Praise for Diane Chamberlain

“Chamberlain skilfully…plumbs the nature

of crimes of the heart.”

—Publishers Weekly

“So full of unexpected twists you’ll find yourself wanting

to finish it in one sitting. Fans of Jodi Picoult’s style

will love how Diane Chamberlain writes.”

—Candis

“This complex tale will stick with you forever.”

—Now Magazine

“Emotional, complex and laced with suspense, this

fascinating story is a brilliant read.”

—Closer

“A moving story.”

—Bella

“A fabulous thriller with plenty of surprises.”

—Star

“A brilliantly told thriller.”

—Woman

“An engaging and absorbing story that’ll have

you racing through pages to finish.”

—People’s Friend

“This compelling mystery will have you

on the edge of your seat.”

—Inside Soap

Breaking the Silence

Diane Chamberlain

www.dianechamberlain.co.uk

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I’m grateful to Jane Drewry, Liz Hain and Joan Winslow for nurturing this story and for being gentle with me when my plotting went astray.

Thanks to Ann Allman, Barbara Bradford, Alana Glaves, Pat McLaughlin, Priscilla McPherson, Joann Scanlon and Brittany Walls for their caring and careful critiques of outlines and early drafts, and to hot air balloon fanatic Dan Heagy and reference librarian Henry Zoller for helping me bring a dose of reality to my fictitious world.

And a special thank you to my agent, Ginger Barber, and to Amy Moore-Benson and Dianne Moggy of MIRA Books.

1

THE PHONE RANG A FEW MINUTES AFTER ELEVEN ON Christmas night. Laura was at her computer in the study, as usual, but she quickly reached for the receiver. She knew who was calling.

“He’s asking for you,” the nurse said. “I think you’d better hurry.”

“I’ll be right there.”

She ran through the living room, past the darkened Christmas tree and up the stairs to the second floor of the town house. Although she tried to be quiet, the bedroom door squeaked as she opened it, and Ray lifted his head from the pillow. He was never an easy sleeper.

“The hospital called,” she said, slipping off her robe and pulling a pair of jeans from her dresser drawer. “I have to go.”

Ray sat up and switched on his bedside light. “Is he…?” He didn’t finish the sentence as he reached for his glasses on the night table. He looked dazed, blinking against the intrusion of light in the room.

“He’s still alive,” she said. “But I think this is it.” She heard the lack of emotion in her voice as the calm and collected scientist in her took over.

“I’ll come with you,” Ray said, throwing off the covers. “I’ll get Emma up and she and I can wait in—”

“No.” She pulled her sweater over her head, then leaned over to kiss him. “You and Emma stay here. No sense waking her up. Besides, I need to get there quickly.”

“All right.” Ray smoothed his hands over his thinning brown hair. “But call if you change your mind and want us to come.”

He looked like an oversized little boy, sitting on the edge of the bed in his striped pajamas, and Laura felt a quick surge of love for him. “I will,” she said, giving him a hug. “Thanks.”

Outside, the air was still and cold. She drove quickly through the neighborhood, the houses and trees ablaze with colored lights. On the main road through Leesburg, she hit red light after red light, and even though the streets were nearly empty, she stopped dutifully at each of them.

Her father had wanted no heroic measures, and he’d received none. Although Laura agreed philosophically with his decision, her emotions were another matter, and these past few days she’d been hoping for a miracle. She wasn’t ready to lose him. Carl Brandon had been the one consistent person in her life, always there for her. Her relationship with him had not been perfect, but who had a perfect relationship with their father? He’d turned eighty a few months ago, right after the cancer came back. She’d given him a party after hours in the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum, turning on the planetarium lights for him. It would be his last party, and she knew there was nothing he would love better than to gaze at the sea of stars above him. He’d nearly ignored the guests in favor of the mechanically created sky.

Only a few cars were parked in the visitors’ lot, and she found a spot close to the hospital entrance. Inside, the lobby was eerily empty and dimly lit. Shivering as she walked through it, she tried to prepare herself for what lay ahead. She would find her father at peace. He was not afraid of dying, and that comforted her. He had an astronomer’s appreciation of his own irrelevance. When your passion was the sky and the stars and the planets, the insignificance of your life was a given.

So, she would hold his hand as he drifted away from her. She would be very strong. Then she would drive home and Ray would comfort her. In the morning, she would tell Emma that Poppa had died. She had already tried to explain to her five-year-old daughter about Poppa’s illness, trying to equate what was happening to him to what had happened to Emma’s guinea pig the year before. But Emma, despite asking dozens of questions, seemed unable to grasp the concept of forever. And Laura, who had always scoffed at the notion of heaven, found herself using the idea to comfort Emma. And at times, herself.

She knew the instant she entered her father’s room that he was not at peace. He was clearly worse than when she’d seen him that afternoon. His breathing was raspier, his skin grayer, and he was agitated. As he reached for her, his long arms trembling in the air, he wore a look of desperation on his once handsome face.

She took his hand and sat on the edge of his bed.

“I’m here, Dad.” She guessed he had not wanted to die without her at his side and wished she’d ignored those red lights to get to the hospital sooner.

He held both her hands in his weak grasp, but even with her there, the desperate look did not leave his eyes. He tried to speak, the words coming out between his gasps for air. “Should… have…told…” he said.

She leaned close to hear him. From that angle, she could see the stars of Aries through the hospital window. “Don’t try to speak, Dad.” She smoothed a tuft of white hair away from his temple.

“A woman,” he said. “You need…” Her father’s face, gaunt and gray, tightened with frustration as he struggled to get the words out.

“I need to what, Dad?” she asked gently.

“Look…” His lips trembled from the strain of speaking. “Look after her,” he said.

Laura drew away to study his face. Could he be delusional? “Okay,” she said. “I will. Please don’t try to talk anymore.”

He let go of her hand to reach toward the night table, his arm jerking with the motion. Laura saw the scrap of paper he was aiming for and picked it up herself. Her father had written a name on the paper in a nearly illegible scrawl that threatened to break her heart.

“Sarah Tolley,” Laura read. “Who is that?”

“Friend,” he said. “Important…has no…family.” He swallowed with effort, his Adam’s apple a sharp blade beneath the skin of his throat. “Promise.”

