“I have been in love,” he said. “Yes.”
She frowned when he said it, put a hand to his face. “Love shouldn’t make you look so sad,” she said.
It was something about that sentence. Or maybe it was her tenderness, the openness of her expression. Everything that he’d been tamping down rose up inside him.
“It’s not that,” he said.
The music playing in Willow’s room, something predictably raucous and angry, drifted down the stairs. He looked around the living room-the tall shelves of books, the flat-screen television, the warm amber recessed lighting. They sat close on the plush sectional, her leg pressing against his. He could sink into this place, this moment with her. If only he could shut off his mind.
“Tell me,” she said. “Really, tell me. It’s not like we can do anything but talk, with Miss Willow in seek-and-destroy mode.”
Her smile was wide and trusting. She was expecting him to tell her about his unrequited love, or the one he’d lost, or how hard it was to meet someone in a small town. Something normal.
“Did you hear about the bones?” he said. “Back in the Hollows Wood.”
A shadow crossed her face, like she was recalling something that disturbed her. And it was then that he remembered. It was Willow, really, who had found Marla Holt. If Willow hadn’t run from school that day, made her way home through the woods, she would never have stumbled on Michael Holt near the Chapel. She never would have brought her friends back there, leading Henry, Bethany, and ultimately Jones Cooper to that place. If Jones Cooper hadn’t gone back there and alerted the police, those bones might never have been discovered by anyone other than Michael. It struck Henry as almost funny, even as a blistering headache debuted behind his eyes.
“The bones?” she said. “What bones?”
It was almost too much for him to get his mind around. Marla and Bethany. Michael and Willow. It was some kind of cosmic joke. Here he was with this smart, beautiful woman, with the first romantic feelings he’d had in so long. And because Bethany Graves’s child and Marla Holt’s child had crossed paths, he couldn’t simply sit here, maybe kiss her, tell her how pretty he thought she was and how much he enjoyed just talking with her. That it was enough. It was more than enough. He wasn’t allowed even that simple thing.
“The police found bones back by the Chapel,” he said.
She took in a breath. “Back where Willow was?”
He nodded, and the frown she was wearing deepened. He told her everything.
chapter thirty-two
Ray came in from the rain, soaked and cranky. Eloise took his jacket and hung it in the laundry room. Then she put on a pot of tea.
“Dental records confirm that the bones belonged to Marla Holt,” he said. He sat heavily in the chair. She handed him a towel, and he used it to mop himself off.
She already knew that, of course. Not that anything was ever certain in her line of work. But she was as close to being sure of that as she was of anything.
“And Michael?”
Ray shrugged. “It’s my second night out there looking for him, walking through those goddamn woods calling his name. Tonight I finally convinced Chuck Ferrigno to send some men out. After all, Marla Holt’s body was out there, so there will have to be an investigation. Michael’s a witness, at the very least.”
Eloise sat across from Ray.
“Did he kill her, Eloise? He was just a kid. Did Michael Holt kill his mother?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“But what do you think?”
She didn’t say anything. He knew better. She wouldn’t speculate. She’d told him everything Marla Holt had said to her. It would be easy to jump to conclusions.
“How could I have missed it? It never even crossed my mind.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
The kettle started to whistle, and she got up to pour the hot water into the teapot.
“He walked in on her with someone, went into a rage, and killed her. But he adored her, couldn’t stand what he had done. So he repressed the memory.”
Eloise knew that Ray was just talking, sounding it out.
“There was another man there, too,” she reminded him. She looked at the steeping pot, the blue and white flowers on porcelain. It had been a gift from her daughter. Eloise missed her girl so much. For whatever reason, in that moment, the ache of it was almost unbearable. Eloise was going to call her. They needed to talk. Maybe she would go to see her daughter, invited or not; maybe it would help Amanda not to have to come to this house where so many ghosts lived and visited.
“Mack.” Ray’s voice brought her back. She wanted to be present for him, but somehow she couldn’t stop thinking about what Jones Cooper had said to her. His words had wormed their way into her thoughts about who she was, about what she was doing, about her relationship to Ray, whom she really did love.
“He was working that night,” she said.
“Maybe he came home? Maybe he covered for Michael all these years. That’s what sent him over the edge. A fourteen-year-old boy wouldn’t have the wherewithal to bury his mother.”
“Maybe not.” She didn’t want to think about these things anymore tonight.
“Michael thought the answers were in that house,” Ray said. “He also suspected that Claudia Miller knew more than she ever said.”
“So maybe you should pay her one more visit,” Eloise suggested. “Tell her about the bones.”
“You think she’ll talk now? Now that we’ve found Marla Holt?”
Eloise had no idea. She just knew she didn’t want to talk anymore-not about death, not about murder, not about pain and suffering and decades of lies.
“Maybe,” she said.
He didn’t need much more encouragement; he was in that agitated state. He wouldn’t rest, wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sit still until he knew he’d exhausted every avenue. And then he’d brood. Karen was right to have left him. He’d never cared as much about anyone as he’d cared about this work. Not even Eloise.
He was walking past her then, to get his coat from the laundry room. And then he was at the door. Before he left, he glanced at her.
“Are you okay?” he asked. His hand rested on the doorknob.
She took a step toward him. “You know, Ray, I’m thinking about taking a little time off. Maybe I’ll go to Seattle to see Amanda and the kids.”
Something played out on his face, a pull of sadness, a shade of regret. She expected him to argue, to remind her about their waiting list, about their responsibilities to everyone who needed justice and answers. But no.
“That sounds like a great idea, Eloise,” he said. He gave her a warm smile, came back to hold her wrist lightly in his hand. “You should do that. It would be good for you. It would be good for Amanda.”
“Ray.”
He drew her into a quick, tight embrace and then opened the door. She was about to ask him if he’d consider going with her. But by the time she got the words out, he was gone.
“Did you hear?” said Jolie. “About the bones?”
Jolie was sitting in the front seat with Cole. The car reeked of stale cigarette smoke. It lived in the upholstery, tickled the back of Willow’s throat, made her sinuses ache. Jolie lit another cigarette, let the smoke drift from her mouth into her nostrils.
“Crack the window,” Cole said. She rolled her eyes at him but did as he said. Willow watched as the smoke was sucked out in a thin, flat line.