The Caretakers Page 3

  When she opens the door to her apartment, Ben Russell peers at her, concern etched on every line of his face. “You look like shit,” he says after a moment.

  “Good to see you too.” She leaves him standing in the hallway and walks back toward the kitchen. She needs to walk away. If she stares at him too long, she’ll lose her composure. “I guess you’ve seen the news?”

  “Yeah.” He drops an overnight bag inside her door, then closes it behind him. “The police haven’t found her, then?”

  “No.” Tessa pulls open the door of the fridge and grabs two beers. “I don’t think so. I tried to call the Bonham Police Department, but . . .”

  “Persona non grata?” Ben guesses, correctly.

  She hadn’t even made it past the receptionist, whose manner had turned distinctly cold after Tessa had given her name. The chilly reception wasn’t a surprise. After fourteen months of exhaustive research and interviews, she produced a series that laid bare every mistake and abuse of authority she could dig up in the Bonham Police Department’s handling of the Gwen Morley murder case, and there was no shortage of material to find.

  The results were devastating to the small, tight-knit community located just south of Albany. After the documentary was released, there was an outcry for justice from the rest of the country, but in Bonham, many, if not most, of the residents stood firm in their belief that Oliver Barlow was a rapist and a murderer.

  Tessa devoted an entire episode to describing what seemed, to an outsider at least, like an inordinate amount of prejudice against the Barlow family that ran like a river through the little town.

  “No one is going to let me anywhere near that investigation,” she says. “Not that I blame them. I just . . . I don’t know. I feel like I should be doing something.”

  Ben follows her into the kitchen and takes a seat on a barstool. Tessa distractedly notes how kind the years have been to him, and the unfairness of that. By rights, he should have a middle-age paunch and at least a little sagging around the jowls, but no. His strawberry blonde hair, just this side of ginger, is as thick as it ever was, and if there are a few grays lurking in there, they’re well camouflaged. Ben moves with the lithe grace of a man comfortable in his skin.

  “Have you eaten?” she asks. “I can find something to throw together if you’re hungry.” She avoids his eyes and clasps her hands together to hide their tremor.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  Tessa crosses to the pantry anyway and rummages through the shelves. “I don’t have anything but stale crackers anyway. I’ll order something.”

  She gasps when she turns to find he’s moved from his seat. He’s standing directly behind her.

  “Forget food, Tessa,” he says. “I’m not here for you to feed me.”

  Her eyes are level with the buttons on his shirt, and she slowly raises them. When they meet his, she freezes.

  “I came to make sure you’re okay.” One hand comes up and gently brushes a strand of hair behind her ear.

  The worry in his eyes undoes her. Each of the defense mechanisms she uses to hold herself together begins to snap, one by one, and before she’s aware it’s going to happen, tears fill her eyes.

  “I can’t get her picture out of my head,” she whispers. “She was so young, and so pretty. Her whole life ahead of her, and now she’s dead. And it’s my fault.”

  Her face crumples, and she drops the box of crackers between their feet, pulling her hands up to cover her tears. She hasn’t seen Ben in years, and he’s been in her apartment for less than two minutes before she’s turned into a needy mess of insecurities.

  She chokes back a sob as his arms close around her. “It’s okay, Tess. I’m here.”

  He doesn’t tell her not to cry. He just holds her while the pain and guilt course through her.

  Tessa’s feet go out from under her, and he supports her as the two of them slide to the floor. She leans her head against his chest and cries the tears that have been building from the moment she saw Ollie smile into the camera that morning.

  Tessa doesn’t know how long she cries. Long enough to soak the front of Ben’s shirt while he strokes her hair. When she finally manages to glance up, his head is leaned back and his eyes are closed. He looks tired, and a new wave of guilt hits her. He was at a conference for work when she called. He should be heading home to his own bed, not babysitting her.

