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Well, knowing his sister was with a man she loved wasn’t the only thing that had allowed him to escape. His life had always revolved around his autocratic mother and what he was supposed to do and be in order to honor his Coldiron heritage. Escaping the jaws of her expectations had required more grit and determination than he could ever have imagined. No way could he have done it without Maisey and Roxanne, his other sister. Their support had been constant and unwavering.
He owed them both a lot...
“They’re fine, too—thank God.” Maisey sniffed. “So are Roxanne and her family,” she said, anticipating his next question.
Their oldest sister lived in Louisiana—and had lived there for most of her life, away from them. That in itself was a long story and should never have happened; it was yet another life-altering event he could blame on his mother. He was just glad they’d managed to find Roxanne when they did, because she’d added so much to his life.
He crossed to the window and stared out at the white, moonlit caps of the waves rolling toward the beach. Even in full daylight, he couldn’t see the sand for all the trees and hills. But he wasn’t studying his current surroundings. He was recalling another beach—the private beach below Coldiron House, the ostentatious Southern mansion where he’d been raised. “Then it must be Mom,” he said with a fatalistic sigh.
“Yes.”
Closing his eyes, he pressed his forehead to the cool glass. He’d known he’d have to face what he’d left behind eventually. Was he ready for whatever had happened to Josephine? Had he changed sufficiently to cope with what it might mean? Put enough safety nets in place to make sure he never slipped back into the darkness from which he’d so painstakingly climbed? “What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s dead, Keith.”
The blood began to roar in his ears. “What’d you say?”
“It’s true. She’s gone. I’m so sorry. I know...I know how difficult this is going to be for you, how complicated your feelings about her have always been. Mine aren’t any simpler. I hate that I had to wake you in the middle of the night, but I couldn’t wait. I wanted you to know before...before you could see it on the news or...or someone else called.”
LA could get cold in January. Feeling a sudden chill, Keith straightened and stepped away from the window. Most deaths, even of someone as wealthy and powerful as Josephine Lazarow, weren’t reported on the national news—not unless foul play was involved. Was that what his sister was about to tell him?
“What happened?” he asked as he made his way to the desk and perched on the edge of the expensive leather chair his interior designer had claimed he’d love.
“When Pippa arrived an hour ago—”
“Wait,” he broke in. “That’d be six your time.”
“Yes...”
“Why was she coming so early? Mom’s housekeepers have always arrived at eight.” Even when his mother was running her flower shop instead of letting Nancy Dellinger do it, she didn’t get out of bed until later. The shop didn’t open until ten; she generally prepared the night before.
“Mom needed to be at the airport. She was planning a trip to see Hugh Pointer—a new love interest.”
Of course. Since their father died, when he was twelve and Maisey was ten, Josephine had been through three marriages (after which she’d always gone back to the Lazarow name), and a long list of other relationships. Considering she could have just about anyone she wanted, there was nothing to stop her. Not only was she rich, she was beautiful.
Had been rich. Had been beautiful.
God, could he really be thinking of his strong, determined and often acerbic mother in the past tense?
“Hugh owns a pharmaceutical company, a ranch and a few other assets in Australia,” Maisey was saying. “They’ve been dating, mostly online, for the past few months. She met him in first class the last time she flew to New York and she’s been planning to go down under to see him ever since.”
They’d been dating for months? Keith would know about Hugh if he and his sisters ever discussed his mother, but she was the one subject that was off-limits. They’d grown accustomed to pretending she didn’t exist. Keith had insisted on it. She could trigger a relapse quicker than anyone or anything. “So Pippa was supposed to show up at the house before she’d usually appear to drive Mom to the airport.”
“That’s right.” When Maisey paused, overcome by emotion, a lump rose in his own throat. But no tears followed. Something seemed to be jammed up; he couldn’t cry. Where Josephine was concerned, he’d cut out his emotions almost as precisely as a surgeon might use a scalpel to remove a malignant tumor. He’d had to. Anything less was too painful.
“But...” he prompted when his sister couldn’t continue.
He heard her gulp for breath, heard Rafe in the background speaking soft, soothing words.
“Mom wasn’t waiting for her in the entry like she’d said she’d be. And when Pippa went upstairs to see about the hold-up, she...she found her in the tub.”
His mother often took long baths. They were part of her beauty regimen. She’d even had a TV installed in the bathroom. But why would she take a bath first thing in the morning, before heading to the airport? Why not use the shower, like she usually did to get ready for work? “She drowned?”
