She eyed the sign queasily. BREWED AWAKENINGS. The scene of Rhanna’s infamous last stand—still here. Which was more than she could say for her mother. But then there’d been no staying in Salem Creek after that particular spectacle.
Rhanna had spotted a pair of women staring at her over their lattes, and had proceeded to stage a meltdown of epic proportions, railing about pious old biddies who simpered about turning the other cheek on Sundays, then turned into vipers the other six days of the week. She might have gotten away with it if she’d stopped there. But Rhanna had never been one to do things by half. Instead, she walked to the center of the shop, raised her arms above her head, and in the name of all the Moon girls, living and dead, had called down a curse on every breathing soul in Salem Creek—as if such a thing were actually possible.
The so-called curse had produced the desired effect, emptying the shop in a matter of minutes. But there’d been undesired effects as well, like the police showing up to investigate a threat reported by a half dozen townspeople. In the end, nothing came of it. There were no laws on the books regarding curses, threatened or otherwise.
Word of the incident spread like a wildfire, and the outcry for something to be done about that Moon woman and her girls quickly swelled. The day after the vigil, Rhanna packed her van, pocketed Althea’s emergency cash from the stoneware jug on top of the fridge, and disappeared, leaving her mother and daughter to deal with the fallout.
And now, eight years later, one of those Moon girls was about to walk into the same shop and ask for change. The thought made Lizzy’s palms clammy. Perhaps she’d just risk the ticket. But that was ridiculous. Instead, she turned and made herself push through the door with its tinkling brass bells.
The shop hadn’t changed much over the years: black-and-white floor tiles, scarred bistro tables lined up along yellow walls, potted ferns suspended from macramé hangers. Lizzy scanned the chalkboard menu while she waited in line, but her gaze kept straying to the woman working the register. She wasn’t wearing a name badge, but she looked vaguely familiar.
Lizzy watched as she rang up the man ahead of her, barked out his order to the barista—maple scone and a half-caf macchiato for Brandon—then opened a roll of quarters while he slid into the pickup line. She was still fumbling with the change wrapper when she closed the register and finally looked up. “What can I get for you, hon?” Her smile wavered, the crumpled coin wrapper in her fist forgotten. “Lizzy Moon . . . It is Lizzy, isn’t it?”
Lizzy squared her shoulders, trying to read the woman’s expression. Was it fear? Disdain? In the end she decided it didn’t matter. “Yes, it’s Lizzy.”
The woman’s face softened. “I heard you were back. I was so sorry to hear about your grandmother passing. She was a fine lady. A fine, fine lady.”
“I’m sorry,” Lizzy said, flustered at this unexpected show of kindness. “I thought you looked familiar, but I don’t remember your name.”
“I’m Judith Shrum. I was a customer of your grandmother’s. Always knew just how to fix me up. Good as any doctor, if you ask me.” She leaned forward, dropping her voice to a whisper. “All those busybodies flapping their yaps about those poor girls. They had no idea what they were talking about. Anyone who knew Althea Moon—I mean really knew her—knew she wasn’t capable of such a thing. Even their mother knew it.”
Lizzy seized on Judith’s words. “Mrs. Gilman?”
“Susan. Yes, poor thing. We were friends, though we don’t see each other much since she moved. Not that I blame her. She had a hard time of it. She told me once that she never felt right about what people were saying about your grandmother, how it just never sat with her. It seemed like—” She went quiet as a girl in a smudged apron and Brewed Awakening T-shirt sidled past with a spray bottle and cloth, resuming only when she was sure the girl was out of earshot. “It always seemed to me like she had her own ideas about what happened.”
“What . . . kind of ideas?”
Judith shrugged. “She never said. It’s only a feeling I had. And then one day she just stopped talking about it. Stopped talking about everything, really. Like she’d tuned out the whole world. Again, not that I blame her. I did wonder, though, if her going quiet had to do with Fred. Bit of a bully, that one. I was sad when she moved, but I’m glad she’s away from him.”
