Suspicion (4 page)

Ms. Forman frowns.

“Imogen, we have another thirty minutes left.”

“I know, but I’m just not up for talking right now.” I give her a pleading look. “Can’t we just finish this the next time we meet?”

Ms. Forman hesitates. “All right. I won’t force you to stay.” She eyes me carefully before scribbling something in her notepad. “Take care, Imogen.”

And with that, I practically fly out of her office, able to breathe normally again now that I’m no longer being asked to rehash the past.

That night, as I’m setting the table for dinner, I hear the shrill ring of our landline.

“I’ll get it,” I call out, dashing into the empty kitchen and grabbing the phone. “Hello?”

“Good evening. May I please speak to Lady Imogen Rockford?”

My stomach lurches. The man’s English accent reminds me of my father. And … why is this stranger calling me
Lady
Imogen? How does he even know that I’m a Rockford?

“This—this is Imogen,” I finally answer, dizzily.

I hear a sharp intake of breath, but before the man on the other end of the line can respond, someone yanks the phone from my hands.

“Hey! That was for me—” I stop short at the look on Keith’s face.

“For the last time, stop harassing my family,” he says through gritted teeth. “My daughter has nothing to discuss with you.”

I stare at him openmouthed as he throws the phone onto the kitchen counter.

“Um …
what
was that?”

Keith rubs his forehead wearily.

“Sorry, sweetie. I didn’t mean to scare you. That was another lawyer from overseas. My firm beat his in an arbitration case and it’s costing him a lot of money, so he’s been trying to frighten me into paying him off, by bothering our family.” He sighs heavily. “It’s a long story.”

“Jeez, that’s terrible. I’m sorry.” A thought suddenly occurs to me. “But how did he know my last name? If he thinks I’m your daughter, wouldn’t he assume that I’m a Marino? And why would he call me
Lady
Imogen?”

Keith hesitates.

“He makes it his business to know these things, and especially being in England, he—he probably read about you in the papers. But don’t worry, kiddo, he’s all talk. Besides, you know I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you.”

I shiver as I remember another, far-off voice saying those same words to me—the precociously polished voice of my cousin Lucia, begging me to stay.

“Let’s forget about him. What do you say?” Keith gives me a reassuring smile.

“Yeah. Sure.” My mind is already miles away.

I finish setting the table on autopilot, and moments later I’m sitting down to dinner with my second family, in the chair that I’ve occupied for the last seven years. After we’ve all filled our plates with Carole’s signature salad and pot roast, Zoey clears her throat loudly, which is usually a sign that she’s about to ask for something.

“So. Um. I got invited to Grad Night.” She says it casually, but her bright eyes betray her excitement.

“You did? Isn’t that only for seniors?” Carole asks skeptically.

“Yeah, but they can invite whoever they want. And today after school, Jason Mendes invited
me
.” Her last word is practically a squeak. “You know what an honor it is for a sophomore to go. So … I can go, right?”

“It’s Imogen’s night, so it’s up to her,” Keith says, turning to me. “How do you feel about your sister being there, sweetie?”

I don’t answer right away. Grad Night is supposed to be just for seniors, one last night for us all to be together and let loose, and I haven’t exactly envisioned chaperoning Zoey as part of the equation. But when I look at her hopeful face, I know I could never let her down.

“It’s cool,” I tell her.

“Omigosh, thank you!” Zoey leaps out of her chair to give me a hug. “You’re the best sister in the world.”

I can’t help feeling a warm glow as she squeezes me happily and Keith and Carole smile at me from across the table. I may not be a Marino by blood, but I know I’m loved all the same. And that makes it a little easier to be okay with the decision I made a long time ago—to say goodbye to Grandfather and Lucia and turn my back on Rockford Manor.

I
fall asleep to memories floating before my eyes, like 3-D images I can almost reach out and touch. I am ten years old again, and sweating through my thick black mourning clothes as the sun beats down from above. I stare up at the sky. How can the sun be so disloyal as to go on shining, when my whole world has turned dark?

It is my last day at Rockford Manor, and though desperate to be alone, I’m trailed by Carole and Keith, who have arrived to escort me home to New York. They follow me now as I climb the grassy hill to Rockford Chapel and Cemetery, at the farthest reaches of the Rockford grounds.