Another sniffle. “Apparently. There was a wine bottle and a...a glass that’d been knocked over, as well as s-some candles—”
“Then it must’ve happened last night,” he said. “She wouldn’t light candles first thing in the morning. She doesn’t like getting up early. She was always in too much of a hurry.”
“The coroner hasn’t determined the time of death. He...he just arrived a little while ago. But I agree. Seems that way to me, too.”
“So...they think it was an accident?”
She sniffed again. “They’re not saying, Keith. They won’t even let me in the house, won’t let me see her. I don’t understand what’s going on. I only know that she’s dead.”
His sister ended with a sob—and still his eyes remained dry. “I’m sorry, Maisey.”
That sounded so mechanical, but he was glad to feel numb. Numb beat the hell out of the devastation he could be feeling. He’d worked hard to overcome anything that made him weak or vulnerable.
“I don’t want this to set you back,” she said. “You’ve been doing so well. I—”
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.” He hoped that was true. He didn’t have the best track record...
Maisey continued to cry. “This is terrible. Mom would not have liked going out this way.”
She must’ve been drunk, he thought. But how? She considered it gauche to have more than a single glass of wine in the evening. Unless things had changed more than he realized since he’d been gone, he couldn’t see her imbibing too much, even when she was alone.
“Were her bags packed?” he asked.
“How am I supposed to know? I told you. The police won’t let me in the house. All I can tell you is what they’ve told me.”
Dropping his head into his free hand, he tried to imagine that the strong-willed, demanding person who’d been their mother was gone. For good. That she was completely out of his life, whether or not he wanted her to be.
What did that mean? And did it help or hurt his quest to remain whole and healthy and to keep moving forward with his life?
“Are you all right?” Maisey asked.
“Yeah. I just... I’m trying to come to terms with the news, that’s all.”
“It’s a lot to take in. Don’t let it...don’t let it throw you, Keith.”
Even after five years, she felt she had to worry about him. He was screwed up, had always been screwed up. He suspected that if he ever visited a psychologist he’d be diagnosed as bipolar. That term had been thrown around a great deal back when he was acting out. But he didn’t want to hear a professional say those words, didn’t want to be pumped full of medication—not as long as he could manage on his own. With cross-fit, his business and his sisters, he’d developed some coping skills. And they were working for him. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to backslide.” He was still taking it one day at a time, though, and this was a hurdle he hadn’t expected—maybe in twenty years, but not this soon.
“Okay,” she said. “I—I’d better go. I have to call Roxanne.”
How would Roxanne react to the death of their mother? he wondered. She’d been kidnapped and raised by a former nanny. Roxanne had a dim recollection of what a tyrant Josephine could be, but she didn’t have the memories and stories he and Maisey did. Since Roxanne had reconnected with Josephine, the two had built some semblance of a relationship. Roxanne probably got along with Josephine best, because she didn’t feel the same resentment. Neither did she live close by. Staying a considerable distance away definitely helped.
Considering all of that, would Rocki be heartbroken by the news? Would at least one of Josephine’s children be able to sincerely mourn her passing?
Or would even Roxanne be left to wonder if she was a horrible person for not experiencing more grief?
“I’ll call you back as soon as I can give you more details,” Maisey promised.
“Wait,” he said. “What about Mom’s Yorkie, Athena? Someone needs to take care of her.”
“Pippa took her home, which is the best place for her. She doesn’t get along with Laney’s cat. Max would tear her to shreds. And Pippa pampers that little dog as much as Mom did.”
He rubbed the goose bumps from his arms. “Okay.”
“Would you like to be on the call with Rocki? I could conference you in...”
“No, I’ll let you break the news. I could use a few minutes.”
“No problem. I love you,” she responded and hung up.
After pushing the end button, Keith set his phone on the desk as if it were a bomb that might explode, rocked back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. His mother’s death had so many implications. What would happen to the Coldiron fortune, which she’d controlled since her father died? Who had she left it to? Roxanne—or Maisey?
Perhaps she’d split it between them. But she couldn’t split Coldiron House and would never want to see it sold. So what would become of their ancestral home? Would Maisey move out of the bungalow she shared with Rafe on the other side of the island—from which they managed the eight neighboring vacation cottages for Josephine—and take up residence at Coldiron House?
Keith knew Roxanne wouldn’t move. She and her husband ran two businesses in Louisiana. They couldn’t leave their livelihood behind. Neither would Rocki uproot her three kids.
