River Bodies (Northampton County #1)(14)

“What have you done?” her mother had asked. “If you wanted short hair, I could’ve made an appointment for you.”

Matt whispered something. She craned her neck but couldn’t make out what he’d said. Romy pushed past her, knocking the door wide open. Matt spun around, caught Becca standing in the doorway.

“I’ll call you back,” he said and hung up. Romy nudged his hand with her nose.

Becca pulled the blanket up around her neck.

He looked angry. Or was he scared? There were too many shadows across his face; it was hard to tell.

“Who was on the phone?” Her breathing was short and quick. She recognized the feeling, the hurt and confusion, the shame, familiar and yet alien at the same time.

“No one. It’s not important.”

“Who was on the phone?” Her voice pitched higher. The blood rushed to her head.

“It was work,” he said and looked around. He was still naked, and maybe he was feeling vulnerable, because he cupped his private parts as though he was worried she was going to kick him. The thought crossed her mind.

“You’re lying.” This wasn’t part of their routine, the way they’d sidestepped around the truth. This was something different. This was blatant. In her face. She hadn’t felt such a sense of betrayal so severely, cutting through her insides like the blade of a knife, since she was a child. Or was she projecting her suspicions and anger onto Matt, when what she was really feeling was leftover childhood anger at her father?

“Babe, it’s not what you think.” He shook his head. “You’ve been dealt a blow today, and you’re not thinking clearly.” He took a step toward her, keeping one hand safely between his legs.

She backed up. Maybe he was right. Maybe she was confused.

“I promise you—it was nothing. Really.” He stepped toward her again, and this time she didn’t back away. He wrapped his arms around her. The heat from his body enveloped her. The lingering scent of sweat clung to his skin. She pinched her eyes closed.

As much as she wanted to trust what he was telling her, and as much as she wanted to believe she was overreacting, she couldn’t ignore her body’s reaction, the one screaming for her to flee. She froze in his arms. Her mouth went dry, the voice inside her head saying over and over again, He was lying; he was lying; he was lying.





CHAPTER SEVEN

Ten-year-old Becca was standing in the hallway outside of her parents’ bedroom. Tears streamed down her cheeks, although she was careful not to make a sound. She was as quiet as a field mouse, watching her mother lift the sheets to her nose.

Her mother pulled the down comforter in one fell swoop. She tugged and lifted the puffy spread until it was a heaping ball in her arms. Then she flung it across the room, and it knocked the lamp off the nightstand, sending it crashing to the floor. She grabbed the sheets from the mattress, yanked hard enough to rip the corner of the fitted sheet right off. She continued pulling at the sheets, ripping and waving them in a frenzy.

She stripped the pillows of their pillowcases, dropped them on top of the shredded sheets. Her chest rose and lowered with each breath. Her nostrils flared. But instead of continuing trashing the room, she dropped onto the bare mattress and covered her face.

Becca stepped around the pile of torn sheets and sat on the edge of the mattress next to her. She put her hand on her mother’s thigh. Her jeans were soft and worn.

She covered Becca’s hand and squeezed it so tightly it hurt, her shame pouring from her grip, sharing her pain. Becca accepted it, welcomed it even, knowing it could be days until she’d feel her mother’s touch against her skin. Becca was young, but she understood that her father was tearing her mother apart from the inside out.

“How can I show my face around town?” Her mother got up, cried, locked herself in the bathroom, refused to come out.

Becca sat quietly, patiently, listening to her mother weep. Minutes turned to hours. Her neck was stiff, her back sore from hunching over. Her stomach growled. But still, she wouldn’t move. She’d wait for her mother’s tears to dry no matter how long it took.

Eventually, her mother emerged, took a deep breath, and picked up the torn sheets from the floor. Her eyes were red, sunken, defeated.

Becca helped her clean up the mess she’d made. When they’d finished, her mother picked up the phone, called a friend, turned her back on Becca when she started crying again. Becca carried the ceramic shards from the broken lamp out of the room, put them in the trash can in the kitchen. Her mother would spend the rest of the day on the phone and part of the night too. The pattern would repeat for days, the calls to friends, the crying, turning her back on Becca whenever she entered the room.



Becca tossed the suitcase into the back of the Jeep. Romy jumped around Becca’s legs, excited about a car ride in the middle of the night. Or maybe the dog was just reacting to Becca’s charged emotions. Romy barked.

“Where are you going?” Matt asked. He had slipped on a pair of shorts and a shirt and followed her outside.

“To my dad’s,” Becca said. She needed to get away from Matt and think. She’d learned from working with animals to listen to her instincts. And she’d been ignoring her instincts where Matt was concerned for far too long.

“Please don’t leave like this,” he said. “It’s not what you think.”