Chapter 13 #3
Serena Lovell was in her mid-forties, slender, with dark hair cut pixie close around a face that had stayed pretty without trying. She wore a linen blouse and pink shorts and small gold earrings.
Her living room was quiet and orderly. There were photographs on the mantle—three boys at various ages, and a man who I could only assume was her husband, Danny.
She led us to a clean kitchen with fresh herbs on the windowsill and made up a plate of cookies effortlessly while she served the tea.
It was easy to see how she’d been a good hostess for her father.
“You said you were investigating a case on Grimm Island?” she asked, taking one of the cookies from the plate.
“We don’t believe Henry Wainwright committed suicide. We believe he was murdered.”
She didn’t flinch. Her hands, folded in her lap, pressed together once. “I know,” she said quietly. “I’ve always known.”
“Tell us how you knew him,” I said.
“I guess you already know or you wouldn’t be here,” she said, color coming to her cheeks.
“But I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know Henry.
My mother died when I was four, so from the time I was old enough to go to events my father took me with him everywhere.
Foundation dinners, board retreats, charity galas.
Henry was always there. He and my father went to med school together, and they stayed close, even though they went into different specialties. ”
“When did things change between you?” I asked.
“After I’d graduated from college,” she said.
“I was twenty-two and thinking I would be able to start a career, start a life and a family. My father had other ideas. He needed me. I’d always been his hostess and his escort to events.
I kept up with his social calendar and correspondence.
It might seem extreme, but my father was a highly regarded and sought-after neurosurgeon, and he traveled extensively to give lectures or fill in at other hospitals.
“Then one night there was a charity dinner for the hospital, and Henry and I were standing in a group of people like we had a hundred times before. I was listening to the same stories and mentally rolling my eyes at the same egos. And then our gazes met and it was this moment— I know it sounds clichéd— but it was truly as if time stood still. I knew what he was thinking, and in that moment I realized he saw me. Not as my father’s daughter. But as a woman.”
Her smile was tremulous. “No one had ever looked at me like that before. Henry was always a bit larger than life, and oh-so handsome. He was like a movie star, but after his wife died he never dated or had other women hanging on his arm, though Lord knows they tried. He was a dream for me. I thought a fantasy. And then one night about a week after the charity dinner he called me. We talked for two hours. After that things moved slowly. We talked daily. Then he invited me to meet him for lunch.”
“When did this start?” I asked. “Do you remember the month?”
“The month and the day,” she said, smiling. “Love makes you remember things like that. May fourteenth is the first time he called me. We talked for weeks before he invited me to lunch.”
My brows rose at that bit of information. The first time she was mentioned in his appointment book was in August. I made a mental note to go back through and look closer after the May fourteenth start date.
“Henry didn’t do anything impulsively,” she said.
“I knew as well as he did that we were taking a risk. He had much more to risk than I did. Things move slow in the South, and there are certain improprieties that are still frowned upon, even in the new millennium. And an age difference like ours was one of those things.”
“But you didn’t care,” I said, understanding completely. There’d been twelve years age difference between me and Patrick, and I’d never thought about the age difference, though I knew it had bothered him more.
“No, I didn’t care,” she said. “We had more in common than we should have. I’d grown up kind of in a bubble.
We liked the same kinds of movies and music, and we knew the same people.
I couldn’t relate to the other people my age.
I didn’t go out and party and do all the stupid stuff college kids do.
I was able to share with him my dreams of being a teacher and making a difference my own way that wasn’t in the shadow of my father.
He understood that. He wanted that for me. ”
“But you kept it secret for months,” I said, noticing that Dash had sat back on the couch and let me take the lead on this conversation.
“Because of my father,” she said. “And because Henry was a deacon at his church and a respected member of the community. Because he was thirty years older than me and the gossip would have been brutal if they’d known about us.
But we started things slowly. Dinners and late-night phone calls.
A night at the theater or a concert. And then he asked me to go away for a long weekend, just the two of us.
I knew what that meant. That we’d be taking things to the next level.
I could tell he was nervous about asking me. ”
I smiled at the softness in her eyes. She’d truly loved him. “Where did he take you?”
“To this resort in the Bahamas,” she said. “It was terribly romantic. First-class tickets. The largest suite in the resort. Rose petals on the bed. I knew after that weekend that there could never be anyone else for me besides Henry.”
She looked up at the framed pictures that showed her sons and husband. “But fate had something different planned for me.”
“Henry felt the same?” I asked.
“He did, though I knew he was conflicted, and I knew it weighed heavy on him. What people would think. What my father would think. But Henry wasn’t a coward and he wanted to do things right.
He was going to tell my father about us face-to-face and not from someone else who might see us out and about.
He asked me to marry him. He gave me a beautiful ring, and we started making plans.
We didn’t want a big Charleston wedding that would take a year to plan.
We just wanted to start our lives together. ”
“Tell us about those last weeks,” I said. “Before he died. Was he different?”
“Worried,” she said. “He was trying not to show it. He told me he’d found out something about someone he trusted. Something that could destroy everything he’d built. He said he needed to be certain before he made a public accusation because it could change our whole future.”
“Did he give you any indication of who it was?” Dash asked. “Even in passing?”
“He was careful about that. He said he didn’t want to make an accusation without being certain first. That too much was at stake.” She paused. “I’ve thought about those words a great many times since.”
“Tell us about that last Friday,” Dash said. “At the Wentworth.”
She looked surprised by the information. “How did you know we’d spent that night together?”
“We found his appointment book,” I told her.