Secrets She Knew: A Secrets and Lies Suspense Novel

by D. L. Wood

  Dani shook her finger at Sasha. “No match-making, Sash. I mean it. You know why I’m here.”

  Sasha’s shoulders dropped. “I know. But would it be the worst thing in the world if you had to spend a little time with a handsome, strong, brave—”

  “Enough already, Sasha. You’re gonna give a man a complex,” Willett said, tossing his napkin on his plate.

  “Aww,” Sasha replied, leaning over to kiss Willett’s cheek. “He’s got nothing on you, baby.”

  Dani’s heart warmed. It was nice to see her friends so happy and content in their marriages. She would have given anything for it to have been like that for her. Anything to still be with Finn, for him to be at this table with her now, laughing and carrying on and kissing her on the cheek. A baby in a high chair beside them…

  Stop. He left you. Take off the rose-colored glasses. Focus on the here and now.

  And here and now she had friends who loved her, who worried about her, who wanted her to be whole and happy—

  “Maybe you could bring him to the reunion,” Sasha spouted.

  “What?” Dani asked incredulously, nearly drowned out by the shouts of Sasha’s four-year-old son, Trent, who came running in, circling the table and making engine noises, his arms outstretched like an airplane.

  “You. Chris Newton. Come on, it could be fun—”

  Dani leveled a cold, steel stare at her best friend in the world. “Not another word, Sasha Mason. You hear me? Not. Another. Word.”

  After reading Trent a story, Dani had finally dragged herself out of Sasha’s, landing at home with barely enough energy to drop into her father’s leather recliner in the living room. Tilting her head back, she yanked on the spring bar that deployed the footrest, rocketing her feet upward. She inhaled, exhaled, and surveyed the long, narrow room, typical of most ranch-style homes. Faux red brick covered the wall behind the entertainment center, and in the corner to its right was the freestanding wood fireplace with its exposed, black-painted flume rising through the ceiling. A panoramic window took up most of the exterior wall, and opposite that was an L-shaped, grey microfiber couch. The cardboard boxes Dani had purchased at Lowe’s were assembled and stacked in the center of the room, except for three open ones on the floor which were filled to varying degrees with her mother’s and father’s belongings.

  An entire afternoon, and all I managed was three lousy boxes.

  The whole point of her presence here, other than the slight diversion of the reunion, was to complete the clearing of the house. All the jewelry and easily portable valuables had been removed at the time of the funeral when she and Nikki had gone through the house, trying to make a plan. Anything Nikki had wanted, but couldn’t take back with her on the plane, she had marked with a sticky note. She had said she would come back and help box it all up for shipment, but of course, that hadn’t happened. Now it was all up to Dani.

  She had decided that the most effective way to tackle this thing was to take it one room at a time. So the living room was where she had begun that afternoon—pulling vases and frames and anything else Nikki had tagged. But even after packing up Nikki’s bits, there was so much left. Afghans, throw pillows and books, ceramic figurines, an ancient VCR…

  Thank God for Estate Settlers. For a fee, the company out of Birmingham would come to her parents’ home and handle the distribution of the personal property. Dani’s job was to divide it all into “Donate,” “Sell,” “Toss,” and “Keep” boxes. Then Estate Settlers would dispose of it accordingly. Her stomach soured at the thought of someone else, some other family, living here—painting over her mother’s favorite buttercup-colored paint, tearing out the emerald green carpet in the living room, ripping out her father’s built-in pine shelves…

  Hot tears formed as Dani’s eyes traced the shelves it had taken her father two months to build, stain and install. Her gaze fell across the top shelf, home to the eagle figurines her father had collected—“Eagle Perched,” “Eagle Flying,” “Eagle Clenching Trout,” and so on. For as long as she had lived there, those figurines had been displayed in a perfectly straight line, evenly spaced, in order of acquisition. They had been her father’s prized possessions, and were one of the few things Dani was definitely taking back to Boston—

  She shot up out of the chair and marched over to the shelves until she was standing directly in front of the figurines. “Eagle Flying” was crooked, its base turned just slightly out of line with the others. Earlier today, feeling a bit punchy after several hours at it, she had put her own sticky notes on Dad’s eagles as a sarcastic nod to Nikki. But she hadn’t moved the figurines. And they were heavy, solid, ceramic-cast things. Simply tapping a sticky note onto one wouldn’t have moved it.

