Page 72 of Trick of Light
“It’s okay, don’t worry.” Barnaby switched to his calm-in-an-emergency voice, the one he’d used with Safiya on the Lightkeeper lawn. “Your name will never come up, I promise. No one will ever know.” He shot Gabby a sharp warning look she could interpret perfectly well—keep Nancy’s name off the podcast.
She nodded reluctantly, knowing she could write around it if necessary.
“I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there, I didn’t see it. I can’t understand how such a thing is even possible. She was fine after the birth. It went smooth as butter. When I left the birthing room, there was barely any cleanup left to do. All her vitals were fine, better than fine. She wanted to go home that night, but John insisted she stay one more just to be safe. The next day, she was gone and there was a pool of blood under the bed…so much blood and vomit. It must have been a stabbing, or a gunshot, but how could anyone get weapons into the maternity wing? I couldn’t understand it. I tried to ask questions, but no one would say anything, and then the lawyer came and asked me to sign the NDA. There was…there was some money too. I’m embarrassed to say it. I had a small child myself and…”
“I understand.” Barnaby tried to soothe her, while also following the road signs guiding them to the Swan Harbor marina. Maybe they should have pulled over to make this call. She gave him credit for keeping his head while hearing about the pool of blood under his mother’s hospital bed. “Please don’t beat yourself up. I’m grateful you’re speaking to me.”
“I’m happy to.” She gave a little sob. “It’s been eating at me all these years. I’ve tried to make sense of it. I think…well, I have a theory of my own. But it’s just a theory.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Well, there was that woman who came in, acting like she was better than the rest of us, like we were her servants. None of us liked her. When she was in the room with Sophie, I got a bad feeling. This was before the birth. I tried to hang around and pretend I was busy taking her vitals, but she told me to leave. I heard them arguing, but I don’t know what about. All I could make out was that bitch saying, ‘you’ll never get anything,’ and Sophie saying, ‘I already have all I need,’ and that was it.”
Gabby leaned closer to the phone to pose a question. “Was that Elle Evans? We saw that name on the visitor log.”
“Maybe, but Sophie called her something else.”
“What?”
“Ann something.”
“Was it Annabeth?” Gabby asked into the sudden silence from Barnaby.
“I think so, yes.”
31
“Jesus, this just gets better and better,” Barnaby growled as he pulled the Land Rover into one of the last free spots in the Swan Harbor Marina parking lot. “My stepmother might have murdered my real mother and my father covered it up like it was nothing.”
“One step at a time here.” Gabby was already scanning the marina for the boat they’d seen on Facebook.
Nice try, he thought. But things were looking pretty freaking dire. “She had means. Annabeth was probably one of the few people who could get a weapon onto the floor without getting stopped. Wealthy white women can get away with a lot. She had opportunity, obviously. And she had motivation. She didn’t want her husband’s lover hanging around.”
“So she killed her? In a hospital, after signing in on the visitor’s log?” Gabby pointed to a slip at the far end of the marina. “That looks like the one.”
“Maybe she knew her billionaire husband would keep her out of trouble.”
“Well, you know Annabeth. Do you think she would have done that?”
He’d been asking himself that same question ever since they hung up with Nancy. “They divorced when I was a baby, so I can’t say that I know Annabeth at all. She didn’t stay very involved in our lives, just visits now and then.”
“Can you call her?”
Radical thought. He tried to imagine how that would go. Haven’t spoken in a while, how are ya? Did you kill my mother? “I’m not sure how far I’d get with that.”
“Sometimes it’s worth it to see how people react, even if they don’t tell you the truth.”
He looked at her in the passenger seat, her metallic sunglasses making her look like a movie star, and wondered if all this drama would make her walk away. Her parents were solid citizens, respected in their professions, highly accomplished, contributing to the community. Then there was him, drowning in money and secrets.
“Are you okay?” she asked gently. “I know this is a lot.”
He didn’t want to voice his fear just yet. “I’m fine. How about you? This isn’t necessarily related to your story about Sasha Mackey and her lineage. If you want to skip it and get back to the island I can call a water taxi for you.”
She tilted her head with a teasing smile. “Trying to get rid of me? Not a chance. Besides, didn’t we just discover that it all could be related? Jill Garner was there when Sophie died. Keith Garner was Amelia’s student and lived in her house. Sophie is Tamara’s daughter, and Sasha is related to Tamara. What if it is all connected? And then there’s another thing…”
His head was starting to hurt, but he gestured for her to continue. “What’s that?”
“Did you catch Nancy’s reference to blood and vomit?”
