kiss River

Keeper of the Light

The Lost Daughter

The Bay at Midnight

Before the Storm

Secrets She Left Behind

The Lies We Told

Breaking the Silence

The Midwife’s Confession

Brass Ring

The Shadow Wife

The Good Father




Her Mother’s

Shadow

Diane Chamberlain

GETS TO THE HEART OF THE STORY





www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)






In memory of Nan Chamberlain Lopresti




Acknowledgements


So many people helped me with my research as I wrote Her Mother’s Shadow. For their various contributions, I would like to thank Rodney Cash, Kimberly Certa, Steve Cook, Paul Holland and my friends at ASA, who are always ready with an answer to my questions, no matter how esoteric those questions may be.

I am grateful to fellow authors Emilie Richards and Patricia McLinn for their brainstorming skills. The inspiration to make Bobby Asher a scrimshaw artist came from my favourite scrimshander, Cathy Guss, whose stunning craftsmanship I discovered a number of years ago.

Special thanks goes once again to Sharon Van Epps, for sharing with me her experiences as she attempts to adopt a child from India. As I write this, Sharon is still engaged in that struggle and it’s my fervent hope that her story has a happy ending.

Betsy Reitz earns a mention in these acknowledgements for winning the essay contest on my website. Betsy’s love of the Keeper of the Light trilogy was evident in her essay. It’s readers like Betsy who make writing worthwhile.

As always, I’d like to thank my agent, Ginger Barber, and my editor, Amy Moore-Benson. I am so lucky to be able to work with both of them.

I would love to hear your thoughts about Her Mother’s Shadow. Please visit my website at www.dianechamberlain.com.


HER MOTHER’S SHADOW

The girl in the kitchen

has her mother’s eyes

the color of new jeans

and old sapphires.

She has her mother’s hair,

scarlet and sienna.

Her mother’s lips

and bird feather hands.

But …

When she turns her head

just so,

The indigo eyes are

flecked with amber.

The hair,

streaked with gold.

She is not her mother

at all.

—Paul Macelli




Prologue


Christmas 1990

THERE WAS CHEER IN THE HOUSE IN THE HEART of Manteo. From the outside, the large two-story frame building that served as the battered women’s shelter was nondescript. There were no Christmas lights hanging from the eaves, not even a wreath on the door, as if the people who ran the house were afraid to draw attention to it, and Lacey supposed they were. Cruel men had put the women and children here, the sort of men she had no experience with and found hard to imagine. But she could see the fear in the women’s faces and knew those men existed. More than that, she did not really want to know.

Although there was no sign of the season outside the house, inside was another story. Fresh garlands decorated the railing that led up to the bedrooms, and branches of holly were piled on top of the huge old mantel. The scent of pine was so strong it had seared Lacey’s nostrils when she first walked inside. A huge tree stood in the corner of the living room, decorated with white lights and colored glass balls and topped by one of her mother’s stained glass angels. The tree was alive, and Lacey did not need to ask if that was her mother’s doing. Of course it was. Annie O’Neill always insisted on live trees. They had one at home, and Lacey knew both trees would be taken inland, away from the sandy soil of the Outer Banks, to be planted once the Christmas season was over.

She had not wanted to come to the battered women’s shelter tonight. She’d wanted to stay home and listen to her new CDs and try on her new jeans with the rivets down the sides. She’d wanted to talk to her best friend, Jessica, on the phone to compare the gifts they’d received and decide what movie they would see the following afternoon. But her mother had insisted.

“You have so much,” she’d said to Lacey the week before. “You will have already opened your presents and had Christmas dinner with me and Daddy and Clay. These women and their children will have nothing. Less than nothing. They’ll have fear for Christmas, Lacey.” Her mother spoke with great drama, the way she always did. “Their families will be torn apart,” she continued. “Serving them dinner, singing a few carols with them—that’s the least we can do, don’t you think?”

Now, standing behind the long tables and dishing out Christmas dinner to the women and children, Lacey was glad she had come. At thirteen, she was certainly the youngest of the volunteers, and she felt proud of herself, proud of her kindness and generosity. She was just like her mother, whom all the other volunteers turned to for direction. Annie O’Neill was the most important person in the room. The tree in the corner probably wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for her mother. The buffet tables would probably hold half as much food. Maybe the entire shelter would not be here if it weren’t for Annie. Lacey wasn’t sure about that, but it seemed a real possibility to her.

She smiled at the women as she spooned green beans onto their plates. Six women, some of them still bearing the bruises that had sent them to the shelter, and more than a dozen children filed past the tables, balancing real china plates. Her mother had insisted that all the volunteers bring their good china for the women and their children to use. “They can’t eat Christmas dinner off paper plates,” Lacey had heard her say to one of the volunteers a few weeks before. At the time, she thought her mother was just being silly, but now she could see how much the beautiful plates and the cloth napkins and the glittery lights from the tree meant to these women. They needed every speck of beauty and warmth they could get right now.

Outside, a cold rain beat against the house’s wood siding and thrummed steadily against the windows. It had rained all day, a cold and icy rain, and she and her mother had skidded a couple of times as they drove to Manteo.

“Remember how it snowed on Christmas last year?” her mother had said as Lacey complained about the rain. “Let’s just pretend this is snow.”

Her mother was an excellent pretender. She could make any situation fun by twisting it around so that it was better than it really was. Lacey was too old for that sort of pretending, but her mother could always charm her into just about anything. So, they’d talked about how beautiful the snow-covered scenery was as they passed it, how the housetops were thick with white batting and how the whitecaps on the ocean to their left were really an icy concoction of snow and froth. The dunes at Jockey’s Ridge were barely visible through the rain, but her mother said they looked like smooth white mountains rising up from the earth. They pretended the rain falling against the windshield of the car was really snowflakes. Lacey had to put her fingers in her ears to block out the pounding of the rain in order to really imagine that, but then she could see it—the wipers collecting the snow and brushing it from the car. It fluttered past the passenger side window like puffs of white feathers.

“The first Noel …” Her mother began to sing now as she used salad tongs to set a small pile of greens on the plate of a young girl, and the other volunteers joined in the carol. It took Lacey a bashful minute or two to join in herself, and the beaten-looking women standing in line took even longer, but soon nearly everyone was singing. The smiles in the room, some of them self-conscious and timid, others overflowing with gratitude, caused Lacey to blink back tears that had filled her eyes so quickly she had not been prepared for them.

A tall woman smiled at Lacey from across the table, nudging her son to hold his plate out for some green beans. The woman was singing “Oh Christmas Tree” along with the group, but her doe-eyed son was silent, his lips pressed so tightly together that it looked as though no song would ever again emerge from between them. He was shorter than Lacey but probably around her age, and she smiled at him as she spooned the beans onto his plate. He looked at her briefly, but then his gaze was caught by something behind her, and his mouth suddenly popped open in surprise. Or maybe, she wondered later, in fear. His mother had stopped singing, too. She dropped the good china plate filled with turkey and mashed potatoes, and it clattered to the floor as she stared past the volunteers toward the door of the room. Lacey was afraid to turn around to see what had put such fear in the woman’s eyes. One by one, though, the women and children and volunteers did turn, and the singing stopped. By the time Lacey could force herself to look toward the door, the only sound remaining in the room was the beating of the rain on the windows.

A huge man stood in the doorway of the room. He was not fat, but his bulk seemed to fill every inch of the doorway from jamb to jamb. His big green peacoat was sopping wet, his brown hair was plastered to his forehead and his eyes were glassy beneath heavy brows. Held between his two pale, thick, shivering hands was a gun.

No one screamed, as if the screams had already been beaten out of these women. But there were whispered gasps—”Oh, my God” and “Who is he?”—as the women quietly grabbed their children and pulled them beneath the tables or into the hallway. Lacey felt frozen in place, the spoonful of green beans suspended in the air. The tall woman who’d dropped her plate seemed paralyzed as well. The doe-eyed boy at her side said, “Daddy,” and made a move toward the man, but the woman caught his shoulder and held him fast, her knuckles white against the navy blue of his sweatshirt.

Lacey’s mother suddenly took the spoon from her hands and gave her a sharp shove. “Get into the hall,” she said. Lacey started to back away from the table toward the hallway, but when she saw that her mother wasn’t moving with her, she grabbed the sleeve of her blouse.

“You come, too,” she said, trying to match the calmness in her mother’s voice but failing miserably. Her mother caught her hand and freed it from her sleeve.

“Go!” she said, sharply now, and Lacey backed slowly toward the hallway, unable to move any faster or to take her eyes off the man.

In the hallway, a woman put an arm around her, pulling her close. Lacey could still see part of the room from where she stood. Her mother, the tall woman and her son remained near the tables, staring toward the doorway, which was out of Lacey’s line of sight. Behind her, she could hear a woman’s voice speaking with a quiet urgency into the phone. “Come quickly,” she was saying. “He has a gun.”

The man came into view as he moved forward into the room. The woman grabbed the doe-eyed boy, pulling him behind her.

“Zachary,” the woman said. She was trying to sound calm, Lacey thought, but there was a quiver in her voice. “Zachary. I’m sorry we left. Don’t hurt us. Please.”

“Whore!” the man yelled at his wife. His arms were stretched out in front of him and the gun bobbed and jerked in his trembling hands. “Slut!”

Lacey’s mother moved in front of the woman and her child, facing the man, her arms out at her sides as though she could protect them more efficiently that way.

“Please put the gun away, sir,” she said. “It’s Christmas.” She probably sounded very composed to everyone else in the room, but Lacey knew her well enough to hear the tremulous tone behind the words.

“Bitch!” the man said. He raised the gun quickly, squeezing his eyes together as he pulled back on the trigger. The blast was loud, splitting apart the hushed silence in the room, and the women finally started to scream. Lacey’s eyes were on her mother, who looked simply surprised, her deep blue eyes wide, her mouth open as if she’d been about to speak. The tiniest fleck of red appeared in the white fabric of her blouse, just over her left breast. Then she fell to the floor, slowly, as if she were melting.

The man fell to the floor, too. He dropped the gun and lowered his face to his hands, sobbing. One of the volunteers ran into the room from the hallway. She grabbed the gun from the floor and held it on him, but the big man no longer looked like a threat, just weak and tired and wet.

Lacey broke free from the woman holding her and ran to her mother, dropping to her knees next to her. Her mother’s eyes were closed. She was unconscious, but not dead. Surely not dead. The bullet must have only nicked her, since the amount of blood on her blouse was no more than the prick of a thorn would produce on a fingertip.

“Mom!” Lacey tried to wake her up. “Mom!” She turned her head toward the man, who still sat crumpled up on the floor. “Why did you do that?” she yelled, but he didn’t lift his head to answer.

Women crowded around her and her mother. One of them knelt next to Lacey, holding her mother’s wrist in her fingers.

“She’s alive,” the woman said.

“Of course she’s alive,” Lacey snapped, angry that the woman had implied anything else was possible. The sound of sirens mixed with the pounding of the rain. “Her body just needs rest from being so scared.” She could hear her mother’s voice in her own; that was just the sort of thing Annie O’Neill would say.

The woman the man had meant to kill was huddled in the corner, her arms around her son. Lacey could hear her speaking, saying over and over again into the pine-scented air of the room, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” and another woman was telling her, “It’s not your fault, dear. You were right to come here to get away from him.” But it was her fault. If she and her son hadn’t come here, this crazy man wouldn’t have run in and shot her mother.

The room suddenly filled with men and women wearing uniforms. They blurred in front of Lacey’s eyes, and their voices were loud and barking. Someone was trying to drag her away from her mother, but she remained on the floor, unwilling to be budged more than a few feet. She watched as a man tore open her mother’s blouse and cut her bra, exposing her left breast for all the world to see. There was a dimple in that breast. Just a trace of blood and a small dimple, and that gave Lacey hope. She’d had far worse injuries falling off her bike.

She stood up to be able to see better, and the woman who had tried to pull her away wrapped her arms around her from behind, crossing them over her chest and shoulders, as though afraid she might try to run to her mother’s side again. That was exactly what she wanted to do, but she felt immobilized by shock as much as by the heavy arms across her chest. She watched as the people in uniform lifted her mother onto a stretcher and wheeled her from the room. The man was already gone, and she realized the police had taken him away and she hadn’t even noticed.

Lacey tugged at the woman’s arms. “I want to go with her,” she said.

“I’ll drive you,” the woman said. “We can follow the ambulance. You don’t want to be in there with her.”

“Yes, I do!” Lacey said, but the woman held her fast.

Giving in, she let the woman lead her out the front door of the house, and she turned to watch them load her mother into the ambulance. Something cool touched her nose and her cheeks and her lips, and she turned her face toward the dark sky. Only then did she realize it was snowing.




1


June 2003

THE CHAIN AT THE END OF THE GRAVEL LANE hung loose from the post, and Lacey was grateful that Clay had remembered she’d gone out for dinner with Tom and had left the entrance open for them.

“Will you put the chain up after you drop me off?” she asked Tom.

“No problem.” He drove between the posts and onto the forest-flanked lane, driving too quickly over the bumps and ruts.

Lacey pressed her palm against the dashboard for balance. Although it was only dusk, it was already dark along the tree-shrouded gravel lane leading to the Kiss River light station. “You’d better slow down,” she said. “I nearly ran over an opossum on this road last night.”

Obediently, Tom lifted his foot from the gas pedal. “I’m glad you don’t live out here alone,” he said in the paternal tone he occasionally used with her since learning he was her biological father a decade ago. “I’d be worried about you all the time.”

“Well,” Lacey sighed. “I won’t be living out here too much longer.” The Coast Guard had finally decided to turn the nearly restored keeper’s house into a museum, a decision she had hoped would never come.

“You’re upset about it, huh?”

“Oh, a bit.” She was frankly scared, although of what, she couldn’t say. The isolation the keeper’s house had offered her had been more than welcome, it had been necessary, especially this last difficult year. “They’ve restored every inch of it except the living room and the sunroom.” She shared a studio in Kill Devil Hills with Tom, but she’d turned the sunroom of the keeper’s house into a small studio, as well, so she could work on her stained glass when she was at home. “They’ll restore the sunroom after I leave, and the living room will be turned into a little shop and information area.”

“When do they want you out?” he asked. They were nearing the end of the road. A bit of dusky daylight broke through the trees and she could clearly see the gray in Tom’s wiry blond ponytail and the glint of light from the small gold hoop in his ear.

“Some time after the first of the year,” she said.

“Where will you … holy shit.” Tom had driven from the gravel road into the parking lot, and the keeper’s house came into view in the evening light. The upper portions of nearly every window were aglow with her stained glass creations.

She followed his gaze to the house. “In the year and a half I’ve lived here, you haven’t seen the keeper’s house at night?” she asked.

Tom stopped the car in the middle of the lot and a smile came slowly to his lips. Shaking his head, he leaned over to pull Lacey toward him, wrapping her in the scent of tobacco as he kissed the top of her head. She had gotten him to stop drinking, but had failed at getting him to give up cigarettes.

“You’re your mother, Lace,” he said. “This is just the sort of thing she would do. Turn her home into a … I don’t know. Someplace magical.”

She felt defeated. She wanted to tell him that she was not her mother any longer, that she had worked hard this last year to rid herself of her mother’s persona. Apparently she had not succeeded. It was hard to succeed when you had no identity of your own to take the place of the one you were trying to discard.

