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“Yes, Mrs.Carson.” He brings his department store aftershave odor with him when he steps into the house.

Charlotte returns to her bedroom and packs up the bathroom. She loads her satchel with makeup and perfumes. When she’s done, she returns to the front door, passing decades of family photos in the hallway. She puts the satchel on the floor and takes their last family portrait off the wall, the one she reframed. She removes the photo and tears itin two. Dwight floats to the ground. Lucas, Olivia, and Lily circle her, proud and gorgeous in their evening attire.

Her lip trembles. She presses the photo to her chest. She’ll miss her babies.

She closes the front door, leaving her house for the last time. She meant what she said to Olivia. She’ll die if she’s sentenced to prison.

“All set?” The driver opens her door.

She hands off her satchel and settles into the back seat of the sleek town car with blacked-out windows.

He rounds the car and gets in front. “Where to? SLO Airport?”

She smiles at her reflection in the window. Her plans are bigger than that.

“LAX.”

His squinty eyes peer at her in the rearview mirror. “That’ll cost you.”

She peers inside her purse to check she remembered to empty the safe of cash.

“That won’t be a problem.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He shifts the car into gear. It glides from the curb, away from her failures and toward something much better.

CHAPTER 37

Thirty years ago

Charlotte ran as fast as her condition allowed, one hand holding her bulging belly. She traversed her yard and the two neighboring properties. Their neighborhood was young, with empty lots scattered throughout the subdivision. One day, custom homes with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Morro Bay would sprawl across the open space. Tonight, they were empty and dark under a moonless sky. The dirt ground was treacherous.

Her eyes tracked the ground. One misstep and she’d fall. She could twist an ankle, or worse, lose her baby. She reached the end of the continent where land disappeared into the ocean and inched her way down the rocky berm. Standing in the knee-deep tide, he was right where the note he’d left taped to the refrigerator said he’d be. The ocean roared, smelling of brine and rotten fish. Moderate waves crashed into his legs, soaking his pants and spraying his back.

“Dwight, what are you doing?” she yelled over the ocean’s anger.

Something struggled at his feet. The water receded slightly, and she noticed he had one foot propped on a rock. Or was it a fish? Whatever it was, it flopped around, as big as a seal.

“Teaching our neighbor a lesson.” Dwight yanked up whatever was in the water. A very drenched, very beaten-up Benton St.John gasped for air. He blinked at her with one eye. The other was swollen shut. Salt water dripped off his eyelashes and watered-down blood off hischin from a split lip. The gash was deep. Dwight hadn’t removed his Freemason’s ring when he punched him.

“Help me.” Benton’s voice was hoarse, tearing through a raw throat. He probably swallowed a lot of salt water. If Dwight didn’t kill him, that certainly would.

“Think about what you’re doing, Dwight,” she pleaded. “Consider the impact on our community. Your campaign! He’s a schoolteacher. He goes missing, people will notice.”

“Think of the impact that will have on me.” He points at her middle. “I’m running for Congress, for Christ’s sake. I can’t be connected to anything scandalous.Wecan’t be connected.” Dwight had his sights on the Capitol, even the White House. All eyes would be on them, the perfect couple, with their two brunette, jade-eyed children, a boy and a girl.

But Charlotte had gone and ruined it and gotten pregnant. Dwight had gotten snipped right after she gave birth to Lucas and, until her, Benton had never slept with anyone since he married Jean, who was on birth control. In their haste to scratch that itch burning between them, she and Benton had forgotten to use a condom. And Dwight was positive people would know the kid wasn’t his when he, or she, started to look more like the man living down the street than the man Charlotte was married to. There would be no mistaking Benton’s auburn hair.

“How did you find out it was him?” She gestured at Benton, who struggled in Dwight’s grasp. Her husband had him in a choke hold.

“Our little princess, of course.”

“Olivia?”

“She tells me everything, Charlotte. She tells me about the visitors you’ve shown real estate to above the garage. Did you clip your lawn for all of them?” He sneered.

Charlotte grimaced. Dammit. She should have bribed the kids to keep their little mouths shut.

“Benton boy came sniffing. You weren’t here but he was sure curious about that babe in your belly.” The one she refused to abort. She couldn’t kill her own blood.

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