He wanted her to look after a woman named Sarah Tolley?

“But…who is she?” Laura asked. “Where is she?”

His eyes were closed. “Meadow…Wood…”

“Meadow Wood Village?” Laura pictured the attractive, Victorian-style retirement home on the outskirts of Leesburg.

He nodded. At least she thought he did.

“Can you tell me what you want me to do for her?” she asked.

“Take care…”

“Take care of her?” Laura asked. “But I don’t know her, Dad. I’ve never even heard you talk about her before.”

Her father’s paper-thin eyelids fluttered open, and she saw panic in his eyes. “Promise!” he said. In a nearly spasmodic movement, he reached toward her as if trying to grasp her shoulders, but he caught his fingers in the chain of her necklace instead. She felt the chain snap, and the pendant fell into her lap.

Unsettled by his panic, she caught his hands. “It’s all right, Daddy,” she said. “I promise. I’ll take care of her.”

“Swear…”

“I’ll do it, Dad.” She leaned back to slip the scrap of paper into her jeans pocket. “You don’t need to worry.”

He sank back against the pillow, pointing one trembling finger toward her neck. “I broke…”

“It’s all right.” She lifted the necklace from her lap and slipped it, too, into her jeans pocket. “It can be fixed.” She took his hand again and held it on her thigh. “You rest now,” she said.

Obediently, he closed his eyes, their small battle over. Small battles were nothing new between them. Her mother had died when Laura was seven, and her father had been a difficult parent, demanding and controlling, but always attentive. She had been his top priority, and she knew it. He’d instilled in her his love of astronomy, although for him it had been a cherished avocation rather than a profession, and he was responsible for the person she’d become. His methodical shaping of her had at times been painful and contentious, but she was grateful for it.

She sat there for hours, holding her father’s hand as it grew slacker and cooler in her own. Taped to the wall was a picture Emma had drawn for him a few days earlier. It was one of those typical five-year-old’s drawings. Vivid blue sky. Yellow sun. Green tree. A child dressed in blue and purple, wearing a broad smile, the sort of smile Emma herself wore more often than not. Laura studied the drawing, saddened by the incongruity of that happy child with the scene in this room.

She looked out the window again. Aries was gone, but she could see Jupiter near the center of Aquarius. She closed her eyes, and it was a minute before she realized that her father’s breathing had stopped. Sitting very still, she held his lifeless hand in hers, as the room filled with a silence as deep as the sky.

2

THE EASTERN SKY WAS PURPLE WITH THE APPROACHING DAWN when she arrived home from the hospital. Ray was brewing coffee, wearing his blue terry-cloth robe, a splash of color in the white, uncluttered kitchen. He walked toward her once she was in the door, his arms outstretched, and she could tell he hadn’t slept well. Dark circles marred the skin beneath his eyes, and the stubble of his beard was white. For a moment, she felt the fear of losing him, too. He was sixty-one, twenty-one years older than she, and these last few years had taken a toll on him. When she buried her head against his shoulder, she wasn’t sure if her tears were for her father or her husband.

“He died about an hour ago,” she said, drawing away from him. She wiped her eyes with a tissue, then took the mug of coffee he handed her and sat down at the table.

“I’m glad you got to be there with him,” he said.

“It was upsetting.” She held the mug between her cold hands. “I thought I’d just sit with him while he…slipped away. But he was very anxious. Really wired. He asked me to take care of some woman I’ve never even heard him talk about before, and he made me promise I’d do it. It was as if he couldn’t let himself die until I swore I’d take care of her.”

Ray frowned. “Who’s the woman? And what did he mean by ‘take care of ’?”

Laura reached into her jeans pocket for the scrap of paper, which she flattened on the table. “Sarah Tolley,” she said. “She lives in Meadow Wood Village. You know, that retirement home?”

Ray turned away from her to pour himself more coffee. He was quiet, and she imagined that he, too, was trying to puzzle out her father’s request. His body looked thick and shapeless beneath the robe. Too heavy. It wasn’t healthy to carry around so much weight. She wished he’d take better care of himself.

“And you don’t know her connection to Carl?” he asked finally, his back still to her.

“I have no idea. He said she’s a special friend. Or important. I don’t remember his exact words. He could barely speak.” The conversation with her father now seemed vague, as if she’d dreamed it. “He said, or at least implied, that she has no one else to take care of her. No family.”

“Sweetheart.” Ray sat down at the ancient oak table and rested his hand on top of hers. “I think this was the ranting of a dying man,” he said. “You know he’s suffered from dementia on and off this past week. The medication—”

“I know, but he seemed clear-headed about this. You should have seen him, Ray. It was so important to him. And where would he get this name from?” She pulled her hand from his to touch the scrap of paper. “She must mean something to him. Maybe he had another life we knew nothing about. I’m going to call Meadow Wood Village later today to see if this woman actually lives there.”

Ray’s expression was the one he wore when he lobbied politicians on Capitol Hill. She saw the calculated patience in his face, the tightness in his lips, and knew he was choosing his words with care.

“It’s probably not a good time to discuss this,” he said, his tone even, his hand on hers again, “because you’re understandably upset and feeling pretty emotional about Carl. But I really want you to think about the fact that he ran your life when he was alive and now he’s trying to control it from the grave.”

She knew what he was talking about. Sometimes her father’s love had seemed tied to her achievements, and, no matter what she accomplished, it was never quite enough. But it seemed harsh, almost cruel, for Ray to imply that her father’s deathbed wish was a final act of manipulation.

She leaned toward her husband, feeling tears fill her eyes. “This is the last thing my father will ever ask of me,” she said. “I promised him I’d do as he requested, Ray, and I will. I don’t know what this—” she looked at the piece of paper “—Sarah Tolley was to him, but there is no way I can simply turn my back on her.”

“Damn it!” Ray slammed his mug on the table so hard she jumped, and coffee splashed onto the white place mat. He stood up. “Here you go again, throwing yourself off the deep end headfirst. Don’t you have enough to do? Aren’t Emma and I ever enough to satisfy you?”

Startled by his outburst, she could not find her voice. She stared at her husband while he plowed ahead.

