Trespassing(62)

Do I trust that my husband was simply saying goodbye to our daughter before he left for a few days?

The smoking man on the fairway . . .

The moment Bella looked out the window, back at the Shadowlands, she told me she was going to be with her father. Had she seen the smoking man and assumed he’d come to get her?

The brown sedan following me . . . had the driver come to take my daughter to meet Micah?

The cat nudges me again.

I surrender and pick him up. “What do you need, Hemingway?” I look into the cat’s green-gold eyes. He squints at me, as if I’m an idiot, as if I can’t see what’s directly in front of me.

There are few gnarls in the cat’s fur. I haven’t come across a cat brush in this place, but I’ll put it on the list of things to buy the next time I hit a store.

“I like this cat,” I say.

“Me too. But he makes Nini go achoo.”

“Should we keep him?”

“Cats make Daddy achoo, too.” She imitates a sneeze.

“Really?” If it’s true, it seems odd that he’d allow one in the house. Come to think of it, I sort of remember him thwarting conversations about getting any pets. “Is that right, Papa Hemingway? Do you make Daddy sneeze?”

I turn over the tag on his collar, where his name is lettered. JAMES BROLIN.

“Nini goes achoo, and Daddy goes achoo.”

“Because of this cat? Bella, did you meet this cat before?”

She shrugs. “Nini meeted him once.”

All signs point to Bella’s being here before: The bedroom, the clothing in the closet, the pictures of the house she’d drawn before we arrived. And now this cat.

I think of the phone call I received at the Shadowlands house, the whispering caller warning me to listen to your daughter.

Bella wanted to come to God Land.

Detective Guidry insists my husband’s death has yet to be confirmed. Either Micah is reaching out to Bella from beyond, or he planned an escape from our life and has carefully planted clues to lure us here. But why would he do such a thing? What does he want from us?

And this cat . . .

Why did Christian Renwick call this cat Papa Hemingway if its name is obviously James Brolin?





Chapter 31

November 26

The past couple of days, I’ve begun with a phone call to my mother-in-law. I want to clear up any confusion between us and explain why I’d tell her Micah was dead if the fact has yet to be confirmed.

She hasn’t answered. But today, I dial again and again and neglect to leave messages.

I think back to what Guidry hinted: Micah disclosed he had a secret, and that if I learned of it, I’d be angry. Angry enough to kill him, but I’m not going to capitalize on that detail.

If Micah shared something with his mother, I deserve to know what it is. Besides, I’d like to know for certain about the allergy to cats. I want to know if Shell knows anything about Micah’s carrying on with Natasha. I want to know about Shell’s friend Gabrielle. I want to know what the hell happened between Micah and Mick and the money.

And . . . I pull from its small box the blue-stone ring I stumbled across in the safe-deposit box. With all the confusion of that day, the three-day trek down to the Keys, and everything that’s happened since we arrived, I forgot about it. But I found it at the bottom of my purse, and it sprung even more questions . . . questions his mother might know the answers to, if he confided in her.

So I keep calling.

On my sixth attempt, Shell picks up: “Stop calling me.”

I’m too stunned to reply for a few seconds. “Shell, it’s Veronica.”

“I know who you are. My God, do you know what you’ve put me through? To tell me my son is dead when—”

“Shell, two men came to my house and told me he was gone. I didn’t just—”

“Listen. I know you know more than you’re telling.”

“I know your son had a double life,” I say. “I know that now. But if you think I know what happened to him—”

“Not only do I think that, I think you’re responsible for whatever happened to him. The police told me about Bella confessing your plan to her teachers.”

“My plan? Shell.”

“Two-point-five million dollars. Christ, a girl like you—never more than a twenty in your pocket until you met my son—it must be like winning the lottery.”

I stifle a sob. I want to tell her I didn’t know about the life insurance, but I can’t catch my breath.

“And all that bullshit about wanting to come to the lake for Thanksgiving,” she says. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice when you didn’t show up? Did you think you’d just make your way down to Key West? Then sail to Switzerland or wherever you managed to buy your house overseas and disappear? With my granddaughter?”

“Listen to me. Please.”

“I’ll listen if you tell me what happened.”

“But I don’t know what happened. And that’s the honest-to-God truth.”

“The truth will come out eventually. It always does. I ask you, as a mother. End my suffering. God forbid, if anything happened to Bella, you’d need to know about it, wouldn’t you? Please. Tell me what happened.”