NORA
PINE HILLS WAS a squat, uninspiring building in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. It had once been white but was now a dismal, dirty gray that would have made even the most cheerful person question her sunny disposition. Nora was by nature more prone to doom and gloom, and even driving past Pine Hills was often enough to make her mouth sag at the corners. She steeled herself as Ethan put on his blinker and turned into the mostly empty parking lot.
“Why do old folks’ homes always have to be so depressing?” he asked, pulling through the roundabout in front of the main doors. “I hope I’m shot. Or die in a fiery blaze. Anything would be better than ending up in a place like this.”
Well, Ethan certainly wasn’t helping matters. “That’s morbid.” Nora turned to him, her brows in a hard line over her narrowed eyes. She didn’t know it, but angry was one of her best looks. She was resolute and ethereal, remote and untouchable. Gorgeous was the term that an ex-boyfriend had once used as she was flaying him alive with her keen tongue.
“No offense.” Ethan lifted a hand in surrender. “I didn’t realize you were so attached to the Key Lake convalescent home.”
Nora waved her hand dismissively. “I’m on edge,” she said. But that was more than an understatement. Quinn’s text had unnerved her—all she wanted to do was get this over with and race to the A-frame, where she knew Everlee was waiting. And Quinn. And her mother. Nora resisted the urge to groan. How had Liz gotten involved? More important, what was Nora thinking? Why had she dragged her family into all of this? She sighed and gave Ethan what she hoped was an apologetic smile. “Don’t mind me.”
“Do you want me to go in with you?”
“No.”
“I’ll be right here.”
Nora didn’t bother responding.
It was only a few paces from the car to the main entrance of Pine Hills, but the automatic doors swooshed open a bit late and Nora was left standing in front of the glass for a few seconds longer than was strictly comfortable. She could see the welcome desk and the receptionist who sat behind it, and as she waited for admittance they stared at each other. Nora thought she recognized the woman, but she couldn’t quite place her.
“Hello,” she called in greeting when Nora was finally admitted. “I think you’re about the last person I expected to see walk through those doors today, Nora Sanford.”
Nora waffled for a moment, slowing her steps as a generic smile spread across her face. Who? she thought, riffling through an outdated Rolodex in her mind. She could almost smell the dust of disuse. Memory lane wasn’t a place that she frequented these days.
“Anika.” She came up with her name at the last second. They had attended Key Lake High for a couple of overlapping years, but Anika was almost unrecognizable. Frizzy hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, anemic scowl, unflattering scrubs printed with baby-blue squares that made her look washed out and pale. Nora swept a hand through her own short hair and wished that she had taken the time to apply a little makeup or at least work some mousse into her limp strands. Anika probably thought she had aged just as poorly. “It’s nice to see you.”
They didn’t shake hands, but Anika did give her a small smile. “I can’t imagine what you’re doing here, Nora. We don’t have any of your friends or relatives in residence and you never struck me as the charitable type.”
On second thought, Anika hadn’t smiled. She’d bared her teeth.
Because Nora was in a hurry and not much in the mood for social convention anyway, she followed Anika’s lead and got down to business. “I’m actually here to ask about Lorelei Barnes.”
“You know she’s gone, right? She passed early last week. I’m afraid you’re too late.”
“I know.” Nora was suddenly overwhelmed by the scent of antiseptic and boiled eggs, chlorine with an undercurrent of staleness. It made her unaccountably sad. Lorelei had died here. Alone. The thought was enough to make her want to throw things, to pick up the heavy vase of silk flowers on the corner of the reception desk and hurl it at the Pollyanna-perfect Thomas Kinkade print behind Anika’s head. She imagined the sound it would make, the way the glass would shatter and rain down in a thousand pieces.
Nora had loved Lorelei in her own way. She had been a strong woman. Brave and quiet and unflagging in her devotion to Tiffany. It wasn’t Lorelei’s fault that her niece was detached and desperate, defined by the death of a woman that she had barely known. Tiffany prickled at affection. Rebelled every chance she got. Marked Lorelei’s life with worry and disappointment. It wasn’t fair.
Nora set aside her respect for Tiffany’s surrogate mother and offered Anika a half smile. She leaned forward, trying to seem conspiratorial. “I’m actually just wondering if Tiffany has been by to collect her mother’s belongings. Or maybe I could talk to one of the nurses who was here? Could you tell me who was with Lorelei when she died?” Apparently Nora wasn’t very good at separating her emotions about Lorelei’s passing from the task at hand. She wanted to know everything.
“Did you stay in contact with Tiffany Barnes after high school?” Anika asked, ignoring Nora’s questions. “I didn’t think you two were friends anymore. Not after that fight.”
Nora resisted the urge to groan. She had almost forgotten how small towns worked. The rumors and narrow-mindedness. The way that everybody knew everything about everyone. Who cared? Lorelei was gone. And all that nonsense had been a lifetime ago. “Yeah,” she said, trying not to be snide. “We’re still friends. Have you seen Tiffany lately?”