  Ben doesn’t bother to say any of the well-meaning clichés most people would. It’s one of the reasons she loves him. And she does love him, no matter what’s happened over the years. Ben understands she doesn’t need or expect him to fix anything. She only needs him to be there. A friend to remind her she’s not alone.

  “I’m sorry,” she says as she wipes her face on her shirtsleeve. “I hate putting you in this position.”

  He shrugs. “And I hate seeing you take everything onto your own shoulders like this. You didn’t plant evidence. You didn’t throw Barlow in jail. You didn’t steal years from his life.”

  “That doesn’t make it okay!” she says, sitting up and staring at him. Tessa picks herself up from the floor. Even with her back to him, she’s aware of Ben’s gaze on her.

  “No, it doesn’t,” he says. “But Tessa . . . this isn’t on you. If Winters had done his job, none of this would have happened. I don’t know if Barlow’s guilty or not—”

  “You saw the video.”

  “Yeah, I saw it. I saw a desperate, angry man whose life has been ruined. If he was guilty the first time around, then Winters should have proven it instead of letting his men railroad him.”

  Tessa shakes her head, searching for the right words. “Ben, you don’t understand. I was convinced Ollie didn’t kill Gwen Morley,” she says. “Not just that the authorities didn’t play fair. Not just that he was a victim of a corrupt system. I believed that he was innocent.”

  Ben shrugs. “Maybe he was.”

  She stares at him in horror. Each possibility is worse than the other. The idea that she helped put a murderer, a guilty man, back on the streets to strike again . . . or the idea that an innocent man became so warped by events outside of his control that he crossed an unforgiveable line. That he took a life, murdered another human being, out of some twisted need for revenge.

  “What’s happened since doesn’t negate what came before,” Ben says.

  “Doesn’t it?” she says softly. “I wish I could believe that.”

  Ben sighs and pulls up one leg, resting his arm across his knee. “But you don’t, do you?” There’s no judgment in his face, only a sad acceptance.

  “I can’t.” Not because she doesn’t want to, but because she does. If Tessa can separate the two crimes, she can absolve herself of responsibility for the second. She can still believe, in her heart, that she did the right thing. The desire to do so is nearly overwhelming. And incredibly self-serving.

  “By his own admission, Oliver Barlow is a man capable of terrible things. Regardless of how he landed there, prison is where I found him, and prison is where he’d still be if I hadn’t gotten involved.”

  Ben sighs. “All I’m saying is this isn’t entirely on you. Don’t do that to yourself. It’ll take you down roads you don’t want to go down again.”

  Thoughts of the last time flash through her head. The hospital, the meds. The descent that took her there.

  “Have you talked to your mom?” Ben asks.

  Tessa shakes her head. She should tell him about her mother’s ultimatum, but it won’t change anything. Ben can’t fix her family either.

  He doesn’t bother asking if she’s talked to her sister.

  “Look, Tessa, there’s nothing good about this situation, but you can’t do anything about that. It’s out of your hands. The only way you’re going to get through this in one piece is to find a way to accept that.”

  She looks up and meets his eyes. “But how?”

  “One step at a time,” he says. “Just like everything else.”

  His smile is
warm, and she can still see a glimmer of the boy she fell in love with when she was six. The boy who, if life had dealt them a different hand, she might have married.

  7

  The next morning, Tom Petty sings about one more time to kill the pain, and Tessa burrows farther under her covers. The music accompanies an unmistakable smell of freshly brewed coffee and frying bacon.

  It’s an irresistible combination and pulls her from the bed against all odds.

  The shower is running in the bathroom as she passes. Tessa rubs sleep from her eyes and stumbles toward the promise of caffeine.

  She pours a cup and sees a cast iron pan her mother bought for her sitting on the stove with a tea towel draped over the top.

  Tessa’s never used that pan. Not once.

  Suspiciously, she lifts the edge of the tea towel.

  “Biscuits? You made biscuits? Ben, how long have you been awake?” she yells.

  There’s no answer from the bathroom and no one to hear her grumble about farm boys rising with the roosters. She takes a biscuit from the pan. It’s flaky and still warm.

