Don't Be Afraid Read online

  Only then suddenly it wasn’t. He heard a car door slam and then the other woman was in the house. There’d been no time to leave, no time to do more then step back into the closet.

  The shock when he saw her. A complete shock because it was Violet he saw when she came into the room. The same cascade of dark hair, the same oval face, the same dark-blue eyes that seemed to spot him when she scanned the room. He’d almost called out to her, so eager was his mind to make it her, but then she’d stepped closer to Sheila’s body, and he’d realized that it wasn’t her after all. The eyes were a different shade of blue and this woman was taller, and her gait was different. Still, they could have been sisters, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He wanted to touch her, to stroke her hair, but she moved too swiftly for him, running from the room when she realized Sheila was dead.

  He didn’t pursue her through the dark hallways of that house, knowing that she wouldn’t welcome his embrace, not there, not like that. She’d be afraid of him and he didn’t want that.

  He knew she’d phone the police, so he’d left, slipping out the same back door he’d come in, pulling it locked behind him and crossing the barren grass into the patch of woodland that bordered the property. His car wasn’t far away and he was a fit man. The nail gun was warm and heavy against his side and he stuck his cold hands into his pockets, whistling in the cold, brisk air.

  Lying alone in the large carved bed that had been his and Violet’s, he stroked himself as he thought of the dark-haired woman, coming when he relived her cry on discovering Sheila’s body. He slept more soundly that night than any other night since his Violet had gone and he woke with a clear sense of what he had to do.

  Chapter 4

  On the night her marriage ended, Amy had come home from her first solo show to find her husband in bed with another woman.

  He was supposed to be working late; that had been his explanation for missing the highlight of his artist wife’s professional life. Big case, sorry, honey, but it can’t be helped. An explanation she’d accepted because that’s the way it was when you were an up-and-coming lawyer who wanted to make partner at a big firm.

  Everything else about that evening—the gallery in Soho, the glamorous feel of the red velvet dress she’d worn, the pleasurable sensation of seeing her photography being admired, the glittery lights, the buzz of champagne—all of it had faded in her memory.

  Only one image stuck out: Chris tight in the embrace of another woman.

  Amy had dropped into an armchair, too stunned to support her own weight. She was sitting in the same chair now, having made it home and in the door, thanks to the Steerforth police. She’d called Braxton Realty on the ride in the squad car, managing to tell the office manager about Sheila and having them postpone the closing. It couldn’t happen now anyway, not until the police were done with their investigation. Once the buyers found out what had happened in their brand-new master bedroom, they might very well back out of the deal.

  She’d made it as far as her own bedroom before collapsing. Strewn across the bed were the various skirts and blouses she’d pulled from her wardrobe only to discard. It had started as such a promising morning—her first big sale, the beginning of financial freedom for her and Emma. It seemed inconceivable that so much could change in just a few hours.

  Amy’s whole body was trembling and she kept seeing Sheila lying on the floor. But just as when things with Chris had blown apart, she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around what had happened. That couldn’t have been Sheila. Sheila couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t be, but she was.

  The ticking of the clock on the wall reminded her that she had to go soon, had to pick up Emma at kindergarten. Today was a half day and Emma looked forward to spending the afternoon with Mommy. Sometimes they walked into town and had lunch at Joe’s Diner, a converted train car on the edge of the shopping district, all shiny chrome and red leatherette seats. Or Emma had lunch while Amy nursed a glass of iced tea because she had the money to buy Emma the mac-and-cheese off the kiddie menu, but didn’t dare spend the money on lunch for herself.

  Today, though, with the closing fresh in her mind, she’d been going to treat them both. Lunch for both of them at Joe’s and ice cream to follow.

  Not anymore, not now. Amy didn’t think she could manage it. She wasn’t sure she could manage anything. She pressed a hand against her mouth as a fresh wave of grief washed over her and saw through a blur of tears the smears of dirt and grass stains on the cuff of her blouse.

