meant to her, only digging their feet into the sand.
And then there was Claire’s father: John, who wasn’t John, who’d died before his daughters got to know his real name.
“Sophia killed herself after the trial,” Mom said, the words gone low. “But not before she’d changed her will and cut Mark out. She knew this town would talk, regardless of what the coroner said. If Mark had stayed here, he would’ve been harassed till his dying day. Pat got a guardian, the house, and everything in it, but that poor boy had lost his whole family in the process. So … you see, it’s difficult to blame him. All these years he must’ve felt ashamed about what he’d done. Too ashamed to reach out, until it was too late. I wish, when he’d found us, he would’ve called me. I guess he did what he thought was right. He must’ve thought that by leaving the house to you, he was making amends. And maybe he was. It’s a beautiful place.”
Claire got the impression that Mom was beginning to ramble, unsure of what to say next, or how to make anything right. How could you, after that speech? What could anyone say?
“We thought we’d made the right decision,” Mom said. “We decided it’d be better not to tell you. Better for you. Less confusing. Or, if we did tell you, it’d be once you were old enough to understand. Then your father got sick and died. Life kept going on, and you kept growing up. The older you got, the more difficult it became. Knowing what I had to tell you, unable to do it alone. Soon it was hard to tell you anything. It was easier to take the extra shifts. At least then I knew I was doing something right as your mother: providing for you. But I wasn’t there. God knows what could’ve happened to you girls, traveling up here, with this weather and this town, and … all of that’s my fault.”
No one told Mom it wasn’t her fault. No one said anything. The parlor was so deathly still that the pounding on the front door seemed amplified ten times, and terror shot through Claire’s veins when she heard a voice call out, “ROCKPORT POLICE.”
THIRTY Murphy
Murphy sat up straight on the couch, in spite of her frozen joints. She’d been cold before, when she’d woken on the beach with her face pressed into sand and her mother’s arms unexpectedly wrapped around her middle. Now, a different coldness filled Murphy, whooshing down her spine.
“Rockport police!” the voice called again.
They’d been caught. The jig was up.
The voice was a woman’s, and it sounded weirdly familiar, like that of a teacher who’d taught Murphy way back in primary school, or a grocer she saw a lot at Fred Meyer, or—
“Kerry?”
Mom was looking to the threshold of the parlor, where a woman stood wearing a tan uniform. Her black hair was braided, and her face was more familiar than her voice. In another second, Murphy had it: This was the woman from Ramsey’s Diner. The Rockport sheriff. Kerry.
But why had Mom said her name? Even weirder, why was Kerry staring at Mom as though she knew her right back?
“Leslie?” she asked, sounding less ferocious than she had when she’d announced herself.
“I don’t understand,” Kerry went on, approaching them cautiously, as though the Sullivans were a pack of wildcats that might pounce. “Leslie … what the hell are you doing here?”
Mom was gaping at Kerry, a mirror image of shock.
This wasn’t going anywhere. Murphy was going to have to speak up.
“She’s our mom.” Murphy pointed to herself, then an immobile Eileen and Claire. “We, uh, kind of lied about who we were in the diner. Sorry. It’s not a crime to lie to a police officer, right? Not technically?”
Murphy had no clue what she was saying. Why was she asking about lying, when they’d been caught, red-handed, breaking into a house? Had her brain stopped working? Had she gotten hypothermia out there on the shore?
Kerry didn’t answer Murphy’s question. Her eyes stayed locked on Mom as she asked, “These … are your kids?”
“M-my daughters, yes,” stammered Mom. “They received a letter from Pat’s attorney. God knows if it’s even true. It told them they’d inherited the house.”
Kerry gave a slow blink. “I don’t understand.”
“Welcome to the club,” muttered Eileen.
“According to the letter,” said Mom, “Patrick willed the house to the girls. I was out of town, and they left home to come