"Take care, Marcy." Claire gave her a final pat and strode past her, down the hall toward the officer waiting for her.
Not yet been declared a homicide? Who was Claire kidding? Slit wrists or not, there was no way Patti had killed herself, and the police chief knew it. There was no blood where Patti had been found next to a trash barrel in the state park, and she sure as hell hadn't walked there on her own. Not with more than fifty percent of the blood in her body gone.
Claire walked past Patrolman First Class Ryan McCormick, who waited for her. She pushed through the swinging door that read "Employees Only". Down the steps, she would find the morgue where Patti Lome's body waited for transport to the ME's office in Wilmington for an autopsy. They'd be here any time for her, so Claire wanted to get another look without the interference of others. Get a couple more pictures.
Her stomach twisted in protest at the thought of seeing Patti again. This was not only Albany Beach's first homicide in sixty years, but it was her first here on the job. Sure, in college she'd seen a couple of dead bodies in a forensics class, and then she'd worked a couple of fatal auto accidents as a state policeman, but this wasn't the same thing. Those dead people had never served her coffee, never laughed and told her not to worry about her daughter, that all teens went through crazy phases.
Claire's footsteps echoed in the stairwell that seemed to smell of formaldehyde. Death. She knew it was just her imagination. No one mopped the stairs with formaldehyde, or even used it here for that matter, but that assurance didn't settle her stomach any.
In the narrow, tiled hallway in the basement of the hospital, Claire found the morgue door, white with plain block letters. It seemed innocuous enough, despite its implication.
"You coming in?" she asked McCormick, taking the camera bag from his shoulder. Thirty years old, he was nice-looking in a soldier of fortune kind of way. Clean-cut, clean-shaven, buffed with a full membership at the only gym in town. A little too gung-ho for Claire's taste, but she heard he never wanted for dance partners in the bars in town on a Saturday night.
"I thought I'd stay here, if you don't need me."
"I'll holler if I do." She opened the door and stepped in, closing it quietly behind her.
Claire didn't mind coming into the morgue alone, and she didn't blame her officer for not wanting to join her. He had known Patti pretty well apparently, not just from the free coffee she served him daily at the diner. Supposedly, he'd dated her a couple of times. Of course, rumor had it that every single male in Albany Beach between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five had, too. And a few who weren't single, as well.
Claire set her camera bag on a small, stainless-steel table, opened it, and took her time attaching the lens she would use for the close-up shots. She pulled her pen and notepad from her breast pocket and placed them neatly beside the camera bag. Then she took a deep breath and turned around to open the stainless-steel drawer where she knew Patti's body would be.
The drawer glided out effortlessly, soundlessly, as if Patti's passing meant nothing. Just a dead waitress who had maybe drunk a little too much, given her love a little too freely.
Biting down on her lower lip, Claire pulled back the sheet and blanched. Breathing through her mouth, she swallowed hard against the sour bile that rose in her throat. She hadn't realized this was what a body looked like if you drained a good deal of its blood. Patti hadn't just bled to death. Someone had tried to make sure that as much blood flowed out of her body before her heart stopped as possible. Her wrists, slit numerous times, were pretty clean, as if someone had wiped the blood from them, keeping the cuts from clotting.
Claire picked up the cool, lifeless hand that appeared blue. Translucent. She straightened it out as best she could, and reached behind her for her camera.
"I'll find out who did this," Claire said softly, blinking back the tears in the corners of her eyes. "I swear I will, Patti."
There was no response in the cool, dimly lit morgue except for the whirl of the camera shutter.
Chapter 2
Marcy walked in the front door of the Cape Cod she and Jake had bought when Katie was two. After being unconscious for six months, she had expected that coming home would feel strange. It didn't; it was as if she had just left the house that morning, rushing out the door, coffee in hand, hollering to Jake that he would have to pick up the dry cleaning if he needed his gray suit. The biggest difference she noted was that the day of the accident had been cold and rainy; today was warm, and the sky was clear. She'd missed Christmas, the snow of winter, the daffodils and crocuses of spring. It was the first week of June. School would soon be out, and vacationers would be flooding the town that blossomed from a population of twelve hundred to four thousand at the peak of the summer season in August.
