He gave her a small smile. “No, because I know you. Your heart is big and generous and kind.”
Her eyes blurred with emotion. “Why did you tell me now? As you said, your mother’s affair and your trip to the law offices had nothing to do with Abby’s death. I didn’t need to know.”
“I didn’t want there to be any more secrets between us.”
“Really?” Her pulse quickened with anticipation and fear. Things were happening too fast, and she could see where this was headed. She could hear the words she’d wanted him to say hovering on his lips . . . but she couldn’t let him speak; not now. She wasn’t ready.
She scrambled to her feet, and was halfway down the tree before he called after her.
“Lauren, wait.”
She ignored his command, jogging out to the sidewalk. He caught up to her at the end of the driveway. “I’ll give you a ride home.”
“I can walk—it’s only a few blocks.”
“I’m not letting you walk home alone—not after what happened to Mark Devlin last night.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, but he stayed right on her heels. “Erica Sorensen is in custody.”
“Her husband isn’t. Dammit, Lauren. Why are you running away from me?”
“I’m not running away, I’m just going home.”
He grabbed her arm and forcibly stopped her. “That’s crap and you know it. Talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
His demand was mind-boggling and oh, so ironic. “Do you know how many times I asked you to tell me what you were thinking, to say three simple words, ‘I love you,’ but you never did? I’d declare myself, and you’d smile or kiss me or change the subject. You always wanted to keep your options open.”
“I was eighteen.”
“You’re not a teenager anymore, but what’s really changed? You live on a boat. You don’t have any roots. You can leave at a moment’s notice, and you probably will.”
“Or I can stay forever,” Shane said.
“Really? You, the ultimate wanderer? I don’t think so.”
“Why don’t we stop talking about me and focus on you? What do you want, Lauren? Do you even know?” he challenged.
“No—I don’t,” she answered. “I’m tempted to stay here. My dad needs me, and I love being with Charlotte and Kara again, and it feels more like home than I thought it would.”
“And me?” he asked. “Where do I fit in?”
She sucked in a quick breath and let it out. “I look at you, and I think maybe I could have everything I ever wanted. But then I remind myself that it’s you, and you hurt me, and that getting over you was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I can’t do it again.”
“Who says you would have to?”
“Are you saying I wouldn’t? Are you really ready to put it all on the line, Shane?” His hesitation was all she needed to hear. “I didn’t think so.”
“You’re the one who’s running away now. Do you want to put it all on the line?”
“No, I don’t. I can’t, and we shouldn’t have this conversation until we know how we want to finish it.”
She yanked her arm away and walked home, his long shadow following close behind. He didn’t speak; neither did she. She told herself that’s the way she wanted it.
But she was a liar. She wanted so much more.
TWENTY-ONE
Later that night Lauren sat cross-legged on Abby’s bed, the yearbook photos spread out across the comforter. She was tired, but she wouldn’t be able to sleep with so much on her mind. She still felt rattled by Shane’s confession, and that he’d finally put his trust in her. He hadn’t just put himself on the line, but also his family: she could destroy the Murrays with just a few words. He’d taken a big risk . . .
So why was she so scared to take one?
Because a part of her felt that she was so close to the biggest dream she’d ever had for herself, and another part of her said she was a fool to think that divulging his secret meant Shane loved her.
The real question was, did she love him?
She’d gotten to know him as the man he was now, and he’d gotten to know her. They had their own life experiences, and while they’d moved on in many ways, they’d never really moved past each other.
Maybe they never would. Maybe like Leonora and Tommy, they were destined for each other.
Leonora and Tommy hadn’t gotten their happy ending, but they hadn’t been afraid to go for it. Why was she such a coward?
With a sigh, she made herself concentrate on the photos. The last stack had been taken at awards night. Most of the shots were of people she didn’t recognize. The last few had been shot outside the school, with lots of kids milling around a dessert table.
Her breath caught as she pulled a torn photo out of the stack. It had been ripped in two, a third of it missing. In the portion remaining was Tim Sorensen. He was standing on the outskirts of the crowd, and he had his arm around someone. She could see a pink sweater, a feminine shoulder, but that was it. Tim was looking down at whoever he was holding, and his gaze was extremely serious.
Lauren’s heart skipped a beat. Was he looking down at Abby? Had someone else taken the photo with Abby’s camera? Had Abby seen the picture and ripped it in two, so that no one would know about her relationship?
That pink sweater looked familiar . . . like one she’d taken out of the closet the other night and put in the trash bag for charity. Lauren rushed over to the bags and opened one after another, going through each one until she found the sweater. She held up the sleeve, comparing it to the photo.
Her heart sank. It was a match.
She tossed the sweater back on top of the bag and sat on the bed. Her mind was racing, but really, what did she have? A lot of girls could have had a similar sweater. And she didn’t know that it was Abby in the shot, though it certainly seemed likely.
She rolled her neck back and forth, feeling the crack of her tight muscles. It was late. She needed to sleep. She gathered up the rest of the photos and put them in the envelope, then she glanced over at her side of the room. The sheets and blankets that she’d tossed there a few days earlier reminded her that she really needed to get over the last hurdle and make up her bed.
