by Nalini Singh
I’ve become so good at keeping secrets. Until I can’t even write some things here, in a place no one else will ever look. It scares me sometimes, who I’ve become because of him.
The final entry was dated four days before her disappearance.
I think Dominic’s getting ready to ask me to marry him. Auntie keeps smiling at me in a secretive way and he went out of town the other day, then blushed bright red when I asked him where he’d been. He never lies to me, so I didn’t push it, but I think he went to pick up a ring.
I don’t love him like he loves me and I feel guilty about that sometimes, but I do love him. He’s so happy when he’s with me—what I can give him, it’s enough. And what he can give me, it’s what I need. I don’t want to be alone. I’ve never really liked being alone. Marriage will be a good thing. It’s what I want. I’ll say yes.
Closing the journal, Will stared at the wall across from him. Covered by yellowed wallpaper dotted with tiny brown flowers, it was honestly the ugliest wall he’d ever seen, and that included the one in his grandmother’s house that featured giant blue roses. He’d loved his gran, missed her when she passed, but that wallpaper . . .
Will glanced back down at the final entry. Tight timeline or not, he’d been chewing over Dominic de Souza as a possible suspect in the back of his mind—lovers were always at the top of the list. But if Miriama had decided to say yes to his proposal, then rejection as a motive was off the table. Dominic clearly knew he was punching above his weight when it came to Miriama—she was the kind of woman who’d inspire envy in other men, and Will had the sense Dominic enjoyed that.
He could see no reason for the doctor to have harmed Miriama when she was about to give him everything he ever wanted.
Which took Will back to the lover Miriama had rejected.
Reading between the lines, that man had been very possessive of Miriama—he was also wealthy and likely not used to being told no.
Thunder rumbled again, a massive boom of sound.
It didn’t look like it now, but according to the weather report, this storm would clear by morning. If that held true, he’d make the trip to Christchurch and get started on the jewelers and watchmakers; first, however, he’d run a wide patrol through Golden Cove and surrounding areas, make sure everyone had come through the storm okay. The volunteer search teams would no doubt go out again, but Will was grimly certain that if Miriama had been anywhere where she could be found, she would’ve already been found.
Setting aside the journal for now, he decided to look quickly through the rest of the items in the tin. He found mostly what he’d expected: ticket stubs from a show in Auckland, a curling photograph of a stunning woman who might’ve been Miriama with twenty more years on her, a Valentine’s Day card that had the words To my love and Always, I’m yours written within and was signed only with xoxo.
The flotsam of Miriama’s life—flotsam she’d kept as reminders of moments that had meant something to her. He’d have been disappointed not to find a photograph of her lover if he hadn’t already read her journal and known how carefully she kept that secret. If she did have an image of the man, it was most probably on her phone.
Or, he realized, it could be out in the open in a way that’d raise no eyebrows—one of her photographic portraits. He’d seen images of Vincent, Daniel, other men both known and unknown in her files. He’d look at those portraits again, but with Miriama skilled at bringing out emotion in all her subjects, he wasn’t expecting a sudden epiphany.
The Valentine’s Day card might be useful in providing a handwriting sample to compare against the lover’s, but that would come after he’d tracked down a solid suspect.
Will picked up and looked at the snapshot of the woman again. This had to be Miriama’s mother—the resemblance was striking except for one thing: the older woman’s face displayed none of Miriama’s sunny joy in life. Her eyes were jaded despite the smile that curved her lips, her face set in lines that hinted at petulance.
When he flipped the photograph over to look at the back, he found a note in the same large and generously looped handwriting as in the journal:
Ma just before she found out she was pregnant.
It struck him as an odd thing for Miriama to have put on the back of the picture; most people would’ve used another marker for their mother’s life. Will had the bleak feeling Miriama had grown up knowing her existence had forever changed her mother’s. Matilda would never say a hurtful thing to a little girl. Which meant the message—and the rejection—had come directly from Miriama’s mother.
What did that do to a child?
Did it leave holes in the soul?
A hunger to be wanted, to be loved?
Just the kind of vulnerability a smart, selfish man might exploit.
Putting down the photograph, Will finished looking through the other items in the tin box. Nothing that immediately jumped out, though the two ticket stubs from an exclusive stage show were interesting—dated months before Miriama began seeing Dominic, they must’ve cost in the hundreds.
He’d follow up, but he knew the chances of tracing Miriama’s lover through the tickets was unlikely. If the unknown male had stuck true to form, the tickets had been purchased either in cash or in person or—more probably—by Miriama after her lover gave her the cash to cover the credit card repayment.
Will’s hand fisted.
An affair was one thing, but for this man to protect himself with such caution, even using Miriama as a shield, it spoke of an intense and manipulative self-interest. Miriama had been right to fear that her lover would never fulfill his promises to her. And she’d been smart to break away.
But had she stayed smart?
Love could make people do stupid things.
Sometimes, that stupidity led to death. And to screams Will had never heard, but that haunted him each time he closed his eyes. As long as he lived, he wouldn’t understand why a loving mother would pick up the phone and invite a monster to visit. Daniella Hart had been safe. Her little boy had been safe.