A sudden longing sprang up, to walk through the halls of Coldiron House, to see his childhood home through different eyes, to somehow find the peace that had eluded him there. He’d loved visiting his grandfather on Fairham Island, before they moved there, when Grandpa Henry was alive. He used to say that Keith would own it all someday, that he would be the one to carry on the Coldiron legacy. Although Keith had never been close to his own father, not like Maisey, and he’d struggled just to get along with his mother, he’d been Grandpa Henry’s favorite. Henry had always admired strength and spirit, even when it turned into willfulness—what had gotten Keith in so much trouble. Grandpa Henry had said he was once the same.
Maybe Keith would’ve put his grandfather’s traits to better use if Henry had lived longer. Sadly, he’d died when Keith was only eight and that house hadn’t represented the same thing since. They’d moved in after his death and it had been the family home ever since. But going back wouldn’t be easy. For one thing, he’d be stepping out of his current routine, which kept him busy and focused on the right things. His schedule, the distance and his refusal to think about the past were what kept him safe from himself.
Still, he had to attend his mother’s funeral. Had to help lay her body to rest in the family cemetery behind the house, beneath the moss-draped trees. Common decency demanded he attend the service, even if he didn’t stay any longer.
After waiting a few minutes, he called Rocki. She’d just hung up with Maisey and was crying.
“You okay?” he asked.
“For the most part. Are you?”
“I don’t know.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Are you planning to attend the funeral?”
“Of course. We’ll fly to South Carolina as soon as we know when it is. We can’t come before that. With our financial situation, we can’t take much time off.”
“Things are that bad?”
“They’re not good.”
She hadn’t mentioned this to him before. She’d always said they were getting by.
“Is there something I can do to help? I’ll pay for your flights, give you a loan—”
“I appreciate the offer,” she broke in before he could list other options. “But we’d rather not accept that kind of help. I’m afraid it would make Landon feel...inept. Just between you and me, he’s already been dealing with some kind of midlife crisis. And even if we didn’t have the financial pressure, the kids are in school.” She sniffed and he pictured her wiping her face. “What about you? Will you go to the funeral?”
“Do I have any choice?”
“Sure you do. Don’t go if it’ll threaten your sobriety, Keith. Your first obligation is to remain drug-free and healthy. Do what you need to in order to avoid a relapse. That’s what the past five years have been about, right? If returning to Fairham could create a problem for you, Maisey and I will handle everything.”
He wouldn’t rely on his sisters to take care of burying their mother and dealing with the aftermath. What kind of brother would dump it all on them? “No, I’ll be there. You and Maisey have enough to worry about,” he said and opened the laptop on his desk to purchase a plane ticket to Charleston. He had to attend an important meeting tomorrow afternoon, so the earliest he could reach Fairham Island would be Tuesday.
He wasn’t convinced he was ready to gamble on the progress he’d made. But he had to go. If he couldn’t do his part when his family needed him, what was the point of changing at all?
2 (#u8ed10f00-acea-5fdf-aa03-d128a18c557a)
THE SMELL HIT him the hardest—that familiar scent of the island, with its briny waves lapping up over the beaches, the soggy wood rotting around the dock and the damp wind sweeping over the fecund marshes to the southwest. As Keith drove his midsize rental car off the ferry, which ran every three hours between eight and eight since they’d added one more crossing at night, he couldn’t help taking a deep breath and feeling as nostalgic as he was apprehensive.
From what he could see, not much had changed in the past five years, but he lowered his head to get a better look as he entered Keys Crossing, the island’s only town. An elaborate display of exotic flowers adorned the windows of Love’s in Bloom, the flower shop that Josephine had purchased with some of the money she’d inherited, along with the house and everything else, from Grandpa Coldiron. The shop, or “shoppe” as she’d had it spelled on the sign, also sported a new coat of pale green paint.
With the sun setting behind the building, only those details could be seen in the dim glow of his headlights, but he assumed that the place looked as appealing as ever. Josephine had always had good taste.
Sitting back, Keith studied the Drift Inn on the other side of the street. Its marquee advertised a “winter special” of $99/night. The vacancy sign below glowed orange and would probably remain lit until the tourists came in spring to swell the ranks of the local population, which stood at about 2,500. There wasn’t a lot to do on Fairham during the winter, especially in damp, windy weather such as they were having now. He could see the dark outline of the palm trees up ahead, on the ocean side of the island where he was going, swaying as black clouds blocked what was left of the fading sun.
A storm approached. He felt like one of those black clouds rolling in—and he had no doubt many of Fairham’s residents would feel the same. He didn’t have a good reputation here. The locals would consider him bad news, the prodigal son returning. But he deserved it; he certainly hadn’t done anything to make anyone admire him back when he lived here.
