Page 56 of Dead Man's Hollow
“Yeah. I mean, I guess. Nobody got arrested, so they must have all run. Right?” Michelle answers.
“I guess,” Amy says noncommittally.
Her mind is racing. Whatever else happened that night, Andre and Heather didn’t leave together.
“In retrospect, we should have told the police everything. Maybe one of the Allderdice kids knew what happened to Heather. But Rich insisted we keep quiet. We shouldn’t have listened to him,” Lynn says.
“And he’s still trying to stop us from talking,” Michelle adds. “Rachel—you know, Andy’s wife? She accosted me at the grocery store and warned me not to talk to Maisy. But this has gone on long enough. We’re both ready to tell Maisy what we know, even though it’s not much.”
Lynn locks eyes with Amy. “The question is, are you ready to deal with the fallout?”
Later, Amy will be surprised at how easily she answers. “Absolutely.”
After she seesMichelle and Lynn out, Amy reheats her coffee in the microwave and sits at the kitchen island, considering her next move. She and Rich weren’t even dating when he was having sex with her sister, so it’s ridiculous to be upset about that.
But.
The fact that he’s kept it from her all these years leaves her seething. And he knows her well enough to know that she’d have understood. She wouldn’t have liked it, but she’d have understood. Rich had a reputation in high school. She knew that. Everyone knew that (except, perhaps, for Julia). No, there’s another reason he’s kept it from her. And that makes her queasy. He’s the father of her children. Does she really think he had anything to do with Heather’s disappearance? She ponders the question for a long time, long after her mug is empty. And when she stands up, she acknowledges that yes, she thinks it’s possible.
She checks the time. It’s almost eight o’clock, late enough to be socially acceptable to call someone, although maybe not a college student. So she texts Jordana instead:
Hey, call me when you get a chance.
Then she cleans. She has to do something that feels productive, that feels like she’s purging the ugliness from her mind. So she purges her house. She would start in the garage, but that’s mainly Rich’s domain, and she doesn’t want to mess his things up, as ridiculous as that sounds, seeing as how she’s thinking about kicking him out of the house. So she tackles the kitchen instead.
Once every surface sparkles, she looks around, trying to decide what to clean next.
‘Fresh air and sunshine.’Her mother’s words ring in her ears.‘They make everything better.’
She’ll clean out the shed, then weed the gardens and thin the plants. As she walks through the backyard, the birds sing loudly and the sun’s rays warm her shoulders. She thinks her mother might have been right—if only she’d taken her own advice after Heather disappeared.
Thinking of Heather makes her think of Rich, and the fleeting improvement in her mood evaporates. She flings open the door to the shed and props it open with the wheelbarrow. She surveys the stacks of bins and boxes that line the back wall. Some of this stuff has been here since the kids were toddlers. It’s long past time to donate it or throw it away. She places her phone on the wooden shelf beside her, turns on her playlist of ‘90s music, and loses herself in the task.
ChapterThirty
Maisy sitsat the patio table on Bastian and Chloe Tremblay’s back deck and surveys their small, tidy yard. The air is cool, but the day is bright and the light dances along the garden beds and flowers. The Tremblays sit across from her, watchful and silent. Rich broods in the seat next to her, fidgeting. Chloe had offered and Maisy’s accepted a glass of sweetened tea. Apparently, the Canadians use a light hand with their sweetener. Although she’s itching to ask for some sugar or honey, she doesn’t.
Instead she takes a small sip of the bitter liquid and smiles. “Someone has a green thumb.” She nods toward the backyard.
“That’s all Chloe’s doing,” Bastian tells her. “I attend to the herb garden by the kitchen, but everything else is hers.”
“Bastian’s a chef. He has a restaurant in Vieux Quebec,” Chloe explains, radiating pride at her husband’s accomplishment. “He uses the fresh herbs in his cooking. The flowers and vegetables are mine. It’s just for fun.”
Maisy studies her. She’s polished and chic with a cap of glossy dark hair cut short and expertly applied eye makeup. Her husband is fair and shaggy, with longish, sandy hair and the broad, expansive gestures that Maisy associates with the French.
“I can’t thank you enough for reaching out about your pager,” she begins. “By the way, our data shows we have just one listener here in Quebec City. This person has been playing the trailer and both episodes repeatedly. That’s you, I assume?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask why you play them over and over?”
Bastian laughs, turning pink with embarrassment, and his wife answers for him. “Bastian grew up speaking French only. He practices his English by listening to audiobooks and podcasts and watching American movies.”
Maisy gives him an astonished look. “You’re completely self-taught?”
“Yes.”
“Your English is fabulous. I never would have known that you didn’t grow up speaking English.”
