Fallbrook is shaking, coming down around their ears one piece at a time, and that horrible violin is playing its death knell.
“Stand right here,” she says to Kitty, who looks at her with huge, empty eyes. There’s blood splattered across her face.
“Don’t leave me,” Kitty says.
“Don’t move!” Deirdre grinds out in a harsh voice. “I have to get the baby!”
She runs. She won’t look at the bodies on the floor. She won’t look again through the library door or into the kitchen. They’re not people anymore, just obstacles in her way. Eyes forward. Eyes forward.
She must get the baby.
Imogene is whimpering in her crib, forgotten and ignored for far too long.
“Shh,” Deirdre whispers, bundling her up. “Shh, now.”
The little thing curls against Dee’s neck, hot from her tears, and desperate for someone, anyone, to hold her and make it right.
“We have to go now, little one,” she whispers, holding the tiny life tightly in her arms.
She rushes back down the stairs, around the things lying in her path. Around them, out of the belly of this dying beast. Away from that hated, haunting violin.
“Move, Kitty!” Deirdre hisses, and Kitty follows, thank heavens. Deirdre doesn’t have the strength to carry them both.
They hurry through the woods, down the trail to the cottage. They burst in on Mam, who’s packing a bag and wiping away her tears. There’s no time for that now.
There’s no time.
Aiden has gone into town to try and find a ride for them all to the nearest bus station after being thrown out of their home. The baby has fallen asleep against Deirdre’s shoulder, listening to the crazy beat of her heart.
“Please,” Deirdre says, begging her mother to fix it. To somehow, some way, make it all better. “They’re dead, Mam. They’re all dead.”
The confusion in Mam’s face gives way to shock, but only for a moment. She takes in the sight of them, this trio of girls who need her now more than they’ve ever needed anyone, and a calm comes over her. Her shoulders straighten and she moves quickly, in a flurry of practical hands.
“Outside,” she says as she gently takes the baby from Deirdre’s arms. “We have to get you cleaned up.”
The seconds are melting off the clock, and every one of them feels like a knife to Deirdre’s chest. This can’t work, she thinks, but she blindly trusts in her mam.
Their mother asks only a few questions, which Dee answers as truthfully as she can. There’s no time for lies.
When the police are called, Deirdre glances at the clock. So little time has passed, yet nothing will ever be the same.
She’s not present at Fallbrook when the police arrive. She’s standing over a baby girl, watching her sleep, trying desperately to keep her story straight. She and Kitty had taken the baby for a walk, which they often did. Nothing out of the ordinary. And when they arrived back at Fallbrook, everyone was dead.
Everyone was dead.
Tessa listens quietly as they walk slowly back to the cottage, and Deirdre can feel each day that’s passed since that one, deep in her bones. The younger woman doesn’t interrupt with more questions, not yet, but Deirdre knows they’re coming.
“Some say Lawrence Pynchon was still playing his violin when men with guns burst into the room, but I doubt that’s true. The other tale is far more likely. That they found him, clutching Ruby’s body to his, wailing and spouting incoherent words that made no sense. About Tchaikovsky, and death, and how he found them that way. They were all just . . . just dead.”
No one intended for him to take the blame for the murders, not at first. Not even Mam. At least that’s what Deirdre chooses to believe. They simply didn’t spare him a thought.
When it became clear that the police felt they had their killer, the Donnellys had a choice to make.
An echo of Mam’s words come back to haunt her, as they have so often. “My hope for you, child, is that you’re never forced to put those fine principles to the test.”
Deirdre’s youthful arrogance, when right and wrong were simple, feels like a dream she once had.
“No one believed him,” she says. “The handle of the ax was by his side. He must have picked it up, then dropped it again. And he was covered in Ruby’s blood.” She sighs. “If there’d been a trial, he may have been able to convince a jury of his innocence. The evidence didn’t add up. But he never got the chance.”
Deirdre has spent a great deal of her life avoiding thoughts of Lawrence Pynchon, the innocent man who died a violent death in jail. Not because she was in love with him. Her feelings for Pynchon had been nothing more than a girlhood crush, in truth.
