The Secrets She Kept

by Brenda Novak

  “Hey, there you are,” he said when he answered.

  She pulled herself onto her counter-height worktable and swung her legs as she talked. “Sorry, been busy. I told you my boss died, right?”

  “Yeah. Are you okay with that?”

  “I guess. It’s just that I have more responsibility now and need to make sure I do a good job, for Maisey’s sake.” Although the shop might be going to Keith... She’d do almost anything for Maisey, who she considered a close friend. But, in all honesty, looking out for Keith’s best interests motivated her even more.

  “Didn’t you pretty well run everything before?”

  “As much as my boss would let me. But she was a bit controlling, and stopped by quite often to...to let me know how I could improve.” And to remind her that she still needed to get off those last few pounds. Josephine Lazarow had even offered to pay for Nancy to join a gym. You’d be the prettiest girl on the island if you could just slim down, she’d say.

  “Then I won’t take up much of your time,” Tom said. “I’m busy all afternoon myself. I have three new personal injury cases.”

  “Sounds like business is good.”

  “It’s building,” he said proudly. “Anyway, the reason I called is to see if I could take you to dinner tomorrow night.”

  Nancy weighed his offer in her mind. She felt so torn about him. “I don’t know, Tom,” she said at length. “I’m not sure I’m feeling what I should feel in order for us to continue seeing each other.”

  “Whoa, wait,” he responded. “Then you’re taking it all too seriously. Don’t. We get along great.”

  Was it really that simple? “‘Getting along’ doesn’t mean we’re falling in love. Isn’t that what you’re hoping for?” He certainly kissed her as if he was feeling something.

  “Eventually, yeah. But who can say what might develop over time? We barely know each other.”

  That was what she kept telling herself. According to her sister, who analyzed all her dating errors, she had a tendency to bail out too soon. But she didn’t want to mislead anyone. “I like you. A lot. I just—”

  “Don’t say the rest,” he broke in. “I like you, too. Let’s leave it there. If something comes out of that, it does. If it doesn’t, we’ll move on.”

  “As long as you won’t feel I took advantage of you. Maybe if we each pay our own way—”

  “You’re not going to pay. Not when you’re with me. I’m old-fashioned enough to believe that’s the man’s responsibility. But I’m mainly looking for companionship. Going out with me isn’t a promise to marry me—or even to sleep with me.” He lowered his voice. “Although I wouldn’t mind that,” he added with a suggestive chuckle.

  Her queasy reaction to his innuendo was partly what worried her. She’d been without sex for five years, and she still couldn’t imagine taking her clothes off for him. She was afraid she’d only fantasize about Keith. She’d wanted Keith to touch her almost from the moment they’d first met. What was it about him?

  She couldn’t explain it. Her heart was...stubborn, didn’t know what was good for her.

  She was about to reiterate her refusal when Tom said, “Come on. It’s dinner. No strings attached. You don’t have anything else planned, do you?”

  Tomorrow her sister had the day shift at the inn. They’d talked about going to Charleston after work, to see if they could meet some interesting romantic options at a club. Nancy hadn’t done that in ages. Even another night spent watching TV alone with Simba and eating a quart of Ben & Jerry’s sounded better than seeing Tom. There were some interesting shows on Friday nights.

  But she could go out with Jade another time, and she could record her shows. She’d never get her weight off if she continued to shut herself up at night, drowning her loneliness in ice cream. “No, I don’t have any plans.”

  “Then let’s grab a bite. It’ll be good for you to get out.”

  She rested her head in her hand. She wished she could feel some enthusiasm for Tom—or any of the other men she’d dated since Keith. But Keith was the only one who made her pulse race. Still, if she didn’t keep trying, she’d never get over him. “Okay, sure. Why not?”

  “There you go.” She heard the pleasure in his voice. “I’ll pick you up at six.”

  Nancy thought of her lingerie drawer and how nothing in there fit anymore. Maybe she needed to force herself to be intimate with someone else. It could be that she only thought she was in love with Keith because she’d had sex with him so many times—they’d been living together, after all—and the depth of that connection kept her hanging on.

  After saying goodbye, she set her phone aside and hopped off the table so she could get back to work. But she decided she’d hurry to the mall in Charleston as soon as she closed for the day. So what if she hadn’t lost all her weight? She looked better than she ever had. She might as well enjoy the improvements she’d made. She’d buy a new dress for dinner. And she’d buy some lingerie, too. If she could bring herself to get physical with Tom, maybe she’d surprise him after dinner.

  * * *

  Keith sat on the edge of the couch while Maisey called Roxanne. “Are you going to let her know I’m here?” he asked.

  “Yes. Of course. Why wouldn’t I? I don’t suspect her or Landon of anything. I have no doubt there’s a perfectly good explanation for his visit.”

  “I agree. I’d just like to understand why he was here. And maybe he can tell us what frame of mind Mom was in.”

  “Exactly,” Maisey said. But once Roxanne picked up, she must’ve changed her mind because she didn’t mention his presence.

