Chapter Nineteen
Present Day
Sarah Greene remains missing as the sun sinks toward the mountains in the western sky. It’s growing more orange than yellow gold by the minute, but its heat is just as oppressive.
Ordinarily, Midge might have changed the station—not just because bubblegum pop was never her cup of tea, but because it’s a reminder of Caroline. She was a huge Britney fan.
Midge thinks of the pink Walkman, now bagged, tagged evidence at the medical examiner’s office, with a Britney Spears CD still inside.
Right now, though, about to reconnect with Kelly and Talia at Haven Cliff, she decides the song is fitting. She leaves it, surprised to find she still knows all the words. She can hear Caroline’s sweet, melodic soprano singing along.
She remembers the four of them, packed into Kelly’s red BMW convertible, cruising around town singing, laughing, bickering, gossiping the way teenage girls do. How many idyllic summer days, summer nights, had they spent together?
And then it was over.
The end hadn’t come without warning. But when you’re seventeen, you don’t spend a lot of time worrying about what lies ahead. Midge hadn’t, anyway.
She thinks of Caroline.
Of Sarah Greene.
Sarah. Where are you?
Amid wrapping up the day’s reports at the office, she touched base with the other law enforcement agencies now involved in the case, as well as the state’s Missing Persons Clearinghouse. Sarah’s mother had provided recent photos for the database and media.
The woman remains distraught, but at least she’s no longer home alone.
Ginny is there with her now, and she said Rebecca and a few friends are checking out various spots Sarah frequented around town.
Between their efforts, the press, social media, and the BOLO, Midge is confident that if Sarah’s nearby, she won’t go unnoticed.
Before leaving for the evening, she briefed everyone who will be handling the case while she’s off duty and extracted promises that they’ll let her know if there are any overnight developments.
She makes the turn off Route 28 and passes between massive stone pillars connected by an arched iron banner that reads Haven Cliff.
The sign has been here since Asa Winterfield built the place, rusted but never relegated to ruin as everything else was.
She follows the long, shadowy driveway that’s really more of a dirt road, rutted and bordered by woods on either side. It looks exactly the same now as it did back when Midge and her friends started exploring Haven Cliff as children, searching for the lost Winterfield treasure.
The rest—lawns, gardens, walkways, and trails—has now, like the house itself, been restored. All but the pool.
When the contractor began the job last spring, he promised Kelly it would be up and running by the Fourth of July.
Now it’s in limbo. They can’t move ahead with the excavation and restoration until they have more information about the skeletal remains unearthed there.
As if there’s any doubt about who it is.
Back in June, questioned by a local reporter, Midge confirmed that they were human bones, but added, “We have to assume that this is part of that old cemetery we’ve all heard about.”
The reporter asked if there was any connection between the remains in the pool and the nearly concurrent discovery of a deceased man elsewhere on the Haven Cliff grounds.
Midge sidestepped the question, emphasizing that the remains in the pool were skeletal and had been there for a very long time. The corpse in the woods was fresh and belonged to an unhoused loner who’d been in the area for many years.
He was well known to locals as “the Walking Man,” but his death didn’t cause much of a stir.
It might have if Midge had released more information.
Like that he’d died of a gunshot wound to the back, or that his suspected killer was in custody, and that his death was likely tied to Gordon Klatte’s—also a homicide.
None of that is public knowledge—yet.
It’s all going to come out sooner or later. Then there will be an investigation and a trial.
“Not the best publicity for Haven Cliff,” she warned Kelly. “People will say it really is cursed.”
“Maybe it is, Midge.”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do. There’s nothing mystical about what’s happened there. None of this, past or present, has anything to do with vengeful spirits. Crimes happen because bad people do bad things—or occasionally, good people do bad things. It’s that simple.”
As she rounds a last curve, the trees on either side open to a broad emerald lawn that stretches to the surrounding woodlands. The rutted dirt lane gives way to pavement, winding to a circle in front of the granite mansion.
Kelly’s car is parked beside the wide front steps. Behind it, Midge recognizes the SUV Talia was driving back in June. Nearby, she sees a Prius that belongs to Linden, Kelly’s decorator.
He’s become something of a fixture at Haven Cliff even now that the house is completely done over. Midge enjoys his company, for the most part. He can be a lot of fun.
He can also be . . . a lot.
A self-proclaimed drama queen thrown into the mix with Kelly, Talia, and Talia’s family?
She parks beside a splashing fountain that glistens in the sun and turns off the engine, silencing Britney.
Needing a minute to decompress and put the grueling day behind her, she leans her head back, eyes closed.
She breathes deeply. In, out, in . . .
Her phone buzzes.
She’s tempted to ignore it.
But what if Mrs. Greene is calling to say they’ve found Sarah?
With a sigh, she opens her eyes and reaches to answer the phone, then hesitates when she sees the name on caller ID.
It’s the medical examiner, Nap Moreau.
She’s off duty. Whatever it is can wait till later, or tomorrow.
Even the forensic test results?
Even that, she decides.
But then she remembers his earlier text. With a guilty twinge, she realizes that she completely forgot to respond.
Maybe he simply intended to wish her a nice holiday weekend. He’s polite that way, Nap. A Southern gentleman.
The least she can do is answer his call and wish him the same.
She picks up. “Nap?”
“Hey, Midge. How’ve you been holding up in this heat?” he asks in his languid New Orleans accent.
“Oh, you know . . . about as well as a Popsicle on the sidewalk. How about you?”
He chuckles. “This is nothing. Where I come from, a summer day like this would be downright refreshing.”
“Well, then, remind me never to visit where you come from on a summer day.”
“Come on, now. You’re made of tough stuff.”
