3. June
JUNE
June looked at the two people on her doorstep for a long moment.
Victoria’s hands were still raised, palms out. Alfred stood half a step behind her, his expression carrying the same exhaustion, the same deliberate stillness of someone trying very hard not to alarm anyone.
June looked at her dead cellphone still in her hand and quickly shoved it into her pocket, reminding herself to find a charger.
“How did you know I was home?” June asked, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. “I’ve not been back that long.”
“Clive’s girlfriend is renting the Airbnb across the road for us,” Alfred told her. “We couldn’t put anything in mine, Mrs. Morrison, or even Clive’s name. No one even knows that Clive has a girlfriend, so it was the safest route.”
“I saw you walking in with your bags,” Victoria admitted. “I had to wait for Alfred to get back from the post office, where he went to call Clive to get some more supplies for us.”
June absorbed that. She glanced toward the house across the street.
She had worried when the owners retired to Fort Lauderdale and decided to rent it out as an Airbnb.
Although she was doing the same thing at a house a few blocks away, the managing agency was very particular about who they allowed to stay there.
June shook her train of thought away and pulled her thoughts back to the present.
“You were watching my house?” June accused them.
“We were scouting it,” Victoria admitted with a nod. “We were trying to figure out how to get inside without being seen. You have something that could exonerate me.”
“You were scouting my house to break in?” June gaped at her in alarm and was tempted to step inside, slam the door, bolt it, and then call the police.
Once she’d plugged her useless, dead phone on charge.
Good grief, I don’t even know where my charger is.
She gave herself a mental shake. Focus June.
If they wanted to barge in, they would’ve done so by now.
“She means casing. We were casing your house,” Alfred corrected quickly, then winced at how the admission sounded. “I’m sorry, June, but that’s what we were doing. We have good reason to believe that you have information that will help us, and we need to find a way to get to it.”
June’s eyes moved to Alfred. “Since when are you on her side?” Her brow furrowed curiously. “Really, Alfred! I feel a little… betrayed.”
“June, I’m sorry you feel that way,” Alfred said honestly. “I never meant it to seem so. But I had to help Mrs. Morrison…”
“Alfred.” Victoria cut him off. “We’ve been over this. It’s Victoria, please.”
“Sorry.” Alfred straightened slightly. “Victoria needs her name cleared. None of you knows who she really is. Mrs. Clark and I were the only ones who did.” He glanced at Victoria, his eyes shining with fondness, then back to June.
“When Clive warned us that they thought it was Mrs… Uh… Victoria, who was being blamed for everything happening in Sandpiper Shores, and they were possibly trying to pin the tragedy from ten years ago on her…”
“We did the only thing we could do,” Victoria finished for him. “We left and went to where we had good reason to believe the evidence we needed to exonerate me and find the real culprit was.”
“We had to sneak out, and right before the storm seemed like the perfect time,” Alfred explained. “Especially as that dreadful person who has abused Mrs…. Sorry, Victoria, all these years was stuck and couldn’t get back to the house.”
June looked between them. Victoria’s hoodie was pulled up, large sunglasses pushed up on her forehead, the kind of deliberate, anonymous dressing of someone who’d been keeping their head down for weeks.
Alfred wore the same, a dark zip-up and a baseball cap sitting low on his forehead.
Victoria kept glancing past June toward the street, her eyes moving with the automatic scan of someone who’d been watching for things for a long time.
“Is it Tom?” June pressed. “Is he the one who was abusing you, Victoria? Did he hurt you?”
“No.” Alfred’s jaw tightened.
Victoria smiled at Alfred and gently patted his arm as if to calm him down.
“No, it’s not Tom,” Victoria said softly. “He is a good, kind man. It’s…”
“Sienna. She is a two-faced little lying…” He stopped himself.
“Alfred,” Victoria said quietly. “She’s still my daughter.”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” Alfred apologized to Victoria. “But I can’t stand it any longer. How she threw her weight around and basically controlled the entire household through fear. Then, when Tom was around.” His eyes narrowed furiously. “She was the sweet, innocent little victim.”
“It’s not her fault she turned out the way she did. She was spoiled by her father and both sets of grandparents, and nobody ever told her no.” Victoria paused. “My grandmother was the worst and put stupid ideas in Sienna’s head.”