She was surprised to see her father’s van parked in the lot next to Clay’s Jeep. “Dad is here,” she said. “Weird.”

“He doesn’t come to visit you much?” Tom asked, and she heard the competitive edge in his voice. Tom often displayed a quiet envy of Alec O’Neill for having had the honor of raising her.

“He’s smitten with Rani,” she said, not really answering the question. “He likes having a grandbaby.”

Tom laughed. “You have one hell of a complicated family, you know that?”

“I do, indeed.” Lacey unfastened her seat belt. The tight little nuclear family she’d grown up in had added and subtracted so many people that it sometimes seemed difficult to keep track of them all. To complicate her life even further, she worked with both her fathers, spending her mornings in the animal hospital run by the father who had raised her and her afternoons in the art studio with the father who had given her life.

“Is that a kennel?” Tom pointed toward the large fenced area near the edge of the woods. “Is Clay training dogs again?”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “He’s been back at it a few months now.” With Gina and Rani in his life, her brother had undergone a metamorphosis. He was a devoted husband, and practically overnight, he’d developed parenting skills she had never expected to see in him. But it was the day she’d watched him roll chunks of wood and concrete into the forest—obstacles for the dogs he trained in search-and-rescue work—that she knew he was once again a man at peace with his world.

She realized that Tom had not moved his car from the center of the lot.

“Park your car and come in for a while,” she said.

He shook his head. “No, I’ll just head on home.”

“You know you’re welcome,” she said.

“I know that, sugar. But … I just never feel comfortable around Alec. Your dad.”

Lacey smiled. “I’m nearly twenty-six years old, Tom,” she said. “What happened between you and my mother is ancient history and you know my father got over it a long time ago.”

“Some other time,” Tom said.

“Okay.” She opened the car door and stepped out. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She waved as he turned the car around and drove back onto the gravel lane. Slipping off her sandals, she dangled them over her fingertips and started walking across the sand toward the house. The air was thick with salt, and the rhythmic pounding of the waves against the shore was nearly drowned out by the buzz of cicadas.

She often wondered if she should tell Tom the truth about her mother. It was clear that he thought he had been her only affair, as if he alone had been so irresistible that he could cause a woman as saintly as Annie O’Neill to stray. As far as Lacey knew, he did not date anyone, still so haunted by Annie’s ghost that he thought it impossible to find a woman who could take her place. Yet Lacey couldn’t bring herself to hurt him with the truth.

Inside the house, Clay’s black lab, Sasha, ran into the kitchen to greet her, and she dropped her sandals on the floor and bent down to scratch the dog behind his ears. The room smelled of Gina’s cooking—cardamom and turmeric, coconut and ginger. She could hear voices coming from the living room.

“Who’s here, Sash?” she said, as if she didn’t know. “Let’s go see.”

Sasha led the way through the kitchen to the living room, tail wagging, and Lacey stopped in the doorway of the room, not wanting to interrupt the scene in front of her. Gina was stretched out on the sofa, grinning, her arms folded behind her head as she watched Clay and Alec playing on the floor with Rani and her dolls. Clay was making the Indian Barbie, which was bedecked in a pink sari, walk across the rug toward the plastic dollhouse.

“Let’s go to Rani’s house!” he said in a high-pitched voice.

Alec was walking a brown-skinned baby doll—a big blob of a doll compared to the slender, shapely Barbie—around on the carpet. “No,” he said. “I want to go fishing!”

Rani looked alarmed, reaching for the baby doll. “No, no, no!” she said, her enormous black eyes wide in her caramel-colored face. “Everyone comes to my house.”

Lacey laughed. At nearly two and a half, Rani tried hard to control her world. She’d had so little opportunity to control it during her first two years that she was making up for lost time. The little girl looked up at the sound of Lacey’s laughter, then jumped up from the floor.

“Lacey!” she said, running toward her. “I love you!”

Lacey bent down to pick her up. She was a little peanut of a child. So tiny. So full of joy. And so, so wanted.

“Hi, baby,” Lacey said. “I love you, too.”

Gina had struggled to adopt Rani, and once Clay had fallen in love with Gina, he had joined that struggle with his whole heart. They’d spent from July to September in India the year before, fighting the system to get the court’s permission to adopt Rani. The little girl had desperately needed heart surgery, but so many obstacles stood in the way of the adoption that Gina had feared the toddler might die before she could bring her home. Once permission had been received, the three of them were quickly ushered out of the country, escaping before the foreign adoption antagonists could become involved. By that time, Rani was so weak from her heart condition that she could barely hold her head up, and Gina and Clay feared it might be too late to save her. Gina had already made contact with a surgeon in Seattle, so she flew there with Rani. The surgery was successful and the two of them remained in Seattle as Rani healed. Clay had moped around the keeper’s house, unable to think of anything other than the woman and baby he had fallen in love with. He and Gina talked for hours on the phone—for so long, in fact, that Lacey had insisted he get a separate phone line installed in the keeper’s house. In February, Gina and Rani traveled across the country to the Outer Banks. Gina and Clay were married the following day, and Rani, who had arrived shy and quiet and skinny as a twig, quickly blossomed into an insatiable chatterbox who fully recognized her role as the center of the universe. She was spoiled—if it was possible to spoil a child who had spent her first two years with little more than dirt and deprivation—and no one cared.

Lacey carried Rani over to the sofa and sat down next to Gina’s bare feet. She looked at her father, who still sat on the floor, holding the fat baby doll on his lap. “What are you doing here, Dad?” she asked.

Alec set the doll down on the rug and leaned back on his hands. “I wanted to talk to you and Clay,” he said. His serious tone was worrisome. She looked from her father to Clay, who shrugged, apparently as much in the dark as she was. The two men looked so much alike. Long, lanky bodies, translucent blue eyes. The only difference between them were the lines on her father’s face and the gray in his hair. Clay could look at Alec O’Neill and know exactly how he, himself, would look in another twenty years.

Gina sat up and reached for Rani. “I’ll put her to bed,” she said, as if knowing this conversation was meant for Alec and his children and not necessarily for her.

“Good night, sweetie.” Lacey planted a kiss on Rani’s cheek before handing her over to Gina.

Her father stood up as Gina left the room. “Let’s go outside,” he said.

She and Clay followed him through the kitchen, down the porch steps and onto the sand, which felt cool now beneath her feet. In another few weeks the sand would be warm, even at night, never losing the heat from the day. As if on automatic pilot, the three of them started walking side by side toward the remains of the lighthouse. Illuminated by the half-moon, the white lighthouse glowed, its broken rim a ragged line across the night sky. A breeze had kicked up in the short time she’d been inside the house, and Lacey’s long, wild hair blew across her face. If she’d known about the change in weather, she would have tied her hair back before stepping outside. People thought her hair was impossibly beautiful. She thought it was merely impossible.

“What’s up, Dad?” Clay asked, and Lacey wondered if he, too, was remembering the last time their father had asked to speak to both of them, the day he told them that their mother had been unfaithful to him throughout their marriage.

“I received a letter today,” their father said. “I forgot to bring it with me for you two to read it, but essentially it stated that a parole hearing is scheduled in September for Zachary Pointer.”

Clay stopped walking and turned to face his father. “Parole?” He sounded as astonished as she felt. “He’s only been in prison … what? … twelve years?”

“Apparently that’s long enough to get him out on parole.”

Lacey caught her hair in her hands and began to braid it down her back, concentrating hard on the task. She didn’t want to think about Zachary Pointer or relive that night, although the memory was always so near the surface that just the mention of his name would bring it back. Nothing could prevent her from remembering his face, the crazed look in his wild eyes. She could still hear his angry and ugly words toward his wife and see her mother’s noble—and successful—attempt to protect the woman.

Lacey had refused to attend the trial back then; in those days she could focus on nothing other than trying to survive the pain of losing her mother. But once and only once, before she realized what she was looking at and could turn away, she saw Pointer on television. The big man was leaving the courthouse with his lawyer. She’d been riveted by the sight of him. He wept when he spoke to the reporters. She’d been struck by the humanness in his face, by the unmistakable remorse and sorrow and shame she saw there. Now she pictured him in prison all this time, alone with the pain of that remorse. He’d been sick. Mentally ill. There’d been no doubt in her mind, but the jury had adamantly ruled against an insanity plea. Maybe she and Clay and their father should listen to the arguments for allowing him out on parole. Twelve years was a long time.

Stop it, she thought to herself. She had her mother’s genes, whether she wanted them or not; she was doomed to feel compassion for everyone.

“He should have been fried,” she said, the words so alien coming from her mouth that her brother and father both turned to stare at her.

“Well, we’re in agreement then,” her father said after a moment. “We’ll fight his parole. I’ll hire an attorney to find out what our next step should be.”

In her bedroom later that night, Lacey opened the windows wide and let the strong breeze whip the sheer seafoam-colored curtains into the room. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she could hear laughter coming from Clay and Gina’s room. She loved them both and loved that they were together, but the sound of their laughter increased the feeling that often crept over her in the evenings: loneliness. The feeling would only intensify once she was under the covers. That was the most alone time in the world, being in bed at night, in the dark, when all you had for company was your thoughts. The emptiness she felt was not new. It had started when her mother died. She’d lost her father then, too, as he became absorbed in grief. Once he started seeing Olivia, the woman he’d eventually married, he’d shifted that absorption to her. Although Olivia had been very kind to Lacey, she’d been more parent than friend, wrapped up in her own pregnancy and her growing love for Lacey’s father.

Sometime that year Lacey learned that she could fill the void with boys, however temporary that filling might be. She grew to be a woman, the boys grew to be men, but the void remained, yawning and insatiable, and she’d continued to fill it the only way she knew how. She hadn’t had all that many lovers. Not as many as Clay seemed to think when he chastised her about her promiscuity. But all the men she selected seemed to fit the same mold: they were “bad boys,” edgy and exciting, who wanted nothing more from her than a good night in bed. That was the one thing she’d excelled at. Maybe the only thing.

It had not been a conscious choice for Lacey to begin emulating her mother after her death. She’d tried only to be the sort of woman her mother would have wanted her to be, taking on volunteer activities, tutoring kids, reading to the seniors at the retirement home, donating blood as often as allowed. But the pull she’d felt to the wrong sort of men had always distressed her; surely her mother would have disapproved. Little did she know that she was emulating her mother in that regard, as well, and the revelation had shocked her. Annie O’Neill had been, quite simply, a fraud.

Since learning the truth about her mother and her adulterous behavior, Lacey had not had a single lover. Not a single date. She had avoided men altogether, distrustful of her own judgment. She felt like Tom, trying to fight his yearning for alcohol. Tom could not have a single drink or he would be right back where he started. It was the same with her and men.

She’d discarded other qualities she thought of as her mother’s, as well, pulling back from the many volunteer activities she used to do, turning inward. At Clay and Gina’s insistence, she’d seen a counselor, a woman who had been too damn insightful for Lacey’s comfort level. Lacey had presented herself to the woman as a sex addict. The label comforted her somehow, a neat little package that could be addressed through a twelve-step program, the way Tom’s alcoholism was being treated. But the counselor had not agreed. “Depression, yes,” she’d said. “Some self-esteem issues, yes. Sex addiction, no. You don’t fit the criteria.” She’d forced Lacey to look at pieces of her behavior she could not bear to examine. “You’re always doing things for other people,” the counselor had said, “as though you don’t feel you deserve anything for yourself. Focusing on others keeps you from feeling your own pain. You need to let yourself feel it, Lacey, before you can fix it.”

Well, she thought as she slipped beneath the covers on her bed, she was feeling it now.




2


FROM THE OUTSIDE, THE STAINED-GLASS STUDIO in Kill Devil Hills looked the same as when her mother had worked there. Set back just a few yards from Croatan Highway, its floor-to-ceiling windows were filled with stained-glass panels, but the trained eye would be able to detect a difference between then and now. Tom’s glasswork had changed over the years and was now more geometric, and there was less of it since he had gradually shifted his focus to photography over the years. Lacey’s stained-glass panels hung intermingled with his. She did not think her work was as beautiful as her mother’s had been; she had never mastered some of Annie’s special touches, which had seemed more of an infusion of feeling rather than the result of a specific technique. But Lacey’s work was popular, nonetheless. She had her own style, and her subject matter leaned more toward animals and florals than the stunning gowned women her mother had been known for. Lacey’s worktable was the same one her mother had used, placed next to Tom’s, as it had always been. She used her mother’s tools, as well. For a long time she used her mother’s green safety glasses, in spite of the fact that they were scratched and worn. A year ago, though, she’d tossed them away and bought her own glasses, amazed at how clearly she could suddenly see her work and the world.

Two women—tourists—were in the studio, oohing and aahing over the artwork. Although Tom was out to lunch, a third woman stood next to his worktable, seemingly mesmerized by the work in progress resting on the tabletop. From the corner of her eye, Lacey saw one of the women run her fingers lightly over a stained-glass egret hanging in the window. She would buy it, Lacey knew. She could read the people who came into the studio. Those who were simply spending idle time held their arms folded across their chests as they walked around the room, looking without really seeing. Others, like the woman touching the egret, could not tear themselves away from a particular piece. They studied it from every angle. They reached out and touched. They imagined how the colors would look in their homes. They’d drag a friend over to see the piece. The friend would nod. Sold.

Sure enough, the woman walked toward Lacey, a smile on her lips.

“I’d like to buy the egret,” she said. “Are you the artist?”

Lacey set down her glass cutter and slipped off her safety glasses. “That’s me,” she said, standing up. “I’m glad you’re taking that one. It’s one of my favorites.” This was not a lie, not a ploy to make the woman feel good about her purchase. She loved the shades of green she’d found for the tall grasses surrounding the giant bird. She would make another piece similar to this one now that it was sold, but it would not be exactly the same. She liked the idea that each of her stained-glass panels was one-of-a-kind.

The woman and her friends were just leaving the studio with the carefully wrapped glass egret when a man walked through the front door. His eyes lit briefly on Lacey, then on the large black-and-white photograph hanging on the movable wall in the center of the room. The picture had been there for as long as Lacey could remember.

The man stopped walking. Slipping his hands into his pockets, he stared at the photograph, then at Lacey again. “What a beautiful shot of you,” he said.

“That’s not me,” Lacey said. “That’s my mother.”

“Oh.” The man winced as though embarrassed by his mistake. “Quite a resemblance.”

“People always think it’s me,” she said. A year earlier she had wanted to take that picture down, but Tom was the photographer and she could never have explained to him why a photograph she had once loved had come to disturb her.

“Were you the photographer?” the man asked.

“No. I was only about ten when that was taken.”

“Oh. Of course.” He had wandered toward the display table near the window and carefully picked up one of her kaleidoscopes. “This is beautiful,” he said, holding the heavy stained-glass tube in his hands.

“Look through it,” she said.

He lifted the kaleidoscope to his left eye and faced the window. “It’s beautiful,” he said again, turning the disk, and she knew what he was seeing—triangles of design formed by intensely colored glass beads and slivers of mirror.

Lowering the kaleidoscope, he looked over at her. “Did you make this?”

“Uh-huh.”