He liked women. Enjoyed their attention and their appreciation. That much was clear, in hindsight, at least. He’d flirted with Deirdre just as he’d flirted with Helena Cooke. And Ruby. She suspects his feelings for Ruby, while unrequited, might have been a bit deeper, but how much deeper she couldn’t know.
All she knows for sure is that she’s spent a lifetime with the weight of his death upon her heart. That he paid such a price for their lies was the most shameful stain upon Deirdre’s soul.
They’ve come to the end of the trail. Deirdre spots the cottage up ahead and Kitty, seated in her rocking chair. She stops and turns to the young woman by her side.
“Have you made things right with your sister?” she asks. It’s not her business, but still, she’d like to know.
Tessa frowns, her gaze trained on Kitty as well.
“I have,” she says without turning her head. “As much as I can, after so many years of hurt.”
Deirdre smiles a little. “I’m glad.”
But Tessa is still watching Kitty, her mind on the story she’s been told. On everything she’s learned and all she hasn’t.
The time has come, as Deirdre knew it would from the moment she found out who Tessa was.
Imogene’s daughter. Imagine that.
“Are you sure you want to know the rest?” Deirdre feels a flutter inside. Nerves, after all this time. She’s kept these secrets for so long. Because they aren’t her own to give away.
But Kitty’s mind is betraying her. Dementia has stirred up the truth and mixed it with lies, and her sister can no longer tell the difference. If she ever could.
“Every story has an end,” Tessa says. “And Cora’s didn’t end in a grave in the woods.”
“No,” Deirdre says.
There was only so long the pretense could continue, as Deirdre had understood from the beginning. She’d read the truth in Tessa’s eyes when she arrived. The younger woman had known what they’d find when they finished clearing the graves. And she’d known what they wouldn’t find.
Six graves.
Aiden. Ruby. Peter. Helena and Everett Cooke.
And Saoirse Donnelly.
“What happened to her, Deirdre? What happened to Cora Cooke?” Tessa asks.
Deirdre meets her eyes. There’s a resemblance there. Nothing specific, but it’s present, all the same. A tilt of the head. A light in her eyes. A hint of Cora. Tessa’s grandmother.
“She was sent away,” Deirdre says. “Adopted, along with her baby sister. No one knew they were mother and child. Not then. Only that they were orphaned and needed a home.”
Tessa doesn’t speak, and Deirdre continues, filling the silence with the last of the elusive truth.
“The Ashwoods were good people. They tried. But Cora was too much. A young girl plagued with night terrors and a broken soul. She didn’t make it easy for them. The baby adjusted, as babies do, but Cora . . . she only wanted one thing. Cora wanted to go home.”
“Home to Fallbrook,” Tessa whispers.
“Yes. To Fallbrook, and to the family who’d always treated her as their own.”
Kitty rocks slowly in her chair and, even from a distance, they see her smile. Her lips move, speaking as if someone is standing by her side.
“I know it’s difficult to
understand, Tessa. It’s true that she was Cora Cooke in another life . . . but Kitty, the girl who ran wild through the woods, raised by Mam in all but name, the girl who preferred the pet name Mam gave her even before her own mother died . . . that girl was more real than Cora Cooke ever was.
“So while Imogene became Jane, Kitty simply became the girl who, in her heart, she’d always been.”
“People must have known that Kitty and Cora were one and the same,” Tessa says, and Deirdre can see she’s struggling.
She nods. “The townspeople knew. But Snowden has always been a small place, especially back then, and Mam was well liked. Something like this, it rocks a community, and there was a sense of closing ranks. Protecting Cora was something tangible they could do, when very little else could be done. Years passed, and eventually what was once an open secret simply became the truth.”
Deirdre pulls the edges of her sweater tighter around her middle.
“My grandparents knew,” Tessa points out.
