Quinn had had her first scan a week ago, and the picture of their baby was proudly displayed on the refrigerator. It was too soon to tell the sex of the baby, but Gabe insisted it was a girl, and Quinn secretly agreed. They could both be wrong, but whether they had a boy or a girl was irrelevant. As long as the baby was healthy, they would be happy with either.
Before her conversation with Rhys, she’d given little thought to Jo. Having left for Spain the day after the funeral, she’d put Jo from her thoughts and focused on time with her family. She still mourned Jo on some level, but the grief didn’t go deep, and life without her was much as it had been before her. She’d had several communications from Jude and Brett, and although she was still wary of having any dealings with Brett, she had replied, determined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“Sounds like you’ve thought things through,” Rhys said, leaning back in his chair.
“I have. It’s time to look forward, not backward.”
“It sure is. Katya and I are expecting as well,” Rhys said, beaming at her. “It’s a girl.”
“Oh Rhys, I’m so pleased for you. How’s Katya feeling?”
“Happy, hungry, amorous,” Rhys replied, blushing furiously enough to make Quinn laugh.
“Well, I hope you’re taking care of all her needs.”
“I’m at her beck and call, whatever she desires,” Rhys replied with a coy smile. “Katya has no issues with gaining weight. She’s all about the baby,” he said. “And I like her plump. It’s sexy as hell.”
Quinn smiled. She loved seeing Rhys happy. He deserved it, and he’d be a great dad. She was sure he was already a wonderful husband.
“I have to get going,” Quinn said. She handed Rhys the file containing all her findings on Annie Edevane. She’d written it all up before leaving for Spain, needing to put the image of the child from her mind. Had she not been a mother, she might not have taken this case so to heart, but that poor deformed baby had nearly broken her. Perhaps it was what she’d needed to allow herself to move on without her gift. She’d always have it, but that didn’t mean she had to use it.
“I’ll see you next week, Rhys. Regards to Katya.”
“See you,” Rhys replied. He looked at her as if he were searching for something in her gaze, but then smiled and waved his hand. “Off with you.”
Epilogue
August 1961
London, England
Davy set down his toy truck and studied his mother. She looked so beautiful and peaceful, her face dappled with sunshine. The deep groove between her brows disappeared when she was asleep, and there was a half-smile on her lips, as if she were dreaming of something nice. He missed his mother. She hadn’t been the same since Annie was born. She was always crying these days, and his father reminded him of a coiled spring. His parents, who had always made him feel safe and loved, were in the grip of emotions he couldn’t grasp, but he knew they were deeply unhappy, and afraid.
Getting to his feet, Davy walked over to the chaise where Annie was lying, covered in his mother’s yellow shawl. She was so sweet when she was asleep, almost like a normal baby. But she wasn’t. She was broken, and everyone now knew, and their lives would never be the same. He’d heard the jeers and the cruel words as they left church. Any day now, his friends would start to taunt him and say things about his sister, possibly even about his mother, and then he’d have to fight, and he didn’t want to fight with his mates.
He liked playing with them, and soon they’d all go to school, and maybe be in the same class for years, so this would follow him around until he was a grown man. He didn’t want to be laughed at because of Annie or made to feel different because of her deformity. And he knew he would be, because had Annie been someone else’s sister, he’d be tempted to say cruel things and jeer with the rest. Annie looked strange, frightening almost, with just that head atop a body that looked like a gingerbread man whose arms and legs had already been eaten.
Davy sighed as he looked at Annie’s face. He couldn’t understand what had happened to his sister, or what his parents might be going through. They were grownups and their feelings were as incomprehensible to him as the sermons Reverend Hale delivered in church. All those strange words and sentiments bored him silly, but he did understand death. Death was final. It changed everything, usually for the worse. But if Annie died, things would be better. His mother would be happy again, and his father would pay attention to him and take him out on adventures, like he used to. They could have another baby, a good one this time.
Davy picked up one of the smaller pillows and held it over Annie’s face. She didn’t even twitch, just lay there, like a lump. After a time, her chest stopped rising and falling and he knew she was dead. Davy put the pillow back and went back to his truck, filling the bed with pebbles from the garden. He was a little frightened of what he’d done, but he’d done it for his parents, and for Annie.
She was better off dead, like a dog that was put down when it was injured. She’d play with the angels now. Maybe even grow limbs, and wings. She’d be like one of those fat little cherubs he saw in religious paintings. Yes, everything would be all right now. He’d saved them all.
The End
Please turn the page after the Notes for an excerpt from
The House on a Hill
Coming May 2020
Notes
I hope you have enjoyed this final installment of the Echoes from the Past series. I loved writing it since this series had allowed me to combine my love of history and archeology with my love of historical mysteries. I will miss these characters sorely, maybe even enough to continue the series with another book or two. If you’d like to see more of Quinn and Gabe, please let me know. Don’t be shy. I love hearing from you.
You can always reach me at www.irinashapiroauthor.com or [email protected].
