The Secrets She Kept (23 page)

“So what does it all mean?”

“It means they’ll examine that hair under a microscope and compare it against samples from any and all suspects.” Which now included Rocki.

“What if it
was
your older sister?” she asked. “How will
you
feel? Will you try to save her from prison—or fight to see that she goes away for life?” And what would Maisey do?

He shook his head. “That’s an impossible question for any brother to answer.”

21

KEITH COULDN’T BRING
himself to call Rocki. He had the time; he was driving back to Coldiron House from the flower shop. But he couldn’t confront his sister quite yet, and he was just as hesitant to call Maisey. He’d gone to see Nancy instead. She was the easiest person for him to talk to because she understood him and the situation in a way none of his newer friends in LA could. They had no idea of the kind of man he once was, or the family he came from. He presented a very different image to them.

Nancy always offered sound advice, and she could sympathize without being devastated. Maisey, on the other hand, would feel like he did. Shocked. Saddened. Sickened. And angry at their mother for getting involved with Landon in the first place.
What had she been thinking?
She had so much male attention; she hadn’t needed Landon’s, as well. Rocki wasn’t the type to hurt anyone. Not without a powerful trigger. But Josephine had threatened Rocki’s marriage, and therefore her family’s well-being. So...did that make what might’ve happened all Josephine’s fault? Was there a line beyond which murder became justifiable?

Keith could understand the rage that must have boiled up when Rocki learned about the affair. He’d felt his own share of rage over the years, his own desire to see the last of their mother. But
murder
? Even if
he
sympathized with his sister, the law would not.

As he drove through the gates and into the garage, he told himself to stop thinking the worst. They’d thought maybe Landon had hurt Josephine, and they’d been wrong. Keith felt a little guilty about those suspicions now that Chief Underwood had confirmed Landon wasn’t even on the island.

Could they also be wrong about Rocki?

Sure. The police had no forensic proof that Rocki had killed their mother. The strand of hair found in the tub indicated only that the culprit was someone with long brown hair, but a lot of people had long brown hair—some of them men.

“She didn’t do it,” he said, as if saying it aloud might ward off the doubt. Then he shut down the engine and called her from inside the car. He didn’t want Pippa to overhear his conversation. He saw no need for this to go around the island, for his sister to be convicted in the minds of Fairham’s residents before there was any actual proof.

She didn’t pick up. So he texted her.
It’s important I talk to you as soon as possible. Please answer.

A minute or two later, she called him.

“What’s going on?” Her voice had a nasal quality that made him wonder if he’d interrupted her during a crying jag.

He slid his seat back to create more legroom. “Are you okay?”

“No.”

That didn’t exactly shore up his hope. She didn’t even know she’d been found out... “Why?”

“Family stuff. Between Landon and me.” She told him to hang on while she blew her nose. “What’s happening with the autopsy?” she asked when she came back. “Are they finished?”

“They are. I just heard from the doctor. He couldn’t provide a lot of details yet, but he did give me the manner of death.”

“Murder.”

“Yes.”

There was a brief silence. Finally she said, “You expected that.”

Did
she
? He noticed she didn’t ask
how
Josephine was murdered. Was she too distracted? Or did she already know? “I wish that weren’t the case.”

“Me, too.” She’d supported his decision to get a pathologist of their own. Why had she done that? Why hadn’t she stood behind the coroner’s initial assumption of suicide?
There I go again. She’s innocent.

“Is that why you called?” she asked. “Because this isn’t really a good time—”

“When were you going to tell me, Rock?” he interrupted.

Another silence greeted this question. “Tell you what?”

“About Mom and Landon.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do.”

The silence grew even heavier.

“Rocki?” he said. “Hard as it may be, you need to open up, to trust me.”

Nothing.

“Are you still there?”

“This is a nightmare,” she mumbled more to herself than to him. “And it’s getting worse by the day. I keep hoping I’ll wake up, that my life will go back to normal, but...”

“We have to deal with what
is
. When did the affair start?”

“How’d you find out?” she asked instead of answering.

