Chapter 6
I’m crouching in the brush when my photojournalist brain starts piecing the facts together.
The cheating bastard is Fred, the man who promised forever and till death do us part to my best friend.
Even through the waterfall’s haze, I know it’s him the instant we make eye contact.
He’s not alone, and the woman he’s with is a stark contrast to Ivory.
First of all, the woman behind the waterfall is as white as a paper plate in a snowstorm.
And Ivory wouldn’t be caught dead wearing the neon pink shirt I’d seen tossed on the ground.
What the hell is Fred thinking? Cheating on Ivory is a death sentence. The questions claw at the inside of my skull while I’m hunched over, trying to shuffle my way out of here without him seeing me again.
A horrible stench and familiar squish under foot stops me mid-step.
A massive pile of fresh dog poop covers my shoes.
The size of it puts Zoomie’s to shame, which means this dog must be massive…
and is probably somewhere close by, based on the poop’s soft texture.
I’m not eager to stick around to find out, though.
After wiping my soles off with a few leaves, I scoot behind a bush and peek over the branches, expecting to spot the couple. But they’re gone. The clothes are gone from the shore too. It’s now or never.
I jump up and run. Branches scratch against my cheeks while I suck in gasps of air that burn my lungs. I push through the undergrowth, blind to the path, until I break through the woods into the clearing where I parked my car. Only once I’m in my car’s silent interior do my thoughts unravel.
Fred is cheating on Ivory. Ivory is going to kill Fred. Why did I have to witness this?
What do I do? If I tell Ivory, I shatter her world and will be forced to testify in her inevitable trial for murdering Fred.
But if I stay silent, I’m complicit in Fred’s crime against my friend.
A silent lie, a festering wound. Do I confront him?
Offer him a chance to spin his web of excuses before I unleash the storm?
When I pull up my driveway, the sun is dipping below the horizon, painting the sky in bruised purples and angry oranges. My home looms before me, ominous in the fading light. The covered porch is hidden in darkness, but there’s something unsettling about it. Something is moving.
A figure steps out of the shadows on to my walkway and into the dying evening light. All the air along with my frantic thoughts whoosh out of me in a single gasp. Oh, it’s only—
“Wren? What are you doing here?”
“Ew, Shari, what happened to you?” Even as she sounds grossed out by my appearance, Wren’s voice maintains a carefully modulated pitch of concern as her gaze rakes over me.
“What do you mean?” I touch my hair and feel the point of a jagger prick my fingertip, and my cheek burns.
“I mean you look like you just escaped an alien abduction.” Her eyes are already dissecting me. Then she sniffs. “Do you smell that?”
Oh, crap—literally. I hadn’t gotten it all off, apparently. That means it’s probably on the floor mat in my car.
I force a dry laugh. “Oh, that. I was hiking and went a little off the trail.”
She’s drafting her social media caption, I can feel it: Neighborhood hot mess, unfiltered! #realtalk #suburbanlife #hotmessexpress
“By yourself?” She glances at the lowering sun. “At this hour?” Wren’s interrogation has begun.
I lift up my camera. “It’s called the golden hour for a reason.”
“Well, if you’re having some kind of mental health crisis right now,” she continues, her voice dripping with faux sympathy, “I totally support that. But maybe we should cancel today’s class?”
My stomach clenches in a knot of pure panic. I had completely forgotten about it. “Cancel? No, the timing is perfect. I didn’t realize you could afford classes. Last time you said—”
“No, it’s cool now. I came into some money. I should warn you, though. People talk, you know?” She delivers the line with a practiced innocence, as if she isn't the primary architect of the gossip. “I don’t want the neighbors thinking I’m, like, aligning myself with the town psycho.”
She flashes her teeth in a smile that’s less warmth, more weapon.
This girl has lived on Hemlock Drive for barely a minute and already holds the social fate of our entire cul-de-sac in her hands.
Everyone, from the empty-nesters to the harried young mothers, is desperate to remain in her gilded circle. Even me.
Why? Because she possesses a ring light and half a million followers who hang on her every word about the transformative power of kale smoothies and being your authentic self—a self that conveniently aligns with her flawlessly curated aesthetic.
And now she’s threatening to dismantle my struggling photography business with a single, perfectly aimed social media reel.
“Wren,” I say, forcing a calm worthy of an Oscar, “I’m totally fine.
” I recall Ivory showing me Wren’s latest video promising tips on how to transform your selfies from uggo to wowza with the right angle.
“I was going to teach you how to find your best angle and utilize it in photography. You don’t want to let your fans down, do you? ”
The bait is taken. “True. I did post a teaser story this morning.”
“Great,” I say, already ushering her inside. “How about I make one of your delicious kale smoothie recipes while you head into the studio?”
She glides past me in an entitled whirlwind of couture clothes and painstakingly tousled hair, her oversized tote bag thumping against the doorframe. I close the door behind her. My pulse still hasn't settled. I need to pull myself together. Now.
But then—
Thump.
We both freeze. The sound is muffled, indistinct, yet undeniably there. It echoes from behind the bookshelf, a heavy impact that seems to vibrate through the very foundations of the house. Someone found my hiding spot.
Wren tilts her head with sudden curiosity. “Is someone else here?”
“No,” I blurt out, the word too quick that it practically screams guilt. “It’s probably Zoomie getting into something he shouldn’t be.”
Which reminds me… where is Zoomie? He’s usually quick to greet all visitors with a slobbery unwanted kiss. I wonder if I hadn’t fully closed the bookshelf and he managed to bulldoze his way inside.
