by A. J. Banner
“I’m not a solicitor,” I said. “I’m looking for Diane Jasper.”
His gaze narrowed even more. “She’s not here, and she won’t be here for quite some time.”
“I really need to talk to her. She might have been—she might be having an affair with my husband. Please, it’s important.”
He opened the screen door, stepping back to let me enter. The interior of his house smelled of fruity air freshener. On the walls were faded army-training group photos—I couldn’t tell if he was in any of the pictures.
“Fred Jasper,” he said, holding out a large, thick hand. His handshake felt solid and strong.
“Elise Watters. My husband is Dr. Kieran Lund.”
His bushy brows rose. He knew Kieran then, had perhaps been a patient. Mr. Jasper ushered me into a cozy living room furnished in plush gold couches and thick, soft brown carpet. In the corner, a flat-screen television, bolted to the wall, played a silent baseball game. He gestured to the couch, and I sat.
“Coffee, tea, vodka?” he said, pointing at the TV with a remote control. The screen flickered off. “I’m guessing you could use something strong.”
“Thank you, no. I can’t stay long.”
“You’re looking for my wayward daughter,” he said, sitting stiffly, pulling up his pants legs. He coughed again, cleared his throat. “You say you think she might be having an affair with your husband. I’m not surprised, and on her behalf, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said.
“I find myself apologizing for her a lot. Happens when you’ve got a daughter into so much trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Oh, whatever feeds her habits. If an affair would help her get what she wants, then an affair it would be. She moved back here to help me, but she fell into her old ways.” He glanced out toward the overgrown garden.
“I thought she was a home stager.”
“Is that what she’s calling herself now?” He chuckled as if the joke was on him. “She is good at decorating. Has a keen eye. I’m not surprised she used that to her advantage.”
I leaned toward him, glancing at the family photos on the wall next to the woodstove in the corner. From this distance, I couldn’t tell if Diane was in any of those pictures, either. “What exactly is it that she does?”
He clasped his hands together on his lap. “My daughter’s profession is her addiction. I’ll put it that way. Whatever she can get.”
“Do you know where she is? Is there any possibility that she could be with my husband out on a small boat?”
“I’ll tell you where she is. She’s in rehab again. Packed up and took the late ferry.”
I shivered. “You know this for sure. That she was on the ferry.”
He nodded. “She called from the rehab center in Seattle this morning. Nurse put her on the line. Saw the number on caller ID.”
I swallowed. “She’s really there? So fast?”
“Someone pulled some strings. It’s not cheap, but she knew she needed it.”
“So she has been gone since yesterday?” I said.
He nodded again. “I’ll let you know if I hear from her, but she’s not with your husband, and she’s not likely to be for the length of rehab, around twenty-six days.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I drove home on automatic pilot. Had Diane been using Kieran for drugs? Had he supplied her with them? But she seemed to believe he planned to leave me and marry her. If she had gone to rehab, then he’d gone out on the dinghy alone.
At home, his Jaguar still sat in the driveway. Yet another walk-through of the rooms, the cottage, and the garden yielded nothing. I got back into my car and drove to Chantal’s house, pulled into her driveway. My panic grew. My eyelid twitched. Chantal’s Kia was back, parked at an angle next to a truck that I recognized. Brandon was here.
I found the two of them in the backyard, examining a half-built wood deck extending from sliding glass doors to the dining room. Brandon turned toward me, his brows rising when he saw my expression. “You look worried,” he said.
“I need to find Kieran,” I said.
“He’s missing?” Chantal said. “I thought he was staying at the farmhouse.”
“He was here. Long story. His car is here, and his yacht is in the harbor, but his dinghy is gone.”
“I haven’t seen him,” Chantal said, her eyes wide with alarm. “So what, he showed up and then took off without his car?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Did you see anything? I know you like to go out jogging early.”
“Nope, didn’t see anything—is he okay? Did you have an argument?” She looked toward the house. “Do you need help looking for him?”
