13 #2
“Married by now,” she said in a low voice. Their wedding should have happened over two hours ago. They should be having dinner under that magical white tent. The band should be starting to play, and any minute now they would have started dancing.
“I know,” he said. “Kate, I want to fix this.”
“Fix it how?”
“Tell me. I’ll do anything.”
Her thoughts were scrambled, and she tried to put them into words. “I wish you had told me everything from the beginning.”
He nodded, as if agreeing with her.
“I felt so blindsided. I didn’t know what to think when she showed me that picture—I still don’t. We’ve always said we could tell each other anything, that we wouldn’t keep secrets,” she said.
“Kate, I wasn’t keeping a secret. Belinda came out of nowhere with those lies. There was nothing to tell you—I haven’t thought of her in years,” he said.
“You didn’t seem honest yesterday,” Kate said. “Starting when I saw you with her in town. I felt like you wanted to hide something.”
“I was just shocked to see her,” Conor said.
Kate tilted her head. Even now, her antennae were up. He wasn’t telling her the full truth.
“Really?” she asked. “That’s all?”
“Kate,” he said, trying to hold her hand. She backed away, and she gave him a look that told him to stop.
“The reason I’m here,” she said, “is that I searched Belinda’s hotel room, looking for something, anything, to explain what’s going on.
Belinda and Suzanne were very much connected.
You were questioned by the police today, Conor.
You might have been arrested if Joe and Tom hadn’t gotten you out of there. ”
“I didn’t belong there,” he said. “That was spite on Garrett’s part. Because Belinda was his girlfriend, and she obviously had an ulterior motive in getting him to bring her to our wedding as his date.”
“Belinda told me she had your child,” Kate said slowly. “And Suzanne spent time in her room. She left her pen and ink and cards right there, in the desk.”
“Well, maybe they knew each other,” Conor said.
Kate barely heard him. She was focused on his face, that handsome Irish face that she loved so much. There was a faint rust-colored streak on his left cheekbone.
“You have blood on your cheek,” she said.
“I thought I washed it all off,” he said, his hand straying to the side of his face.
“From when you touched Belinda’s body,” Kate said.
“Because I thought it was you,” he said, his voice tight. “She was wearing your dress.”
“Conor,” Kate said, looking down and imagining what that must have been like for him.
At the same time, a realization had been building inside her.
It had started last night, when Belinda had shown her the photo.
Thoughts and impressions had filled her mind, when she was both sleeping and awake, but until now she had been able to push them away.
She wished she could keep them from adding up into a whole that she would give anything not to see.
She pictured Suzanne last night and remembered how she had noted that the indigo flowers printed on her maxi dress matched her eyes.
“The ages are right,” Kate said.
“Whose ages?”
“Belinda’s and Suzanne’s. Yours and Suzanne’s. About twenty years apart.”
Conor’s expression darkened. Was it because he was catching up with her logic, figuring it out? Or was he upset that Kate was working out the puzzle pieces?
“The eye color is right too,” she said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Suzanne’s your daughter,” Kate said.
“God, Kate—no!” Conor said.
“Your eyes,” Kate said. “The same blue as the baby in the photo, the same blue as Suzanne’s.” She paused, composing herself. “Had you ever met Suzanne before? Did you hold her when she was a baby?”
“This is crazy,” Conor said. “Kate, I didn’t have a child with Belinda.”
His voice broke, and it sent shocks through her whole body, cracking her bones as if they were ice.
She wanted to reach for him, to steady herself and to hold him.
He sounded so upset, and she had to believe he was telling the truth—at least as far as he knew it.
What if Belinda had had his baby and just never told him about it?
“She said you call her ‘Belle,’” Kate said.
“What?” he asked.
“Beauty and the Beast,” Kate said. “You’re the Beast, and she’s Belle. The great love story, your own private fairy tale.”
“I have no idea what that means,” Conor said. “I’ve never called her anything but Belinda.”
“That’s not what she said.”