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If you’ve enjoyed the book, reviews on Amazon and Goodreads would be greatly appreciated.
An Excerpt from The House on the Hill
Prologue
If walls could talk, what a story they’d tell—a story of love, betrayal, and murder, the woman thinks as she stands at the top of the stairs watching the newcomer, who is completely unaware of the woman’s ethereal presence. The newcomer is moving around the house with the uncertainty of someone who’s trespassing in someone else’s space, trying it on for size to see if she could make a life for herself there. Many others have passed through the house over the centuries, but this one is different. She’s young, in modern terms, but she’s known the pain of loss and the heartbreak of betrayal. It’s right there in her shadowed eyes and the unhealthy pallor of her face.
Maybe this one will be able to help me, the woman at the top of the stairs thinks. Maybe she’ll succeed where others had failed, and finally set me free so I can fulfill my promise at last.
Chapter 1
Lauren
The Present
The morning was bright and brisk, with wispy clouds racing across the aquamarine sky and playing peek-a-boo with the pale orb of the sun. It was mid-March, but there wasn’t a hint of spring in the air, winter stubbornly clinging on. The roads were clear, but snow still covered much of the ground since the temperature refused to rise above freezing, and the icy breath of the ocean held the shoreline in its thrall.
Lauren peered at the GPS as it instructed her to make a right. The road she turned onto was narrow and surprisingly steep, flanked by ancient trees whose branches moved eerily in the wind. The house was about a mile away, perched on a hill that overlooked Pleasant Bay and the Atlantic Ocean beyond.
Lauren hoped she was going to like this one. She’d seen several potential rentals over the past few weeks, but the ones she liked were too pricy and the ones
she could afford were little more than shacks that smelled of mildew and had such low ceilings she could reach up and touch them. She hadn’t planned on leaving Boston, but the desperate need to escape her apartment and spend a few months in a place that held no painful memories overwhelmed her.
In two weeks, it’d be a year since Zack died, killed by a sniper’s bullet during the spring offensive in Afghanistan. It had been his third tour and would have been his last. They’d made plans. They were going to sell their apartment in Brookline and buy a house in the suburbs, start trying for a baby, and live a wonderfully boring life where Lauren didn’t lie awake night after night waiting for him to call from overseas or avoid watching the news for fear of hearing something that would send her into a tailspin.
While Zack was away, she’d concentrated on her work, finally completing the last book of the military romance series she’d been writing. She’d often heard the advice “Write what you know,” and this was something she knew—the heart-wrenching goodbyes followed by tearful reunions, the worry, the fear, and the pure joy of those first few weeks of togetherness after Zack finally returned to her, safe and sound. Those first few days were like a second honeymoon, but more intense, more precious. Zack had joked that the months of separation kept the marriage strong because the romance never fizzled out. It stoked their desire for each other and transformed the mundane details of their lives into something magical. They’d talk nonstop, their words tripping over each other and falling like a waterfall from their parched lips, and the need to touch, to feel, to worship each other’s bodies was so strong, they barely got out of bed.
Zack had often remarked how lucky he’d been in his life, but his luck had run out a year ago on a windswept mountaintop just north of Kabul. Their life was like a record that had screeched to a halt, the song left unsung, the melody interrupted. Suddenly, Lauren was alone, widowed, a status people tended to associate with elderly women who’d lost their husbands to illness or old age, not with someone who was still in her twenties. She couldn’t bring herself to utter the word; it made her loss all too real. The rational part of her brain understood Zack was gone, but the emotional part, the loving part, still looked for him everywhere she went. She still spoke to him, sometimes out loud, and slept on her side of the bed, unable to move to the middle for fear of acknowledging that he’d never sleep next to her again. She needed to have pictures of him but looking at them tore at her heart. She wanted to be in the place he’d called home, but every piece of furniture, every picture, every item of clothing reminded her of the husband she’d lost. Seeing his favorite mug for the first time after he died had led to a two-day cryfest that resulted in her hiding the cup from view lest she fall apart again.
She’d put off clearing out his side of the closet, unable to get dressed in the morning without touching his shirts and sniffing desperately in the hope that a hint of his smell still clung to the laundered fabric. She’d finally done it a few months ago, but she hadn’t thrown anything away. Getting rid of Zack’s things seemed too final, too real. Despite her valiant efforts to cope, her life became reduced to eating, sleeping, watching TV, and reassuring everyone that she was fine, a lie no one really believed.
She’d stopped writing. She simply couldn’t form an original thought as she sat day after day, staring at the blank screen of her computer. Her agent had been able to get her several ghostwriting gigs. It was much easier to organize someone else’s thoughts and turn them into a narrative than deal with her own. Her clients were happy, and her reputation as a ghostwriter grew, resulting in more commissions. She was glad; it was imperative to keep busy in order to keep the worst of the pain at bay. But after a long, snowy winter spent mostly indoors, she needed to get out. She had to get away from the ghost of Zack, to inhabit a new place, to try to put the pieces of her life back together and come to terms with a truth that had come knocking on her door several months ago and shed a new light on her life as she’d known it. She had to get away, to spend a few months in a place that made her feel peaceful and whole.
