Chapter 43 Susan
Chapter 43
Susan
Where is everyone? thought Susan. She looked out the window again, hoping to see approaching headlights, but neither car had returned yet. Elizabeth and Ethan had left for the police station hours ago, a visit Elizabeth had assured her would be brief, just a quick visit to answer a few questions. Colin and Brooke had made a run into town to pick up groceries for dinner. Won’t take long, we’ll be right back, Brooke had assured her. Now it was getting dark, no one had returned, and Susan was stranded alone in the house with Kit, who, as usual, was holed up in his attic lair.
She hovered by the window, wondering if she should just call Hannah for a ride to the hospital. Now that Zoe was out of intensive care and the drugs were being tapered, she could emerge from her coma at any time. When her daughter opened her eyes, Susan wanted to be there. She had to be there.
She checked her phone for any messages from the hospital. She’d spent so many hours in that building that she now knew its daily rhythms, and at this hour, volunteers would be collecting patients’ dinner trays, sliding them into the dietary cart. Phones would be ringing in the nurses’ station, and the medications nurse would soon roll her cart down the hall to deliver the evening pills. And in Room 242, Zoe would be sleeping, waiting for her mother.
I’ll be there, darling. As soon as I can get there.
She texted Ethan: Where are you? Paced through the living room, moving past the gallery of photos on the wall, a pictorial history of the Conovers on Maiden Pond. Elizabeth and George with their toddler sons. Colin and Brooke with baby Kit and his dark-haired nanny. Now Susan paced back and the sequence of years reversed, back to when George and Elizabeth were still young and vigorous, as were their neighbors, Arthur and the Greenes. For the first time, she focused on the disembodied arm near little Hannah—a woman’s arm, with the rest of her body excised from the photo. Vivian Stillwater. Of course Elizabeth had slashed Vivian out of the photo. No wife wanted to see her husband’s mistress eternally smiling from the wall.
She heard a car pull up to the house. At last Ethan’s back, she thought, but when she looked out the window, she saw it was Brooke and Colin’s car. She stepped outside as they were unloading the trunk.
“Mom’s not back yet?” Colin asked.
“They’re still at the police station, I think.”
“I can’t imagine why it’s taking so long. I mean, what can they possibly think she knows?” He reached into the trunk and hauled out a box filled with wine bottles. No wonder their shopping trip had taken so long; they must have paid a visit to the local wine merchant, because supermarket cabernet was not up to Colin’s standards.
“Let me help you,” she said.
“If you could just get the watermelon, that’s all that’s left,” he said, and carried the box into the house.
She reached into the trunk to scoop up the watermelon. Under the glow of the trunk light, something metallic glinted back at her. It was at the very edge of the liner carpet, just a pinprick of a reflection, but it stood out brightly against the dark-blue background. She peeled aside the edge of the carpet and frowned at what was lying at the edge.
It was a small gold ear stud. Nothing particularly unique or distinctive, yet the sight of it made her freeze, because it was instantly, disturbingly familiar.
“Susan, you okay out there?” Colin called out.
She jerked straight and saw him watching her from the doorway. “Yes. Yes!” She slipped the ear stud into her pocket and scooped up the watermelon. “I was just making sure there’s nothing else in the trunk.”
“Could you close it?”
“Of course.” She shut the trunk and carried the watermelon into the house.
In the kitchen, Brooke was unpacking the groceries, efficiently sliding milk and eggs into the refrigerator. Kit ambled into the kitchen, the reclusive vampire at last emerging from his attic hideaway, to pour himself a bowl of Cap’n Crunch cereal.
“You’ll ruin your appetite,” Brooke said.
“It’s just a snack.”
“Only one bowl, okay?”
Kit grunted an unintelligible answer and kept eating.
They seemed so normal, Brooke and Colin, going about their tasks. Opening and shutting the refrigerator, sliding boxes into cabinets while their son crunched on cereal. An ordinary family, doing ordinary things, thought Susan, watching them from the doorway.
The ear stud felt like a hand grenade in her pocket, waiting to explode.
She left the kitchen, retreated upstairs to her bedroom, and shut the door. She turned on the bedside lamp and took the ear stud out of her pocket. It was missing the back clasp, which was how it had fallen free. She remembered the day she and Zoe had gone to the jewelry store and bought ear studs just like this one. I don’t want anything flashy, Mom, Zoe had said. No, it had to be something simple that wouldn’t snag on her swim goggles. Susan turned the stud over and over, searching for any clue that would tie this particular piece of jewelry to her daughter, but it was like countless other studs, just an anonymous nubbin of gold. Had she seen Brooke wearing something just like it? Women lost earrings all the time. It could easily happen as you unloaded your car. Bend down, lift a suitcase from the trunk, and an earring could slip off your ear, unnoticed. Yes, that’s what most likely happened, and this must belong to Brooke.
But what if it’s not hers? What if it’s Zoe’s?
She pulled out her phone to call Jo Thibodeau, then stopped. Considered what she would say, and how it would come across to the family. I think someone in this house tried to kill my daughter. Things were already tense between her and the Conovers; this would be like launching a nuclear war.
As evening deepened, Susan paced the room, trying to decide what to do next. Call Ethan? Call the police?
Downstairs, a phone was ringing.
She stopped, straining to listen, but heard only the indistinct rumble of Colin’s voice. A moment later, an engine growled to life, and she looked out the window to see their car driving away. They hadn’t told her they were leaving again, even though they must have known she needed a ride back to the hospital.
The hospital. Zoe.
She looked at the gold ear stud, so small, so ordinary. Where was its mate?
She stepped out into the hallway, where she could hear muffled electronic gunfire coming from upstairs. Kit was back at his video games in the attic, so focused on shooting the enemy hordes that he wouldn’t notice anything else happening in the house.
She moved down the hall, to Brooke and Colin’s room.
Their bedroom door hung open, and she could see the bed was nicely made up, the cover smooth and the shams propped against the headboard. Brooke the neatnik. Susan crossed straight to the dresser and slid open the top drawer. It was a likely place for a woman to keep her jewelry. She rifled through both drawers but found only lingerie, all of it expensive and meticulously folded. Who bothered to fold their underwear these days? Who had the time?
She turned and crossed to their bathroom, where Brooke’s quilted pink toiletry case sat beside the sink. She unzipped it, revealing a jumble of makeup, and dug through lipsticks and eyeliner, blusher and mascara. Not here either.
But when she opened the top drawer of the bathroom cabinet, she found a satin pouch, just large enough to hold the few pieces of jewelry a woman might bring on a rustic vacation in Maine. She emptied the contents onto the bathroom counter.
Out spilled wrist bangles and hoop earrings, a pendant necklace and a sapphire ring.
And a pair of gold ear studs. Both were still attached to their back clips.
She looked at the lone stud she’d found in the trunk of their car. Where is your mate? If Brooke isn’t missing one, then this must belong to ...
“What are you doing in my room?”
Susan spun around. Brooke was standing in the doorway.