Rebecca wanted to be really close to Sam, but it was impossible, as long as Sam had Isabel. Sam and Isabel had been friends forever, since before the beginning. Their mothers had sat together on the beach when they had been pregnant, the two about-to-be moms in a tight friendship knot that included Kate and Lulu—both non-mom types. But even so, the four of them were blood-sister close. They even had a name for their friendship—the Compass Rose. Four directions on the compass.
“I just want to help you,” Rebecca said.
“Thanks,” Sam said, forcing a smile. But she knew: no one could help. She had thought her family was one way, and it had turned out to be another. Sam knew why her mother had gotten pregnant when things were so bad with her dad, even without being told. Matthew was going to be hers, just the way Tyler was his. Sam hated to even think this about her mother, but it was almost as if she was having a baby out of spite.
They parked along the stone wall next to the boat basin and walked up to the Waterstons’ front porch. Isabel’s parents were abnormally normal. They had cookouts and went waterskiing. They played Scrabble and Mad Libs. Their life didn’t revolve around nineteenth-century art, acquisitions and sales, provenance, pretending to be happy while one of them was fucking the assistant, having babies all over the place.
Mrs. Waterston was the sweetest, just like Sam’s mom; that hug at the airport had melted Sam’s heart, reminded her of how her mom had always hugged—full blast. The only thing was, sometimes she could be a little judgmental. Like, watching the news, she always remarked about how stupid people were, or how they deserved what they got because of their own bad actions. But she never said things like that about their circle.
“Well, we can’t all be perfect like you, Scotty,” Mr. Waterston had said once. Sam had cringed, because she’d seen the hurt cross Mrs. Waterston’s face.
She really was Sam’s second-favorite mom in the world. Sam glanced around for her—she craved another one of those hugs.
Isabel was waiting on the front porch. She stood when she saw Sam coming, and they ran together and held each other. Isabel was Sam’s soul sister, and Sam knew instantly that she instantly got it.
“Oh, Sam,” Isabel whispered. “Nothing, nothing could be worse. I am so sorry.”
“Thanks, Izz.”
“My mom’s falling apart over it,” Isabel said.
Sam drew back and saw the sadness on Isabel’s face.
“Where is she?” Sam asked.
“At the beach, and my dad’s at work,” Isabel said. She imitated putting a joint to her lips, and Sam felt her heart ease a little. That was the gift of having someone truly understand and know what would help. Isabel reached into her pocket. Sam flicked her lighter.
“Don’t do that. It’s bad,” Julie said from under a wicker table.
“I didn’t know you were there,” Sam said, crouching down, lifting the flowered cloth to see seven-year-old Julie. Blonde and pale, she wore glasses with blue frames that slipped down her freckled nose. She had an audio processing disability that wasn’t immediately obvious, but kids in school picked up on it and bullied her.
Julie wouldn’t meet Sam’s gaze at first, but then she stole a glance, blinked, and looked away again. It was hard for her, even though Sam had known her since birth. She was severely shy, always hovering just out of sight. When she did talk, it tended to be disjointed and blunt.
“Your mother died,” Julie said.
“Yes,” Sam said.
“You are sad.”
“Very.”
Julie nodded, still looking away.
“Mommy said the bad man hurt her,” Julie said.
“Yes, someone did.”
“Weird and bad,” Julie said.
“Enough, okay, Julie?” Isabel asked.
“Don’t smoke,” Julie said.
“You tell, and you’re in trouble,” Isabel said.
Julie scooted back out of sight. Sam let the edge of the tablecloth drop. Then she stood up and filled her lungs with smoke until they burned, and she knew that Julie, through whatever circuits her mind worked, was right. “Weird and bad,” Sam said out loud as she exhaled the smoke.
11
Kate followed Pete up the river road, in no danger of being seen. Once he left Bryer Funeral Home, passed the library, and headed north, she knew exactly where he was going. A dump truck from Pawlik Construction, loaded with trap rock, rumbled between her car and Pete’s, belching black exhaust. The countryside was beautiful—rolling hills overlooking the Connecticut River and Sill Cove—the same landscape painted by the Black Hall Colony artists. But development was rampant—lots clear-cut, three-hundred-year-old trees felled, and acres of wildlife habitat destroyed for ugly six-thousand-square-foot houses.
Cloudlands, Mathilda’s property, was high on Sachem Hill. The stately white house had been built in 1745 by Judge Thomas Ludlow in the midst of one hundred acres of forest and meadows sloping down to a tidal inlet. Kate watched Pete drive between the tall stone pillars that marked the beginning of the mile-long private road.
Instead of going in that way, she turned left down an untended dirt trail that belonged to the property and skirted the cove out of sight of the driveway and house. The family used to come here to swim and canoe and have picnics. She parked where the pebble-strewn road dead-ended in a thatch of marsh grass.
At the sound of an engine, she turned around and saw a black Dodge Charger bouncing over the ruts. It stopped behind her Porsche, and she recognized Conor’s unmarked state police vehicle.
“What are you doing?” he asked, getting out.
“I own this place, I told you. My grandmother’s,” she said.
“I know that, but why are you here now? You’re following Pete?”
“You’re following me?”
“No, him. But you got in the middle. I saw you all at the funeral home.”
“Yes, we were there,” she said.
“What are these steps?” he asked, pointing at the steep stairs carved into the granite ledge, shaded by tall pines, half overgrown by myrtle and poison ivy, green with moss.
“They lead to the house,” she said, looking up. “We used to come down here to swim and canoe and have picnics. They’re a shortcut, and if we hurry, we’ll beat Pete.”
She took the steps two at a time, and although it was a hot day and Conor was wearing a jacket and tie, he kept up without losing his breath. So she went faster. Something drove her to practically run the 473 steps—she and Beth had counted once—to the clearing behind the house.
They stayed in the shadows of what the family called Mathilda’s Forest. The clay tennis court was sprouting weeds, and the deep stone swimming pool was dry. But Harold Maxwell, the gardener, still came once a week, and the blue hydrangeas were as dazzling as ever. Black-eyed Susans, pink and white phlox, and bee balm grew tall along the stone wall circling the house. Kate had refused to allow the big center chimney to be capped—both Beth and Pete had argued that squirrels could get inside, but Kate had prevailed—and a family of endangered chimney swifts wheeled through the blue sky above the roof.
“Why are you following him?” Conor asked.
“Because of what you said last night.”