“The police are on their way” Scott puts his phone on the table and walks over to me.
“Are you okay?”
He knows I’m not well. A warm feeling of gratitude spreads through me. I’m surprised how much I rely on him and how much I’m used to him. Less than half a year ago I dreamed of nothing other than freedom and independence. How quickly that has changed. Today I can’t imagine a life without him. I never would’ve thought it possible that we would ever again trust another man. I nestle into the safety of his embrace.
“If only we could stay like this forever without the outside life disrupts our peace.”
As he kisses my forehead, I realize the times of dreaming are over. Someone murdered my aunt and people are breaking into my house looking for something. All that is alarming. There is an enemy out there and he or she has not shown her face yet.
“I hate being the bringer of bad news, but that will not happen.”
Scott’s arm tightens around me and he pulls me closer.
“Don’t worry. The police will be here soon.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Lilly: 18 March 2017, late afternoon, Wright’s Homestead
Since when has the sentence ‘The police will be here soon’ been a comfort to me? Sometimes Scottie gets me one hundred percent, at other times—like now—he totally misfires. I reach for the envelope he found under the skeleton. The handwriting is the same as in the diary we found last year. My fingers shake as I pull out the paper. It’s most likely the last thing Auntie held in her hand before she died. My breath hitches as I start reading.
Wright’s Homestead, 23 February 1988
Today I went to the cemetery and put fresh flowers on the grave of Eugene and Sarah. It soon will be two years since they died. Strange isn’t it, I never was very close to my sister after she married Eugene, but I miss her. Before her marriage we were inseparable. Especially after she had August when she was fifteen years old and still at school.
She needed my help to raise him and I loved to do that. He was such an adorable boy. It all changed when she married Eugene and he insisted that she gives up the child to the Feldmans. I don’t think she ever got over losing him to the old geezer. Sarah became a shadow of herself when she lost her boy. When I asked her why she turned into this hysterical being that I didn’t recognize. She never talked about August after that. When Elizabeth came along, I hoped she would come round but that never happened.
I feel guilty about not being there for her. I should have tried to help her, to find happiness or to get away from Eugene if that’s what it took. Well, all the ifs and buts are too late now, aren’t they? I hope she’s in heaven. I hope the good Lord is forgiving enough. She didn’t have an easy life; she deserves a better one in the afterlife.
It’s weird that they died so early in their lives. Thirty-one years is not a normal age to bow out. But then, they wonder whether it was suicide, or he drove too fast. That’s also strange. He was always so OCD about everything and would never drive too fast. Everything had to be right in his life, otherwise, he would have a colossal meltdown.
When I heard that the brakes of their car apparently failed and it went over the cliff, I couldn’t believe it. Not only did Eugene check everything at least twice before he made a move, but he also was a careful driver. He drove annoyingly slow. That rules out an accident in my books. And suicide? Not Eugene. He was too afraid his God would punish him and he would end up in eternal hell.
On my way home from the cemetery, I ran into Jesse Milton and we had a long talk about the accident. He was the one who pulled Eugene’s car out of the water and thought something wasn’t right. He’d kept the brake hoses. They were cut. Well, that’s what he said. I understand nothing of these things. I told him the whole suicide or accident theory wouldn’t sit right with me as well. So, we decided to talk to the police again, although they didn’t believe him two years ago.
I left his garage and went home. Since then, I can’t shake the suspicion someone is following me. I think there is something sinister going on.
Wright’s Homestead, 25 February 1988
I’m upset and don’t know what I’m supposed to think. In town today, at the grocery store, people were saying they found Jesse Milton dead in the lake. They say he must have been fishing, slipped on a stone, and fell. It sounds all so plausible, and yet, I can’t get rid of the feeling that there is more to the story. Yesterday he showed me the tampered brake hoses and we were going to the police about it.
I’ve talked to an officer as well. He shoved my suspicions aside as old wive’s tales. Old wife? I’ll give him old wive’s tales. I don’t know who to talk to. Somehow the police in Port Somers aren’t interested. I saw my nephew August sitting in the waiting room of the police, smirking at me.
He’d probably got into trouble again, irresponsible hothead that he is. At least poor Sarah is spared having to watch how her son is going off the rails.
Who would have a reason to kill Sarah and Eugene? I mean we come from modest backgrounds. There are no riches to steal. Tomorrow I’m taking the bus to Greymouth to speak to the police there. Somebody must see how ludicrous the suicide idea is.
I can