Deirdre nods. “Mr. Ashwood was unsure about the future of Fallbrook for some time. He could have sold it, but with the house’s bloody history, people were hardly lining up to buy it and certainly not for the price it was worth. Instead, he kept us on as caretakers, Mam and Aiden and me. A few months after the murders, when Cora insisted on coming back, he set up the estate trust to ensure that she would be provided a permanent home, with people who loved her as family. And baby Imogene—Jane—was raised without the specter of the past hanging over her head. It seemed the best solution for everyone.”
“My mother didn’t know who Kitty was?”
“No,” Deirdre says, shaking her head. “Mam and Mr. Ashwood decided it was better that way. Kitty was having a difficult time. Aiden was . . . gone by the time Kitty returned. And she wasn’t the same girl she’d been. She never spoke about that day, or the months leading up to it. In fact, she barely spoke at all, not for a long time. We didn’t press her. Only Mam’s imaginary stories of Aiden seemed to bring her alive. We didn’t want to upset Kitty, and as for Jane . . . the Ashwoods decided they’d tell Jane about her true family history, and about Cora, when they felt the time was right.”
“That time never came,” Tessa says. “She knew nothing about Fallbrook until after my grandparents died. And even then, his letter never mentioned Cora.”
“I never saw Imogene again after she was taken in by the Ashwoods. But she wrote to me once,” Deirdre says. “Not through a lawyer that time, but directly to me. It was many months after her father died. I suppose she’d read about the murders in an old newspaper somewhere. She asked if I knew what had happened to Cora Cooke.”
“What did you tell her?”
Deirdre takes a deep breath and straightens her back. “I told her that Cora had moved away and I never heard from her again. To my great relief, she never dug any deeper. Not that I’m aware of, at least.”
Tessa studies the old woman, the wrinkles in her papery skin and the frown lines that life had carved into the space between her eyes. “Why did you lie?” she asks quietly.
Deirdre sighs, and Mam’s voice drifts through her memories. “A lie told out of kindness is less of a sin than the cruelty of a harsh truth.”
She’s not sure how she feels about that, even now. But the time for regrets has long since passed.
“For the same reason I’ve always lied, Tessa. To protect my sister.”
“It couldn’t have been easy.” Tessa frowns. “For any of you.”
Deirdre shrugs. “Nothing ever is, Tessa. But for over seventy years, it’s somehow worked. Kitty has lived the most normal life we could give her. After a while, even Mam seemed to forget that Kitty wasn’t her daughter from birth. And they had their stories. Stories about Aiden.” She shrugs again. “She was happy. They both were.” Deirdre sighs. “Then Mam died, and it’s been just me and Kitty and our secrets ever since.”
50
TESSA
Tessa’s head is spinning.
Some of what Deirdre has shared Tessa already suspected. News reports of the day listed the victims of the Fallbrook Family Slayings, as they were termed, along with the names of the survivors. Two sisters, Cora and Imogene Cooke.
The search for Cora is what brought her back here. But the weight of the truth, once given, is shockingly difficult to bear.
Deirdre studies her. “What happens now is in your hands, though. Have you come to a decision?”
Tessa doesn’t meet her eyes. “This is what I do,” she says slowly, frowning at the aftertaste of bitterness the words leave in her mouth. “I tell stories on film.” There is uncertainty in her voice, and Tessa stares into the distance. She reaches for a note of confidence, and almost manages to convince herself it’s real. “This story . . . Deirdre, this story is too big to walk away from.”
So why does the idea of telling it make her feel like a ghoul?
The elderly woman by her side nods slowly, unsurprised by Tessa’s answer. “All right, then.”
Deirdre says nothing more. She doesn’t attempt to persuade Tessa that she’s making a mistake. There are no pleas to leave them be, to let them live out the years they have left in peace. Her sad acceptance wraps itself around Tessa’s heart like an anchor.
She opens her mouth to speak, but Kitty has spotted them from the little covered porch.
“Tessa,” she calls, and stands to wave. Tessa gives a wan smile and a wave in return as she swallows the rest of the unformed words on her tongue. Deirdre begins to walk toward Kitty, and Tessa follows.
