Connecting (Lily Dale #3)(73)

Right now, she has tunnel vision.

At the end of the hall, she opens the door and steps into the master bedroom she last visited in her dream.

A hint of her mother’s designer perfume lingers in the air.

But nothing else.

Not a hint of her mother’s spirit; not a vision of the killer’s identity.

Calla walks around the room, blinking away tears.

She remembers all the times she curled up on the Caribbean-blue bedspread, watching Mom get fixed up to go someplace. From the time she was a little girl, she was fascinated by the grown-up rituals: perfume and pantyhose, makeup and hairspray. She wanted to look just like her mother when she grew up.

But I didn’t want to be like her.

No, she didn’t want to become a businesswoman—a workaholic, Dad called Mom when they argued.

Mom always had to be doing something, going somewhere. She never relaxed, never took the time to just hang around the house, hang around with Dad and Calla.

It was almost like she was running away, Calla realizes now.

And maybe she was.

Away from Dad? Or Darrin? Away from her past? Away from some nameless, faceless person who was stalking her?

Her jaw set, Calla opens the top middle drawer of Mom’s bureau and fishes among silky undergarments for a key on a silken red cord. For a moment, she worries that it’s disappeared. No. Here it is.

Was Mom aware that Calla knew where the key was hidden? Probably not, or she might have come up with a better hiding place.

Closing her fist around it, Calla turns and leaves the bedroom, with all its memories.

With a purposeful stride, she heads toward Mom’s home office on the opposite end of the hall.

There, she fits the key into the lock on the shallow top drawer.

Why didn’t it ever occur to her that normal people probably don’t keep their laptops locked away? That her mother might have something to hide? Something more than the financial documents she dealt with for work?

She had no reason to give it much thought. Not then. But now . . .

The drawer slides open and the laptop is right there, waiting for her.

Her breath shallow with anticipation, Calla lifts it out, plugs it in, and turns it on.

As it hums to life, she reaches into her pocket and removes the folded sheet of paper containing every possible password she could imagine.

The computer seems to take forever to boot up.

At last, she sits at the desk and goes right to the e-mail sign-on screen. Mom’s screen name is saved there, but the login box is empty.

Calla gets to work methodically entering passwords from her list. There are well over a hundred, starting with combinations of names and dates and becoming more and more obscure. Like “Edgar,” the name of Calla’s pet goldfish when she was little. And “cottagerow,” for Odelia’s street back in Lily Dale.

Nothing works.

Frustrated, she closes her eyes, wondering what to do.

Then a thought pops into her head.

Maybe she could meditate on it, ask Spirit for the answer, the way she did that day in Patsy’s class, reading billets.

Spirit, after all, led her to Geneseo and the purple neon house, and to Darrin/Tom.

“Leolyn!” she says aloud, abruptly.

It just popped into her head, but that’s it. It has to be. She knows it before her fingers have even typed it out and hit Enter.

There’s an endless pause as the screen flickers, goes blank.

Is it loading?

“Oh my God,” Calla breathes, finding herself staring at Mom’s e-mail homepage.

The in-box is full. A quick glance tells her it’s mostly spam, advertisements, and stuff from people who didn’t immediately realize she had passed away.

Clicking over to the archives, Calla knows right where to look. She scrolls through to last February 14 and scans the e-mails that arrived that day.

It isn’t hard to pick out the right one: the subject line reads Hello, Stranger.

Her hand trembles as she moves the mouse over it and double clicks to open it.

Dear Stephanie,

It’s been over twenty years now and I’ve never stopped missing you. I’ve been following you from afar—thanks to the Internet—and I see that you have created a nice life for yourself in Florida with a husband and a daughter and a great job. I’m really proud of you, and nobody deserves those things more than you.

I’m probably not doing you any favors by popping back into your life now, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, or everything that went wrong between us—or, mostly, lately, about everything that went right. There wasn’t much, but when it was good, it was great. Anyway, I know it’s an understatement to say that I’m sorry I left you the way I did, but at the time, I thought I had no choice. I definitely owe you an explanation. And I have one, if you’re willing to listen.

Love always,

Darrin

Whoa.

Calla hurriedly clicks into her mother’s Sent Mail archives.

There is nothing from February 14, or the next day. But on the sixteenth, Mom did send a return e-mail.

Darrin, I can’t tell you how shocked I was to hear from you after all these years. I’m willing to listen. In person. Where are you? Steph

Darrin’s response was immediate. He told her he was in New England, living under a new name, and that he would explain everything when they met. He would come to Florida, he said, the very next day if she wanted.