The Caretakers
ALSO BY ELIZA MAXWELL
The Grave Tender
The Kinfolk
The Unremembered Girl
The Widow’s Watcher
The Shadow Writer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2020 Amber Carter
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542044578
ISBN-10: 154204457X
Cover design by David Drummond
For Max
Your kindness is my greatest joy.
To you, and the man you’ll grow to be.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
The screams have long since died away. The bloodstains, like the memories, have faded brown with time, obscured beneath a fine layer of dust. Mildew creeps along the peeling floral wallpaper. The window frames are soft with rot.
A skylight of colored glass softly illuminates the slow and steady decay.
Once, laughter filled the spaces between the tired walls. Running feet and mother’s hugs and whispers under covers at night. Hearts beat, as hearts do, then broke, then beat again. Until they didn’t.
An elderly woman stands inside the remains of what used to be a home. Her head is tilted to one side, and an observer might wonder if her thoughts are anchored in reality. She wonders the same.
Wings flutter in the silence, disturbing the dust and sending a shower of particles down through the beam of sun soldiering on across the room. Starlings, roosting in the attic. Pests, some would say, but she doesn’t begrudge them a dry eave to shelter beneath. The desiccated old place has little else to offer.
Yet something feels different. Changed. This is the thought that occupies her as she stands, listening for sounds that aren’t there, feeling blindly for a pulse that ceased many years before.
She shakes her head. Foolish old woman. Nothing has changed. This house is a corpse, too large to move, decomposing where it lies. A victim, as much as any of them, to the madness that lived, grew, and died within its walls a long time ago.
She leaves the house, her steps unhurried. The sun warms her hunched shoulders, then gives way to shadows that shelter the path to the ivy-covered caretaker’s cottage tucked far back in the trees.
Home. The way was shorter when she was a girl. She would fly through these woods, branches slapping at her, cheeks flushed as she joined her family waiting up ahead.
A memory calls, some vague shape hidden behind the bothersome fog that’s taken permanent residence at the edges of her mind.
Mam’s voice, a lilting brogue that whispers of green hills an ocean away. “’Tis the gravedigger’s bell you hear, lass.”
She waits, feigning disinterest. Impatience will get her nothing. The harder she tries to capture a memory, the deeper into the fog it retreats. But if she’s quiet and still, sometimes it will come, stepping lightly like a doe emerging from the woods.
Sometimes.
Today, though, it bounds away, skittish and shy.
A different memory comes instead. A ghost of a memory, back to greet her as an old friend might.
“Keep my secrets,” it whispers in her ear. “For my secrets are yours.”
She’s not frightened. At her age, there’s little left to fear save death, and even death brings the haunting scent of something new and unknown. An enticement of what might come next.
But as is the nature of ghosts and memories alike, this one has no concern for the future, and even less concern for death. It is fully encapsulated by the past.
The old woman frowns and thinks of the gravedigger’s bell.
A small, dark seed of worry burrows down deep, settling in.
Something is rising.
If only she could remember what it is.
1
TESSA
Tessa stands near the back and surveys the crowd. The crush of reporters in their dark overcoats brings to mind a flock of blackbirds. Unsavory creatures that travel in packs, aware they possess no great beauty alone. Only the power of the mob. They vie with one another, jostling to prove their dominance, and turn their glassy eyes to the object of their curiosity.
Oliver Barlow.
Wondering if he’ll make a good meal, no doubt.
Tessa shakes off the thought. She’s no better. Not really.
“Mr. Barlow, what are your plans now that you’re a free man?” one of them shouts over the rest.
“I . . . I don’t know,” Oliver stammers in response, overwhelmed by the strangers and microphones pushing in on him, questions coming quick and sharp from all directions.
He glances at his wife, a full head shorter than his lanky six-foot frame. She stares at her shoes, intimidated by the mass of humanity blocking their way.
Oliver’s father, a truck driver who manned a wall of stoicism during the fourteen years of his son’s incarceration, stands beside the couple and mops at tears that show no sign of stopping.
Oliver scans the crowd. Searching for an answer, perhaps. Or an escape. Or simply a familiar face in a sea of strangers.
When his eyes find Tessa, they light with relief, and she sends him what she hopes is a reassuring smile.
“I just want to live my life,” he says, his voice stronger. “Hug my kids. Have a home-cooked meal. Watch a ball game with my old man.”
The elder Mr. Barlow chokes back a sob and hides his face behind his hands. Oliver glances at him, bemused. After a slight hesitation, he gives his father an awkward one-armed side hug, which only causes the heaving of the old man’s shoulders to increase.
