Nausea rose so swiftly she couldn’t do anything but clap her hand to her mouth and swivel sideways. She retched onto the beach, nothing but bile so acidic it burned her throat and mouth. She couldn’t seem to stop heaving, as though her body was determined to make her give up everything she had.
Not until she finally sagged, spent, did she realize the detective had laid a big hand on her back and was rubbing it in soothing circles. He was murmuring something; she couldn’t make out words. It was more like a croon.
She had a sudden flash of remembering Maria, the housekeeper who’d left—or been fired—when Beth was five or six. A plump bosom, consoling arms, the songs she sang, all in Spanish. In Beth’s life, no one but Maria had ever given her comfort—and that had been so long ago, Beth had almost forgotten what it felt like.
It was the strangest feeling. She marveled at why he would worry about her distress despite the fact that he clearly suspected her of something horrible. It didn’t make sense.
Beth took long, slow breaths: in through her nose, out through her mouth. Her stomach, entirely empty, gradually became quiescent. She focused enough to realize the detective was holding out a can of soda. He must have taken it from her small cooler, unopened since she and Sicily had arrived. Beth seized it gratefully and after rinsing her mouth, took a long drink.
“Ready?” he asked, rising to his feet.
No, she wasn’t ready to leave without Sicily. To drive home to her empty house. The thought sent a shudder through her, but she nodded and let go of the blanket, stuffed her book into her bag and got up. To her surprise, Detective Ryan grabbed the blanket, shook it out and folded it with quick, effective movements. He picked up her small cooler, too, obviously prepared to carry it.
They walked in silence the short length of beach and up the trail. She was suddenly aware that they were virtually alone. The searchers had already been called off. She stopped at the top for one last look at the beach. The tide had long since come in and was turning to go out again. The light was so murky, she could barely make out the spot where she’d spread her blanket, or see the heaps of driftwood as anything but angular shadows. Again, she shuddered.
The parking lot had emptied, too. Toward the campground she could see flickers of firelight.
“You looked there?” she asked.
“Yes. And talked to all the campers. We asked permission to look in their tents and trailers. Everyone let us without argument.”
She nodded dully and unlocked her car. “You don’t have to follow me.”
“Yes, I do.”
Without a word she got in, started the engine and after letting it warm up for barely a minute, backed out of the slot and drove away. He’d catch up to her, she had no doubt. He knew where she lived anyway.
The lights of a bigger vehicle appeared almost immediately in her rearview mirror. All she could tell was that it was an SUV, big and dark.
The drive took nearly forty-five minutes. She lived in Edmonds, an attractive town built on land sloping down to Puget Sound. There was a ferry terminal there. Once upon a time, she’d enjoyed her view from the dining nook of the water and the arriving and departing green-and-white ferries. Now, every time she saw one, she imagined her sister standing at the railing on the car deck, looking at the churning water and choosing to climb over and cast herself into it.
That was what Beth thought had happened. She didn’t believe Rachel had fallen accidentally. The barbiturate level in her bloodstream wasn’t that high, for one thing. And it wasn’t as if you could fall over the substantial railing. Only at the open front and back of the car deck would it be possible to stumble and tip in, and even then Rachel would have had to step over the chain the ferry workers always fastened in lieu of a railing. And there were usually ferry workers hanging around the front and back of the boat.
No, in her heart she believed her sister had committed suicide. Beth wasn’t sure why she was so certain, given that she didn’t really know Rachel anymore.
Sicily had, only once, asked, “Do you think Mom really fell in by accident?”
Beth had had to swallow a lump in her throat. Now she cringed at the memory of what she’d said. “I don’t know.”
I really don’t know, she thought. I didn’t know my own sister. My niece. She hadn’t wanted to know them. She didn’t even want to know herself, not well enough to recognize the sometimes turbulent undercurrents of emotion she was determined to ignore.
She used the automatic garage-door opener and drove into her garage. She pushed the button again so that the door rolled down behind her, cutting off the SUV that had pulled into the driveway, leaving her momentarily alone.
Not for long. She wondered whether he would go away at all tonight. He’d have to, wouldn’t he? Probably he had a wife and kids waiting at home for him.
Please. Please leave me alone.
* * *
THE HOUSE WASN’T WHAT MIKE HAD expected. As cool as Ms. Beth Greenway was, he’d expected her to live in a stylish town house or condo with white carpet and ultramodern furnishings.
Her home was an older rambler, dating from the 1950s or 60s, at a guess. With night having fallen, as he approached the front door he couldn’t even see what color the clapboard siding was painted or how the yard was landscaped.
She didn’t so much as say, “Come in” when she opened the front door to him. Instead, she’d stepped back wordlessly, letting him past.
The interior surprised him. An eclectic collection of richly colored rugs were scattered on hardwood floors. Some of the rugs looked like antiques, the wear obvious; others appeared hand-hooked. He knew because his mother had experimented with the craft before moving on to tatting or God knows what. Her hobbies came and went like Seattle rainfall.
Ms. Greenway had bought or inherited antique furniture. Nice stuff, not real elaborate, not pretentious. Not heavy and dark—they were warm woods finished with sheen. The colors of the walls, upholstered furniture and blinds were all warm, too. Buttery-yellow, peach, touches of deep red and rust.
The house, Mike thought, was a startling contrast to the brittle, unfeeling—or emotionally repressed—woman who owned it. He could speculate all night on the psychology behind her choice to create this haven.
Ms. Greenway asked if he would like coffee.
What he’d really like was a meal. Breakfast was a long-ago memory, since he’d skipped both lunch and dinner. Just as, he realized, she had. What’s more, she’d emptied the meager contents of her stomach.
“Sure,” he said. “Ms. Greenway, you need to have a bite to eat. Why don’t we go in the kitchen and talk while you’re heating some soup. Something that’ll go down easy.”
She looked perplexed. “I’m not hungry.”
“You’re in shock,” he said gently. “Your body needs fuel.”
She gazed at him with the expression of someone translating laboriously from a foreign language. Sounding out each word, pondering it for meaning. At last her teeth closed on her lower lip and she nodded.
He ignored a jolt of lust and followed her through the living room into a kitchen that was open to a dining room. Again, he was struck by the hominess of cabinets painted a soft cream, walls a pale shade caught between peach and rust—maybe the color of clay pots that had aged outside. A glossy red ceramic bowl held fruit on the counter. A copper teakettle was on the stove. In the middle of the table, a cream-colored pitcher was filled with tulips, mostly striped in interesting patterns. A few petals had fallen onto the shining wood surface of the table.
Ms. Greenway had stopped in the middle of the kitchen and was standing there as if she had no memory of her original intentions. After a minute he went to her, gripped her shoulders to turn her around and steered