Luckily Wren doesn’t seem to notice that the thumping is coming from behind the bookshelf directly in front of her. But she does notice a picture sitting on that same bookshelf—the last place I want to draw her attention to.
“So what brought you here to Doomwood Falls?” Wren appears to be attempting small talk, which I’ve never been good at and have no desire to start practicing now. But I can’t be rude, so I tell her what I’ve told everyone since I arrived here a year ago.
“Ivory Cobb, actually.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Really? How so?”
“I was looking for a job, and Ivory’s a headhunter.
I don’t know how she found me, but she offered me a temporary position taking photos for the Doomwood Falls Daily.
She even found me this house on Hemlock Drive when I told her of my plans to open up my own studio.
Ivory saved my life and gave me a second chance. ”
Ivory really did save my life, because having no support system along with a felony record makes it virtually impossible to get a job…
a legal one, that is. No one else would touch me or my impressive professional resume once they completed the background check.
Ivory was the first and only person who believed in me after my prison release. She’s the reason I survived.
“And this is your dead husband, right?” she asks, and the careless way she phrases it makes me lose hope in our future generations.
“Yeah, that’s him.”
“What’s his name?” she presses.
I can’t speak his name; it feels wrong coming out of my mouth when I’m the reason he’s dead. But it feels even worse trying to explain to this girl why I haven’t spoken it in four years. A huge part of me, the part that wants desperately to move forward, wants to at least try.
“His name…” I suck a breath in through an invisible straw, “is Stew.”
Something akin to relief, or freedom, or a feeling I can’t put words to fills me up and pours over as I say it out loud.
“Stew? As in something you eat?”
“Yes, Stew, as in Stewart.” It comes out so much easier the second and third times, and it’s almost melodic. Definitely therapeutic.
“I thought he was Italian. Your last name is Catalano, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I didn’t take his last name after we got married.” I don’t want to explain why, that my father had forbid it because we were the last Catalanos in America and he didn’t want his daughter’s name being overwritten by some accountant unoriginally named Stewart Dobson.
“How feminist of you,” she says. “And who is this yummy piece of man meat in this other picture?”
She points to a family portrait of me, Stewart, my mother, father, and my brother back before I knew how to fire a gun or make toilet prison wine.
“Oh, that’s my brother Luca,” I tell her.
“Why haven’t you introduced me yet? He’s hot and totally date-able. And I’m newly single.”
“For exactly that reason—I would never want you dating my brother.”
“And why is that? I’m a catch, Shari. He would be lucky to have me.”
Wren would not be lucky to have him, because it’s not Luca’s welfare I’m concerned about. I know my brother, whose past is worse than mine.
“Trust me, you’re better off never meeting him.”
I head into the kitchen and rummage through the cabinet looking for the blender for our smoothies.
Anything to hide that thumping. I find it and plop it on the counter and plug it in, hoping I have something edible I can mix together that won’t end up tasting like sewage.
Sure enough, I find yogurt and blueberries in the fridge. This will have to do.
“Besides, I haven’t seen Luca for years, so I have no idea where he is or what he’s doing.” Probably in jail carving shivs out of bars of soap, if I were to guess.
She squints at me, her eyes narrowing into suspicious slits, then she slowly walks away from the bookshelf. I have to distract her before Zoomie draws more attention to the—
Thump.
This time she pivots toward the bookshelf. “It almost sounds like the noise is coming from behind this—”
I hit the blend button just as the perfect excuse hits me. “Oh, the laundry room is on the other side. Zoomie likes to sleep in there,” I yell over the blender.
“It sounded like something fell. Aren’t you going to check on your dog?”
“Nah. He’s fine. He does this all the time. I’ll deal with whatever mess he made later.”
Once the smoothies are done, I nudge her toward the studio entrance, as far away from the bookshelf as possible. “Ready to start?”
“Sure.” But she doesn’t sound sure, and she’s moving slower than dirt. “I’m gonna run to the bathroom before we start. Cool?”
I point her back to the studio. “It’s in there, like always.”
But she doesn’t head towards the studio, which is accessible through my living room. Instead, she pivots with her gaze fixed on the staircase.
“Upset stomach. I think I’ll use the upstairs one… for privacy,” she says breezily.
Who on earth spoiled this girl so much that she feels entitled to letting herself upstairs?
“You have makeup, right? I’ll grab stuff to fix up your face while I’m at it.”
I move to intercept her, trying to keep my voice casual, as if her demands aren’t sending cold dread pooling in my gut. “Actually, the plumbing’s been a bit weird up there. The studio bathroom’s much better.”
She stops and locks her gaze onto mine. Right now her expression is unreadable.
“Hmm,” she says finally, the single sound loaded with unspoken meaning I can’t decipher. I’m worried this interaction will lead to another disastrous review. “Okay. But you really do need to take care of that scratch on your face before you end up with a hideous scar.”
She descends the stairs, but I can feel her suspicion in the air, a thick, palpable shroud. And I know two things with troubling certainty: One, that Wren does not believe my excuse about the thump. And two, she is absolutely not going to let it go.
We’re in the hallway, me leading the way through the living room into the studio, when Wren suddenly stops behind me.
Resting one hand against the bookshelf, she casually leans against it to adjust the strap of her shoe, and I hold a terrified breath that the latch will release and open the door under her weight.
Something tells me Wren is going to be my downfall.