The house didn't feel strange at all, but this new body of hers certainly did. No thighs rubbing together, no pooch for a belly. As Marcy passed through the front hall, she caught a glimpse of herself in the antique mirror her grandmother had given her. Her entire adult life she had avoided mirrors, but since she woke from the coma, she couldn't stop staring at herself. The fact that she now looked like Phoebe's identical twin still spooked her a little, but the psychiatrist who had stopped by her hospital room the day before had said that was to be expected. He had given her his business card—"in case you want to talk"—but she didn't think she needed a shrink. Just some time to adjust.
"House smells good," Marcy said. "You make dinner?"
Jake closed the front door behind them. "You know better than that," he teased and inhaled deeply. "Smells like Phoebe's lasagna to me."
She glanced at him as he set her overnight bag at the foot of the staircase to be carried up later. "Phoebe's here?"
Jake lifted his shoulder in a half shrug. He had lost weight too in the time she had been ill. Lost the slight paunch above his belt. And even though his sandy blond hair seemed to be thinning a little, he was still an attractive man. He had nice eyes, dark brown with lashes a woman would kill for. She didn't know to this day why he had married her. He could have done so much better.
"She thought you might be hungry." His face grew lined with concern. He acted as if he was afraid she was going to fall into a coma again at any moment. "Or would you rather just go up and lie down?"
She hesitated. Actually, she was hungry. The lasagna wasn't the problem, Phoebe was. The day Marcy had driven off the bridge, she and her sister probably hadn't spoken in a month, though they lived in the same town. They had never been the best of friends to begin with, even as children; their personalities were too different. But there had definitely been more than the usual amount of friction in their relationship back in December. Phoebe had been in the middle of a divorce, declaring bankruptcy, and had hinted she needed a place to stay....
Marcy glanced over her shoulder at Jake and lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. "Is she living here?"
He nodded hesitantly.
"Jake." She turned to face him head-on. "Didn't we talk about this? Didn't we agree that if we bailed her out again, she'd just assume we'd help her fix her next screw-up, too? You know the nine months she lived here last time nearly drove me to drink."
"I know, you're right."
"So what's she doing here?" She gestured toward the kitchen. She could hear Phoebe and Katie talking, though she couldn't make out the conversation. Katie was laughing about something her aunt had said, and it galled Marcy; Katie never laughed at anything Marcy said.
Jake avoided eye contact with his wife. "We did agree she wouldn't move in, but then you had the accident. Marcy, I couldn't drive back and forth to see you in Baltimore, work, and get the kids to school and to their lessons. I'm sorry, but I just couldn't do it all." He hesitated. "You don't know how scared I was that you were going to die."
She listened, but didn't say anything. Talk of the accident, her three months in the hospital in Baltimore, then three months here in Albany Beach; none of it seemed real to her. It was just a story
others were telling her. She still wasn't absolutely positive this wasn't a dream.
"So when she offered to pitch in, I was thankful," Jake continued.
The phone rang, a dull background noise.
"And you should be, too. I don't care what happened in the past." He pointed in the direction of the kitchen, his voice low but surprisingly forceful. Ordinarily, he was the kind of man who took the low road, the path of least resistance. "Your sister was here for you when you needed her. When I needed her."
Marcy glanced in the direction of the kitchen. Jake was right, of course; he always was. She sighed, brushing her now below-her-shoulder hair out of her eyes. It was amazing that a body could be clinging to life and grow such nice, healthy hair. "So let's eat."
She walked into the kitchen and put one arm around Ben, who sat at the counter doing his math homework. She kissed the top of his head. The nine-year-old, going on fifty, didn't usually appreciate her displays of motherly affection, but he wiggled with nervous energy and grinned. He was glad to have her back.
