To the Grave (2 page)

“I'm leaving Aurora Falls forever. I've realized there's nothing here for me.”

“You made up your mind so quickly?”

“I came on a whim, but for some time I've had my doubts. Now I know this isn't what I want. I never want to see this town or anyone in it ever again.”

A beat of silence passed. Finally, the almost unrecognizable voice chuckled. “Beautiful Renée—still lying.”

“I'm not lying. I'm absolutely serious. Sincere.”

“You never were sincere and you aren't sincere now. You don't know the meaning of sincerity. Or faithfulness. Or simple human decency.”

The voice sounded as unemotional and final as a judge delivering a death sentence. In the other room, Freddy Mercury wailed, “Who wants to live forever?” Renée did. Although she had a feeling of doom, she wouldn't stop trying to survive this horror. She decided to try another tack. She didn't have to force the quiver in her voice. “I've changed.”

“Then why aren't you already gone?”

“I just wanted to explain myself. And I wanted to say good-bye.”

“Here. You wanted to explain yourself
here,
in this little cottage, when you just said you never wanted to see anyone in this town again.” Soft, mirthless laughter. “You can't stop lying even with a gun pointed at you.”

“I mean it. I know now that coming here was a mistake and I'll
never
come back to this place or to Aurora Falls.”

“We both know that's not true. You never stop pursuing what you want.”

Renée hated the desperation that made her voice shake. “Well, maybe I've changed my mind about what I want.”

“No … you … haven't.”

Now Renée's heart beat so hard she thought it might crack a rib. “Are you threatening to
murder
me?” Silence. A gaze burning into hers, an eerily inhuman smile, a gun pointed at her face. Inspiration struck her. “He knows where I am.”

“Of course he does. Do you think I'm stupid? Do you think I don't realize things aren't always as they seem?”

“If you're so smart, you know this won't be the end.” Renée's voice turned shrill. “It will only be the beginning, the beginning of a life of anxiety, of suspicion, of knowing you can't keep a secret forever—”

Renée did not have time to hear the sound of a .22-caliber gun firing with a sharp
ping
, or to feel the bullet pierce her right eye. Renée's head snapped back, then forward. She remained standing for a few seconds, blood beginning to stream down her cheek, over her lips, her chin, and onto her cashmere sweater. Finally, she fell forward, her face smashing against a rough hooked rug.

Her attacker watched until Renée went still with a last twitch of her manicured fingers. A booted foot slid beneath Renée's shoulder and gave it a hard flip, rolling her body on its back.

Renée wasn't beautiful anymore.

 

CHAPTER ONE

Catherine Gray positioned herself on the front lawn, held up her camera, and called for her sister to hurry. As soon as Marissa walked out the front door, Catherine yelled, “Smile!” and snapped her picture.

“Catherine, you are driving me nuts with that camera!” Marissa spluttered. “Besides, you took me by surprise!”

Catherine looked at the LCD display of her last shot. “Not great, Marissa—you're pop-eyed and your mouth is open. I'll take another one.”

“I don't want—”

“Now this time don't look like you've just seen aliens landing. Smile and one, two, three…”
Click.
Catherine checked the display and nodded. “Great!”

Marissa shook her head. “Did James know he was creating a monster when he decided to buy that expensive camera for your birthday?”

Catherine grinned sheepishly. “Probably not. And the camera wasn't his inspiration—I'd dropped hints for weeks.”

Marissa joined her sister and glanced at the picture. “Wonderful. Hair in a very sloppy ponytail, no makeup, and the denim jacket I sewed butterflies all over when I was sixteen. I look pathetic.”

“You look great—not a day over twenty-five.”

“I'm twenty-six,” Marissa said dryly.

“And you look twenty-five. You're aging gracefully.”

“You are, too, for a woman who's almost thirty.”

“Not for another ten months, and my thirties don't scare me at all,” Catherine said lightly. “After all, Mom was as beautiful at thirty-five as she was at twenty-five. I've seen her photographs. In fact, looking through family albums is what made me want to become a good photographer. I want to leave a record of our lives, just like Mom and Dad left for us. And we'll want a whole separate album for baby pictures.”

