Never Look Back

by Robert Ross

Genres: Suspense

Synopsis

At The Edge Of Town. . . Karen Donovan no sooner marries bestselling novelist Philip Kaye when he leaves on a book tour, abandoning her at his Provincetown mansion with his sullen teenage daughter. Black-clad Jessie Kaye isn't exactly good company: When she's not skulking around, she's locked in her room writing in her journal, and her strangeness is a topic of local gossip. . . In The House On The Bluff. . . As autumn sets in, Karen befriends flamboyant local celebrity Bobbie Noble. But their plans to renovate Philip's house are sidetracked when Karen stumbles upon the diary of accused axe-murderess Lettie Hatch. It describes Lettie's boorish father and young, ambitious stepmother--both of whom would fall victim to a crazed killer. And the more Karen reads, the more she's convinced that Jessie, with her increasingly bizarre behavior, is channeling something sinister. . . Something Wicked Waits. When Philip returns, he's in no mood to entertain the theories that have grown into a nerve-jangling obsession for Karen. Now, as a bitter winter binds the Cape in snow and ice, Karen feels a presence taking over. It knows what happened here nearly a hundred years before. And it won't stop until history is rewritten--in blood.

Release date: May 1, 2005

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 384

Sample

“I miss you.”

Karen spoke the words into the telephone as she ripped open another box. More books, she groaned inwardly, almost dropping the phone. She glared down at the dog-eared paperbacks nestled snugly in the box. The bookcases in the bedroom were already full. She tilted her head to grip the phone tighter between her head and shoulder and folded the box flaps back down. Another box for the attic, she thought, cursing herself for not throwing more away. You’re never going to read these again. Why did you have them shipped here?

“I’ll be home before you know it.” Her husband’s deep voice was reeassuring. “And the house? You like the house, don’t you?”

“Well, sure. What’s not to like?”

She walked over to the window and stared out at the bay. Apparently there was a good breeze—the horizon was edged with sailboats moving across the surface. The house was certainly much different from what she was used to, her cramped, roach-infested studio apartment in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Now she was living in an old white-clapboarded Victorian, weather-beaten but still grand, on the far east end of Commercial Street, the main drag through town. The house was two stories high—three if you counted the partial attic—with a small green yard in front and in the back, stone steps that led almost immediately down to the beach. Huge picture windows took up almost the entire second story, with an elegant, recently renovated bathroom complete with a Jacuzzi bathtub and a three-headed shower. From wherever she stood the view of the bay was breathtaking.

“I still wish you were here,” she said into the phone.

She heard the whiny tone in her voice and winced. Philip didn’t like weak women. She’d known that from the beginning. The only reason he married me was that I’ve pretended to be one hell of a lot stronger than I really am. But surely it’s not too much to expect that my husband would be here—in the house we’re supposed to be making our home—when I arrived?

He sighed, not responding to the suggestion of neediness in Karen’s voice. “Is Jessie behaving?”

Yet again, it was Jessie—Philip’s sixteen-year-old daughter from his first marriage—whom he was most concerned about.

“She hasn’t said two words to me since I arrived last night.” Karen looked out over the bay. The house was so still; if she didn’t know Jessie was downstairs, she’d swear she was alone in the house. Jessie never had friends in to see her, she never spoke on the phone, she couldn’t be bothered watching television.

Other than a mumbled “hello” when Karen first walked into the house, Jessie had pretty much given her the silent treatment. She hadn’t known what to really expect after her three-day drive from New Orleans, but she hadn’t expected such rudeness. Of course, I was kind of cranky from the drive, she amended, and it can’t be easy to have your new stepmother foisted on you like that. She’d arrived in the early afternoon, after spending the night in Providence. After the brief greeting, Jessie had scampered up the stairs and shut her bedroom door with a resounding slam that shook the old house. It wasn’t an auspicious beginning.

“In time,” Philip promised, “she’ll grow to love you.”

