Chapter Sixteen
The first time Talia returned to Mulberry Bay, to Haven Cliff, she was filled with nostalgia. Back in June, she’d viewed it all from the perspective of who and what she’d been when she lived here. Child, teen, daughter, friend, student . . .
Everywhere she looked, the past came alive again, for better, for worse.
This time is different. This time, she’s seeing it all through her family’s eyes.
The mansion, grand and imposing, rises three stories with a rectangular turret at either end.
A pillared terrace runs the length of the facade, filled with antique wicker furniture and graceful potted palms. Along the foundation, restored formal gardens are filled with blooms and trimmed hedges, bisected by bluestone paths.
Climbing out of the back seat, Caleb regards it with the same expression he had when he saw the roller coaster at the annual carnival, shrinking back against Talia.
“Do I have to go on?” he whispered then.
“Of course not,” she assured him, and they sat on a bench watching Ben and Hayley go on it, once, twice, three times.
Today, Caleb looks up at her, alarmed. “Do we have to stay here?”
“We do, and you’ll love it. I promise.”
Ben is in efficiency mode, unloading the car.
“Come on, Hayley. Everyone’s going to carry their own bag into the house. I’m not the bellhop. Let’s go.”
In true Hayley fashion, she lags behind as they ascend to the pillared terrace, doing her best to act blasé about the place—seen one glorious stone mansion, seen them all.
Then the door opens, and Kelly is there, looking like she stepped out of Vogue in heeled sandals and a simple black sleeveless dress with her blond hair in a high ponytail.
Talia sees Hayley’s instant admiration. Effortlessly cool, Kelly’s always had that effect on people.
She throws her arms around Talia, enveloping her in a cloud of French perfume. “I can’t believe you’re really here!”
“I can’t either.”
Kelly turns to Ben and the kids. “How was the drive? Long? Boring? Traffic?”
“All of the above. I’m Ben.” He extends a handshake.
Kelly hugs him instead. “I feel like I already know you. I’ve heard so much about you.”
Talia catches Ben’s barely perceptible raised eyebrow before he says, “Same.”
Kelly introduces herself to Caleb and Hayley, then leads the way inside and up the stairs. “I’ll show you your room first, Caleb, but we have to cut through your mom and dad’s to see it.”
She opens the door to a guest suite, then to what was a walk-in closet when Talia visited in June. Now it’s a replica of Caleb’s room back home. Kelly bought the same red-and-white bedding and curtains and filled the space with familiar stuffed animals and his favorite books and games.
Talia catches Kelly’s eye and mouths, Thank you, with a lump in her throat.
They move on down the hall to the sumptuous room where Hayley is staying.
She seems to have forgotten the angst of her missed sleepover, whipping out her phone to take photos of everything, including the white marble bathroom that looks like a luxurious spa, stocked with every imaginable high-end toiletry and cosmetic.
“Wait till Chloe sees this! She’s going to be so jealous! ”
Back on the first floor, they follow Kelly through elegant rooms filled with antique furniture. Ben asks about the house and its history.
His superpower is the ability to find common ground with anyone he meets and have affable conversations.
It serves him well in sales, and it serves him well here, especially when they meet Kelly’s decorator, Linden, in the conservatory, arranging cut flowers in an enormous vase and sipping a margarita.
His wavy blond hair is streaked pink, he’s wearing clamdiggers and espadrilles, and he’s prone to gesticulation and screeching laughter.
“Is it happy hour already?” Kelly asks, indicating his drink.
“It’s always happy hour. The pitcher’s in the fridge.”
In the kitchen, a bearded middle-aged man wearing an apron and a hairnet over a mostly bald head is sautéing something on the six-burner stove.
Kelly briefly converses with him in French as a young woman dressed in black pants and a white blouse assembles individual salads on a row of white plates, making them look like artwork with floral garnishes.
“You have your own chefs?” Hayley exclaims.
“Just for special occasions.” Kelly takes several margarita glasses from a cabinet. “Okay, I’ve got everything I could think of that you guys might want. Soda, lemonade, juice, you name it. Who’s thirsty?”
Caleb immediately says, “Not me!”
Hayley rolls her eyes. “He’s worried because in the car, he—”
“Are you thirsty, Hayley?” Talia asks, shooting her a pointed look.
“I’ll have lemonade.”
Kelly pours some into one of the margarita glasses and hands it to her.
“Careful with that, Hayley—it’s fragile,” Talia warns.
“I am careful!” She drains the glass and plunks it down on the granite counter.
Talia winces.
“Don’t worry,” Kelly says. “It’s not that fragile, and I won’t care if it breaks.”
“I won’t break it. I drink out of real glasses all the time, even though my mom thinks I need a plastic sippy cup.”
Kelly laughs. “More lemonade?”
“No, thanks. I think I’ll go out for a walk,” she says casually, with a sidelong glance at Talia as if daring her to protest.
Rising to the challenge, Talia responds with a curt, “Oh, no you won’t.”
“But—”
“Hayley, there’s nowhere to walk around here.”
“I can walk in the woods.”
“Not by yourself, you can’t.” Talia turns to Ben for backup.
“You can’t,” he agrees. “We’ll all go for a walk in the woods tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to walk in the woods,” Caleb says.
“Why not?”
“There are bugs. And bears.”
“And bees, and boogeymen, and bad guys . . .” Hayley says, adding, at Talia’s look, “What? Aren’t we playing the alphabet game?”
As they settle in the parlor with platters of decadent hors d’oeuvres and cocktails, Caleb sits close to Talia on the velvet sofa, whispering in her ear, “Are there really bad guys in the woods?”
“Of course not.”
Ben’s sitting on her other side, discussing some television show with Linden. He’s coming across as his usual affable, friendly self. But Talia senses that he’s slightly guarded, that there’s something more possessive than affectionate in the arm he’s slung around her shoulders.
Is it because he perceives her friends as rivals for her affection?
Or is he being protective?
Hayley’s phone chimes, signaling a FaceTime call. She jumps up. “It’s Chloe. I’m going outside to talk to her.”
“I don’t think that’s—”
“Mom! Come on!” She turns to Ben. “Daddy? Can I please go outside so that I can have a private conversation?”
“As long as you stay on the front porch.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Ben and Talia reply in unison.
Talia sips her margarita. It’s strong, as Kelly made it herself.
She can see Hayley through the parlor window, sprawled sideways on a vintage wicker chair, her hair dangling over one arm and her long bare legs over the other.
She reminds herself that her daughter is perfectly safe. There’s no danger at Haven Cliff as long as Mary Beth Winterfield stays behind bars.