The Last of the Moon Girls(42)

“Did you ever call the police on your husband?”

Susan peered over the lipstick-stained rim of her mug. “And say what? That he was being mean to me? That I was being punished for burning his toast or forgetting to buy new laces for his boots? No, I never called the police. I drank instead. Not too much, just enough to numb myself. Then a little more when that stopped working.”

Lizzy was getting a depressingly vivid picture of life as the wife of Fred Gilman. “What about Heather and Darcy? Were they scared of their father?”

“Scared? Of Fred? God forbid.”

Something new had crept into Susan’s expression, something deeper than sadness, and far more brittle. Lizzy remained quiet, waiting for her to say more. She didn’t, choosing instead to pick at the frosty maroon polish on her left thumbnail.

Lizzy shifted in her chair, feeling the woman’s pain, but needing desperately to get to the truth. “Susan?”

“Hmm? Oh, right. Were the girls afraid of him. That would be a huge no. Maybe if they had been, they’d still be here. Heather would have gone to prom, and Darcy would have gone to nursing school. I’d have grandkids and scrapbooks full of vacation snaps. But I kept quiet, so none of that happened. Fred got his way like he always did. And look where it got him, where it got all of us. As far as Fred was concerned, those girls could do no wrong. He absolutely refused to see it. And he certainly didn’t want to hear it from me.”

“Didn’t want to hear what?”

“That Heather was out of control. That Darcy was right behind her. That if he didn’t rein them in, something awful was going to happen. And something did.” Her voice broke then, splintering with emotion. She looked away, fanning the tears that had pooled in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said finally. “It’s just so hard to have been right. You know how you get that feeling, and you just know something bad is coming. And then when it does, you keep kicking yourself because you knew. You knew, and you didn’t stop it. I live with that.”

Lizzy was groping for a response when she caught a whiff of something murky and dank, a combination of mildew and freshly turned earth. The mingled aromas of coffee and baked goods were so prevalent in the café that she hadn’t noticed it until that moment, but the layers of emotion were unmistakable now. Loss. Regret. Soul-crushing grief.

Before Lizzy could check herself, she had reached for Susan’s hand. “What happened wasn’t your fault. A mother can’t protect her children from everything.”

“No. Not when you’re not allowed.”

“Not allowed? I don’t understand.”

“Fred wouldn’t let me discipline them. Not for anything. That was his job, he said. His girls, his job.”

“He wouldn’t let you discipline your own daughters?”

Susan glanced up from her thumb, where she’d been at work again on her polish. A tear spilled down her left cheek. “That’s just it. They weren’t mine. Not legally.”

Lizzy blinked at her. In all the coverage of the Gilmans eight years ago, that little detail had somehow escaped notice. “He was married before?”

“Christina. His high school sweetheart, if you can believe that. She died in a fire. Faulty wiring or something. Fred had taken the girls to his mother’s for supper. By the time he got home, it was over. They found her in the bathtub. They think she must have been trying to protect herself from the flames.”

Lizzy suppressed a shudder, trying not to picture the scene. “How old were the girls when you and Fred married?”

“Heather was three. Darcy was a year and a half.”

“You raised them.”

Susan nodded, brushing away another tear. “I’m the only mother they ever knew. Except I was never really allowed to be their mother. Fred never let me forget they were his girls, or that I was an outsider.”

Lizzy felt her anger at Fred Gilman bubbling up all over again. “But he married you.”

“Turns out he didn’t want a wife so much as a housekeeper. Lucky me. I qualified for the job. By the time I realized what I’d signed up for, I was too in love with his daughters—our daughters—to leave. I’d have no right to them if I left. I’d never see them again.”

“You never formally adopted them?”

“No.” She wiped at her eyes, smearing her mascara. “I wanted to, but Fred wouldn’t even discuss it. They had a mother, and I wasn’t her. It didn’t matter that they didn’t remember anyone but me singing them to sleep, or holding their heads when they were sick. He remembered.”

“That sounds a little . . .”

“Obsessive?” Susan supplied bitterly. “Only because it was. It was like she was a saint or something. It didn’t help that the girls were the spitting image of her—Heather especially. Every time he looked at her, he saw Christina. I think that’s why he couldn’t deny her anything. Even when he should have. I tried to tell him. I warned him that she was growing up too fast, that they both were, but he wouldn’t listen. He’d just give me that look and tell me to mind my own business.”

Susan’s cheeks had flared a dark shade of red as she spoke. Lizzy was almost relieved. It was easier to witness her anger than her pain. Still, she needed to tread lightly if she wanted her to keep talking. “I know this is hard, Susan, and that it’s the last thing you want to talk about, but I truly want to find out who hurt your daughters, and talking like this might help me piece something together that the police missed. Do you feel up to answering a few more questions?”