Yeah, right, when I sprout wings and fly, Karen thought. She sat down on the window seat. The window was open. A breeze carrying the tangy scent of a salty low tide gently fluttered the sheer curtains.

“Listen, Karen, I have to get going. I’ll call you tonight. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said to the dial tone.

She hugged herself as she stood and headed across the room to the opposite side of the house that looked out over Commercial Street. The sidewalk was packed with people heading toward town. It was August, the height of the tourist season. She stood there for a moment watching the pedestrians, laughing and joking with each other as they strolled up the narrow street.

If someone had told Karen Donovan a year ago she’d be settling into a beautiful old house in Provincetown with a new husband and a stepdaughter, she would have laughed in their face. Back then, she was living in New Orleans, barely eking out an existence waiting tables at night in a restaurant that catered to tourists and spending her days slaving away at her novel. Marriage was the furthest thing from her mind. Sure, she wanted to get married someday, but that someday was far off in her future. The guy she was sort of seeing, Dave Trask, was no more marriage minded than she was. Neither one of them saw much future in the relationship; they were more friends with a strong sexual attraction than anything else. Dave was too selfish, for one thing, and for another, he didn’t have enough time for her. He was going to Tulane, majoring in prelaw—she suspected that sleeping with a local girl gave him some kind of “cool” credibility with his fraternity buddies. And she doubted she was the only one sharing his bed. They barely saw each other, which was fine with her. She liked devoting her free time to her laptop computer and the world she was writing about, the world where she was in complete control of everything that happened.

She’d always wanted to be an author from the time she was a little girl and first discovered the magic world of books. As soon as she got her first library card, she was at the library every Saturday, going through the shelves and finding things to read. She would come home every time with an armload of books, and spent the rest of the weekend in a secluded spot reading. She read about anything that struck her fancy, until her tenth birthday when her mother gave her a book called The Secret of the Old Clock. She became hopelessly addicted to Nancy Drew. She devoured the series, then found others: Trixie Belden, the Dana Girls, Judy Bolton, and even the Hardy Boys.

By the time she was thirteen she was certain she could write those books better herself, and started writing her first book as a freshman in high school: The Secret of the Haunted Carousel. Her heroine, Vicky Knight, was very similar to herself—a high school freshman, pretty but kind of bookish and quiet, with an older brother into sports and parents who didn’t seem to quite know what to make of her. She wrote the book in longhand, in spiral notebooks she carried with her everywhere. Her father, a mechanic, would tease her whenever she would bolt from the dinner table to head to her desk, “There goes the writing fiend.” Whenever she couldn’t think of anything to write or how to get Vicky out of her latest predicament, she would lie on her bed and stare at the water-stained ceiling, thinking about her future when she was a rich and famous writer. She dreamed about having lunches with other writers, where they talked about books and writing. She dreamed of Paris, London, and Rome, of sitting in coffee shops and drinking espressos, plotting out her next novel.

There hadn’t been money for college, and she wasn’t a good enough student to get a scholarship—she spent too much time in classes that bored her, daydreaming about what she was writing. Math and science were nightmares for her. Algebra might have been a language from another planet for all the sense it made to her. Her parents thought her dreams were just that—daydreams that wouldn’t come true. “Writing is for dreamers, Karen,” her mother had told her once, “not for people like you. You have to get some kind of training and get married, have children. You’ll never support yourself as a writer.” She knew her mother wanted her to go to beauty school and join her at the hair salon, just like her older sister, Vonda.

Karen would rather die than end up like Vonda. The thought of being like her sister was her worst nightmare. She was going to be different. She wasn’t going to lose her virginity in the bed of a pickup truck to some guy who was going to wind up working on an oil rig, getting knocked up and forever trapped in a life that meant more kids and doing other people’s hair. Vonda, at twenty-three, looked as if she were going on forty. Her figure was gone, her hair a mess, and she just didn’t care.