  Would it?

  Tendrils of frustration tightened in her chest as she dug at the muddled corners of her brain, trying to remember if she had moved the eagle, picked it up to look at it, or something.

  No. Almost certainly not.

  She turned around, now surveying her surroundings, not sentimentally, but analytically.

  Had someone been in the house after I left for dinner at Sasha’s?

  Her mind firing, she walked slowly to the kitchen, scanning for…well, anything out of place. Part of her felt ridiculous, like she was overreacting after the events in the shed, knowing her senses were probably on high alert, her nerves still raw—then she saw her coffee mug in the sink. The mug she had left on the counter.

  Hadn’t I?

  Her gaze flicked to the kitchen table. The estate papers she had left there were perfectly stacked and straightened. Almost too perfectly. She had perused them earlier in the day, and while she hadn’t scattered them, she didn’t remember tapping the edges into square alignment either.

  A switch in her brain flipped and she ran to her bedroom, grabbed her service pistol from beneath her pillow and began sweeping through the house room by room. But after several minutes of inspecting every closet, under every bed, and behind every curtain, the house proved empty.

  Her heart thudding, she returned to her bedroom, this time not looking for an intruder, but for anything that seemed out of place. It jumped out at her almost immediately.

  My suitcase.

  Dani tended to live out of her suitcase when traveling—clothes tossed in and out and around it rather than in drawers—so it wasn’t unusual for there to be an unorganized pile of stuff cast ring-like around it. But something about the unpacked, haphazard pile of clothing looked somehow different. Instead of being on top, the shirt she had worn yesterday was peeking out from beneath a pair of pants she hadn’t worn yet. But had she left it like that?

  Maybe.

  Maybe not.

  The thought of someone rifling through something so intimate as her clothing left her feeling distinctly violated. Disquiet surging within her, she started back toward her parents’ bedroom to check more closely for anything amiss, when the doorbell rang. The trilling sound sent a jolt of electricity through her and her heart leapt into her throat. Clutching her chest with one hand while still holding her pistol in the other, she worked to catch her breath as she made her way to the front door.

  She pressed her eye against the peephole and saw Detective Chris Newton standing on the other side. Her breathing slowed considerably, the tension that had gripped her easing as she opened the door.

  “Hi?” she said, the word more of a question than a greeting, sure that the puzzlement she felt must be visible on her face.

  “Hey, Boston,” he said, rocking back and forth on his Dockers, his hands jammed into his front pockets. He had changed from his work clothes—showered even, by the look of his damp hair—into a short-sleeved forest-green polo and jeans.

  “What…are you doing here?” She noticed the clipped tone of her voice, and he must have too, because a mild frown replaced the soft smile he had started with.

  “Uh, well, I guess…I wanted to make sure you were okay. I know today was rough on you.”

  “You
could have called.” She knew she sounded rude. She didn’t mean to. But she was spooked and the last thing she had expected was a visitor.

  His eyes narrowed as he clearly seemed to pick up on her frosty vibe. “Yeah,” he drawled, “but…I didn’t.” He leaned back, as if attempting to get a better look at her. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Ignoring his question, she focused on the area behind him. The yard and street were empty, the solitary streetlamp at the bottom of her drive revealing no one lurking around who might have been responsible for the suspected tampering inside. It wasn’t surprising. She had been at Sasha’s for hours. If someone had been in the house, they were probably long gone.

  “Boston?” His tone was darker, ripe with real concern. “What’s wrong?”