He wished he didn’t have to tell her about the photograph. That would add insult to injury. But he felt they both needed to be as open and honest as possible. Complete transparency might be the only way to survive this emotional maelstrom. “There’s a picture of him on Mom’s computer that’s...shocking.”

“What picture?” She sounded scared.

“He’s naked. With an erection.”

When he heard her gulp, he felt a renewed anger at Josephine and Landon. Not only had they ruined their own lives, they’d probably caused Rocki to ruin hers. “I’m sorry.”

“How’d she get that?” she asked when she could speak.

“He must’ve sent it to her, right?”

The sound of water rose to his ears—the taps going on? “Rocki?”

He heard retching next and felt his muscles tense. After a minute or two, she picked up again. “I’m here.” She didn’t explain what she’d been doing; she didn’t need to.

“Where’s here?” he asked softly.

“My...my house. My bathroom.”

“Where’s Landon?”

“His dad wasn’t feeling well and needed him to handle a tour.”

“So he went to work? You’re alone?”

“Yes.”

“What about the game store?”

“It’s closed today.”

“I’m glad.” He paused. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened.”

“How can
anyone
explain the past week?” she said. “No, it’s been longer than a week. The past month and a half?”

“Please try, and I’ll do everything I can to help you.”

He heard the rasp as she sucked in a breath. “Okay.”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

The volume of her voice dropped so low that Keith had to hold his phone tightly to his ear, but he didn’t dare interrupt in case he couldn’t get her talking again. “I first noticed something...odd a little over a month ago,” she said. “Landon was more preoccupied than usual, not as engaged with the family. He was nice enough, just...not as attentive and not as interested in sex, which I found unusual. I didn’t let it bother me too much, though. We’ve been under a lot of financial pressure lately, and I was busy with the kids.”

“You noticed nothing before that?”

“Nothing that stood out. A month ago is when it got...serious. If that’s the right word. Landon can’t give me a specific time. He said it began subtly. A few years ago. Whenever we’d visit Fairham, Josephine would flirt with him, touch him on the arm or shoulder, lean in close when she spoke to him. I was oblivious to it until Mom’s Christmas party. But while I was there, I got a strange feeling about them. They joked and laughed too much, seemed to be in their own little world, and I wasn’t part of it. I’d never seen Mom do that with anyone else.”

“Because you weren’t around to watch her target so many other guys over the years.”

“I’m embarrassed to admit this now, but at first I was flattered that she liked my husband so much. And then... It’s hard to verbalize. At that party, as the night wore on, I started to get a bit uncomfortable. She’d look at him too long or something. It was weird.”

“Did you confront her? Or him?”

“No. You know Mom. She was above question. I didn’t confront either one of them. I ignored what I’d seen—talked myself out of it. I couldn’t believe that Landon would have any interest in a woman so much older, no matter how pretty she was, especially my own
mother
.”

“I can see why you might discount it.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that, because now I feel like a fool for being so blind. I thought once I got Landon home, everything would be okay. After all, we don’t live close to Fairham and we rarely saw Mom. But then he told me he had to go to Vegas, and that made me uneasy all over again, because we’d already decided we didn’t have the money to attend the convention this year.”

“You suspected he might be coming here?”

“I didn’t
suspect
, exactly. I was...worried, concerned. Enough that I checked up on him after he left.”

“How’d you do that?”

“I put an app on his cell phone that’s designed to show where everyone in the family is.”

“Without him finding out?”

“I had all the pings and other notifications go to an email account he and I created years ago that we no longer use.”

“But couldn’t he see the icon on his phone?”

“He has loads of apps. I knew he’d never notice.”

“So that’s what gave him away.”

“That’s what gave him away,” she echoed. “The app showed him on Fairham, not in Vegas, although he called me, pretending to be at the MGM Grand. So I arranged for the kids to stay with their friends, and I went to Fairham to confront him—and Mom.”

Keith released his seat belt; he hadn’t even noticed that he still had it on. “When was this?”

“A week ago Saturday night.”

The night Josephine was killed. Keith rubbed his eyes. “What’d he have to say when you surprised him?”