“Why do you always need to have a million projects going at once?” he asked. “Have you looked at your life lately? You just got back from a month of research in Brazil, you drive to Baltimore to teach at Hopkins one day a week, you’re overextended at the Smithsonian, and last week you told me you’re going back to Brazil next summer. What happened to your promise to us, huh?” He leaned on the table, his hands balled into fists. His knuckles were white.

Laura reached out to touch his hand, confused by his sudden, dramatic change of heart. “But you said it was fine for me to—”

“You said we could spend next summer at the lake house, just the three of us,” he interrupted her. “Like a normal family, instead of one where the wife and mother drags her kid all over the place, chasing comets and traveling around the world giving speeches and accepting awards and who knows what other crap, while her husband sits home and gets rejection letter after fucking rejection letter.” He stood up and wiped the back of his hand across his chin. The white bristles of his beard stood out against the red of his face.

Laura pressed her fist to her mouth, stunned by his uncharacteristic fury. He’d never spoken to her this way before, never uttered a word of complaint about her career. She’d had no idea his unhappiness with her ran so deep.

“Mommy?”

She turned to see Emma standing in the doorway of the kitchen. Her fine, nearly black hair was a mass of tangles, her blue eyes wide above cheeks lined with indentations from her blanket. The ragged old bunny she’d slept with for years was clutched in her arms, its place secure despite the two new stuffed toys Emma had received for Christmas. Standing there in her red flannel pajamas, she looked tiny and delicate.

Laura got to her feet. “Good morning, honey,” she said. “Did we wake you?”

“What’s wrong?” Emma looked from Laura to Ray and back again.

“Go back to bed, punkin,” Ray said, the anger out of his voice, though not his face.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Laura said. “Daddy and I were just having a very loud discussion. We didn’t mean to wake you up.” She would tell her about Poppa later. She couldn’t get into that now.

Emma’s eyes were on Ray, who had turned away to rinse his mug in the sink.

“Why are you up when it’s still dark out?” Emma asked.

“Come on.” Laura guided her with a hand on her shoulder. “You’re right. It’s too early to be up. Let’s get you back to bed. Maybe we should all go back to bed for an hour or two.”

Emma held Laura’s hand on the stairs, nearly stumbling in her sleepiness. Laura tucked her back into bed, the sheets still warm from Emma’s body.

“Is Daddy mad at me?” Emma asked.

“At you? Of course not.” Laura smoothed her daughter’s satiny hair. Emma did have a way of getting on Ray’s nerves, and he sometimes complained about her disturbing him when he was working on his book. Occasionally he would even yell at her. “He’s not mad at you at all,” Laura reassured her. “He’s just a little frustrated right now. We can talk about it more later, if you like, when it’s time to get up for real.”

“’Kay,” Emma said, shutting her eyes.

Laura leaned over to kiss her, pulling the covers up to her daughter’s chin. She stood up, coming face-to-face with the shelf of Barbie dolls above Emma’s bed. Even in the darkness, she could see that Emma had arranged the dolls in contorted positions, probably pretending they were gymnasts. It put a smile on Laura’s face. The first in a while.

She needed some time to herself before returning to the kitchen and her angry husband. She walked down the hall to her bedroom, where she pulled the broken necklace from her jeans pocket and opened the jewelry box on her dresser. The box held only a few pairs of earrings, a couple of bracelets. She was not much on jewelry. It didn’t fit her lifestyle. Her running-off-to-Brazil-and-traveling-around-the-world-giving-speeches lifestyle. She winced, still stinging from the hostility behind Ray’s words. Where on earth had that come from? Had he been carrying that resentment around inside him all this time?

She studied the necklace in her hand. It was rare for her to see it lying loose, because she wore it all the time. Her father had first fastened it around her neck when she was eight years old. It had belonged to his mother, he’d told her, after whom she’d been named. The pendant was a large gold charm that always made Laura think of a woman wearing a broad-brimmed hat, although different people seemed to see different things in the intricate shape of the gold. Holding the necklace up to her bare throat, she studied her reflection in the dresser mirror, her gaze falling immediately to her gray roots. She hadn’t realized they were so noticeable. The silver lay in neat lines on either side of the part in her hair. She’d gone gray early, and had been masking that fact with her natural golden brown shade ever since her late twenties. Her hair was still long, past her shoulders. It was very good hair, thick and strong, her only concession to vanity, and even that was limited. She was vain enough to dye her hair, but not vain enough to rush to the hairdresser’s when the roots began to show. Or to powder her nose when it began to shine, or to remember to put on lipstick before a speaking engagement. She was a naturally attractive woman, and that was fortunate, since she would always choose peering into a telescope over a make-up mirror.

She should go downstairs to Ray, but instead she sat on the edge of the bed. As long as she’d known Ray, he’d suffered from depression and dark moods, but this anger, this near rage she’d just witnessed in him, was new. The rejections were getting to him. A retired sociology professor and one of the most compassionate human beings Laura had ever known, Ray had been working on a book about the homeless for many years. It was a labor of love for him, about a cause to which he’d devoted much of his life. The book was heart-wrenching, disturbing and beautifully written. A year ago he’d started submitting it to publishers. Since then, the pile of rejection letters on the desk in his home office had grown.

He’d never before criticized her for putting her career before her marriage and her child. She was stretched thin, that was true. She usually took Emma with her when she traveled, though, and she thought Ray liked having the time alone to focus on his book. Perhaps he had liked it, in the past. But a few months ago, while studying the sky from their lake house in the country, Laura discovered the tenth comet of her career. Except for the fifth, which had been a lovely thing with a long, full tail, the comets she’d found had been small and of interest primarily to other astronomers, but this tenth one promised to be spectacular. Although it was currently little more than a fuzzy speck in a good telescope and would not be visible to the naked eye for a year and a half, she’d been immediately deluged with awards, speaking engagements, media attention and offers to fund any research she chose. Meanwhile, Ray was collecting his rejections. Her success, she now feared, was a knife in his side.

She heard Ray climbing the stairs in his slow, measured pace. In a moment, he was in the room and he sat next to her, his arm around her shoulders.

“I’m very sorry,” he said. “Forgive me, Laura.”

“No,” she said. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’ve been caught up in my own life too much lately. I haven’t given enough of my time to you and Emma.”

“No, no,” he protested. “I didn’t mean any of that. I was just—”

“I think you did mean it, Ray. You were angry and your true feelings finally came out. I won’t go to Brazil during the summer.”

