Chapter 28
TWO DAYS GO BY AND THE NEIGHBORHOOD SEEMS EMPTY, AS IF EVERYONE has fled.
The cops have been nowhere in sight, maybe waiting for help from the state agency to complete their search.
You can’t turn on the TV or scroll through internet news without seeing coverage about Alex and Cheshire Lake.
Who killed Simon Harwood? What happened to Alex Spencer’s old girlfriend?
Sunny is getting really wound up about the coverage.
Even Alex has seemed concerned. They went back to Boston this morning, leaving me alone in the old house.
Running is helping me settle and, so far, it seems like everything has gone quiet here. Even the birds are silent as I jog around the lake. I’ve seen nothing of Dale or Jeffrey. It’s as if a strange pall has settled over Cheshire Lake, and I’m both relieved and unnerved at the solitude.
As I round the last bend in the road, I see Noah unloading his Subaru. He’s back from Boston for the weekend. He waves when he sees me and I pull up, breath heaving.
“Morning,” he calls.
“Hey.”
“I guess I missed a lot of excitement while I was gone.” He walks toward me.
“If you could call it that. I don’t know what to think. My father’s former fiancée’s car pulled from the lake.”
Noah’s gaze shifts to the water. “Strange. How long do they think it’s been down there? I didn’t catch the whole story on the news.”
“1995.”
Noah’s brow furrows. “I was just a kid when it happened then. I don’t remember much about the fiancée.”
“Apparently Alex was pretty young, too. He hadn’t married wife number one at that point.”
“But they didn’t find … remains, right?”
“Not yet. Alex is hoping she got out and walked out to the main road and found help.”
“Let’s hope,” he says. “Things around here just keep getting crazier.” Noah leans back against his car. “Anyway, you up for dinner tonight? I stopped for groceries on my way in. I’m an okay cook, not like Ruth or anything, but I’m not too bad. Or we can head into town. Your choice.”
“Here’s fine.” I don’t want to run into another reporter. Cheshire Lake, despite its secrets, feels safer than the outside world at present.
“Anything you don’t like?”
“Not really. My mom pretty much made sure I ate everything she put in front of me. I’m not picky.”
“Great. See you at seven?”
“Sounds good.”
Spencer House feels full of creaks and groans again, probably a product of being here alone. I shower, dress in comfy clothes, and pull out my laptop. I head downstairs but instead of using Alex’s office, I set up in the kitchen.
I try to concentrate on my novel, but my mind keeps turning back to Simon and his murder, to the car in the lake.
The disturbed dirt behind the Thompsons’ shed.
Too much to think about. But I haven’t had any calls from my ex or the men who are after me, so that’s good, and I hope that Alex was able to take care of that.
I really don’t want to ask him about it now.
After an hour of stops and starts, I’ve managed to write a couple of paragraphs, not exactly great production, but something. I decide to take a break and check on Ruth.
She answers her door quickly, looking a bit haggard, but dressed impeccably, as usual.
“Emma, dear. Nice to see you. Now that Alex and Sunny have gone back to Boston, you’re alone in the house again,” she says as if double-checking.
“Yes. I thought I’d stop by.”
“Come in. Larry and I were just thinking about taking a walk.”
“I don’t want to interrupt that.”
“Thinking about it.” She smiles. “Maybe later this afternoon.”
We sit in her front room for a change, instead of the kitchen. Like at Alex’s, this house seems stuck in another time. Floral wallpaper, heavy carved furniture. Photos on the mantel and end tables of people from long ago.
Ruth sighs. “I still can’t believe that Simon’s gone.
I woke up thinking about him today. It’s funny.
I still start to get his pills out in the morning, make his breakfast. It’s like when I wake up things are like they were.
It takes me a few minutes to remember.” She wipes her fingers under her eyes.
“Sorry. It’s just when your life falls into a pattern for so many years, it’s hard to accept change. ”
“I’m sorry, Ruth.”
She nods, sniffs. “Anyway, now with this whole car business.”
“Did you know her? Carol Lawson?”
“Oh, yes. Alex’s parents were not pleased.
” She raises her eyebrows. “Carol was a wild thing. Nice enough, and movie-star pretty, but just not suitable, you know. But then Howard and Lydia died, and I think that changed Alex. He matured. He inherited the house, and he had to look out for Mary. Simon and I tried to help, too. I think Alex came to his senses. He broke up with Carol and that was that.”
“What do you think happened to her?”
“Well, I hope she walked away from it, you know? I wasn’t her biggest fan, but I hope nothing happened to her.
At the time, we didn’t think anything of it when the police came out to ask us about her.
