Lizzie drags in another deep breath and blows it out before she responds.
“She said she killed her.”
Nineteen
Freya
When I pick up Hope from school, we don’t head home immediately. I want to spend some quality time with my daughter, something that hasn’t happened since Brooke returned.
Their mutual infatuation has grown over the last eight days and while I’m glad they’re getting along so well I also hate the feeling of being replaced in my daughter’s affections. Stupid, because Hope and I are close, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to cope if she starts gravitating towards Brooke rather than me.
Hope used to love baking oatmeal cookies with me once a week. It’s our thing and we’ve done it for years. But since Brooke came back, Hope would rather make brownies with her aunt than hang around the kitchen with me. And if my daughter has a problem with her homework, she’ll seek out Brooke’s advice first, when I used to be her go-to person. As for their sketching together, it makes me feel like an outsider and I hate it.
“Want to grab some smoothies and head to the lookout?”
I expect Hope to beam at my suggestion. Instead, she shakes her head. “I’m pretty tired, Mom, I’d rather go home.”
“Wow, you’re passing up a double malt choc banana smoothie?” I press my hand to her forehead and scrunch up my eyes. “This must be serious.”
She chuckles and pushes my hand away. “Mom, can I ask you something?”
“Anything, sweetie.”
I know her grade is starting sex ed classes and I brace for a question that I can hopefully answer without going into too much detail.
“If Auntie Brooke has come home after being away for so long, is there a chance my dad will come home too?”
A chill sweeps over me and it takes a mighty effort to appear unfazed. “No, sweetie, your dad won’t. He doesn’t know about you and I already told you, I don’t know where he is.”
“I bet you could find him if you wanted to.” Hope pouts and folds her arms. “It’s not fair I don’t have a dad.”
My heart breaks a little but I soldier on. “You like Riker, right?”
Her nod is minuscule.
“When we get married, he’ll be your dad. Won’t that be cool?”
I’m talking down to her like she’s five not ten but I’ve learned from our past conversations around this topic that keeping it simple works better than trying to lie or weave a story she’ll doubt.
“Yeah, I guess.”
Before I can say anything else, she says, “Why has Auntie Brooke stayed away all this time? Didn’t she want to meet me? Didn’t you miss your sister?” She pauses to take a quick breath. “I want a sister. Are you going to have another baby?”
Wow. I work through the questions methodically, knowing she won’t settle for anything less than an answer to each. “Your aunt has traveled a lot and worked in remote countries helping other people, so it’s not that she didn’t want to meet you, it was hard for her to get back here.”
I stick to the truth as much as possible because Hope has a way of ferreting out lies. Which reminds me, I must tell Brooke not to let slip she didn’t know about Hope’s existence until now. “As you can see, she’s loved meeting you and I’m so glad you two are bonding.”
Hope’s eyes glow at this and once again I’m back to resenting Brooke and her ability to charm everybody in her sphere.
“As for missing Brooke, of course I have, but I know she’s been doing important work with those less fortunate so I’m proud of her.”
When I don’t say anything for a few moments, Hope predictably pounces on my omission. “What about a baby sister for me?”
Riker and I discussed having kids within the first month of dating. My biological clock isn’t ticking particularly loudly and he’s happy to be guided by whatever decision I make; he’s great like that, laid-back and amenable. So for now, expanding our family isn’t in our foreseeable future but there’s plenty of time.
As Hope’s expression turns mutinous, I know she won’t be appeased by that answer so I reach for a little fib.
“We want to get married first, sweetie, then who knows?”
I wink, as if it’s some great secret between us, and after a moment she nods, apparently satisfied.
“Feel like that smoothie now?”
“Sure,” she says, with an indifferent shrug. “But then I really want to go home and do some sketching with Auntie Brooke.”
Biting back my disappointment, I start the engine and pull away from the school gates.
I started this, I have no right to react. It’s understandable that Hope wants to get to know her aunt. But at the thought of how the evening ahead will pan out, with Brooke and Hope sitting together at the table, engrossed in their own insular world, I feel desperately lonely.
Twenty
Alice
THEN
Ever since I met Elizabeth I’ve been obsessing over Diana’s callousness in abandoning her firstborn daughter and my hatred has grown. I want to punish her. I want to hurt her. I think of all the ways I can make that happen. But I chicken out at the last minute.
I’d planned on following the online instructions to the letter, but I have a conscience and the ramifications of what I’d been about to do as I stand next to my sister’s car hit home with a vengeance and I ditch my plan. I’d been so close… running my hands over the brake lines… until I realized what I’d been contemplating and stepped back. I can’t hurt my sister, no matter how much I might want to.
I feel a flicker of remorse for what I’d almost done as I knock on Diana’s back door and enter. It’s always unlocked. Most doors are in Verdant. Crime is low, socializing high. People help each other out here and I know how to play the pity card well once my plan works. My new plan, that is. Get Diana to tell Cam the truth, all of it, and hope he sees his wife for the woman she is, hope he finally realizes he could have so much more with dependable me.
“Di?” I call out, closing the screen door behind me.