“Oh, Laurie, I really didn’t mean for you to make that sort of change in your—”

“I don’t want to go,” she insisted, and she meant it. Ray had compromised his needs for her over the years. It was her turn now. “I’ll take a break after this coming semester. We’ll go to the lake house and just play, all summer, the three of us. All right?”

Ray hesitated. “And you won’t bother with that woman in the retirement home?” he asked finally.

“She won’t take much time,” she said. “I just need to check on her. Make sure she’s all right, like Dad asked me to do.”

His arm fell from her shoulders. “Please don’t.” His dark eyes pleaded with her.

“Ray, I won’t let it interfere with us,” she said. His distress seemed so out of proportion to what she was suggesting. “I know Dad was demanding of me, but he was also my inspiration and my greatest champion, and now he’s gone.” Her voice cracked. “I can’t let him down. I can’t have promised him something, something so simple, and then not follow through on it. You understand that, don’t you?”

He sighed and stood up. “I’m going down to my office,” he said, and she knew he was through with the conversation.

She watched him pad out of the room in his terry-cloth slippers and thought of following him, but exhaustion stopped her. Better to wait awhile, anyway. Maybe later they would both be more rational.

She undressed quietly and got into her side of the bed. It was cold between the sheets, the sort of cold that no amount of covers could relieve, and she felt alone. Her father was gone. She had no family left, except for Emma and Ray. And at that moment, the Ray she had known and loved seemed lost to her as well.

3

EMMA WAS SITTING ON THE FLOOR OF HER ROOM, ABSORBED IN her new tropical fish puzzle, a gift from her teenage baby-sitter, Shelley. Laura hunched down next to her. It had been two weeks since Christmas, yet this was the first time she’d seen Emma play with the puzzle. It was taking her some time to get over Poppa’s death.

“I’m going out for a little while,” Laura said, tucking a strand of Emma’s hair behind the little girl’s ear. “Daddy’s downstairs in his office.” It was good that Emma was so wrapped up in the puzzle. She would be little bother to Ray.

Emma held up a piece of the puzzle. “I know what this is,” she crowed. “Do you, Mom?”

“Fish scales?” Laura asked as if she weren’t quite sure.

“Right! And it goes right here!” Emma dropped the scales into the picture. “Are you going to work?” she asked, reaching for another piece of the puzzle.

“No. First I’m going to drop off my broken necklace at the jeweler’s. Then I’m going to visit someone.” She stood up. “I won’t be long.”

“This one’s an eye,” Emma said. “I can’t wait till when I have it all done. Can we put paste on it and hang it up like we did with the other one?”

“Sure, if you like. But then you won’t be able to play with it again.”

“That’s okay.” She looked up at Laura. Her eyes were the same color as her pale blue sweater. “Mom?” she asked.

“Honey, I really have to get going.”

“I know, but do you want to look at one of my books with me?”

“Tonight. Before bed.” She bent over to kiss the top of Emma’s head. “I’ll see you in a little while,” she said.

“’Kay,” Emma said, returning her attention easily to her puzzle. She was an independent child, far more independent than other five-year-olds Laura had encountered. People had been surprised to see her at Poppa’s funeral, but Laura had prepared Emma well for what she would see and hear, and she was certain she’d made the right decision in taking her. Emma finally seemed to understand the permanence of Poppa’s death after attending the service. Her daughter hadn’t cried during the funeral, but she’d put her little arm around her mother in comfort each time Laura began to tear up.

Downstairs, Laura found Ray in his office, his manuscript on the desk in front of him, but his attention focused on something out the window. She put her hands on his shoulders, the gray plaid flannel of his shirt warm beneath her palms.

“I won’t be long,” she said. She looked out the window herself, trying to determine what had caught his eye, but saw nothing other than the row of town houses across the street. Each of them was identical to the house in which they lived, each of their slanted roofs was covered with a thin layer of snow.

“Please don’t go,” Ray said, his gaze still riveted outside, and she knew he was slipping into one of his dark moods. She’d known Ray for ten years and had been married to him for nearly six. During that time, he’d seen several psychiatrists and taken a myriad of antidepressants, but nothing could hold off the darkness for long.

In the two weeks since her father’s death, Ray had apologized repeatedly for his outburst, assuring her he was not upset about her career. Still, the words he’d said that morning echoed in her ears, and she didn’t believe his retraction of them. In his moment of anger, he’d finally spoken the truth. Wanting to honor his feelings, Laura had tried to set her father’s request aside, and she was able to do so with reasonable success until the call from her father’s attorney.

“Who’s this Tolley woman?” the attorney had asked her. He told her that her father had paid the entrance fee for Sarah Tolley to move into Meadow Wood Village five years earlier. Not only had he continued to pay her monthly rent, he’d also left a large sum of money in trust for her so that she would still be taken care of after his death.

“I don’t have a clue,” Laura had told him, but her father’s arrangements left her even more certain that Sarah Tolley had somehow played a significant role in his life. She had to see her. When she told Ray her plans, he grew sullen.

“I’m leaving,” Laura said now, bending over, pressing her cheek to Ray’s temple. “I’ll be back in an hour. I promise I won’t stay longer than that. Emma’s completely absorbed in her fish puzzle, so you should be able to work undisturbed.”

He said nothing, and she removed her hands from his shoulders. He was giving her no support on this. Even in Ray’s blackest moods, it was out of character for him to treat her so coolly. It was almost as though her desire to carry out her father’s last wish had come to symbolize her inattention to him. She wondered if it was all right to leave Emma with him today.

“I’ll be back before you know I’ve gone,” she said, and she turned to leave the room before he had another chance to change her mind.

She dropped her broken necklace off at the jeweler’s, then drove across town to the retirement home.

Meadow Wood Village was a charming place, a large, three-storey building that managed to look well-aged and homey despite its relative newness and size. Its siding was a pale blue, the shutters white. An inviting porch ran across the entire front of the building. A place like this could take the fear out of growing old, Laura thought as she walked to the front door.

The building was as warm and inviting inside as it was out, and it smelled like cinnamon and vanilla. The carpets and upholstery were all a soft mauve-and-aqua print. Laura stopped at the front desk, where the receptionist looked up from a stack of paperwork.

