Chapter Nineteen
The ski village took on a new vibrancy after dark, the streets and sidewalks filled with people celebrating another day on the slopes.
They were on vacation, free to eat and drink and spend money with no early-morning deadlines.
The brisk cold and thin air acted as a heady tonic, the impact of alcohol stronger at altitude, the day’s exertion lending a relaxing lethargy to the strolling crowds of revelers who flowed in and out of the bars and restaurants.
Chloe moved among them, her black jacket a contrast to the colorful parkas and puffer coats of the vacationers, a knit cap pulled low to warm her ears.
She scanned the faces of those she passed, not certain what she was looking for—some recognition or recoil from anyone who might know her as Sharee’s sister?
She kept watch for Bunny, but didn’t spot her during the first hour she passed up and down the village’s main street.
Every fifteen minutes she texted Brian. Nothing to see here.
Or I just watched six drunk college students debate whether the moose statue in front of the coffee shop is a real moose or not.
Or What was Sharee looking for out here?
Twice she stopped in bars or cafés to warm up or refill her cup of coffee.
After nine, the crowds began to thin, many of the businesses shuttering their doors for the day.
A few bars remained open until midnight, but long before then the crowd on the street dwindled to only a handful of groups of two and three people walking back to their condos—some boisterous and merry, others quiet and hurrying along.
Brian had moved from the coffee shop where he had stationed himself earlier to Murphy’s pub, Daisy at his feet.
Dogs weren’t allowed in the bar, but there were no other customers, and the bartender hadn’t said anything when the dog settled under the table by the door where Brian seated himself.
Chloe took her phone out now and texted. Everything’s okay. Getting quieter.
His answer was a thumbs-up emoji. He had spent the first hour of the evening trying to persuade her to come inside and give up, but he must have realized she wasn’t going to abandon her plan, so now he was waiting, if not patiently, at least silently.
She reached the ice cream shop. It was closed for the day, but the air around it still smelled faintly of the waffle cones made on-site.
She turned into the small parking area behind the building.
The server at Shaggy Dog Pizza had said he had seen Sharee talking to an older, motherly woman here, but tonight the lot was deserted.
Chloe stood for a moment under a security light, bathed in a pink glow, wishing the bulb provided some warmth.
She had dressed as warmly as possible, in long underwear and fleece-lined leggings and a thick wool sweater, and a ski jacket and gloves.
But the cold seeped in, numbing fingers and toes.
Another half hour and she’d have to go inside again to warm up.
She glanced down the sidewalk and was startled to see a woman moving toward her.
She stared, wondering if she had conjured the short, curvy figure in the dark coat and hat out of her remembrance of the server’s description of the woman he had seen with Sharee.
But as the woman drew closer, Chloe recognized her. “Bunny!” she cried.
The woman’s head jerked up. Sure enough, it was Bunny, in a dark, almost drab coat, a scarf wrapped around her tower of blond hair and obscuring the lower half of her face. “Chloe, what are you doing out here?” Bunny asked.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Chloe said.
“Me neither.” Bunny stopped beside her. “You shouldn’t be out here by yourself,” she said. “It isn’t safe. I’m headed back to my condo now.”
“I won’t be long.” Chloe glanced at the closed ice cream shop. “My sister was killed near here. I guess I came here to try to figure out what happened to her.”
She waited for some expression of sympathy, or maybe curiosity about the circumstances of Sharee’s death. Instead, Bunny said, “I saw her the night she died.”
A metallic chill, like the blade of a knife, sliced through Chloe. She stared at Bunny. “You were the woman she was seen with.”
“Who saw me?” Her tone was sharp.
“A server at one of the restaurants near here. He was getting off work. Why didn’t you tell the sheriff’s office you saw her?”
Bunny looked around them. “Let’s go somewhere out of the wind to talk.
” She moved past and Chloe followed. She thought they would go to one of the bars that remained open, maybe even Murphy’s.
But instead, Bunny turned into an alley a block down.
The space smelled of garbage from the dumpster at the end, and a bare bulb over the back door of a pizzeria provided the only illumination.
Shaggy Dog Pizza. A knot of fear lodged in Chloe’s stomach. This was where Sharee had died.