Lizzy peered over her shoulder, relieved to find that there was no one lined up behind her. “Do you still see her?”
Judith shook her head wistfully. “No, but we still talk. She lives in Peabody now. She’s a hairdresser. Doing all right for herself too. She was seeing someone last time we spoke, which made me glad. She deserves some happiness after everything, a fresh start with fresh memories.”
Lizzy nodded. She understood better than most that sometimes a fresh start meant leaving a place. She also knew how hard it could be to look old memories in the eye. Was it fair to force herself into Susan Gilman’s world, to rip the scab off a wound that might finally be healing? She’d made that mistake with Susan’s ex, and it hadn’t gone well. But if she passed along her cell number by way of Judith Shrum, the decision would be Susan’s to make. Perhaps the years had rendered her more willing to share her ideas about the fate of her daughters.
An hour and a half later, Lizzy left Chuck Bundy’s office with a virtually untouched vanilla latte and a throbbing pain behind her right eye. As expected, the prospects for an easy sale were far from rosy, though he’d been careful to remind her several times throughout their conversation that he was speaking only in hypotheticals as it related to her particular property.
She’d gotten a crash course in real estate, learning the many pitfalls inherent in the sale of distressed properties, and how price could vary wildly based on the number of comparable listings currently on the market. When asked about the possibility of a quick sale, he’d been coolly evasive, suggesting they set up a time for him to come out and look around. Once he knew what he was dealing with, he’d give her a list of options, and they’d come up with a battle plan.
In the meantime, he’d given her some homework: documents she needed to locate; calls she needed to make; forms she’d need to procure, sign, and record with the county. He’d offered her a toothy smile as she left the office, assuring her that there was no such thing as an unsellable property, but now, as she drove home with terms like market saturation and stigmatized property rattling around in her head, she wasn’t so sure. Nor was she looking forward to explaining it all to Luc, and telling him she would be delayed. Again.
She was considering just how long she might be able to put off that conversation when her cell phone rang. She eyed the number on the hands-free display, wondering if she’d actually conjured Luc, but the area code was 978 rather than 212—not one she recognized.
“Hello?”
“Miss Moon?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Susan Gilman. Judith gave me your number.”
Lizzy was so surprised she could barely speak. “Thank you so much for calling. I know this is awkward, but I was wondering if you’d consider speaking with me. We could meet for coffee.”
“It would need to be here in Peabody,” she replied after a lengthy pause. “I can’t meet you in Salem Creek.”
“No, I understand. I’d be happy to come to you. Name the place, and I’ll be there.”
“I’m not sure I can tell you anything that will prove helpful, but if you have questions, I’ll answer whatever I can. I could meet you after work.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Gilman. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”
“Today then. After I finish my shift. There’s a bookstore at the mall—a Barnes & Noble. I’ll be in the café at six.”
The café was packed when Lizzy arrived at ten minutes to six, students and business types mostly, hunched over laptops, earbuds plugged in. It took several passes before she spotted Susan Gilman seated at a corner table, and even then she had to do a double take.
The years had ch
anged her, but not in the way they had changed her husband. Her hair, always mousy and lank, was now a pale shade of blonde with rose-gold highlights, and her makeup looked as if it had been applied by a professional. In her boots and skinny jeans, she looked chic, almost edgy.
“Mrs. Gilman?”
Susan looked up from her magazine without smiling. “I go by Ames now, my maiden name. It was just . . . easier. But please call me Susan.”
Lizzy nodded, understanding why her online searches had come up empty. “Thanks so much for agreeing to see me. Can I get you a coffee?”
“Thanks, I’m all set. My last appointment canceled, so I’ve been here awhile.” She gestured toward the vacant chair and waited until Lizzy was seated. “I hear you paid my ex-husband a visit.”
Lizzy opened her mouth, then closed it again, surprised that she knew about her visit to Fred Gilman’s trailer.