  Change clothes. That’s what she should do. She had to do something; she couldn’t sit here like this. She had a sudden memory of Sheila talking to her about that, eight months before when she first met her.

  “You’ve got to get up and get dressed every single day,” Sheila had preached. “Even if you feel like shit. Even if you feel like it’s going to take all your energy just to get vertical, you’ve got to do it.”

  She’d followed that advice because it was hard not to follow Sheila, a five-foot, four-inch buxom blond dynamo who loved spike heels, big sunglasses and the color hot pink.

  She’d been something of a surprise that first meeting at the Single Parent Support Group. Amy had seen the notice posted at the library and held out for at least two weeks before the desperate urge to have a childfree evening and some adult conversation overcame her fear of attending some weirdo self-help group at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church.

  For the first few minutes after arriving she wished she hadn’t bothered. The meeting was in the basement, a low-ceilinged, poorly lit room with leftover Christmas decorations piled in a corner next to a blue felt banner on a pole that said PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD. Milling around the coffee urn and store-bought cookies or sitting in one of the folding chairs set up in a semicircle were some of the most desperate-looking adults Amy had ever seen.

  Then she’d met Sheila. Or rather, Sheila had met her. Striding over to say hello, she’d offered Amy her first piece of advice: “Honey, I can tell you feel like crap, but that doesn’t mean you have to look like it.”

  It hardly seemed like an opening that would form a friendship, but the truth was that Amy was looking as miserable as she felt and everybody who knew about her split with Chris was treating her like she’d crack if they did anything but congratulate her for the little bit of grooming she managed to do. “You’ve combed your hair—good job!” So she’d been stunned into laughing at Sheila’s remark and then pouring out her troubles to this little woman in a pink wool suit.

  And before long the rest of the group had gathered in the semicircle to “share,” as the facilitator had said, making Amy cringe. Only it turned out that talking about what had happened with her marriage had been cathartic. In some weird way, admitting to a group of strangers that it hadn’t been the first time her husband had cheated on her, that she’d stayed with him through multiple affairs, provided her with a feeling of release. They applauded when she talked about the moment she realized she was finally ready to leave him and afterwards several people came up to welcome her to Steerforth.

  It was the first time that she’d felt that leaving Chris, leaving the city and trying to start over again in Steerforth, might actually work.

  Of course, she’d been lucky to have the house. On better days, on days when she thought things might just work out and she’d be able to support herself and her child, she was grateful for the house.

  It had been a wedding gift to both her and Chris from his wealthy and eccentric great-aunt. The late Louisa Moran had been especially fond of her great-nephew and she’d extended this fondness to his fiancée, though she’d only met Amy a handful of times. Once, at a family reunion, she’d pulled Amy close with one arthritic hand and said that she was far “too good for the likes of this family.” A smile and a wink, the rheumy blue eyes twinkling, but Amy sometimes wondered if she’d known what Chris was really like and had somehow foreseen the future.

  When the shock had worn off that awful night, Amy realized that
the house offered an escape. She knew she had to leave. She’d reached the breaking point in her marriage, but she also knew that she had no money to rent a place of her own in the city. She’d thought of the house and it seemed like the perfect solution.

  What she’d quickly learned, of course, was that the charm of an old cottage paled when you had to deal daily with its quirks.

  It was two story, but had its own quirky footprint. A gray-blue frame outside that matched the color of the Sound, which could be seen off in the distance from a second-floor window. It had an old stove, radiators that rumbled when the heat came on and the original windows that rattled in their frames.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, they made it home. Emma slept through the night in her own room now, instead of dashing into her mother’s bed, frightened by unfamiliar creaks and groans. Amy put a welcome mat at the front door and hung curtains from the windows.

  Once she’d made some more money, she planned to make real improvements. First, she’d found work photographing houses for Braxton’s website. When it became clear that even with this work and other freelance photography Amy couldn’t afford to start her own business, much less drag enough clientele away from the local studio to make a steady income, Sheila suggested that she become an agent.

