Chapter Seventy-Three
Present Day
It isn’t unexpected—the news Nap just delivered.
Yet Midge finds herself unable to push words past the lump in her throat as he goes on, referring to his computer screen and the forensic testing results that landed in his inbox this morning.
The skeletal remains found at Haven Cliff do indeed belong to Caroline Winterfield.
“You okay?” Nap interrupts himself to ask, peering at her across the desk.
She nods.
He invited her to come around to the other side and sit beside him, as she did when he showed her the genetic results pertaining to Gordy Klatte. Today, she declined. She doesn’t need to see the report. There’s nothing here she doesn’t already know. In her gut. In her heart.
Nap, however, begs to differ.
“There’s something here that doesn’t quite match what we know about the victim’s personal history. But at that age . . . well, at any age, I guess . . . we all have secrets, don’t we?”
Midge pushes the lump from her throat, leaning forward in her chair, hands tightly clasped. “What is it?”
He focuses on his screen again, tapping it with the eraser end of a pencil, using it like a pointer. “There are parturition scars on the pubic bone, and there’s an indentation in the ilium. It’s not definitive, but this evidence does suggest that she was pregnant and delivered a child.”
Midge nods.
Ceto.
She evaded capture after disappearing into the woods at Haven Cliff, where she’d killed Mason Bauer Junior.
The SVU investigators accessed his electronic records and learned that he and Ceto had made plans to meet after she contacted him via the genealogy website on August 16. She wasn’t the first DNA match to reach out to Mason Bauer.
Junia Stanton had indeed arranged to meet him the day she disappeared.
As for Sarah Greene . . . it appears she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, crossing paths with him at the church after Ceto canceled their meeting.
In the wee hours after she disappeared, Bauer’s phone pinged off cell towers in a remote part of the Catskills, and his vehicle was captured on a surveillance camera at a service station on a nearby highway.
Soil that might have come from the area was found on a shovel in the trunk of his rental car, along with blood and hair strands that might be Sarah’s. All are being tested.
Midge remembered what Ginny Livingston had said about retreats the Bauers had attended up there, and the campsite that had burned down. She suggested that the search focus in that area.
Midge is certain it’s only a matter of time before they find Sarah’s remains. Junia’s as well. Perhaps others. Investigators are tracking down everyone in the site’s database who contacted him after learning they shared his DNA.
Meanwhile, Ceto remains at large.
The FBI is involved. The manhunt extends far beyond Ulster County and New York state, but Midge worries that Ceto, like Mason Bauer Senior, might never be found.
She worries that she’ll be looking over her shoulder for a long, long time, remembering what Ceto said about her, and her friends, and her father . . .
But now isn’t the time to think about that.
“I have to get over to Haven Cliff for breakfast,” she tells Nap. “It’s Talia’s last day. I promised I’d spend some time with them before they head home, and now I need to tell them . . .”
He nods. “Go. Tell them.”
She sighs, stands, and heads for the door.
“I’ll forward this report to you. We’re still waiting on everything else. But I figured you should be told. And, Midge? I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. But I knew . . . We all knew.”
“Does this make it easier?”
“Easier?” She shakes her head. “Until it’s confirmed, there’s always hope. Once you know for sure . . . it’s gone.”
“Right. But sometimes closure can—”
“Nap?” Midge cuts in. “Sometimes closure is overrated.”
He meets her gaze and nods. “Got it. I’ll be around if you need me.”
“Thanks, Nap.”
Driving back to Haven Cliff, Midge thinks of the Greenes. For them, hope is quickly running out.
She thinks, too, of the Winterfields. They’ll need to be informed that Caroline’s remains have been found.
So will Mary Beth, though she already knows. Has long known. But not now. Not this morning. Not when she’s about to taste freedom for the first time in ten weeks.
Posting bail was Kelly’s idea, after Midge shared what she’d learned. Mary Beth will still face the assault charges, but it’s pretty clear she wasn’t responsible for Gordy’s murder, or the Walking Man’s. Nor, Midge is certain, for Caroline’s death.
For Kelly, money is no object. And she always had a soft spot for Mary Beth and her devil-may-care attitude.
