Chapter Twenty-Three

WHEN I SAW how frail Shauna Bulger looked as she exited the pickup truck just beyond the reach of the inn’s porch, my natural instinct was to run over and catch her. Susan had told me Shauna needed help, but the woman I had seen only a day earlier at her husband’s funeral seemed physically degraded, as though whatever had happened in the last twenty-four hours had deflated her, wrung her like a rag. There was an angry blue bruise spreading up her jaw, and a split in her lip, and she walked slightly bent, nursing an obviously battered frame.

“Jesus, Shauna,” I said to her as I went and took her arm. “What happened?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She waved me off. “I fell, that’s all.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Just my ego.”

I walked her to the porch and sat with her on a bench there. Effie came striding around the side of the house, toting a garden rake in one hand and garbage can in the other, and took in the sight of the truck and the suitcases strapped in the back as she passed.

“You said you needed my help,” I said. “I’m glad you’re here, but you should have called me earlier, before you drove all this way. I could have stayed in Boston.”

“Oh, it’s not like that,” Shauna said. “I’ve just been rattling around the house, trying to make myself useful, and I needed a change of scene. The grief makes you restless. You can probably relate.”

“I remember.” I nodded. “I couldn’t sit still after Siobhan. I lost a few pounds just walking around.”

“Well, while I was trying to keep myself busy last night, I started going through all of Mark’s clothes,” she said. “I thought I’d donate them to Goodwill.” She gestured to the three suitcases on the truck. “I loaded them up on the truck myself. Guess I overdid it and fell. Then I decided maybe I’d been overzealous with the packing. Too brutal. Perhaps there are things within those cases of Mark’s that I’d like to keep. And then I… I drove here.”

“Jeez,” I said. “You’re a bit muddled up, aren’t you.”

Shauna nodded, gazing at the sea beyond the horizon, and I noticed her mouth twitch just a little. I regretted my words immediately. The last thing she needed right now was to be patronized. I expected there would be plenty of that from her son, her friends and neighbors, the people who had been around her when Mark died. She’d come to me, I guessed, because she’d seen in me a friend, just the way that Nick had. Someone who would trust her judgment and not question her or try to direct her. As a widower myself, I was someone she could trust not to mishandle her grief.

“What can I do?”

“It’s the truck.” Shauna gestured to the vehicle. “It’s a stick shift. I’m just not great with those. My little Honda is in the shop, and the Corvette is too fast for me.”

“No problem,” I said. “You can borrow my car. I’ll drive the truck back, and—”

“I was thinking of staying at the beach house.” Shauna put a hand up. “It’s just too painful back home without Mark there. There are so many little reminders of him. I need fresh scenery.”

“All right,” I said. “Sure. You guys kept that place at Manchester-by-the-Sea, huh?”

“We did.”

“Mark hosted a Christmas party there one year.” I nodded, remembering. “If there are too many reminders of him at the beach house, you’re welcome to come stay here.”

“No, I couldn’t possibly impose. But thank you. The Manchester house is my happy place. I chose it. I decorated it. It really has my stamp, rather than his.”

“Nice place.”

“Yes. Too nice for his salary. I’m sure he lied to me about the price.” Shauna gave a mirthless smile. I didn’t say anything. Her husband’s obvious corruption lingered between us, silently, the ghost of sins neither of us wanted to imagine. “I don’t know how to thank you for this, Bill.”

“It’s nothing.” I waved her off. “It’s a car. It’s fine. With so many people living here, we have more cars than we know what to do with. I’ll just get Susan—”

“No, don’t,” Shauna said. She put a hand on my arm and I noticed scratches and bruises on her knuckles. “Don’t bother her. Don’t bother yourself any further, either. If you just lend me one of your cars and toss the truck somewhere in a garage or—whatever you have here. I’d be so grateful.”

“What about the suitcases? Want me to give them to Goodwill for you?”

“I think I’ll need more time,” Shauna sighed. “Could you just leave them in the truck, where they are?”

“Of course,” I said. “I’ll move your truck to the garage around the back. Stay here. Take a load off.”

I jogged down the stairs just as Effie walked up to Shauna’s truck, her hand reaching toward the truck bed’s hatch.

“She’s not a guest,” I told Effie. “No need to unload the bags. We’re just going to park the truck in the garage. Will you give me a hand?”

Effie nodded and pulled open the door beside me. I felt something hit my boot and looked down. It was a small silver chain that had apparently been caught up in the doorjamb. I reached down, picked it up, and walked it back to where Shauna sat on the porch.

I was heading up the steps, the chain hanging from my fist, holding it out to show my old friend, when I looked into her eyes and saw an expression that stopped me dead in my tracks. It was a look I’d seen a thousand times or more across my career, so familiar and so distinct that I felt my soul arrested in my body.

It was the look a person gives when they’re caught.

The shocked, vulnerable, slightly frightened gaze of a perp cornered, presented with inescapable evidence. The cage door shut. The lies exposed.

“This fell out of your truck,” I said.

Defiance flickered through Shauna, and her features fell into neutral.

I laid the silver necklace on Shauna’s outstretched palm. We both looked down at the pendant hanging from it, a single cursive letter fashioned from scratched and worn silver.

It was the letter M.

“Oh,” Shauna nodded, closing the necklace in her fist. “That’s Mark’s.”

“Is it?” I asked. My incredulity must have shown in my voice, because Shauna gave a forced laugh. We both knew the letter on the pendant was so curly and delicate, it was obviously designed for a woman. And the chain itself was so thin and small, it was ridiculous to suggest it might have gone around the neck of the great hulking man that we both knew as Shauna’s late husband. And yet Shauna sat there and lied to me, holding the necklace in her fist, her eyes locked on mine.

“Not his, I mean. Mine, but given to me by Mark. It’s… it’s a long story,” she said. “He… he’d intended to give it to me for my birthday some years ago. He ordered it especially. Only, he didn’t look in the box before he gave it to me, and…” She swiped at her brow. “It was the funniest scene: us sitting there at the restaurant, me opening the box and finding the… the complete wrong initial.”

It was a good lie. A good recovery from Shauna, trying to pass off the pendant as Mark’s, the whole story about the dinner and the mistaken gift. I stood there, stunned, wondering how long she’d been lying to me. And why.

But like Nick’s secret, I knew Shauna’s would unfold for me in time. I just had to be patient, vigilant, and watchful. I could only hope hers wasn’t about to bring hellfire into my life, too.