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Had she passed that legacy of secrets on to her own children? It was true that they hadn’t told the kids right away when Jeremy’s cancer came back. His first bout, the testicular cancer, had come months after their marriage, not long after he’d recovered from his injuries in the crash. The accident. Whatever it was. If he hadn’t been under close watch by so many doctors, they might not have caught it so early—early enough that he’d sailed through treatment and gone on to father two children. And the second time, the kids had been so young—four and six. They hadn’t understood enough to be scared. Or so she’d told herself. They’d teased Jeremy about going bald, seeming to forget all about his illness as soon as his hair grew back. As the kids got older, there had never been any reason to talk about it. It had all been in the past.
Last fall, after Jeremy finally admitted the low back pain wasn’t getting better and the physical therapist had sent him to his doctor who’d sent him to the oncologist—well, they’d waited to say anything. Why worry the kids? At least until they knew. Until they had their plans in place, with the doctors and lawyers and financial advisors.
Because the third time was not the charm. The cancer had moved quickly, settling deep into his bones. They’d told the kids before he started chemo, and when that first round failed and he’d decided he didn’t want to go through another round if the cancer was going to kill him anyway, just as quickly, they’d been upfront about the options and his decision.
She tightened the hood of her jacket and resumed her trek, following the trail uphill, the blood rushing to the skin of her thighs, the tingling sharp, almost painful.
So yes, they’d kept Jeremy’s illness a secret, but not long. Only until they knew that the future would be short.
True, they had never told the kids the details of the crash. Why should they? It had happened before they were born, before Sarah and Jeremy had been married.
But she hadn’t told him all her theories, all her conflicted imaginings, about that day. Why? Because she’d known—assumed—Jeremy wouldn’t share her feeling that they were both to blame, for not stopping Lucas? It wasn’t just because they’d been off together, making love in the abandoned homestead cabin. It wasn’t just because Lucas had taken Jeremy’s car—why had he left the keys in it, anyway? It was all that, and the dream.
Did she really think he’d have dismissed the dream, called her crazy? Yes. Jeremy Carter considered himself a rational, practical man. And she was young and in love, and while she wanted to share everything—everything—with him, she had not risked telling him anything that might tarnish his opinion of her.
She reached the top of the hill, the same spot where she’d stopped a day or two before. Found a stick and sat on the bench, scraping the mud off the soles of her feet. Mud, feet, mud, feet, blood, tears, mud, feet.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. None of it. Losing Jeremy meant losing her own future.
She flung the stick away and slid her hands up her sleeves, warming them on her arms.
What had Connor meant when he said Jeremy had let the past go, but she hadn’t? How would he know what Jeremy thought about the crash?
And why was Leo targeting Janine? He couldn’t seriously think she’d cooked up this whole letter business as an excuse to kill Lucas Erickson and terrify the rest of them.
No. It was because Janine had run. She’d seen the body and she’d fled to the lodge and hidden. What would she have done if Sarah hadn’t found her there?
Would she be dead, too?
Sarah closed her eyes, remembering the terror radiating from her old friend.
Janine was convinced that someone had been in the law office with her. Watching her. Someone who’d slipped in after the secretary left, leaving Lucas there alone, and slipped out before she returned. Someone who didn’t expect another visitor to come in the front.
A slow heat rose up Sarah’s spine. As if she was being watched right now. The heat became a chill and she froze. Felt her breath go shallow, her jaw tighten. Was it better to act casual, turn slowly, try to fool whoever was watching you into thinking you had no idea, or to whip around and catch them in the act? She and Noah had debated that one time, over biscotti and kombucha at the co-op when he’d felt himself being watched. The eyes, his biology teacher had said, sense information beyond the visual. If you can sense when someone is looking at you, Noah had countered, can the person doing the staring sense when you know?
But there was no one there. No one in the woods, not even a sparrow.
This whole stupid thing had turned her into a blubbering idiot, scaring herself for no reason.
This was why she hadn’t told Jeremy about the dream. Why she regretted telling Holly, the day of the attack.
The wind was whipping up again. As she headed for the lodge, the question clung to her brain: had whoever saw Janine leaning over Lucas’s body known she’d sensed their presence?
And what would they do next?
But short of a hypnotic trance, Sarah didn’t have a clue how to help Janine identify who might have seen her. And after this dream nonsense, she wanted nothing more to do with the unseen world. This one was trouble enough.
Outside the mudroom door, she stopped to wipe her feet on the mat. Glanced at the phone box. Remembered the penny in her pocket.
“Okay, okay.” She rolled her eyes, tossing the words into the ether. To the ghost of her dead husband, or whoever was listening.
* * *
When had she last eaten?
Where were Holly and Janine?
And where had Caro’s journal gone?
