It was a hot August day. The sand—though not as crowded as July—was still covered with low chairs, striped umbrellas, beach blankets. Scotty sat below the tide line, her chair so close to the edge that small waves licked her toes. She waved Lulu over. Lulu gave her a long hug, then sat in the wet sand beside her.
“It’s awful,” Scotty said.
Lulu’s mind was still on the graffiti, but then reality slammed back.
“Beth,” Lulu said.
“We just can’t believe it. It’s all beyond. Nick was on the boat with Pete when he got the news. He had to call and tell me! That’s how I found out. Lulu, I thought I would die too. I’m still in shock over it; we all are.”
“How is Kate?”
“You haven’t seen her yet?” Scotty asked.
“I’m going to today.” The words kicked Lulu’s heart rate up. She started to stand, brushing sand off, noticing the blood from her scraped thigh had pretty much stopped. The cuts weren’t deep, but they stung.
“That’s good, Lulu. She’s such a tough girl, but she needs us.”
“I know. I’m heading to meet her now.”
“I wish I could be with you two, but I have to volunteer in New London. Beth got me started working at the soup kitchen once a week, and today’s my day. I did it for her, and I don’t know, I guess I’ll keep at it for now.”
“Does Jed still go there?” Lulu asked.
“I haven’t seen him since Beth died,” Scotty said.
“So no one has talked to him?”
“Well, I haven’t,” Scotty said, her voice sounding surprisingly sharp.
Lulu was about to ask her what was bothering her, but Scotty gasped. “Oh God, no,” Scotty said. “I can’t believe it. Don’t turn around.”
Lulu immediately turned her head and saw Pete walking down the hot sand from the seawall toward the tide line. He carried two chairs, a beach bag, and an umbrella. Nicola walked beside him, holding a baby in a pale-blue sun hat.
“What gall, what absolute nerve of him to parade around with her,” Scotty said.
“That’s not new,” Lulu said. “He hasn’t exactly been discreet.”
“I know, but have some decency, so soon after your wife’s been murdered.”
“I guess there’s no point in hiding now,” Lulu said and stared: Pete was tan, his hair sun bleached, his hibiscus-printed board shorts salt-water faded. He frowned with concentration as he worked the aluminum umbrella stand into the sand, set up the chairs, shook out and arranged the blanket. Lulu’s stomach clenched because she recognized it: a Hudson Bay blanket from L.L.Bean. She knew where Pete had found it.
She and Kate had pulled it from Mathilda’s linen closet back when they were in high school, taken it camping and beaching. White with black, yellow, red, and green stripes at one end—the white had yellowed over the years and with outdoor use.
“They’re still living at Cloudlands?” Lulu asked.
“Yup,” Scotty said. “So far Sam hasn’t wanted to go home, so that’s his excuse.”
“I can’t see Kate letting them stay at Mathilda’s much longer.”
“Why Beth did, I’ll never know,” Scotty said.
Pete held the baby while Nicola settled herself on the blanket. She smiled as she reached up to take her son. Pete’s face was impassive—or was that still a frown, the wrinkles in his brow, his set mouth? Nicola bent her head to free her left breast, and Pete draped a towel over her shoulder as she began to feed the baby.
“Jesus,” Scotty said, turning away.
“Seriously, you have a problem with that?”
“Of course not. I’m just thinking of Beth and Matthew.”
Lulu squeezed her eyes tight. She pictured Beth, heard her soft voice. Can you keep a secret? When she opened her eyes, she looked at her hand, saw the small scar. It reminded her of the last time she saw Beth. A huge shiver ran through her body.
“What’s wrong?” Scotty asked.
“It’s just all so sad,” Lulu said, giving her a hug. “I’ve got to go see Kate.”
“Don’t leave me alone with those two right there.”
“Just look the other way,” Lulu said. And she stood behind Scotty’s chair and swiveled it, the aluminum rungs digging through the sand, so it was facing away from Pete and his new family.
“Thanks,” Scotty said, but she moved her chair back to where it had been. “Look at him. Flaunting his other family. People are saying he killed her to be with them. I just can’t bear thinking about it.”
Lulu didn’t reply. It was all too depressing. When she got to her green Range Rover in the sandy parking lot, she pulled a white cotton sundress over her damp bathing suit and drove out of Hubbard’s Point. She pictured Pete and Nicola on the beach. He was a creep; there was no doubt about it.
But Beth hadn’t been a saint either.
21
Kate had arranged to meet Lulu at Cloudlands. Mathilda’s 120-acre property ranged across two hilltops in the lower Connecticut River Valley, with views of Essex and the estuary, down to the two lighthouses at Saybrook Point, then across Long Island Sound to Orient Point. Late golden light filled the haze, made the river shimmer like a blue mirage.
Mathilda had loved follies—little secret places built of stone, set all around her property. Kate sat in her favorite now, the crenellated tower of small stone hideaway built in homage to Gillette Castle up the river. She opened the heavy manila envelope she’d brought to show Lulu and withdrew the small key she’d found in Beth’s desk. She had tried it everywhere she could think of, but it was such an unusual size it didn’t fit any lock. Right now, in the tower, she stared at a weathered wooden door. It was only waist high, and she remembered looking inside as a little girl—Mathilda had kept some garden supplies in there. She tried Beth’s key now but no luck.
When she looked up, she saw Lulu walking across the wide lawn. Kate saw in her the sixteen-year-old girl she used to be, carefree in that white dress, in the way she waved and started to run when she spotted Kate.
“Finally,” Kate said when Lulu had climbed the stairs.
“I’m sorry,” Lulu said, squeezing beside her on the narrow bench, throwing her arms around Kate, kissing her forehead, both cheeks. “There’s no excuse for taking so long.”
“You’re right; there isn’t,” Kate said. “You were in Tokyo?”
“And Beijing, and . . .”
“But you couldn’t make it back for Beth’s funeral?”
“Katy, I hate myself,” Lulu said. “But I literally couldn’t show up. I was so afraid.”
“Of what?”
“You?”
Kate was stunned. “What are you talking about?”
“I just couldn’t bear to see you. It’s the most unbearable thing, you losing Beth. I couldn’t face you, Kate. I was too scared . . . of this.”
“But I’ve needed you,” Kate said. She rarely cried except, for some reason, with Lulu. She tried to blink back a million burning tears, but they poured down her face.
“Our girl, our South,” Lulu said.