Epilogue. Jade
Epilogue
Jade
The following summer
Bright sunshine fills the newly constructed patio in the back of the beach cottage.
Holly, Anna, Chester, and I have all been living here for the past year.
We winterized the screened-in porch and used it as an extra bedroom.
Gail’s vision for an outside living space was pretty awesome.
Ethan did the construction himself—leveling the ground, laying the brick, doing all the edging and plantings.
I helped a little. I would have done it for free, but Ethan insisted on paying me.
“Mom, if you’re going to the kitchen, could you bring us some lemonade?” I ask.
I’m sitting under the umbrella at a big picnic table with Ethan’s daughter, Scarlet, who is the cutest nine-year-old on the planet.
Fine, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but she’s full-on adorable, with her big ponytail, cherubic face, and expressive blue eyes.
We have drawing paper and colored pencils.
Scarlet loves animals and she’s been sketching Chester, who’s become her shadow.
Anna, passing by with an empty platter she used to bring Ethan burgers and hot dogs for grilling, gives me a surprised smile. Her eyes well with emotion.
“What?” I ask. “We’re thirsty.”
“That’s the first time you’ve called me Mom.” Her voice catches.
My smile slips out. I shrug, but inside, I’m melting. “Do you like the sound of it? Should I try it out some more? Mom, could you get me a hot dog, too?”
Scarlet joins in. Her voice is tiny but bright. “Mom, could I have one, too?”
We all laugh.
“Could you both say please?” Anna says, her face glowing. She rests her hand gently on my shoulder.
My heart swells at her touch. I often think about what she went through—giving birth to me up in the attic, the same attic that became my hideaway many years later.
My grandmother, Carol, acted as her midwife.
Carol used her job as a traveling nurse to move between her house—where she and Holly lived—and the beach cottage, secretly caring for her pregnant daughter.
And then saying goodbye to me for what she assumed was forever.
After I was born, Grandma Carol took me to the fire station in a nearby town and left me in a Safe Haven baby box like I was a package for UPS.
Her only request was that they pass on the necklace Conrad had given my mother as a keepsake, and that whoever adopted me kept my birth name, Jade.
My adoptive parents couldn’t even do that right.
They gave me the name, but not the necklace.
I asked my mother why she insisted I have a necklace that came from the guy she thought tried to kill her.
She told me that the jade stone represented protection, and she believed it had kept her safe the night of the fire.
That made the story even cooler in my mind.
But then I got a little teary when she said it was important to her that part of my origin story—her fairy tale—be with me always.
As for Serena, who suspected my necklace was the same one Conrad had purchased years ago, she had to check her sales records and consult her spirit guides before revealing this sensitive information to Holly.
Evidently, those spirit guides don’t always respond quickly.
I came here because of the necklace, but I didn’t tell Holly I was hoping it would lead me to my biological parents.
I knew it was part of my history, and I wondered what I’d learn if I traced its origin. Plenty, it turned out.
Thanks to Holly and now my birth mom, I’ve never felt this open, this connected, this loved.
And I don’t hold a grudge about my adoption.
Adoption is a wonderful way to build a family.
I just drew the short stick in the parent pool.
It’s just luck—for better or worse. Some parents are simply shitty, adoptive or not.
Maeve also knew about the necklace. Conrad told me that his mother had discovered the gift before he gave it to Anna, along with the note he’d written—a promise that they’d always stay together.
Conrad didn’t know Anna was pregnant, but Maeve did—and that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back and compelled her to commit murder. Never mind the wicked stepmother—Sinister Granny deserves her own movie.
And poor Krystal. Living on the edge. We can only speculate that she was using the guesthouse on Miramar as a temporary residence. What isn’t up for debate is that she ate the poisoned chocolates before my mother had the chance. Wrong place, wrong time, tragic ending.
Maeve must have figured out her plan had gone awry the moment I showed her my necklace. She put it together quickly. In addition to recognizing that pendant, it turns out I have eyes like Conrad’s. Maeve didn’t know who died in that fire, but she must have guessed Anna and I had survived.
