Chapter 79
SEVENTY-NINE
London
Quinn dropped the earring and sat bolt upright in bed.
Honor. The woman in the well was Honor. And her injuries had been inflicted by Rose.
Neither girl had been anywhere near Quinn’s radar when she’d first stepped into this case.
But Alex’s reaction had made one thing clear: Honor had still been alive when she went into the well.
Had Rose intended to kill her, or had she believed her cousin was already dead and panicked, desperate to conceal what she had done?
And if Rose had not acted alone, then who had been her accomplice?
How had no one heard anything? Surely someone would have realized Honor was missing and searched the grounds.
Yet even as the questions formed, Quinn knew the truth.
No one would have suspected Rose. And no one would have thought to look in the old well.
Why would they? But why had Honor been wearing Geneva’s claddagh ring?
She had a handful of answers, but they only gave rise to a slew of new questions.
Unable to wait, Quinn hurried into the study and opened a fresh browser tab.
Honor’s disappearance must have been reported.
There must have been an investigation, perhaps even an arrest. But two hours later, she was forced to admit defeat.
The only document she found was Douglas Bellamy’s obituary.
He had died on January 1, 1924, the very night his daughter vanished.
There was no mention of Honor, and none of the newspapers available online made any reference to a missing persons inquiry.
Her search for Geneva and Jesse yielded nothing.
There were hundreds of men named Jesse and Joseph Bellamy, but she did not find a Jesseph.
And although Geneva was less common, there was not a single result for the right Geneva.
It was as though the entire family had vanished from the face of the earth on January 1, 1924.
Quinn even tried William Heller. As with Jesse, the search returned thousands of irrelevant hits.
The only person she could trace was Rory Sullivan, who had indeed moved to Pittsburgh and become one of the founders of McDonagh’s Brewery, a company that had still been operating as late as 2020.
McDonagh’s had been known for its stout, and later its pale ales.
She could probably locate Rory’s descendants if she tried, but she doubted they would know anything about the Bellamy sisters.
She needed answers—not only for herself, but for the show.
Rhys couldn’t air a story without an ending, and, now that Quinn’s secret was public knowledge, her critics would be eager to tear her apart if she failed to deliver a coherent narrative.
As with any extrasensory ability, people clung to the misconception that she saw everything.
They couldn’t understand that her visions were fragmented and narrow, snippets of truth rather than an unbroken narrative.
It was up to her to stitch the rest together.
Gabe was waiting for her when she finally came to bed.
“Quite a day,” he said, watching her closely.
Quinn only nodded. She was thrilled that Logan was safe and that Max was finally back with his father, but the relief was tinged with sorrow.
Logan might not have intended to kill Ronnie, yet he was still responsible for a man’s death, and that knowledge would haunt him.
And then there was Chrissy, gone at thirty-one, leaving Max without a mother.
They hadn’t had a real relationship, but sooner or later he would have begun to ask about her, and they might have grown closer as he moved into adolescence and adulthood.
Logan, meanwhile, would always be waiting for the other shoe to drop, living with the fear that someone would one day piece the story together and discover the truth.
The woman who had tried to take Max must have known where Ronnie was headed and that he’d never returned.
Their plan appeared to be more involved than Logan had given them credit for, and they had been prepared to take Max if he refused to pay and use him as leverage.
Perhaps the woman believed Ronnie had run off with the money.
Or perhaps she was searching for him even now, convinced that something terrible had happened and that Logan might be responsible.
It would be in her best interests not to draw attention to herself, but there was still the possibility that she would one day report Ronnie missing, and that the police would eventually find their way to Logan’s door.
That was an uncertainty he’d have to live with, at least for the foreseeable future.
“I know the identity of the woman from the well,” Quinn said in an effort to redirect the conversation.
“So it’s not Geneva?” Gabe asked, instantly fascinated.
“It’s Honor.”
“Honor? Who killed her?”
“I think it was her cousin, Rose, but I wasn’t able to see anything beyond Honor losing consciousness.”
She relayed everything she had seen in that final vision and found that she was weeping again, hot tears sliding down her cheeks. How unfair life could be, and how fickle. One wrong decision had cost Honor her life.
“I don’t think Honor was dead, Gabe, but I wasn’t able to see anything more.”
“But Alex was,” Gabe said, his forehead creasing with concern. “Why was he able to witness her death?”
“I don’t know,” Quinn replied wearily. “But there’s no rulebook. I suppose we all experience these flashbacks a little differently.”
“No, I don’t suppose there is. What about the bangle they found at the bottom of the well?”
“I don’t think it will show me more than the earring. It must have come off when Honor was plunged into the water.”
“And if you can’t see anything? Will Rhys accept this version of events?” Gabe asked.
“Rhys will need to find out what became of the family. And if I’m honest, I need closure myself. Honor might have died, but Geneva didn’t. And the viewers would want to know about Jesse. He clearly wasn’t who he said he was.”
Gabe shot her a dubious look. “Quinn, Geneva might have living descendants. It would be unconscionable to tell her story without obtaining their permission.”
Quinn sighed. Gabe was right. Except for one more recent case, all the Echoes from the Past episodes had focused on individuals who had died centuries before.
But a hundred years wasn’t so very long.
It was only a few generations, and if Geneva had had children, they might still be alive. Their children for sure.
“I need to return to Ravenglass,” Quinn said.
“I can’t take any more time off work,” Gabe replied. “And the children should not miss school.”
“I’ll ask Rhys to come,” Quinn said. “He will want to be there.”
“When will you go?”
“Tomorrow,” Quinn said as she reached for her mobile to call Rhys.