by E. C. Diskin
“She killed herself,” Michael said.
“No, she didn’t!” Kat said vehemently. “I didn’t say that. It was an accident.”
Michael raised his palms. “Sorry, I just assumed. You said she drowned in a tub.”
“Well, it does seem like she knew something,” one of the other guys said. “That is a strange coincidence.”
“You didn’t see her again?” Kat asked.
Dave shook his head. “We left about an hour later and caught the six-thirty ferry. No one was in the mood to do much.”
It seemed like there wasn’t any more to be said. The women made their excuses, left the men’s table, and Lina said she was getting a bit tired. They grabbed their bags and started walking through the park toward the pier and Tori’s boat.
Kat’s jacket was zipped up, but she wrapped her arms around herself to fight the chill. “So, that’s why she came to the island,” she said, as much to herself as anyone else.
Tori was walking beside her. “The article I showed her about all those lake deaths didn’t mention anything about a memorial.”
Lina, just a few steps in front of them, turned back. “She must have found it online.”
“But why go?” Kat asked. “Dee was right. They hardly knew each other.”
Dee was walking along Tori’s other side. “She did leave the bar with Blake for a little while. What if he asked her to go on the boat or something and she said no because he was too drunk, or maybe she knew that he went out on the boat and didn’t say anything? Maybe she felt guilty, like she could have stopped him.”
“Why didn’t she say anything?” Tori asked no one in particular.
Evelyn piped in from behind. “Well, I’m sure it’s not easy to tell your husband that you want to go to a memorial for a man you slept with a few months earlier.”
Kat turned back and stopped. “Who said anything about sleeping together? I thought it was a harmless flirtation.”
Evelyn stopped, too, scanning everyone’s faces.
“Did she tell you what happened that night?” Tori asked. Evelyn looked off toward the docks but didn’t answer.
“Evelyn, please,” Kat said. “Don’t you wonder what she might have been thinking? Why in the world she came here for the memorial of a man she’d met one time? I appreciate wanting to keep a friend’s confidences, but she’s gone.”
“I saw them,” Evelyn said. “That’s all. They were by the bathroom in the bar. They were getting a little hot and heavy, if you know what I mean. And then they ran off together. I guess I just assumed. It wasn’t my place to judge. She was having a rough time.”
Kat turned away. Who was Evelyn to tell her that Shea was having a rough time, like Kat was just some acquaintance? Kat had known Shea for twenty years.
But why did it feel as if everyone knew more about what was going on with Shea than she did? Why did it suddenly feel like she’d lost Shea months before she moved away? She could hear the juvenile jealousy in her own thoughts. This was not a contest about who knew Shea best.
“Well, I guess we have our answer, right? She must have felt responsible. I mean, considering what happened after she went . . .” Lina didn’t finish the thought, and Kat couldn’t listen anymore.
The women resumed walking through the park toward the water. They crossed the long pier and boarded Tori’s boat, each of them sinking into the swirl of questions that circled like the birds above the water. Tori began working the ropes. The rest of them sat in silence along the cushioned benches as water lapped the sidewalls.
Kat stared back at the park, the strip of bars and restaurants, trying to understand. “She told those men that she was here with a friend,” she said to anyone who was listening.
“Maybe she just didn’t want them to know she was alone,” Dee said. “That Dave is pretty big. I can imagine if he seemed like he was accusing her of something, she might have been flustered.”
Evelyn reached over to pull one of the blankets onto her lap. “I guess we’ll never know. At least now we know why she would be so upset. Why she didn’t tell anyone she was coming. Maybe she had some crisis of conscience about what happened that night.”
Shea died here, Kat thought, staring at the giant park and quaint shops. Alone on this island. But why would she have been so upset by Blake’s death? If only she’d known what Shea was going through. Maybe she could have helped. Maybe none of this would have happened.
The gentle rocking began to feel more like a washing machine. Kat was feeling breathless again. She inhaled deeply but couldn’t get enough air. Heat rushed to her face, saliva pooling in her mouth. She was going to be sick. She stood and climbed onto the pier. She couldn’t endure the rocking waves of the lake, not yet. “Don’t go without me, okay?” she said, walking away. “I’m. . . going to get a soda.”