He looked like one of those preppy sort of guys you might see modeling clothes in a catalogue. His brown hair was cut short and his eyes were dark, with lashes she could see from across the room. He was hardly dressed for the beach, in his khaki-colored chinos and plaid sport shirt. Although she supposed most women would find him drop-dead gorgeous, he was not her type and that relieved her, because he was obviously interested in her. She would not be tempted. She went for the earthier types—a little disheveled, imperfect features, knowing grins and the sort of eyes that cut right through to her soul. She was grateful that this guy did not come close to fitting that bill.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Lacey O’Neill.”

“And is all this stained glass yours?” He motioned toward the windows.

“Most of it. Some of it was made by Tom Nestor.” She nodded toward Tom’s empty worktable. “He’s at lunch. All the photographs are his.”

The man glanced again at the huge black-and-white print of her mother.

“Including that one,” she said.

He walked across the room to her worktable. He was still holding the kaleidoscope, and he shifted it to his left hand as he held his right out toward her.

“I’m Rick Tenley,” he said.

She shook his hand. “You just here for the week?” she asked, making conversation. Most tourists visited the Outer Banks for a week.

“Actually, no.” He lifted the kaleidoscope to his eye again and gently spun the wheel. “I’m staying in a buddy’s cottage while I’m working on a book. He’s in Europe, and I wanted the peace and quiet.”

She had to laugh. “Not much peace and quiet around here during the summer.”

He lowered the kaleidoscope with a smile. “Well, it’s away from my regular life,” he said. “None of the usual interruptions.”

She spotted Tom walking up the front steps of the studio, and Rick followed her gaze to the door.

“This is the other artist,” she said as Tom walked into the room. “Tom Nestor, this is Rick …”

“Tenley.” Rick turned to shake Tom’s hand. “You do beautiful work,” he said.

“Thanks.”

There was an awkward moment of silence between the three of them. Rick turned to face Lacey again, a question in his eyes she couldn’t read, and in that instant, she knew he wanted something more from her than stained glass.

“Rick is here for the summer, working on a novel,” she said, to break the silence.

“Not a novel,” Rick said. “It’s nonfiction. Dry stuff.”

“Ah.” Tom moved to the coffeepot at the side of the room. He poured himself a cup, then lifted it to his lips, looking at Rick over the rim. “Where are you from?” he asked.

“Chapel Hill,” Rick said. “I teach at Duke.”

She couldn’t help but be impressed. He looked too young to teach in a high school, much less a university. “What do you teach?” she asked.

“Law.”

“Wow,” she said. “That’s great.”

Tom sat down at his table, slipped on his safety glasses and returned to his work, probably figuring that the stilted conversation was not worth his time.

“How long have you lived here?” Rick asked her.

“My whole life.”

He held the kaleidoscope toward her. “I’d like to buy this,” he said.

“Good choice.” She wondered if he truly liked it or if he was simply trying to ingratiate himself with her. Taking the kaleidoscope from him, she began wrapping it in tissue paper. She could feel him appraising her.

Don’t look at me that way, she thought to herself. From the corner of her eye, she saw him glance at Tom, then back at her, and she guessed he was trying to figure out if they might be a couple. A very odd couple. A twentysomething-year-old woman and a fiftysomething-year-old ponytailed ex-hippie. Apparently, he came to the correct conclusion.

“Any chance you’d have dinner with me tonight?” he asked her. “You probably know all the best places to eat.”

“Oh, sorry, I can’t,” she answered quickly, prepared for the invitation. She thought of telling him she was going to the gym, which was the truth, but then he might ask if he could join her there. She slipped the wrapped kaleidoscope into a plastic bag and handed it to him. “I can recommend some places for you, though.”

“Are you … attached?” He caught himself. “Sorry. That was blunt. None of my business.”

She might have lied, but found she couldn’t with Tom listening in on the conversation.

“Not really,” she hedged. “I’m just … I’m busy tonight.”

“Okay.” He seemed to accept that. “Some other time, maybe.” He held the bag in the air like a salute. “Thanks for the kaleidoscope.”

“You’re welcome.”

She watched him leave the studio and walk across the small lot, where he got into a BMW the same color as his pants. She felt Tom’s gaze on her and knew he was smiling.

“He’ll be back,” Tom said, standing up to pour himself another cup of coffee. “A guy like that isn’t used to rejection.”




3


THE COTTAGE WAS TUCKED DEEP IN THE WOODS on the sound side of the island, but when Rick sat on the small, rotting deck, he could see patches of sun-soaked water between the branches of the loblolly pines. He could hold the kaleidoscope to his eye, aim it toward those silvery patches of water, and watch the beads of glass form designs as he twirled the wheel.

The cottage did not belong to a friend, as he had told Lacey O’Neill. He wasn’t even certain why he’d said that. Maybe he was simply practicing for the other lies he would have to tell. He was actually renting this place. It had two minuscule bedrooms, one more than he needed. No TV to distract him from his writing. No air-conditioning, but he could handle the heat. There was a phone line to connect him to e-mail and the Internet, and electricity for his computer. That was all he required. When he’d first entered the musty-smelling cottage four days earlier, he’d guessed it had not changed in the seventy years or so of its existence. He doubted a stick of furniture had been replaced. The tourists who usually came to the Outer Banks for the summer would disdain this sort of place. They wanted houses that slept ten, televisions in every room, hot tubs, pools, views. That’s why he’d been able to get the run-down cottage for a song. And it was perfect.

There was a short, overgrown path that ran from the deck through the woods to a sliver of sand at the edge of the sound. Each day since his arrival, he’d taken a beach chair down to the water’s edge and read or worked or just watched the boats from his nearly hidden vantage point. Last night, when it had been too hot to sleep, he took his flashlight and walked through the trees to the water’s edge, then swam out into the bay, the quiet of the night surrounding him. He planned to make that nighttime swim a habit. There were grasses or something underwater that had given him the creeps as he swam away from the shore, but once he’d gotten past the grasping tendrils, the cool, dark water had buoyed him up and felt good against his skin. He’d floated on his back, and thought about Lacey O’Neill. That red hair. The warmth in her blue eyes. She was a kind person; you could tell that before she even opened her mouth. He would have to try again with her. He was not the type to give up. You didn’t make it through law school by being a quitter.

He’d practiced law for only a year before going the teaching route. The university had overlooked his lack of experience for his excellent command of his material, and he’d been grateful. He preferred teaching law to practicing it. He’d never liked twisting the truth to fit the needs of his clients, and sometimes that had been not only necessary but expected. He could never tell a lie without remembering his father’s advice. He’d been only eight or nine when he’d overheard his father tell an elderly aunt that she looked nice in a new outfit when in reality, she’d looked like a pruny old woman trying to appear far younger than her years. In private, he’d asked his father if he really believed the old woman looked nice. “Sometimes a lie can be a gift,” his father had said. They were the words Rick tried to follow in his life. He would lie only when it was a gift.

He waited two days before returning to the stained glass studio, and he was glad to find Lacey there alone. The older man with the ponytail had made him uncomfortable. He’d seemed entirely too interested in his conversation with Lacey.

She was standing on a stepladder, hanging a stained-glass panel in the window, when he walked in.

“Hi, Lacey,” he said.

She glanced down at him, and he was pleased to see her smile.

“Hi, Rick,” she said, slipping the wire attached to the panel over a hook above the window.

“Do you need some help there?”

“I do this all the time,” she said as she descended the ladder. Once on the floor, she started to fold the ladder, but he took it from her hands.

“I don’t mean to badger you,” he said, folding it for her. “But you’ve been on my mind. Every time I look through that kaleidoscope, I think about you and your red hair. I’d really like to buy you dinner. Any night. You can choose.”

She sighed with a smile, and he knew he was making it difficult for her to offer a graceful rejection.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “The truth is, I’m taking a break from dating these days.”

“Oh. Oh, I understand.” He had the feeling she was being honest, and that only increased his guilt. “I’ve done that a time or two myself. You’re getting over a bad relationship, I guess, huh?”

“Something like that.” She took the ladder from him and carried it over to the side of the studio, resting it against the wall.

“Well, how about if it’s not a date?” he asked. “We won’t dress up. I won’t even pick you up. We can meet someplace very public. And we won’t have any fun.”

That made her laugh. “All right,” she said, shaking her head. “You win.”

They made arrangements for the following night, and he left the studio far happier than when he’d arrived. In the parking lot, he got into his car and buckled his seat belt.

Yes, he thought as he turned the key in the ignition. I win.




4


FAYE COLLIER WALKED INTO THE HOSPITAL GYM and climbed onto her favorite elliptical trainer machine, the one positioned in the middle of the wall of windows, so she could have an uninterrupted view of the San Diego hills while she worked out. Judy and Leda, the two physical therapists in the chronic pain program and her workout buddies, took the elliptical trainers on either side of her. Faye wondered briefly how the three of them looked from the rear. She was Judy and Leda’s supervisor and had a master’s degree in nursing. She was blond, while they were both brunettes, yet she was twenty-five years older than either of them, and when it came to the backs of their thighs, she had no illusion that the physical therapists had her beat.

“What do you think of that new patient?” Judy pressed some buttons on the console and started moving her legs and arms in a long, smooth stride.

“The young guy with bone cancer?” Faye asked. “I think he needs—”

“Hi, Faye.” Jim Price was suddenly next to her, standing between her elliptical trainer and Leda’s. The sight of him put an instant smile on her face. She hoped she wasn’t blushing.

“Hi,” she said, slowing her pace on the machine. “I didn’t know you worked out during lunch.”

“I don’t,” he said. “But I just finished the paper you gave me to read and wanted to compliment you on it. Excellent.”

“I’m glad you liked it,” she said. She could feel perspiration, the result of the workout and a poorly timed hot flash, running down her throat and between her breasts. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.

“I made a few comments on it,” Jim said. “I’ll show you tonight, okay?”

She was blushing now. Judy and Leda had grown very quiet. They both slowed their machines to soften the noise from the flywheels, and she knew they were hanging on every word of her conversation with Jim. “That’ll be great,” she said. In the light from the window, his eyes were a delicate bronze color. She had not noticed that about him before.

Jim motioned for her to lean down so he could whisper in her ear. “You look terrific,” he said, his breath soft against her skin.

She straightened up again, smiling, and mouthed the word “thanks.”

He left her side, and Faye was grateful that Judy and Leda had the presence of mind not to say anything until he was well out of hearing distance.

“So,” Judy asked. “When’s your next date with him?”

“Tonight,” she said. Even though she had slowed her pace significantly, the monitor showed that her heart rate was the highest it had been since she’d climbed on the machine. She could not believe she was allowing a man to have that sort of effect on her.

“You are so lucky,” Leda said.

Faye knew that many of the women—and some of the men—working in the hospital had a thing for Jim Price. Even the young women wanted him. A widower for two years, Jim had left his surgery practice to take care of his wife during the last few months of her life, and nearly everyone found that sort of love and sacrifice laudable. He had money, looks that were rare for a man of fifty-five, and he was kind to patients and staff alike. Faye had known him for years, since he often referred patients to the pain program she had created, but he had not truly seemed to notice her until a few weeks ago, when her book on treating chronic pain was published. Someone must have told him that she had also lost a spouse, and his interest in her had been doubly piqued. In their first real conversation, they’d discovered another commonality: they had both grown up in North Carolina. That fact seemed to seal their fate as two people who should get to know one another better.

“Is it getting serious?” Leda asked.

“Define serious.”

“Have you slept with him?”

“Of course not. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“But this will be the third date, right?” Judy asked.

“Yes. So?”

Leda laughed. “So you’d better shave your legs.”

“Why?” She felt dense. Old and dense. She was also a little breathless and couldn’t help but notice that Leda and Judy seemed to be having no problem talking as they pedaled the machines.

“The third date is when you do it,” Leda said.

Faye laughed. “Who says?”

“That’s the rule these days, Faye.”

Faye pulled her water bottle from the holder near the machine’s console and took a drink. “Well, he probably doesn’t know the rules any better than I do,” she said. As their superior, she knew she was crossing a boundary by talking to Judy and Leda about her love life, but this was one area in which they were more knowledgeable than she was and she wanted their input. “We talked about that, actually,” she said. “About dating being new to each of us.” She hoped no one was filling Jim in on “the third-date rule.”

“It really depends on what those first two dates were like, though.” Judy let go of the handlebars to pull the scrunchie from her dark hair and stick it in the pocket of her shorts. “Where did you go?”

“Starbucks the first time, and out to eat the second.” Their first date had been a casual, impromptu sort of thing. He’d bumped into her in the hospital corridor, told her he’d read her new book and been impressed by it, and asked her if she wanted to get a drink after work that evening. They’d ended up at a Starbucks instead of a bar, and the coffee date lasted four hours. He did most of the talking, and that had been fine with her. As a matter of fact, she’d asked him questions nonstop to keep him from asking any of her. She was not good at sharing her life story. He had opened up easily about his, though, telling her about his North Carolina childhood, his marriage, his two daughters. He was so open that she’d felt guilty for all she was keeping to herself. But he didn’t seem to mind. He wanted someone’s ear to bend, and she’d been very willing.

“Starbucks doesn’t really count.” Judy took a swig from her own water bottle.

“How long did you stay there?” Leda asked.

“Four hours.” They probably would have stayed longer, but Starbucks had been closing.

“Oh,” they both said at the same time, nodding.

“That counts, then,” Leda said. “That’s totally a first date.”

“And do you talk on the phone a lot?” Judy asked.

“Not really.” He had called her a couple of times and e-mailed a couple more, but nothing lengthy or deep.

“Because a lot of phone calls count as a date.”

Faye laughed. “You two …”

“I would say that four hours on the phone equals one date,” Judy said.

Faye rolled her eyes, nearly too winded to respond. Her thighs were burning.

“Where was the second date?” Leda asked.

“The Sky Room,” she managed to say. Again, he had been the talkative one. By the end of the evening, she realized he had not asked her a single question about herself other than what she wanted to eat. Another woman might have found that annoying. She’d welcomed it.

“Very nice.” Judy nodded her approval. “Did he pay for you?”

“Yes … but I wasn’t sure how to handle that,” she said. “Should I have paid for myself?”

“No. Always let the guy pay,” Leda said.

“I don’t agree,” Judy countered. “You should at least offer to pay your share. Or pick up the check the next time you go out. So, you can pay tonight.”

“I would never pay,” Leda said. “Especially not with someone as wealthy as Dr. Price.”

“Where is he taking you tonight?” Judy asked.

Faye hesitated. She really was saying far too much. She pushed the button to lower the machine’s resistance. “We’re going to a party,” she said. “Some friends of his.”

“And then back to your house for a nightcap?” Judy asked.

“I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

“Oh, girl,” Leda laughed. “You are ending up in bed tonight. No doubt about it.”

“I barely know him.” Faye felt priggish. “Or rather, he barely knows me.”

“Well, what did you talk about all those hours in Starbucks and at the restaurant?” Leda asked.

“He did most of the talking.”

Leda groaned, shaking her head in disgust. “That is so typical. All they want is someone to listen to them.”

“You make sure he gets to know you before you sleep with him,” Judy said. “You know, you as a person.” She let go of the handlebar to take another swallow of water. “Otherwise you’ll feel used,” she continued. “He can say to himself, I slept with that hot-looking nurse and I didn’t even have to listen to her whine about her life.”

Faye was quiet, enjoying the fact that Judy had called her hot-looking. She hoped she was not being patronized.

“How long has it been for you?” Leda asked.

“Hey!” Faye said with a shake of her head. “I’m your supervisor, remember?”

