“Nini goes achoo, and Daddy goes achoo.”
“Because of this cat? Bella, did you meet this cat before?”
She shrugs. “Nini meeted him once.”
All signs point to Bella’s being here before: The bedroom, the clothing in the closet, the pictures of the house she’d drawn before we arrived. And now this cat.
I think of the phone call I received at the Shadowlands house, the whispering caller warning me to listen to your daughter.
Bella wanted to come to God Land.
Detective Guidry insists my husband’s death has yet to be confirmed. Either Micah is reaching out to Bella from beyond, or he planned an escape from our life and has carefully planted clues to lure us here. But why would he do such a thing? What does he want from us?
And this cat . . .
Why did Christian Renwick call this cat Papa Hemingway if its name is obviously James Brolin?
Chapter 31
November 26
The past couple of days, I’ve begun with a phone call to my mother-in-law. I want to clear up any confusion between us and explain why I’d tell her Micah was dead if the fact has yet to be confirmed.
She hasn’t answered. But today, I dial again and again and neglect to leave messages.
I think back to what Guidry hinted: Micah disclosed he had a secret, and that if I learned of it, I’d be angry. Angry enough to kill him, but I’m not going to capitalize on that detail.
If Micah shared something with his mother, I deserve to know what it is. Besides, I’d like to know for certain about the allergy to cats. I want to know if Shell knows anything about Micah’s carrying on with Natasha. I want to know about Shell’s friend Gabrielle. I want to know what the hell happened between Micah and Mick and the money.
And . . . I pull from its small box the blue-stone ring I stumbled across in the safe-deposit box. With all the confusion of that day, the three-day trek down to the Keys, and everything that’s happened since we arrived, I forgot about it. But I found it at the bottom of my purse, and it sprung even more questions . . . questions his mother might know the answers to, if he confided in her.
So I keep calling.
On my sixth attempt, Shell picks up: “Stop calling me.”
I’m too stunned to reply for a few seconds. “Shell, it’s Veronica.”
“I know who you are. My God, do you know what you’ve put me through? To tell me my son is dead when—”
“Shell, two men came to my house and told me he was gone. I didn’t just—”
“Listen. I know you know more than you’re telling.”
“I know your son had a double life,” I say. “I know that now. But if you think I know what happened to him—”
“Not only do I think that, I think you’re responsible for whatever happened to him. The police told me about Bella confessing your plan to her teachers.”
“My plan? Shell.”
“Two-point-five million dollars. Christ, a girl like you—never more than a twenty in your pocket until you met my son—it must be like winning the lottery.”
I stifle a sob. I want to tell her I didn’t know about the life insurance, but I can’t catch my breath.
“And all that bullshit about wanting to come to the lake for Thanksgiving,” she says. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice when you didn’t show up? Did you think you’d just make your way down to Key West? Then sail to Switzerland or wherever you managed to buy your house overseas and disappear? With my granddaughter?”
“Listen to me. Please.”
“I’ll listen if you tell me what happened.”
“But I don’t know what happened. And that’s the honest-to-God truth.”
“The truth will come out eventually. It always does. I ask you, as a mother. End my suffering. God forbid, if anything happened to Bella, you’d need to know about it, wouldn’t you? Please. Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know. You have to believe me. You have to trust me. You know I love your son. More than anything.”
“You know the last person I’m inclined to trust? The person who has to remind me to trust her.”
I pull the phone from my ear for a second. I can’t bear to listen anymore. When I bring the phone back to my ear, however, I hear the worst of it:
“You won’t be raising my son’s daughter. Not if I have anything to say about it.”
No, no, no, no, no. She wants to take Elizabella away from me.
“I love you,” I manage. “Someday, you’ll realize you’re wrong about me.”
I hang up.
Chapter 32
November 27
God, it’s warm. It’s probably not more than mid-eighties, but it’s an oppressive heat. There’s barely a breeze today, inland from the shore, and I’ve just spent an hour in my kitchen. My dress is sticking to my back, and my hair is out of control in this humidity, even when tied back.
With a chicken casserole balanced in my arms, my cell phone in its case dangling off my wrist like a party purse, I walk past the emptied in-ground pool in my backyard, toward the gate at the farthest corner of Goddess Island Gardens. Bella runs ahead of me, then doubles back and circles around me—she’s making me dizzy—and we pass through the gate.
I pause at the end of the path and scrutinize the houses, most of which seem to be a single story or a story and a half with dormers, their grounds abundant with foliage. Christian said he lived in the pink house.
Did he mean the peach house with the mint-green door? Or the white one with the pink trim? I look up and down the street. There’s a pinkish house down the road a piece, but didn’t he say right through the gate? So which is it? Peach? Or pink trim?
Bella tugs on my dress. “Mommy, let’s go.”
I opt for door number two. It has a charming covered front porch, with a dormer situated above it and shuttered windows. There’s a small tree, or maybe it’s a bush, rooted near the single step up to the porch, and its leaves bear etchings—autographs, sketches of shapes. It appears that where pen or pencil—or fingernail?—scrapes the thick, sturdy leaves, the chlorophyll dissipates, leaving a yellowish tan impression.
Interesting. I wonder if all visitors who have crossed this porch have left their marks here. I take a quick inventory of the names etched onto the leaves. No Natasha, as far as I can tell.
I knock on the door. Rock music—indie pop, or alternative, at least—sounds through the door.
“Go inside,” Bella says. “Hot out here.”
“We will if he answers.” I’m starting to think I chose the wrong house, but a millisecond before I turn around to make my escape, a girl, about eighteen, with silvery purple hair and pale-blue eyes, cracks open the door.
“Can I help you?”
“Ummm . . .”
She stares at me.
I stare back at her.
Elizabella grips my elbow.
“I think, actually, I have the wrong house. I’m sorry.” I’m just about to take a step off the porch, when she says, “You’re looking for my uncle Chris.”
“Christian Renwick?”
“Yeah. One second.” The girl with purple hair steps away.
A moment later, she appears again, this time as a blonde. I blink hard. Either the heat is getting to me, or I really am starting to lose my mind.
“Let me take that for you.” She holds open the door, and I unload the casserole into her awaiting arms. “Come in. Are you joining us for dinner?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. I just wanted to ask your uncle . . .” I take a step over the threshold onto brilliant white tile painted in a geometric pattern of blues and yellows. Bella hangs back. I step to the side. “Come on, Ellie-Belle.”
A voice from within the house: “Do you like blocks?”
I glance to see a clone of the girl holding my casserole dish—the one with the purple hair. I do a double take. One is to my right, blonde and smiling, and one is crouching at Elizabella’s level, tucking a purple tendril behind her ear, now asking if my daughter likes crayons.
“Oh, you’re twins.” I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m not losing my mind after all.
“Sorry about that,” the blonde says. “Andrea still likes to freak people out.”
“Well, you do look very much alike.”