  As fortified as she’s ever going to be, Tessa turns down the music and settles in at her small kitchen table. Her phone has been switched to silent for nearly twenty-four hours. Reporters started blowing it up not long after the story broke.

  But she can’t hide from the world forever.

  Girding herself, Tessa checks her notifications. Her stomach drops at the number. With a sigh, she begins listening to her voice mails, deleting the ones from the press when they’ve barely begun speaking.

  There are three messages from her mother, all sent the day before.

  Tessa pauses on the last one.

  “Honey, I know you’re having a rough day. And I know you need time to process this, but please don’t ever forget, you’re not alone. You’re loved. Always.”

  Tessa squeezes her eyes shut. She’s not going to cry. She’s not.

  “Goodnight, Tessa,” her mom continues. “We’ll speak when you’re ready.”

  At the tone, Tessa’s thumb hovers, then moves to save the message.

  The next is from Anne, left only an hour ago.

  “Hey, I’m at the office,” her assistant says. “Call me when you get this. We have a problem.”

  The peace her mother’s message settled on her evaporates as Tessa dials Anne’s number.

  She answers on the first ring.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Bad news,” Anne says.

  “I gathered that much. What is it?”

  Anne pauses, and while Tessa can appreciate her assistant’s flair for drama in the editing room, she bites her tongue when faced with it in real life.

  “We got a message from the first lady’s team. On the office line.”

  Tessa drops her head into her hand.

  She doesn’t need Anne to tell her they’ve been fired. Good news goes to cell phones. Bad news, though, only bad news is delivered via an office line on a weekend when no one is around to take the call.

  “Let me guess. After careful consideration, they’ve decided to go in a different direction?”

  “Got it in one.”

  More words stream from Anne, but Tessa isn’t listening. This is what she deserves. What difference does her professional reputation make, given what the Winters family is going through?

  But it’s a jagged pill to swallow. Her work. Her life. Like a bad magician, Oliver has pulled the tablecloth out, and everything is crashing to the floor.

  “Tessa? Are you there?”

  “Yes,” she says quietly into the phone. “I’ll call you back, Anne.”

  Her assistant is still talking when Tessa ends the call.

  Vaguely, she realizes the shower hasn’t stopped. The biscuit sitting next to her coffee is still warm. Very little time has passed, but everything feels different. If yesterday had the surreal sensation of a fevered nightmare, today a stark reality is setting in.

  A knock on the apartment door rouses her from the immobility that’s taken hold of her limbs, and she drags herself to answer it on autopilot.

  If she were thinking, she’d realize she’s not expecting anyone and the chances of opening the door to a reporter while still in her pajamas with sleep-tangled hair are better than average.

  But when she unlocks the door and swings it open, Tessa’s mouth drops. She can’t find her voice.

  It’s not a reporter. It’s Margot.

  Margot is here.

  Tessa drinks in the sight of her sister. In an instant, she comprehends how much of herself she left behind when they parted. There’s been a hollow place at the center of her she’s carried ever since.

  But there’s no time to dwell on either the magnitude of that loss or the sensation the sight of her sister brings, the tingling rush of lifeblood into a limb whose circulation has been blocked.

  Because something is wrong.

  One look at her sister, her face drawn and haggard, hair a cloud of unruly curls around her shoulders, her eyes puffy from tears, and Tessa understands immediately that something is very, very wrong.

  Margot reaches out to grasp her without a word, pulling Tessa into a tight embrace that won’t allow her to hide the way her body is shaking. Tessa can do nothing but hold on for dear life.

  Whatever horrible thing has brought Margot to her door, Tessa’s not sure if she has the strength to face it.

  “Margot . . .” she whispers. It’s a question. One she doesn’t want to hear the answer to.

  Her twin sister clutches her tightly, and Tessa flashes to the night their lives changed forever when they were ten years old. A single-car accident on an icy road. A policeman at the door. They’d clung to one another while their mother collapsed in the doorway in her pale blue nightgown.

