Page 63 of Dead Man's Hollow
Chloe waits, but her sister doesn’t elaborate as to why her husband is sleeping at a friend’s home. A sudden thud sounds upstairs, and the plates rattle on the table. Seconds later, muffled giggles erupt from behind a closed door.
Amy shakes her head. “Excuse me for a moment.”
She heads upstairs to tell the girls to settle down, and Bastian leans toward Chloe.
“They’re fighting,” he whispers.
“Emilie and Ava?” It doesn’t sound like they’re wrestling or rough housing to her. They’re just being silly teenagers.
“No, Amy and Rich.”
Her eyes widen. “Because of us?”
“I don’t think so,” he says, giving his head a vigorous shake that sends his shaggy hair bouncing. “I overheard them at the airport. I think while he was at our house, she found evidence that he cheated on her. She told him she needed some space.”
“This is a bad time to have houseguests,” she frets.
He covers her hand. “Your sisters have waited thirty years to see you, Chloe. They wouldn’t have wanted to wait one day more.”
Amy appears on the upstairs landing. “The girls are ready to turn in, if you want to say good night.”
“I think I won’t be far behind them,” Bastian says. “It’s been a long day.”
Amy covers her mouth with her hand. “I’m so thoughtless. Of course. You’re probably both exhausted. Yes, please, we should all get some sleep. After all, we have all weekend to catch up.”
Chloe smiles up at her. “We have the rest of our lives to catch up.”
Amy smiles back. Chloe thinks tears are glistening in her eyes, but she can’t see clearly in the dim light.
As she trails Bastian up the stairs, Chloe can’t help but think about her sister. Married twenty-five years, according to Maisy. Three children together. And to find out now that her husband isn’t the man she thought he was. She can’t imagine it.
ChapterThirty-Five
Long after therest of the house is quiet and everyone else is sleeping, Amy lies awake. Although the window by her bed is open a crack and the night air is cool, she’s hot. She flips her pillow over and presses her cheek against the cool fabric of the pillowcase, then closes her eyes. But sleep eludes her.
She pulls up a guided sleep mediation on her phone and wills herself to relax. But when the meditation ends, Amy’s still wide awake. After a moment, she flips on her bedside lamp. There’s nobody here to complain that the light is keeping him awake, so she might as well take advantage of the solitude to read. When she reads the same page of her book three times, she closes the cover and tosses it back on her nightstand. She flops onto her back, shifts from her side of the bed to the dead center, and spreads her arms and legs wide like a starfish, reveling in the spaciousness of a king bed for one. But the novelty wears off quickly.
She feels out of balance and emotional. Of course, she’s unmoored, she tells herself. It’s to be expected. She found her sister and may have lost her husband all in the same day. Her whispered argument with Rich runs through her mind on a loop. His expression when she told him she couldn’t trust him, wouldn’t feel safe with him in the house, was so wounded, so outraged.He slept with your sister and never mentioned it. He stole her diary. He convinced everyone to lie to the police.Screw Rich and his outrage,she tells herself.
She’s never going to fall asleep in this state. Conceding defeat, she sighs and kicks off the light blanket, then grabs her glasses and tiptoes downstairs. She’s halfway to the wine cabinet when she sees a figure standing at the back window.
“Chloe?”
Her sister turns, startled. “Oh, Amy. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
She shakes her head and joins Chloe at the window. “No, I couldn’t sleep.”
They stand shoulder to shoulder and stare out into the yard. The exterior lights are on. Rich has insisted on leaving them on all night ever since someone stole his hedge trimmer last summer. The kids grumble, telling him he’s contributing to the destruction of the environment they’re going to inherit, but Amy secretly likes the way the flood lights illuminate the gardens.
Chloe must too, because she says, “Your gardens are beautiful.”
“You should see them in the daylight,” Amy tells her.
“I’d love to.”
Amy tilts her head to the side. “You’re a gardener?”
“Yes. Our growing season is short as far north as we are. But there’s something about soil under my fingernails and the sun on my back that just feels … right.”