“Nope.” Anika popped her lips on the word, the sound an indictment of Tiffany’s inherent defects. We always knew she was a bad apple, Anika’s look implied. Which means, by association, so are you.
“Look, it’s kind of important. Can I talk to whoever was with Lorelei at the end?”
“No one was with her.” Anika examined the chewed ends of her ragged fingernails. “She died in the middle of the night and the night nurse didn’t realize it had happened until her body was starting to cool.”
Nora’s mouth felt stuffed with cotton. What a terrible thing to say. What a god-awful way to die. But she pressed on. “And Tiffany hasn’t called or anything?”
“She called every Saturday,” Anika said.
“And who did she talk to?”
“Me,” Anika said, sniffing a little as if the answer should have been obvious. “It’s Saturday today, Nora. Clearly I work the weekend shift.”
It was all Nora could do not to launch herself over the counter to take Anika by the throat. She didn’t remember her being so bitchy. So bitter. But attacking Anika was hardly the way to get the information she wanted. She took a deep breath and tried a different tack. “What did you and Tiffany talk about?”
“You might as well ask me to violate my Hippocratic oath.”
“You’re a doctor?”
“No,” Anika said almost petulantly. “But a private conversation is still a private conversation.”
“Fine.” Nora rubbed her forehead with her hand and squeezed her eyes shut. She turned to go, adding as an afterthought: “Thanks for your help.” But, of course, Anika hadn’t been helpful at all.
“Wait.”
Nora could hear the shift and shuffle as Anika came from behind the counter. She faced her former classmate slowly, uncertain whether she had experienced a change of heart or was going to offer some rude parting shot. But Anika’s face was set and unreadable when she took Nora by the arm and pulled her outside. There was a stone bench near a dried-up fountain and Anika hurried there, taking a pack of smokes out of her pocket and lighting up as she walked.
“I’m not allowed to talk about the patients,” Anika said quietly as Nora sat down beside her. She held out the cigarettes and Nora took one even though she didn’t want it. “But it’s just about time for my smoke break.”
“Thanks,” Nora said, because it felt like the right thing to say.
Anika reached over to light Nora’s cigarette and they were quiet for a drag, two, while Anika inhaled deeply and squinted out over the parking lot.
“Tiffany came about two weeks ago.”
“She did?” Nora was incredulous. “You said she hadn’t been by!” She had no idea that Tiffany had made the drive, that she had managed to visit Key Lake without Nora realizing it. Had Donovan known?
“I said lately. Depends on your definition of lately.” Anika blew a perfect ring of smoke and turned to regard Nora. “She knew that Lorelei didn’t have long. Her blood pressure was dropping, her breathing was erratic . . . she had days. I told Tiffany so.”
“And she came to say goodbye?”
Anika fixed Nora with an indecipherable look. “She had a little girl with her.”
Everlee.
Nora didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. They had kept Everlee a secret from Lorelei because they thought the truth would be more than she could handle. It had the potential to undo everything they had worked for. But something inside of Nora splintered at the knowledge that Lorelei had met her granddaughter—if only once. She took a long drag on the cigarette in her hand to stop herself from completely breaking down. They hadn’t meant for it to be this way.
“She’s the daughter of a friend,” Nora improvised, her voice cracking.
“Give me a break, Nora. The little girl is Tiffany’s kid. Anyone could see that. Cute as a button, too.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Anika looked around, leaned in. Jabbing her cigarette at Nora, she said: “Because they didn’t come alone. A lawyer met them and closed the door to Lorelei’s room.”
“Roger Estes?”
“That’s the one.”
“Why?”
Anika shrugged. “Only one reason you need a lawyer when you’re dying.”
So stupid.
Nora could have screamed. Could have kicked herself. Lorelei Barnes wasn’t a rich woman, but she had land. Enough of it to set Tiffany and Everlee up for life. Enough of it to make them a target for someone like Donovan Richter.
He didn’t care about his $10,000. He cared about Tiffany’s million.
“I have to go,” Nora said, dropping her cigarette and grinding it out with her heel. Her pulse was galloping, pounding so hard and heavy in her chest she could hardly breathe. She was already several steps away when she remembered that against all odds, Anika had helped her. Had made her realize that nothing was quite what it seemed. Over her shoulder, she said: “Thank you.”
“You’re not the first person to come around asking about Lorelei,” Anika called.
Nora stopped dead in her tracks. “What?” she whispered, turning slowly.
“Yesterday. A man came in. Good-looking, tall. Tattoos peeking beneath the cuffs of his sleeves.” Anika snuffed out her own cigarette and stood up. “You know, Tiffany’s type.”
No.
When Nora wrenched open the car door and threw herself inside, Ethan reached for her. “What’s wrong?” he asked, searching her face. “What happened?”
“Just drive.”
He steered away from Pine Hills but paused at the intersection, waiting for her to give him directions.