  Margot says the words she dreads. Her heart is already breaking.

  “It’s Mom, Tess.”

  Like in her dream, Tessa is falling. The wind is rushing past, and all she can do is brace herself for the impact.

  “She’s gone. She died in her sleep last night. They think it was a heart attack.”

  Tessa’s mouth opens and pulls in a sharp, involuntary gasp, absorbing the blow as it lands.

  Footsteps sound in her ears and, with a sinking sensation, Tessa realizes she’s not done falling yet.

  “Margot?” Ben is standing behind them. The look of concern on his face doesn’t negate the fact that he’s wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, his hair wet from the shower.

  Her sister’s grip on her loosens, and Tessa opens her mouth to speak, but it’s too late. Margot’s face has gone slack and white. Tessa sees the exact moment her confusion gives way to understanding and, in that moment, Tessa loses her sister all over again.

  This time maybe for good.

  Margot backs away from the scene she’s stumbled into, shaking her head like she’s been punched. Tessa reaches for her, but Margot bats her hand away.

  “No, Margot, it’s not . . .”

  What’s she going to say? It’s not what it looks like? Who would believe that tired old line anyway?

  “Don’t,” Margot says, shaking her head again.

  “What’s happened?” Ben asks, slower to comprehend the monumental shift taking place beneath their feet. He takes a step toward Margot, but she backs up so quickly she bumps against the wall in the hallway outside Tessa’s door.

  He stops, shocked by her reaction, then the realization of where they are sinks in and his face changes. He glances down at his own bare chest and the towel slung around his waist.

  “Margot,” he says. “You don’t understand—”

  “I said don’t! Don’t talk to me.” She holds up a hand and Ben falters.

  “I should go,” Margot mumbles, more to herself than to either Tessa or Ben. “I . . . I’m going now.”

  She turns and flees down the hallway, bypassing the elevators and heading for the stairwell.

  “Margot!” Ben rushes past
Tessa, gripping his towel to keep it from falling. “Margot!”

  But it’s too late. The door slams behind Margot and she’s gone, leaving both her sister and her husband in her wake.

  Tessa crumples to the floor. Their mother is dead. And Margot will never forgive her.

  8

  KITTY

  “I’ll never forgive you for this!”

  Kitty, seated on a creaky piano bench in the deteriorating old house, turns to watch the drama play out, just as it did once before. The intervening years peel away, and the mold and rot fade into the background, giving way to the warmth of polished wood and the smell of pipe tobacco.

  Fallbrook comes alive, at least in Kitty’s mind, along with the souls of those who once called it home.

  The Cooke family. Their voices carry the hollow echo of time passed.

  Ruby Cooke, the eldest daughter, is young still, already showing signs she’ll become a beauty one day, but her pretty mouth is tight and her eyes hot with indignation.

  “Papa, it’s not my fault,” cries her younger sister, Cora, while Ruby drags her forward with an iron grip upon her arm.

  The sisters, bedraggled and dripping with dirty water and pond muck, stand in the library, presenting themselves before their father’s pristine mahogany desk. A puddle forms beneath their feet.

  As daughters of the big house, they don’t have the immediate sense of having crossed a line, but the Donnelly children, who stand behind them, are servants. At times like this, it hardly matters that they form one band of roving children who wander the grounds together. In the presence of Everett Cooke, the Donnellys know their place.

  The youngest of the lot, little Peter Cooke, stands in the back as well. He’s only four, but he’s recognized the look on his father’s face and grips Aiden’s hand as he tries to hide himself behind the older boy’s legs. Ruby, however, doesn’t notice the storm brewing on her father’s face. She’s concerned only with tossing her sister to the wolves.

  “Papa, I demand you punish Cora! She’s gone too far this time. First she ruined my new hat—”

  “It was an accident! I didn’t mean to trample your stupid hat. You were just in the way.”