“It’s so good to see you,” Kitty says when the pair reaches her. She rises to pull Tessa into a hug. The scent of citrus shampoo surrounds her, and Tessa embraces her tightly in return.
“Come sit with me,” Kitty says, smiling in pleasure. “Deirdre will make us some tea.”
Tessa meets the older woman’s eyes only briefly, and a moment of sadness passes between them. An acknowledgment of words left unspoken, perhaps. At least for now.
Deirdre nods, then walks inside and leaves the two of them alone.
“I have something I want to show you,” Kitty says, her face alight.
With the weight of both the future and the past tugging at her conscience, Tessa nods and pulls a chair close to Kitty.
The grandmother she never knew she was missing.
“Kitty, can I ask you a question?” Tessa says gently. “Someone locked a door inside Fallbrook while I was there.” She’s careful with her words, careful not to sound accusatory.
Kitty looks sheepish. “I’m sorry. I hope you’re not mad. I just . . . I was afraid you would leave.” She gives Tessa a blinding smile. “But you’ve come back.”
Kitty leans over and picks up a little wooden chest from the small table between them. It has tarnished brass fittings and a small rectangular hole for a key.
It’s heavier than Tessa expects for its size. She holds it in her hands, studying it, while Kitty fishes in her pocket for the key.
“I haven’t looked in here for a long time,” she says. “Not since Aiden came home. But I hoped you’d be back, so I retrieved it from my hiding place.”
Tessa can’t look away from the box in her hands. A long-held memory, private and precious, blooms in her mind.
“I’ve never known what it unlocks, but I suppose the mystery is part of the appeal.”
Kitty holds out her hand, palm up, to offer Tessa a small, old-fashioned brass key.
Tessa takes it and stares. Then she slips a chain from around her neck and lays the pair of keys side by side. An exact matched set.
“Well, my goodness,” Kitty exclaims. “Imagine that.”
But Tessa doesn’t look up. Her eyes are fixed on her mother’s key and on the box in her lap.
With trembling fingers, and her breath trapped in her chest, Tessa slips the little key her mother gave her into the lock mechanism.
Slowly, she turns.
“Take it with you, Tessa. Let it remind you that you always
have a home to come to, no matter how far life takes you.”
The latch clicks and the lid springs open, just the barest inch.
Tessa lifts the lid the rest of the way. Her vision is cloudy behind a watery pool of tears, but she squeezes her eyes closed and lets them fall down her cheeks.
She doesn’t wipe them away.
The box is filled with faded postcards. Postcards that Kitty has saved, written out of love by the woman who was her mother in all ways that mattered. She must have left the other key with the baby girl she couldn’t keep, a moment lost somewhere in Kitty’s faulty memory.
“They come from all over,” Kitty says, pleased to share her treasures. “Italy and Spain. Ireland. Morocco. What a life Aiden’s lived. Can you imagine? I think it would be a wonderful addition to your movie.”
Tessa doesn’t trust herself to speak.
Footsteps come from inside the cottage and across the porch as Deirdre joins them. Tessa wipes her eyes and takes the offered cup of tea. She sets it on the small table between her and Kitty, grateful for the chance to pull herself together.
“These are incredible, Kitty,” she says, clearing her throat and striving for a normal tone.
Tessa lifts the postcards from the box. There are so many. More cards from more places than a single man could visit in three lifetimes. She fans them out. None have postmarks.
“Do you think they’ll be useful?” Kitty asks. Her eyes are bright with barely contained excitement.
But Tessa doesn’t answer. She’s transfixed by what she sees at the bottom of the little box.
It’s a piece of metal, rectangular in shape, and the reason the small chest is so heavy. One end is thicker than the other, and the thinner edge is curved.
A small piece of broken wood protrudes from a circle on the bottom.
The entire thing is discolored by a dark substance. So dark it’s nearly black.
Tessa slams the box closed, so hard it falls from her lap. The blade of the hatchet rattles inside, and for one terrible minute, Tessa wonders if it’s trying to escape.
The postcards have fallen as well and scattered across the porch.
The Caretakers Page 26