Oliver’s words are honest, if simple, and leave the reporters hungry for more.
“Do you plan to return to the Bonham community permanently, Mr. Barlow?”
“Chief Winters and the district attorney still deny any wrongdoing in the handling of your case. Would you care to comment on that?”
“Are you angry at the system, Oliver?”
Tessa holds her breath as each barbed question lands, questions that if directed her way would send her into an anxious spiral of self-do
ubt. Each one steals a little more happiness from Ollie’s face. He opens his mouth to reply, and for a moment it seems he might hand the reporters the sound bite they’re baiting him for.
Then his gaze meets Tessa’s once more. With a nearly imperceptible shake of her head, she silently implores him, Don’t let them win.
Ollie bites back the response ready to spring from his lips. He takes a deep breath instead, then glances over his shoulder at the Merrivale Correctional Facility. His home, for better and for worse, for far too many years.
The hulking gray structure stands resolute. Uncaring and unapologetic.
“What’s done is done,” he says when he finally turns back to the waiting crowd. “Today I’m on this side of those walls. That makes it a better day than yesterday.”
Tessa lets out a relieved breath, but any hint of celebration has fizzled. When Oliver Barlow walked into prison he was a young man, twenty-two years old and brimming with righteous anger and protestations of innocence. Now he’s old and he’s tired. A man clocking out after the longest, darkest shift a person could imagine.
“So if you don’t mind, I’d like to go home now.”
After a few last-ditch attempts, the news crews begin packing to go, unrewarded for their efforts. Ollie steers his family toward their waiting car, a faded gold sedan that hasn’t been new for a long time.
He holds the door for his wife, who quickly ducks inside, her head still bent low. Mr. Barlow Senior drops into the front passenger seat and burrows in, trying to control his emotions.
Oliver looks up as Tessa makes her way toward him. A smile breaks through the clouds on his face, erasing some of the signs of premature aging. Even the gray, gloomy day can’t dampen it, and Tessa feels her own face respond in kind.
Before she realizes it, he’s pulled her in for a hug that lifts her off her feet and swings her around. They’re both laughing when he sets her down.
“You did it,” he says, his grin wide and amazed. “I didn’t believe it, but you really did it.”
She smiles, but her voice is serious when she speaks again. “It’s your story, Ollie. I was just the messenger.”
He raises a brow. “Maybe, but no one was listening before you came along. I wish Mom was here to see this.”
Donna Barlow, a plump, soft-spoken woman who devoted her life to her youngest son, never wavered in her commitment to proving his innocence. After more than a decade of dedication to what many saw as a lost cause, she died when an aneurysm burst inside her skull weeks before the appellate judge’s ruling excluded the tainted evidence that had led to Oliver’s conviction.
“She liked you a lot,” Ollie says. “She trusted you, even with your fancy car and your city ways.”
He’s teasing her. Tessa has adapted to urban life and looks the part. Her dark hair is cut into a sleek bob with long bangs. Her clothes are stylish and of good quality. But beneath the surface, she’ll always be a small-town girl.
“I liked her too, Ollie,” Tessa says. “It was an honor to know her.”
“Thank you for coming, Tessa. Thank you for everything.” Ollie hugs her again.
“Seeing you walk out of that place is all the thanks I need. So why are you wasting time? Get out of here. Be happy, Oliver. Go live your life.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says with a grin and a salute.
She waits and watches until the gold sedan turns out of the parking lot. The horn honks once as it drives away, then disappears into the distance.
“Tessa Shepherd?”
She turns, surprised when a straggling reporter calls her name.
The documentary Tessa produced and directed about the case was a huge success and made Oliver Barlow a household name practically overnight, but Tessa is never on camera. She’s rarely, if ever, recognized outside of professional circles.
“How does it feel to know you helped free an innocent man?”
“No comment,” Tessa says with a half smile and a quick shake of her head. She knows he has a job to do, but today isn’t about her.
She tucks her hands into her coat and walks slowly back to her car. How does it feel?
Tessa turns the key in the ignition.
Ollie’s conviction was a travesty. A breakdown of justice at the most basic level, and Tessa played a part in righting that wrong. Tonight, Oliver Barlow will celebrate with his family, a free man at last.
How does it feel?
It feels amazing.
Her gaze falls on the phone she left charging. There are hundreds of numbers programmed into it, hundreds of people she could call. People who would meet her for celebratory drinks or dinner. Acquaintances, friends, coworkers. Her mother’s number is there—Tessa’s biggest supporter.