I would have perished years later in the wine cellar if my mom hadn’t found me. According to the doctors, when Anna opened that door, it provided just enough ventilation to buy me the minutes I needed until Holly showed up.
Anna had been at the Barefoot Beach Ball in disguise.
She knew I had disappeared, and fear for my safety finally gave her the courage to confront Maeve and ask about my whereabouts.
Dr. Hill had just told Maeve what he had done to me, expecting her to be relieved I was out of commission and no longer a threat.
Instead, in a final gesture of redemption, she told my mother where I was and gave her the keys to the wine cellar to save me.
I don’t think anyone saw her after that.
She wrote her letter and took her final swim.
Dr. Hill is trying to cut a deal to save his sorry ass.
He confessed to panicking when he overheard my threats to call the police about Elizabeth.
Once he took me, he knew he had to get rid of me.
He couldn’t risk his misdeeds regarding Lypotrel and his drugging of Elizabeth to surface.
He’d lose his license and likely go to prison.
But he couldn’t bring himself to get his hands dirty, so he came up with the less messy idea of using the generator to do me in.
He hoped to make it look like an accident—that I locked myself in getting wine for the party and a nearby generator malfunctioned, causing a “tragedy.” Takes diabolical to a whole new level.
Dr. Death and Sinister Granny—what a pair.
We still can’t answer all the questions.
We’re pretty sure it was Maeve who made the cash offer on the beach cottage.
It would make sense that she didn’t want the past living so close by, and she certainly had the means.
As for the mutilated book, we’ve reason to believe it was Tommy Boy.
Officer Finn has some incriminating surveillance footage of Walker near the house the night the parcel appeared on our doorstep.
Walker is no longer on the force. He’s awaiting trial for charges of sexual coercion and rape.
After Anna came forward with her story, other victims felt empowered to do the same.
There’s a long list of charges spanning more than two decades.
Some are outside the statute of limitations in Massachusetts, but not all.
Walker will likely end up behind bars for a very long time.
And luckily, I kept Rose’s business card. Rose had bought the story Dr. Hill was selling about Elizabeth’s mental health, so she never found herself in the danger that I did when I threatened to go to the cops.
Holly called the family and we were able to connect the dots: Krystal was Rose’s missing sister.
After the murder, Anna hadn’t known how to reach Krystal’s mom, but Carol was able to locate them and set up a monthly bank transaction from the house fund that Spellman had been pilfering from.
It was the only thing she could think to do as reparation for hiding Krystal’s death.
The money was delivered anonymously and untraceably, which explained one set of odd transactions on the account.
The other had gone to Anna, so Carol could help support her daughter while she was on the run.
When Rose finally learned the truth about what happened to her sister, she and her family were amazingly compassionate.
Anna faced charges for improper disposal of a body.
Nobody wanted to see that case in court, including the DA, but the law is the law.
My mother got probation—three years or something like that—and Krystal’s family supported the ruling.
Rose finally found closure, as did her ailing mother.
It was after her mother had received a cancer diagnosis that she sent Rose to Miramar in a final attempt to learn what happened to her missing daughter.
She got the truth shortly before she passed.
She blamed Maeve Carmichael far more than Anna, who was a victim in her own right.
And she understood that Carol did what most mothers would do—sacrifice everything to protect her child.
Despite their forgiveness, I know my mother will never be completely free from guilt. But carrying shame helps no one.
The most heartbreaking story of all is Elizabeth’s. She knew nothing of Maeve’s plot. Like everyone else, she believed Anna had died in the explosion. With her rival gone, her life with Conrad moved forward. But then she found herself scapegoated for the Lypotrel scandal.
Elizabeth’s guilt—the blood on her hands—stemmed from a false belief that she was responsible for the deaths of the Lypotrel victims. Her drug-affected mind was vulnerable to the ongoing gaslighting by Baxter Ward and Dr. Hill, until she accepted their story and blamed herself for her father’s wrongdoings.
Now that she’s off all the medications, her thoughts and memories are clearer.
It will be a long journey, but she’s on her way to some form of recovery.