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Seeing her father as a man was ... odd. He was herdad. He was funny and goofy and smart, and hers. He never dated when she was growing up, not for lack of trying by the women around Marchburg, both married and single. A handsome, solid, and eligible widower with a smart daughter? He was a popular choice. She asked him about it once when she was about ten and one of her friends asked why she didn’t have a mother. She reported the conversation like the little blue jay she was and asked. He just shook his head. “I’ve had my marriage. And I have you, and work, and the stars. That’s all I need, jellybean.”
Those magazines told her maybe he needed more but was happily sacrificing himself for her so there wasn’t any more upheaval. She loved him even more that day.
Now, wondering where else she should look without totally invading his privacy, she steels herself and opens the dresser drawer. Papers and magazine articles, a thick heavy book on Magellan and his exploits circumnavigating the globe. She hasn’t seen this book since she was a kid. Smiling, she takes it out, memories of her dad reading it as abedtime story crowding in. She flips the softened pages. Inside, holding his place, is a yellowed manila envelope.
It is old. It was sealed at one point, but the gummy flap is no longer stuck, and her brows twitch closer as she debates opening it. Watermarked, the edges bent, it is clearly not the new insurance card, and not her business, either. But something makes her sit down on the bed and unwind from two circular tabs the red string that holds it closed.
The papers inside are varied. Newspaper articles, something from the Tennessee Department of Correction, blue-backed papers from a law office she’s never heard of. She sees her mother’s face staring up from the clipping, but the last name doesn’t match. As she reads the rest of the headline, horror spreads through her body, chilling her blood.
Susannah Elizabeth Handon, 35, Found Murdered
16-Year-Old Daughter Held for Questioning
Chapter Four
Halley reads the article, her mind practically shaking with the information.
Her mother, Susannah, was murdered?
Her half sister, Catriona, was held for questioning in the murder?
Her sister murdered her mother?
What. The. Hell?
She can’t understand what she’s reading. It has to be a mistake. The two of them died in a car accident when she was six. Twenty-eight years ago. She barely remembers them, only snatches, bits and pieces, flashes of memories. She remembers a funeral, people crying, and shoes that pinched her toes. Remembers her dad holding her hand so tightly she had to beg him to let her go. Remembers whispers. And then they moved to Marchburg, a fresh start, and the accident became a dark dream. She didn’t want to think about their deaths. Still doesn’t. She can’t remember any of it anyway. What’s the point in trying to look back?
A headache starts in her temple. A throbbing that presages a migraine. She’s had them all her life, ever since the accident that took her mother’s and sister’s lives and left her unmarked except for a small scar, a streak of white in her hair, and lingering headaches. And they are such an annoyance. But she doesn’t care right now.
She skims the rest of the papers in the envelope, realizing they are all pieces of a story she has never heard. A story her father has kept from her.
Her mother was murdered. And her half sister did it.
This isn’t possible, and yet there is no mistaking either of them in the photos. Halley’s sense of dislocation deepens. She is a carbon copy of her mother. And realizing she is only a year younger now than her mom was when she died—no, Halley, murdered—sends shock waves through her. It might as well be her in the photos. She is the echo that never stopped reverberating.
But her dad ... He lied to her. Why would he lie to her?
The fissure that cracks her heart apart is so intense she has to gasp for breath. Her fatherliedto her.
Why would he do that?
The name isn’t exact; it should read Susannah Elizabeth James, not Handon, which was her maiden name. But there’s no question this is her mother; the same elegant, bold face stares from the single photo on the fireplace. The one that looks so much like Halley.
Her mom was divorced when she met and married Quentin James. Catriona—they called her Cat because Halley couldn’t pronounce her half sister’s full name—was ten when Halley came along. Old enough to see a new little sister as an inconvenience, surely. But was it more? Cat hadn’t taken to Halley, and she could remember the anger, the yelling, the arguments, though only the shape of them, not the real words or topics. Everything is blurred by time. The memories of her mother and her sister are foggy at best, and end abruptly after the accident.
“Cat is perfectly nicknamed,” her dad once told Halley when she was crying, having been yelled at for some random transgression. “She hisses and hisses, but it’s just fear driving her. You’ll be best friends one day. Just watch.”
He was firmly convinced, told her that all the time. Halley took his word for it; Cat hated her, but maybe when they were older, it wouldn’t be so bad.
Was it something more? Did Halley break something in her sister, and she eventually took it out on their mother? Was having a miniature version of her mother couched as an imperious, beloved girl-child toomuch for her? Cat looked like her own father. Was she jealous of Halley’s resemblance to her mom? Was it something more, something deeper?
Halley could be twisting these memories; she isn’t sure of anything anymore.
Why are you blaming yourself? You were six. You were not responsible for any of this.
Halley’s heart is pounding, her head throbbing, and she closes her eyes, taking deep breaths. This day is too damn much. From work to her dad to Theo to this bombshell news? It’s like a very bad dream. Maybe she’ll wake up and none of it will be true.
Her vision is going fuzzy. She finds her purse and puts a tab of ergotamine under her tongue. She must arrest the migraine before it gets too bad and she’s flat on her back in the dark for the rest of the night.