I approach the newest gravestones, and it seems as though I’m outside my own body—a pitying spectator watching a stranger perform the harrowing task of visiting her parents’ graves. That grim-faced little girl can’t actually be me; it
can’t
be my mum and dad who are gone. I still hold out hope that at any moment I’ll find my parents waiting for me, beaming as they tell me that it’s all been a terrible mistake, that there’s no need to worry, they’re here and we’re always going to be together—

Carole’s choked sob shatters this fantasy. I watch as she kneels at Mum’s gravestone, pressing her forehead against the marble. I long to do the same, to wrap my arms around my parents’ graves and pretend they’re hugging me back, to kiss their headstones and imagine that they can somehow feel me. But I can’t—I’m afraid of my touch, of what it might do. So I can only stare, rereading the words on the two linked graves.

“What does that mean?” I ask Carole when she steps back beside me. “ ‘The key to the Promised Land’?”

“I don’t know.” She glances up at Keith. “They must have specified that epitaph in their will.”

The three of us turn around at the sound of footsteps crunching on the fallen leaves. My chest tightens when I see who’s there: Lucia and Sebastian, hand in hand.

“Imogen. I knew I’d find you here,” she says, catching her breath. “I—we’ve—come to tell you something. You can’t go.” She draws herself up to her full height. “I’m now the Marchioness of Wickersham, and I—I command you to stay.”

I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

“I know you’re scared,” she says in a softer voice. “But I promise, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Keith steps forward before I can answer, wrapping a protective arm around my shoulder.

“Lady Lucia, I can’t tell you how sorry I am for your loss. There are no words. But I’m afraid Imogen does need to come home with us tonight. I know you two will miss each other, but you can still visit—”

“It’s not fair!” Lucia cries, balling her hands into fists. “Our grandfather lives here,
I
live here. How can you just take her away and leave me alone, with no parents and now no cousin? It’s not
right,
is it, Imogen?”

“Where did you go the night of the fire?” I blurt out instead. “Where were you?”

Lucia recoils, as if I’ve hurt her. Sebastian gives me an imploring glance.

“Ginny …”

But I don’t want to hear his voice; I don’t want him to talk me out of the one emotion that gives me any relief. Anger.

“I—I only went to get some air, I got hot!” Lucia sputters. “Is that a crime?”

“Did you see how the fire got started? No one else seems to know.” I fold my arms across my chest. “You were wandering around in the middle of the night, so you must know something.”

“Are you actually questioning
me
?” Lucia demands. “Because that’s a laugh, coming from you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw what you can do,” she hisses. “How do we know the fire wasn’t your fault?”

Her words feel like a slap across my face. I stumble backward, shaking my head no,
no.
It can’t be my fault … or can it? Carole jumps between us.

“That’s enough, girls. You don’t mean any of what you’re saying. You’re both hurting, and it’s natural to lash out at each other, but you have to remember that this terrible accident was just that—an accident. It’s nobody’s fault.”

After a long pause, I hear Sebastian’s voice, tinged with sadness.

“So … you’re really going, then, Ginny?”

I nod.

“I know it’s hard to understand after everything that’s happened, but the fact is, Imogen’s life is in New York,” Carole tries to explain. “That’s why her parents chose us to be her guardians in their will. They wouldn’t want her life uprooted any more than it has to be. England is your home, but it’s never been Imogen’s.”

“You won’t miss me anyway,” I tell Sebastian, my voice breaking on the last word. “You have each other.”

I turn on my heels, leaving Carole and Keith to reason with a still-arguing Lucia. I keep my head down as I descend the hill toward Rockford Manor, not noticing that I’m being followed until I feel a hand on my shoulder.

“It’s not true, what you said.”

I turn around at Sebastian’s voice, feeling a strange swooping in my stomach as I face him.

“What isn’t true?”

“That I won’t miss you. Because I will. I’ll miss you every summer and every holiday if you don’t come back,” he says, looking at me earnestly. “I’ll miss you every time I see a bell-flower or anything else that reminds me of my friend Ginny Rockford.”

Tears prick at the back of my eyelids as he speaks. He can’t know how much his words mean to me; how they make everything simultaneously better and worse. But before I can answer, Sebastian bends down and brushes his lips against my cheek. I gasp, reaching up to touch my face in awe. Nothing should be able to make me feel happy after all I’ve just lost—but this kiss, platonic though it may be, gives me a moment of pure joy.

“Goodbye, Ginny,” he says softly. “Till we meet again.”

“Goodbye,” I echo, still touching my cheek as he walks back to rejoin Lucia. When he’s no longer within earshot, I whisper, “I’ll never forget you.”

