No Place to Hide (15 page)

“She’s young, she’s pretty,” she heard herself saying, “and we know how attracted women are to you…”

“Justine, stop. For God’s sake, there’s nothing going on between me and Hayley and there never will be.”

“Have you told
her
that?”

“Why would I? I’m—”

“Has she ever come on to you?”

He flushed, and she took a shocked step back.

“She has, hasn’t she?” she persisted.

He threw out his hands helplessly. “I—I guess so. I mean, I didn’t encourage her, I swear it, but OK, I think she would like there to be something between us. If she’d come right out and say so I could tell her it’s never going to happen. As it is, I don’t really know what to say to her. She’s my editor, she’s put a lot behind me, and she’s—”

“You need to change editors.”

“It’s not as simple as that.”

“It can be, if you make it. You just tell your agent you want to move publishers for the next book, or go to a different division of where you are now.”

He regarded her steadily, a dark, almost angry look in his eyes. “OK, I can do that,” he said carefully, “if it’s what you want, but you realize what you’re saying, don’t you?”

She eyed him warily.

“You’re telling me you don’t trust me, and I don’t deserve that. Never, since the day we met, have I even looked at another woman that way, and I don’t understand why you think I’m doing it now.”

Realizing how much she was hurting him, she let her head fall forward as she exhaled her tension. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean it that way. Of course I trust you.” Reaching for his hand, she brought it to her mouth and kissed it. “I trust you,” she repeated, looking into his eyes, “and I love you, and I don’t want you to have a vasectomy.”

“Then I won’t,” he said softly, pulling her to him. “And you’re to get it out of your head that I’m having an affair, unless you want to divorce me, of course, and then I’ll have one with you.”

Present Day—Culver, Indiana

You think no one knows where you are, or what your name is now, but you’re wrong, we know exactly what you’re calling yourself, and where you’re hiding. How does it make you feel to know you’ve been found? You’ll never feel as bad as those you’ve left behind.

Justine’s eyes were heavy with shock as she read the email again. She was in the kitchen, the doors and windows closed against the storm that had raged through the night. Tallulah was at day care, she’d dropped her off half an hour ago; her instinct now was to go right back and get her.

She didn’t move, other than to lift her head.

As she watched the trees bowing and shuddering in the wild gusts sweeping the woods, their golden leaves flying and diving like feather-light missiles, she had the sick feeling that someone was watching her. Were they hiding behind the hedge, driving past in an unfamiliar car, secreted among branches waiting for her to come out?

No one is there. This is all about intimidation.

Ben used to hide in trees. He’d spend hours in them, doing only he knew what. On occasions he’d refuse to come down even after he’d exhausted all patience. It was as though he enjoyed making people angry, or afraid, or just plain worried. She’d always wondered, especially as he got older, if he’d secreted himself in trees specifically to torment her and Matt, knowing how anxious it made them that he might fall and hit his head again, the way he had when Matt had tried to catch him and failed.

Ben’s head hitting the ground.

The sound of sirens as the ambulance arrived.

Fear like she and Matt had never experienced before.

And all for a slight concussion.

It was how people—parents—overreacted.

She read the email again, her heart thudding with the kind of unease that could easily turn to panic if she allowed it. The message had been sent several weeks ago to her old account, the one she’d used for Portovino Catering. She wondered why the account was still active when she was sure she’d closed it down. She also wondered what had made her log in to it this morning when she’d believed there was nothing to log in to. Was it some wayward habit that remained stubbornly connected to her reflex actions? Could it be possible for ghosts to give warnings, for hatred and vengeance to transmit itself along telepathic lines?

Crazy thinking.

That part of her life was over. The business had been sold, renamed, and relocated, and nobody apart from her immediate family knew where she was. She was as certain of that as she could be.

Whoever had sent the email hadn’t actually said what her name was now, or where she was living. So there was a very good chance she was right, it had been sent to intimidate her, for there were no other messages after that, nor, thank God, was there any mention of Lula, and that was really all that mattered.

She was going to close the Portovino account now, once and for all.

After carrying out the necessary steps she pushed aside the shocking start to the day and made herself carry on as though it hadn’t happened. She had details to write up of properties she’d viewed for Sallie Jo; after that she’d upload them onto the website, and take down those that were out of date. She’d done enough by now for Sallie Jo to trust her without checking her entries first.

By lunchtime the storm had abated, so she took Daisy down to the lake. She was such a sweet-natured and obedient little dog that she didn’t really need a leash, but Justine didn’t want to take any risks. It would break Tallulah’s heart if anything happened to her precious pet, and Justine had to admit it would have much the same effect on her.

What a fool she was to have logged into her old account; as a result, memories were escaping all over the place, and she was finding it almost impossible to shut them down. She gazed out at the lake, and through the mist she spotted a small boat with a single fisherman on board. It made her think of Matt and Simon taking the boys fishing, in lakes, rivers, even deep sea. To stop her thoughts felling her with more images of faces, voices, hands, the turn of Matt’s head, the curious look in Ben’s eyes, the sound of Abby’s voice, she turned the solitary figure before her into the troubled ghost of Paukooshuck, the son of an Indian chief, who was said to canoe across the lake on moonless nights in search of his father. It was daytime now, but she tried clinging to the story anyway, needing to conjure it to draw a mask over the troubled details of her own awful past.

“Hey! There you are!”

Justine turned around and felt herself relax with relief as reality returned in the shape of Sallie Jo striding toward her.

“I’ve been calling,” Sallie Jo told her, “but I guess you don’t have your cell.” She scooped up an excited Daisy to give her a hug. “Boy, have I got some news for you,” she informed Justine with a playful grin. “Are you ready?”

