Page 130 of Our Little Secret

And it was two hundred miles away from Nick.

Which was a good thing, at least in Brooke’s opinion. Nick had graduated, moved out of his parents’ home, and now shared an apartment with two roommates. Still, Brooke knew how easily old sparks could rekindle.

Brooke carried Shep’s bag with his leash and dog food into the laundry alcove, a small space that doubled as a kennel and sometimes office when Neal opened his laptop on the counter and dragged in a chair from the dining room.

“I don’t suppose there’s any way we can talk her into moving back home,” Neal said, continuing the conversation.

“We tried. Remember? And that kind of defeats the purpose.”

“I know. But she’s only got a couple of years of high school left. The only time she has to live with us as a kid. For us to be a family.”

“You can bring it up again,” Brooke said, fighting her own urge to bring her daughter home. She too missed Marilee terribly and felt the years of her girlhood slipping by rapidly. “But I don’t think it’s gonna fly.”

“So, what about you? Can you try to talk to her?”

As if she never had.She replied, “I’ll follow your lead this time. You know I’m not crazy about the whole boarding school thing, but we agreed to give it a try for a year. It’s only been a couple of months.”

“Feels like a lot longer,” he said and she nodded.

Their home in Seattle, the house she’d loved forever, had become quiet, almost tomblike without their daughter’s chatter and whirl of activity. Marilee’s empty room, with its neatly made bed, organized bookshelves, clean desk, and dark computer, was a place where Brooke had shed more than a few tears. Alone. Burying her face into the stuffed bunny that had once been Marilee’s favorite.

Because they had empty nested early, if hopefully just temporarily, Brooke had thrown herself into her new job, another sales position. After a few months of looking, she had taken Neal’s advice and landed an outside sales position with Clayton Electronics, where she’d had to learn the ins and outs of security equipment, including parts and installation. She couldn’t help but find it ironic that she was selling the very security equipment that had been attached to her Ford Explorer. In fact she had her smallest sample case tucked into the compartment under the passenger seat of her Honda.

The new job helped keep her busy, but it didn’t fill the emptiness that plagued her.

Brooke tried to remind herself that wasn’t so, that Marilee was alive and well in San Diego, that they were lucky, unlike Penelope Williams’s parents who, to this day, had no idea what had happened to their daughter. Runaway? Kidnap victim? Who knew. The case had gone ice cold.

Brooke reminded herself that she and Neal were fortunate.

So maybe it was best if they all met here.

Despite the fact that this cabin had its own worrisome ghosts—Nana and Mama, even her father. And of course, Gideon.

As Neal carried the bags upstairs, Shep whined at the back door off the living room. He shot across the porch and through the tall grass of the backyard to startle a couple of crows that had been perched on the rocks of the firepit. They flew into the surrounding trees, cawing their displeasure.

The dog nosed around the woodshed before trotting back inside. “Remember this place?” Shep too had been here when she and Gideon had visited.

Gideon.

The last time she’d seen him was that horrid night at the marina, when they both had nearly drowned. She’d dragged herself up the boat ramp, then run to her car. Shaken, shivering, still psyched out, she’d made it to her Explorer and told herself it didn’t matter if he lived or died.

Call 9-1-1!

You have to call 9-1-1!

Fingers trembling, teeth chattering, she’d fumbled for her phone, still in her jeans’ pocket, and started to make the call, but of course it was waterlogged. Wouldn’t turn on. Crap, crap, crap! She decided to run to the nearest boat where lights were glowing behind closed curtains. She’d let the chips fall where they may.

Then his head popped out of the water.

She gasped, dropped her phone, and watched horror-struck. In the security lamp’s glow, he swam to a ladder and pulled himself up the rungs to the dock.

She started the engine.

He turned, focused on her, and seemingly dazed or wounded or both, lumbered along the dock toward the parking lot.

“No!”

She tromped on the accelerator. The Explorer lurched forward in a spray of gravel and water. She drove crazily, shaking and fighting tears. She had to go to the police. She had to confess to Neal. She had to admit everything to Marilee. To everyone.