For months, Margaret despaired of ever getting through to the little girl who’d witnessed such a horrific crime. She explained that for Grace’s own protection and privacy, she had arranged to have her name legally changed. She expected the child to have some sort of opinion about that, but she got no response. Margaret chose the name Graye herself, as similar as she could devise to Grace’s birth name, hoping it would make the transition easier.
Yet still, the child didn’t speak.
Then one day, on a wing and a desperate prayer, Margaret retrieved a notebook and a pencil from the office. She sat next to Graye on the bed in the room she shared with several other girls, a few of whom had tried to befriend the newest resident.
She’d spoken to none of them.
“Graye, I know you’ve been through a terrible ordeal,” Margaret said gently. “And I want you to know that it’s just fine if you don’t wish to speak. I won’t ask you to. One day, I hope you’ll be ready, and when you are, I, and the others, will be waiting.”
The child didn’t answer, but her wide eyes were sharp and Margaret believed she understood.
“Until then, I thought you could use this.” She placed the notebook on the bed between them and laid the freshly sharpened pencil on top.
Graye looked at her but didn’t reach for the offering.
“Sometimes it can be hard to know what to say to other people, but here, on these pages, this is just for you. No one else will read it if you keep it well hidden.
“Here you can pour out everything that’s scary or sad or ugly. Every bit of it. And maybe, when you’re done, you’ll feel just a little bit better.”
The nun tilted her head and studied the girl. Would this work? Possibly not, but she couldn’t stand by and do nothing. Margaret had poured her own hurt out when she’d given her life to the church, becoming an empty vessel for Christ to fill with his light.
But she’d been older then, old enough to recognize the sense of coming home that a life dedicated to the service of God offered. Graye was only a child. A little girl searching for her way.
“That’s how we do things here, as you’ll soon come to know. We work hard every day in the hope that, the next day, things will be just a little bit better. And then we do it again. Because with enough time and effort, every little bit adds up to a great deal.”
She placed her hand on the girl’s cheek, then tucked a strand of limp brown hair behind one ear. Graye didn’t pull away, which was something.
“A little bit each day can add up to everything.”
Graye accepted the notebook that day hesitantly.
The weeks passed, and Graye seemed to calm and settle into a routine at St. Sebastian’s, even if it was a silent routine.
Then one day, after evening prayers, Sister Margaret was shepherding the girls up to their rooms. Graye dawdled at the back of the group.
“Come along,” the nun said, holding out her arm.
The child walked up to her and stopped.
Margaret squelched the urge to kneel and pull the girl into a hug.
For one thing, it wouldn’t do to show favoritism among the girls, but more importantly Margaret had learned that many of the children who came to them needed to find their footing and understand they were safe before they could accept affection.
So she waited.
Graye looked up at her with large, imploring eyes.
“Please, Sister,” she began in a low whisper. “Can I have another notebook, please?”
Margaret bit her lip and cleared her throat before she trusted herself to speak.
“May I,” she said finally. “It’s may I have another notebook, dear.”
Graye nodded, so serious for such a young face.
“May I have another notebook, Sister? Mine is full up.”
Matching the child’s serious expression, Margaret nodded as well.
“I see,” she said. She considered her words before she spoke again. “In that case, I must tell you, everyone at St. Sebastian’s is expected to lend a hand in one way or another. If you feel you’re ready, then we can meet tomorrow and discuss where you believe you might be most helpful.”
“And the notebook?” the little girl asked.
A soft smile formed on Margaret’s face.
“Of course, Graye. We’ll find you as many notebooks as you need.”
It had been a big promise, but Margaret was true to her word. For the following few years, those notebooks were everything to the little girl. Her entire world.
Autumn came to St. Sebastian’s when Graye was eleven. By that time, the nun had given up trying to get the child to engage with the other girls, so it warmed her heart and eased her worries to see the two become fast friends. Even then, though, a notebook was never far away. It stayed close at hand as the girls made up stories together, acted them out, and Graye recorded their secret worlds in looping pencil script.
The hurt and abandonment in Graye’s face when Margaret had given her the news that Autumn was leaving still brought on a heavy, hollow sadness. A distant family member of Autumn’s had been found and, after a little over a year at St. Sebastian’s, the girl would be going to California to live with them.
Graye never again connected with another of the girls. If anything, she retreated even deeper into her notebooks.
When Graye left St. Sebastian’s many years later to attend university, she did so alone, save for her boxes of notebooks, each filled with a girl’s words, which had become a woman’s dreams.
“Graye, I’m pleased for you,” Sister Margaret says carefully now into the phone. And it’s true, but the single-mindedness of Graye’s preoccupation with being published is concerning. “But there are many roads to becoming an author. There’s no need to put yourself at risk for—”
“You’re not listening, Sister. Laura West is the key to my future. I can’t explain it, but I know it’s true. She’s influential and she knows people. She put her own husband on the map. David West was an unknown, unpublished nobody before Laura, and then he wasn’t.”