“I’m looking for one of your residents,” Laura said. “Sarah Tolley.”

“I’ll call her attendant for you.” The woman motioned toward the lobby. “Have a seat.”

Laura sat on the edge of one of the wing chairs, and in a few minutes, a young, heavyset woman wearing a long floral jacket came into the lobby.

“You’re here to see Sarah?” the woman asked. She looked frankly incredulous.

“Yes,” Laura said. “My name’s Laura Brandon. I don’t actually know her…know Sarah,” she said. “She was a friend of my father’s, and he died recently. He’d asked me to look in on her.”

The woman lowered herself into the chair closest to Laura’s. Everything about her was round: her body, her face, her wire rimmed glasses, her button nose.

“I’m Carolyn, Sarah’s attendant,” she said, “and I have to say, I’m a little surprised by this. No one ever comes to visit Sarah.”

“My father must have,” Laura said. “Carl Brandon. He was about six feet tall, very slender, eightiesh, and—”

Carolyn interrupted her with a shake of her head. “No one has ever come to see her. I would know.”

“That just doesn’t make sense.” Laura saw her own puzzled reflection in the attendant’s glasses. “Well, can you tell me about her?” she asked. “How old is she?”

“She’s seventy-five. And she’s in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Did you know that?”

Laura sank lower in her chair. “No. I don’t know a thing about her.”

“She’s in excellent shape, physically,” Carolyn said. “She takes the exercise classes in our pool. And the Alzheimer’s is barely apparent, so far.” She sat forward in her chair. “We have three living areas here at Meadow Wood,” she explained. “Independent-living apartments, assisted-living apartments, and then a separate wing for those patients who need round-the-clock care. Until just last week, Sarah was able to live in the independent-living wing, but we had to move her over to assisted-living so she could receive more supervision. You know, no stove, no lock on the door. She got lost a couple of times when she went out for a walk, so we felt it was time to move her. We can’t let her go out by herself any longer.”

Laura nodded. What was she getting herself into?

Carolyn leaned even farther forward in her chair. “You know what would be fantastic?” she asked. “If you could take her out for a walk sometime. When the weather’s warmer, of course. Sarah would love that.”

Laura pictured Ray in the study, stewing in his disappointment that she’d gone to Meadow Wood even this once. “I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, I haven’t even met her.”

“The other thing you could do to help her,” Carolyn continued as if Laura hadn’t spoken, “would be to simply listen to her. Let her talk about her old memories. At this point, her primary symptoms are confusion and short-term memory loss. Her mind is still sharp in the past, though, and she loves to talk. But like I said, there’s no one to listen to her, except me, and I have other patients to take care of.”

“I really just wanted to—”

“Even though she’s always up for the bingo games, and she loves movie night,” Carolyn surged ahead, “she still spends too much time in her apartment watching TV. It shouldn’t be like that. I mean, with some patients, that’s okay. That’s enough stimulation. But someone like Sarah needs more.”

“Well—” Laura held up a hand to stop the woman “—as I said, I’ve never even met her. And I have a family of my own as well as a job to attend to. I only wanted to find out how my father knew her. That’s all.” That was not all her father had been asking of her, though, and she knew it.

“All right,” Carolyn stood up, clearly disappointed. “Come with me, then.”

She followed the attendant down a long corridor lined with pale aqua doors, each of them decorated with something different. Some of the doors had photographs taped to them. One had a stuffed teddy bear attached to the knocker. Another, a pair of ballet slippers.

Carolyn stopped at the door bearing a black cutout of a movie projector.

“This is Sarah’s apartment,” she said. “She loves old movies. We put the pictures or whatever on their doors so they know which door is theirs. Sarah’s not that bad yet, though,” she added quickly as she rang the buzzer.

It was a minute before the door was pulled open by an elderly woman, who smiled warmly when she saw Carolyn. “Come in, dear,” she said.

Laura followed the attendant into the small living room, which was furnished in attractive contemporary furniture. Nubby, oatmeal-colored upholstery and oak tables.

“Sarah, this is Laura Brandon,” Carolyn said. “She’s come to visit you.”

“How nice.” Sarah smiled at Laura. She was tall, an inch or two taller than Laura’s five-six. Her silver hair was neatly coiffed, and she bore a slight but unmistakable resemblance to Eleanor Roosevelt. She was impeccably dressed: beige skirt, stockings, beige pumps. The only giveaway that she was not entirely lucid was the incorrect buttoning of her beige-and-white-striped blouse. The fabric gapped slightly above the waistband of her skirt. For some reason, that slip in the otherwise noble carriage of the woman put a lump in Laura’s throat.

Carolyn glanced at her watch. “I’ll leave you two to get to know each other,” she said. “Enjoy your visit.”

Sarah led Laura to the couch after Carolyn left. “Won’t you sit down, dear?” she said.

“Thank you.”

“Would you like some coffee? Or lemonade? I think I have some in the refrigerator.” She started walking toward the small kitchenette, but Laura stopped her.

“No, I’m fine,” she said. She looked awkwardly into her lap. “I’d like to explain why I’m here.”

Sarah sat down at the other end of the couch and looked at her attentively, hands folded in her lap.

“I believe you knew my father,” Laura said. “Carl Brandon.” Sarah’s expression did not change.

“He died a few weeks ago and he’d asked me to…visit you. He wanted to be sure you were all right.”

A small cloud of confusion slipped over Sarah’s face. “That was nice of him,” she said. “I can’t remember who he is, though. I don’t remember things too well anymore.” She looked apologetic. “What did you say his name was?”

“Carl Brandon.”

“And where do I know him from?”

Laura smiled. “I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me. He didn’t say. I figured maybe you were old friends. He pays for your apartment. And he still will, of course,” she added hastily, not wanting to worry her. “He set up a trust for you in his will.”

“My!” Sarah said. “I thought my social security paid for it.” She pressed her fingers to her temples. “I truly must be losing my mind. I just can’t remember him. Where did you say I know him from?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Tolley. He was born in New York City in 1918. He grew up in Brooklyn. I think he moved there when he was about twelve and lived there until he was in his early twenties. Did you ever live in New York?”

“New Jersey,” Sarah said. “I grew up in Bayonne.”

