Secrets She Left Behind (46 page)

Keith
One Month after the Fire

I
LIKE HOW I CAN SIT IN THE SAND WITH MY BACK AGAINST
the old concrete wall of Jamie Lockwood’s chapel and no one can see me. My mother’s service was the first time I’d ever been to that end of the island, even though I’d lived less than ten miles from it all my life. I could see why someone—why my father—would pick that spot for a church. Peaceful and quiet and surrounded by water.

It’s pretty cold, sitting here, though. The breeze is blowing hard off the ocean, but I came prepared with a blanket to wrap up in. I wanted to think about maybe building a house on this spot. I have money now. Lots of it. Three hundred fifty-five fucking thousand dollars, to be exact. Mister Johnson tracked the necklace down to this online auction house. They’d been trying to find my mother, but she’d gotten a new e-mail address to use with them and no one knew about it. I’m probably as rich as I’m ever going to be, and Laurel said I could pick some Lockwood land to build on if I want. But sitting on this bit of land where the chapel had been, with the wind practically blowing me away, I know this won’t be it. First storm that hits the island, my house would be toast. My father must have been a crazy man.

I was spending my days since the fire helping Marcus with the
tower. It was still a wreck inside, but we were making progress. The first day after the fire, Marcus asked me to start the cleanup in the living room. When I hesitated, he told me to go upstairs instead. He knew without me telling him that I didn’t want to be in the room where Jen had been found. I didn’t want to think about her or talk about her or ever hear her name again. Man, I’d been played for the fool before, but not like that. She’d handed me that story about her parents being divorced and her father who wanted her to hunt with him and her brother getting burned in chemistry class. All cock-and-bull. Flip put the truth together from talking to her friends: She was a twenty-year-old, very blond art major at UNC in Asheville. Her father left when she was a baby. Her mother, of course, drove off the high-rise bridge. She had one sister—Jordy—who’d wanted to visit her at UNC the weekend of the lock-in. Jen was hung up on some guy and wanted to be with him, though, so she told Jordy she couldn’t come, which was why Jordy was at the lock-in and why she died. I guess Jen had a problem living with that guilt. Andy must have seen her at the memorial service for the fire victims, since the victims’ families all sat in the front row and he was up there for being “the hero” and all.

I keep remembering Jen’s last words to me as she walked backward out of her house the night of the fire. How I was beautiful. How I should remember that. She said it like she meant it, and I’ve decided to believe she did.

A small yacht is sailing into the inlet from the ocean in front of me. I watch it move from right to left, and I can see a couple of guys inside the cabin. Lucky bastards. Not a care in the world. Maybe I should buy a boat and skip the house idea?

I can see the wake from the yacht lapping against the sand a few yards from where I’m sitting. I think,
My mother’s ashes are in that
water.
I remember what Maggie’d said about my father’s ashes being scattered in the same place. My mother really loved him. I could tell that from her notebooks. She’d never gone out with anybody since he died. I hadn’t given it all that much thought—I never wanted to know about my mother’s love life—but maybe she never went out with anyone because no one measured up to my father, at least not in her mind.

Man, I love reading those notebooks. I understand who she was when I read them. I even understand who
I
am.

When I was about three years old, I stopped crying over things. I toughened up, I guess. Probably some dude told me my mother needed me to be a man, and I took it to heart and never let anything get to me enough to make me cry. During the year and a half after the lock-in fire, though, I cried a lot. My life sucked, and it would catch up to me, and I’d just crack.

But I haven’t cried about my mother. Not even when I read the notebooks. I feel really okay. I feel good. My mother didn’t mean to, but she left me an awesome gift, and I’m not talking about the necklace. The money. What she left me is a whole lot better than that.

She left me her story.

Many people pitched in as I wrote
Secrets She Left Behind,
helping me understand everything from the juvenile justice system to the plight of a family when someone “goes missing” to the geography of Topsail Island.

For answering my many questions about the police response to a missing adult, my thanks go to Sergeant Art Cunio and Chief Mike Halstead of the Surf City, North Carolina, Police Department. My fictional police department will never measure up to yours!

For helping me understand the impact on a family when a loved one disappears, thank you to Project Jason founder Kelly Jolkowski and Project Jason volunteer Denise Gibb. You two give families hope.

For their unflagging support, thank you to my favorite booksellers, Nancy Olson of Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh and Lori Fisher of Quarter Moon Books in Topsail Beach.

For always being there, ready and willing to brainstorm at a moment’s notice, thanks go to my Scribbler buddies: Mary Kay Andrews, Margaret Maron, Katy Munger, Sarah Shaber, Alexandra Sokoloff and Brenda Witchger.

For allowing me to use their Topsail Island homes for my research trips, thank you to Susan Rouse and Dave and Elizabeth Samuels.

For writing
Topsail Island: Mayberry by the Sea,
my favorite book about the area, thank you, Ray McAllister.

For their various contributions, I’d also like to thank Jean Beasley, Ken and Angie Bogan, Sterling Bryson, BJ Cothran, Evonne Hopkins, Kate Kaprosy, Lottie Koenig, Holly Nicholson, Glen Pierce, Adelle Stavis and Roy Young.

For listening patiently to my story ideas, reading first drafts, being my resident photographer, smoothing my furrowed brow when I hit a snag in the plot and cooking when I’m on deadline, thank you to John Pagliuca.

As always, I’m grateful to my editor Miranda Indrigo and my agent Susan Ginsburg. I’m lucky to have you two in my corner!