  Amy stripped off the soiled clothes and left them on the floor of the closet. She didn’t know if she could bear to wear them again. She changed into jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt and tried to scrub her face clear of tears. She tried to stay focused on the present, on Emma, on moving forward, even though she felt like curling up in the fetal position.

  It was Sheila who’d always preached perseverance. Sheila knew when people needed a helping hand, but also believed strongly that sometimes the biggest help was a kick in the pants.

  She always told her own story, managing to make a bad marriage to a meth-using drunkard sound vaguely comical. She even managed to find humor in the horror of fleeing with her two young sons while “the bastard,” as she’d dubbed him, was sleeping off another binge after giving her a ritual beating.

  “You get through it, sweetie. No man is worth throwing your life away, but I didn’t know that for so long.”

  She’d point to a small, jagged line of white, a faint scar marring the line of her perfectly tweezed eyebrow. “His wedding ring did this to me. The ring I put on his finger, even though he’d hit me the day before our wedding. Chalked it up to pre-wedding jitters, said I was making him feel pressured. When I look at that scar, I remind myself never to be that dumb again.”

  And she hadn’t been. She was the farthest thing from dumb that Amy could imagine, so how had she ended up dead? Had she actually opened the door to Trevor? And why on earth would he have followed her?

  None of it made sense, least of all that Sheila, so vibrant, so successful, so kind under that hard-talking exterior, was gone.

  It was late and Emma hated it when she was late. Amy didn’t trust herself behind the wheel. Her whole body was still shaking and she suddenly wished that she’d taken up the detective’s offer of a ride to the hospital. If only there was someone to watch Emma. If only she had someone else to share the burden.

  And the thought that she tried to push out, but came at least once a day, reared its ugly head, tearing through her with a pang of hurt that never seemed to go away: If only Chris were here.

  Emma was standing alone with the young kindergarten aide when Amy arrived. The five-year-old hurled herself at her mother, yelling, “You’re late!” The fierceness of her hug was an accusation.

  “I know, I’m sorry,” Amy apologized, holding her daughter close and looking up to include the young woman in her apology. The aide was already walking back into the building.

  Amy took Emma’s Disney Princess backpack and listened to her chatter about what letters they were working on and how badly behaved the boys were in class. Her little hand felt warm and comforting. Alive. Amy clutched it, until Emma pulled away.

  “Mommy, you’re hurting me.” She skipped out of reach, small ponytail bobbing, and threw a smile back over her shoulder at her mother.

  “Emmy,” Amy called, using a nickname she knew her daughter was particularly fond of, “slow down and walk with me.”

  She needed to hold her daughter’s hand; she needed the weight of it to ground her. It would be okay, things would be okay. With every step she repeated this mantra, but another one repeated itself: Sheila is dead, Sheila is dead, Sheila is dead.

  There was a hush when Amy walked into Braxton Realty the next morning. Agents paused in their morning rituals to stare, their faces a mixture of sympathy and interest.

  “I didn’t think you’d be in today,” Douglas Myers said, sidling over to her with his usual proprietary air. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”

  “Yes, thanks.” She managed a brittle smile. “The houses won’t sell themselves.”

  He laughed. “How true. But surely you can spare a moment to talk about Sheila. Did you see her? How was she killed?”

  “I’ve got work to do, Douglas.” Amy pushed on toward her desk and thanked God he didn’t follow. She had to swallow a few times to keep her stomach down, anger and bile rising in equal amounts.

  The office strove for elegance with its reproduction Georgian furniture and faux dynasty vases, complete with miniature orange trees.

  The trees were dusty though, and the striped silk of the small sofa in the entryway bore the outline of a soda stain. The potpourri couldn’t quite overtake the faint odors of microwave popcorn and takeout Chinese.