“In the lounge room,” she answers and as I cross the family room I spy her lying on a sofa, her forearm over her eyes.
“Hope I’m not disturbing you.” Which is exactly what I intend on doing, in the worst possible way.
She lowers her forearm and struggles into a sitting position. She’s twenty-one going on eighty by the way she moves. Maybe guilt does that to a person. “The girls are napping so I thought I’d grab a rest too.”
“Cam’s not around?”
I know for a fact he’s not; I’d timed this perfectly for it to work. Not that it will now. Turns out I’m not as heartless as my sister and aborting my plan to harm her is a good thing. I’ll have to rely on Diana telling him everything and Cam seeing sense once he knows the truth instead.
“No, he’s helping the neighbors with a rain tank.” She barks out a laugh. “Like we get enough rain in Verdant to make that useful.”
I like living in the Nevada Desert. The dry conditions suit me. Barren, empty, like how I’ve felt for the last few years since my sister came home.
She glances over my shoulder at the ugly wooden cuckoo clock hanging over the mantel. It belonged to Cam’s dad and I used to tease him about it during the pizza nights we shared with his friends, what seems like a lifetime ago.
“Wow, is that the time? I must’ve dozed off—”
“How could you do it, Di?”
She’s perplexed by my question. “Do what?”
“Give your baby away.”
She blanches and her mouth drops open. “What… how—”
“Save it.” I hold up my hand. “I don’t want to hear any more of your lies. I want you to know Elizabeth was in Child Protective Services because the couple you gave her to are abusive assholes, but thanks to me she won’t be much longer.”
She closes her mouth, only to open it again, but no words come out.
“I’m going to bring her home.” I pause for dram
atic effect. “I’m guessing Cam will be very pleased to learn he has another daughter.”
Her pallor matches the wall behind her as she finally moves, swinging her legs off the sofa and pushing into a standing position. I’ve never been more grateful to be taller than her. I tower over her, holding all the power. At last.
“Don’t you dare say a word until I tell him.” It comes out an angry hiss and I laugh.
“That’s what I’m counting on, you telling him everything, and Cam finally realizing what kind of woman you are.”
Her eyes narrow to angry slits and her face flushes puce. “Why are you doing this?”
I can lie but what’s the point? I want her to know how much I despise her.
“Because I hate you for taking what’s mine.”
She knows what I’m talking about; I see it in a flicker of guilt before she blinks and it’s gone. “You’re crazy.”
“I’m guessing that’s what Cam’s going to say about you once he learns the truth.” I tsk-tsk, waggling my finger at her. “Honestly, Di, what were you thinking?”
I know the exact moment she’ll switch tactics and try to soften me up, hoping I’ll pity her. Doesn’t she realize I know all her tricks by now?
“I wasn’t thinking, Al. I was eighteen years old and pregnant after having sex with a guy for the first time. I told Mom and she said she’d take care of it—”
“You should’ve told Cam,” I yell, losing control for a moment. “She’s his baby too. He should’ve had a say.”
“I know, I know, but I was struggling with morning sickness and I didn’t want anyone in town to know, so Mom took me to this place in LA and I—”
“Save the sob story, Di. You’re a selfish bitch and always have been, getting everything you want.” I pat my chest. “Now it’s my turn.”
Her upper lip curls in a sneer. “What do you think’s going to happen? That once I tell Cam, he’ll ditch me for you?” She shakes her head. “You’re pathetic.”
She takes a step toward me, determined to hurt me as much as I’ve hurt her. “He’s never liked you as anything more than a friend, he told me when we first started dating. And that’s not going to change despite what I’ve done. He loves me, we share children and he’ll forgive me. And even if that’s not the case, no way in hell would he turn to you.”
“Let’s find out, shall we?” My lips ease into a grin that’s more a grimace. “Go tell him the truth.”
She’s wrong. When Diana tells Cam he’ll be appalled by her lies and turn to someone he can trust—me—for comfort. He’ll see how much I love him by the selfless adoption of his firstborn, by how far I’ll go to prove my feelings.
I know a court may overturn the adoption if the biological parents state a solid case but Cam won’t want a legal drama played out in this town, especially when his folks are such pillars of society. He may resent me at the start but when he sees what an amazing mother I am, how much I love his daughter compared to Diana, he’ll come around. He has to.
“Go tell Cam. I’ll look after the girls.”
She glares at me with loathing as she snags her car keys from the side table, before sprinting out the door.
I head upstairs to check on the girls, listening for the sound of her car starting. When it does, I pause in the girls’ doorway, watch them slumber, and I smile. I can afford to be smug.
I’m about to get everything I deserve and more.
Twenty-One
Brooke
I spend a lovely few hours with Hope at the dining table, trying our hands at watercolors, before she has to go to bed. It’s early, just after eight, but I’m glad because after Lizzie’s startling revelation this morning, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. What did Aunt Alice mean when she said she’d killed my mom? I have to find out and I’m more determined than ever to find a way to access Alice’s diary. Freya is at Riker’s so once Hope is asleep, Lizzie brings Alice’s laptop out of her room and we fire it up.