“This conversation is off the record,” Leda said conspiratorially. “Okay? You need help.”

She let out her breath, knowing she was going to tell them. She did need help. “My husband was my first and only,” she admitted.

“Oh, my God.” Judy stopped her machine altogether. “And he die … passed away, what? Ten years ago?”

Faye had to smile at the euphemism. They worked in a hospital, for heaven’s sake, and Judy never used the term “passed away.” But somehow, everyone had learned to treat Faye with kid gloves when it came to the subject of her late husband.

“Nearly thirteen years,” she said.

“Wow, Faye,” Leda said. “It must feel like being a virgin all over again.”

She grew quiet. That was exactly how she felt, awkward and scared by the thought of taking off her clothes in front of a man, by the uncertainty of what to do, what would be expected of her. No one would call her fat—at least she hoped not—but she had grown bulky the way women often did at middle age, despite working out and watching her diet. She had little waistline left, her thighs were well padded. When she lay on her side in bed, she was aware of the force of gravity on her belly and breasts and could hardly imagine a man wrapping his arm around her in that position. Yet she had been imagining it lately. She’d been wondering what it would be like to lie in bed with Jim Price.

Judy reached out to touch her arm in sympathy. “It will be fine. He’s the type who’ll use protection and make sure you’re … you know, happy.”

“He wouldn’t need to use protection,” she said. “He hasn’t had anyone since his wife. And I’m menopausal.”

“Oh, my God.” Leda laughed. “You’d better take a tube of K-Y Jelly from the supply room.”

“Okay, that’s really enough!” Faye’s cheeks burned, although she was laughing herself. She stopped the machine and stepped off it too quickly. The carpeted floor felt as if it was moving beneath her feet. “I’m done,” she said. “See you downstairs.”

Jim picked her up at 7:30 p.m., looking handsome, his salt-and-pepper hair in contrast to his black suit and tie. It was to be a fancy event, something for charity, and she hoped she was dressed appropriately. Semiformal, he’d said. She wore a short-sleeved, tea-length burgundy dress. She had good ankles—of that she was confident. His eyes lit up when she opened the door for him, and she guessed she was dressed just fine.

He was talkative, as usual, on the way to the party, but the conversation was geared to the article she had written on the use of meditation in the treatment of chronic pain. She’d wanted his feedback on it before she submitted it to a journal. His comments were excellent, right on target, and she could tell the subject matter was nearly as close to his heart as it was to her own. She wondered if he was thinking about the pain of his patients or of his wife as he made a few suggestions for changes in the article.

The party was held on the twelfth floor of a downtown hotel, in a huge penthouse that offered a spectacular view of the city lights and the Coronado bay bridge. The crowd, slightly stiff and overdressed, was made up of doctors and politicians and their spouses. The women glittered with jewelry, and she wondered how obvious it would be to them that her earrings were made of cubic zirconium and her dress had been purchased at JCPenney’s.

Jim took her arm and held it locked through his own, as if to give her courage. She recognized many of the physicians and saw a few of them raise their eyebrows in what she gathered was surprise at seeing her so firmly tethered to Jim Price’s side. A photographer from San Diego Magazine snapped pictures of the guests as they milled around the huge, open room, and Faye wondered if she would see her face in the society pages of the magazine. She’d never cared for glitter, for the trappings of wealth, but she could not help but be impressed with both the other guests and with herself for simply being there. She wondered how much Jim had paid to get them into this party. It was a cancer benefit, though, she reminded herself. Cancer had killed his wife. He probably welcomed any opportunity to donate to that cause. He had not asked her what had killed her husband, and for that, she was grateful.

Conversation with the other attendees was easier than she’d anticipated. Several people knew who she was; a few of the doctors even knew about her book. Jim was good at introductions, telling her a little something about each person she met and giving that person a tidbit or two about her. He was used to this sort of high-powered social event. That much was obvious.

Halfway through the evening, when Jim had been taken aside by someone to talk business, one of the women ushered Faye away from the crowd and into the women’s lounge.

“I just wanted to tell you how thrilled we all are to see Jim with someone,” the woman said. She was very attractive, her dark hair twisted into a knot at the back of her head. She had to be close to sixty, but her skin was flawless. “He grieved for so long.”

Faye was touched by the woman’s words, but she felt a need to defend Jim. “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t think there’s a time line on grief, though.”

“No, of course not,” the woman said. There was a faint hint of an accent to her voice. Italian, perhaps. “It’s just that he hasn’t looked happy in years. He looks happy tonight, though.” The woman smiled. “We were worried that if he finally did find someone, it would be one of the young nurses he works with. We’re a little sick of watching the older guys leave the wives who’ve stuck by them all these years for some young babe.”

“Well, I guess I’m glad for once that I look my age.” Faye laughed. She knew a backhanded compliment when she received one.

“Oh, sorry.” The woman laughed at her own faux pas and squeezed Faye’s hand. “I didn’t mean to imply that you look old. Just—”

“I know what you meant,” Faye said, forgiving her with a smile.

“Just, someone with maturity,” the woman continued. “It’s refreshing. My husband has an oncology practice in Escondido and he read your book. He said you’re the real deal.”

“That’s so nice to hear,” Faye said, as sincere as she was surprised.

“I’m Rosa Stein, by the way,” the woman said. “How do you do.”

“So, is it serious between the two of you?” That question again.

“Not yet.”

“Well.” Rosa touched her shoulder. “I hope it gets that way.”

“Me, too.” Faye surprised herself with the words.

When they stepped out of the lounge, she spotted Jim across the room, near the window. He was engaged in conversation with a man and a woman, and the sight of him filled her chest with warmth. God, she liked him.

“Thanks for going with me,” he said later, as he drove her back to her house. “I know those affairs can be stuffy, but they’re for a good cause.”

“I enjoyed it,” she said honestly. She was wondering how to handle the next part of the evening. Leda and Judy’s discussion of the third-date rule still rang in her head.

He pulled into the driveway of her modest, one-story house, shut off the engine, and turned to her with a smile. Reaching over, he gently touched the short hair at the back of her neck. Her heartbeat kicked up a notch, both at his touch and at her uncertainty about what to do next. She had to say something.

“If I invite you in,” she said, “does it sound like I’m asking you for more than coffee and conversation?”

He laughed lightly, then took her hand. “That’s what I like about you,” he said. “You’re so straightforward. No games. And though I’d love to come in for some coffee and conversation, I think maybe I’d better not. I’m not ready for … for …”

It was the first time she’d seen him at a loss for words, but she understood.

“Neither am I,” she said.

He walked her to her door, where he leaned down and kissed her softly on the lips.

“I can’t believe I used to work with you and never even noticed you,” he said, drawing back to look at her.

“You were thinking about your patients,” she said. “And your wife.”

He nodded slowly. “I think that’s one thing that drew me to you.” He smoothed a strand of her hair away from her forehead. “You know, the fact that you were widowed. That you know what that’s like.”

“Yes,” she said, although the truth was, she didn’t know.

She was only pretending.




5


LACEY DIDN’T EVEN CONSIDER TELLING CLAY and Gina that she had a date. She left the keeper’s house at six-thirty, stating only that she was meeting a friend for dinner. They would assume it was a female friend; they knew she wasn’t up for dating. They were proud of her. Everyone was, as though she’d successfully battled her demons and won. For the most part, she had, although she knew she wasn’t yet ready for temptation.

A date with Rick Tenley, however, was no threat to the pact she’d made with herself to end her promiscuous behavior. He was the sort of man that might make other women swoon, but his preppy good looks did nothing for her. He was simply a nice guy, and she would have dinner with him as friends. She also had an ulterior motive in meeting with him: he was a lawyer. She might be able to pick his brain about how she and her family should approach Zachary Pointer’s parole hearing.

She’d had trouble deciding where to meet him, finally deciding on the Blue Point Grill in Duck. She would have preferred a restaurant less filled with tourists, but Shorty’s Grill, her favorite eatery, was not the sort of place she could picture a guy like Rick. Besides, everyone knew her at Shorty’s, and tongues would start wagging. If people wondered why they never saw her with a man these days, they were keeping their curiosity to themselves, and for that she was grateful. She didn’t need to stir the pot. It would be best if she and Rick simply blended in with the tourists.

He was already waiting for her when she pulled into the parking lot by the Blue Point. She could see him on the deck next to the little restaurant, leaning against the railing, looking into the water. He was dressed in a sports coat and crisply pressed trousers, and she wondered if her description of the restaurant had made it sound more formal than it was. Didn’t he realize he was at the beach? No one dressed up here. Plus, it was hot. He had to be roasting in that jacket.

She pulled a wide barrette from her purse and clipped back as much of her hair as would fit inside the clasp, letting the rest of it fall free over her shoulders. Her long sundress skirted her sandaled feet as she got out of her car and started walking toward the deck. The dress was loose-fitting without being matronly. At least she hoped it was not matronly. Her wardrobe had changed dramatically. She’d tossed out her more provocative clothing, shocked at how little that left in her closet, and she’d taken herself on one of the most depressing shopping sprees of her life. She might as well let her belly button piercing close up for all the exposure it had gotten this year.

Rick turned just as she climbed the last step onto the deck, and he smiled broadly when he saw her. “Great choice,” he said, motioning toward the restaurant. “The specials look fantastic.”

“I thought you’d like it,” she said. “Everything they serve is good.”

They had a short wait for a table and they passed the time standing on the deck, leaning against the railing and watching the sailboats on the sound.

“It’s going to be a beautiful sunset,” he said, noting the clouds on the horizon.

She nodded. “I grew up on the sound,” she said.

“That must have been wonderful.” He pointed south. “The cottage I’m staying in is just a mile or so in that direction. It’s on the water, too, but it doesn’t have a view like this. It’s very small and so deep in the woods you can barely see it until you’re on top of it. But there’s a path leading to the sound.”

“It must be perfect for someone working on a book,” she said.

“You’re right. It is.”

The hostess stepped onto the deck to call them into the restaurant, and Rick rested his hand on her back as they walked into the welcome air-conditioning. They were lucky to get a table by the window, and he held the back of her chair as she took her seat.

“Did you write today?” she asked as he sat down across from her.

“Not as much as I should have,” he said. “It was so beautiful out, I had to play a round of golf.”

“Ah,” she said. “Do you do that often? Play golf?”

“As often as I can.” He smiled at the waitress who brought them their water, and Lacey saw the young woman nearly melt under the power of Rick’s long dark eyelashes and white teeth.

They studied the menu for a few minutes, both of them selecting the shrimp and scallops. The waitress took their order, and once she had walked away, Rick returned his gaze to Lacey.

“So,” he said, lowering the cloth napkin to his lap. “Do you want to tell me about your breakup?”

For a moment, she thought he had said “breakdown” and was startled by the question. She would not have described what she went through after learning about her mother’s infidelities as a breakdown, and how could he know about that, anyhow? With relief, she realized what he had actually said.

“What breakup?” she asked.

“You know, the breakup that’s made you take a breather from dating.”

“Oh, it’s not that.” She suddenly wished she were a more dishonest person. She could simply say, “Yes, it was painful, but I’m getting over it.” Even as a kid, though, she’d been a lousy liar. “I’ve just sworn off men for a while,” she said.

“Because you were hurt?”

“Only by myself.” She offered a rueful smile. “By my choices. My actions. I have a tendency to move too fast. To not look out for myself. To pick the wrong kind of guy.” That was enough. She didn’t need to go into any more detail with him.

The waitress poured wine into their glasses and neither of them spoke until she had walked away again.

“What’s the wrong kind of guy?” he asked.

“Oh, well.” She squirmed uncomfortably, wanting to change the direction of the conversation. “Not a guy like you.”

He raised his eyebrows, and she realized she might be giving him hope with that statement.

“All I mean is that you seem very safe to me,” she said.

He laughed, his wineglass halfway to his lips. “Why does that feel like an insult?” he asked.

“It’s not,” she said. “At least I didn’t mean it that way.”

He took a sip of his wine and set the glass on the table again, then leaned forward. “You don’t need to worry about me, Lacey,” he said. “You’ve made it clear you don’t want a romance. I’ll honor that.”

“Thank you,” she said, grateful for that clear communication. He really had a lot of charm. She could think of a couple of friends she could fix him up with who would appreciate him far more than she would.

“So, now,” he said. “Tell me everything there is to know about you.”

“Everything?”

“You grew up on the sound, you said. A child of the sand and the sea.”

She nodded. “Exactly.”

“Is your family still in the area?”

“My father and stepmother live nearby, in Sanderling. My brother and his wife and their little girl live with me in the keeper’s house at the Kiss River light station.”

“You’re kidding. You live in a keeper’s house?”

She nodded.

“How did you manage that?”

“I got very lucky. My brother and I helped with the restoration of the house. It’s going to be turned into a museum next year, though, and we’ll have to leave then, unfortunately.”

“Amazing.” He sipped his wine again. “You didn’t mention your mother,” he said. “That beautiful woman in the photograph at your studio. You have her dimples. Does she live nearby, too?”

“No,” Lacey said. “She died when I was thirteen.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” He looked a bit embarrassed and she wished she could say something to put him at ease.

“It was a long time ago,” she said.

“It must be so hard to lose a mother, especially as a girl that age. Had she been sick long?”

“She wasn’t sick. She was murdered.”

“God, no. What happened?” He raised a hand to prevent her from answering him. “I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about this. I mean, I’d understand if you don’t want to.”

“Actually, I’d like to tell you about it since you’re a lawyer. I’d like to pick your brain a little, if you don’t mind.”

“What about?” He leaned back as the waitress set their plates of shrimp and scallops in front of them, and Lacey waited until the woman had walked away again.

She picked up a slice of bread from the basket on the table. “Well,” she said, spreading butter on the bread, “my family and I just learned that her murderer may be getting out on parole and we want to prevent that from happening. My dad’s getting in touch with an attorney, but I wondered if you might know what we should do to fight it.” She took a bite from the bread and watched him absorb the information.

He sighed. “That’s not my area of expertise, I’m afraid,” he said. “Not by a long shot. I’m a tax attorney. I could run it by some of my friends, though, if that would help.”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that.” She suddenly felt guilty for asking.

“How did it happen exactly?” he asked. “Your mother.”

Between bites of seafood, she told him about the battered women’s shelter and how her mother had saved the life of Zachary Pointer’s wife. Rick listened with rare attentiveness for a man, barely touching his food as she spoke.

“It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “She sounded very special. I’m so sorry.” He reached across the table for her hand, and she let him hold it. His touch felt friendly, brotherly. She thought he actually had tears in his eyes, but she wasn’t sure. One thing she was certain of was that she really was safe with this guy. Maybe he could be a friend. But she let her hand rest in his only a moment before gently withdrawing it.

“What’s your goal?” he asked. “I mean, with the legal system. Do you want to punish him longer or do you want to keep him off the streets because you think he might hurt someone else?”

“Well, we—my father and brother and I and all the people around here who loved my mother—we just feel that twelve years is not long enough. He’d be out, alive and healthy and free and getting on with his life, while my mother can never come back.”

“I’m going to look into this for you,” he said with sudden determination. “I can check with people who know that part of the law better than I do.”

“That’s so nice of you.”

“I have one important question for you first,” he said.

She set her fork on the edge of her plate, waiting for him to continue.

“I may be … I apologize, because this might not be fair of me to ask, but … have you thought about what pursuing this will cost you?”