No, Karen planned to escape from Chalmette, the little town just outside New Orleans on the St. Bernard highway, if it killed her. No tired little old house with an unkempt lawn and a statue of the Virgin Mary stained with dog urine for her, thank you very much.

Much as her mother’s lack of support had hurt, it made her more determined. She’d show her mother, her father—all of them. She didn’t need a man. She didn’t need a backup career. She was going to be rich and famous and write books that made the New York Times best-seller list and got made into movies with big stars that won Oscars. She was nineteen when she moved out of her parents’ house and into the tiny apartment she could afford on her tips. She bought a used laptop computer and began working on her first adult mystery novel. She used Vicky as her main character still, only now Vicky was grown up and worked as a reporter for the New Orleans Enquirer. It took her a couple of years to finish it; and when it was ready she spent about a hundred dollars she could ill afford to make five copies and mail it off to agents in New York she’d found in The Writer’s Market. As she dropped each copy through the package mail slot at the post office on Loyola Avenue, she said a little prayer to her patron saint, Teresa of Avila.

Over the next five months, every copy came back to her. The first rejection letter had seemed encouraging.

You’re a very talented young writer, and I can see a bright future for you, but this isn’t the book. I’m afraid that I can’t see a way to sell this book in today’s highly competitive marketplace. But your characters are good, your sense of place is excellent—New Orleans really comes to life in your hands—but there are some problems with the plot that I think will hurt it in the eyes of the editors.

Keep writing, and the best of luck to you in your future endeavors.

Despite the rejection, Karen chose to see the letter as a positive. She hadn’t expected to be represented by the first agent she’d approached—that would have been too much for her to even fantasize about. All the little sections in The Writer’s Market written by award-winning best-selling writers talked about how difficult it was to get started but to keep plugging away. And the agent thought she had talent—which was the first time anyone other than her high school English teachers had said so. This was from a publishing professional! She was certain she was on her way. She’d gone out that night after work to celebrate.

Then the next letter came, and said almost exactly the same thing as the first, only in different words.

When the third came, again the same thing in slightly different words, she was crushed. It was a standardized form letter all agents used, nothing more, nothing less; the same as the rejection letters from editors to whom she sent her short stories.

Maybe she didn’t have talent.

Maybe she couldn’t make it as a writer.

The fourth rejection letter made her cry.

Written in ink on the back of a torn-off piece of recycled office stationery, it said simply:

Ms. Donovan:

I find your plot and your characters to be neither interesting or compelling. It is, to say the least, the work of an immature writer and no publishing house would be interested in publishing such a thing. I suggest you try another line of work.

Best of luck to you.

Even though she noticed the agent’s incorrect usage of “neither” with “or,” it still hurt. That night after she got off work she did something she rarely did: she went out and got drunk. That was the night she met Dave. He’d sat down next to her at the bar after her third tequila sunrise and said something stupid like “What’s a pretty girl like you looking so sad for?” She’d laughed in his face. Just the act of laughing broke the depression she’d been feeling, and about an hour later she took him back to the sad little apartment with her. He was good looking, with blue eyes and ragged blondish hair and a crooked grin that made him look like he was up to something. He wasn’t her first; she’d lost her virginity shortly after moving to the Quarter to a bartender at the restaurant she worked at. She hadn’t really seen the big deal about sex—nor did she feel the need to run to confession the following Sunday. She hadn’t been to Mass since she moved out of her parents’ house. There had been a few others since the bartender—but they all turned out to be mostly disappointments. Dave was different. Dave played her body like a musical instrument, and she finally understood what the big deal really was.

They fell into their routine of seeing each other once or twice a week, when the mood struck or, as she suspected, he had nothing else—or more likely, nobody else—to do. She might not have loved him, but he could always make her laugh.

Karen shivered. Why am I thinking about Dave, of all people, today? She looked around at the piles of unopened boxes and sighed. She’d managed to get through most of them, and she hoped there weren’t any other boxes of books. She got up and walked over to the box of books she’d just opened.

