Open House(13)

“I’m just so scared he’s going to lose it,” Liv said, gently touching the smooth leaves of one of her ferns.

“He’s lost it before,” Haley said. She set down her milky coffee. It was getting too cold. “We survived, so did he.”

“You’re very practical, you know,” Liv said, and a small, sad smile worked at the corners of her mouth.

“I get it from you,” Haley said. She cleared her throat. “We all would have fallen apart without you. You know that, right?”

Tears sprang to Liv’s dark eyes. “Oh, stop it!” she said, but her voice was soft. “You’ll make me cry, Haley, I mean it. No more of that kind of thing.”

The doorbell rang. “Why would Dad ring the bell?” Haley asked, straightening.

“He probably forgot his keys again,” Liv said. She smoothed the front of her striped top and made her way around the kitchen island. Haley waited, uncrossing and crossing her legs as her mom trekked through the foyer and opened the front door. Haley prepared herself to hear her dad’s lumbering footsteps, to see his face fold when they started talking. But instead she heard her fiancé’s voice.

“Dean?” Haley blurted when he entered the kitchen. “What are you doing here?” Her tone sounded more offended than she’d meant it to.

Dean’s dark eyebrows shot up. “I’m here to say hello to my almost-wife?” His voice was questioning, like he couldn’t imagine why she sounded so upset that he’d stopped by. “I saw your car in the driveway,” he went on, clearly embarrassed that she’d spoken that way to him in front of Liv.

“I’m sorry,” Haley said quickly. Cell service was spotty in Waverly, and Dean’s phone had gone straight to voice mail when she called earlier after leaving the precinct. “I just thought I’d see you at home and explain everything and . . .” Why was she so awkward when she was caught off guard? “We got bad news today,” she blurted, “and I’ve just been really concerned with how my dad is going to take it . . .” Her voice trailed off. She held her breath, determined not to be crying when her father arrived.

“What happened?” Dean asked, crossing the kitchen in two giant steps, his arms around her strong and sure. He sat down on the stool next to her, his hand going to her knee.

Haley exchanged a glance with her mom.

“He should stay,” Liv said softly.

Haley nodded. Maybe it would be good for her dad to have Dean here, too, to deflect his pain somehow. She tilted her chin to take in Dean’s brown eyes flecked with green. He was so tall she was always lifting her glance to see him, always arching onto her tiptoes to hug him. Even though it was Saturday, he was dressed in his work clothes because he’d had to meet for lunch with a client in Greenwich, and his perfectly tailored suit emphasized his shoulders. Ever since the first night they met while she was bartending, there had been something about Dean’s presence. He settled Haley, and not many people did.

“They found a bracelet in the gorge behind Yarrow,” Haley said, “right beneath the cliffs by where the party was that night.” She watched the lines that crossed Dean’s handsome face deepen. “It’s Emma’s,” she said, “and it changes the way the police are thinking about the case. They always thought she wandered alone downriver where it’s a straight jump into the water.” Haley’s hands went to her lap, and her fingers tapped a hard circle against her palm. “But the cliffs above where the bracelet was found drop four stories down to the dirt, where there’s plenty of land before the water starts. If Emma fell there and died, or if she were pushed, a body would have remained on the ground. Which means if she was killed at the party or at the cliffs, the location of her bracelet shows that someone hid her body or put her in the river.” Haley’s voice broke, and the words echoed through the still kitchen, followed by a deathly silence. She thought of her sister, all alone, river water coursing over her body; she thought of her heartbroken father; and then she thought of the lifeless cadaver on that table in anatomy, and it was like every horrible thing she’d ever known was suffocating her. Her breathing started to go so fast she thought she would pass out. She looked down at the floor, focusing on her mom’s bare feet against the tiles, and then she felt her mom’s arms, plus Dean’s, wrap tightly around her.

“Shhhh, it’s over, honey,” Liv was saying. “It’s all over. No one’s hurting her now.”

Haley looked up to see her mother’s calm face, wondering for the thousandth time how she was able to do this. Was it just because her father was such a mess, so paralyzed by his grief, that this was the only option left for her?

Dean kissed the top of Haley’s head, and then the front door opened. “Hello,” came her father’s voice, a little wobbly. “Haley’s here?” When had he started sounding like an old man? The clunk of his shoes came next, covering the floor with heavy footsteps.

“Tim? We’re in the kitchen!” Liv called out, her voice quaking.

Haley’s dad emerged, his wiry eyebrows shooting up just as Dean’s had moments earlier. His striped Izod shirt was slightly askew, and there was a stain on his khakis. Haley felt Dean’s hand squeeze her shoulder.

“Dad,” Haley said softly. Her father looked at each of them carefully. He didn’t speak. He crossed the kitchen and sat at the table. They watched as he situated himself in a chair and smoothed the wrinkles on his pant legs. Finally he looked up.