“Well, maybe you didn’t meet him in New York, then. How about Philadelphia? He moved there when he was twenty-four or so, and he worked as a physicist at Allen Technologies. He had a passion for astronomy—everyone who knew him knew about that. He married my mother when he was around forty. My mother died when I was a child, and my father never remarried. I don’t know if he ever dated anyone or not. But maybe he knew you during that time? Could you have gone out with him at some time?”

“No, I don’t know how I knew him, but I’m sure that wasn’t it. I only went out with one man in my whole life.” Sarah’s gaze drifted to a photograph on one of the end tables. It was an old, sepia-toned picture of a good-looking young man.

“Was that the man you…went out with?” Laura asked.

Sarah nodded. “Joe Tolley. He was my husband. The love of my life.”

Laura sensed something in the tone of her voice. There was a long story behind that photograph, and she didn’t have the time to get into it.

“So, you didn’t date my dad, then,” she said. “Could you have worked together?”

“I was a nurse,” Sarah said. “And I never lived in Philadelphia. I lived in Maryland and Virginia most of my life.”

“Well, this is a challenge.” Laura smiled, trying not to let her frustration show. “If you were a nurse, could he have been your patient? He was sick for quite a while before he died. He had cancer, and was in and out of hospitals.” She realized how ridiculous it was to think that Sarah, in her seventies, could have been her father’s nurse. “I guess that doesn’t make sense,” she said.

“I grew up in Bayonne,” Sarah said again, and Laura guessed she was seeing the Alzheimer’s at work.

“Yes,” she said.

“I was a nurse on cruise ships.” She stood up and handed Laura another framed photograph. This one showed Sarah, in her fifties, perhaps, standing beneath a palm tree, a cruise ship looming behind her in the distance.

“That was in St.Thomas,” Sarah said. “Or maybe St. Lucia. My favorite was Alaska, though.”

“Well, what a wonderful job,” Laura said. “You got to see the world.”

“They have an Alaska show on the TV sometimes.” Sarah picked up the TV Guide from the end table and began flipping through it, and Laura felt antsy. She thought of Ray at home, staring gloomily out the window of his study, and Emma playing with the puzzle in her room. Looking at her watch, she realized she’d been gone well over an hour already.

She stood up. “I have to go, Mrs. Tolley,” she said.

Sarah looked at her in surprise. “Oh, you do?”

“I’m sorry we couldn’t solve the mystery of how you knew my father.”

“Did you say he was a doctor?”

“No. A physicist. And an amateur astronomer.”

Sarah looked as though she didn’t quite understand what Laura was saying, but she nodded. “Well, you come see me again, dear,” she said, walking toward her apartment door.

Laura only smiled, unwilling to make that promise. She had no more idea of why her father wanted her to take on the responsibility for Sarah Tolley than she did before her visit.

4

SOMETHING WAS WRONG. LAURA KNEW IT THE MOMENT SHE stepped out of her car in the town house garage, although she couldn’t have said what triggered her sense of dread. As she neared the door, she could hear a child crying inside the house. Was it Emma or some other child? The sound was unfamiliar. A wail. A keening.

Panicked, Laura struggled to fit her key in the lock, finally managing to push the door open. Stepping into the foyer, she found Emma sitting on the bottom step of the stairs, hunched over as though her stomach hurt. Her wailing turned to screams, and she leapt from the step into Laura’s arms.

“Sweetheart!” Laura tried to keep her own voice calm. “What is it? What’s wrong?” Maybe Emma had bugged Ray to read to her and, in his sour mood, he’d yelled at her, but this seemed an extreme reaction. Emma was usually more resilient than this.

Emma didn’t answer her. She clung to Laura, standing now, but pressing her head against Laura’s hip.

Laura looked through the living room toward Ray’s office, a patch of cold forming at the base of her neck. Emma’s screams could not mask the stillness in the rest of the house. “Where’s Daddy?” she asked as she walked toward the office, Emma clinging to her more tightly with each step. “Ray?”

The office was empty, the pages of Ray’s manuscript still piled on his desk. “Ray?” she called as she walked back toward the foyer and the stairs.

“Stay here,” she told Emma, gently pulling the little girl’s arms from around her hips. “I’ll be right back.”

She climbed the stairs, the cold patch at the back of her neck spreading down her spine. She walked through the doorway of the bedroom she shared with Ray. It was empty. Ray must have gone out. He’d left Emma alone. That’s why she was so upset.

That would not be enough to undo Emma, though, and Laura remembered seeing Ray’s car in the garage. She was about to leave the bedroom when she noticed a stain on the wallpaper on the other side of the bed—a red stain in the shape of a butterfly. Biting her lip, she walked slowly around the foot of the bed. Ray lay on the floor next to the window, his head in a pool of blood, a gun in his hand.

Staggering backward, Laura crashed into the dresser, knocking her jewelry box to the floor. She scattered the jewelry with her feet as she fled from the room and down the stairs.

Emma’s wails had turned to a whimper, and she sat huddled on the floor of the foyer, her eyes on Laura. Laura grabbed her by the arm and led her into the kitchen, where she used the phone to call 911.

“Is this an emergency?” the dispatcher asked.

Laura’s brain felt foggy. Ray was dead. There was nothing anyone could do to change that fact, no matter how quickly they got to the house.

“Is this an emergency?” the dispatcher repeated.

“My husband shot himself,” Laura said. “He’s dead.” She had a sudden, desperate need to get out of the house. Ignoring the dispatcher’s questions, she dropped the receiver to the kitchen floor, grabbed Emma once again and ran with her outside to the small front porch.

Sitting down on the old wooden bench Ray’d picked up at a garage sale, she pulled Emma onto her lap. I’m in shock. The thought was clinical and detached. She was nauseated and a little dizzy, and although she knew the air was cold, she couldn’t actually feel it. This is what shock feels like. Her eyes couldn’t focus, even as the police cars, the ambulance and the fire truck pulled in front of her town house, sirens blaring. Neighbors came out to their yards or peered through their windows to see what was happening, but Laura simply stared at the snow covering the front lawn. All she could see, though, was the butterfly-shaped stain on the wallpaper in the bedroom.