Marissa raised an eyebrow. “Is there something you'd like to tell me?”

“No, but someday I will, and someday you'll have something to tell me, and then I'll take hundreds of pictures of our children.”

Marissa laughed. “Pictures that will mortify them when they're teenagers and we drag out the albums and show the photos to their dates.”

“
I
won't. I'll make a point of never embarrassing my children.”

“Catherine, all parents embarrass their teenagers sometimes.”

“I'll prove you wrong.” Catherine gazed up at the crystalline blue sky, smiled, and headed for her white sedan. “It's an absolutely beautiful day. Come on before we lose the whole afternoon.”

“Uh, how about taking my car?” Marissa watched her sister's smile fade. “I know you aren't crazy about convertibles, but like you said, this is a beautiful day. We won't have many more until winter.” Catherine's gaze grew stubborn. Marissa walked behind her and started pushing her gently and relentlessly like a tugboat nudging a steamship into port. “This is the kind of day God made for rides in candy apple red Mustang convertibles! It'll be fun.”

Catherine sighed. “Okay, but don't drive like a bat out of hell like usual.”

“I won't,” Marissa said solemnly. “I don't want to wreck my car and destroy your wonderful camera. I'll drive just like you do.”

Marissa put on her large sunglasses and started out at a snail's pace, looking vigilant as she hunched over the steering wheel she clutched with both hands, not reaching for a CD, and braking with exaggeration at every stop sign.

Catherine finally burst into laughter. “I feel like I'm with a hundred-year-old chauffeur. I don't drive like this.” Marissa said nothing. “Okay, maybe I do sometimes, but I can't stand it when
you
do. Put on some music and pick up the pace!”

Marissa grinned, slipped in a Natasha Bedingfield CD, and pressed her foot harder on the accelerator. Catherine tipped back her head, letting the wind lift her long, honey brown hair. She closed her heather green eyes, listening to “Pocketful of Sunshine” and letting the gentle late October sun warm her face.

Catherine knew family and friends considered her the sensible, cautious sister versus free-spirited Marissa, and during her late childhood she'd started trying to live up to their image. Few people realized how often Catherine had wanted to give in to her own devil-may-care impulses, but after years of constant levelheaded behavior letting go was hard. Ever since she'd moved into the Gray family home left to the sisters after their mother's death, though, Catherine had felt her restraints loosening and a different side of her personality creeping out to greet the sun.

“I told you it would be fun!” Marissa shouted over the loud music.

Catherine merely smiled and then raised her arms, swaying them in time with the music as if she were at a rock concert. Marissa laughed.

They drove south, away from the city and the Aurora waterfall. Catherine remembered that when Marissa was eight she'd begun telling the story of Sebastian Larke, who'd discovered the falls in 1770, which she'd called ancient times. Sebastian had named the waterfall for a Greek goddess, she'd explained. Catherine had listened patiently to Marissa's remarkably accurate lectures about the wide, horseshoe-shaped falls that measured 124 feet high and cascaded into the Orenda River, the third-largest river in the “United States of America,” Marissa had always announced proudly. Then, with her brilliantly blue eyes cast down, her voice beyond sad, she'd ended, “And he never, ever got married and had kids, the poor, lonely guy.”

“Remember when you used to make Mom, Dad, and me listen to your account of Sebastian Larke finding the falls?” Catherine asked suddenly. “You got so carried away one time, you announced that you were meant to be Sebastian's wife—God just got mixed-up and you were born too late.”

Marissa laughed. “I was a weird kid.”

“You were a smart, imaginative kid. I always felt like you could really see Sebastian Larke work during the day building the town, and then go back to his lonely cabin at night. You were wrong about one thing, though. God didn't mean for you to be with Sebastian. He meant for you to be with Eric Montgomery.”

“Oh, really? Did God tell you that in person?”