“She lied about everything,” Conor said. “Tell me you believe me.”
Kate gazed at him, wanting to say yes, but feeling churned up and unsure in a way she never would have thought she could feel about Conor.
“Kate, thanks for letting us use the radio,” Tom said, interrupting them. “We’ve got the police and Coast Guard on their way out here. You might as well head back to Westerly.”
Conor moved toward Kate, as if he was going to get into the plane with her, but she stopped him. “You’re staying here with them, aren’t you?” she asked quietly, so Tom and Joe couldn’t hear.
“I want to be with you,” he said.
“I don’t know what’s happening out here,” Kate said. “But someone was held prisoner on that boat, and Suzanne plays some part in it. The dockage receipt is in her name. We’ve gotten pulled into a nightmare, and we need to get out of it.”
“You want me to stay out here and work the case with them?” he asked.
Kate wasn’t sure what was right—all she knew was that she wanted to get back on even ground with Conor, and that couldn’t happen with the mysteries of Belinda and Suzanne and murder and lies swirling around them.
“Yes,” she said. “I want that.”
Conor nodded, then turned to Joe and Tom.
“I’m staying,” he said.
“It’s my crime scene,” Joe said. “This is Rhode Island, remember. And you’re not off the hook.”
“Then let’s solve the case and get me off the hook,” Conor said.
Kate saw Tom smile. He knew that once Conor made up his mind to do something, there was no talking him out of it.
And so did Kate.
Tom and Joe looked at her, waiting for her to get into the plane and take off, but she didn’t move.
Her eyes were locked on Conor’s. She had always been able to read him, since the beginning.
She could sense his mood, read his thoughts—as he could read hers.
Sometimes it seemed they shared a heart, the way their emotions synced.
Tom and Joe began walking back toward the dock, leaving Kate and Conor alone.
“Maybe I won’t go either,” Kate said. “I can stay and help however I can.”
“Before you decide what to do,” Conor said, “I need to hear you say something.”
“What?”
“That you believe me. That you know I never had a child with Belinda.”
Kate stared at him. Her heart was racing because she knew they were at a crossroads and that everything that would happen in the future would begin right here.
“She was obviously troubled, messed up,” Conor continued.
“She wasn’t living in reality. She had some kind of fantasy that began when we lived next door to each other.
For the longest time, I had no idea how seriously she took it.
It was never real.” He moved so close to Kate, she could feel warmth pouring off him.
“Please, Kate. Believe me—I am telling you the truth.”
“And you won’t lie to me, ever?” she asked.
“I promise,” he said.
“Then tell me this,” she said, her heart beating so fast she was almost breathless.
“Anything,” he said.
“Did you ever sleep with her?” she asked.
He looked straight at her, but then he bowed his head, and he didn’t say anything for almost a minute. She knew then. His silence was enough of an answer for her, but then he said the words out loud:
“Yes,” he said. “I did.”
Kate stood very still. She gazed at those eyes she had fallen in love with, that smile she had memorized, the arms that had held her. He was Conor, he was the same man. But just then she felt so numb inside, she might as well be standing beside a stranger.
“It was before,” he said. “Before you and I were really together.”
She nodded.
“Say something, Kate. Please.”
“Really together?” she asked, hearing him qualify it. “Like when we were only a little bit?”
“No, Kate. It’s not like that.”
Kate waited for him to continue and tell her what it was like, but he was silent. She had thought about staying on the island until the backup police and Coast Guard arrived, but now she turned away and climbed into her plane.
She went through the motions as she did her preflight check and started the engine.
She told herself she couldn’t afford to be numb; she needed all her senses to fly.
On the other hand, numbness was probably safer than the alternative—giving in to a broken heart.
Without looking back at Conor, Kate taxied down the grass strip and took off into the wind.
It wasn’t until she did a wide, banking turn that she looked down at the island, at Conor. He was standing right where she had left him, at the edge of the runway, looking up at her plane as it flew away.