“He’s upstairs,” she said to the first police officer who approached her. She pressed her chin to the top of Emma’s head as the army of EMTs marched past them and into the house, and she closed her eyes against the image of what they would find in the upstairs bedroom.

Emma had stopped crying, but her head remained buried in the crook of Laura’s shoulder. She was really too big to sit on anyone’s lap, but she had made herself fit, and Laura did not want to let go of her. The little girl shivered in her light sweater, and Laura rubbed her arms. What had Emma seen? Had she heard the gunshot and gone into the bedroom to investigate? Might she have actually been in the room when Ray did it? Laura should not have left her with him. She should not have been gone more than an hour.

It seemed like a long time before one of the police officers returned to the porch, carrying jackets for her and Emma. He’d brought Ray’s down jacket for Laura, and she put it on, pressing the collar close to her nose to breathe in her husband’s scent.

“Who was in the house when it happened?” the officer asked, pulling a notepad from his pocket. He stood on the walkway, one foot resting on the step.

“Emma.” Laura nodded toward her daughter, who had once again folded herself to fit in Laura’s lap.

The police officer studied Emma for a moment and seemed to decide against questioning her.

“And you were out?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you know why the jewelry box and its contents were on the floor?”

“I knocked into it after I found him,” she said. The image of the jewelry spilled across the floor seemed like something she’d seen days ago, not mere minutes.

“There was a note in the bedroom,” the officer said. “Did you see it?”

“A note?”

“Yes. Taped to the dresser mirror. It read, ‘I asked you not to go.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

Laura squeezed her eyes shut. “I had to visit someone this morning and he didn’t want me to go.”

“Ah,” he said, as though he’d found the missing piece to the puzzle. “There was a big age difference between you and your husband, huh?”

The question seemed rude, but she didn’t have the strength to protest. “Yes,” she said.

“So, was this ‘someone’ you had to visit another man?”

Laura looked at the policeman in confusion. “Another…? No. No. It was a woman. An old woman. But he asked me not to go, and I went, anyway. I was always leaving him. Always working. I left him alone too much. It’s my fault.”

“Now, don’t jump to conclusions, ma’am. Did your husband suffer from depression?”

She nodded. “Terribly. I should have realized how bad it had gotten, but—”

“He has an old scar obviously made from a bullet in his left shoulder,” the officer said. “Was that from some previous botched suicide attempt?”

“No. He got that fighting in Korea.” He had survived Korea. He had not survived his marriage to her. Guilt rested like a boulder in her chest.

The police officer nodded at Emma. “Do you think I could ask her a couple of questions?”

Laura leaned back to shift Emma’s head from her shoulder. “Honey,” she said, “can you tell the policeman what happened? Can you tell me?”

Emma looked at them both in silence, her eyes glazed. And that’s when Laura realized that her daughter had not spoken a single word since she’d gotten home.

5

LAURA SAT NEXT TO STUART, RAY’S YOUNGER BROTHER AND only sibling, during the memorial service at Georgetown University. Ray had taught at Georgetown for many years, and the chapel was completely full. People stood in the rear of the building, some of them forced into the foyer by the crowd. Many were his former sociology students and fellow professors. Ray had left his mark at the university.

He’d left his mark in the streets, as well. A busload of homeless people and the staff from several shelters were already sitting in the chapel by the time Laura arrived. The news of Ray’s death had brought an outpouring of sympathy from the entire metropolitan D.C. area. Ray had been loved and respected. She hoped he had known that. He’d been so wrapped up in his inability to get his book published these last few years that he’d lost sight of all the good he’d accomplished. Seeing the somber crowd in the chapel made her heart ache. She wasn’t sure how she would get through this service.

She glanced at her brother-in-law. Stuart gazed straight ahead, and she could see the tight line of his jaw as he struggled to maintain control. She wrapped her hand around his arm. The hardest call for her to make after Ray’s death had been to Stuart. He lived in Connecticut, and as a marketing representative for a textbook company, he traveled frequently. She’d worried he might be on the road, but she’d found him at home. Stuart had cried when she told him. Big gulping sobs that frightened her, they were so out of character for him. He’d adored and admired his older brother. Ray was all the blood family Stuart had.

Stuart was staying in the town house while he was in Leesburg, but he was staying there alone. Laura had barely been able to set foot in the house since finding Ray’s body. All evidence of his death had been scrubbed away by some people the police had recommended, but still, it was impossible to be there, to sleep there, without feeling Ray’s presence. Stuart, though, had no negative images attached to the town house. Besides, he told her, he would feel closest to Ray there.

Laura and Emma had been staying in the vacant, above-garage apartment of some friends. As soon as Laura could get things organized, she planned to move Emma and herself out to the lake house. She’d told the Smithsonian and Johns Hopkins she would be taking some time off, sending them scrambling to find replacements for her. She would probably sell the town house. She could not imagine ever living there again.

Nancy Charles, one of the geologists from the Smithsonian, stopped at Laura’s pew, leaning over to take her hand.

“I’m so sorry,” Nancy said. “How are you doing?”

“I’m okay.” Laura tried to smile.

“You just lost your father, and now dear Ray. It’s not fair.”

“No,” Laura agreed.

“How’s Emma?” Nancy asked. “She’s not here, is she?”

“She’s with a sitter.”

“Do you need any help with her?”

“No. Thanks, though,” Laura said. “It’s been rough on her, but she’s hanging in there.”

John Robbins, a minister who’d worked with Ray in creating programs for the homeless, stepped into the pulpit, and Nancy whispered goodbye. John began to talk, and although Laura struggled to listen, her mind was still on Emma, who had refused to come to the service. All the energy Laura had put into doing everything “right” with Emma after Poppa’s death had drained her, and she had no reserves left to help her daughter cope with this new tragedy. She was angry at Ray for piling a second loss on Emma in such a short time. And, of course, she felt guilty for her anger.

Emma had not uttered a single word in the four days since Ray’s death. A policewoman had spoken to her the day after it happened, her questioning gentle and sensitive. Emma had sucked her thumb, something she had not done in more than a year, as she stared blankly into the woman’s eyes. She’ll come around, the policewoman assured Laura. Laura should talk to her, she said. Draw Emma’s feelings about the trauma out in the open. But Laura could not get Emma to speak. Not through gentle coaxing, or sharing her own feelings, or even trickery. Emma had lost her voice.