She shivered at the thought, or maybe it was the cold. She could hear the wind howling and the scrape of the tree branches hitting the window.
Abby had hated those branches. In the moonlight, she’d thought the tree outside their room looked like a monster with a hundred arms.
But it was just a tree, Lauren reminded herself. And it wasn’t an imaginary monster that had hurt Abby; it was a human, and probably someone she’d trusted.
Feeling more chilled, she went to the old wall heater, turned the knob, and waited to see if it would come on. It had always been erratic, and most nights she and Abby would give up and just grab another blanket.
Squatting down, she put her hand in front of the slats to see if any warm air was coming through the vent.
She couldn’t feel anything—but she could see something red between the slats. Her gaze narrowed; her pulse sped up. She pulled on the front panel of the heater, but it resisted. She tugged harder, and it finally came off. Tossing it aside, she stared in amazement at the red cover of Abby’s journal.
Adrenaline roared through her veins. She’d found it! Abby must have stashed it there before she left that night.
Lauren was terrified to open it. Would she finally learn the truth?
With a shaky hand, she pulled the journal out and sat on the floor at the foot of her bed. Her hand trembled as she opened to the first page. Abby had never wanted her to read her private thoughts. Was it wrong to read them now?
But if she didn’t read it, how could she help Abby? She couldn’t turn the book over to the cops without knowing what was in it. She had to protect her sister.
This journal began seven months before Abby was killed. Lauren drew in a hard breath. Thankfully, the early entries weren’t scary; they were just rambling thought
s about whatever was going through Abby’s head. She talked about wanting to become a marine biologist, fishing trips with Dad, a zit on her forehead.
Lauren began to relax. She could see Abby now, hear her voice through the words on the page. She’d begun to think Abby’s life was a dark, shadowy place of horror, but she could see now that wasn’t the case. It was ordinary. It was a little boring, and sometimes it was really, really sweet. Lauren teared up when Abby talked about her, about hoping Shane was treating her right. She’d never known her younger sister had ever worried about her. She’d been so determined to forget the pain that she’d forgotten everything else, and now it was coming back.
As she neared the entries from the days preceding Abby’s death, the tone of the journal changed. Abby’s thoughts were restless, yearning. She talked about a boy she simply called J. Though a lot of the people in the journal were only referred to by their initials, it quickly became clear that J was Jason Marlow.
Abby wrote about how much she liked him, but he only had eyes for Kara. She mentioned a dance where she and Lisa had found him drinking with some other kids, deep in the trees outside the high school. He’d given her a beer, and she’d taken it because she wanted to fit in.
Abby wrote how happy she was when Jason put his arm around her. When he kissed her, her heart was beating so fast she thought she might have a heart attack. They’d gotten into his car and he’d put his hands on her breasts, and she thought it was wrong, but she didn’t care, because she really, really liked him. But the next day he didn’t even talk to her, and Abby wondered if he even remembered being with her. As the weeks passed, she realized that it hadn’t meant anything to him, but she still liked him. Maybe one day he’d ask her out again.
Lauren felt a wave of anger toward Jason. He shouldn’t have taken advantage of her sister like that, and obviously they’d been more than just friends as he’d claimed.
Lauren skimmed the next couple of pages as Abby veered into discussions of marine life. Then her focus turned to Lisa.
“I’m worried about L,” she wrote. “She’s drinking too much and making out with everyone. I know she has this big, crazy need to be loved. She doesn’t think her parents love her, especially her dad, who ran out on her. But I’m afraid for her. She’s doing stupid, dangerous things. I keep telling her to stop. This isn’t her, but she’s not listening to me. She’s listening to other people, people who don’t love her like I do.”
Lauren frowned as she turned to the next page.
“I feel like I’m not being a good friend. I have to find a way to make L stop, before she gets in trouble. She thinks she’s in love with Coach, but he’s not in love with her. And he’s married. He’s not going to leave his wife for a fifteen-year-old girl. She’s going to hate me, but I have to stop her. I have to stop him. This isn’t right. He’s using her; he’s going to hurt her, I know it.”
Lauren sucked in a sharp breath. Oh, God! It was Lisa, not Abby, who had a crush on Tim Sorensen. She felt sick to her stomach. Abby must have threatened to reveal their relationship, so Tim Sorensen had killed her.
Why hadn’t Lisa come forward? Why hadn’t she told the police?
Had the coach threatened Lisa, too? Was she afraid to turn him in, terrified she’d be next?
But if that were true, why would Lisa have stayed in town all these years? Why wouldn’t she have left, put some space between herself and Abby’s murderer?
Lauren remembered the shock on Lisa’s face when she’d walked into this room a few days earlier, seeing it look exactly like it had thirteen years ago. She’d asked about the journal, probably knowing that Abby had written about her. Was she still afraid her affair would come out?
Lauren’s eyes began to water, and she drew in a breath that turned into a cough. The door to the bedroom was closed, but the air had become smoky. She glanced toward the heater, wondering if it had sparked, but there was no heat coming from it. Had her father gotten up and started cooking again?