Her phone vibrates. She lowers it for a second and sees that it’s a message from Kelly on their group text.
Everyone’s here! Where are you?
She raises the phone to her ear again, asking, “What can I do for you, Nap?”
“Sounds like you’re busy.”
“A bit.”
“I don’t want to keep you. I’m getting ready to leave the office, and I’m thinking of stopping by the Dive Inn. That band you like is playing at nine.”
“You mean Finding Alice?”
“That’s the one.”
“I’d go, but I’m actually at a friend’s place.”
“Oh! I thought when you said you were busy that you were still at work. I’ll let you go, then.” He sounds a bit . . . disappointed? Wistful?
“I’m just at my friend Kelly’s. You know her.”
“Kelly . . . you mean Haven Cliff Kelly?”
“That’s the one,” she says, echoing his laid-back tone. “We have plans tonight with another friend who’s here visiting with her family. Otherwise, I’d definitely have been up for beers and Finding Alice at the Dive Inn.”
“Okay, well . . . they’re also playing in Bearsville Sunday.”
“How do you know that?”
“I follow them on social media.”
“Wait, you’re on social media? How do I not know that after all these years?”
“Because you’re not on social media,” he says with a chuckle.
She isn’t, officially. Not as herself, anyway. Only when she’s working a case.
“Anyway, if you’re free on Sunday, we can go.”
“I can’t. My friend is in town, and I’ve got a case that might get complicated.”
“Right. I get it. Have fun with your friends, Midge.”
“I will,” she says, then adds, “Wait, Nap?”
“Yeah?” Before she can speak, he goes on, “Any day now, and like I said, I’ll call you the second I hear.”
Midge blinks at the non sequitur. “What?”
“You were going to ask me about the forensics reports we’re waiting on. See that? I read your mind.”
“Oh, I . . . uh . . . Thanks, Nap, but . . .”
But she hadn’t been about to ask him that at all.
No, she’d been on the verge of inviting him to drop by Kelly’s. It’s probably better that she didn’t, since the last time Nap was here at Haven Cliff, he was removing the skeletal remains from the pool, and the Walking Man’s corpse from the woods.
Plus, tonight is about seeing her friends and meeting Talia’s family.
Then again, Linden is here.
“But . . . ?” Nap asks.
“Nothing, I was just . . . I was going to say something else, that’s all.”
“You mean I’m not psychic?”
She laughs. “Not in the least.”
“Well, then, my apologies for interrupting. What were you going to say?”
“It’s not important.”
“You sure?”
She shouldn’t.
But she does.
“I was just going to see if you wanted to stop by Kelly’s for a beer or—”
She cuts herself off, allowing him to jump in with a polite Thanks, but no thanks.
Instead, after a moment, he says, “Midge?”
“Yeah?”
“Ah, you’re still there. I thought the call might have dropped.”
“No, I’m still here.”
“Do you want me to stop by?”
“Sure. If you want to, on your way to the Dive Inn . . . not that it’s on your way, but . . .” This time, she forces herself to finish the sentence. “. . . if you’re up for it, that would be nice.”
“I’m up for it, and that would be nice,” Nap agrees. “Do you want to make sure it’s okay with Kelly?”
“It’s fine. The more the merrier. Come on over.”
Midge hangs up, gets out of the car, and heads for the house.
Dusk is falling. The landscape is softly illuminated by posts, sconces, solar path lights, and spotlit trees. The mansion’s stone architecture glows with strategically placed fixtures, and lamplight spills from windows on all three stories.
She finds herself wishing she’d gone home to change into something more presentable than the casual clothes she keeps stashed in a drawer at work.
It isn’t just because the house is so swanky, or because it belatedly occurs to her that Kelly might be serving an elegant sit-down dinner in the dining room.
But now Nap is coming.
Nap, who invited her out tonight, almost like . . .
No. Not like a date. Not at all.
He’d simply wanted her to meet him at the Dive Inn, which they’ve done countless times since he moved here ten years ago. Back then, he had a fiancée, and Midge had just dumped hers.
That was her second broken engagement. Ever since, she’s been content as a single woman. She likes making all the decisions in her life. She doesn’t want to take care of anyone—well, other than her parents—and she certainly doesn’t want anyone trying to take care of her, including her parents.
She enjoys being self-sufficient.
And she’s perfectly comfortable attending social events solo. Yet for some reason, that prospect isn’t entirely appealing tonight. She’s glad Nap is coming.
About to climb the wide stone steps to the terrace, she stops short. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots movement at the far edge of the lawn. There, a grove of tall, arching mock orange bushes screens the mulched woodland path leading to the pool site.
Midge slowly turns to gaze at the spot. Probably deer.
Just like before, at the church.
She thinks of Joseph Nielson.
Earlier, she told Sarah’s mother that she’d gone over and spoken with the pastor filling in for Reverend Parker, and that he hadn’t seen her and hadn’t been able to provide any info about the Bible study group.
“Did you ask him to pray for her?” Mrs. Greene asked.
“To pray for her? I, uh . . .”
“We need prayers, Midge. Prayers have power. You believe that, don’t you?”
“I’m sure the pastor is praying for her,” she assured Mrs. Greene, though of course she hadn’t asked him to.
But you’d think he’d have mentioned it. You’d think he’d have expressed his concern or asked if there was anything he could do to help the family.
To be fair, this isn’t Pastor Nielson’s own congregation; he doesn’t even know the Greenes. Still—
“Midge!”
She turns away from the woods as the front door opens. Seeing Kelly and Talia, holding margarita glasses and grinning, Midge hurries to hug them, pushing Pastor Joseph Nielson from her mind.