“I know the main password after watching her enter it often enough over the years,” Lizzie says, her fingers tapping at the keyboard, “and I think her diary password is similar, but I’ve tried a stack of variations of it to gain access to it but no luck.”
I grab a pencil and tear a sheet off Hope’s sketchpad. “What is it?”
“BrakeMyHeartCS3. But brake spelt with an a, not what you’d expect with ‘break a heart’.”
I write it down and stare at it for a few seconds, deliberately blurring my eyes to allow the letters to jumble, seeing if I can come up with a similar combination. “Obviously means ‘break my heart’, but CS3?”
Lizzie’s nose crinkles. “This may sound crazy but weren’t your dad’s initials CS? Cameron Stuart?”
I wrinkle my nose too. “You think my dad broke Alice’s heart?”
Lizzie shrugs. “Puts all that talk about sisters and secrets into perspective, huh?”
I hesitate, hating to cause my cousin pain but eager to solve this mystery. “Do you think she muttered about killing Diana because that’s what she wanted to do? If she had a secret crush on my dad it would make sense. So now her memories are muddled, she’s saying stuff she would’ve liked to see happen but didn’t?”
“Yeah, probably, but…” Lizzie trails off, pensive. “You didn’t see her when she said it. She looked really tortured, like she regretted doing it.”
I can’t see gentle, sweet Aunt Alice hurting anyone, least of all her own sister. She’s been a wonderful mother to Lizzie, and an equally generous mom to Freya and me. She’d been the best taxi mom, never complaining about driving us wherever we wanted to go. She’d been courtside at every one of our basketball games and would shout the team to hotdogs afterward. She’d been generous with her time and money and I can’t imagine her doing anything nefarious to her sister.
“Does she talk about your father at all?”
Lizzie shakes her head. “Never. She was nineteen when she had me, practically a kid herself, and said he didn’t want to be a dad so took off.”
“Do you know who he is?”
“No.” She gnaws on her bottom lip, sadness clouding her eyes. “I pestered her a lot growing up but it always made her shut down and I felt bad for giving her grief after a while so I stopped.”
“Speaking of fathers, does Freya ever talk about Hope’s?”
“Uh-uh. All I know is she left not long after you did. I was away at college and when I came home for summer break, she was here with her baby.”
“And Aunt Alice never talked about it?”
“She forbade me from asking Freya anything to do with Hope’s paternity because it upset her too much.” She rolls her eyes. “I know how that felt already. If Mom wouldn’t tell me about my own dad, what hope did I have of getting anything out of her about Freya?”
“This is making my head hurt.” I press my fingers to my temples and rub a little, before refocusing on the password. “Let me jot down a few variations of this and we’ll see if we can crack her diary password.”
Lizzie watches as I doodle, shifting letters around, transposing the 3 into variations between words. When I’m done I have a list of about twenty different passwords. I turn the paper around so Lizzie can see it.
“I’ve tried at least half of those, let me try the rest.”
She opens up the diary software and starts typing. I hold my breath each time she hits the ‘enter’ key, disappointed whenever we get the ‘denied access’ message box.
When she tries the last one and we get more of the same, I huff in exasperation. “It was always a long shot.”
She nods. “I’ve also tried obvious stuff, like our birth dates, 1234, along with variations of ‘secrets’ and ‘birthday’ to no avail.”
“Have you tried asking your mom for the password? I mean, she’s confused and she probably won’t know why you’re asking.” I wince. “I know it’s low trying to access her personal stuff like this but if we can give her some peace, set her mind at ea
se, it’s worth it?”
Lizzie blushes. “I’ve already tried. The week before you came back, when I chatted to her about Freya’s wedding and you coming home, she got really agitated and her rambling became worse. That’s why I emailed you…” She trails off and offers a wan smile. “I’ve always been closer to you than Freya and I wanted you to come home. I thought her invitation might not be enough so I sent that email practically begging.”
“I’m glad you did.” I squeeze her hand. “We’re more like sisters than cousins and I’ve missed you.”
She hesitates, as if unsure what to say. “Why did you cut off all contact with us? One minute you were here, the next you were gone and you never came back. You changed your number, had limited access to email, then eleven years later here you are.”
It’s a legitimate question but I have no intention of revealing any of my secrets. Better off focusing on Alice’s.
“I went through a lot when Eli died and I didn’t handle it well. Getting away from here, cutting all ties, was something I had to do to heal.”
Confusion creases her brow. “But you just said we were like sisters. Why would you think I wouldn’t support you? I mean, I know I wasn’t around at the time, but later, when I came back from college, I would’ve been here for you.”
“I wasn’t thinking about anything or anyone, Lizzie, and that’s the truth. I was eighteen, I’d gone through a horrendous experience that everyone blamed me for and I had to get away. Plus the guilt…” Emotion clogs my throat, a breath-stealing sorrow after all this time. “Breaking up with Eli in the state he was in was stupid. I should’ve waited until the next day but I didn’t and he died because of me.” I shrug, like the constant guilt means little when it’s shaped my life. “I had to stay away for my sanity.”
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