We figured she’d run off again. And Alex gave her quite a large engagement ring, worth quite a bit, so she had that with her if she needed money.
I remember she didn’t get along with her mother, so we weren’t surprised that the mother hadn’t heard from her. ”
I glance out at the lake and wonder if Carol’s remains are out there, bones resting in the muck.
“Alex doesn’t need this,” Ruth says. “He’s distraught, of course. He stopped by to see me before he headed back to Boston. He’s got an awful lot on his mind right now, Emma.” Her eyes fasten on mine as if I might be one of the awful things Alex has to deal with.
“You knew that I was his daughter,” I say.
Ruth blinks. “Of course, dear. Alex asked me to keep that under my hat until he figured out how to announce it. He’s a famous man and he has to consider these things. You understand.”
“Yes. I guess. Sunny put out a press release about it. But now that the car has been found, that news isn’t so big.” Which is a relief for me at least.
“Too much going on at once.” Ruth stands. “Would you like a cup of tea? A scone. Just made them.”
“Sounds good, Ruth. But I should probably get back and get to work.”
Noah walks me into the dining room, where the table is set for two.
He’s dressed in an oxford shirt and jeans, casual, but nice.
It looks like he got a haircut while in Boston, and it gives him a more polished, business-like look.
He’s wearing dark-rimmed glasses that frame his eyes.
He looks nothing like my ex. Ben has sandy-colored hair and an easy, boy-next-door smile.
While Ben and Noah are both attractive, Noah has a more serious, thoughtful demeanor and look.
Ben, despite his age, still looked and sometimes acted like the frat boy he had been.
But for na?ve me, I found that attractive at one time.
Handsome, charming men can undo women like me.
Women who come from sheltered and uncertain worlds, where trusting people is a game that we sometimes lose.
“Wine?” Noah asks, heading to the sideboard.
“Yes, thank you.”
“Dinner should be ready in about ten minutes. I made chicken cordon bleu.”
“Fancy. Sounds good.”
Noah pours us each a glass of chardonnay. “I’ve never made it before, so I hope it’s good. Found the recipe online and thought I’d give it a whirl. You want to sit in the front room until it’s ready?”
“Sure.” Flames crackle in the fireplace and unlike at Alex’s, there’s no creepy quote inscribed under the mantel. I relax into the plump beige sofa. Noah sits beside me, but not too close.
“So, how have you been, Emma? I’m sure you didn’t expect for things to go the way they have when you decided to spend time here at Cheshire Lake.”
“That’s for sure.” I almost laugh at the absurdity of my expectations and all that has gone on. “I don’t quite know what to make of everything.”
“What was your life like before?” He sets his wine on an end table.
“Pretty mundane compared to this.” Although things took a turn when I discovered what Ben had been up to with his office manager and his gambling. “I worked in the local library and was, up until a point, happily married. Had my mom nearby.”
“Then things changed?”
“Yes. Divorce. Mom died. My world tipped upside down.”
“Then you found out about Alex.”
“Yes. And that was a huge shock. That he was a famous writer. I didn’t expect all of this.”
“And now a murder and who knows what else.”
“It’s been a lot to take in. That’s for sure.” And I don’t know whom to trust. A murderer among neighbors, people I speak to nearly every day, have dinner with. But I can’t square that with the people I’m closest to. Alex. Ruth. Noah. And then there’s Aubrey. “Where do you think Aubrey is?”
Noah picks up his wine, sips. “I don’t know.” There’s a pucker in his brow.
“You think she’s all right?” Do I tell him about the dirt behind the shed? It wasn’t a very big patch, not like you could bury a body there. But maybe a weapon.
“I hope so, Emma. Like I told you before, she and Dale sometimes had … disagreements. She confided in me a little. She’s got a couple of old college friends in Pennsylvania. I wonder if she’s there. I have no idea how to contact them to check.”
“Maybe Dale.” That’s all I can say. Thinking that if Dale is the murderer, maybe Aubrey found out and fled. I just hope that it’s nothing worse.
“Maybe,” Noah says. “Just be careful, Emma. Don’t be alone with Jeffrey or Dale either. Although I really don’t think Dale did anything to her or to Simon either.”
“Jeffrey then?”
Noah shrugs. “I don’t know. If it was one of us, I think he’s the most likely. Don’t tell anyone I said that. I don’t want to accuse anybody.” He puts his hand on my arm. “Just be careful until they get this all sorted out.”
“I know. I will.”
A timer dings in the kitchen.
“Have a seat in the dining room.”
“Need help?”
“No. I’ve got it all under control.”