“He told me in a dream,” Catherine returned in a soft, undulating voice, her eyes closed. “He said, ‘Eric will become master of Sebastian's creation, the city of Aurora Falls, and rule it with Marissa by his side. It is meant to be.'”

“Have you been calling those psychic hotlines? Or do you believe
you
can see the future?” Marissa returned with mock solemnity. “You'll have to tell Eric about your dream. He's afraid he'll lose the election for sheriff and then he won't become the master of Aurora Falls. Oh, you can leave out the part about me being by his side.”

Catherine's eyes snapped open. “What? Are you and Eric breaking up?”

“No, but I don't want him getting too confident.” Marissa grinned. “Got to keep him on his toes, make him think he must still woo me with flowers and candy and give me an impressive engagement ring for Christmas.”

“I think you're awful for plotting to get a specific gift.”

“I know. I feel extremely guilty about it. I guess I'm just like my sister.”

“I wanted a camera, not an engagement ring.”

Marissa grinned. “Sure, Catherine. I guess if James Eastman had proposed on your birthday and given you a ring instead of a camera you'd have told him to jump over the falls.”

Catherine ignored her sister and closed her eyes again, thinking that just last year at this time she couldn't have imagined herself riding in Marissa's car as they went to look at land owned by the Eastmans. When she'd left Aurora Falls at seventeen to attend the University of California at Berkeley, she'd known she wanted to be a clinical psychologist, which would require a Ph.D. Somewhere in a hazy future, Catherine had thought, she'd be married to a man she had yet to meet and have a child. She'd never dreamed she'd end up right where she started and dating a guy she'd loved for years.

“You're smiling,” Marissa said. “Thinking of James?”

“Why don't you watch the road instead of staring at me?”

“Oh, I can do both,” Marissa returned airily. “Were you thinking of James?”

“You'll never leave me alone until I give in and tell you.” Catherine opened her eyes. “Ten years ago I would never have pictured myself coming back to Aurora Falls to live with my sister.”

“I know the thought of living with me would bring a smile to anyone's face,” Marissa said dryly, “but I believe you were also thinking about James.”

“Okay, I was thinking of him. I remember hoping he'd notice me someday.”

“And he did. Therefore, the smile.”

“Yeah.” Catherine's thoughts spun over all the years she'd loved James Eastman; then slowly her smile faded. “Do you ever feel like things are too good to be true?”

“Do you mean like things that happen to me are too good to be true?”

“Well, maybe sometimes.” After a moment she said, “When Eric and I got back together after five years I felt at first that it was too good to be true. Maybe that's why I kept pushing him away.” She paused. “Are you feeling like you being with James is too good to be true?”

“Well, being with James is wonderful. I guess sometimes I feel it's too wonderful because he was married.”

“Oh no.” Marissa grimaced. “You've been thinking about Renée. Why?”

“Mrs. Paralon mentioned her to me the other day.”

“Mrs. Paralon rehashes forty-year-old gossip as if it's hot off the press. No one pays any attention to her.”

“Maybe. But it made me think of Renée, especially when Dad insisted that
all
of us attend James's wedding to her in New Orleans.”

“Jeez, Catherine, that was years ago!”

“Yes, but I'll always remember it as one of the worst experiences of my life.”

“Well, don't get mad at Dad about it now. He and James's father had been friends forever and the families were friends—we couldn't skip the wedding.”

“
I
didn't have to go.”

“I know Dad kept pestering you about it, but since you and I weren't little girls anymore he thought it would be our last trip as a family. And it was.”

“I've never been mad at Dad for guilting me into going to the wedding. How could I be? He didn't know how I felt about James.”

“No, I don't believe he had a clue. Only Mom and I knew.”

Catherine's gaze snapped toward her sister. “
You
and Mom? I told her I cared about James in strictest confidence and she promised she wouldn't tell anyone else!”

“She didn't tell me, but I could tell you were crazy about James.”

“Oh no,” Catherine groaned. “If you could, other people probably could, too. What if guests at the wedding were laughing about the girl gazing at James with big cow eyes full of love?” Catherine could feel her face growing hot. “I shouldn't have looked at him at all!”