Chapter 7
June Porter’s apartment smelled of coffee, peonies, and buttered toast.
It was the opposite of Magnolia Inn in every possible way.
Where the inn was polished and watchful, June’s rooms were warm, cluttered, and alive.
Flower buckets crowded the back stairwell.
Ribbon spilled from baskets. A stack of unpaid invoices leaned against a vase of pink ranunculus as if beauty and bookkeeping had reached an uneasy truce.
Clara slept three hours on June’s lumpy sofa and woke with Celeste’s purchase offer spread across the kitchen table.
June appeared with two mugs. “You have tax audit posture.”
“Good morning to you too.”
“You were haunting thoughtfully. I stand by my assessment.”
Clara rubbed her eyes. The rain had stopped, but the street below still shone silver in the morning light. “Tell me about Claire Hale.”
June’s expression shifted. “Rowan’s mother?”
“You remember her?”
“A little. Pretty. Quiet, but not weak quiet. More like she kept her thoughts in a locked drawer.”
“She knew my mother.”
June sat across from her. “A lot of women knew your mother.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is a Magnolia Cove answer. We specialize.”
Clara stared at her.
June sighed and wrapped both hands around her mug.
“There was a women’s event circle around the inn.
Not official, but everyone knew who did the work while the men cut ribbons.
Evelyn. Marianne. Claire Hale. Lillian Crowe.
My mother sometimes.” She hesitated. “Susannah Ashford too, before she left.”
Clara’s fingers tightened on Celeste’s contract. “Celeste’s mother.”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean, before she left?”
“Official story was divorce and nervous exhaustion.” June’s mouth twisted. “Unofficially, Mama once said Susannah may have been running for her life.”
The kitchen seemed to shrink around the words.
“You are just mentioning this now?”
“I was twelve when Mama said it and hiding behind a flower cooler. I did not know it was evidence.”
Clara pushed back from the table. “Your mother kept event albums, didn’t she?”
June narrowed her eyes. “Do not use that tone.”
“What tone?”
“The one where we are about to do something Rowan specifically told you not to do.”
Clara held her gaze.
June groaned. “Basement.”
Before they could move, Clara’s phone rang.
Rowan.
She answered on the second ring. “You are very prompt for a man who told me not to go anywhere alone.”
“Danner wants you at the station at ten,” he said. “I’ll pick you up.”
“June may have photographs from the Harbor Lights Benefit.”
A pause.
“Do not touch them.”
“Define touch.”
“Clara.”
“You should hurry.”
He swore softly and hung up.
A hard knock sounded from the shop below.
June and Clara looked at each other.
The knock came again.
June grabbed pruning shears from the counter. “Florist security.”
“Those are not weapons.”
“They are French.”
At the back door stood Miles Bellamy, lean, damp, and wild-eyed. His sandy hair clung to his forehead, and his gaze kept jumping past Clara toward the street.
“I need Clara Whitaker,” he said.
Clara stepped into view. “You found her.”
Miles flinched as if her name itself had weight. “You need to stop letting people in that house.”
“Did you come to Magnolia Inn yesterday?”
His face answered before his mouth did.
Then Rowan’s truck turned the corner.
Miles panicked.
He ran.
Rowan saw him, cursed, and sprinted after him toward the harbor.
For half a second, Rowan looked back at Clara.
June lifted the shears. “Go. I have scissors.”
Rowan went.
Clara turned toward the basement door.
June blocked her path. “He said do not touch them.”
“He also ran after our only witness.”
“Excellent point. Basement.”
They found the album in a plastic storage bin marked HARBOR LIGHTS BENEFIT — MAGNOLIA INN — JUNE 17. The lid stuck, and June had to pry it open with the tips of the pruning shears.
“See?” June said. “French.”
Clara opened the album on an old worktable between buckets of ribbon and boxes of sympathy cards.
The pages crackled under the plastic.
There was the lawn beneath white tents. Evelyn in pearls. Lillian Crowe with a program in hand. Edward Ashford beside Thomas Hale beneath a magnolia tree.
And Marianne in a red sundress.
Clara’s breath caught before she could stop it.
Her mother looked younger than Clara ever remembered her being. Not softer. Marianne had never been soft. But alive in a way photographs rarely managed to preserve. Her smile was aimed toward the camera, but her attention was elsewhere.
Beside Marianne stood Claire Hale.
Rowan’s mother.
Her face was softer than Rowan’s, but the eyes were the same. Gray, guarded, too intelligent for comfort. She stood close to Marianne, one hand holding a folded paper. Marianne’s hand rested lightly over it, as if keeping it hidden from the camera.
June leaned in. “Well, that feels incriminating.”
“Or terrified.”
More photographs followed.
Marianne, Claire, and Lillian near the garden path.
Thomas Hale speaking to Edward Ashford.
Susannah Ashford leaving early, half-obscured near the marsh path, her face turned away from the tents.
Beneath one photo, Helen Porter had written:
Marianne, Claire, Lillian, Thomas, Edward — and S.A. leaving early.
June whispered, “Susannah Ashford.”
A loose photograph slipped from the back of the album and skated across the table.
Clara picked it up by the edge.
The picture was darker than the others, taken after sunset near the old magnolia tree. Marianne stood with Claire Hale and Susannah Ashford. Claire still held the folded paper. Marianne looked urgent.
Susannah looked afraid.
On the back, Helen had written:
They argued after the speeches. Ask Evelyn.
Clara set the photograph flat on the table and lifted her hands from the album before anyone had to tell her.
The basement door opened.
Rowan stood there breathing hard, rain in his hair, Miles Bellamy cuffed to the railing behind him.
Rowan saw the photograph on the table.
“You waited?”
Clara looked at the image of his mother standing beside hers.
“No,” she said. “But I found your mother.”