The Secrets We Bury

by Debra Webb

  Edward took me off the bank account today. Took my credit cards. Warned me that if I left again there would be consequences. Does he think he can keep me here forever? I do not belong to him.

  The forcefully written entry floored Rowan. Her parents had never argued in front of her. In her dreams her mother seemed to be arguing with someone but those might or might not have been actual memories. Yet, this was proof that her parents weren’t on the same page—at least not at the moment these words were written.

  “What were you doing that Daddy had felt the need to rein you in?” The one thing Rowan knew with complete certainty was that her father had never been unkind or overbearing. Never. Whatever had been happening, he must have had a reason for acting in such a controlling manner.

  Rowan flipped through the pages and found no additional entries such as that one. She moved on to the photos. Most were just random shots of Rowan and her sister playing in the house or outside. There were a few of them in the mortuary room with their father. Rowan shuffled back through the photos for the last year of Raven’s life. She had begun to dress completely different from Rowan. The change had hurt her feelings in the beginning. She remembered that now. Their whole lives they had dressed in matching clothes or at least coordinating clothes, but that came to a halt that last year.

  How had Rowan forgotten those details? Perhaps forgotten was the wrong word. Repressed. So much about that summer was far too painful to touch, so Rowan had locked it away. But the photos had her remembering. Raven had grown more and more uninhibited and her wardrobe reflected that mood. She swore with every breath and ran with the popular kids who were known for their mean girl attitudes and arrogance.

  Rowan went back a few months and studied the photos of her sister before that evolution. “What happened to make you want to be someone else?”

  She pulled out another handful of photographs. One by one she went through them. Fewer and fewer showed her and Raven together. Most were either of Rowan alone or Raven with her friends. When those friends came to their house—which was rare—they snubbed Rowan as if she didn’t exist.

  Had you ever wished your sister dead?

  The words shook Rowan. Julian had asked her that during a therapy session not long after her second suicide attempt.

  Had you ever wished your sister dead?

  The question was about Rowan’s extreme guilt that her sister had died and she had not. Resentment that her mother had preferred to follow Raven into death than to live with Rowan.

  As an adult trained in psychiatry, Rowan understood how she had taken on that blame as a child. Now, she recognized those feelings were not founded in any sort of reality. Her mother had loved her, her father had assured her of as much over and over. She recalled the loving moments they had shared. Her sister had loved her, as well. Adolescence was difficult for all children. Throw being a twin in the mix and it was doubly complicated. Independence was uppermost in the mind of most adolescent girls. It was difficult to be independent from your mirror image.

  More photos pinged Rowan’s memory banks, reminding her of the good as well as the bad. The next photo she picked up was taken the day Raven went to the party at the lake without Rowan. The air in her lungs deserted her.

  In the photo her sister was wearing her new bikini beneath the wrap Rowan suspected she stripped off once she’d gotten past their father. But there was something else. A necklace. Rowan held the photograph close to her face, squinted in an effort to make out the design. Her heart had already started to pound. The size and shape were right.

  What she needed was a magnifying glass.

  She rushed to the small desk that sat beneath the front windows and searched through the drawers. Finally, she found what she needed. She peered through the magnifying glass and studied the necklace.

  Sun...moon...silver...and amber.

  Her heart surged into her throat. It was the necklace they had found with the remains. The remains belonging to Alisha Addington. If it wasn’t the same necklace, it was one exactly like it.

  Rowan rushed back to the coffee table and grabbed her cell. She tapped the contact for Billy. As soon as he answered she blurted, “I found the necklace.”

  “What? Ro? Has something happened?” Billy’s voice was thick with sleep.

  Unsure of her rubbery legs and sudden weak knees, she sank onto the sofa. “No. No, nothing has happened.”

  He yawned. “What about the necklace?”

  “The one found with Alisha Addington’s remains. I found it.”

  “I thought the necklace was at the lab with her bones.”

  Rowan shook herself. She wasn’t making sense. “No, I mean, I found the necklace in a photograph.”

  “What photograph?”

  She had his attention now. He sounded wide-awake. She should just tell him to come over and see for himself. She glanced at the clock. But it was late. She was tired. He was tired.

  It was better if they did this on the phone.

  “I found a photo of Raven, taken the day she drowned. She was ready for the party and Mom took a photo. She’s wearing the necklace, Billy. The one found with Alisha’s remains. This could very well be proof the two were in contact at some point prior to their deaths.”

  Had her sister run into Julian’s daughter at the mall or some other popular hangout of the day?

  Had they met again the day of the big party at the lake house?

  The photograph slipped from Rowan’s fingers and fluttered to the floor.

  Had her sister killed Alisha Addington and then drowned trying to get away without being caught?

  Or was Raven a victim of Alisha?

  Fifteen

  Thursday, May 9

  The doorbell in the lobby rang at 8:01. Rowan peeked out the living room window on the second floor and spotted the car belonging to Audrey Anderson. Rowan cringed. She had hoped it was Herman.

  “Stay, boy,” she said to Freud, running her fingers across his back.