“It’s out of the wind here,” Bunny said. She stopped halfway into the alley and turned to face Chloe. “I’ll tell you what I know about your sister.”
Chloe pushed down her unease. She wanted to hear what Bunny had to say. She might have seen something or knew something that would lead to the killer.
“What happened that night?” Chloe asked. “What did you say to Sharee?”
“The same thing I said to you. That it wasn’t safe to be out here alone.” She shoved her hands further into the pockets of her coat and hunched her shoulders. “Tell me about your sister.”
How to sum up Sharee in a few words? “She was beautiful and a little spoiled, but really sweet, too. She acted worldly and wanted people to think she was older than her age, but she was really innocent. I think she was lonely. And maybe a little afraid.”
“She wasn’t afraid,” Bunny said.
Chloe stared. “How do you know that?”
“She laughed at me,” Bunny said. Her voice was flat, like someone commenting on the weather.
“Why did she laugh?” Chloe asked.
Bunny loosened the scarf, uncovering her hair and draping it loosely around her neck. She wet her lips, which were chapped, the pink frosted lipstick flaking. “She thought she was better than me. She was young and pretty in a way I could never be.”
“Youth can be arrogant,” Chloe said. “But I’m sure she didn’t mean—”
“She wanted to take away the only thing I’d ever wanted.
” Bunny’s gaze met Chloe’s. “Do you know what that feels like? Can you imagine? Have you ever loved someone so much you would die for them? And then this child walked in and tried to destroy everything. She would have taken away my home, my family—everything.”
Understanding washed over Chloe like ice water. She wrapped her hand around her phone and tried to think how to summon Brian without letting Bunny know. But Bunny wasn’t even her name, was it? “Are you… Theresa?” Chloe asked.
Her eyes glittered—with tears or something else? “I couldn’t let her take everything,” she said.
“But your husband stayed with you. He chose you.”
Theresa—Chloe was certain now this was Theresa—shook her head. The woman with the perfect alibis. Somehow she was here when her husband swore she was home. Had he lied? Was he here, too?
“He’ll never look at me the same, will he?” Theresa said. “She wanted to remind him of what he had with her that he could never have with me—her young body that hadn’t carried twins. I’m a mother now. My children need me. I can’t focus only on him, the way she did.”
“But… Sharee lived here, hundreds of miles away.” Chloe said. “You had Cameron. He’s married to you. He stayed with you. He sent her away.”
Theresa’s gaze met Chloe’s, no real sign of recognition there.
“She wrote him a letter. I collect the mail every day and I recognized the handwriting right away. The idea that she had continued corresponding with him enraged me, so I opened the envelope right away. She said she had photographs she wanted to show him. Pictures she knew he would want to see. She suggested they meet and she would give the pictures to him.”
“She wrote a letter?” Had Sharee ever written a letter in her life?
“I made Cameron change his phone number and she didn’t have the new number,” Theresa said. “If she had the number, I assume she would have called. The school had blocked her, so I guess she figured writing a letter would be safe.”
“What did your husband say when you told him about the letter?” Chloe asked.
“I didn’t tell him. He would have lied to me, then arranged to meet her. I was sure the pictures were of the two of them together. Or maybe they were photos of her, so he’d be reminded of what he was missing.”
Chloe pressed what she hoped was the call button on the phone in her pocket.
Then she moved her hand to the side of the phone to silence it.
She wanted Brian to hear what was happening, but she didn’t want to alarm this woman.
The woman who had killed her sister. “What did you do?” She had to force out the words.
She wanted to know…and yet she recoiled from the idea of knowing.
Once she learned the details of Sharee’s death she would never be able to blot them from her mind.
“I waited until Cameron went out of town on a school trip,” Theresa said.
“I left the children with my sister. I only wanted to talk to the girl. To make her give me those photos. So I followed her. But when I asked about the pictures, she laughed. Do you know how much that hurt? She was destroying my life and she laughed.” Her voice broke, and tears spilled down her cheeks.
Did she expect Chloe to feel sorry for her? Chloe wasn’t even sure the tears were real, or merely another performance. “Those photos weren’t of Sharee and Cameron together and they weren’t of Sharee by herself,” she said. “They were of you and Cameron and your children. Family photos.”