  “Uh, nothing. Sorry,” she said, then sighed. “You want to come in?”

  His brow furrowed. “Yeah. Okay.”

  She urgently motioned him inside. When she turned after shutting and locking the door behind him, his gaze flashed to her right hand.

  “Why are you walking around with your service weapon?”

  She looked down at the pistol in her hand. “Oh. I was just…well, I thought that maybe someone had been here earlier. While I was gone. I was just doing a sweep.”

  His eyes widened and he took a step back, something about his posture becoming demonstrably more formal. “As in, you think someone broke in?”

  She nodded and his hand moved to hover over the holster of his own service weapon, his thumb flipping open the restraining strap. “Have you cleared it?”

  “Yeah, I cleared it. I just finished when you rang.”

  “You want me to go through it—”

  “No. Look, I’m sorry I was short with you, I just, I was coming off searching the house and the bell startled me.” She purposefully fixed a smile on her face. “It was nice of you to come check on me. You want some coffee or something? Decaf?”

  “If you’re sure. Sounds good.”

  He followed her to the kitchen, dropping into one of the chairs at the table while she set her weapon down on the counter, then moved around the kitchen, preparing the pot of coffee.

  “You really didn’t have to come over,” she repeated. “You could’ve called.”

  “Yeah, but…the Chief happened to mention your address and it seemed like a waste of information not to use it.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she answered, turning away so that he couldn’t see the slip of a grin on her face.

  “So what made you think that someone’s been here?” he said.

  “Little things. Stuff that may have been moved.” She pointed to the cup in the sink, then the papers on the table. “I think I left the cup out and that stack messier. And I’m pretty sure my suitcase has been gone through, though I couldn’t swear to it.”

  “Nothing taken?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. It wasn’t destructive. It feels more like…” She trailed off, and felt her face flush.

  “What?”

  “It sounds crazy, but it just feels like someone—if there even was a someone—just wanted to check me out. Does that sound nuts?” she asked, setting a steaming mug in front of him and pushing the sugar bowl in his direction as she sat down.

  He dumped two spoonfuls in. “It doesn’t sound crazy. That sounds like a stalker.”

  “Why would I have a stalker in Skye?” she asked, blowing across the surface of her own mug. Steamy spirals rose from the cup, accompanied by a rich aroma that aided in settling her nerves.

  “What about a trespasser? Somebody that’s been coming in here while the house has been empty? How long’s that been?”

  She pursed her lips, considering that possibility. “Since March. But I’ve had an agent checking on it every couple of weeks, walking through, making sure there aren’t any problems—she would have noticed if someone had been here.”

  Dani took a sip and swallowed, the heat sliding into her stomach. Sitting here now, talking about it with another person, she was starting to feel a little ridiculous and shades of doubt began to set in. Had things in the house been different? Truly? Or was she just exhausted and forgetful, discombobulated with everything that was going on. It would be understandable.

  “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s all in my head. I am really tired. I’ve had a couple of really long, weird days.”

  “You’re a trained detective, Boston. If you think someone was here, someone probably was.”

  She appreciated the vote of confidence, but it didn’t make her feel better. “Well, at this point, I think I’d prefer it if maybe I was a little off-kilter and there was actually nothing to worry about.”

  “I’m just saying, trust your instincts.” He brought his mug to his lips, which were thin but strong, accenting a sharp, square jaw. He drank, looking over the rim, never taking his eyes from her.

  She held his gaze. “You didn’t really just come to check on me, did you? I mean, if you did, it’s fine, but it seems like a lot of effort for someone you just met.”

  Now his eyes left hers, drifting down to the cup where he tapped a finger against the handle. “No, I didn’t just come for that. I mean, I did want to see if you were okay, but…I also thought you’d want to know what we found.”

  Dani sat up, her wavering focus suddenly laser sharp. “What did you find?”

