The Dry (Aaron Falk #1)(3)
Falk could not believe that photo was being shown. He shot a look at Gerry Hadler, who was staring straight ahead, his jaw set. Falk felt the farmer next to him shift his weight and move a calculated half step away. The penny had dropped for him, Falk thought.
He forced himself to look back at the image. At the foursome. At the girl by his side. He watched those eyes until they faded from the screen. Falk remembered that picture being taken. One afternoon near the end of a long summer. It had been a good day. And it had been one of the last photos of the four of them together. Two months later the dark-eyed girl was dead.
Luke lied. You lied.
Falk stared down at the floor for a full minute. When he looked back, time had moved on, and Luke and Karen were smiling with stiff formality on their wedding day. Falk had been invited. He tried to remember what excuse he’d offered for not attending. Work, almost certainly.
The first pictures of Billy began to appear. Red-faced as a baby, then with a full head of hair as a toddler. Already looking a bit like his dad. Standing in shorts by a Christmas tree. The family dressed up as a trio of monsters, their face paint cracking around their smiles. Fast-forward a few years, and an older Karen was cradling another newborn to her breast.
Charlotte. The lucky one. No name spelled out in flowers for her. As if on cue, Charlotte, now thirteen months old, began to wail from her front-row spot on her grandmother’s lap. Barb Hadler clutched the girl tighter to her chest with one arm, jiggling with a nervous rhythm. With her other hand she pressed a tissue to her face.
Falk, no expert on babies, wasn’t sure if Charlotte recognized her mother on the screen. Or perhaps she was just pissed off at being included in the memorial when she was still very much alive. She’d get used to it, he realized. She didn’t have much choice. Not many places to hide for a kid destined to grow up with the label “lone survivor.”
The last strains of music faded away, and the final photos flashed up to an awkward silence. There was a feeling of collective relief when someone turned on the lights. As an overweight chaplain struggled up the two steps to the lectern, Falk stared again at those dreadful coffins. He thought about the dark-eyed girl, and a lie forged and agreed on twenty years ago as fear and teenage hormones pounded through his veins.
Luke lied. You lied.
How short was the road from that decision to this moment? The question ached like a bruise.
As an older woman in the crowd turned her gaze away from the front, her eyes landed on Falk. He didn’t know her, but she gave an automatic nod of polite recognition. Falk looked away. When he glanced back, she was still staring. Her eyebrows suddenly puckered into a frown, and she turned to the elderly woman next to her. Falk didn’t need to be able to lip-read to know what she whispered.
The Falk boy’s back.
The second woman’s eyes darted to his face then immediately away. With a tiny nod she confirmed her friend’s suspicion. She leaned over and whispered something to the woman on her other side. An uneasy weight settled in Falk’s chest. He checked his watch. Seventeen hours. Then he was gone. Again. Thank God.
2
“Aaron Falk, don’t you bloody dare leave.”
Falk was standing by his car, fighting the urge to get in and drive away. Most of the mourners had already set off on the short trudge to the wake. Falk turned at the voice and, despite himself, broke into a smile.
“Gretchen,” he said as the woman pulled him into a hug, her forehead pressed against his shoulder. He rested his chin on her blond head, and they stood there for a long minute, rocking back and forth.
“Oh my God, I’m so glad to see you here.” Her voice was muffled by his shirt.
“How are you?” he asked when she pulled away. Gretchen Schoner shrugged as she slipped off a pair of cheap sunglasses to reveal reddened eyes.
“Not good. Bad, really. You?”
“Same.”
“You certainly look the same.” She managed a shaky smile. “Still working the albino look, I see.”
“You haven’t changed much either.”
She gave a small snort, but her smile firmed. “In twenty years? Come on.”
Falk wasn’t just being flattering. Gretchen was still entirely recognizable from the photo of the teenage foursome that had flashed up during the service.
The waist Luke had thrown his arm around was a little thicker now, and the baby-blond hair might have been helped by a bottle, but the blue eyes and high cheekbones were pure Gretchen. Her formal trousers and top were a shade tighter than traditional funeral attire, and she moved a little uneasily in the outfit. Falk wondered if it was borrowed or just seldom worn.
Gretchen was looking him over with the same scrutiny, and as their eyes met, she laughed. She looked lighter, younger.
“Come on.” She reached out and squeezed his forearm. Her palm felt cool against his skin. “The wake’s at the community center. We’ll get it over with together.”
As they started down the road, she called out to a small boy who was poking something with a stick. He looked up and reluctantly abandoned what he was doing. Gretchen held out a hand, but the child shook his head and trotted in front, swinging his stick like a sword.
“My son, Lachie,” Gretchen said, glancing sideways at Falk.
“Right. Yes.” It took Falk a moment to remember that the girl he knew was now a mother. “I heard you’d had a baby.”