  Keith listened to Maisey’s side of the conversation as his two sisters indulged in some chitchat. Updates on the kids. Latest career endeavors. A few words on the weather. After that they talked about the autopsy coming on Sunday. Fortunately, Roxanne seemed to support his decision to use someone who wouldn’t be influenced by what the coroner had already decided, which made Keith feel a bit better. She wouldn’t support a thorough autopsy if her husband had any culpability in Josephine’s death.

  It was ludicrous to even think he might be involved...

  When Maisey seemed to feel the time was right, she sent him a nervous glance and started in on what Pippa had told him.

  “It was so good to see you and the family over Christmas,” she said. “I bet you’re especially glad you made the effort now that...well, now that we know it was our last Christmas with Mom.”

  Keith motioned for her to sit beside him and share the phone so he could hear Rocki’s response. When Maisey hesitated, he thought she’d refuse. But, with a grimace, she conceded.

  “We should’ve moved to Fairham,” he heard Rocki say. “I was taken away so early that I don’t remember a lot about my childhood. And Mom only came back into my life five years ago.”

  “You know how Keith and I felt about living close to Mom,” Maisey said.

  “I do, but...losing a mother is still losing a mother. And now I’ve lost two.”

  That sounded sincere. She certainly didn’t seem happy to have Josephine gone, which came as a relief. Surely that was a promising sign that Keith would be able to keep what was left of his family together.

  “What does Landon have to say about Mom’s death?” Maisey asked.

  “Landon?” Rocki echoed. “He feels bad, of course. Same as me. But mostly for my sake. He and Mom didn’t have much to do with each other. I’m the one who always talked to her on the phone.”

  But Landon had spoken to her before she died. He’d had an argument with her...

  Keith nodded when Maisey looked at him, encouraging her to press harder.

  “They didn’t have any business dealings?”

  “Mom and Landon? No. Why would they?”

  Roxanne didn’t know her husband had vis
ited the island. Otherwise, she would’ve volunteered that information by now. That made Keith uneasy again. He could tell by the tension in Maisey’s body that she was getting the same feeling—and that she was just as apprehensive about it.

  “Pippa told Keith that Landon visited Coldiron House the day before Mom died, Rocki.”

  “No way!” their sister said.

  “Pippa says she saw him. She said they argued.”

  Dead silence.

  “Rocki?”

  “That can’t be true,” she said. “Landon was at a gaming convention in Las Vegas. He has to stay on top of all the new video games so he knows what to order for the store.”

  “So...you think it must’ve been someone else Pippa saw?”

  Landon was nearly as tall as Keith but bigger, thicker. His size made him distinctive. Keith doubted Pippa could’ve confused him with anyone else. Besides, she’d seen him over Christmas...

  “Or she’s lying,” Rocki said.

  Maisey jerked back. “Why would Pippa lie about that?”

  “I have no idea,” Rocki responded. “But he wasn’t there. It’s impossible.”

  She sounded upset—causing Keith even more concern. Did she know something about Landon and their mother they didn’t? Or was it the possibility that there might be something Landon hadn’t told her that was making her voice rise?

  “Could you ask him?” Maisey said. “I mean, to be sure? If this turns into a murder investigation, I’d like to have a good explanation for why he was on the island.”

  And why he didn’t call her while he was here. Maisey had to be thinking that. But she didn’t say it.

  “Of course,” Rocki said. “I’m on my way to get some groceries. I’ll swing by the store and talk to him. But I can already tell you what he’ll say. He was in Vegas. He called me from Vegas on Saturday night.”

  He called her from somewhere—but if Pippa was right, it wasn’t Vegas. Keith hated that this might create problems between his sister and her husband almost as much as he hated all the other possibilities.

  “Will you let me know later, then?” Maisey asked.

  “Yeah,” she replied, but she sounded preoccupied. Maisey even commented on that once they’d said goodbye.

  “So...is he lying to her?” Keith asked.

  “Someone has to be lying. Either him or Pippa.”

  “True.”

  “You were the one who talked to Pippa. How convincing was she?”

  Keith remembered her earnest expression, the frantic way she kept wringing her hands. “She seemed absolutely sincere. What reason would she have to lie?”

  “No reason. Unless she had something to do with Mom’s death and is trying to throw us off track.”

  “You told me yourself that Pippa would never hurt Mom.”

  Maisey jumped to her feet. “I can’t believe she would. But I can’t believe Landon would, either!”

  Keith dropped his head onto the back of the couch. He didn’t want to believe it could be Pippa or Landon any more than Maisey did. But there were no obvious signs of a break-in. And nothing had been taken.

  Whoever killed their mother had done it for a reason, with forethought and planning, and that told him one thing. The culprit knew her.

  12

  THAT NIGHT KEITH couldn’t sleep for entirely different reasons than usual. Maisey had called to say that Landon denied having been on Fairham the day before their mother died, which bothered Keith, because it didn’t ring true. And he was hoping his mysterious visitor would return—so that he could figure out who it was and what he wanted. He traipsed through the house, checking rooms, staring out windows, visiting the garage and the apartment over it, where his grandfather’s driver had once lived, only to go through the whole circuit again.