“You okay?” Lina called out.
Kat didn’t turn back, feeling choked by questions in her head, but offered a thumbs-up as she moved down the pier toward the park and shops.
Within a moment, an arm was around her shoulders. “I like soda,” Tori said. “Can I come?”
Kat nodded, tears forming in her eyes. “I just don’t understand why she came to his memorial. If she had something to do with Blake’s death, wouldn’t she be afraid to come back here and show her face?”
“It is a little weird,” Tori agreed. “If she did something or knew something, I can’t imagine why she would come here unless she wanted to tell the authorities.”
Kat wiped her face as they pulled the door handle for the chocolate shop. Chimes rang as the door opened. The strong smells of melted chocolate and caramel were an effective mood booster, and the nausea from the boat immediately subsided.
“Soda, huh?” Tori teased.
“Soda and chocolate,” Kat admitted. “Shea and I came in here together last time I was here. We declared it a new reason to love these trips to the island.”
She and Tori ordered a brick of fudge and some other ridiculously indulgent treats to share with their friends and grabbed a couple of Diet Cokes.
“Best medicine for the blues,” Tori joked as they exited the store. They strolled arm in arm along the shops of the main boulevard for a few minutes before reaching the corner.
Tori turned back toward the docks, but Kat pulled away.
“What is it?”
“Not yet.”
“O-kay,” Tori said, confused.
“She died here. We can’t just leave.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Where did it happen?”
“It was a B and B. Something with an H. Ryan asked me if I had any idea why she would have gone there. Like Hum . . .”
“Humphrey House,” Kat said, a spark of recognition.
“Yes! How’d you know?”
“Come on.” She led Tori toward a residential side street. “Shea and I strolled up this street the last time we got chocolate.” The old homes, mostly of Victorian style, were stacked side by side on small lots along the street. The oak trees lining the road provided total shade from the sun, and suddenly, they felt the chill. “Look,” Kat said, pointing toward a blue-and-green-sided Victorian with crisp white trim and a big front porch. A white-painted sign was staked in the small lawn out front: HUMPHREY HOUSE BED & BREAKFAST. Shea had pointed it out to Kat, sharing the fantasy of having a little summer place like it someday. A place where the kids would want to visit and bring the grandkids.
“Let’s go,” Kat said.
CHAPTER 8
December 3
SHEA AND RYAN STROLLED INTO the restaurant holding hands, looking for Dee and Charlie. It was hard to believe how much had changed in just one week. Shea felt like she was dating again, somehow able to block out everything that had gone wrong, focusing only on the fact that naked time was back, several times this week already, along with some much-needed laughter.
The double date was part of their plan to get out more. She had wanted to ask Kat and Mack, but
Ryan had reached out to Charlie, and there was no way she’d complain when he’d taken the initiative. Ryan had pointed out that if the group got bigger, it would turn into a women’s night at one end of the table. This felt more like a date. He was probably right. It was impossible not to end up laughing in the corner when all the girlfriends got together.
Besides, Dee was hilarious and sure to entertain Shea for hours. She just preferred Charlie in smaller doses and large-group settings. Ryan thought Charlie was fun—always up for card games or golf, always a good time—and he was a good audience, laughing at every one of Ryan’s jokes like a laugh track. But Shea found Charlie a little too much. He looked at every woman as if he were starving and she was his next meal.
The restaurant, new to Maple Park, was crowded, the service horrendous. The waitress made up for it by bringing two rounds of martinis to the table with her excuses about the kitchen staff still working out the kinks. The foursome was completely intoxicated by the time their food arrived, so of course none of them was even hungry.
When the waitress finally brought the bill nearly three hours later, Charlie stopped her before she could walk away and, in his typical charm, with his action-hero good looks, said, “Marilyn”—having established earlier in the evening that he’d be addressing her like an old friend—“I believe we might need a little Sambuca, just to be sure that we don’t forget an appropriate tip. Don’t you agree?” Marilyn smiled and returned with more drinks, on the house, of course. Charlie was a master salesman.
