Max had walked away from home, gone to college, rarely come home because she never thought she would be missed. The friction her presence caused the family had always upset her grandmother. Yet, she admired her?
Max had to put it aside because she wasn’t here to read about June. And that what she was about to do would tear apart the family from its very foundation made her want to leave for New York on the next flight and forget everything she’d seen or heard.
Except, of course she’d never do that. The truth had to come out. Gerald and Kimberly Ames deserved to know what happened to their daughter. The Hoffmans deserved to know what happened to Jason. Faith deserved to know what happened to her sister.
And why.
In December after graduation, during his winter break, Eleanor took William to England as his graduation present. They didn’t go over the summer because of Lindy’s murder.
December tenth through the twenty-second.
The postcard from Carrie was postmarked December eleventh.
She didn’t want to believe it. How could she? How could she not only believe that her cousin was a killer, but that he’d been so calculating? That he’d lied to her, and she’d believed him, because she had believed Kevin O’Neal and had been right about him?
William has a heart with far more compassion than his father.
Could kind, considerate, polite, compassionate William have brutally murdered three people? Lindy? Carrie? Jason?
William’s explanation of their fight didn’t make any sense. Lindy was mad about another girl he dated—why would she be? She’d been cheating on Kevin with William, William had been cheating on Caitlin with Lindy, it was one big cluster-fuck and Max had been totally in the dark.
Had she been? Had she truly been that clueless about her friends?
Maybe. She had Andy then, they’d been together all the time. She’d been planning for college, playing volleyball in the fall, skiing in the winter, swimming in the spring, she’d always kept busy, and her senior year was particularly hectic because of the added stress of college applications. Had she been so wrapped up in her own life that she’d forgotten to pay attention to the world around her?
Or maybe, subconsciously, she knew everyone had secrets, and she was willfully ignorant of them. Because she didn’t want to think about people she loved lying to her. Intentionally blind.
If William killed Lindy and Carrie, why? If he killed them, that meant he’d also killed Jason Hoffman because Jason had seen him removing Carrie Voss’s remains. Then William had taken her bones and … what? Reburied them? Burned them? Scattered them in the woods?
Max felt physically sick as she looked at the next date, the following winter—when it was summer in the land of Oz. Genie, her great-grandmother, had been ill. She had never been to Australia and said that before she died, she wanted to visit. It had been a difficult trip for the woman, but Max had never seen her happier. She’d died nine months later, but at peace.
While Genie and Eleanor had stayed for six weeks in a house they rented in Sydney, Max had joined them for a week. William was there. The Talbots had all visited at different times.
The dates William was in Sydney matched up with the postmark.
Max almost didn’t keep looking, but one thing being a reporter taught her was that she had to have all her facts. She had to make a solid case. If she was going to convince William to confess, she had to give him incontrovertible proof that he had no option. That there was enough evidence to put him in prison. She took pictures of each page in the date books, in case her grandmother destroyed them. She hoped not, because as she read notes in her grandmother’s impeccable, formal script, she saw a history unfold that she wanted to read more about. A history she wanted to write about.
She knew if she did this, if she used these date books to put William in prison for murder, her family would disown her. She’d still be part of the trust, she’d still have her money, but she would never be able to come home again. No matter what Eleanor had written about her in the books, some things would be unforgivable.
It was perhaps ironic that she never wanted to come home … until the idea that she couldn’t terrified her.
The money had never been important to Max, yet that would be all she had left of her family and her heritage.
But what choice did she have? She’d promised herself long ago that exposing the truth was the only way she could live in balance. That harboring secrets would only give her heartache and failure. Her mother’s lies and deception, Lindy’s secret diary, Karen’s disappearance and murder … the truth wasn’t pretty, but it was real, and Max had to hold on to that.
Eleanor kept a copy of everyone’s travel schedule because she wanted to know where they were in case she needed to reach them. She also said once, over dinner, that knowing where her family was gave her a continuity in her life, so she would remember to ask about their trips, to view their pictures, to remember what it was like to be young and active. Eleanor was the most active seventy-nine-year-old Max had ever known, taking after Eleanor’s mother, Genie. Strong, active, smart women. Even with all the secrets and the battle of duty and family over truth, Max greatly admired the women in her life.
The women who stayed.