“I don’t know!” she shouted, casting about. “I don’t know where to go, I don’t know what to do . . .”
Ethan put on his blinker and turned on a side street. He drove halfway down the first block and pulled close to the curb, then put the vehicle in park. “Okay,” he said, swiveling to face her. “Tell me what happened. What’s wrong, Nora?”
“Tiffany came here a couple weeks ago.”
“So?”
Nora put her head in her hands and tugged her short hair as if trying to draw the truth from her own mind. She was putting the pieces together, filling in the blanks, but the situation was so surreal she didn’t know if she could trust herself.
“Talk to me,” Ethan said.
“She came with Everlee.”
“And?”
“And they met with Lorelei’s lawyer.”
“So?”
“Lorelei was worth a lot of money. Land rich. If I remember correctly, she had a hundred acres.”
Ethan tapped the steering wheel, calculating. “What’s an acre of farmland worth? Six thousand? Seven?”
“More.”
“That’s almost a million bucks.”
“Don’t forget the acreage and farmhouse.”
Ethan whistled low.
“But Lorelei didn’t know that Tiffany had a daughter. If she left everything to Tiffany—”
“And Tiffany was going to run—”
“Where would that leave Everlee?” Nora finished. What was Tiffany thinking? She had a false identity and enough money to disappear, but she went back to Key Lake all the same. And then she left Everlee behind. Why? Did she have any idea how much danger she had put her own daughter in? Herself? Lorelei’s land was no secret, and Nora felt like an idiot for not considering the possibility sooner. Of course Lorelei would leave everything to Tiffany. And of course it would leave Tiffany agonizingly vulnerable to a man like Donovan. Especially now that—Nora could only assume—Everlee was named in the will.
“She’s gone,” Nora whispered. “We’ll never find her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tiffany wore a wig for the driver’s license photo. That’s why we found her hair in the sink at the farmhouse. She has a new name, a new identity . . .”
“You’re not kidding.”
“No, I’m not.”
“What’s her new name?”
But Nora shook her head. “I can’t tell you. A Jane Doe name. Not so generic that it’s obvious, but common enough that there are hundreds who share her name across North America. Maybe thousands.”
“Okay. So if she runs using her new identity, it’ll be hard to track her down.”
“Nearly impossible,” Nora moaned. “Especially if she doesn’t want to be found.”
“But if you had a plan, surely you knew where she was going.”
“Tiffany kept that detail to herself, but there were possibilities.” Nora ticked them off on her fingers. “New York City because: of course. Washington State because there was a poster of Mount Rainier in her childhood bedroom and she loved it. Arizona because Lorelei had taken her there one spring and she said the whole state smelled like orange blossoms. And Detroit because it’s where her mother died.”
Ethan pushed a hard breath through his nose.
“Impossible, right? And Tiffany’s nothing if not unreliable. For all I know she’s headed to Salt Lake City or Charleston or Orlando.”
“Her car?”
“She’ll switch the plates a couple times, sell it, buy a new one.”
“What about titles?”
Nora gave him a withering look. “You’re so naive.”
Ethan just stared at her. After a moment he said, cautiously: “What about her father?”
Everlee’s father. The great mystery, though, of course, Nora knew the truth. But that line on Everlee’s birth certificate matched her mother’s: blank. It would take a lot to prove what Nora knew to be true. Never mind the fact that she doubted anyone really wanted the truth. The closest thing Everlee had to a dad was Donovan Richter, and Nora was sure that he would stop at nothing to bring home his girl. He had so many reasons.
What was Tiffany thinking?
Nora turned away and studied the street outside her window, the neat homes that seemed to sit cheerfully behind the long stretches of idyllic sidewalks. Key Lake really was a pretty community, a slice of the American dream right down to the stars and stripes hanging from an eagle-topped flagpole attached to a pristine front porch. The annual Key Lake Fourth of July parade went right down a street like this, and she and Tiffany had gone every year, perching on the edge of the painted curb and pretending to hate it but secretly loving every minute. Especially the marching band. For some reason the marching band always made Nora’s heart feel swollen and tight.
“I love her,” Nora admitted quietly. The tears on her cheeks were sudden, unexpected, and she swallowed against the knot of hopelessness in her chest. “But Tiffany’s the opposite of dependable. If she gets spooked, she runs. I just never imagined that she’d leave Everlee behind. What are we going to do?”
Ethan was still for a long time. But when he spoke, a part of Nora wished he would have just kept his thoughts to himself. “Maybe we’re not supposed to find her,” he said carefully, slowly. “Maybe Everlee would be better off if we didn’t.”
The only reason his words hurt so much was because they were Nora’s dirty little secret. The idea that plagued her. She had spent the last seven years of her life fighting to keep Tiffany and Everlee together. What if, after all they had been through, she had been wrong? About everything?
Nora wasn’t sure she could ever forgive herself if the world they had created turned out to be a lie.