“If it’s good,” Justine countered.

Sallie Jo shrugged. “Hard to say for certain, but your grandma’s house?”

Justine tensed.

“It still exists.”

Justine’s eyes rounded, and her heartbeat seemed to flutter and slow. “How do you know?”

“I did it the easy way—a friend who owes me a favor over at the county offices dug through the old records. The online stuff only goes back ten years or so, or I’d have been able to do it myself. Anyways, it turns out the place is on the East Shore and was built in 1951 when William Cantrell owned the land—your grandfather, I’m presuming?”

Justine nodded. That had certainly been his name.

“And following his death in 1973 ownership passed to May Cantrell.”

Justine couldn’t think what to say.

Sallie Jo linked her arm as they continued back to the house. “Now here’s for the best bit,” she continued. “In 1982, when May died, her daughter, Camilla, inherited the place, and I’m going to guess that Camilla is your mother?”

Justine came to a stop.
Her mother inherited it?
“Camilla Gayley?” she asked, to be sure.

“That’s her. And now here’s where it gets really interesting, because as far as the records show your mother still owns it.”

Justine couldn’t believe it.
Her mother still owned it?
“That can’t be right,” she protested. “I mean, it doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t she tell us it was hers?”

Sallie Jo could only shrug.

“She never comes here,” Justine ran on. “She didn’t want me to come either.”

Sallie Jo had no explanation.

“This is bizarre,” Justine muttered.

Not disagreeing, Sallie Jo said, “If you’re interested, we could take a drive over to the East Shore. I’ve got the address right here.”

Justine wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted to do, except of course she had to go, if only to be able to tell her mother that she’d actually seen
the house she owned
with her very eyes.

The journey around the lake through Venetian Village, up over Mystic Hills and along the county road past Culver Marina, took no more than fifteen minutes. By then Justine was as intrigued as she was bewildered—and not a little worried, considering the peculiar responses she’d encountered to her grandmother’s name.

What on earth were they going to find?

After passing more multimillion-dollar homes than she cared to count, all of differing styles and vintage, a couple of exclusive golf courses, and a private road right opposite a tumbledown barn, Sallie Jo pulled up alongside an ugly chain-link fence that stretched for about a hundred yards between two solidly built stone walls that fronted the neighboring properties. There was no name or number immediately visible on the fence, and until Justine peered through the trees toward the lake there didn’t even seem to be a house.

“Are you sure this is it?” she asked, trying to pick up a sense of the place, an echo from across the years that might help her to connect with it.

Sallie Jo was studying the map she’d brought with her. “This is it,” she confirmed.

Justine turned to look at her. “Do you know if anyone’s living there?” she asked.

“Not that I could find any details for.”

Justine’s eyes traveled the fence again. “There doesn’t seem to be a way in, no gate or anything.”

“There’s probably access from the lake if it has a mooring, and according to this it does.”

“So you can only get to it by boat?”

“Come on,” Sallie Jo responded. Pushing open the car door, she walked toward the fence.

Justine and Daisy caught up with her as she reached the far end, where a small pedestrian gate was chained and padlocked with a sign reading
Private Property, Do Not Enter.
Beyond it a narrow stone footpath wound through the trees and disappeared from view at the brink of a slope. The lawns, though strewn with stray twigs and leaves following the storm, were immaculately tended, as were the rockeries and flower beds.

“Someone’s definitely taking care of it,” Sallie Jo commented.

Justine was trying to get a better look at the house. From where they stood all they could see was the upper floor with a modest form of Dutch gables equally spaced in the pitched roof, black beams running through the smeared whitewashed walls and two tall chimneys. The interior shutters appeared firmly closed.

“What do you say we climb the fence and go take a closer look?” Sallie Jo suggested mischievously.

Justine was all for it until she remembered where they were. “We need to be sure no one’s in there first,” she countered. “We don’t want to find out too late that it’s a nutjob with a gun who’s not keen on visitors.” Though how would her mother know anyone like that? How come her mother owned the place at all?

“Good point,” Sallie Jo agreed. “I’ll do some more investigations. If nothing else, we ought to be able to track down the company or person who’s taking care of the gardens. They’ve got to know who’s paying them.”

After using her phone to take some shots of all they could see from the road, Justine was about to follow Sallie Jo to the car when Daisy started to tug toward the dense forestation on the other side of the road.

“What is it, sweetie? Did you see a squirrel?” Daisy carried on tugging, clearly eager to chase down her prey.

Justine waited for a car to pass and allowed herself to be led over to a small opening in the trees. As she approached an odd sensation crept over her: a light-headedness, or a kind of déjà vu that had no actual form or vision but was simply an unsteady feeling.

She’d been here before.

“Did you find something?” Sallie Jo asked, coming up behind her.

“I’m not sure,” Justine replied. Passing Sallie Jo the leash, she gingerly pushed aside some brambles and stepped into a tangled hollow in the trees. As she made to go forward her foot caught on something and she stumbled. Checking what it was, she found a long, solid block of wood, like a railroad tie, snarled up in the undergrowth. There turned out to be more than one—at least half a dozen were randomly spaced around the clearing—and the déjà vu was wafting back in peculiar waves. She glimpsed small feet climbing onto one of the blocks of wood, a boy bowing, a girl wrapped in a blanket for a cape. She and Rob used to play here, pretending to be grand people with servants who came to the lake long before Grandma’s time, bringing their luggage in a private railroad car that the train would unhitch outside their house before going on its way.