The Last Thing She Ever Did(102)

“Right,” Jake said. “The drowning of his son.”

“Not just that,” Esther said. “I mean, that too. Also the tarp. The tarp we found underneath the bed at Miller’s house. How did it get there?”

She got up to retrieve the tarp from a box behind her desk. With Dr. Miller dead, there had been no criminal case to pursue. No real chain of evidence to consider from the artifacts found in the Miller basement.

“I get that the paint color matched the Jarrett front door, but so what? They probably loaned him the tarp,” Jake speculated.

She was obsessed with the tarp and its proximity to the boy. She pulled it from the box. “That’s possible. But I don’t think so. They never talked, remember? Dr. Miller despised everyone on the opposite side of the river. He hated the Franklins for their new house, and now we know he didn’t like Liz and Owen because she reminded him of what had happened at Diamond Lake.”

“Speaking of Owen Jarrett,” Jake said, “I just heard he left town.”

“Seriously?” She set down the tarp.

“Yeah, my sister’s best friend works at Lumatyx in accounting,” he said. “Says that he walked in and gave his resignation a few days after Charlie was found. She said you could have knocked everyone there over with a feather. Not that they weren’t happy about it. No one liked the guy. Constantly bragging to everyone that he was going to be rich. Made all the so-called team members feel like they were not a part of the same team. Left a boatload of money on the table.”

Esther reached for her purse and pushed past Jake. “I’ll catch up with you later. I need to try again to find out from Liz what she wanted to tell us that day she came in. We should’ve doubled back on that. It might have something to do with her husband.”

“You don’t think she was covering up for him? I mean, Dr. Miller acted alone, right?”

“Right,” she said. “Of course. Something’s been bothering me. That’s all. Loose ends.”

“What?” he asked.

“Not sure,” she said, touching that pendant of hers. She took her coat and a scarf her mother had given her. It had snowed earlier that day, dumping six inches over Bend and turning it into a winter wonderland. The snow had a way of making even the darkest things pretty. Esther always liked the snow.

Clean slate, she thought.



It was almost dusk when Liz opened the door to find Detective Nguyen there, holding the rolled-up tarp she used to cover Charlie the morning she’d hit him with the RAV4. Liz didn’t allow her eyes to linger on it, but it was there. Coming at her. A burning spear in a 3-D movie.

She wore a loose sweater and jeans. Her hair was greasy and pulled back. She wore no makeup. She was a far cry from the pretty young woman whom Esther had seen the day Charlie went missing.

The distinct odor of alcohol was on her breath.

“Are you okay?” Esther asked. “Can I come in?”

Liz opened the door wider, and the detective went inside. The house was filled with boxes marked with Owen’s name.

“I heard your husband left Bend,” Esther said, surveying the living room. An almost empty wineglass sat atop one of the boxes.

“It was bound to happen,” Liz said, barely looking at the detective. “We’d been growing apart for some time.”

“But he left town. Left his job too.”

“He has other priorities now.”

“But the money,” Esther said. “I understand he was due for a windfall.”

Liz shrugged. “Money isn’t everything.”

Esther made her way past the organized chaos of the living room to the window overlooking the Deschutes. An enormous FOR SALE sign was posted on the once-again perfect lawn rolling from the Miller house to the shore. It faced where passersby floating on tubes and dreaming of living in Bend would surely see it.

“That was fast,” the detective said, motioning to the sign.

Liz eyed her wineglass but didn’t reach for it. “I heard it’s already sold,” she said. “Buyers from California. Going to tear it down.”

“And put up another one of those?” Esther cocked her head at the Franklin house, once a monument to what newcomers brought to the area with their piles of money and big plans, now a reminder of a near tragedy and its cavalcade of repercussions.

“No doubt.” Liz offered the detective some coffee or tea. Esther declined. They stood facing each other silently for a beat.

“Go ahead and finish your wine,” the detective said.

Liz picked up the glass and took a swallow.

“How are Carole and Charlie?” Esther asked.

“Good,” Liz said, her words suddenly tight in her throat. She took another sip. “I saw them a few hours ago. Carole’s going to take Charlie to see her parents. I think that’s good.”

“I’ve been thinking about something,” Esther said, moving to the dining room table. She unfurled the tarp and spread it over the tabletop. She stopped when the fabric revealed the largest pink splatter. Her eyes met Liz’s. “This color of paint is the same color as your front door.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Liz said, stepping back, drinking some more.

Esther let silence fill the space. “The lab can confirm it,” she finally said.