Might as well move this to the attic, she figured, since it isn’t going to move itself.

She sighed and knelt down, using her knees to lift it. It was still heavy, and she staggered a little as she carried it through the door to the hallway. The attic staircase was at the other end of the hall. As she walked down the hallway she passed her stepdaughter’s room. She glanced in, thought about saying something, and decided not to. There didn’t seem to be much point. Jessie was sitting at her desk, headphones on, writing away in her journal. Karen wondered what music she was listening to. If Jessie was anything like Karen’s younger sister, she was listening to Justin Timberlake.

Somehow, Karen didn’t think so.

It doesn’t help that Jessie is only eight years younger than I am, she thought again as the stairs groaned and creaked beneath her weight. If my dad had brought home a stepmother just eight years older than I was, I sure as heck wouldn’t have wanted much to do with her either. I should have waited to come here until Philip was back.

But Philip hadn’t wanted her to wait. “It’s your home now,” he’d said after the brief ceremony at City Hall, “and I won’t be able to get back home for about another month.”

Against her better judgment, Karen finally gave in—especially after Philip bought her the new white Lexus SUV for the drive up. The platinum American Express card was also a nice touch.

She put the box down to turn on the attic light before heading up the stairs, cursing herself for not thinking to have the boxes of books moved to the attic while the two local teenaged boys she’d hired to unload the rental truck were still there.

Philip was wrong, she thought again. I should have waited to come until he was back.

Her parents had agreed with her.

“Philip, you just can’t spring a new mother on the girl,” Mrs. Donovan had said, shaking her head over their wedding dinner at the Napoleon House. Her parents hadn’t exactly been thrilled about the wedding either. “Karen doesn’t know anything about being a parent—especially to a teenager.” Mrs. Donovan was by that time on her third glass of wine, and her words were getting a little slurred.

But Philip wouldn’t budge. “You’re wrong, Mrs. Donovan,” he’d said. “Besides, Karen has a younger sister—so she knows how to deal with teenagers.”

“But, Philip—I don’t know. I mean, she’s never even met me,” Karen protested, waving off the hovering waiter who was trying to refill her mother’s wineglass, giving him a frown.

Philip wasn’t hearing any of their arguments. “She’ll love you. Besides, Mrs. Winn will be there.” Mrs. Winn was the private tutor who was schooling Jessie at home. “Jessie loves Mrs. Winn, and Mrs. Winn won’t let her pull any nonsense.” Mrs. Winn had come to work for Philip when his first wife had died, and Jessie’s grades started falling. She pretty much had run the household. But now that was going to be Karen’s job.

Karen remembered her mother’s embrace standing beside the Lexus just before she left New Orleans. “I still think this is a mistake, Karen,” she said, “but you know you can always come home.”

“Mom, please.”

“That man,” her mother said darkly, “likes to get his own way.”

Karen couldn’t help but smile. She still couldn’t believe she was Mrs. Philip Kaye.

Philip Kaye was her favorite writer, bar none. One day she’d gone to the Garden District Bookshop to pick up the latest Julie Smith and Sue Grafton mysteries. After the horrendous experience with the agents—she’d never heard anything from the fifth—she had tossed the Vicky Knight book aside once and for all and started from scratch. She still wanted to write mysteries—but she’d been casting about for a new topic, a new character, anything, to write about. She’d started a horror novel about a haunted beach resort in Florida, but it didn’t seem to work. “Who’s the best horror writer?” she’d asked Deb, the woman working at the cash register.

Deb had come out from behind the counter and picked up a paperback called Out of the Darkness by Philip Kaye. Karen bought it with the others, and when she got home from the store, she’d lain down on her bed with her new books. On the back cover of Philip’s book was a photo of the author, and she found herself staring at it. He was drop-dead handsome—probably in his late thirties with a thick shock of black hair starting to gray a bit at the temples, piercing green eyes, a strong jaw, and a slightly crooked nose. She started reading the book, and only put it down to use the bathroom or to get a Diet Pepsi. It was around two in the afternoon when she started, and when she finally finished, it was three in the morning.