When the foursome finally spilled onto the cold sidewalk, they laughed at the wind and thirty-degree air attempting to slap them sober. No chance. “Hey, the lights are up,” Shea said. The lampposts along Main Street were now wrapped in evergreen garland and Christmas lights, shining bright like the evening was still young.
Shea and Ryan had finally gotten better in the last few years about ending things early to avoid the hangovers and exhaustion that had multiplied exponentially with age, but Ryan wrapped his arm around her waist. “Let’s jump in an Uber and go dancing.”
“What?” Shea asked, laughing. Ryan hated dancing. But she loved dancing, he knew that, and he’d said it was time to revive the spark. How could she say no?
Dee and Charlie never went home early, always having another party to attend, a band to see, or a new club to try, so they didn’t hesitate.
“I know just the place,” Charlie offered. Within twenty minutes, they were standing on the sidewalk of some street in Wicker Park while Charlie offered a password and secret knock at an unmarked steel door. Charlie was a piece of work. He’d apparently been there with clients. Moments later, they were inside a huge club, music thumping, hundreds of people grinding all over the dance floor.
After several more cocktails and an hour of dancing, the foursome finally found a place to sit: a big, semicircular velvet booth in a darkened corner. They relaxed into the deep, cushioned seat while the bass continued beating inside Shea’s head. She’d probably feel the vibrations for days to come, but it felt great to break out of their routine and to surprise herself.
Dee leaned over and yelled in her ear, “It’s good to see that you and Ryan are doing better.”
Shea nodded and smiled at Ryan. He was leaning back with his hands stretched along the tops of the booth, like this was his second home, sweat soaked from the aerobic workout and bouncing his head to the beat of the blaring music. Shea was sorry she’d told her friends about her suspicions before Thanksgiving. Ryan was good friends with their husbands as well, and everyone knew husbands and wives shared secrets. It made her cringe to think of them all wondering what Shea had learned, what Ryan had said, what really happened. It was no one’s business. She should have kept her mouth shut.
Shea leaned in. “How’s Gina?” Dee’s youngest, now at college, was never far from Dee’s mind. She was plagued by life-threatening allergies that had sent them to the ER a dozen times over the years. Shea knew that watching her leave for college had been tough.
Dee started to answer, but Charlie leaned across the table toward them, joking that they looked like they were about to kiss. Their faces were only inches apart.
“Great idea!” Ryan shouted over the music blasting from a speaker overhead.
“I’ll second that!” Charlie proclaimed with a wide smile, smacking Ryan on the arm. “I dare you,” he said to Dee.
She laughed, looked at Shea, and raised her drink to her mouth before shouting, “Hey, you wouldn’t be my first!”
“What?” Shea asked.
Dee practically spit out her drink, giggling. “Charlie loves it when I do this. It doesn’t mean anything, but he’s like a fourteen-year-old boy.”
Charlie leaned in. “It’s true, I am,” he said with a wink.
Ryan looked positively giddy at the thought.
Shea couldn’t believe it, and yet she said, “Okay,” like she was fourteen again, being offered her first sip of beer. She closed her eyes as Dee came toward her. She pretended it was Ryan when Dee kissed her. Everyone laughed as soon as they pulled apart. Dee broke out in that Katy Perry song, “I Kissed a Girl,” and Shea shook her head, feeling silly and childish, but wild, too, and thrilled to see her husband having a great time, to be rekindling something that had been missing for several years.
Charlie suddenly turned to Ryan and said, “Your turn!”
“What?” Ryan asked, suddenly inching away from Charlie. They all laughed at the implication. “Not with me, asshole! You get to kiss my wife.”
Shea hardly knew what to say. How could she object when she’d just done the same thing? Did that make her a hypocrite? Some little part of her drunken mind thought it only seemed right, so when Ryan looked at her, she shrugged and said, “She’s a good kisser.”
