Stranger on the Shore - lanyon Josh - Страница 58

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“You should have thought of that before, Pierce.”

“Griff, I’m trying to help you. Whatever my original motive, I care for you. I care for you.”

Griff barely heard the words. “You had no right.”

“Maybe not. But I thought I was doing the right thing. The more the coincidences added up, the more I believed I was maybe even doing you a favor.”

“I don’t need...” Griff stopped. The fact was he didn’t know what he needed. Everything he’d thought he knew for a fact was sliding out from under his feet. He changed it to, “I don’t need this right now.” He disconnected.

Once again Pierce called back, but this time Griff let it go to message. He put the Karmann Ghia in gear and continued to Winden House.

Police stopped him at the gates, but he showed his ID and told them he was staying on the estate and needed to get his belongings from the guest house. He was waved through and he continued to the house. He parked in the star-shaped court and got out.

He walked through the twin griffins guarding the front entrance, stopped by the fountain, and walked back. He stared at the griffins for a moment, then continued up the steps. He walked around the side of the house and went in through the mud porch.

No one was in the kitchen. It smelled cold and stale as though it was a long time since anything nourishing or wholesome had been cooked there.

He left the kitchen and headed for the elegant entryway with the diamond parquet floor and low ceiling he had studied for so long in photographs.

The whole house felt empty, abandoned.

“Hello?” he called.

There was no answer. He didn’t expect one really.

Slowly, feeling almost as though he were sleep-walking, he climbed the curving marble staircase and walked down the hall to the nursery.

He hesitated outside the nursery door, and then he turned the sea glass knob and went inside.

Above his head the armada of tiny galleons flashed and glinted as they sailed through the dazzling spring sunlight, weathering the dust motes that drifted down around them. He stared at the treasure chest toy box at the foot of the child-sized bed, stared at the rocker before the fireplace, the sailboat leaning against the window seat. If it was all true, then he should be feeling something, shouldn’t he? He should remember something more than a broken clock and a ragged teddy bear.

He sat down on Brian’s bed and stared up at the sea mural. A rainbow of fish and smiling dolphins dived and danced on the turquoise waves, frozen forever in play. The sea monster, smiling urbanely and showing all his sharp, white teeth, seemed to wink at him.

I know a secret.

Griff pulled out his phone. Pierce’s message waited unopened. He ignored it, moving to photos and examining the copies he had made of pictures in the Arlington albums. One by one, he slid them past, stopping only when he came to the image of Matthew lying in a hammock, reading.

Griff flicked the screen, zooming on the photo until he could make out Matthew’s hand, and then larger again until he could view the book he held. An unmistakable indigo cover.

The Great Gatsby. There was no error. The cover was one of the most famous and reproduced in the world. He stared at the tiny reproduction of Cugat’s gouache painting. The world-weary eyes, the single luminous green tear, the dazzling carnival of lights twinkling in the night.

He felt as though he was looking at his entire life through a fun house mirror. Everything he had ever known, trusted, relied on was...wrong. A lie.

He closed the photo. Pierce’s message was still waiting. He scowled at it and pressed play.

Pierce sounded urgent, as though they were still speaking in real time. “And the other thing is, if I’m right, if we’re both right about what that test is going to show, you need to stay away from Winden House. Don’t go back there today. You said it yourself. Alvin wasn’t killed by Brian’s kidnapper. He was killed because someone can’t afford for Brian to come home. Do not go back there.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Molly the cook was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables. She looked up and smiled at Griff.

“Mrs. Truscott?” he asked.

Molly made a sympathetic face. “The poor thing. She’s got a terrible migraine. She’s in her rooms.”

“Can I—?”

“Oh. I don’t know.” Molly was still hesitating over that as Griff turned and went down the hall that led to the mostly deserted servants’ quarters.

The door to Mrs. Truscott’s room was ajar. A terrible, terrible memory flashed through Griff’s mind. He made himself push the door open and to his relief saw her sitting at a small desk writing what looked to be a letter.

Griff tapped on the door frame and Mrs. Truscott jumped and then turned in her chair. She didn’t look any less alarmed when she saw who her visitor was.

“I need to talk to you,” Griff said.

“I don’t think...” She didn’t finish it. Unconsciously her dark gaze slid to the framed photo on the window ledge above the desk.

Even from that distance Griff recognized the photo. Or at least half the photo. The other half, the half with a much younger and happier-looking Mrs. Truscott, had been cut out of the photograph Griff knew. What remained was the only picture he had of his mother.

Here was the last piece of the puzzle. Literally the last piece.

Griff stepped forward, eyes on the framed image. Mrs. Truscott watched him almost fearfully.

“My mother,” he said.

“No.”

He stared at her. She looked stricken, but she shook her head. “No.”

“I don’t understand. I don’t...”

“I’m sorry.”

Sorry?

“But why? Why didn’t you...” He wasn’t even sure what he was asking. Where did he start? He felt winded, as though he didn’t have breath for all the questions it would take to make sense of this.

“I was afraid the minute I saw you,” she said. “All these years I tried to convince myself. But the minute I saw you, I knew in my heart it was true.” She shook her head. “I didn’t want to believe it. I told myself it couldn’t be true. You didn’t seem to know, so how could it be true?”

Was that supposed to be an explanation? Because every word she spoke confused him more.

“Your sister. The one who supposedly died in a state institution. She didn’t die, did she? Not in any institution.”

Mrs. Truscott’s face softened, her tone took on an almost pleading note. “Her little boy passed when she was in the hospital the last time. She had trouble—she didn’t always—”

“No. You can’t stop. You have to tell me,” Griff said when she lurched to that painful halt.

“I know. I’m trying.” Mrs. Truscott put her face in her hands, and in that moment she looked so much like his mother, he almost put his arms around her.

But she wasn’t his mother. Even his mother had not really been his mother. And in a minute he was going to have another anxiety attack. At least this time it was understandable.

Mrs. Truscott said from behind her hands, “She could be fine for months, even years. She would come and go, I wouldn’t hear from her and then I would. And she’d be perfectly fine. But other times she wasn’t herself. She’d have to go away. She was better after she had her boy. Gareth, she called him. But then she had one of her breakdowns and she had to go into the hospital again. And while she was there, Gareth...died. He was living with our mother at the time, and he died of appendicitis.”

Griff’s chest still felt tight, he couldn’t get enough air to speak, but that was okay because he didn’t need to speak. He needed to be quiet and calm and listen. None of this could hurt him. It was all over now. It was all in the past.

Mrs. Truscott raised her head to meet his eyes. “When she got out, she blamed our mother. It wasn’t our mother’s fault. It wasn’t. But they had never been close. So it wasn’t such a surprise when she didn’t get in touch.”

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