The next morning, she’d gone back to the store and bought all the rest of his books. All sixteen of them.

Three months later, she saw in the paper that Philip Kaye would be giving a reading at the Garden District Bookstore to promote his newest hardcover, The Whisperer. Not knowing what to expect, she’d put on her most flattering outfit, styled her red hair, and changed her makeup three times before heading to the store.

He’d been sitting at a table when she arrived; there were four people ahead of her in line. In her purse she’d crammed several of his paperbacks—she was going to get everything signed. When it was finally her turn, she approached the table hesitantly.

“Well, aren’t you pretty?” he said in his deep voice, smiling at her, his eyes flashing.

“Th—thank you,” she stammered, hating herself for sounding stupid, and knowing she was blushing like a starstruck teenager. He was even handsomer in person than in his jacket photos, and those green eyes—“I’m a big fan,” she managed to say.

He took a copy of the new book off a stack and opened it to the title page. “What’s your name?”

“Karen Donovan.”

He wrote something with a flourish, signed and dated his name, and handed the book over to her. “There you go.”

There was no one in line behind her, so she opened her purse and started removing the tattered paperbacks. “Would you, um, mind—”

He grinned. “You are a fan,” he said as she started stacking the books in front of him. As he started signing, he asked without looking up, “Which one is your favorite?”

“Out of the Darkness. I loved the character of Barbara.”

His pen stopped moving and he looked up at her. “Why is that?”

“Um, well—” She became aware of the passing seconds as she tried to come up with an intelligent answer. It was Philip Kaye, for God’s sake! Finally, she just smiled at him. “I just couldn’t believe that a man could create such a convincing female character. I could identify with her, want her to succeed. You really captured—oh, this is going to sound stupid, but you really captured what it’s like to be a woman who wants something she can never have.”

His eyes danced. “And is there something you want that you can’t have?”

She tilted her chin up. What the hell? she thought. “Yes,” she said. “I want to be a writer.”

“And who says you can’t have that?”

“At least five agents.”

He patted the chair next to him. “Have a seat, and let’s talk.”

She stayed there with him through the whole signing, having an in-depth conversation about writing, books, and the publishing business—occasionally interrupted whenever another fan showed up. She told him about the painful rejection letter, and he snorted. “I know that man—he’s a complete asshole who wouldn’t have represented Mark Twain.” He asked her about her current book, and she started explaining the plot to him, the characters, and then the store manager walked up to have him sign the rest of the stock. Two hours had gone by and she hadn’t noticed. She didn’t want it to end. She was talking about books with her idol. And he was taking an interest in her writing!

They left the store and he took her to dinner across the street at Commander’s Palace—one of the best restaurants in the city, and definitely not in her budget. So he was a playboy, a flirt. So maybe he flattered lots of his pretty young female fans like this. Karen didn’t care. If she did, she wouldn’t have worn the low-cut blouse at which Philip kept surreptiously glancing.

“If you like mysteries, you should write mysteries,” he was saying to her. “That’s where your heart is. You have to write about what interests you—not about what you think will sell. That’s the road to becoming a hack writer—and you’re much too pretty and intelligent to be a hack.”

He thought her mystery novel showed promise. “I like the premise, and what you say about the main character—it sounds like there’s no other character out there like her, and that’s a key to help sell the book.”

“Really? Do you really think so?”

He just grinned and winked at her.

When the after-dinner coffee arrived, he said, “Would you mind letting me read your manuscript? I’d be glad to look it over and give you some pointers. I don’t usually do this—but I’ll make an exception in your case.”

“You’d do that for me?” She couldn’t believe her luck. She thought she was going to die on the spot.

