“Yes, honestly it was, because I don’t remember either of them.”
Fiona winced but recovered quickly. “I’m sorry, Ash. This must be incredibly difficult. Did Maya...did she tell you about them?”
“A little,” I said. “She showed me some pictures, too. I’m sorry Celine left town. You must miss her.”
“Every single day. But she’s out there somewhere, no doubt still stubborn as a mule.” She shook her head. “Mom used to say, ‘That girl can do anything if she puts her mind to it,’ and it looks like she was right. There’s no way I’d have had the courage to walk away from my father the way she did. She was very brave. But I still wish things had turned out different. You two would have been great together, although you and Kate were, too.”
“You knew Kate?”
“Of course,” Fiona said, nodding enthusiastically. “We met when she was out running and I was, well, trying to. Getting fit was a New Year’s resolution, except it was June by then, and I could barely walk up the stairs without needing an oxygen mask. But in all seriousness, we got talking and the next thing I knew, she’d taken me from couch potato to running five miles without breaking a sweat.” Her eyes glistened and she dabbed at them quickly. “She was an amazing person. Kind, funny, generous...for whatever reason her favorite thing was knock-knock jokes.”
“I wish I could remember. I’ve only seen a couple of pictures.”
“This might help.” She grabbed her phone, fingers flicking across the screen. “I took this on Kate’s birthday a few years before...”
She didn’t finish her sentence and I leaned in as Fiona brought up a video. In it, Kate sat at a table with a sparkly pink birthday hat on her head, grinning from ear to ear, her long brown hair swishing as she clapped her hands, oohing and aahing as a giant, sprinkle-covered chocolate cake complete with lit candles was set down on the table in front of her. I stared at the screen, hoping for this one thing to make everything else fall back into place but, once again, nothing happened.
As I tried to get a better look, a familiar voice said, “Happy birthday, babe,” and cake bearer Keenan bent over and kissed Kate on the lips.
“Shit,” Fiona said, pulling the phone away, her face reddening. “I forgot about that part.”
“It’s all right, Maya mentioned they dated,” I said as she grimaced some more, giving me an apologetic shrug, and I decided to push for a bit more information. “She didn’t mention how long for, though.”
“About a year, on and off, when she first moved to town.” Fiona slid her phone back into her pocket. “But she left him, and a few months after that she started seeing you. She really cared for you, and you seemed to, I don’t know, click, I suppose, way more than she and my brother ever had. Don’t get me wrong, I love Keenan and all, but you saw how he acted at the gas station. Sorry about that again.”
I wondered if I should mention his house call, decided not to. “Not your fault.”
“Thank you. Anyway, sometimes you can tell when a relationship will work just by looking at the people, and you and Kate had that je ne sais quoi, if you’ll pardon my lousy accent.” She laughed, a warm sound that made me smile. “Look, I’d better get going. Stop by the Harbor Inn anytime if you need to talk? Maybe I can help fill you in on things.”
After she’d left, I felt I had a better, at least partial understanding of why Keenan hated my guts and some of the tension I’d been holding on to evaporated. His girlfriend had dumped him, but instead of having the insight to dissect what he might have done for her to leave, he blamed me. I frowned. Was it possible he’d hurt Kate in retaliation for her leaving him? Was his attempt to put her death on me his way of throwing off people’s suspicions about himself? I wanted to run after Fiona and ask her opinion, but it would be a step too far. Blood was thicker than the proverbial water, and I had no intention of testing that particular theory on the streets of Newdale in the middle of the afternoon. But if Keenan showed up at the house again, this time I’d have some of my own ammunition to fire back.
15
LILY
This had not been a good few days. First, the cops had released Jack’s apartment, and had told me that Sam, to whom I hadn’t had the guts to speak since I swore at him on the phone, had called someone in to change the locks. That meant it was time for me to get Jack’s things, and when I’d finally summoned the courage to return to his place for what would likely be the last time, I’d tried to wrap my heart in a thick layer of self-preservation because without it, I’d never have made it up the first few stairs.
I worked swiftly, picking Jack’s belongings up from the floor and stuffing them into his backpack, suitcase and boxes, and as I did so, I allowed myself to mull over the conversation with Maya again, as I’d been doing ever since we’d hung up. The more I thought about it, the more anomalies there were. Maybe it was wishful thinking or me clutching at an entire straw factory, but I was certain there’d been a slight waver in her voice, a tremor when she’d said the man in the photo was called Gordon Jones or James, some random guy she’d met once and who lived in a different state. Her delivery had almost been too slick, too convenient, and she’d either set the photo to private or deleted it from Facebook altogether. Whichever, she’d done so while we were still talking. If it—he—meant nothing to her, why