Caroline loved her, and she loved Caroline.
Midge brushes tears from her eyes. It’s so unfair. Bonded sisters, desperate to escape the fate laid out for them by a tyrannical disciplinarian father and a subservient mother. Caroline, naive and vulnerable. Mary Beth, filled with spitfire. If things had been different . . .
But you can’t move through life dogged by what-ifs. You can’t move through it at all if you’re mired in the past, rewriting in vain stories that have already been told.
“You have to get on with it,” Midge tells herself sternly, but her voice sounds small and hollow to her own ears.
She swipes her eyes and reaches to turn on the radio, wondering if it’s still tuned to the nineties station.
In the moment before she flips the knob, she knows, with absolute certainty, that she’s going to hear Britney Spears.
Yes, and it will be a message from Caroline from beyond the grave, telling Midge it’s time to lighten up and let go.
The radio is still tuned to the nineties station, all right; “Who Let the Dogs Out” blasts through the car.
So much for her detective’s intuition. Laughing, Midge cranks up the volume and sings along, tapping the steering wheel in time to the beat. The song ends just as she makes the turn off the highway to pass between Haven Cliff’s stone pillars.
She lowers the volume at the opening chords of the next song—a ballad, not bubblegum pop. Sarah McLachlan, not Britney Spears.
It’s fine. She doesn’t really believe in spirit communication from the great beyond anyway. She’s all about facts and evidence and—
Then she realizes which song it is.
“I Will Remember You.”
A choked sob escapes her throat. She pulls off to the side of the drive, crying, laughing through tears.
Maybe there’s room for one more little what-if.
When the song ends, she wipes her eyes with a McDonald’s napkin, pulls herself together, and drives the last stretch along the tree-shaded lane, emerging to see the stone mansion’s turrets towering against a clear blue sky.
Ben, Caleb, and Hayley are out on the broad lawn in the sunshine, tossing a Frisbee, laughing and teasing each other.
Midge waves at them, glad they’re outside so that she can break the news to Kelly and Talia in private.
She finds them in the kitchen, standing at the stove, shoulders touching.
A pair of crystal flutes is on the counter on either side of them, filled with mimosa, and a pitcher of orange juice sits beside an empty flute and an open bottle of champagne in an ice bucket.
Sunlight streams through the tall windows.
The air is fragrant with coffee, butter, and . . . is that chocolate?
“No, you don’t just drop them wherever!” Talia is saying. “You only need six!”
“Come on, that’s ridiculous. I promised your kids I’d make them chocolate chip pancakes, and I want to do it the fun Aunt Kelly way, not the boring, stingy Mom way.”
“I’m not boring and stingy! I just don’t want them throwing up in the car on the way home.”
“Hi, guys.”
They turn, seeing Midge.
“Midge! You’re missing the mimosas. Where have you been?” Kelly asks.
“I was with Nap. He—”
“Wait, Midge, you have to tell her!” Talia says.
“Tell her? You mean Kelly? Tell her what?” Has Talia somehow already heard about Caroline?
But then Talia goes on, “Tell her the chocolate chips are supposed to be a face! Two for the eyes, one for the nose, and three for the mouth. Kelly’s just dumping them on willy-nilly.”
“‘Willy-nilly’?” Kelly echoes. “Who the heck is Willy Nilly?”
“It’s an expression!”
“All right, Grandma.” Kelly fills the empty flute with orange juice and champagne and hands it to Midge. “We need a toast!”
“Wait, first, tell her, Midge!” Talia says.
Tell her . . .
Tell them.
Yes. Midge has to tell them.
“Tell her that it’s always the more the better when it comes to chocolate chips, right, Midge?” Kelly prods.
She hesitates. The last thing she wants to do is ruin this lighthearted moment.
“Right. Sorry, Tal’. You know me and chocolate. I’m with Kelly on this.” Midge sips the mimosa. “And, Kelly . . . this morning . . . did you take care of it?”
“Yes. I went over and posted bail for Mary Beth first thing. By now, she’s probably out.”
“Where do you think she’ll go?” Talia asks, with the batter bowl poised over the sizzling griddle.
