A sly grin crinkles his face, but once outside the room, it sobers to something more serious, as he closes the door behind him. “I, um … thought, rather than have you find out through Laura, I should tell you that Nell was found dead very early this morning.”
The air deflates inside my chest as I stare back at him, confusion and shock waging war inside my head. “Dead?”
“Yes. It seems she overdosed.”
“Overdosed? That … that doesn’t sound right.”
“She’s been skimming pills off Laura for quite some time. I never said anything because, well … I didn’t exactly have proof. Just scripts running out faster than they should’ve. But as far as I know, it was heroin. The housekeeper at the motel found her.”
I know heroin abusers. Nell certainly gave off the addict vibe, but there’s no way she was actively abusing it all this time. This has to be a relapse.
I lift my gaze back to his. “Motel? What was she doing at a motel?”
“One of those pay-by-week things.”
Unless I got bits of the story wrong, I was certain Nell had her own place. “What about her son?”
“Son? I wasn’t aware she had a son.”
Maybe she didn’t talk about him much, or didn’t divulge anything personal like that. “Was it in town? On the island?”
“The motel? Yes, it’s, ah …” He taps his finger to his chin, contemplative for a moment. “Crow’s Nest Motel.”
I know that one. About a mile and a half from where Aunt Midge works. They not only rent by the week, but by the hour, as I understand. “I can’t believe she’d throw everything away.”
And yet, I absolutely can, because that’s how junkies work. There is nothing more valuable than the drug. Not even a child. I know that from firsthand experience, which is how I got dumped on my aunt’s doorstep.
“Well, she was always a little shady. Used to hang out at some skeevy bar. She liked picking up the locals to take back to the motel and shoot up.”
“The Shoal?”
“Pretty sure that’s the one.”
Sure, there are some interesting characters that end up at The Shoal, but I’ve grown up with a lot of those guys. Worked summers with some of them. They’re not the most upstanding citizens on the island, but I can’t imagine any of the regulars taking a young girl back to a motel to shoot up drugs. I’ve seen much skeevier places than that bar.
Then again, maybe I don’t know any of them any more than I thought I knew Nell.
“Anyway, I need to go, or I’ll be late. I just wanted to let you know.”
“I appreciate it. Thanks.”
I head back into Laura’s bedroom, where she sits with one eyebrow quirked, and I shake my head. “Just giving me some info on your new meds.”
“So, it was about me. That man is such a liar,” she says with a smile.
I want to ask her if that’s true, and to what extent would he lie. “It’s beautiful outside. I was thinking maybe we could sit in the garden and read.”
“What garden? You mean the cemetery of vines and shrubbery in the yard?”
“Yes. Unless you’re up for a game of basketball, or something.”
Her face scrunches to a frown. “Reading, it is.”
I wheel her down to the first level, and out into the ruins, as I call them. The sun is bright today, but the news of Nell somehow dulls its warmth. Taking a seat on a stone bench half covered in bird crap, I flip the book open to where we last left off, the picture of young Lucian and his friend acting as the bookmark.
“I think I’d prefer to hear your story, instead, today.”
Peeling my attention from the new chapter, I frown. “Mine?”
“Yes. Have you always lived on the island?”
I don’t know why I hesitate to answer her at first. “No. My mother and I moved around a lot when I was little. Every month, it felt like.”
“Was she in the military? Or business? Engineers move around quite a bit, don’t they?”
Engineer. The only thing my mother managed to engineer was a shit life for both of us. “She was neither of those.”
“Well, what did she do to keep moving you around so much?”
“Drugs. She was a junkie, and … we ran quite a bit.”
The sidelong glance she shoots back at me is overflowing with judgement, but I don’t care. Hiding my past has become an exhausting exercise as of late. “That doesn’t sound like