Margaret’s breath seizes in her chest. What is Graye playing at? Her words, almost religious in their fervor, cause a new level of concern to blossom.
“If she likes my book, she can do that for me,” Graye continues. “And I won’t let Nick or anyone else get in the way of that. Not now. Not ever.”
19
LAURA
Laura studies her reflection in the vanity mirror.
Her hair is up in rollers, her skin pale. And not in the perfect-complexion-for-a-1940s-film-star sort of way that would complement her outfit for the evening’s event.
Instead, the shade is sickly. Pasty. The kind of face you’d expect to see on a woman who’s come to the end of her endurance. A woman forced to take stock of the life she’s leading and add up the mistakes that brought her to this point, counting them out and lining them up in a row, one by one.
She sighs.
That’s why God created makeup. To cover fine lines, dark circles, and regrettable choices.
Laura begins with concealer, though it can’t hide the disillusionment in her eyes when David walks into the room holding a suit on a hanger.
“You expect me to wear this?” he says, one eyebrow lifted in disparagement.
Laura twists the cap back onto the tube and tosses it onto the vanity with a clatter. She says nothing.
“All that’s missing is a fedora and a dog collar for you to clip your leash to.”
Uncharacteristic heat flares in her. “Trust me, that’s not all that’s missing.”
“I suppose Hugo Caron will be dressed to impress. Did you choose a matching suit for him too?”
Laura stares at him through the mirror. “You’re drunk. Again. And I will not do this with you right now.”
“Oh, I’m not drunk. Not yet. But the night’s still young.”
She swivels in her chair to face him. “You don’t have to come, David. And if this is the attitude you’re goin
g to have, frankly, I’d prefer you stayed home.”
He tosses the suit across the bed and begins unbuttoning his shirt.
“And miss the opportunity to watch you flirt with Caron? Not a chance, sweetheart.”
They’ve barely spoken all week. David had plenty of opportunities to pick a fight during that time, so she has to wonder if he’s deliberately chosen this moment for another confrontation. She wouldn’t be surprised.
Six days have passed since he stumbled into her office and tossed a handwritten note across the keyboard of her laptop.
“Must have been a damn good time if he’s sending you a thank-you card,” he said.
The note, which read, Thanks, love, for a weekend I won’t soon forget. —Hugo, had been tucked into a beautiful leather-bound copy of Jane Eyre. It was among the many stacks of books that wobbled precariously around her office.
“Where did you get this?” Laura asked.
Jane Eyre wasn’t David’s taste. Had he been rummaging through her things?
“Not the most pertinent question, love.”
She stared at him openmouthed, holding the card in one hand. He was sloppy, his words blending together, and he was having trouble remaining upright.
“This isn’t what . . .”
No. She stopped. She wouldn’t go on the defensive to justify herself to a man who’d put her through the hell of an affair himself. Even if it had been years ago, that kind of hurt takes a long time to fade, if it ever does.
If the shoe was on the other foot, then so be it. Let him see how it felt.
They had bigger issues.
“David, it’s time to do something about the drinking. There’s an AA chapter that meets on the mainland—”
His arm shot out and swept the stacks of papers and books to the floor, pulling a sharp intake of breath from her.
“Don’t change the subject, Laura!”
A fierce drunken anger had overtaken his features. There was no semblance left of the man she loved.
From someplace unexpected, her own fury rose to meet his. She stood suddenly and took a step toward him.
“I will not have this conversation with a drunk.”
She moved to walk past him, but he reached out and grabbed her arm in a viselike grip.
She stared, even as pain radiated up her forearm, shocking her to her core. David had plenty of faults, but he’d never laid a hand on her in anger.
“Drunk or not, I am still your husband,” he hissed. A fleck of spittle landed on her cheek.
Laura narrowed her eyes and leaned in close to him. “A situation that can be remedied.”
She pulled her arm from his grasp, aware she’d have finger-shaped bruises to mark her there in the coming days.
She walked away from him, seething at the new depths to which he’d sunk. At the door, she turned back, an ugly resentment fueling her parting words.
“What bothers you more, David?” she asked. “The idea of me sleeping with another man . . . or that it’s a man whose reviews are better than yours?”
It’s no wonder he’s barely spoken to her since.
Things can’t continue this way.
With a deep breath, Laura crosses the room to where he’s fumbling with the buttons on his shirt.
“Let’s just get through this weekend, please,” she says. Her voice is soft, pleading. “After it’s over, we’ll take some time together. Maybe go away somewhere for a few days.”
He glances up at her in surprise, then narrows his eyes at her tone.
He’s right to be suspicious. She simply doesn’t have the energy to host this event and fight with him at the same time.
Selfish of her.
“We’ll talk,” she says, sliding her arms around his middle and laying her head against his chest. “We’ll make things better, if we can.”
God, she hates herself for the flicker of hope she still has for them. It lingers in the memory of the man who used to bring her coffee in bed, before he began most mornings hungover, waking on his office couch after drinking himself into a stupor the previous night. His smile was easy and warm then. Before a desperate frustration stole it from him.