She jumped to her feet and ran to the door. It was warm but not sizzling hot, so she opened it—and gasped. Heavy smoke was billowing down the hall and flames were coming out of the kitchen, licking their way up the wallpaper in the hallway.
Why the hell hadn’t any smoke alarms gone off? She ran down the hall, pulling her sweater over her mouth and nose to protect her from the smoke. Her father’s door was closed; she pushed it open and found him asleep. When she shook him, he didn’t wake up. Had he passed out from the smoke? He seemed to be breathing. She ran to the window and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge.
She had to get him out. She had to call 911. Which to do first?
Across the hall flames came out of David’s old bedroom, and there was plenty of fuel in there, with all the paper and old magazines. She grabbed her father’s hands and tried to get him into a sitting position. He began to stir.
“Dad, wake up!” she yelled, but as she did so, she took in a blast of smoke and began to cough.
He looked at her blearily. “Lauren?”
“We have to get out of here. The house is on fire!” She put his arm around her shoulder and helped him up, but he started coughing and couldn’t catch his breath. He sank to the floor, taking her down with him.
“Go,” he said. “Save yourself, Lauren. Go.”
“I’m not leaving without you, Dad. Come on.” She struggled to get him back up to his feet, but he’d fallen unconscious. She grabbed his hands and pulled him toward the door. Half the hallway was on fire, and the curtains in the living room were going up now. The kitchen was consumed with flames. How had the fire spread so fast? There was no way to get to the back door, and in another minute they might not be able to make it to the front, either.
She dragged her father down the hall, coughing from the smoke, trying not to breathe too deeply. If she passed out, neither of them would ever wake up.
* * *
Shane rode his motorcycle back into town, feeling just as restless as when he’d left. He knew what he had to do. He had to put it all on the line. Lauren was running scared, and he couldn’t let her go without trying to convince her to give their relationship a chance. Though it was late now, maybe she’d still be up.
He turned down her street and saw the smoke, then the flames.
Lauren’s house was on fire!
Where the hell was everyone? No neighbors were out on the street, no alarms going off, no sirens in the distance. He stopped his bike, pulled out his phone, and dialed 911. He gave Lauren’s address, then ran up the steps. The front door was locked. He hit it with his shoulder, once, twice, finally breaking through.
The house was filled with smoke and fire, the heat intense. He stumbled through the living room. Lauren was in the hall trying to drag her father out, but his weight was slowing her down.
She cried out with relief when she saw him.
“Get out of the house! I’ll take your dad.”
But she waited while he grappled with her father’s dead weight, finally getting the man over his shoulder. “Go!” he told Lauren, urging her ahead of him.
But she didn’t listen, running back down the hall. Shit! He rushed through the front door and laid her father on the grass, then went right back inside. He was not going to leave Lauren in a burning house.
What the hell had she gone back for?
Abby’s diary had been missing for too long to be lost now. Her father would be all right. Shane would get him to safety. The smoke was thicker when she re-entered her bedroom and it took a moment to find the diary. She stuffed it in her purse, with the envelope of photos, and headed back into the hall, but the fire was roaring now, the flames barring her escape, the heat unbearable. She saw Shane enter the other end of the hall, but they were separated by a wall of fire.
“Go back!” she shouted, then ran into her bedroom and tried to open the window. Dammit, it was painted shut! Her throat burned from the smoke and flames were licking at the doorway now, just inches away from the plastic
bags filled with Abby’s clothes. In minutes the room would be an inferno. She dropped her purse, grabbed the desk chair, and hurled it at the window, shattering the glass.
As she gulped in fresh air, Shane appeared at the window and laid his jacket over the shards of broken glass. Lauren quickly grabbed her purse and climbed out, falling into Shane’s embrace.
His arms enfolded her, his face buried in her hair for one glorious moment, then he pulled her away from the house.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he yelled as they ran across the lawn, past the firefighters who’d arrived on the scene.
“I found Abby’s diary. I couldn’t let it go up in smoke.”
“You could have been killed.”
“I’m okay,” she said, her throat still raw. She paused on the sidewalk, suddenly aware of the fire trucks and the neighbors coming out of their houses. “Where’s my dad? Is he all right?”
“He’s over there. He’s okay.”
Her father was sitting on the curb across the street. He had on an oxygen mask, and a paramedic was attending to him.
Lauren ran over, relieved to see his eyes open, and sat down next to him.
Her father reached for her with a shaky hand. “I was so afraid,” he murmured, his gaze on her face. “I didn’t know where you were, Lauren. I was terrified that you might not make it out. I couldn’t bear to lose you.”
She swallowed hard at the love in his eyes, love she hadn’t really seen since she was a little girl. She squeezed his fingers reassuringly. “I had to get something of Abby’s out of the house. I found her diary earlier tonight.”
“Her book?” he asked in amazement. “It was there, all these years?”
“Yes, tucked in the heating vent. Abby had found the perfect hiding place.”
He let out a sigh, his gaze turning toward their house. Fire was shooting out of the windows and roof. It was hard to believe that the house that had been in their family for so many generations was going up in smoke. She couldn’t imagine the pain her father was suffering; this was his life—the life he’d been so desperate to hang on to.
On Shadow Beach Page 25