  A faithful friend, he did as she asked and watched as she walked out the door. On second thought, maybe if she took Freud, Audrey would be ready to leave. Rowan liked Audrey, but she was a reporter. Rowan had faced enough questions from determined reporters to last her a lifetime. That said, Audrey had mentioned having resources. Maybe it was a worth a listen to whatever she had to say.

  Despite her reservations, Rowan patted her thigh and headed down to the first floor. Freud trotted after her. She tried to keep last night’s dream from rolling through her mind as she walked along this corridor, but it was impossible. In the dream she had come home early from school and found her mother standing on the landing adjusting the noose around her neck. Rowan had called out to her and for a moment they had stared at each other. Then her mother jumped over the railing.

  Goose bumps rose on her skin even now, but Rowan pushed the thought aside and crossed the lobby to the main entrance. Freud sniffed at the door.

  “Sit.” When he obeyed, she said, “Good boy.” Rowan unlocked the dead bolt and opened the door. She produced a smile for her unexpected visitor.

  Audrey waved a small paper sack from the local coffee shop. “A mutual friend told me you love bagels, cream cheese and strawberry spread.” She held up the drink tray with two cups of coffee. “And a nice Colombian dark roast.”

  Rowan’s stomach signaled that she had better say yes. “Good morning. Come in.”

  Freud eyed the other woman, then sniffed her leg. She grimaced but didn’t jump away. Rowan guessed the hotshot reporter had faced bigger worries than a German shepherd wanting to get to know her better.

  Rowan glanced outside, then closed the door and locked it. True to his word, Billy had ensured his protection detail was out of sight. As long as that continued to be the case, she could deal with it. If she couldn’t see them, hopefully Julian wouldn’t be able to, either. She did no
t want anyone else being killed because of her.

  “Why don’t we sit?” Rowan suggested.

  “Perfect.” Audrey smiled.

  When they had settled into one of the seating areas, Rowan said, “Audrey, I wanted to thank you for the lovely tribute your paper did for Officer Miller. I’m certain his family was grateful.”

  “I appreciate you saying so. We’ve tried to keep the Gazette a community newspaper. We want that small-town feel to continue as a mainstay of our publishing platform.”

  With that out of the way, Rowan asked, “So, what can I do for you this morning?”

  Audrey passed her a coffee container and then started laying out the goodies from her bag. “I’ve been thinking about this Alisha Addington.” She hesitated a moment to spread cream cheese on her bagel. “She attended high school at Beverly Hills High. I’ve discovered that she wasn’t a very good student.”

  While she added strawberry spread to her bagel, Rowan watched her. Audrey had said she had contacts and resources. Perhaps they were even better than Rowan had suspected. “How do you mean?”

  “Her attendance record was terrible. Her mother was summoned to the school on numerous occasions. There were rumors of drug abuse among her group of friends. And she was one of those ‘mean girl’ types, according to the people my contact interviewed.”

  Rowan added the cream cheese to her own bagel. “Were there documented episodes of bullying?”

  “Oh yes.” Audrey bit into her bagel and nodded adamantly.

  Rowan went for the strawberry spread next. “I’m not going to ask how you obtained this information.”

  The reporter dabbed at her lips with a napkin. “I have a friend who has a friend.” She shrugged. “You know.”

  Rowan nodded. “How severe were these episodes?”

  “One victim—a thirteen-year-old girl—committed suicide. There was a lawsuit but it was dropped. As it turns out the mother is loaded. She probably paid the family off. She spared no expense keeping her only child in designer clothes and out of as much trouble as possible.”

  Rowan drew in a sharp breath. She thought of the necklace in the photo her sister had been wearing and then the one found with Alisha’s remains...and around her neck in the photo Julian had left in the tulip tree.

  And she still had no confirmed answer for what Alisha was doing in Winchester anyway. “I appreciate the information, but I can’t see how that helps in determining how she ended up murdered here.”

  “She had to have spoken to someone when she showed up in Winchester. The internet was in its infancy back then. Whatever she was looking for, she began her search somewhere. All I have to do is find the person or persons who gave her directions or advice or whatever. Chief Brannigan said he would take any help he could get. We all know he wants this case solved as quickly as possible, particularly with the connection to Dr. Julian Addington.”

  Rowan wasn’t touching that statement. “Where do you intend to begin? Assuming you haven’t already begun.”

  “There was only one motel, a bed-and-breakfast, and the Antebellum Inn in town at the time. She wasn’t a guest at the inn, according to Donna England, and she’s been running that place for thirty years. She knows everyone. So we can mark that one off the list. I’ve spoken to the owner of the Lake Winds Motel, and he says she didn’t stay at his motel. He remembered when Chief Holcomb came around asking about her right after the detective from LA called.”

  Lucy’s B and B was closed now and Lucy was in the assisted living home over by the hospital—more of Herman’s updates. “Have you spoken to Lucy yet?”

  “Not yet, but I’m having tea with her this afternoon after I have lunch with my mother. Lucy is like my mother—her memories are leaving her but the few she has are more likely to be from back then than yesterday.”

