Page 70 of Dreams of Falling
Larkin began folding the scattered clothes as she spoke. “Mrs. Lynch was cleaning out her garage and found a bunch of papers that had belonged to her father when he was the fire chief.”
Ceecee felt a frisson of alarm begin at the base of her spine, but she didn’t look up at Bitty. She couldn’t.
“Anyway, he hadn’t kept much, but he did keep a folder about my grandmother and the fire. It included her obituary. There was a picture of her in her wedding dress.” She stopped moving for a moment and looked directly at Ceecee. “I don’t think I’d ever seen a picture of her before. I didn’t realize how much I look like her.”
“You do,” Ceecee agreed. “Sometimes, when you walk into the room, I can almost think it’s her.”
“Do I act like her?”
“No,” Bitty said quickly. She met Ceecee’s eyes for a moment. “Margaret wasn’t like anyone else. She was beautiful, and kind, and giving until...”
“Until her parents were killed,” Ceecee said, cutting her off. “She’d lived the perfect life before that, you see. And she wasn’t prepared to deal with her new... imperfect life.”
Bitty coughed, turning away with her hand over her mouth. “I guess that’s a nice way to say it.”
Larkin turned to Bitty. “Are you saying she changed after her parents died?”
“No. More like...”
“I have photo albums in the attic, Larkin,” Ceecee said, cutting Bitty off. “You might want to look at them. There’re photos of your grandmother when she was younger. But you’re going to have to go up to find them. I don’t think I can manage those stairs anymore.”
“Thank you,” Larkin said, closing a dresser drawer with her hip. “I will.” She turned around to face them, leaning against the dresser. “There was something else in the file, too, that I was hoping one of you might be able to explain.”
Ceecee schooled her expression into bland interest. “And that was...?”
“The official report of the fire that showed one person deceased—Margaret. The cause of the fire was marked as ‘undetermined.’”
Ceecee nodded. “Yes, that’s how I remember it. Don’t you, Bitty?”
It took Bitty a split second to nod her head in agreement.
“But that’s not all. Someone—Bennett and I were thinking it wasprobably his grandfather, since he was the fire chief back then—had handwritten the word ‘suspicious.’”
Ceecee found herself wondering if the blood could freeze inside your veins on a warm day. Or if she would be the first. She wasn’t sure where she found her voice to ask, “Was there anything else? Any further explanation?”
Larkin shook her head. “No. But there were a lot of papers, and Bennett said he’d go through them and let me know if he found anything new.”
“Maybe when the cause of a fire can’t be determined, they consider it suspicious,” Ceecee said, avoiding Bitty’s gaze.
“Maybe,” Bitty said.
“So, you never heard anything about a formal investigation, no rumors of anything suspicious?”
Ceecee shook her head. “No. I was interviewed, of course, because I was there. But I have no memories of the night. All I remember is falling asleep, and then waking up outside with Ivy.”
“Why were you there—at Carrowmore? That was the day after the hurricane.”
Ceecee imagined she could hear the wind and the rain, the distant sirens. Taste the salt in the air. Hear, somewhere in the house, glass splintering as debris smashed a window. She’d been upstairs, in one of the guest rooms. She remembered that, remembered that there was no electricity and she’d left the drapes open so she could watch the fading daylight as the hurricane blew itself back to the sea. She remembered, too, that she hadn’t been afraid.
She met Larkin’s questioning gaze. “I came to Carrowmore looking for Margaret and Ivy. I wanted to make sure they were safe.”
“But where was everyone else? Where was Margaret’s husband?”
“He’d been called away,” Ceecee said. “And Margaret... wasn’t well. She had what we called the ‘baby blues’—of course, now it’s postpartum depression. And I’m sure that wasn’t all of it—she missed her parents something awful, to start. There were other disappointments she’d faced in a short period of time. But she loved her baby; there was never any doubt about that. She was just... sad all the time. So, whenwe heard there was a hurricane coming, we were worried when we couldn’t find her.”
“And you, Bitty? Where were you?” Larkin asked.
Ceecee imagined she could hear the room hold its breath in anticipation.
