Glow (Glimmer and Glow #2)(94)
Nothing much had changed, Dylan acknowledged as he pointed the flashlight into every corner, revealing dusty wooden floorboards and chipped plaster walls.
This had been a dead end, too, he realized grimly, starting to back out of the dark space. His flash of insight hadn’t been so inspired after all. There were three other secret places—that he knew about—in the old house, although he was losing the steam of enthusiasm and curiosity by the second.
His flashlight skimmed across the floor as he turned to leave. He did a double take. Walking to the far right corner of the little room, he ran his light over a board that was slightly raised above the ones next to it.
He knelt and pried his fingers beneath the floorboard. It gave, and he lifted. He was expecting resistance, but someone had loosened the nails that had originally secured the board in place. The entire three-foot-long board rose as though it had a hinge on one end. He shone the flashlight into the opening beneath the board.
There, nestled between the joists, were four cloth-covered books. His flashlight revealed nothing else of interest, so he gathered up the volumes and replaced the board.
It was probably nothing—some long-forgotten diaries of a lovesick teenager or the hidden financial accounts of a crooked accountant. This was a very old house, after all, with a very long history.
He replaced the fa?ade door and walked under the full light of the glowing chandelier. Immediately, he noticed that while the volumes were old, they weren’t ancient. He opened the first page of the top one.
No. It was something after all.
He stared down at the front page of the top book. There, in a sloping hand were written the words Lynn Charlotte Durand, July 1990.
He turned the page and began to read. Lynn’s journal writing was evocative. It called up an image of her clearly in his mind: her kindness, her elegance . . . her sadness.
Yes. As a boy of thirteen or fourteen he hadn’t understood that sad, poignant quality of a grown woman’s character. But his memories, the part of her soul that was instilled forever in her written words, and the present-day understanding of an adult man all combined, allowing him to see Lynn Durand clearly for the first time.
It wasn’t until the fourth entry that the bombshell struck.
Of course I’ve been a fool and unworthy of an excellent man’s unwavering, passionate love. To say this is stating the weary obvious. They say that people sacrifice everything for the sake of romantic love, but I sacrificed everything in the name of one selfish, heartless goal: to call myself a mother. To give Alan a child. God answered my prayers and gave me a beautiful baby. But he’s making me pay for my sacrifice—he’s making me pay for my cruelty and unfaithfulness to Alan—by putting the two things I hold dearest in harm’s way: my marriage and Addie.
I put myself in league with the devil. Isn’t that what the devil is famous for? He knows your secret desire, and he does whatever he can to give it to you. At a price. He played the part so well. I thought he shared my dreams, and that’s powerful stuff to a woman who imagines herself doomed to a barren life.
Sometimes I’m afraid Alan knows about my infidelity. Worse, sometimes I’m afraid he knows, and not only understands, but accepts because of his medical issues and our trouble conceiving. He knows better than anyone how I’ve suffered. That he would forgive me in this is the sharpest and deepest of my pains.
But Alan doesn’t really know, thank God. That’s just my guilt surfacing and haunting me.
As it should.
Dylan felt sick, like he’d just taken a punch to the chest that reverberated through his heart, gut, and brain.
He’d insisted Alice go for the genetic testing. He’d never even thought to consider what would happen if he’d dangled this story in front of her about whom Addie Durand was—about who Alice was—and it all turned out to be wrong. If it all turned out to be a lie.
He walked out of the room feeling dazed. In his bedroom suite, he found a pair of glasses. He turned on the lamp in the sitting area and sat down on the couch. He put on his glasses and turned his full attention back to the journals.
He made sure he arranged them in the proper chronological order. The journals ranged from the year before Addie was born to three years after the fact. These were the entries that Lynn had chosen, the ones she’d felt compelled to leave behind in one of the secret places she’d shared with her daughter.
These were the shameful confessions of a heartbroken woman. Like everyone else, Dylan had believed that Addie’s kidnapping and suspected death were what had driven Lynn to end her own life. Dylan was just beginning to realize that the secrets he held in his hands right now had been an even more precise, cruel prod to her suicide.
He still had several hours before he was due down at the camp to meet Alice. With a grim sense of purpose, he began to read, doing his best to ignore the dread that weighed on him, heavier and heavier by the minute.
*
“WHAT?” Alice asked, grinning widely when Dave Epstein approached her, carrying two cases of soda. The DJ had started and a raucous rap boomed, making conversation nearly impossible. Kids were dancing on the sand, swimming, exchanging camp books, and posing for pictures. Almost everyone who wasn’t in a swimsuit wore his or her new Camp Durand T-shirt, including Alice.
“Mira took a call for you up at the kitchen. She knew I was headed this way, so she gave me the message.”