Chapter 18 #2
There was the sound of Henrietta opening the front door, followed by a cry of hello. “Baxter!” she said. “Why, you’ve come at the perfect time.”
Elena was on her feet, suddenly terrified. Natalie followed suit. “It’s Judge Drury,” Elena breathed. “He knows who I am.”
Natalie bowed her head in comprehension.
If Baxter Drury saw Elena—Carmen’s daughter and Rosa’s granddaughter, he’d understand that they were investigating the current Cranberry Cove project and any potential corruption therein.
Baxter might have already spoken to Greg at the retirement home about how he knew Natalie and Elena were sniffing them out.
Greg had no friends beyond the elite. Maybe they’d already told him too much.
“Look,” Natalie whispered, pointing at the side door, which would presumably deposit them in the yard, where they could make a swift escape back to the car.
Elena wasn’t sure if this was practical.
But as Judge Drury’s voice grew closer, Elena and Natalie hurried to the door and unlocked it.
Elena raised a finger, listening intently as Judge Drury explained to Henrietta that he’d just been talking to the mayor of Millbrook, that they’d probably be able to break ground on the country club the minute the ground thawed out.
“How wonderful,” Henrietta said. “I was just telling these journalists about the mission of our fathers, and how grateful I am to be able to extend that mission to the twenty-first century.”
Judge Drury’s voice shivered. “You’re talking to journalists, Henrietta?”
There was silence. Slowly, Elena turned the doorknob, praying it wouldn’t squeak.
As she tiptoed into the crisp evening air, she watched as Natalie turned to take a photograph of something on the wall, something Elena hadn’t seen.
“Come on,” Elena mouthed. With that, Natalie and Elena raced out the door, closing the door behind them as they fled.
Within seconds, Natalie was backing the car out of the driveway and speeding them out of Cranberry Cove’s housing district and across the way to the glorious, still-natural reserve, the one they wanted to destroy.
“I want to see it again,” she whispered.
“I want to see what they want to take away from us.”
Elena was quiet, her thoughts racing. They parked in the little gravel lot and got out of the car, their legs still shaking from their run.
Natalie still had the camera with her. They picked their way through the dark woods and found themselves at the edge of the frigid beach, gazing out at the frothing waves.
From this angle on the cove, you couldn’t even see the ugly mansions.
It was a godsend. It felt like the last perfect place on earth.
Elena sat on a log and shivered, her eyes to the stars. “The mayor’s in on it,” she said, although she supposed she wasn’t surprised at this point. “Who else is involved? Who else wants to rip open this beautiful beach and privatize it? All for money?” Elena shook her head.
Natalie sat down on the log beside her. For a long time, neither of them spoke. It was roughly a week and a half till Christmas, and Elena had been here fewer than three weeks. Already, she was up to her knees in a mess. She had a unique talent for that.
Suddenly, Elena remembered. “What did you take a photograph of?”
Natalie took a hesitant breath. Elena realized that Natalie had hardly spoken since then. She realized that whatever it was she’d photographed, she wasn’t sure she wanted to show.
“Natalie?” Elena pressed it. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t.” Natalie turned on her camera and looked again at the photograph she’d taken. Elena couldn’t see it from where she was. “I mean, I must be mistaken. I have to be mistaken.”
Finally, Natalie handed the camera over to Elena and threw her head forward, between her knees, as though she were about to be sick.
The picture Natalie had taken at Henrietta’s house was, in fact, a picture of a picture —a picture that had been hanging on Henrietta’s wall.
Based on the style and sepia tone, the photograph in question was taken in the seventies or early eighties.
In it were Henrietta and Judge Baxter Drury, back when they’d been young and beautiful and slender and charming.
They were wearing swimsuits and standing near a sailboat.
Beside them were their parents—the iconic filmmaker, the old judge.
Several other Cranberry Cove residents were peppered around them, smiling.
A woman off to the right of the photograph caught Elena’s eye.
It was like looking at a photograph of herself. It was like looking in the mirror.
Elena got to her feet. Her first thought was that the photograph was of her mother, Carmen. But the timeline wasn’t quite right. The woman in the picture was in her forties, as was Elena. But there was no mistaking it: the woman was related to Elena, to Carmen.
The woman was Rosa Tompkins.
It was Rosa Tompkins, long after her supposed death in a car accident back in 1960.
What on earth was going on?