She opened her mouth to reply, but he stopped her.

“I don’t mean financially,” he said. “I mean emotionally. It could be long and drawn out. You and your family need to really think this through. You need to be sure you’re up for going through the whole thing again.”

“I think we have to do it,” she said.

He moved a scallop around on his plate. “I’m just playing devil’s advocate here, all right?” he asked. “I can’t possibly know how this feels to you, how it feels to lose your mother … but have you thought of … just letting it go? Putting it behind you? Maybe even taking it one step further by forgiving the guy who did it?”

He must have seen her stiffen, because he continued quickly.

“Maybe not forgive him, exactly, although I have to tell you, I believe strongly in the power of forgiveness,” he said. “It brings peace to the person doing the forgiving. I understand that’s probably too much to ask. But you might consider not fighting his release. Not wasting your energy on him. As long as the parole board decides he’s not a danger to anyone else, as long as he’s truly been rehabilitated, can you just let it go?”

She shook her head. “No,” she said.

“Lacey, I’m not talking about letting it go for his sake, but for yours,” he said, his dark eyes searching her face. “If you fight this, you’ll have to relive everything that happened.”

“I’ll never stop reliving it,” she said, but she was frankly touched by what he had said. He was a kind man, and she knew there was wisdom in his words. “You sound like you’ve been through something like this.”

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not really.” He pressed his napkin to his lips, then smiled at her again. “I haven’t known you long,” he said, his voice soft, “but just seeing you with customers at the studio, seeing the sweet and gentle way you are with me, I can tell that you’re a compassionate person. I bet you usually forgive people very easily.”

“Well.” She sighed, lifting her fork from the edge of her plate. “The irony is that my mother would have been the first to forgive him,” she said, spearing a scallop. “Unfortunately, though, I’m nothing like her.”




6


LACEY STOOD NEXT TO THE EXAMINING TABLE at the animal hospital, her hands buried in the thick, black shoulder fur of a Bernese mountain dog, while her father snipped the stitches from several shaved areas on the dog’s side.

“You’re being such a good boy,” Lacey cooed to the dog. He was huge, a hundred and ten pounds, and panting up a storm. His heavy coat was not designed for a North Carolina summer.

“He’s healing very well,” her father said.

From where she stood, she could see how the gray was rapidly invading her father’s once dark hair, and for some reason, that distressed her.

“Don’t you try to escape again,” Lacey said to the dog, who appeared to be ignoring her. He stared straight ahead at the wall, stoically tolerating the procedure until he could return to the waiting room and his beloved owner. The dog belonged to a family staying in a beachfront house, and he’d run straight through a flimsy wooden fence on the day of their arrival, anxious to cool off in the ocean.

Suzy, the receptionist, suddenly opened the door to the examining room and poked her head inside.

“There’s a gorgeous vase full of yellow roses out here for you, Lacey,” she said. “They were just delivered.”

“You’re kidding.” Lacey looked at Suzy. “Who are they from?” She knew there could only be one answer to that question.

Suzy held up a small envelope. “You’ve got your hands full,” she said. “Want me to open it for you?”

Lacey nodded, and Suzy pulled out the card and held it toward her. One hand still deep in the dog’s fur, Lacey took the card and read the handwritten message to herself. You are the best thing about this summer. With affection, Rick.

“Well?” Suzy asked with a grin, her curiosity clearly piqued.

“A friend.” Lacey slipped the card into the pocket of her lab coat. “Thanks for letting me know.”

Suzy left the room, and Lacey did not need to look at her father to know his eyes were on her.

“Roses, huh?” he asked. Two little words, but she knew all that was behind them. What are you doing, Lacey? Are you being careful? Are you falling into your old ways?

“Not from anyone special, Dad,” she said.

He returned his attention to the stitches without another word, but she knew he wasn’t finished. He wouldn’t be able to help himself. She wasn’t surprised when he spoke again. “None of them were ever special to you, though,” he said. “That was the problem, wasn’t it? That you were indiscriminate? That caring about a person wasn’t really what mattered to—”

“Dad,” she said. She loved him immensely, but he could be such a pain in the neck. “I don’t want to talk about this, okay? The roses are from a nice guy I’ve been seeing recently. Platonically. They’re yellow roses, not red. Please have a little faith in me.” She was quiet a moment, then added, “Gina and Clay have met him, and they like him.”

She and Rick had been out three times so far, and she’d finally allowed him to pick her up at the keeper’s house the night before. She’d been nervous about introducing him to her brother and sister-in-law, but they’d instantly been able to tell that Rick was different from the other men she’d dated. The house had been full of people when he arrived, and she’d worried that Rick would be overwhelmed. Henry, the grandfather of Clay’s first wife, and Walter, Gina’s grandfather, were both there. The two elderly men were frequent visitors to the house, especially now that Rani had arrived. The men had lost their dear, longtime friend, Brian Cass, over the winter and some of the joy had gone out of them. Rani, though, had brought it back.

Rick had handled all the introductions easily, and this morning at breakfast, Clay and Gina had given him their stamp of approval.

Her father snipped the final stitch and straightened up. “I’m sorry, hon,” he said, reaching for a dog treat from the bowl on the counter.

“I feel like a kid who gets an A-minus on a test and you yell at her for not getting an A,” Lacey said, still wounded.

He smiled at that. “I know you’ve tried hard to change, Lace,” he said. “I’ve admired that. And I do trust you. I just flipped out there for a sec.”

He was backpedaling so fast she felt sorry for him. “It’s okay,” she said. She helped him lift the dog from the table and set him on the floor. The dog instantly ran to the door of the room, pawing to be let out. She reattached his leash to his collar.

“I’ll take him out,” Alec said, taking the leash from her hand. “Your shift’s nearly over.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The roses, resting in a glass vase on the reception counter, were beautiful and just about to open fully. Ordinarily, she would stop at a restaurant, usually Sam and Omie’s, for lunch between her morning at the animal hospital and her afternoon in her studio, but she wanted to take the roses home with her and they would bake in the car while she was eating. So, instead, she bought a sandwich from the Subway around the corner and settled into the small kitchen at the animal hospital to eat and read.

The book she was reading was titled Making Good Choices: A Woman’s Guide to Relationships, and was one of a half dozen her therapist had recommended to her. Most of the books, filled with psychobabble, had not spoken to her, but this one did. She could see herself in the anecdotes the author used to illustrate her points. And this author was forward-looking rather than focusing on the past. Lacey appreciated that. She did not want to be analyzed. She didn’t want to look at how, in some bizarre way, she had followed her mother’s promiscuous footsteps without even knowing about them. She just wanted to stop. This author made sense. It’s so much easier to stop an old behavior when you have a new behavior to take its place, she suggested. The author was big on relationships that started as friendships, that did not rush toward physical intimacy, that involved deep and open communication. The person selected for that relationship should be someone different from the type of person the reader was ordinarily drawn to, the author advised. Someone who would not trigger those old behaviors. Someone, Lacey knew, like Rick.

He had kissed her for the first time last night. She doubted she had ever been on three dates before without kissing. In truth, she had not been on three dates before without going to bed with the guy. Last night’s kiss had been chaste, closed-mouthed, and that had been fine with her. She’d wanted nothing more than that. She was a bit worried she had permanently frightened the libido out of herself, but maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. She knew she should be thrilled that Rick had come along at this point in her life. Someone decent, who listened to her when she said she needed to move slowly, who made no demands on her. It felt like a gift, like some greater power was telling her, “You’ve been a good girl for a whole year, Lacey. Now you have earned this truly decent man.” And yet, something was missing.

She was now reading a chapter she desperately needed: Discovering Attraction Where There Is None. “Often,” the author wrote, “women are attracted to ‘bad boys,’ those men who are a challenge or who are in need of ‘fixing.’ The ‘good boys’ are uninteresting and unattractive to these women. But feelings follow behavior. If the man seems right, but the chemistry is lacking, stop focusing on that point. Instead, talk to yourself about his good qualities. I promise, if it was meant to be, loving feelings will follow.”

This was perfect timing, Lacey thought. She had the man. The good boy. And he was even attractive. Feelings follow behavior. Standing up from the table, she reached for the phone on the wall. She would call to thank him for the roses.




7


EVEN AS HE PULLED INTO THE PARKING LOT IN front of Lacey’s studio, Rick could see the roses through the broad front windows. She had brought them with her from the animal hospital. They meant something to her, and that could either be good or bad.

He was not exactly sure how to proceed with Lacey. All he knew was that he needed to move carefully. It was unusual for a woman not to fawn all over him. He was undeniably handsome. He was an attorney. He drove a BMW. But it was clear that superficial trappings didn’t matter to Lacey, and that frankly intrigued him. She couldn’t handle too much of him at once, though. Of that he was certain.

He turned off the ignition and picked up a book from the passenger seat, resting it on his lap. He wondered if stopping in to see her after sending her roses and after speaking to her on the phone only an hour before—and now bringing her yet another gift—would qualify as too much. He was willing to take the risk, though. The roses in the window gave him courage.

He’d learned to time his visits to the studio when Tom Nestor wasn’t present. He’d actually been relieved to learn that Tom was Lacey’s biological father, because it explained the extreme interest the man seemed to take in her affairs. Still, he would just as soon visit with her alone.

He walked into the studio, the book in his hand, and was surprised when Lacey stood up, walked over to him, and gave him a quick hug.

“It’s good to see you,” she said.

“You, too.”

This was a rare welcome from Lacey. He must have turned a corner with her with those flowers. The vase rested on the table next to the kaleidoscopes, and the afternoon light shone through the fragile petals.

“What a perfect spot for the roses,” he said. “They nearly look like they’re made of stained glass sitting there.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” she said, taking her seat behind her worktable again. She was so pretty in her pale, freckled way. So delicate looking. He hoped he would not hurt her. “They’re inspiring me, actually,” she continued. “I think my next piece will be yellow roses.”

He sat down on the chair adjacent to the table. “Glad I could tweak your artistic sense a bit,” he said, then added, “You act like you don’t receive flowers very often.”

“I don’t think I ever have,” she admitted. “At least not from a man. Well, other than my father or Tom.”

“Hard to believe,” he said. “A woman like you deserves flowers.”

She shrugged off the compliment, and he thought he might have taken things a bit too far with it.

Two customers, a man and a woman, walked into the studio and began wandering among the glass and photographs. Rick lowered his voice to avoid being heard by them.

“Listen,” he said. “I wanted to tell you that I spoke with a friend of mine who’s more familiar with criminal law than I am. He had some suggestions for you on how to protest that guy’s parole.”

She was suddenly all ears. “What did he say?”

“You’ll need to contact the members of the parole commission,” he said. “They’re the people who decide whether this guy … what’s his name again?”

“Zachary Pointer.”

“Whether he should be paroled or not. They’ll take into account his previous criminal record and his behavior in prison. Do you know anything about that?”

Lacey glanced over at the man and woman, who were standing in front of a glass panel, talking about its colors.

“I don’t think he had a criminal record,” she said, looking as though that fact disappointed her. “And I have no idea what he’s been like in prison.”

“Well, here’s where you have some input,” he said. “The commission has to take into account any information they get from you or from other people who knew your mother and were impacted by her death. You’ll need to write what they call a victim impact statement. How his crime has impacted your life. Everyone in your family can submit one. You’re in the best position to write one, though, since you were impacted both by the loss of your mother and by witnessing her … what happened.”

She nodded slowly, her gaze somewhere in space as she thought over what he’d said. “Okay,” she said. “I can do that.”

The man and woman headed for the door, and the woman turned to Lacey, waving with a smile. “We’ll be back later,” she said. “I want to get my sister to see that stained-glass rooster.”

“Okay,” Lacey said. “See you then.”

Rick waited for Lacey’s attention to return to him. “You—or your attorney, at least—will want to look back at any statements the guy made after the arrest and during the trial,” he continued. “Look for a lack of remorse, or that he’s still protesting his innocence. Anything that shows he needs continued incarceration.”

“All right,” Lacey said.

He hesitated, a little nervous about the next item on his agenda. “On another note, though,” he said, “I have something for you.” He handed the book to her. She looked at the title. Forgiveness. Then she raised her eyes to him, her expression quizzical.

“Are you very religious or something?” she asked.

He smiled. “Nope. Just a run-of-the-mill, hardly-ever-goes-to-church Presbyterian. But I’ve just … Well, I’ve worked hard at figuring out my priorities,” he said. “You know, what’s most important in life. What’s worth my effort and energy and time and—”

“He killed my mother, Rick,” she said, a flash of fire in her deep blue eyes.

He nodded. “I understand. Or rather, I guess I don’t understand what that must feel like. I’m sorry.”

The jingling sound of glass against glass caught their attention, and Rick turned to see a woman push the studio door open with such force that the small, stained glass sun-catchers hanging on it were in danger of breaking. The woman was very tanned, her white-blond hair pinned up at the back of her head. She wore a navy blue suit with a small gold pin on the lapel, and she was not a customer, that much was clear. Her eyes were red and smudged with mascara.

“Nola!” Lacey was instantly on her feet, rushing toward the woman. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, Lacey, I’m beside myself!” The woman stood in the middle of the floor, looking as though she might burst into tears. Her hands were pressed to her cheeks and the heavy gold bracelets on her wrists clanged together. Her fingers sparkled with rings.

“I can see that.” Lacey took her arm and drew her toward Tom Nestor’s worktable. “Here, sit in Tom’s chair. Are Jessica and Mackenzie all right?”

“I think so,” the woman said. “I mean, I think they’ll be all right. But I’m on my way to Arizona and wanted to stop in to let you know what was going on before I left.” She looked at Lacey, her eyes wide and filled with pain. “Jessica and Mackenzie were in a car wreck,” she said.

“Oh, my God.” Lacey’s hand flew to her mouth. She lowered herself to her haunches in front of the woman, her long skirt billowing around her on the floor, and rested one of her hands on Nola’s. “How bad?”

“Mackenzie’s fine, or at least that’s what they’re telling me. But Jessica has broken ribs and a collapsed lung and a broken pelvis—” the woman ticked the injuries off on her fingers “—and who knows what else.”

“Oh, Nola, how awful.” Lacey looked over at Rick. “Jessica—Nola’s daughter—is an old friend of mine,” she explained. “How did it happen?”

“A drunk driver,” Nola said. “That’s all I know. I’m going out there to take care of Mackenzie while Jessica is in the hospital. Right now, she’s with a neighbor.”

“You’ll feel better once you see Jess and know she’s in good hands,” Lacey said, and Rick could see tears forming in her eyes as well. He felt intrusive.

Nola nodded, but she looked unconvinced. “My poor little girl.”

Lacey stood up and leaned over to hug her. The woman was unresponsive, stiff as a stick. He wondered how old she was. There was not a wrinkle on her tanned face, and it was obvious she’d visited a plastic surgeon more than once.

“She’s tried so hard to make it, Lacey,” Nola said, a mix of anger and sorrow in her voice. “You know that. Raising Mackenzie by herself, holding down a stressful job, going to school at night.”

“I know,” Lacey agreed. “Maybe I should go with you.”

“No, no.” Nola opened her large brown leather purse and pulled a tissue from inside it. She stood up, dabbing at her eyes. “I’ll call you when I see how she is.”

“Please do,” Lacey said, embracing the woman once again. “Please call me right away.”