“Home to Syracuse, I guess,” Midge says.
“I wonder if she’ll ever come back here.”
“She’ll have to. She still has to answer to the charges,” Midge tells Talia. “Unless she jumps bail.”
“She won’t. I know she won’t. But if she does . . .” Kelly shrugs. “It’s only money.”
“I meant, I wonder if she’d come back here to live,” Talia says. “Ben and I were talking about that this morning.”
“About Mary Beth?”
“Not Mary Beth.” She pours a dollop of batter on the griddle. “And not for good. Maybe just . . . you know. For the summer. Next summer.”
“Wait, you and Ben and the kids? You’d come back here?”
“Maybe. We could rent a cottage.”
“That would be amazing!” Midge says. “Exactly like old times. That should be our toast.”
“Wait, we need to top off the drinks.” Kelly grabs the champagne. “And you don’t have to rent a place, Tal’. You could stay here at Haven Cliff.”
“For two months? Come on, Kelly, you’d get sick of us.”
“No, I’d love it. It’s been nice having you all around. I kind of like it.”
“Even the kids?” Midge asks.
“Especially the kids. Caleb is such a sweetheart, and Hayley . . .”
“Not a sweetheart,” Talia says with a laugh. “But a self-proclaimed badass superhero. She’s so you, Kelly. She’s you, too, Midge.”
“And she’s you, Tal’.” Kelly shrugs. “She’s all of us. She’s who we used to be. I miss that me. I miss that us.”
“How is she holding up?” Midge asks Talia.
“Like it never happened.”
“And Caleb?”
“We told him as little as possible. And I told Ben as much as possible. So that he’ll understand.”
“And does he?” Kelly asks.
“He’s starting to. And there’s something else. Don’t get me wrong—I’m still furious that Hayley took it upon herself to put her DNA out there. I’ve just been too busy being glad she survived to punish her for it. But if it comes back with a match . . . maybe I’ll see if I can find him.”
“Are you sure you want to do that?” Midge asks.
“I think so. I’m just not sure my mom would want me to.” Talia pours more batter on the griddle.
“For what it’s worth, I think Natalie would say that’s your decision.” Kelly dumps a handful of chocolate chips on the new pancake.
“Hey! Willy Nilly! Willy Nilly!” Talia slaps Kelly’s hand, but she’s laughing.
“You’re such a boring mom!” But Kelly, too, is laughing. She grabs a chocolate chip from the bag and surreptitiously throws it at Talia, hitting her on the nose.
“What the . . . Kelly! Did you just throw something at me?”
“No! It was Midge. She’s the one with the great pitching arm, not me.”
“Midge!” Talia grabs a chip and chucks it at her. “What kind of behavior is that for a dignified officer of the law?”
“Kelly started it!” Midge throws a chip at Kelly, who ducks so that it hits Talia.
“Hey!” Talia lobs it back.
Midge catches it in her mouth like a trained seal, and they dissolve in laughter, all of them.
“So, getting back to Nap, what were you saying?” Talia asks her, grabbing a dish towel and wiping a glob of melting chocolate off the stove.
“Yeah, Midge, spill it. Why were you at his place this early in the morning, hmm?”
Talia swats her with the towel. “Kelly! A lady never kisses and tells.”
“Oh please. Midge is no lady. Right, Midge? What’s up with you and Nap?”
“Sorry . . . if I was kissing, I’m not telling.”
No, she’s not telling them that, or anything else. The news can wait.
If somewhere deep down inside, Talia or Kelly or both still cling to a shred of hope . . . well, let them, for just a little longer.
Closure, as she told Nap, is overrated.
But this?
This moment? This last morning together with treasured friends who were almost lost, celebrating with champagne and chocolate the last bit of a summer that was almost lost?
To quote the girl who reminds her of all the things that she, Kelly, and Talia once were, still are, and always will be . . .
This moment is epic.
It was a long time coming; someday, all too soon, it will be a long time ago.
And so, in this moment, Midge raises her glass and offers a toast. “To the good old days, to the better ones ahead, but mostly to right here, right now.”