He checked his watch. He’d taken the second-to-last ferry of the day; it was a little after five. He wondered what Maisey was doing. They’d spoken several times since that ominous call that’d disturbed his sleep. He’d spoken to Roxanne in Louisiana more than once, too. And yet he hadn’t told either one of his sisters that he was coming to the island today. He’d known Maisey would insist on meeting him the moment he got off the ferry, and he felt reluctant to face her so soon. He needed time to acclimate, to ease into the memories that were rising up and washing over him as if he’d been caught out at high tide.
Ease... He chuckled without mirth. Aside from the connection he felt to his grandfather, which sometimes made him homesick, and a general feeling that he belonged here, coming back was as difficult as he’d expected, especially when he thought about the reason for his visit. His mother was only sixty-three. She’d always been so healthy. At times, she’d seemed darn near indestructible.
What had gone wrong?
When Maisey called him yesterday, she’d said the coroner was expecting to rule their mother’s death a suicide. The police had found an empty bottle of sleeping pills on the marble floor of the bathroom, as if she’d tossed them back with a glass of wine.
But Keith couldn’t believe she’d do that. Having the police tramp through her house to find her naked in a bathtub would be humiliating to her. If she was going to commit suicide, she’d put on her most flattering dress and arrange herself on the bed.
Except that she wouldn’t commit suicide at all. Swallowing a bunch of pills and sinking beneath the water would smack too much of giving up, of admitting that her life wasn’t perfect. Josephine was all about appearances. Some of Keith’s worst beatings had been triggered by incidents he’d shared with other people that were unflattering to her—usually about the severe punishments she’d doled out to him.
And there was more than her pride to consider. She had spent almost every living moment protecting her beauty and trying to turn back the hands of time. Why would she fight aging so much if she’d had a desire to end it all?
Something else had to have happened. An accident. Or—he hated to acknowledge the possibility—murder wasn’t an entirely unreasonable conclusion. His mother had plenty of enemies. She hadn’t been the kindest person in the world. Most of the time, she hadn’t been kind at all.
But Fairham had almost no crime. Keith couldn’t believe that anyone here would harm her. He’d asked Maisey if anything had been stolen or if there was any sign of forced entry, and had been told there wasn’t. Even the five-carat, $90,000 diamond ring on Josephine’s finger hadn’t been removed.
Since Pippa, his mother’s housekeeper, typically went home at night—and worked only five days a week—his mother had been alone in the house, taking a bath with her pills and her wine. Barring some injury to her body, which the coroner presumably hadn’t found, Keith could see why the police had reached the conclusion they did.
But they didn’t truly know her...
He passed The Sugar Shack, the barbershop, the burger stand, The Wild Rose Café and the Fairham Marina. Then the road began to climb. Most of the islands off the coast of South Carolina were flat, but Fairham had a sizable hill on one side, which they called a “cliff.” Although it wasn’t much of a cliff by most people’s standards, it was high enough that someone could be killed by falling onto the rocks below, especially a child. They’d once believed Roxanne had fallen onto those rocks and her body had been dragged out to sea. Coldiron House gripped the top of that hill and peered down on the rest of Fairham Island like an eagle guarding its clutch.
A sudden deluge of rain hit his windshield, hard as rocks, as he rounded the final bend in the road and encountered the tall gates of the fence that circled the property. Through the rhythmic slash of his wipers, he stared at the ornate wrought iron with the elaborate C in the center, wondering if he was going to have to call Maisey for the code.
He assumed he would. But it took only three tries to get the gates to open. The code turned out to be his birthday—ironic considering that he and his mother had been estranged for so long. She’d loved him, in her own twisted way. That was the part that always messed with his head, and his heart.
His phone rang as he parked near one of five garage stalls. Stacia Snider, his assistant, was trying to get hold of him. On the West Coast it was only two thirty. But he silenced his phone instead of answering. He couldn’t deal with her now, couldn’t deal with anything else. He felt as if his mother had her hands around his throat and was squeezing...
A memory flashed before his mind’s eye. She’d choked him once, when she’d gotten worked up and gone too far. After she released him, he’d spit in her face, and then she’d really let him have it. That was the only time he ever remembered his father stepping in. Malcolm had been so passive. Whenever Josephine got upset, he’d simply hunker down and wait for her anger to blow itself out. The funny thing was, no one ever wanted him to do anything else. The situation just got more volatile if he tried to insert himself. Josephine had to win at everything, which was partly what had caused Keith’s problems with her. He was the only one who ever stood up to her, who ever fought her complete domination—at least until Maisey got older and walked out on her. Just like he did later...
The car pinged as he got out, reminding him that he needed to turn off the headlights. His BMW did it automatically; he’d forgotten that most cheaper vehicles didn’t.