“I don’t know, maybe,” I said.
Brandon shoved his hands into his pockets. “Actually,” he said, “I did see him early this morning. On the dinghy. He was rowing out of the harbor.”
Chantal looked at him, her mouth dropping open, then turned to me. “Well—there’s your answer, right?”
I nearly collapsed with relief. “Where was he going? When was this?”
“Around dawn. I didn’t talk to him. He was just heading out.”
“What were you doing down there so early?”
“I was visiting a . . . friend.” His cheeks flushed pink.
Chantal looked at him, then began twisting her bracelet around and around.
So Brandon had been with a woman. Fine, I was happy for him. “Do you know where he was going? How did he seem? Was he okay? Disoriented?”
“He seemed fine, I don’t know. I didn’t talk to him. I have no idea where he was going. He was just rowing his dinghy.”
“You’re certain you saw him and not someone else,” I said.
“Yeah, why?”
“He wasn’t with a woman?” I felt all my muscles relaxing, certain now that Kieran was alive, but he needed to be found.
“The redhead? No, I don’t think so. What’s going on?”
Chantal buttoned up her sweater. “Out on a boat,” she repeated faintly. “Imagine that.”
“Everything is fine,” I said. “I just need to find him.”
“You don’t seem fine.” His brows rose. “Come on. I’ll take you home. I’ll help you look for him.”
“I can drive,” I said.
“Then I’ll follow you.”
Chantal watched us go, her face pale and tight in the rearview mirror.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Chantal ran upstairs, gasping for breath, then peered out the window in the hall, toward the blue Victorian. Elise had been hiding something, holding something back. She’d looked stricken. And Brandon had taken off with her so quickly.
Where was Kieran? Had Brandon really seen him at the docks? If he was hurt—or confused . . . She went into the bedroom, her makeup still strewn on the dressing table. Mascara, a light cover-up for her blemishes, the eyeliner. Subtle gold teardrop earrings. The eyelash curler. The soft satin scarf she’d worn around her neck. The cologne, barely a dab. How much time had she spent trying to make everything just right, knowing Kieran would come back today?
Elise had gone crazy. Chantal thought of what she had seen before dawn, the lights blazing in the cottage, when Elise had been in there in a trance in her pajamas, barefooted, weighing herbs and mixing them. But the timing—Chantal had not had her chance to follow through. She could see herself now, batting her lashes at Kieran, offering him sympathy. Reaching out to touch his arm.
She had been forced to alter her plan, to come home and change into jeans and a plaid shirt just in time for Brandon’s arrival. Now she would have to look for Kieran, something she had never expected to have to do. She must have seen him out even earlier than she’d thought—before dawn, wandering around in the woods, but then, sometimes kids hung out on the beach and took the trails to the main road.
Downstairs, heart pounding, she yanked on her coat and boots and headed outside to look for Kieran. No matter where he
was—coming back in on the dinghy, already back, or wandering around somewhere, she had to find him.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Seriously,” I said when Brandon and I had both parked our vehicles at my house. “You’ve done enough for me. I can’t involve you in this.”
But he followed me into the kitchen. “You can trust me. What’s really going on?”
The wind picked up outside. I caught my reflection in the window, a dark deterioration in my face. Black circles beneath my eyes, new lines next to my mouth.
“I thought I saw Kieran lying in the garden dead.”
In the middle of unzipping his jacket, Brandon stopped cold. “What the hell? Dead? But—”
“I know, you saw him alive. But when I saw him, he wasn’t moving. He wasn’t breathing. His eyes were half-open. His skin was cold. I tried to revive him. I went to get my phone and I fainted—when I woke up, he was gone.” I spoke in a rush, my words tumbling over each other.
He gestured toward the backyard. “So you went out there, found your husband dead, and you fell unconscious? How long were you out?”
“I don’t know exactly. Not for long. It was early, and when I woke, he was gone. I thought I’d done something to him. But you saw him on the dinghy.”
