Elspeth crossed the space between them and put a hand on her aunt’s arm. “I know you want to protect me,” she said. “But I’m okay. And why should I act like I have something to hide when I didn’t do anything wrong?” She turned to Charlotte. “Would you ask Rose and . . . and everyone to come out here, please? There’s something I want to tell everyone about Caleb Swift.”
Charlotte looked at Liz and then at me. “All right,” she said slowly. She headed for the back room. Liz didn’t say a word.
Elspeth waited until Charlotte had left the room. Then she focused her attention on Liz again. “This is all me, Aunt Liz. I can see it on your face. You’re angry at Sarah, and the person you should be angry with is me.”
Liz shook her head. “Why would I be angry at Sarah? The only person I’m angry at is young Mr. Swift.”
Elspeth put her free hand, clenched in a fist, against her chest. “I should have spoken up a long time ago about what Caleb did to me. What if . . . ?” She stopped, swallowed hard and looked away for a moment. “What if what happened to Lily is somehow connected to him? If I’d gone to the police, maybe Lily would—”
“No.” Liz and I both said the word at the same time.
I shook my head. “What happened to Lily has nothing, nothing to do with you,” I said.
Liz grasped Elspeth’s forearms with both her hands. “It is not your fault that Lily is dead,” she said. “Do you understand me?”
After a moment Elspeth nodded. Rose came out of the workroom then, followed by Mr. P. and Mac. She came right over to Elspeth and gave her a hug.
“Charlotte said there’s something you wanted to tell us about Caleb Swift,” she said. She studied the younger woman, concern etched in the lines on her face.
“There is,” Elspeth said. She cleared her throat, and when she spoke again, her voice was stronger. “Caleb and I went out a few months before he started seeing Lily. At first things were wonderful. He was charming and very attentive. He wanted to spend every minute with me.” She paused for a moment. “But soon he didn’t understand why I had to keep going to my study group and why I was applying for an internship that would take time away from him.” She continued to twist the ring on her right hand.
“Take your time,” Liz said gently.
“One night I canceled a date with him because my economics prof had dumped a surprise test on the class and a bunch of us had decided to get together and study. Caleb was waiting outside the library when I came out. I told him it was creepy and he should go home. He grabbed my wrist . . . and . . . and he broke it.”
“Oh my word,” Rose whispered.
“The reprobate,” Mr. P. said, the furrows between his eyes deepening.
“I snuck out of my dorm room in the middle of the night like I was the criminal,” Elspeth continued. “I came to Liz because I knew she wouldn’t push me to tell her what happened. Then I called Caleb and told him if he ever came near me again, I would tell her what he’d done. A few weeks later he started seeing Lily. I, uh . . .” She cleared her throat again. “I went to see her. I told her what Caleb had done to me. She told me he wasn’t that kind of person with her and asked me to leave. When he disappeared, well . . . I’ve always wondered if she knew more than she was saying about what happened to him.”
Rose immediately wrapped Elspeth in another hug. “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
Charlotte reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “It’s brave of you to tell us,” she said. “Thank you.”
“I should have been braver sooner,” Elspeth said. “I didn’t tell Aunt Liz what happened for a long time, and when I did, I made her promise not to tell anyone else.”
A look I couldn’t decipher passed over Charlotte’s face. “You’re braver than I am,” she said.
We all looked at her. She looked at each one of us, a grave expression in her brown eyes. “My first year of teacher training, I had a boyfriend a lot like Caleb Swift,” she said. “He didn’t break my wrist. But he did hit me.” She stopped and pressed a hand to her mouth. Elspeth reached out and caught her hand, and something passed, unspoken, between the two women.
“I’ve never told this to another living soul,” Charlotte said.
“You could have told us,” Rose said gently. “We know it’s not your fault.”
“It was hard to say this happened to me,” Elspeth said. “I’m supposed to be smart.”
Charlotte nodded. “I know.”
“It has nothing to do with smart,” Mr. P. said. “I’m sorry this happened to both of you.”
“Thank you, Alfred,” Charlotte said.
Elspeth took a deep breath and let it out. She seemed a bit lighter somehow. “There’s one more thing,” she said.
“What is it?” Rose asked.
“The night Lily was killed? Maybe it doesn’t mean anything, but that was Caleb Swift’s birthday.”
Before Elspeth left, Liz came over to me. I remembered what she’d said the day we’d had tea at her house: “I protect the people I care about.”
“You should have told me she was coming here,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“She asked me not to.”
“You really think I would have tried to talk her out of telling everyone what happened?” One eyebrow went up.
“No, but it wasn’t my call,” I said. “I asked Elspeth if Caleb had been abusive, because I noticed how protective you got when his name came up, but it was her idea to come and tell everyone what happened to her. She asked me not to tell you, and I didn’t. She thinks you feel guilty for not going after Caleb at the time.” I pulled hand over my neck. “You do, don’t you?”
Liz looked at me for a long moment. “I didn’t know for sure,” she finally said. “I suspected, but I wasn’t positive. Like she said, it was a long time before she told me everything.” She looked past me out the big front window and then her gaze came back to me. “I should have pushed. I definitely shouldn’t have agreed to keep it all a secret. I should have strung that young man up by his . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence.
“You took care of Elspeth,” I said. “That’s what needed to be done.”
Liz looked over to where her niece was standing with Rose and Charlotte. “It was good for her to talk about what happened,” she said. “She doesn’t have anything to be ashamed of.”
I nodded. “No, she doesn’t.”
“I need to talk to her before she goes.”
I gave Liz’s arm a squeeze as she passed me.
“The date has to mean something,” Rose said once Liz and Elspeth were outside.
“It is an awfully big coincidence,” I admitted, crossing my arms over my chest and rubbing one shoulder with the other hand.
“I keep wondering, could Caleb Swift be alive?” Rose asked. “And I know how far-fetched that sounds.”
“You don’t seriously think he came back here and killed Lily, do you?” Charlotte said.
Alfred frowned. “That is a bit of a stretch.”
“Someone should talk to Daniel Swift,” Rose said.
“I’ll go.” Liz had come back inside after walking Elspeth to her car. “I know Daniel. He was on the board of the Sunshine Camp at one time.”
Rose opened her mouth to say something, and Liz reached over and caught her hand. “I need to do this,” she said. “Four years ago, when Elspeth showed up on my doorstep in the middle of the night with her arm in a cast, I should have made her tell me what really happened. I knew she wasn’t telling me everything.”
“She came to you precisely because she knew you wouldn’t push,” Charlotte said. “She wouldn’t have told you.”
Liz gave her a sidelong glance. “Excuse me, have you met me, Charlotte?” she said. “I don’t usually take no for an answer.”
“If you’re going, I’m coming with you,” I said. “I met Daniel Swift once, years ago. Gram worked with him on the refurbishment of the Opera House.”