He patted her on the leg. “It’s my duty to the reading public.”

She’d taken him back to her little apartment and dug out one of the copies. He sat down on her desk chair and read the first page, whistling as he did so. “This is really pretty good, actually,” he said, looking up at her and giving her the same smile that stared out of his author photos. He glanced at his watch. “Well, I’ve got an early flight tomorrow. This tour is really out of control, the schedule they’ve got me set up for—but give me your phone number and e-mail address.”

She wrote them down for him and then walked him down to the street. She was surprised: she really thought he was going to make a move on her, expect something in return for all the attention he’d given her, the promises he was making. She wasn’t sure how she would’ve responded.

Oh, who was she kidding? If he’d made a move, she would’ve made a move right back.

At the door, she gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Ah, pretty Karen Donovan,” he said, smiling down at her. “Let’s keep this professional—at least for now.”

And six months later, I’m his wife, she thought, setting the box down in a corner and looking around the attic. Somehow, it still didn’t seem real to her.

The attic looked like no one had set foot in it for months—years, maybe. Dust and cobwebs were everywhere, and old furniture was scattered and stacked with no sense of rhyme or reason. There were several old trunks shoved into one corner covered in a layer of dust. The roof of the house came to a peak directly in the center of the big room, and the dormer windows let in a surprising amount of light. Dust motes were floating gently in the path of the sunbeams.

She put her hands on her hips. Maybe I’ll make a project out of this attic, she thought, clean it out, get rid of this junk—it might just make a nice work space. She wasn’t comfortable at the thought of sharing Philip’s office with him. She liked solitude when she worked, usually putting on headphones and listening to a CD—Stevie Nicks, preferably—to shut out all outside noise. I’d hate to be a distraction to him.

The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea. She walked over to one of the windows that faced the bay. There were plenty of electrical outlets, and no phone jack. Perfect, she thought, a grin spreading across her face. I’ll ask Philip about it tonight when we talk again. She knelt down and felt the raw wood. Sand it down and cover it in varnish and it’ll be gorgeous.

She heard the front door slam downstairs.

Jessie, she thought. She opened the nearest window and glanced out just in time to see Jessie disappearing down the street.

Great, just great, she moaned to herself. Where is she off to? I guess we’re going to have to set up some ground rules.

She sat down on a trunk, sending up a cloud of dust. Rules. Me setting up rules. She’ll probably think I’m a wicked stepmother. She laughed out loud, remembering how easily she’d evaded her parents’ rules whenever she wanted. With a sigh, she got up and went back downstairs.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the hall mirror. Her face was smudged with dust and there were cobwebs in her brown hair. She ran her fingers through it, but just succeeded in making the tangles worse. She groaned and walked down to the kitchen.

“Where’s Jessie off to?” she asked Mrs. Winn, seated at the kitchen table.

The older woman pushed her glasses up her nose. She was looking over a paper Jessie had written, a red pencil shoved behind her right ear. It might be August, but Jessie was behind in her studies. There were state guidelines for homeschooling, and on the latest test Jessie hadn’t scored all that well. No summer vacation for her.

“Off to the library, I suspect,” Mrs. Winn replied, getting up to stand opposite Karen. “That’s pretty much the only place she goes. Well, that and the bookstores. Her research on this”—she gestured to the smudged computer printouts—“leaves a lot to be desired.”

Mrs. Winn was a short woman, barely five feet tall in her stocking feet, and her hair was iron gray. Her brown eyes were perceptive and intelligent. Karen had liked her almost from the minute she’d arrived yesterday.

“Been up in the attic?” Mrs. Winn smiled, reaching over to pluck a cobweb out of Karen’s hair.

Karen sank into a chair at the table and nodded. “I swear, I don’t know where all this junk came from. If you’d seen my old apartment back home—”

“Ah, whenever I move, I think the same thing.” Mrs. Winn moved over to the stove. “Would you like a nice cup of tea? I was just thinking I’d like one.”