Brandon rubbed his beard, gave me a cautious look. “Yeah, I did.”
“So he must’ve only been unconscious, right? I should call the Coast Guard.”
“And tell them what?”
“I don’t know—that he’s out on his boat.”
“Out fishing or something because you had a fight?” He looked at the healing cut on my forehead, a flash of annoyance in his eyes. “What happened? Did he hit you?”
“No, I fell . . .”
He reached out and placed his hand over mine. “You’re pale and shaky. When was the last time you ate?”
“I don’t remember. I don’t feel hungry.”
“I’ll make you something.” He opened the fridge, brought out hummus and tomatoes and avocado. A plate from the cabinet, bread. He made me a sandwich, handed me a glass of water. “Sit down.”
“He could be sick, disoriented,” I said, sitting at the kitchen table.
“Be patient. Just wait for him. He seemed like he knew what he was doing.”
“But what if he doesn’t even know where he is? It makes no sense that he’d just go rowing off in his dinghy. I need to know if he’s back. I need to go down there.”
“You’re in no condition to drive.”
“I need to see if he came back.”
Brandon sighed, scratched at his beard again. “If you insist, I’ll take you down there. Bring the sandwich.”
He ushered me out to his truck. The interior of the cab, which smelled mildly of apples, was cluttered with tools and papers. I cleared a small space on the passenger seat, remembering the way I’d always cleaned up after Brandon. Kieran, on the other hand, had been neat to a fault—except when he and Diane had strewn their clothes everywhere and had left their dishes in the sink.
All the way to the harbor, Brandon and I were silent and tense. The wind raged, tree limbs snapping, tiny fir branches flying through the air.
“This isn’t a good idea,” Brandon said when we arrived. “There’s a storm coming.”
“I need to go to the boat,” I said. “I checked here, but he could be back. Maybe I missed something.”
“If you say so.” He parked at the curb and we both ran out along the dock, hunching into the wind. At Kieran’s slip, the yacht was there, but the dinghy was not back. My heart fell.
“Damn it,” I said. “I was so hoping.”
“We need to go back,” Brandon shouted.
“He could have come ashore somewhere else!” A gust nearly knocked me off my feet.
“He knows his way back. We need to go home.”
“No!” I shouted. “He could be stranded—”
“Elise. Come on.” He gripped my arm, spun me around as a wave crashed against the slip, throwing me off-balance. I nearly toppled into the water.
We ran back to Brandon’s truck. “We should look around,” I said, my teeth chattering. My fingers were numb. “We need to check other places where he could’ve come ashore.”
“He’s not here,” Brandon said, starting the truck.
“He could’ve lost his way.” I checked my pockets. My phone—I’d left it at home. “Could you call the Coast Guard?”
“Don’t rush to conclusions,” he said. “He’s not here yet, but he will be. Let’s talk about it when we get back.” He set his jaw, his gaze trained on the road ahead of him. When he got this way, I couldn’t change his mind. So I stayed quiet all the way back to the house, where he parked behind the Jaguar. The wind crept up from the harbor, rushing through the trees. In the house, the kitchen was as we had left it, my plate on the table, still dusted with bread crumbs from my sandwich. No sign of Kieran.
“I’ll tell the police what I remember,” I said, “that you saw him heading out, and I thought I saw him in the garden.”
“Okay, rewind. Back to the beginning.” Brandon shook his head. “What exactly happened?”
“I got up to make tea. Herbal because I’m pregnant.” I clapped my hand over my mouth. I hadn’t meant to let that slip.
“What? Are you kidding me?” He looked as if his jaw might come unhinged. “How far along?”
“Only a couple of months,” I said, blushing.
A range of emotions brewed in his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “You got up to make tea, and then?”
“There were two coffee mugs already on the counter. I went outside and saw him lying out there dead.” My voice shook.
