Chapter Seventy-One
Mary Beth saw him again last night.
The Hatman.
Not a water stain over her bed, but the silhouette of the man. He just stood there watching her, the way he used to when she was a little girl, and she was unable to move or speak.
He’s been here the last few nights, ever since Midge Kennedy visited her, talking about the past, her lost son, her lost sister, and Mason Bauer.
Reverend B.
Mary Beth remembers Caroline bringing him up a time or two, during the year they spent together in Syracuse, but she never said much about him. She said even less about Gordy. She seemed resigned to leaving her past in Mulberry Bay behind. At first, anyway.
But toward the end, Mary Beth felt her pulling away from the new life, wistful for the old. Not for their parents or sisters; not for their childhood home. For her friends.
Midge, Talia, Kelly . . .
They were her family. They were her home. She was determined to go back. Mary Beth should have realized that nothing she could say or do was going to stop her.
But she held on. She tried.
In the end, she lost the sister she loved not to the life Caroline planned to reclaim but to the Haven Cliff curse.
The baby, though . . . Ceto . . .
Ceto was spared.
Mary Beth now knows it was wrong to flee that night, wrong to raise her niece as her own daughter. But she was just a kid herself, reeling with the shock and grief of Caroline’s death.
When the enormity of what had happened settled over her, she grasped that if she ever told anyone, Ceto, too, would be lost to her. She’d be adopted by strangers or turned over to Gordon Klatte, or far worse, to Mary Beth’s parents.
She couldn’t let that happen. Caroline wouldn’t want that. Caroline would want Mary Beth to raise her child, even now. Caroline would have forgiven her.
But Mary Beth will never, ever forgive herself.
Ceto never knew the whole story until that night last spring, when Mary Beth gave her the charm bracelet, and the truth.
She told Ceto about Caroline, and Gordy Klatte, and Mulberry Bay. She told her that her mother’s death was an accident. That she fell.
“How could you?” she screamed at Mary Beth. “How could you lie to me for all these years?”
“Because I loved you. Because if you knew . . . if anyone knew . . . I’d have lost you forever.”
“You lost me anyway. When you went to prison, you lost me.”
“But that wasn’t forever.”
“It might as well have been. I was alone for all those years in foster care. I didn’t understand—”
“I know that, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I promised you that we’d be together again one day, and I’d make it up to you. I promised I’d never leave you again.”
“Well, I’m leaving you.”
Those were the last words Ceto said that night before walking out the door.
Mary Beth was certain she’d be back.
The night passed. The day passed. Nights, days. Weeks. Months.
Then came June, and the cryptic text from Talia Shaw asking Mary Beth to meet her at Haven Cliff.
Why? What’s this about? Mary Beth asked.
The one-word reply was the only thing guaranteed to get her to show up: Ceto.
She had no way of knowing that the text was from Ceto herself, that she’d stolen Talia’s phone. Or that she’d been texting Gordy from her own phone, posing as Caroline.
She had no way of knowing that Gordy was dead. That Ceto was responsible.
Mary Beth knew none of it the night she returned to Haven Cliff, but that doesn’t matter.
She’d have gone anyway. If Ceto needed her anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances, she was going to be there.
She was going to keep the promise she’d made to herself, and to Caroline, and to her daughter, so many years ago.
Someone is at the door to her cell. Keys jangling. Door unlocking.
A guard.
“Hey, Winterfield. Is this feeling like your lucky day?”
“No.”
It’s feeling like anything but. It’s feeling like her luck ran out a long, long time ago. It’s feeling like the Haven Cliff curse will follow her to her grave.
“Well, it is. You made bail.”
She gasps, sitting up. “Who . . . ?”
He consults the papers in his hand. “Someone named Kelly Barrow.”