“That is no excuse for who Sienna is,” Alfred muttered. “Look at Clive. He didn’t turn out that way.”
“I don’t know what’s going on here,” June admitted, cutting into their tirade.
“And I’ll be honest with both of you. I don’t recognize either of you standing in front of me right now.
” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I should just call the police and take this to the police station…” Her frown deepened.
“But, there has been something that didn’t quite click for me when Holt and I were putting the cases together. ”
The mention of Holt’s name was a stark reminder of her own mess that she, too, had run away from in Sandpiper Shores. Just like Victoria and Alfred. Although they’d come here looking for answers and evidence. June had come here to hide her head and hope everyone back there calmed down.
“June…” Victoria began, a plea in her voice.
“Can we come inside, please?” Alfred asked, glancing back at the street behind them. “We’ve had to keep our heads down since those warrants were issued. Standing on your doorstep isn’t exactly ideal for either of us.”
June looked at them both for a moment longer. For a split second, she thought about stepping back and slamming the door again, but that feeling in her gut was back, telling her this was the piece of the puzzle that had been missing.
“Come in,” June said, before she’d entirely finished thinking it through.
She stepped back and let them pass her. She glanced quickly up and down the quiet street outside before closing the door.
“Can I get you both something?” June turned back to them. “Coffee? Tea?”
“Yes, please,” Victoria replied. The plea had a quality that June hadn’t heard in Victoria’s voice before. Genuine. Unperformed. “Some coffee would be lovely. The stuff we’ve been drinking at the Airbnb is dreadful.” She shuddered.
“I’ll make it,” Alfred offered, already looking toward the hallway.
“It’s okay, Alfred, I’ll do it,” June started.
“Please, June.” Alfred kept his voice low. He glanced toward Victoria, who was moving toward the front living room. “You go and talk to Victoria. Give her a chance to explain. It’s not what you think. None of it is what any of you think.”
June looked at him for a moment.
“The kitchen is that way,” June told him, nodding down the hall.
“I know,” Alfred replied. He almost smiled. “We have the blueprints of your house.”
June stared at him.
“That doesn’t make me feel any better about having let you both in,” she informed him flatly.
“We were trying to figure out where what we were looking for might be stored,” Alfred replied apologetically. “I’m truly sorry, June.”
June left him to find his way and walked through to the living room.
Victoria had removed the hoodie.
June stopped in the doorway for a moment, taking in the sight of her.
Victoria was sitting on June’s sofa in jeans and an old T-shirt, her hair loose and unstyled, her face entirely bare of makeup.
June had seen Victoria at town events, at dinners, at the Sandpiper Inn, across the boardroom table.
She’d never once seen her look like this.
The composed, polished armor was completely gone.
What remained underneath it looked genuinely, surprisingly like a person.
June sat in the armchair across from her and said nothing for a moment.
She was still suspicious. She wanted to be honest with herself about that.
The evidence she’d been building with Holt didn’t dissolve because Victoria was sitting on her sofa looking tired and human.
June had spent enough years in courtrooms to know that the most convincing performances were the ones that looked like they weren’t performances at all.
June was watching. She was listening. She wasn’t deciding— yet!
“June,” Victoria began. She folded her hands in her lap and looked at them before looking up.
“I know I haven’t been a very nice person.
I’ve always been standoffish and difficult.
It’s how I learned to survive my family.
” She paused. “I built a shell around myself very early, and I never worked out how to take it off.”
“You always have a choice in how you treat people,” June pointed out. “Regardless of your upbringing.”
“I know,” Victoria agreed, without argument or deflection.
“But I found it easier to keep everyone out. My parents ran my entire life. I never once made a real decision for myself.” She gave a short, humorless breath.
“When I brought my last boyfriend home before I was forced to marry Tom, my parents went absolutely crazy. The next thing I knew, I was engaged to Tom, and that was the end of the conversation.” She paused.
“Tom is a good man. I wasn’t a good wife to him. I know that.”
“You had a long-term affair with your neighbor,” June replied, before she could stop herself. She pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry. That was completely inappropriate of me. I don’t normally repeat rumors.”