“Hey,” I say, nervous suddenly.
“Congratulations,” she says, her hands in her pants pockets. It’s not a congratulatory tone she’s using, though.
I hesitate. “Why . . . why didn’t you join us?” But I think I know why she’s not inside with the rest of us. Lozz has the hots for Gregg, and she doesn’t feel like watching the two of us get tipsy and close tonight. She’s also smarting, I bet, from all the news coverage about her incident on the murder squad. She tried to protect her kid from that, and failed. Lorrington rubbed her name in the mud. I think of how I swam with her and her daughter in the waves, how I knew she wanted to help me. How convenient it was that she saw my bruises and met Martin. And brought me that package. And in so doing, Lozza probably saved my life. I owe her. But I just want her to go away right now. Because she sees me. In a way that others don’t.
“I need to get home to Maya,” she says.
“Okay, good. I . . . I should go.” I point my thumb over my shoulder at the pub entrance. “People waiting for me.”
“Your daughter never did stand a chance, did she, Ellie?”
My heart skips a beat.
“I . . . I don’t know what you mean.”
A car goes by. A drunken, happy group of revelers sways down the opposite sidewalk.
“It’s why they didn’t put you on the stand, isn’t it?” she says. “You. A key witness. The key witness. Because you wouldn’t have stood a chance with Lorrington. You’d have given him all the reasonable doubt in the world, not so, Ellie?”
“I don’t know what you want, Lozza. But I don’t like your insinuation.” I turn to go back inside.
“I spoke to the investigating officer in Hawaii. He sent me transcripts.”
I freeze, unable to move.
“Your in-laws, Doug Tyler—your ex-husband—they’re the ones who asked the cops to look into the possibility you drowned her. They told the cops you’d been diagnosed with serious postpartum depression after Chloe was born. It’s right there in the transcripts. Your in-laws said they’d been worried you might actually hurt their grandchild in order to get more of Doug’s attention.”
“He didn’t give me any attention. My marriage broke up,” I snapped. I was sweating. I could feel panic rising. I needed an Ativan. I needed to walk away from Lozza but couldn’t.
She takes a step closer. The light from the pub sign falls on her hair, making her look orange. “You know what I think, Ellie? I don’t believe you have it in you to kill someone. Your aggression is secret. It’s passive. You don’t pull triggers.” She pauses, her eyes holding mine. “But you are an enabler, I think. Maybe the sea did grab your daughter, but when she reached for your help underwater, maybe, just maybe for a second, you couldn’t reach back. Or you stopped yourself. And then she was gone. Maybe, just maybe, you didn’t call 911 when your mother overdosed. Maybe you just sat there with her until you were certain she was dead. Because you wanted all Daddy’s attention for yourself.”
I try to swallow. “You . . . you’re mad.”
“I spoke to your ex-husband and his new wife. Doug Tyler told me he’d come to suspect you enabled your mother’s death.”
“You can’t ever prove that. I don’t even remember what happened that day. I was only nine years old.”
She steps even closer. I can’t breathe. “When did you really find out that the woman in that photo of you and Dana was Willow?”
A buzzing starts in my brain.
“Was it before you went to visit Willow to ask for her help in hiring a PI? Did you already suspect then that she was working with Martin? Did you want her to find out about Rabz? Because you knew it would make her angry, maybe even dangerous to Martin? Is that why you also told her about the plane tickets to the Cape Verde islands—because the dark enabler inside you, Ellie, wanted to see what she’d do? Did you think she might kill Martin?”
“You need to leave. How dare you? I did nothing. You’re totally mad.”
Gregg appears from the pub. “Everything okay?” He frowns, looking from Lozza to me.
“That’s right, Ellie. You did nothing.” Lozza nods to Gregg. “Everything’s fine. I was just telling Ellie goodbye.”
Lozza turns and walks slowly down the street. I’m shaking. I watch her go. I watch the way the streetlights turn her hair to fire. My last session with the forensic psychologist oozes to life in my mind.
“Do you know about the Karpman drama triangle, Ellie? It’s a way of mapping the destructive interaction that can occur between two people locked in conflict.” He draws an inverted triangle on a piece of paper, and he writes a role at each point on the triangle.
Persecutor.
Rescuer.
Victim.
He looks at me. “The person who adopts the role of the Victim in a dysfunctional relationship is all ‘Poor me, woe is me.’ She or he feels hopeless, powerless, ashamed, unable to make decisions. Unable to find joy in life. And if she’s not being persecuted, the Victim might actively seek out a Persecutor. But she will also try to find a Rescuer to save her, but in so doing the Rescuer will perpetuate the Victim’s negative feelings about herself. Sometimes in a relationship a couple will actually shift between these roles—the Victim for a time might become the Persecutor. And then the Rescuer.” He pauses.
“Which one are you, Ellie?”
And it strikes me. The three of us—Willow, Lozza, me—we’re like those three points. The Persecutor, the Rescuer, the Victim.
Lozza stops, turns around, and calls out to me. “If you ever think of coming back to Jarrawarra, Ellie, I’ll be there. I’ll be watching you.”
“What was that all about?” says Gregg softly.
“Nothing. Nothing at all. Let’s go back inside.”
He places his hand at the base of my spine and escorts me back toward the pub. The pressure of his palm is both gentle and firm. Both sexual and benign. Both controlling and charmingly chivalrous.
But at the door I cast a final glance over my shoulder.
She’s there. At the corner. Standing under a streetlight in an orange halo.
Watching.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Once more I have been blessed to work with editors Alison Dasho and Charlotte Herscher, who always bring to the table brilliant ideas and a deft touch. Thank you both, deeply. Also a big thanks to my Montlake team for giving me some wiggle room and understanding with deadlines while our family struggled through a challenging year. I love you all, and am honored to be a part of this team. Jessica Errera and Amy Tannenbaum, thank you both for shepherding me through the process of bringing another book into the world—I hope there shall be many more! And a big heart full of gratitude to Melanie and Jay White for sharing a slice of their Australian life with us. Our adventures on the South Coast of your sunburned land seeded the germ of this story, and later, while I was polishing it, my soul cried while watching it all catch flame from afar. I am glad you are safe. And thank you, Melanie, for your careful Australian contextual read. A big thanks, also, to the rest of my dear family. I will not be able to think of this story without also thinking of my mother, who passed during the writing of it. We miss you, Mom.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2013 Paul Beswetherick
Loreth Anne White is a Washington Post and Amazon Charts bestselling author of thrillers, mysteries, and romantic suspense, including In the Dark, The Dark Bones, A Dark Lure, and the Angie Pallorino series. A three-time RITA finalist, she is also the Overall 2017 Daphne du Maurier Award winner, and she has won the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the National Readers’ Choice Award, and the Romantic Crown for Best Romantic Suspense and Best Book Overall. In addition, she’s an Arthur Ellis finalist and a Booksellers’ Best finalist. A recovering journalist who has worked in both South Africa and Canada, she now resides in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. When she isn’t writing, you’ll find her cross-country skiing, open-water swimming, or hiking the trails with her dog (a.k.a
. the Black Beast) while trying to avoid the bears. She calls this work because that’s when the best ideas come. Visit her at www.lorethannewhite.com.
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