Chapter 39
“ARE YOU SURE, EMMA?”
“I don’t know. I think so.” I rub my eyes, my fingers wet with tears born of anxiety and fear.
“Should I trust the memories of a three-year-old? Sometimes, I’m sure.
Sometimes, I’m not,” I say, sitting in Noah’s kitchen.
He sits opposite me, his laptop open in front of him, file folders strewn across the tabletop.
He reaches over, squeezes my arm. “How about a cup of tea?”
I nod. “That would be nice.” I try to breathe deeply, calm down while Noah fixes the tea.
Mug in hand, I sip and let the hot beverage soothe my raw throat. Noah clicks keys on his laptop, his eyes on his screen. “Let’s go back to what we know,” he says. “Based on when you were here, Carol was here around July 7th, let’s say. That lines up with what her sister told me.”
“And you’re sure no one’s seen or heard from her after that date?” I’m so hopeful that Carol is alive and well somewhere.
Noah’s eyes meet mine over his computer screen. “I dug into everything I could find and there’s no trace of her.”
I sink back in my chair. “Maybe the divers will come back. Try again. She could be down there. It could easily have been an accident. She was emotional when she left here based on the screams I heard. It might’ve been dark, and she made a wrong turn and ended up in the lake.”
“Possible.”
“What’s next?”
Noah straightens his notes, taps a file folder. “I’m going to turn over everything I have to Detectives Bellman and Sanchez when I finish looking into a few other things.”
“What have you found so far?”
“I talked extensively to her sister and everyone else I could dig up from her past. You want to read it?” He pushes the file folder in my direction.
“Did you find anything that implicates Alex in any way? That he … did something to Carol?”
“No.”
But I have a feeling that a “not yet” is attached to that no.
I’m pulled in two directions, wanting to know the truth and protecting the father who I’ve just found, who has welcomed me into the family that I’ve always wanted. Maybe he’s innocent of any wrongdoing. I desperately hope that’s the case.
“Are you going to tell the police what I said? That I might’ve been here when Carol was here? That I might’ve heard her screaming?”
“Do you want me to?”
I get up from the table and go to the window. “No. Not yet. Let me think about it and I’ll tell them when I’m sure about it all.” I turn to Noah. “I need to head back to the house,” I say. I’m worn out physically and emotionally.
Noah walks me to the door and pulls me into a hug. “It’ll be okay,” he says.
And I hope so.
I wander Spencer House, pause in front of the portraits in the hallway, my great grandparents rendered in subdued oil paint, sitting still in silent eternity, serious and disdainful.
There’s also the family portrait of my grandparents with Alex and Mary when they were young.
Mary sits next to her mother on a red settee.
Alex and his dad stand behind them, Alex’s hand possessively on Mary’s shoulder.
My family. Who would’ve thought a couple of months ago?
I wonder now if the Spencers will carry on here into the next generations with all that’s happened.
There’s Sunny, of course, and our brother, Andrew, out in California.
And the new baby boy waiting to come into the world.
Who will inhabit Spencer House after Alex?
I picture Sunny standing in front of the door, arms crossed, the sole possessor by sheer force maybe, not because she loves the house necessarily, but because it is Alex’s.
I want no part of it. I want to start my life anew in Portland. That is clear to me now. No matter what I find out about Alex, I want to be out on my own, forge my own life free of all that I’ve found here at Cheshire Lake.