But she’d picked up the phone.
So no, Will didn’t trust that Miriama had stayed smart.
33
Anahera walked into Josie’s café just after nine thirty the next morning, the world sunlit around her, knowing she’d see this through to the bitter end. Something bad had happened and was continuing to happen in Golden Cove and Anahera wasn’t about to ignore it. People did that too often. Just ignored things because those things were uncomfortable or awkward, and in the end, all they had left were broken pieces and blood.
She forced a smile onto her face as Josie bustled around the side of the counter. “Shouldn’t you be sitting down?”
White lines bracketing her mouth, Josie used both hands to cradle her bump. “I can’t sit still,” she said. “I’m so worried about Miri. Working in the café, making sure the fire station is supplied with tea bags and milk and sugar and whatever else they need, it gives me a way to be in the thick of things, get any news as it comes in. The idea of sitting at home and just waiting . . .”
Anahera nodded. “I’m sorry, Josie. I know you two are close.”
Her best friend smiled tightly before walking over to fuss with a table centerpiece—a tiny glass bottle that held a couple of freshly picked daisies. “We’re too far apart in age and interests to be friends like me and you,” she said. “I like to think of myself as her older sister, someone she can come to for advice.”
Not particularly liking herself for pumping her friend for information, Anahera nonetheless knew she had to take advantage of this opportunity. If Miriama had confided in her, Josie could well know things no one else did. “Did she tell you anything that could explain her disappearance?”
Josie stopped fussing with the table decoration and went around to the coffee machine. “Cappuccino, right?” She began to make one without waiting for an answ
er. “I’ve been digging through my memories since she went missing.” The high sound of steam, of milk being frothed. “But the thing is, even though I like to think of myself as her older sister, I’m not sure Miriama thinks of herself as my younger sister.”
Taking a seat near the counter, Anahera shrugged off her anorak. “Why? Did she say something?”
Josie didn’t reply until she’d finished making the cappuccino. Bringing it out with an ease that made it clear she’d done the same a thousand times, she placed the drink in front of Anahera, then took the seat across from her. “No, it’s just . . .” Her friend pushed both hands through the fine strands of her hair, the light brown intermingled with a glint or two of silver. “I feel like I’m gossiping about her behind her back.”
“You can’t think like that.” Anahera got up to grab the chocolate shaker to dust the fine granules over the froth of her coffee, more to give Josie space than because she wanted it. “Not if what you know might be helpful in finding her.”
Swallowing hard as Anahera retook her seat, Josie stared at the wood grain of the smoothly planed table. “I heard her on the phone a few times,” her best friend said at last. “She had that look on her face—the same look you had on your face that weekend I came to stay with you up in Auckland. It was right after you’d met Edward, and you were glowing and giggly and happy.”
Anahera could barely remember that version of herself. “That can’t be an unusual thing for a girl as beautiful as Miriama,” was all she said.
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Josie said. “But—and this is before Dominic—Miri’s never really dated as much as you might assume. She has big dreams and she’s determined to make them happen. She did go out on the odd date, don’t get me wrong, but it was a year and a bit ago that she got that look on her face and I knew it was serious.”
Anahera just nodded, the fingers of one hand around her coffee cup.
“I sort of teased her about it,” Josie continued, tracing the wood grain with a fingertip. “Like I did you about Edward. Nothing pointed or mean. Just kind of saying how she was looking happy and when was I going to meet the lucky guy.”
Leaning forward, Anahera took one of Josie’s hands in her own. “You’re ice-cold,” she said with a frown, and began to rub Josie’s hand between her own to warm it up. “Do you want me to get your shawl?” She could see it draped over the chair behind the counter.
But Josie shook her head. “The cold is from inside,” she whispered. “It’s from fear of what might’ve happened to Miri.”
“Just tell me if you change your mind.” Anahera didn’t stop attempting to warm Josie up. “How did Miriama react to your teasing?”
“She—” Josie paused, bit her lower lip. “Her reaction was odd . . . hurtful.” Hazel eyes held Anahera’s. “My response feels so immature now, but back then, I was badly wounded by what she did.”
“Was she angry with you?”
“No. She lied to me.” Josie’s voice shook. “Laughed and said that I was mistaken, that she’d been talking to a friend. I knew she hadn’t been, knew that tone in her voice was for a lover, not a friend.”
“Did she ever admit the truth?”
“About a month later—she came up to me out of the blue and said she was sorry for having lied to me, but that she couldn’t talk about the person she was dating. She said he was inappropriate and that she wasn’t ready for anyone to know about the relationship.” Josie extended her other hand toward Anahera. “Since you’re doing such a good job.”
Laughing at this small glimpse of the content, happy Josie she knew, Anahera switched her warming-up attentions to her friend’s neglected hand. “When she said ‘inappropriate,’ did you have any idea what she meant?”
A shake of the head. “I nudged her about it, asked if there was anything I could do, even cautioned her against getting involved with a man who might not be good for her, but she just hugged me and said she loved me for caring.”
Josie sank her teeth into her lower lip. “Then she told me not to worry, that her guy wasn’t abusive or a drug dealer or anything bad like that, only someone it might take her aunt a little bit to warm up to, so she was going slow with it.”