“Don’t look so surprised. We both know how that town works. Judith’s husband works at Mason Electric. It didn’t take long for word to spread that you’d shown up looking for Fred. So how’d it go?”
“Not well. I’m pretty sure he was trying to scare me off.”
Susan nodded grimly. “Big man, my ex.”
“Did he ever try to scare you?”
“He didn’t have to try. It came naturally.”
“Was he . . . abusive?”
“If you’re asking did he hit me—no. He got his point across in other ways.”
“What other ways?”
Susan lifted her mug, cradling it between her palms. Her hands were shaking. “There are all kinds of ways to be abusive, Ms. Moon. Ways that don’t leave scars for the neighbors and the police to see.”
“Did you ever call the police on your husband?”
Susan peered over the lipstick-stained rim of her mug. “And say what? That he was being mean to me? That I was being punished for burning his toast or forgetting to buy new laces for his boots? No, I never called the police. I drank instead. Not too much, just enough to numb myself. Then a little more when that stopped working.”
Lizzy was getting a depressingly vivid picture of life as the wife of Fred Gilman. “What about Heather and Darcy? Were they scared of their father?”
“Scared? Of Fred? God forbid.”
Something new had crept into Susan’s expression, something deeper than sadness, and far more brittle. Lizzy remained quiet, waiting for her to say more. She didn’t, choosing instead to pick at the frosty maroon polish on her left thumbnail.
Lizzy shifted in her chair, feeling the woman’s pain, but needing desperately to get to the truth. “Susan?”
“Hmm? Oh, right. Were the girls afraid of him. That would be a huge no. Maybe if they had been, they’d still be here. Heather would have gone to prom, and Darcy would have gone to nursing school. I’d have grandkids and scrapbooks full of vacation snaps. But I kept quiet, so none of that happened. Fred got his way like he always did. And look where it got him, where it got all of us. As far as Fred was concerned, those girls could do no wrong. He absolutely refused to see it. And he certainly didn’t want to hear it from me.”
“Didn’t want to hear what?”
“That Heather was out of control. That Darcy was right behind her. That if he didn’t rein them in, something awful was going to happen. And something did.” Her voice broke then, splintering with emotion. She looked away, fanning the tears that had pooled in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said finally. “It’s just so hard to have been right. You know how you get that feeling, and you just know something bad is coming. And then when it does, you keep kicking yourself because you knew. You knew, and you didn’t stop it. I live with that.”
Lizzy was groping for a response when she caught a whiff of something murky and dank, a combination of mildew and freshly turned earth. The mingled aromas of coffee and baked goods were so prevalent in the café that she hadn’t noticed it until that moment, but the layers of emotion were unmistakable now. Loss. Regret. Soul-crushing grief.
Before Lizzy could check herself, she had reached for Susan’s hand. “What happened wasn’t your fault. A mother can’t protect her children from everything.”
“No. Not when you’re not allowed.”
“Not allowed? I don’t understand.”
“Fred wouldn’t let me discipline them. Not for anything. That was his job, he said. His girls, his job.”
“He wouldn’t let you discipline your own daughters?”
Susan glanced up from her thumb, where she’d been at work again on her polish. A tear spilled down her left cheek. “That’s just it. They weren’t mine. Not legally.”
Lizzy blinked at her. In all the coverage of the Gilmans eight years ago, that little detail had somehow escaped notice. “He was married before?”
“Christina. His high school sweetheart, if you can believe that. She died in a fire. Faulty wiring or something. Fred had taken the girls to his mother’s for supper. By the time he got home, it was over. They found her in the bathtub. They think she must have been trying to protect herself from the flames.”
Lizzy suppressed a shudder, trying not to picture the scene. “How old were the girls when you and Fred married?”
“Heather was three. Darcy was a year and a half.”
“You raised them.”
Susan nodded, brushing away another tear. “I’m the only mother they ever knew. Except I was never really allowed to be their mother. Fred never let me forget they were his girls, or that I was an outsider.”