With a nod, Nola turned and walked out the door, the sun-catchers clanking against the glass once again.

Lacey sank into her chair behind the worktable. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “Poor Jessica.”

“You’re very close to her?” he asked.

“We grew up together.” She was staring at the door, but he could tell she was not really seeing it. “She was my best friend from the time we were in kindergarten through junior high. She got pregnant when she was fifteen, though, and Nola shipped her off to Arizona to live with her cousins and she ended up staying out there. We’ve lost touch a bit since then, but we still have these long, wonderful phone conversations a few times a year. I haven’t seen Mackenzie—her daughter—since the last time they visited the Outer Banks, which must have been three years ago.” She stood up abruptly. “I’ve got to go home,” she said. “I want to call her. I need to hear for myself how she is.”

“Of course,” he said, standing up.

Lacey looked at her watch. “I’ll call Tom to come back to the studio to keep it open, but would you mind staying until he gets here? In case that couple comes back? Or I could just lock up and put a sign on the—”

“I’ll stay,” he said. “It’ll make me feel like I’m helping somehow.”

She smiled at him, a quick, distracted sort of smile. “Thanks,” she said, gathering up her purse and day planner. “I’ll talk to you later.”

He watched her leave. She was gentle with the door; the sun-catchers barely clinked against the glass. Looking over at her worktable, he noticed she had left behind the book on forgiveness. He wanted to run after her, press it into her hands, but he didn’t dare. She already thought him strange in that regard, a religious zealot, perhaps. And the last thing he wanted to do was to scare her away.




8


IF IT HAD NOT BEEN FOR THE BEACH TRAFFIC, Lacey would have ignored the speed limit and raced all the way to Kiss River from her studio. As it was, she was stuck in a sluggish trail of cars making their way north from Kill Devil Hills. She wanted to call the hospital and hear for herself that Jessica was all right. She wanted to talk to her old friend, hear her voice, reassure her that Mackenzie would be taken care of while she recovered. Again, she thought of packing a bag and flying to Arizona with Nola. They could spell each other while they took turns taking care of eleven-year-old Mackenzie and spending time with Jessica in the hospital. But even though she’d known Nola for as long as she could remember, she had never felt completely at ease with her. Nola could be difficult. She’d been divorced for many years and had never remarried or even dated, although at one time it had been clear that she had her eye on Lacey’s father. Thank God Olivia had come along at that point, or Lacey might have ended up with Nola as a stepmother. Just talking to Nola on the phone could send a chill up her spine.

Nola had been a lax and permissive mother with Jessica. Lacey’s mother had certainly been lenient and indulgent, as well, but Annie O’Neill’s permissiveness had been balanced by her deep love for her children. Although Jessica had often been critical of Lacey’s parents, she’d admitted just a few years ago that she had actually been envious of the close and loving relationships Lacey had enjoyed growing up in the O’Neill family.

The traffic was ridiculous! She was driving through Duck, her car creeping so slowly that she feared it might overheat. It had happened before. She turned off the air-conditioning and opened the windows to try to prevent it from happening again. She knew every alternate route available along the Outer Banks, but the island was so narrow here that there was only one road running south and north, and she was on it. She glanced at her cell phone lying on the passenger seat. She could try to call Jessica on the cell, but she didn’t know what hospital she was in, and the thought of coping with cellular information and the iffy reception in the area was more than she could manage.

Her thoughts turned to Mackenzie. What had the accident been like? Mackenzie wasn’t hurt, Nola had said, so maybe she had been conscious and had witnessed everything. Maybe she saw her mother’s body pinned behind the wheel, or maybe the car had flipped over. Then she began wondering, as she always did when she thought about Mackenzie, what had become of the girl’s father. That had been a sore spot between her and Jessica for years. Mackenzie’s father was Bobby Asher. He’d been one of the many guys she and Jessica had hung around with the summer Lacey was fourteen. In her mind, Bobby would always be that seventeen-year-old chain-smoking, beer-drinking, pill-popping, sexy-as-hell guy, with the blond hair that touched his shoulders and the same light blue eyes she saw in every picture of Mackenzie. Lacey had lost her virginity to him, as had Jessica, the very next night. She’d been hurt that Bobby had ultimately picked Jessica over her. Jess had been less uptight, ready for anything. Lacey had been fairly wild that summer, too, but she knew the scared little kid inside her had been evident to anyone who looked hard enough. Nothing had seemed to frighten Jessica, however, and Bobby had been drawn to that quality in her.

At the end of that summer, Bobby returned to his home in Richmond, Virginia, and neither she nor Jessica ever saw him again. When Jessica realized she was pregnant, she adamantly refused to tell Nola or anyone else who the baby’s father was. Only Lacey knew. Jessica had had other lovers, if you could call them that at age fourteen. They’d both had others. But the timing of her pregnancy fit perfectly with her time with Bobby.

At first Lacey thought that Jessica was right to keep the identity of the baby’s father to herself. Bobby was crazy. Undoubtably, he would have talked her into an abortion so he could rid himself of the problem. Nola had tried to talk Jessica into an abortion herself, but Lacey had persuaded her not to do it. Lacey had only recently lost her mother, and the thought of yet another life being wiped off the planet, no matter how tiny and unformed that life might have been, was unbearable to her. Jessica agreed. She had turned fifteen by then, and there was no way any doctor would take that baby against her will. So Nola arranged for her to leave the Outer Banks, spiriting her away to an aunt in Phoenix so that her expanding belly would not be a source of gossip and shame for Nola, a prominent real estate agent.

When Lacey was sixteen, she learned that Tom was her biological father and her feelings about Jessica keeping the identity of Mackenzie’s father to herself changed. A child needed to know who her father was, even if knowing the truth created more problems than it solved. And a man needed to know that he was responsible for a child. The subject of Mackenzie’s paternity had nearly caused a falling-out between her and Jessica. As recently as Mackenzie’s eleventh birthday this past April, Lacey had once again brought it up with her. “You really should tell Bobby Asher,” she’d said. “Mackenzie’s getting old enough to know the truth.” As always, Jessica had adamantly refused to even consider it.

She knew Jessica had told Mackenzie that her father was someone she’d seen for a short time and that she didn’t know where he was. That was true, but he was findable. Anyone was findable. Lacey tried to picture Bobby Asher now—he would be nearly thirty, Clay’s age, but the only image that came to her mind was of a long-haired man in need of a bath, standing at a corner of a busy Richmond street, holding a bowl out to drivers passing by, the sign at his side reading: Homeless. Please Help. That was surely the direction in which he’d been heading.

When she finally reached Kiss River, she was glad to see that the chain across the driveway was already down and she wouldn’t need to get out of the car to unhook it. She turned onto the shaded lane and sped over the ruts, spraying gravel behind her, not really caring about anything other than getting to the phone.

Clay’s Jeep was next to Gina’s van in the parking lot, and she knew he was either in the woods with one of his search-and-rescue trainees or in the house waiting for a client to arrive. She jumped out of her car and ran across the sand toward the house.

Clay and Gina were in the kitchen when she pulled open the screen door, and Gina lifted a finger to her lips.

“Shh,” she said. “I just got her down for her nap.”

Clay was sweeping the always-sandy kitchen floor and he looked up from his task. “What’s wrong?” he asked, and she knew her worry was showing in her face.

“Jessica and Mackenzie were in an accident,” she said. “They’re alive, but Jessica was hurt.” She rattled off Jessica’s injuries to the best of her memory. “I’m going to try to call her at the hospital.”

“Whose fault was the accident?” Clay asked, as if it mattered.

“Drunk driver.” Dropping her purse on the table, she reached for the cordless phone and dialed Information.

“Who’s Jessica?” Gina asked Clay.

“An old friend of Lacey’s,” he said. “She was crazy. She got pregnant when she was fourteen, and I think she used every drug in the book that summer.”

“She’s completely different now.” Lacey felt tears burn her eyes as she waited to get a human being on the line. She didn’t know the name of a single hospital in Phoenix, much less which one Jessica was in. “Besides,” she added, “you were not so staid yourself.” She was annoyed at the speed with which her brother jumped to judge her friend.

“My guy?” Gina asked, putting her arm around Clay’s shoulders and planting a kiss on his cheek. “Did you have a wild side back then?”

“Lacey was so wasted that summer that she wouldn’t have known what I was doing,” Clay said.

She had known, though. She’d been at parties where she’d watched her older brother drink himself into the adolescent oblivion that was typical of the other graduating seniors that year. True, he’d only used alcohol, at least to the best of her knowledge, while she and her friends had dabbled in marijuana and an occasional tab of LSD. Some of the rowdier kids had actually used crack. But Clay had been old enough to pass himself off as a responsible adult when he needed to. She—and Jessica—had simply been a mess.

Finally, a male voice came on the phone. He gave her the numbers for three different hospitals and she wrote them down on a piece of paper Gina slipped onto the counter in front of her.

“I’m going to call her from the studio,” she said, clutching the paper in her hand as she headed out of the kitchen in the direction of the sunroom.

“Good luck,” Gina called after her, and as Lacey walked through the living room, she could hear her sister-in-law chastising Clay for his insensitivity.

Sunlight poured into her small home studio, filling it with color from the panels of glass hanging in the windows. The room was at the back of the keeper’s house, away from the ocean and the lighthouse. Her view was of the stretch of sand between the house and the scrubby maritime growth in the distance. There were two worktables, one where she drew her designs out on paper, the other where she cut glass. Sitting down at that second table, she reached for the phone and dialed one of the numbers on the list.

“She’s in the ICU,” the hospital operator told her after Lacey gave her Jessica’s name. “No phones in the rooms up there.”

The ICU. She pictured machines and tubes. Respirators and EKGs. Poor Jess.

“Can I find out how she’s doing?” Lacey asked. “Maybe talk to a nurse?”

“Hold on.” The operator sounded sick of her job. “I’ll connect you to the ICU.”

A woman answered quickly, her voice friendly and upbeat.

“Hello,” Lacey said. “I’m calling to find out how one of your patients is doing. Jessica Dillard.”

“Are you family?” the woman asked.

“Nearly,” Lacey said. “A very close friend.”

“Her condition’s been upgraded from critical to serious,” the woman said.

“Critical!” Lacey said. “I had no idea it was that bad.”

“She’s doing much better now,” the woman reassured her. “We’ll be moving her out of the ICU sometime this afternoon. Would you like to speak with her? I can carry the cordless into her room.”

“Oh, yes, please,” Lacey said. Jessica was well enough to talk. Thank God.

A few moments passed, and she could hear a rustling sound. The next voice she heard on the phone was weak but familiar.

“Hello?” Jessica said.

“Jess, it’s Lacey.”

“Lacey.” She sounded tired. Maybe half-asleep. “You’re so sweet to call.”

“How do you feel? Are you in terrible pain?”

She was slow to answer. “I think I would be if they weren’t pumping me with drugs,” she said. “How did you know I was here? Did Mom call you?”

“She came into the studio to tell me about the accident and that she’s going out there to help with Mackenzie.”

“Poor Mackenzie,” Jessica said. “I think it was worse for her than for me, since I was knocked out and don’t remember a thing.”

“Do you want me to come out, too?” Lacey asked. “I can, you know. I mean, Dad has enough help that he can get by for a few days without—”

“No,” Jessica said. “I’ll be fine. But you have to promise me that you’ll come visit after I’ve recovered, okay? All these years I’ve been out here, and you’ve never visited.”

Lacey had to smile. As terrible as Jessica must be feeling, she was still able to push her guilt buttons. And she was right. Lacey always said she would visit Jessica “some day soon,” but in the nearly twelve years Jessica had lived in Phoenix, that day had never come.

“I will,” she said. “I promise.”

Jessica sighed. “I was so lucky, Lace,” she said. “This morning they told me how close I’d come to dying. I am going to really embrace every minute of my life from now on. You do the same, okay?”

“You sound so strong,” Lacey marveled. “How did you get that way?”

Jessica laughed, though the sound was weak. “Motherhood,” she said. “It either makes you strong or it kills you.”

“I love you,” Lacey said.

“Love you, too, Lace. Don’t worry about me, okay?”

“Okay.”

Lacey hung up the phone, relieved by the conversation and wondering what she could do to help from two thousand miles away. Sending flowers was one option, but Jessica would probably get plenty of those. She’d buy her books and magazines, things to help her pass the time as she healed. Yet even that idea didn’t ease her powerless feeling, and she wished she could do more.

She had no idea just how much she would be asked to do.




9


LEDA AND JUDY HAD BEEN WRONG ABOUT THE rules. It wasn’t until Faye’s sixth date with Jim that they finally made love. And by then she felt so comfortable with him, so trusting and at home, that she was no longer anxious about her body or her performance. He had shared so much with her about himself and his life. He’d told her about his own performance anxiety—he’d had some prostate problems a few years ago—and she’d been able to share her own insecurities about her weight, her crepey skin, her wrinkles. He had only laughed, as though her concerns had been the furthest thing from his mind.

Of course, once the line had been crossed, they spent a lot more time in bed than they did going to dinner or the movies. The third time they made love, they had not even bothered with the pretense of going out. She drove directly from work to his house. She was exhausted, having taught an all-day seminar for chronic pain clinicians, and although she’d loved every minute of the training, it had taken a lot out of her. She found new energy in the car, though, as she thought about spending the evening with Jim.

It was the first time she’d been in his home, and he gave her a short tour before leading her up to the master suite. She’d known he had money, but she hadn’t expected the absolute luxury that surrounded her when she walked into the grand foyer. It was obvious that every inch of the house had been professionally decorated, and she couldn’t help but wonder if she was seeing Jim’s taste in the elaborate window treatments and floral print upholstery or his late wife’s.

The view from the bedroom—from nearly every room of the house, actually—was spectacular. The house stood on a hillside, and in the evening light La Jolla stretched out beneath it like a quilt. The sun was a vivid coral as it drifted toward the sea. Faye studied the scene before her with great attention, doing her best to ignore the fact that she would soon climb into Alice Price’s antique bed. Was Jim thinking about that, too? Did it feel strange to him to have another woman in this room?

The thought slipped from her mind, though, as he began undressing her. Lovemaking with Jim was slow and sweet, and Judy had been right about him leaving her satisfied. Judy would have to speculate about that, though, since Faye had stopped sharing private information with her and Leda, much to their frustration.

After they made love and darkness had fallen in the room, Jim hugged her close and let out a long sigh. It sounded like contentment to her, and she nestled her head against his shoulder.

“I’ve been thinking about you a lot the past couple of days,” he said, rubbing her bare shoulder.

“You have?”

“I want you to know how much I’ve appreciated all the listening you’ve done,” he said. “I haven’t been able to talk to anyone the way I’ve talked to you in a very long time. Maybe never.”

She was touched. “I’m glad you’ve felt able to,” she said, resting her palm flat against his chest.

“I realized, though, that you haven’t really told me much about yourself,” he continued. “You tell me how you feel about things, and I really like that. You’re such a straight shooter. I don’t have to guess with you. But …” His voice trailed off.

“But?”

“I don’t know anything about your past.”

“Ah,” she said. She’d hoped to avoid talking to him about her past, but clearly that was going to be impossible.

“Here’s what I know,” he said. “You grew up in North Carolina, like I did. You were an only child. Your parents are dead. You have no children. You were married, but your husband died long ago and you haven’t dated since. But I don’t know what it was like for you growing up, or what your parents did for a living, and that’s my fault for not asking questions. I know that. And I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” she said.

