The Bookstore on the Beach - Brenda Novak Page 0,130
the trial started.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “I’ve looked on the internet myself, periodically, and found no mention of her. But then Owens showed up in town, and I knew something had changed.”
Autumn listened quietly as her mother told her about Owens claiming it was Tammy, the texts and phone calls she’d unknowingly had with Nora since then, and her trip to Nashville today with Laurie.
“If Nora is living in such a dump, how’d she have the money to hire Owens?” Autumn asked.
“I have no idea. Someone in her family must’ve helped her. That’s all I can figure.”
“And she wanted to contact you so she could apologize?” Autumn asked, trying to imagine the day as her mother had painted it.
“That was what she said.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense. Surely, even she would have realized it would only make you angry to pretend to be Tammy.”
“Not in her twisted mind. If I know her, she thought that having the opportunity to talk to me, to try to convince me of her remorse, would get me to feel sorry for her and the high price she’s paid.”
“That’s pretty ironic. That she would try to play on your empathy when she’s never had any.”
“That’s what psychopaths do,” Mary answered dully. “She’s hoping I’ll forgive her so that she can hold me out as a carrot to get Tammy to forgive her, too.”
“You’re not going to—you’re not going to have anything to do with any of them, are you?”
She sighed as she smoothed Autumn’s hair off her forehead, like she used to do when Autumn was a little girl. “Not Nora, or Jeff, who’s still in prison and will probably spend the rest of his life there. But now that you know the truth, maybe we should reach out to Tammy. She did nothing wrong. And since we know that she’s not in contact with her mother, it might be nice to see who she turned out to be. What do you think? Would you be interested in meeting your half sister?”
Autumn blew out a lungful of air. This morning she hadn’t even known she had a sibling. “I need some time to think about that,” she said. “I’m still trying to figure everything out.”
“I’m sorry, Autumn.”
Autumn forced a smile. Her mother had been through enough. No matter how shocked or upset she was by the implications of what she’d learned, she would not put her mother through anything else. “It’s okay. Really. Right now all I need is answers.”
“Ask me anything.”
Autumn could tell by the tone of her mother’s voice that she was ready to be completely honest. She could also tell that Mary was bracing for probing questions about what she’d suffered at the hands of the Skinners. But Autumn couldn’t bring herself to make her mother relive all of that. “Is Laurie really related to us?”
Her lips parted in surprise, but she shook her head.
“So Nana isn’t my nana, either,” Autumn said sadly.
“No. And Jacob isn’t your cousin.”
“How did you meet them? When I was a child, you told me that you and Laurie decided to come to Sable Beach because you once saw a picture in a magazine and fell in love with the idea of living in such an idyllic place. Does that mean you knew her in Nashville?”
“No. I don’t remember saying that Laurie came with me. She was already here. Chris’s father bought a vacation home on the beach when he was just a child. That’s why they were familiar with it.”
“You didn’t meet her until you moved here.”
“That’s right. After I left Nashville, I rented a room from an old widow who lived two blocks away from here. She needed a little help keeping her house up and some company, and I needed a place to stay and someone to watch you during the day.”
“I don’t remember her,” Autumn said. “I just remember going to the bookstore with you.”
“You were too young. Her name was Lula Belle, and she was a wonderful person. But by the time she passed away, I’d been working at the bookstore for a year, and Laurie had been working there even longer. So I guess Laurie and I first bonded over our love of books, and we’ve been inseparable ever since.”
“She’s aware of your history?” Autumn knew this, but she was still reeling, trying to figure out what was true and what wasn’t.
“Yes. That’s why she became our family. She knew we didn’t really have any and that it would