But wishing for what they once had won’t make it materialize in the present. Some things, once they’re gone, will never come again.
Realistically, she knows he won’t forgive her. Not once she tells him the whole truth.
Gently, hesitantly, David raises his arms and places them around her.
And that small hope clings to life, refusing to die.
She breathes in the smell of him. For better or worse was their promise. But then, they’d promised a lot of things.
“Let’s just get through the weekend first.”
“Okay,” he says, surprising her with his quiet agreement. She leans her head back to search his face.
“You mean that?” she says.
He nods, but his jaw is tight and he doesn’t meet her eyes. A delicate truce, like a bomb they’re tossing back and forth. One slip could destroy them both.
Still, it will have to be enough. For now.
20
GRAYE
The ballroom of the Mary Read glitters beneath strategically darkened lighting, a small version of a casino floor. Graye believes even the pirates who once roamed the island would approve.
Caterers are armed with plenty of food and drink, the blackjack and poker tables are ready, and the walls are lined with slot machines, each vying for attention in louder and flashier ways than the next.
Every detail, down to the vintage movie posters that hang on the wall, is sheer perfection.
If only Graye could set aside her anxiety over Nick, check it off like another item on the to-do list, maybe she could relax and enjoy the evening.
He disappeared after their tense exchange in the elevator. She checked at the front desk, hoping to discover what room he was staying in on the pretext of returning a lost wallet. But he was gone.
Gone from the hotel, gone from the island, but still front and center in Graye’s thoughts. There’s no logic to the idea that he would somehow track her down, travel all this way, then simply vanish because she’d told him to.
He must have an agenda. Everyone does. Nick has had fifteen years with nothing but time to reflect and home in on exactly what it is he wants from Graye.
She’s a tightrope walker, balancing knives while traversing a wire suspended over a pit of hot coals. And Nick’s unexplained disappearance has killed the lights, leaving her in pitch darkness.
“This looks fantastic,” Laura says, clapping her hands together at her side.
Graye hadn’t heard her approach, but as distracted as she’s been these past few weeks, that’s no surprise.
Her eyes widen at the sight of Laura. Dressed in a vintage-style red dress with a straight skirt and peplum flare at the waist, she’s arranged her hair in a deep side part. Glossy waves curl in around her face. Her lipstick is a fiery shade that matches the dress.
“Wow,” Graye says. “So do you. All you need is a black-and-white film crew and a foggy train station.”
“And Bogart waiting at the end of the line?” Laura jokes. Graye looks closer. No amount of makeup can mask the circles beneath those eyes.
“Did you get any sleep at all?”
Laura shakes her head. “Not a lot.”
“Listen, everything’s under control here,” Graye says. “Most of the guests have checked in already and picked up their name tags and welcome bags. Everyone’s excited about tonight.”
Laura nods distractedly and drops into a seat behind the check-in table by the entry of the ballroom. Graye takes the one next to her.
“So what’s bothering you?” Graye asks.
Laura meets her probing glance in surprise, but her eyes slide away. “Is it that obvious?”
“Only to me,” Graye says.
“Nothing,” Laura replies. “And everything. David and I . . .” She shakes her head and looks across the room.<
br />
“Have you told him yet?” Graye asks gently. “That you’re pregnant?”
The expression on Laura’s face freezes, then her eyes grow wide. She slowly turns her head to stare openmouthed at Graye.
“How . . . how did you—?”
Graye gestures to the other woman’s hand, which has crept up to protectively guard her midsection.
“You do that more often than you realize,” she says. “How far along are you?”
Laura blinks and shakes her head. She looks like someone has sucker punched her.
“Nine weeks,” she whispers. “Graye, I—”
A pair of women materializes in front of the table.
“Laura, I still don’t understand how I let you talk me into these things.”
Laura looks up quickly and to her credit, Graye thinks, hides her distress well.
“Linh! And here I was convinced you were going to back out at the last minute.”
“I considered it, believe me,” the author admits as Laura stands and steps around the table to hug the tiny woman. “But I heard a rumor you’re planning to bump off Cecelia Ainsley. I couldn’t miss that.”
Laura laughs. “You know I can’t give you any details. That would ruin the fun. You’ll just have to keep your bloodlust in check until tomorrow night.”
“Spoilsport. I’ll bet Graye will tell me.” She raises an eyebrow in Graye’s direction.
Graye is inordinately pleased Mai Linh has remembered her name, but she smiles and shakes her head. Ms. Ainsley isn’t on the guest list, but she doesn’t want to disappoint Linh. “Sorry, my lips are sealed.”
The women chat for a time and pick up their welcome packets before they excuse themselves to go get ready for the kickoff event.
Laura waves, then sits again.
When the two of them are alone once more, Laura fiddles with her necklace.
“David doesn’t know,” she says quietly, in answer to Graye’s question.
Graye nods. She assumed as much.
“I’m going to tell him soon, but David . . . he’s never wanted kids.”
Graye studies the woman beside her that she feels she’s come to know so well. “And you?”
The Shadow Writer Page 9