“I never actually saw him. By the time I got in, the app showed him as disconnected, so I assumed he’d realized I’d put that location device on his phone and deleted it. I found out later that he’d turned off his phone because he was on a plane to Vegas.”

“You told me he left on the five o’clock ferry.”

“He did.”

“Does that mean you arrived on the eight o’clock?”

“Yes, I barely made it.”

If only she’d missed it... Keith felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold air creeping into the car. “And did you see Mom?”

“I did. She was packing for her trip.”

“Did you see anyone else?”

“Like who?” She seemed surprised that he’d asked such a seemingly unrelated question, but he was keeping track of timelines, wanted to determine exactly who knew what and when everything had happened.

“The ferry captain. Tyrone. Pippa.”

“The ferry captain
might’ve
noticed me, but it was dark and rainy and we didn’t speak. It’s not like I was driving Mom’s Mercedes, or there was anything else to connect me with Coldiron House. I’d rented the cheapest economy car I could find. I doubt he paid me any attention.”

“What about Pippa and Tyrone?”

“They were both off by the time I got to the house. And I was glad. As you can imagine, I wasn’t at my best. I didn’t want Maisey or anyone else to even know I was on the island. I was hurt and angry and reeling at the thought of my mother and...”

When her words fell off, he could tell she was once again fighting to suppress her emotions.

“...and my husband,” she finished a few seconds later.

Keith twirled the keys around and around his finger. “So you came across on the ferry and drove to Coldiron House in the rain without speaking to anyone.”

“Yes.”

“What happened next?”

“Like I said, Mom was packing for her trip. She didn’t want to talk to me, kept trying to put me off. Said I didn’t know anything. That nothing was how it appeared. That she couldn’t deal with my
issues
right then.”

“And you...”

“I told her she was the most despicable human I’d ever met. That I was glad Gretchen stole me and raised me. That Gretchen, despite her faults, had more integrity in her little finger than Mom had in her whole body. That she’d ruined my family. That I’d never speak to her again as long as I lived.” She paused, then said, “I can’t even remember it all.”

“So you didn’t leave.”

“Not right away. I wish I had, though. I wish I’d never gone there, never spoken to her.”

“Why?”

“Because those are the last memories I’ll have. And whether she deserved what I said or not, those memories are ugly.”

“How did it end?”

“She was mortified. I don’t think she’d ever been caught so red-handed. She always acted as if she had more to be proud of than the rest of us did, that she had more dignity...or more
something
. She was so damn arrogant. She tried to ignore me while she packed. Kept saying Landon meant nothing to her. But that only made me angrier. If he meant nothing to her, why’d she have to do what she did?”

Keith wished he could answer that question. “Some sick desire to be more attractive, more appealing than you?” Her
daughter.
He didn’t say anything about Landon’s role in the whole mess...

“I guess. Anyway, in the end she apologized that I was ‘upset.’ That was when I knew staying wouldn’t help anything. So I screamed a few more terrible things and ran out.”

Keith was relieved to hear that she’d left. But she couldn’t get off the island until the ferry started running the next morning. Did she return to Coldiron House later, hoping to see their mother again, hoping to achieve more satisfaction the second time around? “Where’d you go after that?”

“To Smuggler’s Cove. I wanted to go to Maisey’s, but I was too humiliated, didn’t want anyone to know what Landon—and our mother—had done.”

“Then why didn’t you stay at the Drift Inn? There are always vacancies in the winter.”

She laughed without humor. “I didn’t have the money—and no room on my credit card. I’d gone over the limit paying for my airfare, which wasn’t cheap since I booked at the last minute.”

He felt so guilty about what she must have been feeling that night. It couldn’t have helped that she had such limited resources. “So where’d you sleep?”

“I managed to get inside one of the rentals. It was cold, because I couldn’t get the heater to work. The pilot light must’ve been out, but I wasn’t about to try to deal with that.”

So how did their mother wind up dead? “Did you go back to see Mom again that night, Rocki?”

He had to wait several seconds for her response, but then she said, “Are you asking me if I killed her, Keith?”

He could hear tears in her voice. “I’m afraid so. I
have
to ask, Rock. I have to know what really happened.”