She glanced at her sister through the space between the kitchen counter where Ben was working and the cabinets above. "Hey, Phebes, smells good."
Phoebe pulled a tray of lasagna out of the oven. She was wearing faded denim shorts and a baby tee. The yellow apron hung considerably lower than the hem of her short-shorts showing off her long, slender legs that were tanned an even sun-kissed brown. Marcy wondered absently if her own legs, right now as white as a fish belly, would tan like that.
"You always liked my lasagna." Phoebe plucked the flowered hot mitts off her hands. "Ben, tell your sister to get off the phone and come to dinner."
"Dinner, Katie!" Ben shouted at the top of his lungs. "Get off the stupid phone, talking to your stupid boyfriend!"
"I could have done that," Phoebe chastised. "Now go get her."
Ben rolled his eyes, but obediently slid off the stool.
As Marcy watched Ben go through the kitchen to the family room, she fought a wave of resentment. Jake was right. She should be thankful Phoebe had been there for him and the kids while she was in the hospital. But did she have to sound so much like she was Katie and Ben's mother?
"I'll set the table," Marcy offered, feeling guilty for her thoughts. What was wrong with her that she didn't feel more appreciative to Phoebe and Jake?
"Already done."
Marcy glanced at the kitchen table that was bare except for the napkin holder filled with napkins.
"Oh, in the dining room." Phoebe smiled. She had pink lipstick on. No matter how much she ate, drank or talked, she always sported pink lipstick. Marcy would have thought her lips were tattooed pink if she hadn't seen her sister remove the tube of lipstick and apply it a million times since they were sixteen.
"Phoebe thought we didn't use the dining room often enough," Jake explained, unaware or uncaring of Marcy's annoyance. "We eat in there all the time, now."
Marcy's first impulse was to tell Phoebe that she was impressed that her sister could work all day, keep a house that was cleaner than it had been in the last ten years, and make gourmet meals on a work night, but she bit her tongue. She was tired and probably overreacting.
"Hanging up the phone," Katie announced, strolling into the kitchen, gesturing grandly for everyone to see. "Watch closely as I hang up the phone to join my family for a nightly communal meal."
Marcy glanced at Jake, wondering what that was all about. Even after her Sleeping Beauty act, she could still read his face. Don't ask, he said silently. Not if you want to eat dinner while it's still hot.
A couple of hours later, Marcy entered the bedroom she and Jake shared. She had tucked Ben in and stuck her head in Katie's bedroom door to say good night. Suddenly she was so tired, she could barely set one foot in front of the other. She wondered how a person could ever be tired again after sleeping for six months.
"Ben in bed?" Jake asked, walking into the room behind her and closing the door.
"Out for the count." Marcy plopped on the edge of the bed, noting how little the mattress sank beneath her now. "I swear, I think he's grown six inches in six months."
He sat beside her and slipped off his loafers. She could smell the faint scent of his cologne. He'd been wearing the same stuff since they were in college, but she had always liked it so she didn't mind.
"He really missed you, hon," Jake said, rubbing her shoulder. "I mean, Katie missed you as much as any teenager can miss their parent considering they don't want to claim us." He chuckled. "But Ben was lost without you."
She smiled at the thought. It was nice to be appreciated by someone.
"Of course, I was lost without you, too. The most lost of any of us." He slid his hand down and around her waist and she stiffened.
He kissed her arm just below the hem of her short sleeve.
"Jake—"
"I still can't believe it's you. Awake, walking, talking. The doctors had no idea how good recovery would be, if you ever recovered."
Marcy sat on the edge of the bed, staring straight ahead. She could see herself in the mirror above her dresser. See Jake kissing that beautiful woman. But she felt nothing sexual. Just annoyance. The same annoyance she had felt the morning of the accident when he had used the rest of the milk in his coffee so that she had to drink hers black. He knew she hated black coffee.