It was Emma she thought of now, through speaker after speaker, until Stuart finally stood to deliver his eulogy. She found it difficult to look at her brother-in-law as he took his place in the pulpit; his resemblance to Ray was striking. He had Ray’s bulky body, his large, soft chin, straight nose and wire-rimmed glasses. Nearly the only difference was that Stuart still had a full head of dark hair, while Ray had lost much of his.

“Ray Darrow was a caring brother, a loving husband and father, a dedicated teacher, a volunteer committed to the homeless, and a writer of uncommon talent,” Stuart said. “He was my only brother, my only family, and he was also my best friend. He was the sort of person you could tell anything to, and he wouldn’t judge you or criticize you. As most of you know, his primary concern was the welfare of others. He was a good man, and the good are often those that suffer the most. Depression had been his enemy all of his life, and he bore frustration poorly. He bore failure poorly. He bore his inability to help others poorly. He wrote a book, No Room at the Inn, a beautiful work of art and compassion he hoped would draw attention to the plight of the homeless and the poor, but no one would publish it. It was decidedly unglamorous. And finally he could take it no more.”

Stuart bowed his head, and Laura could see that he was struggling for composure. She willed him to find it, even though she was losing it herself. Behind her, she heard sniffling.

Stuart continued. “Those of you here who are committed to the same causes that so moved my brother, please continue them in his name,” he said. “That is what he would have wanted.”

Later that night, Laura and Stuart sat together in the tiny living room of the above-garage apartment. Emma was already in bed, but the door to her bedroom was open to let in some light, and Laura spoke quietly in case she could hear them.

“I don’t think it was so much the book that made him kill himself,” she said. She was sitting next to Stuart on the love seat, facing the blue-curtained windows that looked out on her friends’ house. “I think it was me.”

“You?” Stuart said. “He thought the sun rose and set on you, Laurie. Don’t be crazy.”

“There was a lot going on you don’t know about.” She brushed a thread from the sleeve of her sweater. “I think that after I found the last comet, he began to feel like a failure. He kept getting rejection letters while I was getting funding for research and my picture in Newsweek and Time. I stayed at the observatory in Brazil for too long. I was very wrapped up in myself. Laura Brandon and her career. I left him alone too much.”

“I think he understood that was part of your job. He was very proud of you.”

“I don’t know, Stu. Right after my dad died, Ray and I had a big…well, he blew up at me.”

“Ray?”

“He sounded very resentful, of my job and my success. I think he must have been upset for a long time, but he’d hidden those feelings from me till then.”

“Well, if he was hiding them from you, he was hiding them from me, too. I never heard him say anything like that.”

The lights went on in an upstairs bedroom of her friends’ house. A family of five lived there, leading their nice, quiet, normal lives. Laura envied them.

“Even when I was home,” she said, “I’d be up with the telescope at night. He’d tell me how he woke up at 2:00 a.m. to find me gone, and that he missed me.” She blinked back tears. “I was selfish.”

“I don’t know,” Stuart said. “I can’t imagine Ray getting upset over your work. And definitely not over your success. He wasn’t the jealous type.”

“Maybe not when he was feeling well, but he’d been down for a while. I don’t think I recognized it. I should have picked up on it.”

“You’re being awfully hard on yourself, Laurie.”

“I didn’t tell you about the note he left.”

“You didn’t say there was a note.”

“I just didn’t want to tell you about it on the phone.” She didn’t want to tell him about it now, either, but knew she had to.

“What did it say?” Stuart shifted position on the love seat to see her better.

“It read, ‘I asked you not to go.’”

“What did he mean by that?”

“Well, it’s complicated.” Laura rubbed her eyes with her palms. “You see, there’s an elderly woman living near here in a retirement home, and—”

“The one your father asked you to take care of?”

“How did you know that?”

“Ray told me about her the last time I spoke with him on the phone. He said you were all gung ho about taking care of her, and he was very upset about it.”

“I think his being upset was way out of proportion to the situation, probably because he was so depressed. He wasn’t thinking clearly.”

Stuart hesitated. “It did seem an extreme reaction, I guess,” he said. “So, that’s what he was referring to in the note? That he’d asked you not to see her?”

“That’s right. But I had to, Stuart.” She turned to face him. “My father asked me to, and—”

“But…” Stuart interrupted her. “Your father was dead and never would have known the difference.” He spoke gently, as though he had no idea how those words would cut her. “Ray was alive. For whatever reason, he needed to know that what he thought and what he wanted mattered to you.”

She didn’t know what to say. She’d thought Stuart would understand.

“So you saw this woman?” he asked.

“Yes. I still don’t know why my father wanted me to, though. She has Alzheimer’s and doesn’t remember him at all.”

“Alzheimer’s, huh?” Stuart actually chuckled.

“I don’t see what’s so funny.”

“You’re right. It isn’t funny.” Stuart sobered, but it looked as if it took some effort. “Do you plan to see her again?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.” Laura shivered at the thought. Her last visit to Sarah Tolley was linked in her mind to Ray’s death.

“Good,” Stuart said. “Is she getting good care there?”

“I think so.”

“Then forget about her. You made sure she’s all right. You’ve done all you need to do. You found no meaningful link between her and your father. Leave it alone.”

Stuart was right. Her father’s money was still in trust for Sarah, and the attorney would handle any bills that came in. There was nothing more for Laura to do. She remembered the attendant, Carolyn, telling her how much Sarah would love to be able to go for walks again and have someone to talk to, but she quickly blocked that thought from her mind.

Stuart stood up with that same getting-to-his-feet groan Ray had always emitted when rising from a chair. “I’m going to head back to the town house,” he said, stretching. “It’s been a long day.”

Laura stood up herself and walked him to the door, where Stuart pulled her into a brotherly embrace.

“Ray made a lot of sacrifices for you, you know,” Stuart said.

She nodded, her head resting on his shoulder.

Stuart kissed her cheek, then walked out the door. Laura sat down again on the love seat.

Ray made a lot of sacrifices for you.

It hurt to think about all Ray had done for her. He’d given her the financial and emotional support she’d needed to further her career. He’d loved her through her successes despite his own failures.

And he’d even taken responsibility for the child she had never meant to conceive.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.