It was cool outside, the sky a flat, milky white. She was vaguely aware of where the ocean was and headed in that direction, not even stretching first. She spotted a sign that pointed her toward Kennewick Village. It was up a hill on a road without a sidewalk that was lined with pine trees. She ran on the gravel embankment, her lungs starting to hurt a little, her muscles stinging. By the time she reached the top of the hill, a thin layer of sweat covered her skin. In the distance she could make out a strip of the ocean, a hazy, half-shrouded sun above it. She passed the few shops and restaurants of the village, then started downhill toward the shore, not stopping even when she felt that familiar pinch in the joint of her left knee.
She stopped only when she reached the beach, a long crescent that ran along a road. It was empty except for one distant figure on the far end, hurling a tennis ball for a dog. She sat on the edge of the stone wall that overlooked the sea, and took deep, ragged breaths. The sun was burning through the thin layer of cloud and causing spots to swim in Caitlin’s vision. She was light-headed, and she thought about how little she had eaten in the previous twenty-four hours. Still, she felt better after the run than she’d felt in the past few days.
When her heartbeat had slowed down, she turned and began to walk back toward the motel. She’d made up her mind on the run. She’d travel back with Grace on the plane the following day, if she could still get a reservation. It meant another day in Maine, another day alone in the town where Grace had died, but she could handle it. She’d call her mother as soon as she got back to the motel.
Once the decision was made, she felt relieved. And now that she had a day to kill, she thought about Harry. She wanted to see him again. Talking with him at the diner the previous afternoon had helped her. Some of that had to do with how grief-stricken he seemed, not just by his father’s death, but by Grace’s as well, and some of that was because she’d felt so instantly comfortable with him. She thought of Grace’s last e-mail, in which she’d written how cute Harry was, although Caitlin assumed that she was simply transferring whatever she felt for his father onto him. Caitlin and Grace had never been attracted to the same men. Grace, since their father’s abandonment, had always fixated on older men, or, if not older, then men who were quiet and distant, men who were challenging. Caitlin, less assertive, had always been drawn to gregarious boys, sporty types who told jokes, and treated her like one of the boys.
Reaching Kennewick Village, Caitlin spotted a bakery that appeared to be open. She bought a large coffee and a maple scone, then sat outside on a bench and ate the scone while waiting for the coffee to cool down enough to drink. The sweat had dried on her skin, and her legs and arms had broken out in goose bumps in the cool air. She crossed the street to a bench that was in the sun, which had now entirely broken free of the clouds. From her new position she could see a row of shops, including one that had books in the window. It must be Bill Ackerson’s store, she thought. After warming up in the sun, she walked over and looked through the window. It was Ackerson’s, and it was dark inside, not surprising this early in the morning. She watched as a bushy cat padded toward the glass front door, looked up at her, and opened its mouth. She couldn’t hear the meow through the door. Something about the plaintive look on the cat’s face made her feel a sudden stab of emptiness. She thought again of Harry.
She walked the rest of the way back to her motel room, and once she was there, before she did anything else, she sent him a text: What’s the cat’s name in your father’s bookstore? I saw him this morning.
When she got out of the shower, he’d texted back: Lew. You leaving today?
No. Tomorrow.
Can I see you?
I’d like that.
They made plans to meet that afternoon for a drink at the Livery bar in the Kennewick Inn. Caitlin was happy that she wouldn’t have to spend the entire day alone. She got dressed, then called her mother.
They started on a second round of drinks, and Harry said, “Can I tell you something?”
“Of course you can.”
“It might freak you out.”
“Okay,” she said, suddenly fearful.
They’d met at three in the afternoon in the basement bar, long and narrow and decorated to look like the sleek interior of a yacht. Harry had ordered a bourbon with ginger ale, and she’d gotten a pint of Harpoon. They’d brought the drinks to an alcove near an unlit fireplace. She’d told him about her decision to accompany Grace’s body back to Michigan, and he’d told her all about the bookstore, and how it seemed as though his stepmother, Alice, and the man who worked at the store, John, wanted Harry to take over the business. They’d finished their drinks, and then Harry had gotten two more, paying for them at the bar and bringing them over. Caitlin had just been realizing how much you could read on Harry’s face, his anxiety, his sadness, and then she’d seen indecision flit across his features right before he asked her if he could tell her something.
“No, maybe I shouldn’t,” he said.
“You can trust me,” she said.
“Okay,” he said, taking a sip of his drink, then rubbing at the edge of his lip with a finger. “Alice, my stepmother, is interested in me, romantically, sexually, whatever you want to call it.”
“Oh,” Caitlin said. It was not what she had expected to hear.
“I think it’s the way she’s processing grief, or something like that.”
“Oh,” Caitlin said again. “It’s strange. Is it new? I mean, did she act this way before your father died?”
“No, but I also didn’t know her all that well.”
“Is she coming on to you?”
Harry rubbed at his jawline. There was a little more stubble there than the day before. “Yeah, it’s pretty obvious, and now, with what happened with Grace, she’s convinced she’s in danger, and that I’m in danger, and she wants me to be in the house all the time, or else down at the bookstore. She made me promise that I wouldn’t leave her.”
“What do you mean, wouldn’t leave her?”
“That I won’t leave right away. She doesn’t want to be alone.”
“You can’t be with her forever. Even if she was your actual mother. You need to have your own life.”
“I know that. I get it. But that doesn’t mean that I should just up and leave before the police figure out what happened to my father and your sister. I owe something to her.”
“No, I understand,” Caitlin said. “I wasn’t talking about now, I was talking about long-term.”
“I won’t be here forever, although I have no idea where I’ll go. It’s not like I have somewhere to return to. College is over, and my friends are all going to different cities. At least here I have some purpose. I can take care of the things my father left behind. Alice and books.”
“Do you like books?”
“I do, but not like my father did. But no one liked books as much as he did.”
“You don’t need to take over his business.”
“I know.”
“And I don’t know why I’m about to tell you this, but I think that Alice is manipulating you. I don’t know why. It might just be because she’s scared of being alone, and that makes sense, but it might be for other reasons. You said you didn’t really know her that well.”
“She was my father’s wife, but no, I don’t.”
“Was she married before? Does she have her own kids?”
“No. She was my father’s real estate agent when he decided to move to Maine. She doesn’t have family, or if she does, she doesn’t see them.”
“Your father chose her. You didn’t. I don’t know if you owe her anything beyond what you’ve done already.”
Harry didn’t immediately say anything, and Caitlin felt bad about what she’d said. It had sounded callous, like she was the type of person who figured out who she owed and who she didn’t. She was about to apologize when Harry said, “I don’t know what to do or think.”
“Tell me about this other person your father was having an affair with.”
“Annie Callahan. I saw her at the police station. It was the day I found your sister. I was in the station all that morning, and I watched her being brought into one of the interview rooms to be questioned. She looked terrified, and when she was being led out of the station, she looked over at me where I was sitting and stared. I think it was because I look like my father.”
“How did you know it was her?”
“I just knew, somehow. Later, I asked Detective Dixon about it and he said that it was, and that they’d be questioning her husband as well, but he was out of town.”