Norah had been solid. She had been stable. She’d loved her daughters. She’d doted on them just like the rest of us. The most I’d ever seen her drink were a couple glasses of red wine with the occasional dinner. Maybe a beer if we were all out on the boat in the heat of summer.
She’d been a good mother. She’d always made sure the girls brushed their teeth and did their homework. She’d braided their hair and made them eat at least two bites of vegetables before they could have a treat.
My world was tipping upside down again, like I was living in an hourglass and couldn’t figure out which way the sand was flowing. Who was the bad guy here?
Cormac? Norah?
Everything I’d thought, everything I’d believed, was bullshit. I’d been living in a world of smoke and mirrors.
These people I’d loved had omitted so much of the truth. I wasn’t sure what to think. I couldn’t trust them. I couldn’t trust my own memories.
Lyla’s hand slipped into mine.
One touch. The dizzying thoughts stopped. The frustration ebbed.
I looked down into those dazzling blue eyes and found steady.
Lyla held my hand, and I held hers. And we listened as Cormac continued to repaint the past with ugly colors.
“I watched her like a hawk after the twins were born. I rarely left her alone. If I was working, I’d have friends just randomly pop by. I’d call constantly. She was . . . great. Happy. We were great. We were happy.” Cormac tossed out a hand. “Hell, why am I telling you this? You were there.”
“Yeah.” I’d been there. I’d witnessed this great happiness.
Until it had all gone up in flames.
“When my parents died, I used my inheritance to buy the place on the lake. Bought the boat because she wanted to teach the girls how to waterski. She got into scrapbooking because she was worried we wouldn’t remember what the girls were like when they were little. Everything was good.” Cormac closed his eyes. “That fucking bitch made me believe everything was good.”
I jerked. Never, not once, had I heard Cormac call Norah a bitch. Even if they’d been in a squabble, he’d never tarnished her name.
“The girls were busy,” he said. “I was busy. We had an activity every night. Basketball. Softball. Swimming. Hadley wanted to take acting lessons. Elsie decided she wanted to write a book.” Cormac’s eyes flooded and he sniffled, wiping away a tear. “It still hurts . . . to say their names.”
Which was why I’d rarely spoken them myself.
He took a minute, breathing through the pain. There sat a father missing two beautiful daughters. Mourning two beautiful daughters.
Not a killer.
He hadn’t killed them.
I’d believed he had, for four years. Maybe. Or maybe deep down, the reason I’d been so determined to find him was because I’d known in my soul he wouldn’t have murdered the girls.
He sucked in a sharp breath, pulling himself together.
“A friend of Norah’s from high school came to visit us in Idaho. I never knew the guy. He was in her life before I met her. Honestly, I didn’t think much about it. They met up once for lunch, then he was gone. Guess that lunch was all it took.”
“Took for what?”
“Took for her to spiral.”
No. No way. We would have seen it.
Cormac met my gaze, those sad eyes boring into mine. “You’re thinking we should have noticed, right? If she was drinking or using, we should have seen the signs?”
“We should have.”
“I should have.” He slapped his chest, so hard it made Lyla jump. “I should have seen it. And I didn’t have a fucking clue. Not until I came home that night. Not until I found her drunk. High. Alone.”
Cormac buried his face in his hands, like if he physically shut out the world, he could make it go away, he could stop talking about that night.
Lyla’s grip on my hand tightened as she peered at the door, like she could see Vera through the branches.
Vera had been there with Norah that night. With Hadley and Elsie. And whatever happened had likely scarred her for life.
Cormac hung his head, the tears uncatchable as they dripped to the dirt. “I kissed the girls that morning before they got on the bus, but I didn’t tell them I loved them. Should have told them I loved them. But I was in a hurry, so I just kissed their heads and shuffled them out the door. Then I went to work.”
With me.
He’d come to work with me.
“Normal day.” He sniffled. “That thunderstorm had rolled in, but otherwise, just a normal day.”
“Yeah.” It had been a normal day. The last normal day.