  Almost instantly his lips parted, stretching wide to reveal an awkward, remorseful grin. “Oh, I, uh, probably should have phrased that better. What we found was really, well—nothing. Trish—the crime scene investigator—said that there weren’t any useful footprints—other than yours from the other night, and no fingerprints that she could find—”

  “Except for mine from the other night,” Dani chimed in.

  Chris nodded. “Except for those. No hair, no blood, no fluids, nothing. The animals have clearly been in and out of there for ages and there wasn’t anything else in the space under the floor where you found the diary.”

  “So, a big, fat zero.”

  “Well, it has been thirteen years. We don’t have the labs back on the plastic bag or the diary yet, but I wouldn’t hold out too much hope after so much time and exposure.”

  “What about the diary itself—the entries I mean?”

  “They’ve got someone in the D.A.’s office going through it.”

  “Well, I can’t imagine it would take them beyond tomorrow to finish it.”

  “Depends what they have going on. You’ve got to remember that this case is closed. They’re short-handed and loaded up with cases that are very much not closed yet.”

  “I can’t believe they wouldn’t want to dive into a decade-plus-old murder.”

  “As far as they’re concerned, this decade-plus-old murder’s been solved for just as long. They got their man. This diary just complicates things. You may be glad that you found it, but I don’t think you’ll find a lot of others who are. I don’t think they’re in any rush to turn over stones.” He drained the last of his cup and plopped it on the table with a thud. “So, I’ve checked on you, I’ve brought you up to speed and I’ve finished my coffee. I think I’ve exhausted my excuses to be here, so,” his chair squeaked against the tile as he pushed it back, “I am gonna go. Leave you to get some rest.” He pointed at the cup, then the dishwasher. “Should I—”

  “No, just leave it.”

  She rose and followed him to the front door. Just as he put a hand on the knob, he turned back to her. “Listen,” he said, exhaling, “I know you can take care of yourself and all—”

  “Preach.”

  He chuckled. “But I can arrange for a patrol car to cruise by here a couple of times a day. And at night. Just to be sure.”

  She waved him off. “Nah. Honestly, after talking with you I think I’m just being paranoid. I think if I can get a good night’s sleep and a break from obsessing about this case, I’ll be fine.”

  “So, no Jennifer Cartwright tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow’s a packi
ng day, and I’m helping a friend decorate for our class reunion on Saturday.”

  “Sasha, right? I know Willett from the Grille. I eat lunch there all the time. He mentioned she’s in charge of the whole thing.”

  Willett was the proprietor of The Skye Grille, one of the most popular eateries in town. It wasn’t surprising that Chris would frequent it, but it did surprise Dani that Willett hadn’t mentioned anything about that when they were talking about Chris at dinner. “Oh, right. She mentioned she knew you,” Dani said.

  His face beamed mischievously. “You and Sasha were talking about me?”

  “We were talking about the diary and the shed. You just happened to be the person that went there with me.”

  “Ahh. And so you’re part of the Class of ’98, huh? That reunion’s your shindig?”

  “Yeah. It’s why I’m handling this now,” she waved a hand at the boxes, “instead of coming earlier. Two birds, and all that.”

  “The Chief said your parents were great people.”

  She smiled. “They were, thanks.” She cocked her head. “You and the Chief were talking about me?”

  “We were talking about the diary. You just happened to be the person who found it.”

  She laughed, closing her eyes and tilting her head as if to say, touché.

  “You know, if you need help with those boxes or anything, moving or loading them—”

  “I’ve hired a company for that,” she replied.

  “Oh. Well, even if you just need them shifted around, I’d be happy to help.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  At that, he unceremoniously opened the front door and walked out, heading down the paved path to his Dodge Ram truck parked in the driveway. She continued holding the door open, leaning against its frame, the crickets chirping in a rising and falling chorus and the warm night breeze fluttering over her skin.

  When he was about halfway down the path, she called out to him. “Officer Newton?”

  He stopped, waited a few dramatic seconds with his back to her, then turned.

  “Yeeeesss?”