“Okay, but let’s look at the others, okay?” I scoop her up.
A moment before I carry her toward the attached bath, shared with the room opposite, I opt to open the closet door. A few sundresses—four, now that I count them—hang from the rod. I maneuver a hanger to look at the tag. Size 3T. Bella’s just growing out of 3T into the next size up, but I wonder . . . could these dresses have been stocked here for my daughter to wear?
I walk through the shared bath, which is crisp with white fixtures, yellow walls, and a seahorse sculpture—bright purple—hanging on the wall.
“Brush teeth!” she squeals.
I glance down at the double vanity. There are two steps leading up to the sink closest to the pink room.
“This is where you . . .” I hesitate to ask because I’m starting to think I’m not going to like the answer. “Bella, is this where you brush your teeth?”
“Nini did once.”
“Nini’s been here before?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
“Do you go everywhere Nini goes?”
“Sometimes.”
“Have you ever been here, Bella?”
“Down!” Emphatically, she shakes her head. “Down, down, down.”
I put her down. “Have you been here with Nini?”
“No.”
“Never?”
She crosses her arms over her chest and shakes her head, lower lip protruding in an impressive pout.
“Tell Mommy.”
“It’s a secret,” she says.
“A secret you’re supposed to keep from Mommy?”
She leans in close: “From everyone.”
An eerie tickle dances on the back of my neck. “Okay.”
She tugs on my hand and leads me to the next room.
This one has a queen-size bed piled with purple and yellow pillows, and carved roses are on the walnut headboard. “Whose room is this?” I ask.
“Nini’s.”
“This is where Nini sleeps?”
“Sometimes.”
I open the closet door, but nothing beyond empty rods and shelves stares back at me.
I know from my first walk through the house that there are five bedrooms. A master, outfitted in shades of gray. A frilly pink bedroom and a purple one, too. One bedroom is painted a slate blue with two double beds and a large model airplane—red—suspended from the ceiling. The last is decked out in white eyelet and neutrals. Despite the made-up beds, it appears the place was permanently evacuated when the mysterious Tasha departed. The closets all open to racks of empty hangers, swaying ghostly in the dark.
Except the closet in the room my daughter’s imaginary friend has assigned to her.
Nothing makes sense if Bella hasn’t been here before. The only occasion on which Micah took our daughter someplace without me was after I lost the boys in April, and they went—at least, he said they went—to the cottage on Plum Lake.
He’d taken over for a few weeks: He’d ordered dinners and researched preschools. He’d even ordered some clothing for Bella’s summer wardrobe.
In April, these dresses would have fit my daughter, but it would have been too cold in Chicago for sundresses. Could it be my husband ordered a few extra dresses to keep at his second home?
Could I have been so wrapped up in my own pathetic pity party—poor me; I can’t conceive—that I didn’t notice my husband was living a life that didn’t involve me?
Have I been seeing only what I want to see?
Chapter 27
November 23
“You smelled it? You’re sure?” Officer Laughlin came to answer the call I made this morning regarding a possible unwanted guest in my garden last night. “Cigarette smoke?”
“I thought I did.” This morning, I figured that even if the police don’t find anything, I should at least report what I thought I saw.
Not thought. I saw it, plain as day: the glow of a recently lit cigarette. The scent was undeniable.
“Why didn’t you report it last night?” He’s taking notes, writing down everything I say.
I have the sneaking suspicion he, and everyone else in uniform, will eventually try to trip me up, to catch inconsistencies in my story. I have to be careful, have to tell them the absolute truth, even though I don’t want to admit that I’ve been an absolute fool.
“I heard my daughter upstairs,” I say. “A music box was playing. She was playing with the music box, I mean, and I panicked. She was asleep last I’d checked on her. If someone was on the property, I had to be sure she was safe.”
“And she was?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t call after that? Even though you were worried enough that harm might come to your daughter, you didn’t call the department to report a possible intruder.”
“I should have,” I say. “But . . .” How can I tell this policeman that I was too busy pondering the line between sanity and lunacy to call? That I was busy searching this house for information about the children who live here? This is supposed to be my house. A landlord wouldn’t have to search for information, and if my daughter has spent time here, what kind of mother am I if I never knew about it?
Besides, if I admit to Laughlin that my husband had another family, won’t that supply the investigators with the one piece they need to build a theory around my involvement in Micah’s death?
If Micah was playing house with another woman—and it’s safe to say he was—I had motive to retaliate.
But I didn’t cause his plane to crash.
“Last night, after I didn’t see anything with the floodlights on, I assumed it was my imagination,” I say. “And maybe it was. But I figured I’d report it just in case.”
“Any word on your husband?”
I feel my brows come together. That would be a trick and a half.
The officer probes: “He hasn’t contacted you?”
“How would he . . . he’s . . . Officer Laughlin . . .” My eyes rim with tears. I shake my head. “They didn’t tell you? My husband . . . he’s dead. He was declared dead.”
Laughlin flips closed the cover of his notebook and stares at me for what seems to be an eon. Is he daring me to speak?
I point to the east. “There was a plane crash off the coast.” I don’t know what else to say. “They came to tell me in Chicago. They’re sending his body back. I told you yesterday that we lost him.”
I wish he weren’t wearing sunglasses. I can’t gauge his expression.
Finally, he pockets the notebook. “I’ll have a look around the grounds. If I see anything—footprints, cigarette butts—I’ll be sure to let you know.”
“Thank you.” I close the door as he descends the porch stairs.
Elizabella’s voice carries down from upstairs, where she is busy playing with the dollhouse in the room she insists is hers. I might have to make an exception to tossing everything in the house. Not only does the dollhouse keep her occupied, it’s a healthier option than television. Besides, listening to Nini-isms through the proxy of a dollhouse resident isn’t nearly as creepy as hearing my child’s one-sided version of their conversations.
But Laughlin’s silent stance chews at me. Maybe I should have told him about Micah’s infidelity. Or maybe I should tell Guidry first. He’s been working the case longer, after all, and Laughlin is here, essentially, to make sure I don’t go rogue.
There’s so much to do. It’s not even ten in the morning, and I’m so tired that it feels like ten at night. I suppose I didn’t sleep much. But I did manage to empty the closets and cabinets in every room on the first floor. The place looks like a rummage sale drop-off site. But I’m guessing this house, like my life, is going to go through a period of upheaval before I can put it all back together.
I can’t concentrate. The way Laughlin was looking at me . . . the way Guidry expects the worst of me . . . I wish they understood that no one in her right mind would choose to go through what I’m going through.
I pull my cell phone from my pocket and dial Guidry.
Chapter 28
Guidry picks up on the first ring. “Veronica. I just got a call from Key West PD.”
That was fast.
“Seems you’ve insinuated some interesting things,” he says.
“Interesting? Well, I wasn’t sure anyone was really in the garden last night, so—”