She reached for a cigarette, but even the solace of smoking didn’t appeal to her tonight. Angrily, she slapped the cover of the laptop shut.
When she had first opened the door to the past, it had felt right, as if the time had finally come in her life to flush out the night creatures from their hiding places. To fulfill her promise to Cindy. To come home. Now she wondered if it would have been better for everyone if she had stayed away.
She crossed to the glass door that led to the porch, built high above the slashing waters of the lake. She opened the door and took a tentative step onto the deck without looking down. Fear of heights was an odd thing. People who didn’t have it didn’t understand it. They could shimmy up cliff faces or stand on rooftops or dangle their feet from ski lifts and feel nothing at all. For her, just thinking about those things made her flinch and sweat. It wasn’t the height that scared her. It was her own lack of self-control that brought terror. What frightened her was the idea that some foreign, desperate part of her soul would cause her to fling herself over the edge whenever she was faced with a sharp drop. It didn’t matter where she was. An escalator. A mountain. A bridge. She had to hold on tight and clench her fists to make sure she didn’t panic. It was bad enough to die, but she didn’t want to die by falling.
Her breath fluttered in her chest.
She went back into the apartment and shut the door. In the bedroom, she saw her suitcase lying open on the floor, mostly packed. There was no reason to stay in the city any longer. She had the answers she needed, and she would be happy to do what she had done years ago. Escape. Get away. Put as many miles between herself and Duluth as she possibly could.
Tish went into the bedroom and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her suitcase. Her clothes were neatly folded. She reached across the main compartment to the zipped pouch at the back and tugged it open. The envelope was inside, faded and wrinkled with time. She pulled it out and let it sit in her hands. She had caressed it so many times that the paper was shiny. The ink on the envelope was thin and black.
The handwriting was Cindy’s.
Tish read the words again: For Jonny.
She had held on to the letter ever since Cindy died. It wasn’t right to leave town without giving it to him. On the other hand, she wondered if it was fair to stir up his life any more than she already had, to reawaken the past when he had managed to lay it to rest. Let him go on with Serena and not think about Cindy anymore.
Lie or tell the truth.
There was no need to protect William Starr. He had never earned an ounce of her compassion. She didn’t need to protect herself, either. Not anymore. It was time to let go of the shame she had felt when Cindy told her the truth.
Tish slipped her hand inside the suitcase pouch again and extracted the plastic zip-top bag in which she kept the clipping. She removed it delicately, careful not to rip the yellowed newspaper. It was a fragment from another era. A lifetime ago. She unfolded the creases and held it at its edge with the tips of her fingers.
The headline screamed at her. Tore at her heart.
HOSTAGE SHOT, KILLED IN BANK STANDOFF
She read it for the thousandth time and then carefully refolded it and slid it back inside the plastic bag. As if, by putting it away, it didn’t exist. She got angry all over again to think of William Starr hiding this clipping in the pages of his Bible. Until Cindy found it.
The phone rang in the other room. Tish secured the envelope inside her suitcase and went to answer it.
“This is Tish,” she said.
“This is Peter Stanhope.”
She thought about hanging up, but she didn’t. “What do you want?”
“First, I want to apologize.”
“Oh?”
“I know you had ulterior motives during our rendezvous the other night, but I shouldn’t have done what I did. It was wrong. I’m sorry.”
“If you expect me to apologize, too, you can forget it.”
“I understand. I’m not asking for anything in return.” He added, “I saw the press conference tonight. The authorities are essentially walking away from the case. I was wondering what that means for your book.”
“What I write in my book and what the police and prosecutors do are two different things,” Tish told him.
“So what are you going to write?” Peter asked.
“You’ll have to read it and find out.”
“You don’t still think I’m guilty, do you? I heard that Finn admitted to you that he killed Laura. I also heard about his mother and her murder. It’s a tragic story.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I’m sure you’re disappointed that no one is going to answer for Laura’s death,” he said. “All I can tell you, as a lawyer, is that getting to a courtroom doesn’t mean that you’ll find justice. Don’t judge yourself a failure because you couldn’t convince prosecutors to file charges in a thirty-year-old murder.”
“I know that. I feel sorry for Finn, but not for you, Peter. At least Finn had an excuse. He grew up in an abusive family. You were a stalker and an attempted rapist, and your only excuse was arrogance and money.”
“As to being rich and arrogant, I plead guilty.” He laughed.
Tish hated the fact that he was so smooth. So unflappable. Even now, with the truth coming from Finn’s mouth, she was reluctant to give up the idea that Peter had been the one to swing the bat.
“Tell me something, did you know Finn was in the woods that night?” Tish asked. “Did you see him there?”
“No.”
“What about his family background?”
Peter responded with an exaggerated sigh. “What is this about?”
“It just occurred to me that Finn makes a very convenient fall guy,” Tish told him. “Particularly if you knew about his mother’s murder.”
“I didn’t.”
“So why were you so quick to hire a detective to look into his past?”
“That’s how lawyers win cases,” Peter said. “We dig up secrets.”
“I just wonder if you already knew what Serena would find.”
“I didn’t. Don’t go looking for conspiracy theories, Tish. I had no idea Finn was in the park, and I didn’t know a thing about his past.”
Tish said nothing.
“You may hate me, but wishing I was guilty doesn’t make it true,” Peter added.