When August Ends(48)

“She said she was trying to get into modeling and needed a full portfolio.” He paused. “Anyway, we scheduled it. She came back about a week later, and we did the shoot.”

“You took photos of my sister…”

“Yes. They were all tasteful, a mix of headshots and simple poses. She was fully clothed. It wasn’t anything crazy. My studio at the time was attached to my house. I have a different space now. Anyway, she met Olivia and everything. I was still married then.” He took a deep breath, seeming to gear up for more. “Despite knowing that fact, your sister started to message me after our business had concluded. You have to believe me when I tell you we never had any contact besides that one shoot. But in her messages, she said really inappropriate things.”

Oh no. “Like what?”

“Like she couldn’t stop thinking about me and she felt we had some kind of cosmic connection—also some sexual things. She just kept contacting me through my business email, professing her feelings for me and suggesting we meet up. The first couple of times I responded very simply and dismissively, and after a while, I stopped responding at all. Her messages kept coming anyway. I didn’t know what to do. It was bizarre and unlike anything I’d experienced before. Even after I asked her to please stop contacting me, she kept doing it. It was all very Fatal Attraction. I think she was delusional.”

Holy shit.

My sister was without a doubt not well. But when she was taking her medication, she would have good patches. The problem was, you never knew when she would randomly stop taking care of herself. As much as I didn’t want to believe it, this story sounded like her.

I let him go on.

“Olivia saw some of the messages, and it really tested us. She knew I was telling the truth, that nothing had happened with Opal, but it was hard for her to accept that a woman was sending me sexually explicit messages and professing her love. It agitated an already bad situation.”

“So Opal kept emailing you? Then what?”

He nodded. “Then one day it just…stopped. There were no more messages. At the time I was really relieved, because I never knew if she would eventually try something crazy.”

“That was it? It stopped, and you never heard from her again?”

“Not exactly.” He squeezed my hand harder. “That was it for a while. I thought it was over. But one day several months later, I received a call from an investigator in Connecticut. It was…after they’d found her. She’d left a letter at the motel. It was addressed to me.”

Covering my mouth, I gasped and whispered into my hand, “Oh my God.”

I had managed to keep my composure up until this point, but now my tears fell. Noah wiped them away with his thumb and went over to the counter to grab a tissue for me.

I sniffled. “What did it say?”

“In the letter, she wrote how sorry she was for upsetting me. But that wasn’t the purpose of her writing. She was reaching out to me for my help.”

“Your help?”

“She listed your address here on Lake Winnipesaukee and asked me to look after her sister—you—when she was gone. Even in her state of mind, she was worried about you.”

My heart felt ready to shatter. My lip trembled. “That’s all she said?”

“Pretty much. She explained that she couldn’t handle life anymore and needed me to help look after you. It wasn’t very long. I have the letter, if you ever want to see it. I didn’t bring it because I wasn’t planning to tell you why I came. But I can easily get it.”

Still in shock, I shook my head. It was hard to believe, but I knew it was true.

“I have no idea why she chose me, Heather. I hadn’t heard from her in months, but for some reason, she chose to write to me in those last moments and ask for my help, and it’s haunted me more than you know. Maybe it was part of her same delusional idea that I’d played some important role in her life. I will never know the reason she picked me.”

I stared out at the rain pelting the window. “I’m still confused.”

“Ask me anything.”

“She died six years ago.” I turned to him. “Why now? Why did you come now?”

Noah let out a long breath. “That’s the question, isn’t it?” He looked down at my hand in his for a moment. “I’ve lived with a lot of guilt over not getting her help. Despite how crazy it was that she messaged me like that, I never dreamed her issues were as serious as they were. I never thought to try to find her family or get her to a doctor. I had just wanted it to stop. In retrospect, I absolutely should have done something. When I found out she had taken her own life, it fucked me up. I became even more withdrawn from my marriage and fell into a depression.”

I could relate to that guilt. So often I’d blamed myself for not doing something more to find my sister and help her. I’d never imagined she would take her own life, and that was a very na?ve way of thinking.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” I said.

“I learned a lot from it.” He threaded his fingers with mine and looked down again at our hands. “Anyway, to answer your question, despite the fact that in her letter she asked me to look after you, I never considered doing it, because it didn’t make any sense—some strange guy you’ve never met showing up at your door, asking if you’re okay? You didn’t even know me. I didn’t see how that would help you. So I decided against it.”