“His plan wasn’t to leave you behind. He wasn’t supposed to disappear like that. When you told me he was missing, I assumed he was delayed, but that he’d be back for you. So when you told me he was gone . . . dead, I mean . . .” Shell is sitting across from me at Blue Heaven, an outdoor café and bar on Thomas Street, just down the road from Ernest Hemingway’s house. She’s lost weight since I last saw her, and maybe that’s why she looks a little older around the eyes, the mouth. Or maybe she’s just weary with the prospect of the legal battle ahead of her husband. “He never wanted you to go through this.”
She shoos away one of the Blue Heaven’s free-roaming chickens that dares to waddle near our table. “Oh, this place,” she mutters under her breath.
I have to admit that when she asked me to meet, I chose Blue Heaven partly because I thought she’d be just distracted enough to give me the upper hand in conversation. On one hand, I smile to see her out of her element, if only because she should know how it feels to be knocked askew without firm grounding. On the other, the woman sitting across from me is the only mother I’ve had for the better part of ten years.
“You should have had more faith in him,” she says. “In the way he feels about you.”
“Shouldn’t you have had more faith in me?”
She looks down at the plate of food she’s barely touched. “I’m sorry about that, Veronica, but I was hysterical. Think of Bella. If anything happened to her, wouldn’t you be irrational, too?”
“Your son lied to me,” I remind her. “About everything. You knew what he did for Natasha and Gabrielle, and you chose to hide that from me. You knew your husband was putting him in a tough position—”
“I didn’t know the extent of that.”
“And you didn’t wait to hear my side. You thought I did something unthinkable to the man I loved. You were ready to send me to the gallows.”
“Veronica, I knew he was in over his head, but Micah said he was getting out. And then he was gone without you and his daughter.”
“So you assumed I’d killed him.”
“Maybe not killed him. But there was so much to consider, given what happened to the boys and Gabby.”
“Whom your husband ordered his henchmen to kill.”
“But at the time, I assumed the worst: that you’d found out about his deception, that you’d snapped.”
“Like my mother?”
She ignores that one. “Mick’s going away for a long time,” she says quietly.
As for the rest of it? The money Micah supposedly stole? It’s phantom money. Diamante kept no records of their illegal shipments. The only evidence of wrongdoing is in the suspiciously high amounts they paid their pilots for the transfer of goods, but it isn’t enough to build a case.
“Yes, I know.”
“You and Bella are the only family I’ve got . . . unless Micah comes back.”
I nod.
“Can we work through this?”
I truly don’t know. “It’s a lot to ask me to forget.” She turned her back on me when I had no one else.
“I think he’ll buy that place in Tuscany,” Shell says. “It was just darling.”
I stare at her. Does she realize she’s just admitted to being in contact with her son since he left? That she just admitted to knowing he was looking at houses overseas?
“I think he’ll come for you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Well, I won’t go with him if he does.”
Shell pinches the bridge of her nose. “He’s still your husband. He never meant for this to happen. He only wanted to take care of you and Bella, to provide for you. Why do you think he took that money to begin with?”
I don’t tell her, but I doubt he was thinking in my best interests. Considering Micah’s cell phone—the one he’d registered in my name—was found on the boat at Simonton Harbor, I have to believe he was comfortable allowing suspicion to fall on me.
Considering he was in my home and didn’t bother to shake me awake and take Bella and me with him, I’d guess he’s never coming back.
And he’s guilty of worse: although he must have known what had happened to Gabrielle when Mick’s thugs descended on Plum Lake, he still risked our lives to use us as a distraction for his own escape.
I wonder if he intended to take us with him but changed his mind because of Christian. I didn’t know I was being unfaithful to Micah, but he would have seen those kisses on the beach as unforgiveable. “He’s not coming back anyway.”
“He’ll come for you. For Bella. He’s your husband.”
“He may be my husband. But he’s not the man I married.”
That man is gone, stolen away by greed and untruths. When I met him, I felt as if he were the only man on the face of the earth that I could ever want. I’ve learned over the past month and a half just how untrue that is.
In the silence, Shell sips at her glass of wine. “I’d like to see my granddaughter.”
“You’ve got a plane to catch.”
“Please, Veronica.”
“I’ll think about it. I’ll let you know.”
I pay the tab and walk back through the streets of Old Town, Key West.
I saunter up Thomas to Southard, the sun on my shoulders and ocean breeze in my hair. By the time I pass Whitehead, I’ve already made up my mind: Shell knows more than she’s telling. She hasn’t earned the right to see my daughter. And I don’t trust that she won’t steal her away to wherever Micah is hiding.
Maybe we’re the only family Shell has, but she’s not the only family we have.
Natasha and Miriam are back in Chicago, mourning their losses, but we have plans to get the girls together here in March. We were friends before Micah tore us apart, and while we still have a long way to go, and many fences to mend, we’re willing to put in the time.
Claudette and the kids are coming next month for a long weekend.
And Emily and Andrea still have a good eight months before their gap year comes to a close, and they’ll be spending some of that time on this island . . . with their uncle, who happens to live on the quieter side of town, closer to the airport.
I stop at the corner of Southard and Bahama, just as I was instructed to do, and I pretend to check my phone.
Guidry is there on a bench, pretending to read a novel. Really, he’s been listening in on the conversation I shared with Shell at Blue Heaven. That’s right . . . I’m wearing a wire.
“Did you get it?” I don’t look up when I ask.
“That tidbit about the house in Tuscany? That’ll narrow down the search.”
“I’ll be in touch.” And I continue on toward Elizabeth Street.
Bella jumps into my arms when I step beneath the welcoming arch. “Mommy!”
“I missed you,” I tell her, carrying her up the pink driveway.
She gives me a wet kiss on the cheek.
I pay the twins for their time, but they don’t leave right away. “Uncle Chris wants to talk to you.” Emily grins when she says it. “He’s out back.”
I enter the house and, after discarding the wire and my shoes, head toward the backyard.
I stare at the blank shelves as I pass through the family room.
No matter that I know the truth about the children whose pictures used to line the shelves—I know now that they were conceived in a laboratory and not in the heat of passion—I can’t look at the built-in cabinetry without seeing their faces.
A sinking feeling settles into my bones. The boys are dead.
So much loss, and none of it makes sense.
I’m going to repaint the room and the woodwork and fill the shelves with new memories. The empty shelves only serve as a reminder of all that’s gone.
The beaded paneling at the back of the left cabinet looks more askew than it did upon my arrival. I’ll have to have it repaired. And I know someone who might be able to help.
I look out the kitchen window, toward the sound of running water, at the man I know as my neighbor standing at the edge of my pool.
Only he isn’t my neighbor. He’s retired Lieutenant Christian Renwick Brown—he didn’t lie about being retired, although he isn’t a writer. He’s a private detective. He is, indeed, a Phillies fan. And he’s filling my recently repaired pool.
I pour two drinks, one for Christian and one for me, and meet him on the porch.
The warmth of the afternoon sun soaks into my skin.
He approaches, rubbing the scar on his left hand.
“Let me guess.” I hand over one glass, which he takes. “No knife at the chop-chop-Japanese-grill. No automatic nail gun or fight over the cheating ex.”
Chris grins. “Actually, that’s exactly what happened. Everything I told you about my ex . . . it’s all true.”
“And you were shot in the hand with a nail gun.”
“Yes, I was. And I took a knife in the hand, too.”