Chapter Fifteen
The morning Lo Bailey comes back to St. Medard’s Bay, the sun is shining.
I’ve been expecting her, but it’s still something of a shock to come out of the inn and see her sitting in one of the Rosalie’s pink beach chairs, her bare toes pointed toward the water even though it’s only in the fifties.
There’s still an ugly ridge of scars along the arch of one foot, the result of the surgery she’d needed to repair a tendon after Lizzie, but other than that, there’s little sign of the ordeal we went through together almost five months ago.
The same can’t be said for the Rosalie. The picture window in the lobby has been replaced, and we’ve got new carpeting downstairs, but the first floor is still bare of furniture, and parts of the roof are still covered in blue tarp.
Soon, I’ll hear the cacophony of hammers as the workmen get here, slowly but surely bringing the Rosalie back to life, but for now the morning is quiet save for the surf and the gulls.
Lo is the only person on the beach this morning. Cap didn’t make it through Lizzie, dying not from the storm but from a heart attack as he loaded up his car to get out of town. He was the only other person this storm claimed, and for St. Medard’s Bay, that’s considered a relief.
“Morning, sugar!” Lo calls out as I drag two chairs down next to hers and flop into one, burying my hands in the sleeves of my oversize hoodie.
“You are too chipper for this early, Lo,” I tell her, and she smiles at me, her head lolling to one side.
“I’m always chipper,” Lo says. “It’s one of my many gifts.”
I snort in response, but I can’t really argue with her.
After Lizzie, after August, I was a wreck.
Nightmares, panic attacks, all of it. Later, I learned that those harrowing moments—August attacking Lo, me hitting August, him slicing his neck on the window, the storm peeling the roof off the inn—all happened in less than ten minutes.
That’s still hard for me to believe. I felt like Lo and I spent an eternity huddled in the chaos, but the roof was Lizzie’s big finale, turns out, one last fuck you as her power drained away and the seas and the wind calmed.
For weeks, I was too paralyzed to even think about the inn.
My trailer was gone, the heavy limb of a live oak taking care of that, and I stayed at Hope House of all places, sleeping on a rollaway cot they found for me.
Every night, I moved it next to Mom’s bed so that I could take her hand before falling asleep.
It was the most physical contact we’d ever had, and I think I might have stayed there forever had Lo not come for a visit.
She looked rough, her hand bandaged in thick gauze, a pair of crutches shoved under her arms as she hobbled into Mom’s room, but she also looked like … Lo. Beautiful still, sassy in her bright green linen dress, sparkly earrings dangling from her ears.
“Girl, you can’t move in here,” she’d said. “Or everything we went through won’t be worth a damn thing.”
I didn’t need to ask if she was talking about August or Landon because I was pretty sure she was talking about both.
We sat there in plastic chairs on either side of Mom’s recliner, and then, with a gusty sigh, Lo said, “I guess it’s time you finally learn what really happened to Landon.”
And she told me.
Sitting there in Mom’s room, the afternoon sunlight spreading slowly across the linoleum floor, Lo told me about finding the letter from my mom in Landon’s pocket, about going to the Rosalie to confront Mom first only to find both her and Landon on the porch.
Then there was shouting and fighting, then Landon’s hands were on her, the storm howling.
I listened, I nodded, I tried to follow along.
But in my mind, I wasn’t seeing Landon—I was seeing August. And when Lo told me about Mom picking up that anchor, I saw my own hands clutching the hammer, my clumsy strike to August’s back.
Memories, echoes, time circling back on itself. A ritual that had to be performed every few decades, another one of the sacrifices demanded of St. Medard’s Bay.
That’s when I knew that Lo was right—I couldn’t hide at Hope House forever. And I couldn’t abandon the Rosalie, not when it had somehow, miraculously, withstood yet another storm.
There was damage, certainly. The crack that turned into a roar that became the last thing I heard before blacking out—that was the roof coming off.
Five windows on the second floor blew out; all the carpet and hardwood had to be torn out on the first floor.
The porch was almost completely washed out to sea.
But she was still standing—weary and battered, but not done for yet.
The next day, I called the number on the card that FEMA had given me, and a few days after that, a crew arrived at the Rosalie to begin bringing her back to life.