Dee was seated between Shea and Ryan, so it was like she was a kissing doll, turning one way, then the other. Watching Ryan lean in, Shea shouted over the music, “Keep your mouth closed!” He laughed and innocently planted a closed-mouth kiss on Dee. It was weird, but not upsetting.
“Okay, my turn,” Charlie shouted, hopping out of the booth and jumping back in next to Shea. Ryan didn’t object, and neither did Dee.
Shea hardly knew what to say. Was this what Ryan meant by breaking out of their rut? Charlie’s lips parted during the kiss, going for a full make-out, and Shea pushed him off, laughing. “Okay, okay. That’s enough, mister.”
“Come on,” Charlie whispered in her ear. “I heard about you in Put-in-Bay. I’m jealous.”
Shea pulled back and looked at him. He raised an eyebrow like they shared a secret. She looked at Ryan, who was oblivious to the comment.
Dee yelled over the speakers blasting above them. “Charlie thinks it isn’t fair that we go off on our girls’ weekends and have so much fun without him.”
Before Shea could even process what Charlie might know, what Dee even knew about that night, Ryan asked Shea for one more dance. Everyone stood and headed to the dance floor, but she’d had enough. “Let’s go,” she begged, pulling him away from the crowd. Dee and Charlie waved good night, content to go at least another hour.
Heading home in the Uber, Ryan could hardly keep his hands off Shea. When they got home, they were too exhausted for much else, but they lay in each other’s arms in their big, empty house, and Ryan said, “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”
Shea wasn’t sure if he meant he’d wanted to watch Shea kiss someone else, or if he’d wanted to kiss another woman, or Dee, in particular, but she hesitated to seek clarification. She wanted to indulge his fantasies, to take risks, and do whatever she could to keep their next twenty years together fun and exciting, but inside her a darkness rolled in, like a storm was coming.
CHAPTER 9
April 9
STANDING ON THE LARGE FRONT porch of the Humphrey House, Kat pulled open the wide, squeaky screen door to expose the glass-paneled oak entry door. The door was unlocked, and she pushed her way inside, first through the interior entr
y, its floor covered in mosaic tile, then through the second glass-paneled door, to the large foyer where a dark-stained, ornately carved stairway hugged the wall toward the second floor. A large doorway on her right framed out the view of an old Victorian fireplace against the far wall. “Hello?” Kat called out.
“In here!”
Kat and Tori followed the voice into the parlor. An older woman, perhaps seventy, with thick, short white hair, wearing what looked like a man’s flannel shirt and jeans, sat on a love seat, reading a newspaper. The large bay window behind her provided the perfect reading light. Kat and Tori confirmed that she was Mary, the innkeeper, and they introduced themselves as Shea’s closest friends, still in shock over her passing. The woman folded her paper and perched her readers atop her head.
“Oh, girls, sure, come and sit with me.”
Kat and Tori sat in the two antique chairs facing the woman.
“I’m sure this must be difficult for you,” Mary said. “Unfortunately, at my age, I know all too well the pain of losing close friends. It’s really no easier than losing family, is it?”
Kat agreed. “We just stopped at that great chocolate shop, a little sugar therapy,” she said, opening the bag and pushing it across the coffee table toward Mary.
Mary put up her hand. “Oh, thanks, but no. My sugar days are over. Diabetes.”
“I’m sorry,” Tori said.
Mary brushed her hand at the air. “No big deal. Ladies, I wish I knew something that would help you, but I’m afraid I don’t. I tell you, though, in all my years of running this place, and even with all the crazy behavior I’ve seen, both from my guests and on the streets, I’ve never faced anything so tragic.”
Tori took a piece of fudge. “So, she came on Saturday, and she was alone the whole time?”
“She checked in alone. She said she was expecting a friend to join her.”
“Who was she talking about?” Tori asked Kat.
Kat ignored Tori’s question, feeling a spark of hope. Shea had planned to come here with a friend. That didn’t sound like suicide. “Did she say anything about who was joining her? Did you assume it was a man or a woman?”