“The biggest blank of all is your marriage.” His hand toyed with her hair where it fell in wisps at the back of her neck. “Your husband,” he said. “You never talk about him. You know all about Alice. I talk about her too much, I suppose.” He laughed self-consciously and she felt a little sorry for him.

“No, you don’t,” she reassured him.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m sorry I haven’t asked you about these things before now,” he said. “That I haven’t given you the chance to tell me about yourself. I hope you haven’t misconstrued that as disinterest. It’s really been …” He laughed. “It’s been selfishness, pure and simple. I needed to dump my problems onto you. But I’m ready now.”

She was quiet, and he nudged her.

“So go ahead,” he said. “Tell me.”

She let out her breath. “Oh,” she said, “this is hard.”

“Why is it hard?”

She could feel the blank slate he’d placed in front of her, waiting for her to fill it. “Some things are difficult to talk about,” she said. “But I do want to tell you. I want a good relationship with you and I know I can’t build one on lies.”

“Have you been lying to me?” It sounded as though this was not a complete surprise to him.

“Yes,” she said, “though mostly through omission.”

“You can tell me anything,” he said, and she wondered if he knew what he was getting himself into.

“I have to ask you to keep what I say just between us, okay?” she asked. “I mean, I’m ready to tell you … some things … but not the world.”

“All right.”

She was quiet a moment, forming her thoughts, and he spoke before she could get the first word out.

“You have had a child,” he said.

The question surprised her. Of the things she was preparing to say, that was low on her list. “Yes, I have,” she said. “But how did you know?”

“Your body gave it away.”

“My stretch marks?”

He laughed. “You are so self-conscious about your body,” he said. “I didn’t notice any stretch marks. But the color of your nipples. The areolae are dark.”

“That’s what I get for dating a doctor,” she said.

“Did you lose the child?”

She pressed her palm against his chest again, trying to formulate her response. “Yes,” she said. “But not the way you mean.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “My husband didn’t die,” she said. “I’m not really a widow.” She hurried on as she felt the muscles in his chest tighten up beneath her hand. “And I’m very, very sorry for having led you to believe that I am, because I know that’s part of what drew you to me. Thinking we had that in common. I’m sorry.”

“You’re still married?” he asked.

“No. I’m divorced. But when I moved here—to California—eight years ago, I couldn’t bring myself to tell complete strangers the truth. It was easier to just say he’d died. I didn’t want to have to answer questions about my ex. He was dead to me, as far as I was concerned, so it wasn’t a lie that was hard for me to stick with. Until now. until you.”

“It was a nasty divorce, then.” He was upset over her pretense of being a widow. She could hear it in his voice, and she didn’t blame him.

“I want you to know that I’m an honest person,” she said. “I mean, basically, I’m very honest. I do have this one big lie I’ve been living, but please don’t think that it defines who I am. Because it doesn’t.”

“Tell me,” he said.

“My ex-husband is in prison for murder.” She had said those words to herself many times, but never, not once, had she said them out loud. They echoed in the huge room.

“God,” he said. “What happened?”

She rolled away from him to turn on the Tiffany lamp on the night table. The old, nauseating images were filling her head and whenever that happened, she couldn’t tolerate being in the dark.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She rested her head on his shoulder, swallowing hard against the nausea.

“Could that be enough for now?” she asked. “Enough of the truth? I still get nightmares about it sometimes and don’t really want to have any tonight.” How could she tell him she had lived in a cramped little North Carolina trailer—and spent time in a battered women’s shelter—when here she was, lying in a $3000 carved cherry bed in La Jolla, trying to fit in with the sort of people she hadn’t even known existed back then?

“Just tell me one thing,” Jim said. “He didn’t kill your child, did he?”

“No,” she said. “Nothing like that.”

“Is it a boy or a girl?”

“A boy.” A man by now. “His name is Freddy. Fred. We’re estranged. He blamed me for what happened with his father. He thought I somehow drove him to kill someone. After it happened, Freddy and I left North Carolina and moved to L.A., where I had an old girlfriend from nursing school. We moved in with her and I got my master’s degree there. My son was very hard to manage, though. He wasn’t a bad kid. Just … so terribly angry with me. The day he turned eighteen, he moved out. I went to a counselor who said I should practice tough love. You know, let him go, let him make it on his own. So that’s what I did.” She recited the situation with little emotion. She couldn’t let herself feel the pain behind the words or she might fall apart, and she wasn’t ready to do that with Jim. With anyone.

“And you haven’t been in touch with him since?”

“I don’t know where he is, and he’s never tried to find me.”

Jim sighed, rubbing her shoulder again. “I actually had a similar problem with my daughters,” he said.

“You did?” She had not yet met his adult twin daughters, but she’d seen pictures of them just that night during the house tour. Photographs of the blue-eyed blondes at various ages were on the bookshelf in the den. There were a few photographs of Alice on that bookshelf, too, and she looked just as Faye had expected: well-coifed, well-dressed and glittering with gold. The woman was her opposite, at least on the surface.

“They didn’t talk to me for a year after Alice died,” he said.

“Why?”

It was his turn to hesitate. “They blamed me for their mother’s death,” he said. “I talked Alice into enrolling in an experimental treatment program. I didn’t see that she had much of a chance otherwise, and I think—I hope—she understood that. The girls were furious with me, though. They said I turned Alice into a guinea pig, et cetera, et cetera.” He sighed, and she knew he’d been through quite a battle with his girls. She could only imagine what it had been like for him to endure the loss of his wife and his daughters’ antipathy at the same time.

“I think they were cruel to turn their backs on you,” she said.

“They were in a lot of pain,” he said, “but eventually, they realized that I’d truly had Alice’s best interest in mind. So maybe, someday Fred will come around, too.”

“God, I wish,” she said, struggling not to feel the sorrow welling up inside her. “Every time I see a young man come into the pain clinic, I think of him. Even when they don’t look a thing like him.” Gunshot victims, especially, tugged at her emotions. If it hadn’t been for Annie O’Neill, Freddy might have been one of them himself. She waved her hand in front of her face as if trying to bat away the thought. “I can’t talk about it anymore,” she said.

She lifted her head to study his face. In the light from the Tiffany lamp, she could see the arc of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the deep crevices that ran from his nose to his chin, and she knew he must be seeing similar flaws on her own face. She should turn off the light. But before she could roll over, he touched her cheek with his fingertip, tracing whatever lines he might be finding there, and smiled. “When you’re ready to tell me more,” he said, “I’ll be here for you.”




10


THE KEEPER’S HOUSE WAS QUIET AND CALM AS Lacey and Rick sat at the kitchen table, sipping iced tea and wrapping gifts for Jessica. Sasha slept by the screen door, occasionally opening his eyes to see if Clay or Gina or Rani might be walking through the sand toward the house. It was Clay’s long day at work, and Gina had taken Rani to her toddler swim lessons.

“Isn’t she a little young for swimming lessons?” Rick had asked when Lacey told him where they were.

“It’s mostly to get her used to the water,” Lacey said. “She was afraid of it when she first got here. She couldn’t even look at a full bathtub or the toilet without crying.” For reasons they were never to understand, Rani would scream even when approached with a damp washcloth. Gina’s best guess was that her little daughter had been subjected to rough shampooing with harsh soaps, necessary to kill the lice and nits that every child in the orphanage seemed to have. But Rani’s phobia was improving. She let Gina or Clay bathe her now in a large basin, and the previous week, Gina had finally coaxed her into the pool.

It was at moments like these, when the only sounds in the house were from the ocean and the cicadas, that Lacey realized how much chatter and energy Rani produced. Just a few months ago, Gina had worried there was a problem with her development, because Rani never spoke. One morning, though, the child simply woke up a chatterbox. Not only did she seem to know the right words for nearly every object she encountered, but she also strung those words together in sentences. She may not have been speaking, but she’d certainly been listening. She ran into the kitchen that morning, looked up at Clay, and said, “Daddy, I want you play with me, now!” Gina and Lacey had looked at each other and laughed, but Clay had cried. He had changed so much since Rani came into his life. There was a softness to him Lacey had never expected to see.

“Should I wrap each of these separately?” Rick held up the three gel pens they had bought for Jessica.

“Sure,” Lacey said. “It will be more fun for her to have a bunch of things to open, don’t you think?”

She and Rick had shopped most of the afternoon, picking up small gifts to send to Jessica. Little things like pens and magazines, tiny jigsaw puzzles and one of Lacey’s kaleidoscopes, gifts that could help her while away her time in the hospital. Lacey planned to put all the wrapped gifts into one big box and ship it to her. It had been kind of Rick to go shopping with her, and he’d seemed to get into it, picking up things on his own that he thought someone like Jessica might enjoy. Adding the kaleidoscope had been his idea.

A car door slammed shut in the parking lot, and Sasha was immediately on his feet, nose pressed against the screen and tail wagging. It was too soon for either Clay or Gina to be home, and Lacey got up to walk over to the door.

Her father was walking—strolling, really—toward the house. His head was down, his hands in his pockets. He was not a stroller. He always moved quickly, like Clay, and the sight of him like this scared her.

She pushed open the door and stepped onto the porch.

“Dad?” she called.

He looked up from his pensive staring at the sand and waved to her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, as he neared the house.

“Let’s go inside.” He reached past her for the handle of the screened door. “Go on in,” he said.

He followed her into the kitchen, and Rick was quick to stand up.

“Dad, this is Rick Tenley,” she said. “Rick, this is my father, Alec O’Neill.”

“Hello, Dr. O’Neill.” Rick held out his hand, and Alec shook it, frank curiosity on his face, but the expression disappeared quickly as his somber look returned.

“What’s wrong?” she asked again. Her heart was beating hard, and she thought of Rani’s little heart, so newly repaired and delicate. “Please tell me Rani’s okay.”

“Rani’s fine.” Her father touched her shoulder. “Sit down,” he said, and she dropped into the chair Rick pulled out for her.

“Nola just called me,” her father said. “She was trying to reach you, but didn’t have your number out here.”

All of a sudden, she knew. “It’s Jessica,” she said.

Her father leaned against the kitchen counter and nodded. “She died this morning, honey. I’m sorry.”

Lacey leaped to her feet so quickly that Sasha started barking at her. “Oh, Dad, no!” she said. “How could that happen? She sounded so good when I talked to her yesterday.”

“They think it was a blood clot from the surgery,” her father said. “It was fast. She probably didn’t even know what hit her.”

That’s what they had said about her mother, but her mother had known. Lacey would never forget the look of surprise on her face.

“Oh, God, I don’t believe it.” She sat down again, one elbow on the table, her fist pressed to her mouth. She was not aware of crying until she felt the tears falling over her clenched fingers. Rick rested his hand on her back. She knew he was trying to console her, but his touch felt like more of an intrusion than comfort.

“Nola said they weren’t sure about arrangements for a service yet,” her father said, “but that it would probably be Monday.”

“I’ll go,” Lacey said into her fist. “I have to go.” She turned toward her father and saw that he looked tired and drained. The O’Neill family had become all too accustomed to coping with unexpected loss. “How’s Nola taking it?” she asked.

“She’s in a lot of pain, as you can imagine. I had trouble understanding her, she was crying so hard. Oh.” He reached into his pocket and drew out a piece of paper, handing it to her. “She left this number in case you wanted to call her,” he said.

Lacey took the piece of paper from his hand and stared at it numbly.

“I have to get back to the office, hon,” her father said. “I still have some appointments today, but I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”

“Thank you.” She knew he had done some major shuffling of his patients to be able to make the trip to Kiss River.

Her father turned his attention to Rick. “How do you know Lacey, Rick?” he asked.

“We met at her studio,” Rick said.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here.” Her father surprised her with the words. “I’m glad Lacey’s not alone right now.”

After Alec left, Rick began unwrapping the items they had bought. “I’ll return these things for you,” he said.

She glanced at the puzzles and pens without seeing them. “You don’t have to do that,” she said.

“I want to. I know there’s not a lot else I can do to help out right now.” He stood up and began digging through the trash can beneath the sink for the receipts. “I’d like to go with you to Arizona,” he said as he pawed through the trash.

“Thank you, but no.” She didn’t want him there. He would feel like more of a liability than an asset. She stood up, the piece of paper her father had given her in her hand. “I’m going up to my room to call Nola,” she said. “You don’t have to stay.”

He looked up from his work in the trash can. “Your father didn’t want you to be alone,” he said.

“I’ll be okay. Gina and Clay will be home soon. And I really just want to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.”

He put his hands in his pockets, worry on his face. “It’s not even four-thirty,” he said.

She shut her eyes, drained of energy to explain her need for time to herself. “I just want to go to bed,” she said, and it came out like a plea.

He nodded. “All right.” He slid the trash can back under the sink, then walked over to her and hugged her tightly, and all she could think about was having him leave so that she could fall apart in peace.

Once he was gone, she carried the cordless phone upstairs and crawled, still dressed in her blue T-shirt and striped capris, into her bed. A breeze billowed the sheer curtains into the room, but it was still too hot for more than a sheet. She pulled the box of tissues from the night table to her bed. Hugging her arms across her chest, she thought, Should I let myself break down before or after I talk to Nola?

Without making a decision, she dialed the number on the piece of paper. A woman with a quiet voice answered.

“I’m trying to reach Nola Dillard,” Lacey said. “This is Lacey O’Neill.”

Her name seemed to mean nothing to the woman. “Nola’s lying down,” she nearly whispered. “Can I have her call you when she gets up?”

“Yes, I’m calling from the east coast, but please tell her to call me any time,” Lacey said. “No matter what time it is here, all right?” She gave the woman her phone number and made her repeat it back to her. For once in her life, she wanted to talk to Nola Dillard. She needed to talk to someone else who loved Jessica.

Once she hung up the phone, her tears started. They lasted for five or six minutes, then faded away, and just when she thought she was done with them, she pictured Jessica’s smile and thought about the fear and disbelief Mackenzie was enduring, and her sobbing started again.

She’d long ago given up asking why things like this happened. Her mother had died from a bullet meant for someone else. Her sister-in-law, Terri—Clay’s first wife—had died while doing search-and-rescue work. The losses seemed so random, so meaningless—although once this past year, she’d wondered if her mother’s death had been fitting punishment for all the cheating she’d done during her marriage. If God existed, though, she refused to believe he worked that way.

She longed for the escape of sleep, but her nose was stuffy from crying and she could not prevent memories of Jessica from slipping into her consciousness. When they’d been very young, she and Jessica had been in Brownies together, with Lacey’s mother as their much-adored troop leader. Lacey could not count all the milk shakes and French fries they’d shared at McDonald’s over the years, or all the times she and Jessica had slept at one another’s houses. Jessica had changed dramatically during their time in middle school, when she’d become one of the “cool crowd,” leaving Lacey confused and envious, but after Mackenzie was born, she’d reverted quickly to the sweet person she’d once been.

She heard Gina and Rani come home, followed by Clay a half hour later, but she didn’t want to get up to talk to them. The only person she truly wanted to talk to was the person she could never talk to again: Jessica. Why hadn’t she gone to Arizona to visit her sometime in the past twelve years? She had taken their friendship for granted. She should have known better than that. Now she was finally going to Phoenix, just a little bit too late.

Someone knocked lightly on her bedroom door.

