Page 30 of Secrets Along the Shore

Livia continued. “She was—also an abductee herself. Ten years ago.”

I guess Livia had no way of knowing that I didn’t want to bring that up. I hadn’t specified confidentiality, and I’d intended to even use my experience to find shared commonality. Livia was innocent of wrongdoing. But a pit settled in my stomach.

“Oh my word!” Jean’s hand clapped over her mouth. She stared at me, tears in her eyes.

I squirmed in my chair.

Livia cast me a questioning glance.

I managed a wobbly smile, so Livia continued. “Noa wanted to ask you some questions about Rosalie, if you are open to it? To see if there are any similarities?—”

“Between Rosalie’s disappearance and yours?” Jean leaned forward. “Because the thought crossed my mind that what if they were related…”

She reminded me of Reuben. Stretching to make the pieces fit and tie it all back to the Serpent Killer.

“I don’t think they are.” My blunt response was not well delivered.

Jean’s shoulders sagged.

Livia nudged my arm with her elbow.

“But—” I chirped a bit too energetically. “I—think I can—I was—” Wow, this was going nowhere fast.

Jean held her palm up toward me again. She took a deep, steadying breath. “You see things through a different set of eyes than most of us. You’re a brave woman, Noa.” Jean assessed with words I hadn’t been able to put together. “I would imagine Sophia’s death—and Rosalie’s disappearance along with Lilian Thomas’s—brings up all sorts of emotions and memories. Things that many of us wouldn’t even know to be sensitive to.”

“Yes.” I nodded. I hadn’t imagined a florist would understand me so thoroughly.

“I’m guessing you’re hoping to see something from your unique perspective that the rest of us may have missed?”

“Yes!” I moved to the edge of my seat. “We know that the abductions of Sophia and Rosalie and Lilian are connected because of the—the snake left behind. But what connected them in life? There has to be something.”

“There isn’t.” Jean leaned back in her chair. “At least, not that we can see. Or the police.”

“Tell me about Rosalie.”

My invitation was not unlike opening a waterspout that had built up water pressure. For the next hour, Jean regaled Livia and me with Rosalie’s life story. How they had been raised by a single mother. How Rosalie had left Whisper’s End in the late nineties to go to university. She had dropped out of the university when she became pregnant with her daughter. Five years later, Rosalie had met her now husband who, ironically, was also from Whisper’s End. They had gone to high school together but had run in different crowds, only to meet up later and fall in love. Whisper’s End called them back and they raised Rosalie’s daughter and then had their own son.

“What type of things did Rosalie enjoy investing her time in?” Itwas an insightful question that Livia had posed and Jean dove right in to the answer.

She loved to bake, to garden, to be a mom. She never missed her son’s football games, and she video chatted with her daughter every other day. She was active in her local church, and even served on the board of the local food pantry. Rosalie was as wholesome as they came.

“Would there be any chance Rosalie and Sophia crossed paths through the high school?” I ventured. “Sophia sounds like she was close to Rosalie’s son’s age.”

Jean nodded. “Sophia was a year behind Rosalie’s son, Josh. But they never did anything together. Not even extracurricular. Josh played football and that was about it. The police said Sophia was into the arts. She didn’t take part in the athletics program aside from required P.E. She took art classes down at the local civic center. So while Josh and Sophia may have passed in the hall and knownofeach other, there was no connectiontoeach other.”

Sophia. Artistic. Young.

Rosalie. Motherly. Late forties.

That left Lilian Thomas. “And Lilian?”

Jean winced. “Also no connection. I guess Lilian didn’t go to church. She volunteered at the local retirement home and helped lead activities. When she wasn’t there, she was home with her two dogs.”

“Did Lilian or Sophia buy flowers here?” I was stretching now—and probably asking all the same questions the cops had. I really had no right to be here.

“We checked the sales records and didn’t find any.” Jean replied. “I know. It feels . . .” she choked back tears. “Hopeless.”

“Nothing is hopeless.” Livia reached across the desk. “It just takes one thing and Rosalie might be found.”