“I had that meeting at the school after work, remember? All the volunteer coaches had to go in and do their concussion training. It was an off night for once. The girls didn’t have anything. I texted Norah that I’d bring home a pizza for dinner after the meeting.”
There’d been a pizza at their house—the crime scene. Half pepperoni, half veggie.
It had been on the coffee table in the living room, not the kitchen. The box had been unopened, the food untouched. Like he’d gotten distracted, so the pizza had been set aside.
“She was out of her mind.” Cormac lowered his voice, either because it was hard to voice or because he worried Vera was within earshot. “She kept mumbling about swimming lessons. How the girls needed more swimming lessons. How they couldn’t go out on the boat again until they had more practice swimming.”
What the fuck? The girls had been great swimmers, especially Vera. She’d been on the high school’s swim team. There weren’t many summer weekends when Cormac and I hadn’t taken the girls tubing or waterskiing.
“I got spooked,” he said.
It was the same thing he’d told Lyla. Was that why he’d choked her at the river? Because it had reminded him too much of Norah? Maybe he’d been thinking about his wife in that moment. Maybe he’d been thinking about his daughters, and when Lyla had surprised him, he’d snapped.
“I kept asking Norah what she was talking about,” he said. “I got close enough and smelled the booze. Saw how glassy her eyes were. She didn’t even recognize me. She thought I was a lifeguard. She asked me if I could go get her kids from the pool because it was time for dinner.”
They didn’t have a pool.
Just the lake.
“I went outside. I screamed and screamed and screamed for the girls. The boat had been run up on the shore, not tied to the dock. The waves, they were . . .” A sob broke free from his mouth. “My girls were good swimmers. But not that good. Not in that kind of storm.”
The hut was still for a few long minutes. The only sound came from Cormac as he cried and swiped at his tears.
“I went back inside and slapped her. I slapped her so fucking hard, Vance. Just so she’d snap out of it. Tell me what had happened.”
The autopsy had shown an injury to her cheek. The cause of death, strangulation. There’d been alcohol in her bloodstream, but we’d all assumed she’d had one too many glasses of wine from the open bottle in the kitchen. There’d been no note of drugs. Though depending on what she’d been on, some substances like LSD metabolized quickly. Still, would the medical examiner have even thought to test for narcotics?
Small town. Well-known family. Tragic incident. Not a single person, including me, had thought to investigate Norah.
Not when Cormac had run and cemented his guilt in our minds.
“She said she took them out for swimming lessons.” Cormac looked at the door.
My gaze tracked his.
Outside was the only person who knew what had happened on that boat.
“I killed her.”
I whipped back to face him. There was no remorse in his voice. Just fact.
“She drowned them. She drowned my little girls.” His eyes blazed behind more tears. “So I killed her.”
This was why he’d run. All the evidence that had pointed to him was true. He’d killed Norah.
That fucking bitch.
Four years, I’d blamed Cormac for their deaths. I guess I’d get the next forty to hate Norah for it instead.
Lyla swiped at her own cheek, catching a few tears for kids she’d never known. I loved her for that too. She leaned deeper into my side, a silent hug, then held tight to my hand while we waited for Cormac to dry his face.
“Sorry.” He shook his head, sitting taller. “I’ve never talked about this.”
“Not with Vera?” I asked.
“No. We don’t . . . it’s easier.”
Easier if they didn’t mention that night. Easier if they didn’t speak Hadley’s or Elsie’s names.
“I had the girls cremated,” I blurted.
Norah and Cormac’s will had requested they be buried in plots they’d purchased at a cemetery. But there hadn’t been any specific wishes for the girls. Parents didn’t plan for their children’s deaths. There hadn’t been two open spaces beside Norah in the cemetery, just the one for Cormac. And I hadn’t wanted to separate the twins.
A blessing now that I knew the truth. So I’d had them cremated.
“Remember that trail we found ages ago, the one that led to that meadow with all the wildflowers?”
Cormac nodded.
“I took their ashes there.” It had been the hardest day of my life.
He put a hand over his heart, like he was trying to keep it from breaking. “I knew you’d take care of them.”
While he’d been taking care of Vera.