Cape Cod had naturally come to mind. She’d loved the place as a child. Her parents had rented a house on the beach for two weeks every August, and they’d spent their days tanning and swimming, followed by burgers and grilled seafood eaten on the deck as they watched the sun sink below the horizon. It was a golden memory of her childhood she still clung to and had hoped to recreate with her own children someday.
The summer season wouldn’t officially start until Memorial Day, but if she found the right place, she’d be ready to move in as soon as the first of April, eager to watch spring arrive in a place that was nearly free of memories—her own rebirth, for lack of a better word. She owed it to Zack. She’d made a promise.
“Promise me you won’t grieve for me should anything happen,” he’d said that last morning at their apartment.
“I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you,” she’d replied, clinging to him amid the rumpled sheets.
Zack had kissed her tenderly and brushed her tangled hair away from her face. “Lauren, promise me you’ll move on. I need to know that you’ll be happy; that’s the only way I can leave and get on with my job. Promise me,” he’d demanded, his gaze anxious and intense. “Promise me.”
And she’d promised, even though she’d been lying through her teeth. “Yes, I promise. I will get on with my life if the worst happens.” But she’d never imagined that anything could be worse than death, or that some secrets lived on, haunting those left behind from beyond the grave.
Lauren’s eyes widened in surprise when the house finally came into view. She hadn’t bothered to look it up online, preferring to see it for the first time in real life and form an impression. It was a lot grander than she’d expected, the type of house one saw in advertisements for a holiday on the seashore. It even had an actual name, rather than just an address—Holland House. She parked the car and got out, smiling at Susan McPherson, who’d been waiting in her car but was now coming to greet her.
“Sorry I’m late. Traffic out of the city was monstrous.”
“It always is,” Susan replied breezily. “No worries. I caught up on some calls while I was waiting for you. It was too cold to hang around outside anyhow.”
“Susan, are you sure this place is within my budget? It looks too—I don’t know—glamorous.”
Susan gave a dismissive shrug. “Glamorous is not a word I’d use to describe this house. The location is perfect for someone who wants to spend the summer in blissful isolation, but it’s not overly appealing to families who prefer to be close to the beach. There’s a private dock, but no boat,” she added as she led Lauren around the side of the house to show her the breathtaking view. Beyond Pleasant Bay, the Atlantic stretched like a blue-gray quilt toward the horizon, its surface decorated with foaming whitecaps whipped up by the wind. Several small islands were visible from their vantage point on the hill. According to Susan, they were uninhabited, being too small and steep to build a summer residence to rival the one she was looking at.
A wide patio hugged the back of the house, complete with wrought-iron furniture and a covered grill. A narrow wooden staircase led to the water’s edge, where a short dock extended into the bay. Both the stairs and the dock looked old and rickety, unlike the house, which appeared solid, if windswept, by comparison. It had the pleasing proportions often found in homes of colonial design, but Lauren didn’t think this house was a modern-day replica—it looked like the real thing.
“When was this place built?”
“The original house was constructed in the eighteenth century. It had two rooms downstairs and two bedrooms above. I believe the widow’s walk dates to the nineteenth century,” Susan said, glancing at the white-painted rooftop platform that was such a common feature of houses on Cape Cod. “Over time, the owners added indoor plumbing, several rooms, a patio, a sunroom, and, of course, the driveway and the garage. However,” Susan shook her head in dismay, “it’s not wired for cable o
r internet. Another nail in the coffin for the current owner. Families want TV and internet. Kids don’t spend their free time reading and playing board games as they did when I was a kid.”
“No, I don’t suppose they do. Why doesn’t the owner just bring in the cable company?”
“I think he just forgets about this place until it’s time to rent it out again, and then it seems like too much of an expense, or too big a hassle. I honestly don’t know. He lives in L.A., where he makes movies.”
“He’s a film producer?” Lauren asked, curious.
“No, he does special effects. One of those artistic types,” she added, as if that were the worst thing a person could be. “I think he’d happily sell the place if he could be bothered to deal with all the details of putting it on the market. As long as he gets a few tenants in each summer, he’s content to let the property sit empty for the remainder of the year.”
“So, the isolated location and the lack of internet are enough of a drawback to keep renters away?” Lauren asked, amazed that anyone would pass up such a wonderful place.
Susan looked furtive for a moment, then exhaled loudly, as if she had no choice but to tell the truth. “This house has a bit of a reputation.”
“A reputation for what?”
“Look, it’s an old house. It creaks, doors slam shut, probably because there’s a draft. Lights occasionally go on by themselves, but the wiring hasn’t been updated since it was put in, whenever that might have been. It’s nothing to worry about.”
The Broken (Echoes from the Past Book 8) Page 29