“You awake, Lace?” Clay asked.

“Yes.”

“Dad called to tell me,” he said. “Can I come in?”

“I want to be alone,” she said.

He hesitated a moment. “I’m sorry, sis,” he said, finally. “And I’m sorry for the things I said about Jessica yesterday.”

“It’s all right.” She pressed a damp, overused tissue to her eyes. “Clay?”

“Yes?”

“I love you. Please don’t die.”

She heard his soft laughter through the door. “I love you, too, Lacey,” he said. But he didn’t promise her anything. He knew better than that.

She did not sleep, did not even doze, the entire night. She lay with the box of tissues on the pillow next to her and the phone clutched in her hands, waiting for the return call from Nola. But the call never came, and it would be nearly noon the following day before she understood why.




11


LACEY DIDN’T GO INTO WORK AT THE ANIMAL hospital the next morning. It was Saturday, and the hospital would be packed with patients, but she knew her father would understand. Instead, she sat in her home studio trying to reach Nola and getting no answer to her calls, not even an outgoing message on an answering machine. She studied the piece of paper on which her father had written the phone number. Whose number was it, anyway? A friend of Jessica’s probably. She knew Jessica had several good friends in Phoenix, since she’d talked about them over the years. Lacey had always felt an uncomfortable mixture of happiness and envy during those conversations, glad that Jessica had those friends, yet jealous that they had taken her place.

Between phone calls, she tried cutting glass for a panel she was making, but her heart wasn’t in it. She knew better than to cut glass when she could not give it her full attention. Finally, she took off her safety glasses and settled on staring out the window. She could see Clay working with one of his search-and-rescue clients, a tall man with a skinny golden retriever. She could not make out what they were doing, but the golden could barely contain his excitement. Lacey couldn’t help but smile at the happy, anticipatory dance the dog was performing in the sand near his owner.

She wanted to call a travel agent to make plane reservations for her trip to Phoenix, but hated to tie up the phone line in case Nola tried to reach her. Finally, though, she took the risk and contacted one of Olivia’s friends who was a travel agent. The fare to Phoenix was exorbitant at this late date, and although she wondered if she would qualify for a discount based on the fact that she was flying there for a friend’s funeral, she didn’t feel like going into the subject with the agent. Instead, she gave the woman her credit card number, wrote down the flight numbers and hung up.

The instant she got off the line, the phone rang, and she picked it up quickly.

“Nola?” she asked.

There was hesitation on the line. “No, this is Charles Rodriguez,” a male voice said. “Am I speaking with Lacey O’Neill?”

A telemarketer? “Yes,” she said, “but I’m waiting for an important call, so—”

“Ms. O’Neill, I was Jessica Dillard’s attorney,” the man said.

Lacey frowned. “Her attorney?”

“Yes,” he said, “and first let me express my sympathy over your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“I was the attorney who drew up Jessica’s will and her other legal papers. She was a very responsible young woman. Amazing for her age, the way she took care of everything. She even had an advance medical directive, although that turned out to be unnecessary. It’s still always good to have—”

“Excuse me, Mr…. Rodriguez? Can you tell me why you’re calling? I’m waiting to hear from Jessica’s mother, and I don’t want to tie up the line.”

That hesitation again. “Did Jessica talk to you about this?”

“About what?”

“Her daughter Mackenzie’s guardianship.”

Lacey searched her memory. As far as she could recall, it was a topic she and Jessica had never discussed. Why would they? Jessica was only twenty-seven.

“No,” she said. “Not that I remember.”

The attorney sighed. “I’d hoped she discussed it with you long ago. She said she would. She wanted you to be Mackenzie’s guardian if she were to die.”

“Her guardian? You mean … to make decisions about—”

“She wanted you to raise her.”

“I … Me?” She felt a moment of panic. “I live in North Carolina and I’m not even related to her. Mackenzie has a grandmother. And Jessica had some very close friends out there. And I haven’t even seen Mackenzie in three years. I’ve only seen her three or four times in her entire life.”

“I understand,” the attorney said. “And Mrs. Dillard, Jessica’s mother, was very upset when I told her about this last night. She may try to fight it, but I doubt very much she will win, because Jessica was adamant that she wanted you to be her daughter’s guardian. She stated clearly in the document that she did not want her mother to have guardianship of Mackenzie.”

Lacey winced, thinking about how hurtful it must have been for Nola to hear those words. No wonder she hadn’t returned her calls.

“But when did she make out this will?” she asked. “I mean, was it years ago? We were much closer friends years ago, so maybe—”

“She did initially file all these papers several years ago. That’s what I mean about her being so responsible. What twentysomething-year-old takes care of things like that? But she also updated all the documents only last year. She just made a few minor changes, and she was still clear that she wanted you to be Mackenzie’s guardian.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Lacey said. “I’m sure she never thought she’d die this young. Maybe she just wasn’t thinking.”

“Ms. O’Neill, she and I talked about it at length,” the attorney said patiently. “I suggested her mother might be a better and more logical choice, or failing that, the parents of one of Mackenzie’s friends, perhaps, but she said she trusted you to be the same sort of mother she had been.”

Lacey started to cry, moved by the sentiment and yet frightened by its meaning. Jessica had been a good mother. A superlative mother. She wanted to tell this stranger how motherhood had forced her to grow up quickly, how beautifully Jessica had risen to that challenge. But she would never be able to get out all those words.

“Ms. O’Neill? Are you still there?”

“Yes.” She reached for a tissue from the box on her worktable and pressed it to her nose. “I’m here.”

“I suggest you plan to stay out here a few extra days when you come for the funeral so that you and I can take care of the necessary paperwork. And more importantly, so you can get to know Mackenzie better before taking her back with you.”

Bring her back? To Kiss River? The sense of panic was so strong that she could barely breathe. She didn’t want to do this; she had never wanted a child and certainly didn’t want one thrust on her when she was so totally unprepared. Her thoughts shamed her, yet if someone could tell her how she could get out of this new and unexpected responsibility, she would jump at the chance.

“I don’t know if I’m suited to be anyone’s mother,” she said, more to herself than to the lawyer.

“Do you think Jessica was more suited at the age of fifteen?” he asked.

“That’s not the point.”

“This can’t be forced on you,” the attorney said. “If you can’t take on the guardianship of this girl, we’ll have to work out some other arrangements.”

Jessica had wanted her to do it, to be Mackenzie’s mother. She’d been adamant about it, the lawyer had said. She knew the other options open to her and she’d chosen her. Lacey thought of the little trinkets she’d wrapped the previous day to send to her friend. The gel pens and jigsaw puzzles suddenly seemed as insignificant as a grain of sand on the beach, silly gifts for a woman who would trust her with the life of her daughter. She had the ability to give Jessica a far greater gift—her life, her dreams for the future, her freedom.

“I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll bring Mackenzie home with me.”




12


ONE OF JESSICA’S FRIENDS, A VERY YOUNG-LOOKING woman named Amelia, met Lacey in the baggage area of the Phoenix airport. She was holding a sign that read “Lacey” in huge red block letters. Once Lacey introduced herself, Amelia hugged her tightly, and Lacey let herself remain in the embrace for a long time, breathing in the scent of the woman’s dark hair, knowing she was finally connected to someone who felt her loss as deeply as she did.

“I’m so glad to meet you,” Amelia said as she let go of her. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” Her voice was sweet and high-pitched. She looked about twenty-two and sounded fifteen. Her nearly black hair was long and swung free around her shoulders, and freckles were spattered across the bridge of her nose.

Lacey had to rack her brain to remember if she’d ever heard Jessica talk about this particular friend. She supposed she had. Jessica had been one to say “my friend this” and “my friend that,” rather than speak of them by name.

“Same here,” she said. “I’m sorry we couldn’t have met under better circumstances, though.” The trite words slipped out of her mouth and she was relieved at having found them without a struggle.

The day before, she had finally been able to reach someone at the number she had for Nola, and although Nola was purportedly “still sleeping,” the woman on the phone told her she would be picked up at the airport and she would have a place to stay. The woman had sounded frazzled, as though she was trying to organize too many things at once and Lacey was just one more ball for her to juggle.

“I could get a hotel,” Lacey had told her.

“No, no,” the woman said. “We’ve got it all worked out.”

“You’re going to stay with me,” Amelia told her now as she started rolling Lacey’s suitcase toward the exit.

“Thank you,” Lacey said. “That’s great.”

Amelia didn’t say another word until they were in her car in the parking lot. It was a convertible, but the top was up and the air-conditioning on, and Lacey was glad of that because the temperature had to be at least a hundred degrees.

“I’ve never been to North Carolina,” Amelia said. “How’s the weather there now?”

“Just really starting to heat up,” Lacey said. She knew they were about to get into a conversation about the difference between Arizona heat and North Carolina heat. Jessica used to talk about it all the time. “It’s 115 degrees here today,” Jessica would tell her over the phone, “but it’s a dry heat. Not like the Outer Banks.” Sure enough, Amelia started down the same path, and Lacey played along. Why did every conversation between strangers always begin with the weather?

“How did you know Jessica?” Lacey asked when they’d exhausted the topic of the heat.

“We worked together,” Amelia said, then shook her head. “I don’t know how I’m going to be able to go back to work without her. She made it bearable.”

Lacey knew that Jessica had worked in an office doing something with computers, but she’d never understood precisely what.

After quite a long drive, Amelia turned into the parking lot of a large complex of cute and well-maintained Spanish-style condominiums. “You can stay with me just as long as you need to,” she said, swinging the car wide to pull into a marked parking space.

“I’m expecting to be here three or four days,” Lacey said. “Are you sure that’s not too much of an imposition?”

“Actually, I don’t think three or four days will be long enough,” Amelia said.

“No?”

“You might be underestimating the time it’s going to take to get Mackenzie ready for the trip back with you.”

They got out of the car, and Lacey pulled her suitcase from the trunk.

“How is she doing?” she asked as they walked toward the building.

“Terrible,” Amelia said. “You can imagine what it’s been like for her. She only had her mother. She’s lost her world.”

Lacey thought back to her own mother’s death. “Is she able to sleep?” she asked. “Is she having nightmares?”

“I don’t know.” Without asking, Amelia took the suitcase from Lacey and began lugging it up the stairs to the second story of condominiums. Lacey didn’t protest. It was too damn hot. “She’s staying with Mary,” Amelia said, “another friend of Jessica’s who has a daughter Mackenzie’s age. Mary could tell you how she’s doing. All I’ve heard is that she’s gotten very quiet and has lost about five pounds in the past two days.”

Lacey could barely picture Mackenzie. She’d been a skinny kid the last time she saw her. If she’d lost five pounds back then, she would have been skeletal.

Amelia stopped at one of the second-story doors. She slipped her key into the lock and pushed the door open, and Lacey felt the welcome rush of cool air hit her face.

The condominium was small and neat and tastefully decorated with furniture and accessories that looked as though they’d come from Pier One.

“Your place is so cute,” Lacey said, touching the arm of the squat gold sofa. “And it’s so nice of you to put me up.”

Amelia rolled the suitcase into the guest bedroom, which was filled with white wicker furniture. “Not a problem,” she said. “Why don’t you get unpacked and then come into the kitchen and have a glass of iced tea or something.”

“Okay.” What Lacey really wanted was a shower. She felt grimy from the flight and the heat.

“Mary—the woman Mackenzie’s staying with—and another friend are coming over in a little while,” Amelia said. “We’re going to try to plan the memorial service tonight. I hope that’s okay with you. We thought you’d probably want to be in on the planning.”

“Sure.” Lacey nodded, although she had not even thought of that. “Will Nola be here, too?”

Amelia opened the closet door and pulled some empty hangers from among the items of clothing. “I don’t think Nola’s up to it,” she said, her back to Lacey. She turned, handed her the empty hangers, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “The truth is, Nola’s really upset about you being named guardian,” she said. “And we’re all … well, we’re a little confused about it. Not that you wouldn’t be the right person to do it,” she added quickly. “It’s just that …” She looked at the wall instead of Lacey. “Well, we didn’t think you’ve had any special connection to Mackenzie.”

“Who is ‘we’?” Lacey hoisted the suitcase onto the bed and started to unzip it.

“All Jessie’s friends,” Amelia said. “And, of course, Nola. Nola has seen Mackenzie at least once a year, and well, I don’t have kids, but Jessica has lots of friends who do and who would take Mackenzie in a heartbeat. And who are married, so Mackenzie would have two parents raising her.” Amelia lifted her hands in a helpless gesture, then dropped them to her lap. She had tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know this is coming out all wrong. I don’t seem to have the energy right now to make it come out right.”

“Are you one of the friends who would be a better choice?” Lacey asked, and Amelia’s eyes widened.

“No!” she said. “I’m only twenty-three, I’m not married, and I don’t have any kids of my own.”

“Well.” Lacey tried to smile. “Except for the twenty-three part, you just described me.” She pushed the suitcase toward the center of the bed so that she could sit down, herself. “I’m just as confused about this as you are, so you don’t need to feel awkward about it,” she said. “But Jessica’s attorney told me that she was very firm about wanting me to take Mackenzie. She obviously had her reasons, and I want to do what she wanted. I think it would be horrible to put a lot of thought and care into making a huge decision like that, and then have the people left behind not follow through on my wishes.”

Amelia nodded. “I know Jessica really cared about you,” she said. “Some of her friends don’t remember her talking about you, but I do. I was probably closest to her. She said that, even though you didn’t see each other much, she still considered you her best friend. Or maybe she didn’t say best, but she said that when you saw each other, you could just pick up where you left off without any problem.”

“That’s true.” It seemed like a slim reason to leave her child to her, though, Lacey thought. She pulled her thick hair up and held it against the back of her head to let the air-conditioning reach her neck. “I had a lot of time to think on the plane,” she added. “I came up with a few reasons she might have wanted me to take care of Mackenzie.”

“What are they?” Amelia asked.

“Maybe she wants Mackenzie to be raised in the place she was raised,” Lacey said, dropping her hair to her shoulders again. “In the Outer Banks.”

“That’s possible,” Amelia said. “She always talked about how she loved it there and she complained about how dry it was here. But she stayed here, didn’t she? I mean, she could have gone back. And if that was the reason, she could have left Mackenzie to her mother.”

“True. But I think Jessica really liked my family. She felt comfortable with us. Maybe she wanted Mackenzie to be part of that.”

Amelia nodded. “Well, maybe. Was she very close to your family? Is it big? I know she was always sad she had no brothers or sisters.”

“Well, she was close to us when we were kids, though not since she moved out here,” Lacey said. “I have a brother and a niece and a father and stepmother and half siblings. And my mother also died—”

“Yes, I remember Jessica saying something about that,” Amelia interrupted her. “Do you think that could be her reason? That she knew you would understand how Mackenzie felt, losing her mother?”

“I thought of that,” Lacey agreed. She’d also thought of another reason: Nola’s wanting Jessica to have an abortion and Lacey’s dissuading her from that decision, but she didn’t want to mention that to Amelia with Nola in town. “And there’s one other possibility I can think of,” Lacey added.

“What’s that?”

“I was always after Jessica to let Mackenzie’s father know that he had a daughter. To let the two of them at least know about each other’s existence, if not actually be in each other’s lives. Maybe she really wants that for Mackenzie and thinks I’ll do it.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Amelia shook her head, almost violently. “She never talked about him. What was his name? Bobby?”




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