  Tonight he carried a baseball bat instead of a vase, so he felt more prepared. But he heard no unusual noises, saw nothing out of the ordinary. Fatigue made him groggy at about one thirty, but he was so afraid he’d miss the intruder that he fought through it. Then he couldn’t sleep, because he’d pushed himself too far. That was when a craving for cocaine set in—so razor-sharp it felt like breathing in broken glass.

  He’d been doing so well that he was back in the midst of that battle almost before he knew it. While he was away from his usual routine, he hadn’t been working out enough to siphon off the excess energy that flooded his body whenever the desire flared up. Neither did he have the usual challenges and responsibilities that went with running his multimillion-dollar company.

  In an attempt to cope the same way he did in California—by turning his attention to work and stubbornly ignoring everything else—he carried his computer to the study and handled all the email he hadn’t responded to before now.

  His business seemed to be running smoothly. He’d received permission from the city to put up a sign for one of his public storage companies on the busy street closest to it, which was a win. He’d received notice that the strip mall he’d most recently purchased had closed escrow. And his assistant had informed him that the broker with whom he’d listed an office building had a possible buyer.

  Satisfied with all of that, Keith emailed a different Realtor to say he wouldn’t be submitting an offer on the apartment complex he’d been considering. That was a project he couldn’t focus on right now. Then he answered whatever questions he’d received from his various employees and did a little surfing for new opportunities.

  Normally, he enjoyed sifting through the various properties for sale. He could spend hours researching demographics, establishing value, calculating ROI and evaluating the potential upside. But tonight, probably because he didn’t feel he could move forward on anything until he understood what it might take to deal with his mother’s debts, he quickly lost interest. Getting high. That was all he could think about. The rush. The euphoria. The exquisite, painkilling escape. Coming home to Fairham tempted him to revert to his old self...

  “Don’t tell me I’m going to fail despite everything I’ve done,” he muttered, alarmed by the strength of that dark lure.

  He was checking the house again, searching for that damned intruder and finding nothing, when Nancy came to mind. He missed her. While he was in California, he’d refused to even think about Fairham. He’d cut off everything and everyone associated with his past, other than his sisters. Doing that had felt crucial, as if he might not survive if he did anything less.

  But since he’d returned? He’d been shocked at the number of times his thoughts had drifted to the woman he’d been sleeping with before he left. He wished he could go see her—but he’d promised Maisey he wouldn’t.

  Instead, he logged in to Facebook and found Nancy’s page. She’d never accepted his friend request, but her settings were such that “friends of friends” could view what she posted. Since she was friends with Maisey, he was able to see pictures of her celebrating her stepfather’s birthday with a huge cake, riding bikes around the island with her sister and lying out on the beach.

  She looked sexy in her bikini. He was happy that she’d lost some weight, since it was so important to her.

  He scrolled through several humorous memes and smiled at a video of Simba, in which she was trying to teach him to catch. Every treat she tossed in the air hit him in the face and fell to the ground before he could snatch it up. That made Keith laugh, just like Nancy was doing while she filmed.

  “That’s a major fail, buddy.” Keith started it again as he began to toy with the idea of driving over. He needed a friend, and she’d been such a good one. It wasn’t as if he’d ever tried to hurt her.

  Didn’t matter, he reminded himself. He needed to leave her alone, as Maisey said. Nancy didn’t want anything to do with him.

  But his next thought was of “Speed” Harbinger, who lived down the street from Nancy and ha
d been a drug dealer since Keith could remember, which was even more dangerous.

  Was Speed still in Keys Crossing? Was he still dealing?

  The answers to those questions were irrelevant, because he was no longer using, Keith told himself and put on some workout clothes before heading to the gym in the far wing. With a string of rock classics pounding through his smartphone, he did several circuits on the expensive Nautilus equipment his mother had purchased.

  The strain on his muscles felt familiar, comforting, but he couldn’t quiet his damn mind. He kept turning down the music to listen for the intruder who’d come last night. Kept trying to piece together a logical explanation for why Landon had flown to Fairham Island to speak to Josephine, what the two of them might’ve argued about and why he was lying about it.

  Keith was on his way back to his room for a shower when he decided to finish up with a run. He hoped the exertion would finally exhaust him.

  But he should’ve known where he’d wind up. Twenty minutes later, he was sweaty and cold, since he hadn’t bothered to throw anything on over his T-shirt, and standing on the curb of Nancy’s house.

  Fortunately, the lights were off. If he’d thought she was up, he would’ve gone to the door.

  * * *

  When Keith opened his eyes, he was back at Coldiron House and he was alone.

  Was he drug-free?

  It took him a few minutes to fight through the grogginess so that he could remember the long run home and establish that he hadn’t screwed up. The knowledge came as a relief. Remaining clean hadn’t been easy. Leaving Nancy alone hadn’t been easy, either. He’d hung out in her front yard for at least fifteen minutes, wrestling with himself.

  Go to the door and tell her how much you’ve missed her...

  Don’t you dare get involved in her life again.

  There’s nothing wrong with being friends. Maisey shouldn’t be able to dictate that.

  But you’re not looking for friendship—not tonight. You’re looking for consolation and support and the same warmth and acceptance that saved your life once before.