by Lisa Gardner
My mother died.
I just can’t process it.
I’m rich. This is a different thought for me, too. A good one, because God knows my baby and I need the money. I’ve been working on finding a lawyer. Not a criminal defense attorney this time. Right after the fire, I didn’t know what would happen: Mr. Delaney had confessed to me that he’d killed Conrad, not to mention my father, but then he’d also gone and died, which made it my word against whatever the police believed to be the case.
Sergeant Warren told me not to worry. Delaney might have arranged to burn down his own town house, but not before removing his computer, valuables, and personal papers. The detectives found a treasure trove of information in his office. Including a confession he’d written years ago, then locked in his personal safe. Maybe an attempt to purge his sins, sleep better at night? I don’t know.
Apparently, the computer experts would be tearing apart his hard drive for months to come, and with my help figuring out all of Conrad’s usernames, they could now rebuild his own activities online, uncovering the very dangerous dance that Conrad had started, thinking he was thwarting a hired assassin, but instead unwittingly exposing himself and his activities to Mr. Delaney, who then decided Conrad had grown too dangerous to live.
I don’t get to hear about it as much, but I’ve caught snippets of conversation between Flora and D.D.—the feds are reworking Jacob Ness’s computer. In fact, they are using some of Conrad’s usernames to track Ness’s online activities during Flora’s abduction. A local expert, Keith Edgar, is helping. I only know this because D.D. likes to say Keith’s name to watch Flora blush. Interesting.
Flora is waiting for something. Wants something. From time to time she snaps at D.D., have you heard anything new, what the hell is Quincy doing anyway? D.D. counsels patience. She is clearly waiting for information, too. But I can tell she’s much more worried about what the information will mean.
The truth hurts. I know that. Sergeant Warren knows that. Flora will figure out it, all in good time. And when she does, D.D. and I and maybe this Keith guy will be there for her.
My husband is gone.
We loved each other. We created a home together. We made a life together. And we lied and we lied and we lied.
I miss his smile. I miss the solid strength of his arms. I miss the look of wonder on his face when he contemplated the swell of my stomach, the mystery of our unborn child.
And now I will raise our baby alone.
I think I will teach. Return to my classroom and my brilliant, lazy, frustrating, hormonal, but never boring students. I feel like if I don’t put one stake in the ground, one piece of something familiar, I will become completely untethered and float away.
Too much of my life has been lies. I get to own that. Too much of my life has been isolating. I get to own that, too. And too much of my life has been spent running away instead of running toward. I want something to run toward. My child. A community. Friends.
I think Flora and I are friends. She doesn’t know it yet, but once my lawyer sorts everything out, Flora will be coming into an inheritance of her own. I’ll disguise it somehow. Anonymous gift, legacy from a long-last aunt. There’s always a way.
But she saved me. I wouldn’t have gotten out of the burning house without her. She saved me and she saved my unborn child.
My baby lives.
This, I can process. I can feel him or her each night, a swelling of my own body, making way for this new, incredible force. I can close my eyes and see each little finger and toe, resiliently forming, then growing, growing, growing. Arms, legs, nose, mouth, delicately curving ears.
My baby lives. We talk. We love. We share. No more lies. No more walls. My father was brilliant, my mother was melodramatic, my husband was a hero and a liar, my family was complicated.
No more.
I want to buy a cute town house in a normal neighborhood. Maybe one with a park nearby. And given my improved fortunes, I will have a nanny for the early years, then day care when my child is older. Or maybe I’ll meet a nice older woman who’d love to help out a single mom living on the same block. I will host barbecues where I can get to know my neighbors’ names, and let them learn a little bit about me.
And I won’t stand in a corner anymore. I will step up. I will become part of the world I live in, even when it’s scary. Because life is scary, but it still beats the alternative.
Flora turns down another road, then another.
She’s not humming anymore, but her finger is tapping impatiently on the wheel. We’re getting close, I think. I wonder if Flora knows that she is smiling.
Then a house bursts into view. Two stories, painted a charming yellow with slightly eccentric lavender shutters. The wraparound farmer’s porch offers an array of benches, and rocking chairs with all sorts of brilliantly colored pillows, while the front door is a bright cherry red.
The car hasn’t even parked when the front door bursts open and a woman I can only presume is Flora’s mom comes hopping out, still pulling on her second boot. Half her hair is on top of her head, half is trailing down her back, and she is wearing so many different tops I give up sorting it out. She’s grabbed some kind of man’s checkered blue flannel shirt as her outer layer and is dusting what appears to be flour from her hands.