What I really need is a shot of tequila, Karen thought, but aloud said, “That’d be nice.”

Mrs. Winn put the kettle on to boil, taking down two cups and some packets of tea. Sitting back down at the table across from Karen, she gave her a sympathetic look. “Are you settling in okay?” Her voice was so kind. She reminded Karen of her freshmen English teacher from high school.

Karen shrugged. “It’s a lot to handle.”

“Change is hard for everyone.” The teakettle whistled and Mrs. Winn was up again, pouring the boiling water into the teacups. “And this house is hardly the best place.” She shivered. “So much tragedy.”

“Tragedy?” Karen stirred her tea.

“My dear, you don’t know?” Mrs. Winn hesitated. “Oh, maybe it’s not my place—”

Mrs. Winn was a godsend after Jessie’s mother died. Karen heard Philip’s voice in her head. I don’t know what we would have done without her.

“Please, Mrs. Winn.”

“Call me Alice.” Mrs. Winn sipped her tea. “You know this is the old Hatch house, don’t you?”

Karen shrugged. “Hatch house? What does that mean?”

“Oh dear. Mr. Kaye must have told you. It was why he bought the house! Because of the associations. Because of the legends. You know, with him being a horror writer and all…”

“Mrs. Winn, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She seemed flabbergasted. “My dear Karen. Have you never heard of Lettie Hatch?”

An old child’s rhyme floated suddenly through Karen’s head:

Lettie Hatch took a butcher knife, and with it took her father’s life. To put an end to all her strife, she used it then on her father’s wife.

She shivered. “I—I always thought that was just a nursery rhyme.”

“Well, Lizzie Borden was more famous, but Lettie Hatch was very real, our very own local version.” Mrs. Winn sighed. “And this was the house—where it all happened. It stood empty for years until Mr. Kaye bought it.” She shook her head. “Hardly the atmosphere to raise a child, you know?”

A cold chill went down Karen’s spine.

“I’m surprised Mr. Kaye never told you.”

“So am I….”

“And Jessie’s so sensitive.” Mrs. Winn reached across the table and took Karen’s hand. “It’s important that you and I get along—for her sake. I’m worried.”

Karen held the older woman’s gaze. “Tell me about her. Philip hasn’t said much about Jessie, except that she’s homeschooled, and—” What were his exact words? She couldn’t remember; she hadn’t really paid much attention. But he had told her something else about Jessie. What was it? All she’d been thinking about was becoming Mrs. Philip Kaye. Karen shrugged. “I know he dotes on her. That much is obvious.”

More perhaps than he dotes on me, Karen thought, immediately regretting it. Still, she couldn’t help but feel that just two weeks after getting married she shouldn’t be here all alone, her husband off on yet another book tour—with how many other pretty young female fans in low-cut blouses approaching him at his readings?

But he married me. I am Mrs. Philip Kaye.

She focused again on Mrs. Winn and talk of Jessie.

“She trusts me, I think,” Mrs. Winn was saying. “But she doesn’t talk to me—I don’t know that she talks to anyone. We talk about her schoolwork, but that’s about it.” She sighed. “After the first Mrs. Kaye’s, um, unfortunate accident, Mr. Kaye took Jessie to some therapists in Boston, but she wouldn’t talk to them either, so he finally gave up on that.”

“How did her mother die?” Philip had been vague about his first wife; whenever Karen had brought the subject up, he’d responded with an abrupt It’s too painful to talk about, I’m sorry, Karen.

Mrs. Winn’s jaw dropped. “You don’t know?”

Karen shook her head.

“Well, I’m sorry to be the bearer of so many unpleasant secrets….”

It began to dawn on Karen just how short a time she had known her husband before she married him. It’s what made her parents so anxious about the marriage. There was so much she didn’t know about him and his life—and had been too in awe of him to push for answers. I’m his wife, Karen told herself. Not some starstruck fan. Not anymore. I have a right to know these things.