I look back over my shoulder at her now, still glowing her soft pink in the early morning light.
Still holding our secrets.
“They called again,” I say to Lo as a wave crashes hard against the wet sand, sending up spray that splashes the toes of my sneakers. “The Fitzroys.”
The calls started shortly after Lizzie receded, after the whole story started to break.
The police had believed me when I’d told them that August’s death had been a freak accident.
The board falling from the window, the broken glass, the hammer.
All of it helped shore up my version of events, one where August was heroically trying to cover the window when the tree limb broke, that he was tragically caught off guard and slipped.
That Lo’s cut hand and feet were testament to her equally heroic attempt to save him, but it had been too late.
Lo’s involvement in yet another storm death had barely rated a mention in the local press—that is, until someone leaked what had been found on August’s laptop.
He’d been smart, shoving it into the room safe that I didn’t think anyone ever used and so never thought to check. It was still there when the police started gathering his effects. The story of August’s real parentage, his obsession with Lo, and his theory that she’d killed Landon.
His horror at realizing that he and I were half-siblings.
It started small, a local reporter doing a couple of stories on how bizarre and gothic the whole thing was, but then it got picked up by the AP, and after that …
It was everywhere. We were everywhere.
The police never came calling again, thank God, but the tabloids and podcasts sure as hell did. So did People magazine. Even dueling Reddit communities emerged, r/RosalieInn and r/AugustFletcher.
So I wasn’t surprised the first time I got a call on my cell phone with the name Fitzroy flashing on the screen.
If anything, I was surprised it took them until November or so to reach out.
I didn’t take the first call, or the second.
The third had come just last night, and I confess that I’d been tempted to answer.
Instead, I let it ring, hoping this time whoever it was might leave a message, but they didn’t. The next time they call, I’m not so sure I’ll let it go to voicemail. The curiosity might be too much, and then what?
Whoever is calling, they know where to find me, and if they show up at the Rosalie one day … well, I can burn that bridge when I come to it.
I don’t mention any of this to Lo, even though I think she’d understand. Instead, I say lightly, “I wonder which one of them it is?”
Lo looks out over the water, her face hidden by a huge pair of sunglasses. “Beau died in 2000, so at least you know it’s not that old bastard,” she replies. “My money is on Camile.”
“Have any of them tried to contact—” I start, but she cuts me off.
“Nah. They had their way with me already. Although once I film this Dateline thing, they might come back for more.”
Yup, we even got our very own Dateline episode.
Or we will in the spring, apparently. A crew is coming down next month to interview Lo and shoot footage around the Rosalie.
They wanted to talk to me, too, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that, not even for my beloved Keith Morrison.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this ordeal, it’s that I’m more like Mom than I ever realized, more content to keep my feelings—and my secrets—close to my chest.
And besides, Lo is a natural at this. Aside from the injuries she sustained during Hurricane Lizzie, she seems to have de-aged a decade overnight. I wonder if finally sharing the truth with someone is the reason why.
Although, so far, I’m the only one she’s shared that truth with.
In every interview, Lo has stuck to her original story: she never saw Landon that night; it had to be the storm that killed him; what—or who—else could it have been?
When the reporters inevitably ask her about me, about August’s claims, she always demurs.
“Honey, that’s not my business,” she said to the Mobile anchor lady in her first interview.
“I didn’t know a thing about that, so I don’t know what I could say.” That was in People.
“Honestly, I think August’s mind just started unraveling, holed up in that room every day,” she told the hosts of Two Girls, One Murder.
“Geneva might have a passing resemblance to Camile Fitzroy, but do you know how many shiny-haired brunettes with sweet little majorette faces there are in the South, baby? Lord, I’ve seen more girls that look like Geneva in a Target in Mountain Brook than I can count. ”
It’s a kindness I didn’t ask for, but one I’m grateful for nonetheless. Still, I can’t help but tell her now, “You know, if you want to tell the whole story on Dateline, I wouldn’t blame you. It’s your story, and it can’t hurt Mom. Not anymore. Not now.”
“And betray my fellow witches? Uh-uh.” She shakes her head. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to give any of them the satisfaction of having me proven a liar.”
She reaches over and squeezes my hand, flashes that big smile. “And I like my version better anyway.”