It wasn’t much to go on. Inappropriate could mean all kinds of things—the lover could’ve been significantly older, for example. “Did you two ever talk about it again?”
“I accidentally walked in on another phone call a few months later. She was out back having a break, but I needed her to come in because a tourist bus had turned up early and I knew we were about to be slammed. I pushed open the back door and heard her say, ‘We are sinners.’”
Josie’s face turned stark. “She hung up as soon as she saw me and we didn’t talk about it then, but at the end of the rush, she looked at me and said, ‘Will you still be my friend when you find out what I’ve done?’” Her fingers tightened on Anahera’s. “It was so sad, the way she said it. I told her nothing could break our friendship and then, because I thought she needed a laugh, I said the only caveat was if she attempted to seduce Tom. Then all bets were off.”
“Unless Tom has had a personality transplant, I don’t think you ever have to worry about him straying.” Even Anahera, with her dim view of men, couldn’t fault Tom’s loyalty or love. He’d do anything for Josie, including hauling over supplies for her crazy friend who lived in a cabin on the edge of town—he’d also checked Anahera’s plumbing while he was there.
Tom Taufa was one of the good guys.
“That’s why it was so funny, the idea of him being seduced.” Releasing Anahera’s hand, Josie resettled herself on the chair. “But Miri’s face went kind of still and odd, and she said, ‘You never have to worry about that, Josie,’ and then she left to deliver a coffee to Glenda at the tourist center, and we never talked about it again.”
Anahera sat back in her seat. “A married man?”
“That’s what I thought, too,” Josie said with a sigh. “I really didn’t want to believe it—I take marriage vows dead seriously. But I love Miriama. I decided my job was to support her. And I wasn’t about to blame her when she wasn’t the one who was breaking vows.” Her voice was harder on the next words. “If I ever find the man who convinced her to break her faith, however, I’ll have a few things to say to him. She was tormented at committing a sin.”
The small bell above the door tinkled.
Anahera turned to see Dominic de Souza; she recognized him only because Matilda had shown her a photo of Miriama with “her doctor boyfriend.” There’d been so much pride in Matilda at that instant, her tear-swollen eyes momentarily suffused with happiness.
There was nothing of happiness in Dominic de Souza.
Grief had ravaged his face, creating new grooves in his skin, and his hair was as wild as his eyes behind the clear lenses of his glasses, but he had on a fresh white shirt over a pair of black pants. “I’ve got patients to see,” he said without a greeting. “I’m the only doctor in town.”
Pushing herself up by using the table as a brace, Josie walked over to take Dominic’s hands. “I’ll make you your usual,” she said softly. “If you need anything else, you just call from the clinic.”
Anahera rose and began to put on her anorak while Josie went around to make the coffee. The doctor just stood there, his face more than a little vacant. Anahera didn’t know if he should be treating patients today, but maybe being in the surgery would wake him up. And, unfortunately, he was right: he was the only medical help around unless you were prepared to drive fifty minutes to an hour south—and that was assuming clear roads with no slips from the storm.
In a local emergency, Dominic de Souza was the only choice.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay treating patients?” she asked, careful to keep her voice nonjudgmental.
Blinking, he turned to stare at her. Intelligence sparked in the pale bloodshot brow
n of his eyes, his shoulders squaring. “I’m a good doctor,” he bit out.
Anahera couldn’t fault him for his edgy reaction to a complete stranger questioning his competence. She’d probably lose her shit, too, were their positions reversed. Looking back over her shoulder, she said, “Josie, I’ve put the money for my cappuccino on the table.” She left before her friend could tell her to take her money with her—the way Josie looked after everyone, it was a wonder she was turning any kind of a profit.
Having walked into town, Anahera began to head toward the police station.
When a gleaming black sports car crawled up along the otherwise empty street littered with fallen leaves, dirty candy wrappers, and other storm-borne debris, Anahera noticed it without paying it much mind. Not until it pulled to a stop a few meters ahead of her and the driver shut off the engine.
The door opened seconds later, a familiar man getting out.
34
Daniel May came straight toward her. “I thought that was you, Ana.”
“Daniel.” Anahera stopped, her hands in the pockets of the anorak. “How much is that car worth?” She recognized the make—Edward had owned a sedan because he was far too sensible to drive around London in a car worth the same as a house, but he’d always lusted after fast cars that were all about speed and elegance.
Before everything had gone wrong and they’d broken so deep the fracture could never be patched, Anahera used to tell him he should buy one on his fortieth birthday and to hell with anyone who thought he was having a midlife crisis. Instead, he’d gone out and gotten himself a mistress. “It’s a Lamborghini, isn’t it? Did you get it the same time you grew a ponytail?”
A bright white smile from the man who’d once been a boy on whom she’d had a crush. She’d been thirteen at the time, Daniel fifteen.
“Nice to know you aren’t going to give me the cold shoulder.” His sunglasses hid eyes she remembered as being unusually dark, but his tone was open enough—and cuttingly bitter. “I’m getting sick of it from everyone else.”