The parking area has been shoveled for our visit. Now Flora brings my car to a jerking halt.
“My mother, Rosa,” she says, her voice still slightly hoarse. Time, the doctors had told her, had told me. We all need time.
But it’s not her voice that matters. I’m looking at her face, and this is a Flora I’ve never seen. Younger. Lit up. Happy, I think again. But more than that, home.
This is Flora at home.
She already has the car door open, flying across the yard. In the passenger’s seat, I slow, struggling with my seat belt. An inner instinct tells me not to rush. I don’t want to miss what’s going to happen next.
A pause. At the last minute, Flora’s mom draws up short. I would swear she’d been about to fling her arms around her daughter, but then caught herself, as if knowing better.
For one moment, Flora’s mother appears awkward, less certain. Yearning. She is staring at her child with clear, deep longing.
My own breath catches in my throat. I wonder if my mother ever looked at me like that. I’m already promising my baby I will always look at him or her with such love.
Then . . .
Flora closes the distance. Flora throws her arms around her mother and hugs her so hard, so tight. On and on and on.
Rosa closes her eyes. She squeezes back. Even from this distance, I know she is crying. And laughing and crying some more. I blame the baby hormones, but I’m crying, too.
I take my time easing out of the car. I cross the yard more carefully, aware of the snowy footing.
Flora has finally stepped back from her mom.
Rosa is teary-eyed but beaming. She looks at me. She smells of molasses and cinnamon and brown sugar, which are things I’ve been told mothers smell like, but I have never experienced it for myself.
“You,” she says, “must be Evie.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book has been such an adventure! First off, my deepest appreciation to my editor, Mark Tavani, for keeping me focused and at the computer, even when the book was evil and all my characters hated me (which happens more than you think!). Not just anyone is cut out to deal with the cranky authors of the world. Thank you, Mark, for being the voice of wisdom for me.
On the investigative details front, a big shout-out once again to Lieutenant Michael Santuccio of the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department for educating me on cold cases, prior shootings, and proper procedures for current arrests. Given this book also delves into the nefarious world of the dark web, thank you, Robin Stuart, for helping me understand all the cool ways to scrub a comp
uter, and all the cooler methods forensic techs will use to rebuild a hard drive in the end. Rob Casella from Northledge Technologies also educated me on cloud technology and multifactor identification. In the war of cops versus criminals, I’m happy there are such brilliant people on our side. Oh, please bear in mind that any mistakes in this novel are mine and mine alone. My sources may be experts, but I am just me.
Under the care and feeding of authors, the list is very long this year. First and foremost, thank you, Laurie Gabriel, for the warm reception from yourself and your family. Thank you to my posse, who always have my back: Michelle, Kerry, Genn, and Sarah. My deepest appreciation to my local family, Pam and Glenda, Bob and Carol, for taking such good care of me, especially this past year. And of course, love and affection for my real family, including my ninety-nine-year-old grandmother, who e-mails me weekly to make sure the book is getting done, and my teenage daughter who questions anything and everything but also makes me real chocolate cream pie so at least I have hope of surviving another day.
To my pub team, you are extraordinary. For my agent, Meg, thank you for all the extra guidance and heartfelt support. Finally, I couldn’t have done this without the constant presence of my snoring elderly terrier, Ruby, or the youngsters, Bowie and Annabelle, crashing around the living room. Certainly, life is never boring.
Along those lines, several people joined the bookmaking fun by winning naming rights in this novel. Patty DiPiero won the right to a character of her choice, coming up with Patricia Di Lucca, arsonist investigator extraordinaire. Rhonda Collins won the annual Kill a Friend, Maim a Buddy Sweepstakes, nominating her friend Sandi Clipfell as the missing woman, presumed dead. Tina Maracle won the international edition, Kill a Friend, Maim a Mate, naming herself as missing, presumed dead. There are more books to write; who knows what will happen next? But thank you all for your generous support and I hope you enjoy your literary immortality.
To all my readers out there, thank you for your warm embrace of Flora and her particular journey. There is more to come. Hope you enjoy the ride.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LISA GARDNER is the number one New York Times bestselling author of twenty previous novels, including her most recent, Look for Me. Her Detective D. D. Warren novels include Find Her, Fear Nothing, Catch Me, Love You More, and The Neighbor, which won the International Thriller of the Year Award. She lives with her family in New England.
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