I wake from my dream with the nauseating pit in my stomach that I’ve come to associate with this memory—the last time I ever spoke to Lucia and Sebastian. For a long time, any recollection of Lucia left me tormented. Her name and face were inextricably tangled up with the horrors of the fire, and for reasons I still don’t understand, I blamed her—I blamed
us
. And the only way I could get through it all was by pretending that the previous years belonged to somebody else, that my real life began at age ten with the Marinos.

It’s not the bravest way of handling things, I know. And I can’t help thinking my parents would be hurt and disappointed in me for not honoring their memory the way I should. If I were stronger, I’d be able to talk about them freely and celebrate their lives, instead of hiding them in my heart. But when I try—when I remember the comfort of Mum’s arms and the adoring smile that Dad gave to only me—then I’m forced to also remember the gruesome images of the fire. Lucia leading me to witness the tragedy, my mother’s limp hand … And I
can’t
—I can’t think about them or miss them, because then the darkness beckons. So I’ve avoided any reminiscing with the Marinos about my family, and I haven’t stayed even remotely up to date on the happenings in Wickersham. My parents are reduced to names and photographs, their deaths a somber speech that I numbly recite whenever a curious new friend asks about my last name. It’s so much easier to pretend I never had another life … and yet the pangs of guilt are a constant.

One of the side effects of growing up is seeing things in a different light. And now, when I’m alone and brutally honest with myself, I face a different type of torment: regret for turning my back on my cousin, and for refusing every one of my grandfather’s invitations to visit Rockford. But then, as it turns out, Lucia didn’t really need me after all.

When I turned fourteen and the Marinos let me get a Facebook account, I couldn’t contain my curiosity. I looked Lucia up right away. She was almost unrecognizable at sixteen, but every bit as beautiful as I’d expected her to be. And then, without any warning, Sebastian’s face joined hers in the next photo. He was so handsome, his eyes so painfully familiar as the two of them smiled for the camera, that I slammed my laptop shut, vowing to never look for them again. But I always held out a sprig of hope that they might look for me—that they would find me on Facebook one day, and our friendship would start up again like no time had passed. Of course, it never happened. I guess I was right when I told Sebastian he wouldn’t miss me.

The doorbell rings, jarring me out of my thoughts. With a sigh and a stretch, I roll out of bed. I reach the front door just as Carole sleepily pads out of the kitchen, clutching a mug of coffee. She does a double take when she sees me.

“Morning, sweetie. Are you okay? You don’t need to be up for another hour.”

“I’m fine, I just woke up early. Did you hear the doorbell? Who would be coming over now?”

“The doorman said he was sending up someone from a messenger service,” Carole replies. “Who knew deliveries started at six a.m.?”

She opens the door. A scrawny twentysomething stands in the hallway, a thick envelope in his hands. He gives Carole a polite nod as he proffers the package.

“Good morning, ma’am. I have a delivery for a Lady Imogen Rockford.”

“That’s—that’s me!” I exclaim. “Although I’m not a
lady.
”

“She’s a minor,” Carole says hastily, grabbing the package. “I’ll sign for her.” After scrawling her signature and mumbling a barely audible goodbye, Carole closes the door on him.

“Let me see it.” I reach for the package, but to my astonishment, she holds it out of my grasp.

“Your father needs to see this first. It might be something to do with his—”

“I don’t care if it’s from the pissed-off lawyer! That package is mine, and I should be the one to open it,” I snap.

I peer closer at the envelope clutched in Carole’s fist. Unbeknownst to her, the return address peeks out through her fingers, and my heart nearly leaps into my throat as I make out the words.

Mr. Harry Morgan, Esq.

Rockford Manor

Wickersham, Oxfordshire, UK

“It’s from my grandfather’s house.” My voice is barely above a whisper. “I haven’t heard from him in … ages.”

Carole looks from me to the envelope, her face paling.

“I’m sorry, but your father has to see this first. We can discuss it over dinner tonight.”

“But—”

“No buts, Imogen. We’ll talk about it tonight,” she says firmly.

My shoulders slump in defeat, but then an idea strikes me. Without answering her, I turn on my heels and race back to my room.

I slide onto my desk chair, flip open my laptop, and Google “Harry Morgan Rockford Manor.” The first link that pops up is the official tourist website for Rockford Manor. My hands hesitate over the mouse—but then I hold my breath and click on it.

Images and words rush toward me as the screen loads. My stomach clenches at the sight of the striking, monumental Elizabethan castle looming in the main photo, surrounded by picture-perfect parkland. Rockford Manor is painfully familiar, yet the passing of seven years gives it a foreign quality, as though I’m looking at the set of a TV show, or another place that only feels real—but isn’t.