She can picture her with a cup of coffee on the front porch of her Pennsylvania farmhouse, hear the pleasure in her voice at an unexpected call from one of her daughters. She can hear, also, the tension that would eventually creep in between all the things they’d leave unsaid, because they’ve been said so many times before and gotten them nowhere.
There’s one number that isn’t there. It doesn’t need to be. Tessa knows it by heart. She never dials it, but there’s a part of her that hopes each time her phone rings that she’ll see that number displayed, reaching out to connect after all this time.
But that’s never happened, and Tessa can’t remember the last time she felt so alone.
2
Eighteen months later
The wrap party is in full swing when Tessa clinks a fork against a glass of champagne. She waits patiently while the small but lively crowd quiets down.
Carefully chosen, her team is an eclectic group. Despite their current and varied levels of intoxication, each is outstanding at what they do. They’ve earned the chance to relax.
Their latest project, a three-part documentary delving into the child sex trade, was harrowing. No one walked away unaffected. Tessa discovered one of the interns crying in the bathroom last month and sent the girl home early. She didn’t expect her to come back, to be honest, yet there she was the next day.
Tessa schools her face into a neutral expression.
“I don’t need to tell any of you this one wasn’t easy, so I won’t,” she says. “What I will say is, rest up and enjoy your weekend, because next week we’ve got work to do.”
That gets the full attention of the room. There are a few groans, but they all come from the plus-ones. A twinge of guilt tugs at her conscience, but she chose this crew for their talent and dedication. That doesn’t always equate to an easy family life.
The empty apartment waiting for her is a testament to that.
Tessa’s phone vibrates on the table in front of her. She glances at the number.
It’s Oliver. Again.
Tessa bites her lip, conflicted. She lets the call go to voice mail. Now isn’t the best time, but she’ll reach out tomorrow. She will.
She turns her attention back to her crew. “I’ve just gotten word that the pitch for our next project has been selected.”
“Since when do we pitch?” asks Anne, Tessa’s production assistant. Anne’s been with Tessa longer than anyone and looks peeved to be hearing this for the first time. Tessa didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up only to disappoint them if the project fell through.
“When the former first lady wants a biopic, and her people ask for a pitch, then you pitch,” she says with a shrug.
Tessa smiles as the words sink in. There’s a beat of silence as mouths drop, but it doesn’t last. The room erupts into cheers. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and for the rest of the evening they celebrate accordingly.
Even Anne manages to forgive Tessa’s secrecy.
By the time she lets herself into her apartment a few hours later, Tessa’s ears are still ringing and her cheeks are tired from grinning.
She tosses her keys into a decorative bowl on the kitchen counter and kicks off her shoes before dropping onto the sofa with a sigh of relief.
With an exhausted stretch, Tessa digs it out of her bag and cracks one eye open to peek at the number.
She sits up straighter and answers the call.
“Mom?” Tessa glances at the clock. It’s after midnight.
“Hi, sweetheart,” her mother says. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No, I just got in. A little late for you, though. Is everything all right?”
“Of course. I couldn’t sleep and you’re always up late working, so I thought I’d say hello.”
There’s a pause while Tessa takes that in.
“O-kay,” she says, drawing out the word. Jane Shepherd is an early-to-bed, early-to-rise sort of person. “Hello to you too. Now, what’s going on?”
From the other end of the line, Tessa hears the refrigerator door open, then a clink of ice cubes hitting the bottom of a glass. This is followed by the faint but distinctive sound of a screw top lid and liquid splashing.
“Mom, are you drinking?” Tessa asks. Her mother drinks alcohol about as often as she makes phone calls after nine o’clock.
“Tessa. Brace yourself. This may come as a shock, but according to my records, I am, in fact, an adult. I know it’s difficult to wrap your head around, but if I choose to pour a drink to help me sleep, I’m well within the bounds of acceptability.”
Tessa sits up fully, the remnants of her champagne buzz fading. Jane Shepherd only gets snippy when something is on her mind.
The late hour, the liquor, and now snark. A trifecta that has all of Tessa’s alarm bells ringing.
“Whoa. Not judging, just surprised, that’s all,” she says carefully.
“I’m sorry,” Jane replies a moment later. “I didn’t mean to snap. I’ve been a little under the weather lately.”
Concern knits Tessa’s brows together. “Have you seen the doctor?” she asks, suspecting the answer.
“It’s nothing to worry about, sweetheart, and that’s not why I called anyway.”
“All right,” Tessa says slowly. Her mind is racing with possibilities, none of them good.
“It’s about my birthday,” Jane says finally.