  The closing had been postponed indefinitely, a note on her desk informed her. “In light of what happened,” the buyers wanted to renegotiate price. Amy had never smoked a cigarette in her life, but felt desperately like starting. Rummaging in her desk, she found a stick of gum and popped it into her mouth.

  “Amy, we’re so sorry.” Amy looked up to see Claire Rubinstein, the office manager, standing at the edge of her cubicle. Her angular, immaculately powdered face wore an expression of mourning and determination, gray eyes shrewd behind the small reading glasses.

  “We were horrified by the news, just horrified.”

  Claire had a bad habit of talking in the royal “we,” although Amy suspected that she truly believed it was her duty to speak for the entire office.

  “I see you got the info about the closing,” she said. “The Towles weren’t pleased, of course, but who can blame them? None of us were expecting this, I told Mr. Towle.”

  “Least of all Sheila,” Amy said dryly and Claire blinked at her and gave a nervous laugh, hands rising to fiddle with her glasses.

  “Of course,” she said, regaining her composure. “Do the police have any idea who did it?”

  “Maybe her ex. That’s all I know.”

  “Trevor? I thought he’d stopped bothering Sheila years ago. Were they having any issues with the boys?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  But she didn’t know. Had Sheila been struggling with Trevor over something new? What issues had Sheila been dealing with that Amy didn’t know anything about?

  Suddenly Amy wanted to know. The shock and sorrow she’d been experiencing gave way to a fierce determination to find out who had killed Sheila and why.

  Sheila practically lived at the office when she wasn’t home with her kids. Amy hurried over to the empty cubicle across the room.

  There was nothing immediately obvious. Framed photos of Michael and Jason sat in one corner, next to a large pink African violet and a mug that said WORLD’S GREATEST MOM.

  “Such a lie,” Sheila had declared once while she was sipping coffee from it. “I’m hardly the world’s greatest mom. Who is? They should make real ones like, ‘Hanging on to Sanity Mom,’ or ‘Only Screamed Once Today Mom.’ ”

  Amy smiled, remembering, but tears filled her eyes. She sat down at Sheila’s desk and opened the center drawer, looking for an address book or anything that might have Trevor’s number.

  There was n
othing other than notes on Sheila’s listings and a record of conversations with possible clients. That was it, aside from a pack of breath mints, engraved stationery, pink paper clips and a small sheaf of thank-you notes from happy homeowners.

  In the left-hand top drawer was a padded manila envelope hand addressed to Sheila. There was no return address. It had been opened but put back in the drawer. Amy pulled out a smaller, flat manila envelope she found inside, fastened only by a copper butterfly clip. Flipping it over in her hands, she recoiled from the single word written in red ink on the other side: BITCH.

  Chapter 5

  Mark Juarez woke confused and hungover, stunned for a moment to find himself in his childhood bedroom, feeling as if he’d somehow gone back in time, until he remembered where he was and why.

  The insistent tap, tap, tap of his father’s cane was what had woken him and he struggled out of bed and down the hall to the master bedroom. Oscar Juarez was lying against a few rumpled pillows, looking as large, strong and crotchety as ever, despite the stroke that had left him incapacitated.

  “Hey, Dad, I’m up. Need to use the bathroom?”

  His father opened his mouth to speak, but the sound that issued forth was garbled at best. The single nod was clear enough and Mark moved to his left side, the side that he couldn’t move, and helped to shift him to a sitting position. Then began the slow, agonizing step-drag that led to the bathroom. His father leaned on his cane with his good right arm and allowed his son to support him on the other side, taking one good step before dragging his useless left leg and foot into position with the other. He was sweating with the effort. Mark could feel it through the thin cotton of the pajamas, and see it in a sheen across his father’s unshaven face, but Oscar didn’t make a sound. Once a Marine always a Marine, Mark thought as he helped his father into the small bathroom, lifted the seat of the toilet and averted his eyes.