He kissed her bare arm again. Her shoulder. When he tried to kiss her neck, she pulled her head away. "Jake—"
"I'm sorry," he said quickly, letting go of her. "I know. It's too soon. I just missed you so damned much, Marcy. I—"
"Jake—" She stood up, glancing away from the mirror, not so much because she didn't want to see her own face, she didn't want to see his. Who was he kidding? He hadn't been this amorous in years. It wasn't her, his wife, he was kissing, it was this beautiful woman in the mirror. A woman Marcy didn't know yet. "Let's not play games here."
"I know, I need to give you some time," he went on quickly. "I know you have to be overwhelmed."
"Look, Jake, we're kidding ourselves if we're going to pretend things were good between us before the accident," she said flatly. She walked to the dresser and opened her pajama drawer. It still held her winter PJs. All flannel, baggy. Ugly. She closed the drawer. She wouldn't wear them. Not ever again. That part of her life was over. "As I recall, last December you were sleeping most nights downstairs on the couch."
"Because you weren't sleeping well, and I know I snore." He sat on the edge of the bed looking more like a forlorn boy than a forty-year-old CPA. "It just seemed easier—"
"Wait one minute," she interrupted him. "You're not putting the blame on me. You weren't sleeping in our bed because you didn't want to sleep with me." She pulled open another drawer and removed a T-shirt she'd bought in Disney World two Easter vacations ago... no, three. She had missed Easter this year. She had once worn the shirt with shorts, but now it would hang long enough for a sleep shirt. "You were sleeping on the couch so you wouldn't have to talk to me. God forbid, bump into me in bed."
She clutched the T-shirt to her chest, all her insecurities about her looks, about what she had looked like before, coming back, filling her with a gamut of feelings from self-loathing to anger at the world. "So don't come on to me, now that I'm a size eight with this face, and say that it's the old Marcy you're coming on to, because I don't buy it."
He rose from the bed. "Marcy, you're wrong," he said quietly.
She turned away, not wanting to see his face. "Am I?"
There was silence for a moment, silence that stretched out until every second became more painful than the previous one.
"You're tired," he finally said. "You have to be overwhelmed. We don't need to be talking about this right now." Jake grabbed his pillow off his side of the bed. "Why don't I just sleep downstairs tonight? Give you some privacy. You get some sleep. I know things will look different in the morning."
She turned to face him, but her gaze fell to the bed. There was a new bedspread on it, bu
t she hadn't even noticed it until now. Peach and tangerine flowers. She knew instantly who had put it there. Jake wasn't into flowers, and even if he was, he'd never have ventured into a store to buy a bedspread. Not if it was the last spread, the last store, on earth.
The spread was Phoebe's, like the new wallpaper in the powder room downstairs, and the new water glasses with the funky geometric print in lime and yellow. Had Phoebe just waltzed into Marcy's house and taken over completely?
Guess you couldn't beat free rent, free food, and laundry service.
Lost in her thoughts, Marcy didn't see Jake move until she realized he was on his way out the door. She didn't say anything to him. Didn't know what to say.
Once he was gone, the door closed quietly behind him, she went into the bathroom. She brushed her teeth with the toothbrush she hadn't used in six months, taking care not to look in the mirror. In the bedroom, she shut out the light before she undressed and pulled the sleep shirt over her head. She didn't want to see the new face, the new body anymore tonight. Didn't want to think about it. She'd had enough.
Marcy jerked the bedspread off the bed, throwing it on the floor, and then climbed under the sheets, hoping they weren't pink. She realized she was reacting childishly, but she couldn't help herself.
She fluffed her pillow, thinking that maybe Jake was right. Maybe she was just overwhelmed. Maybe everything would make a little more sense, seem a little easier, in the morning.
* * *
The following morning, Marcy watched the passing scenery as Phoebe's yellow convertible zipped along the country road headed toward town. Phoebe had asked Marcy if she wanted to drive, but Marcy wasn't sure she was ready. Truthfully, she wasn't sure she could ever get behind the wheel of a car again.
She'll Never Tell Page 3