  “How is your mother?” Rowan felt embarrassed she hadn’t thought to ask already.

  “She’s doing as well as can be expected. A little better now that the past has been laid to rest.”

  Rowan wondered how many more old secrets were going to be exhumed before this ripple in time or twist of fate was finished with her and her hometown. The bones discovered in the newspaper basement had been put there by Audrey and her mother when Audrey was just a kid.

  There was something the two of them had in common—a devastating trauma during adolescence.

  “We have a lot in common, Rowan,” the other woman said, echoing Rowan’s thought. “And I’m not just talking about the bones in our pasts.”

  Rowan laughed. She couldn’t deny the allegation. “We all have secrets. It’s only a matter of how powerful they are whether or not they find their way back to the surface.” Her fingers tugged instinctively at the sleeves of the old sweatshirt she wore today. It was her favorite. Cotton and at least fifteen years old. She wore the pale pink thing around the house when she was chilly or whenever she wanted to hide the scars on her wrists.

  The reporter didn’t miss the move. “Kudos for having the guts to talk about that in your book.”

  Most days Rowan wished she hadn’t. “Speaking of which, I overheard someone at the diner say you were being courted with a book deal.”

  Audrey looked heavenward. “Please. Like I’m going to allow some publisher to drag my mother’s name through the mud. There is not enough money in the world to make me do it.”

  Rowan had a little experience in the publishing world. “Watch your step or they’ll have someone else writing it and then you have no control.”

  Audrey tilted her head. “I hadn’t considered that possibility. I suppose I should revisit the offer.”

  “Imagine all the upgrades you could do to the newspaper.”

  “Are you glad you wrote The Language of Death?”

  “For the most part. I regret that I was so brutally honest. You might want to keep that in mind.” Rowan shook her head. “You’re a reporter. I’m certain you know exactly where to take your story.”

  “Reporting on other people’s lives is vastly different than reporting on your own.”

  Truer words had never been spoken. Rowan finished off her bagel, then sipped her coffee. Audrey did the same.

  “You know,” Rowan said after dabbing her lips with the paper napkin, “my sister drifted toward the mean girl crowd the final year of her life. Maybe some of those girls saw Alisha. I’m sure Raven and her friends hung out in the nearest malls and cool hangouts. Maybe they ran into Alisha there. I wouldn’t know because I was never invited.”

  “Good idea. You have any names?” Audrey readied her phone for taking notes.

  Rowan listed off the three girls, two of them older, with whom Raven had become involved. Tessa Cardwell, her sister’s closest friend, Hilary Thomas and Kristy Singleton. “Herman tells me they still live in the area. Who knows? One or more may have seen Alisha, particularly if she was looking for my sister. Billy is trying to arrange interview appointments with all three but so far none have happened.”

  Audrey grinned. “Unlike the chief, I won’t give them the opportunity to show up on their own.”

  All the more reason Rowan had decided to give her the names. Giving Billy grace, he’d had his hands full the past few days and he was hampered by the boundaries of the law.

  “But you didn’t see her?” Audrey looked Rowan straight in the eyes as she asked the question.

  “I did not. Not only did I not see her, but also chances are she didn’t see me. I was the wallflower no one saw.”

  Audrey added a few more notes, then gave Rowan a nod. “I should be on my way. I have a few mean girls to call on.” She reached for the napkins and sandwich wrap.

  “I’ll take care of that. Thank you for breakfast, by the way.”

  “It was my pleasure, really.”

  Rowan followed her to the door. Audrey turned back to her. “I’ll keep you up
to speed on what I find out from the ladies on the list you gave me.”

  For a moment Rowan wondered if she really wanted to know. The things she had newly remembered and discovered about Raven’s final months weren’t pleasant. Did she really want to know if her sister was so evil that she would harm another person? But Raven had only been twelve. Surely she couldn’t have killed a girl five years her senior. Case after case of child murderers rolled through Rowan’s brain, contradicting her assessment.

  The entire scenario made no sense. Not to mention the notion that her mother or father had known Julian all those years ago still felt ludicrous.

  Rowan stood at the door and watched Audrey drive away. Maybe she had made her first new friend.

  Another car, this one a dark sedan with tinted windows, rolled into the parking lot. It was too early for any of the Hall family. Rowan wasn’t really dressed for meeting potential clients. Her comfy jeans, sweatshirt and flip-flops were about as unbusinesslike as could be.

  Freud stuck his head between her legs and the door frame. He issued a low growl. “Go,” Rowan ordered him. “Go on.”

  His head hanging low, he lumbered across the lobby and plopped down on the rug. Rowan stepped outside and closed the door behind her to prevent him from popping his head out for a hello sniff.

  The driver emerged and opened the rear passenger-side door. A woman arose from the back seat. Her designer suit fit against her body as perfectly as her own skin. The deep blue fabric highlighted her gray eyes and made her pale skin look like porcelain.

  Anna Prentice Addington. Rowan had done a Google search on the lady. She was tall and thin and carried herself like an elegant swan. This was a woman accustomed to having things her way. All Rowan needed now was for Detective Barton to show up.