“Tell me, Mrs. Winn. Please.”

The older woman looked uncomfortable, then seemed to make a decision. “For Jessie’s sake, you should know.” She took a breath. “The first Mrs. Winn hanged herself. Jessie was alone in the house with her. Jessie was the one who found her.”

There she is again, Chris Muir thought.

He was sitting on a bench on Commercial Street, bored out of his mind, drinking a protein smoothie. He’d already been to the gym that morning, lifting weights and riding the bike. His red T-shirt was stuck to his back with sweat, and his curly dark hair was damp from the exertion.

He watched as the girl in black hurried along the sidewalk, sidestepping dawdling pedestrians. Her long dark hair hung, uncombed, in tangles and knots past her shoulders. She had a heavy canvas bag thrown over her right shoulder, her eyes cast down on the redbrick sidewalk. Her skin was pale with dark circles under her large brown eyes, and her face was free of makeup. She was wearing a plain black T-shirt over black jeans and heavy black combat boots that weren’t tied, the laces flapping as she walked.

Don’t be shy, dumb-ass, say something to her.

He sat up straighter, pulling his stomach in a bit. He slid his headphones, blaring the latest Kenny Chesney CD, down from his ears. This time he was going to talk to her. What’s the worst thing she can say? It’s not like she can kill me or anything.

He steeled his courage. Biting his lip, he took a deep breath, stood up, and stepped right into her path.

She stopped, looked up at him, and stepped around him without a word, her eyes dropping immediately back down to the sidewalk again.

Mentally, he smacked his forehead as he turned and watched her continue on her way. Smooth move, stud, he berated himself, and started walking after her. You’re only going to be here for a few more weeks, and if you don’t talk to her soon, you’ll never get a chance.

Almost six feet five, Chris had just turned sixteen a few months earlier. He’d always been tall and skinny, always the tallest boy in his class, and kids who didn’t like him called him “Ichabod Crane” or “Beanpole.” When he was ten years old, he was already six feet. He didn’t understand where the height came from—both of his parents were under five eight, and none of his relatives were tall. I’m just some kind of genetic freak, he thought whenever he was at a family gathering. His relatives always teased him—more kindly than the kids at school, but it was still teasing. Do you play basketball? How’s the weather up there? Can you see the Pacific Ocean? So funny. Har-de-har-har-har.

He tended to slouch, so as not to seem as tall, but his mother, Lois, always made him stand up straight. “Don’t hunch like that, Chris,” Lois lectured, “you’ll end up with a hunched back. You’re tall; be proud of it.” Easy for her to say, he always thought resentfully.

His parents had bought a house in Truro the previous spring. But as beautiful as the Truro beaches were, there was no there there—no downtown, no shops, no anything—so most days Chris hitched a ride on the shuttle and headed into P-town for the day. Here the crowds were crazy to watch: wacky drag queens, leather-clad lesbians, freaky clowns that ogled the tourists and made grabs for the girls’ tits. Chris had spent the whole summer watching the crowds. Especially the girl dressed all in black.

His parents both taught at Boston College—his father in philosophy, his mother in women’s studies—and both were secure in their positions enough to not teach summer sessions. Their little house tucked away into the Truro woods was nothing like the big house in Boston they called home; it was snug and cozy and, in Chris’s opinion, a little cramped. His mother was working on a book about the suffragette movement; he wasn’t really sure what his father was doing, but he spent hours in front of his computer typing away at something.

Chris didn’t pay any attention when his parents talked about things—his mind just drifted away. He’d learned early on that as far as they were concerned, he just had to listen—or at least give the impression he was hanging on every word. Mostly they talked to each other about any number of things, subjects either that he didn’t care about or that went straight over his head. All he to do was just tune in for a little while, nod his head, then tune back out again. They didn’t really want his opinion on anything—th. . .