Lizzy felt her anger at Fred Gilman bubbling up all over again. “But he married you.”
“Turns out he didn’t want a wife so much as a housekeeper. Lucky me. I qualified for the job. By the time I realized what I’d signed up for, I was too in love with his daughters—our daughters—to leave. I’d have no right to them if I left. I’d never see them again.”
“You never formally adopted them?”
“No.” She wiped at her eyes, smearing her mascara. “I wanted to, but Fred wouldn’t even discuss it. They had a mother, and I wasn’t her. It didn’t matter that they didn’t remember anyone but me singing them to sleep, or holding their heads when they were sick. He remembered.”
“That sounds a little . . .”
“Obsessive?” Susan supplied bitterly. “Only because it was. It was like she was a saint or something. It didn’t help that the girls were the spitting image of her—Heather especially. Every time he looked at her, he saw Christina. I think that’s why he couldn’t deny her anything. Even when he should have. I tried to tell him. I warned him that she was growing up too fast, that they both were, but he wouldn’t listen. He’d just give me that look and tell me to mind my own business.”
Susan’s cheeks had flared a dark shade of red as she spoke. Lizzy was almost relieved. It was easier to witness her anger than her pain. Still, she needed to tread lightly if she wanted her to keep talking. “I know this is hard, Susan, and that it’s the last thing you want to talk about, but I truly want to find out who hurt your daughters, and talking like this might help me piece something together that the police missed. Do you feel up to answering a few more questions?”
Susan was starting to look a little ragged around the edges, but she managed a nod. “Ask whatever you need to.”
“You said Heather was growing up too fast. What did you mean?”
“Exactly what you think I meant. She was breaking curfew, sneaking around with boys, wearing trashy clothes, drinking. All the things a girl does right before she comes home and tells you she’s pregnant.” She paused, shaking her head. “Can you believe that’s what I was afraid of? That she’d come home one day and tell us she’d gotten herself in trouble? Back then I thought that was the worst thing that could happen.”
“Did your husband know all this was going on? The drinking and the boys?”
“Yes, he knew. I told him—or tried to. He wouldn’t listen. The night they . . .” Susan closed her eyes briefly. “The night they disapp
eared, I wanted to call the police, but Fred wouldn’t let me. He said we didn’t need the police in our business, and that the girls would come home when they were ready. We argued. It was awful. I couldn’t believe he was being so cavalier. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I got in the car and drove around. I hit all the spots I knew the kids went, but there was no sign of them. I knew something was wrong. A mother knows. I went home and ransacked their rooms, looking for something—a diary, a phone number—anything that might help us find them. I found a box of condoms in Heather’s nightstand. Three were missing. When I showed Fred the box, he told me he bought them. He bought our fifteen-year-old daughter . . .” Her eyes welled with fresh tears. “To keep her safe.”
Lizzy stood and went to the counter, returning with a handful of paper napkins. She waited while Susan blotted her eyes and pulled herself together.
“I’m all right,” she said finally, still clutching the crumpled napkins. “Please go on.”
“Do you know any of the boys she was seeing?”
“I wish I did, but Heather and I were barely speaking at that point. You know how teenage girls are. As far as she was concerned, I was the enemy. And she’d gotten very good at covering her tracks. She’d even recruited Darcy as an accomplice.”
“What about her friends? Did any of them know who she was hanging around with?”
“She’d split off from most of her regular friends by then, and was hanging with some new kids. Older kids I didn’t know. I talked to several of the parents. Fred was furious. He accused me of trying to paint his daughter—his daughter, like I had nothing to do with raising her—as a tramp.”
This brought Lizzy to the question she’d really come to ask, uncomfortable though it might be. “When I spoke to your husband the other day, I was struck by the fact that he didn’t seem at all interested in finding out who really hurt your girls.”
The Last of the Moon Girls Page 13