“If you tell the police all this, you’ll be locked in a psychiatric hospital. What will happen to the baby? Think, Elise. Be rational.”
“He should’ve been in touch with me by now.”
“Face it. The guy took off.”
I picked up my phone. “I need to find a signal. I’m calling the police and the Coast Guard right now.”
“No, I said. Don’t do that.” Brandon grabbed the phone from my hand. “You’ll regret it.”
“Why?” I said, a shiver running through me. “You keep trying to stop me.”
“Because . . . you could get into trouble.”
I reached for my phone, but he held it above his head. “What are you doing, Brandon? What’s going on? Give me my phone.”
“No!” he said, glaring at me. “Sorry. It’s just . . . Shit.” He squinted, a pained look on his face. “I’m tired of humoring you, Elise. Driving you down to the harbor, talking to you like all of this is real . . . like I saw him get on that boat.”
“What? What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, he didn’t get up and walk away. What you saw here was real.”
His words slammed into me, knocking the wind out of me. “You saw him on the dinghy. You said so.”
“I lied, okay?” His eyes teared up, his face contorted in misery. “I lied for you. Elise, what you saw . . .”
“What, Brandon?” I shrieked. “What?”
He looked into my eyes with an intensity that froze my blood. “I told you I saw him get on that dinghy to protect you.”
“You’re saying he didn’t get into the boat?”
“No, he didn’t. I didn’t see him climb into that dinghy, no.”
“Why would you lie?”
“I had to cover for you. You do . . . bizarre things in your sleep. I could tell you’d done it again. When I came over here and found . . .”
“What? Brandon, what?”
“Look, your husband is not rowing away on his rubber dinghy. I lied to you because your husband is absolutely, one hundred percent dead.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The word dead crashed through my brain. Outside, the sky had dimmed. “You’re joking,” I said.
“No, I’m not.” His face turned to stone.
“You can’t know that. You can’t mean it. How d
o you know? Did you see him? Did you do something to him?”
He pointed at his chest. “Me? You think I did something to him? You really don’t know?”
I sat heavily in the kitchen chair, the wind shaking and rattling the house. “What am I supposed to know?”
He sat next to me, tapped his fingers on the table. “I said I saw him get on that dinghy, and that’s what I’ll tell the police, if you call them. That’s what you’re going to say, too. If you don’t want to go to prison.”
“Why would I go to prison? He’s not dead. You’re lying.” I got up and backed away from him, my skin cold. The image of Kieran lying there, ashen, pressed into my brain.
“He’s dead because I saw him dead. Because I found him dead in your backyard. I’ll show you exactly where he was.”
“No, you’re just saying what I told you.” I gasped for air, the corners of my vision darkening. I couldn’t breathe.
He grabbed my wrist and dragged me out the back door into the gale. “Right here.” He crouched in exactly the spot where I had found Kieran and pointed at the ground. “His lips were blue, his mouth was . . . open a little.”
The wind whipped through my hair. “I must’ve told you what I saw.” My brain was turning inside out. If Brandon spoke the truth, Kieran hadn’t walked away. He hadn’t even started breathing again.
Brandon stood, his knees cracking. “He was lying on his back, in brown shoes . . . without socks.” It couldn’t be. But it was true: he hadn’t been wearing socks. “And a white T-shirt and baggy pants.”
He’d been wearing his hiking pants.
“And a plaid jacket.”
He’d just described, in detail, what Kieran had been wearing. “You must’ve seen him on the dinghy wearing those clothes,” I said, shivering in the cold. A terrible dread rose up inside me.
“No, I saw him here. His eyes were open—he was cold. He was dead.”
I pressed my hands to my face. “I don’t want this to be true. It can’t be.”
“I know you don’t.” He pried my hands away from my face. “Look at me.”
“No.” I couldn’t—I stared at the ground, numb. The worry had been a shadow lurking at the edge of my sanity. The possibility—no, the certainty—that Kieran was gone, that I had done him in.
