The Sullivan Sisters - Kathryn Ormsbee Page 0,84
you went into law enforcement?”
A funny, not-entirely-good look flitted across Kerry’s face. “Something like that. Now come on, the four of you. Bonnie’s cooking a massive Christmas brunch.”
Brunch. The word elicited a ravenous screech from Murphy’s gut. When had she eaten last? She could remember what she’d eaten: live, wriggling maggots. Christmas brunch was the exact opposite of that. Christmas brunch was everything.
“Please,” she said to Kerry. “We’d love that.”
What else were they going to do, when the sheriff of Rockport made a demand? They simply had to obey.
“It’s settled, then,” said Kerry. “Leslie, I’m guessing the Subaru is yours?”
“It is.”
“And …” Kerry tapped her thigh, surveying the sisters. “That abandoned Caravan that was called in yesterday belongs to you girls?”
“Guilty as charged,” said Eileen, who hadn’t uncrossed her arms.
Kerry nodded, businesslike. “We’ll take care of that later. For the time being, out we go. No arrests, but I won’t be facilitating a technical crime.”
Kerry motioned for them to head out the door.
“Murphy?” Claire was kneeling at her side. “You okay to walk?”
Murphy rolled her eyes. “I’m just a little cold.”
That didn’t wipe off the worry on Claire’s face.
She feels bad, Murphy realized, as she got up under Claire’s watchful eye. She left, and now she feels guilty.
There were two ways Murphy could use this information: She could make Claire feel worse, limp a little and chatter her teeth for dramatic effect. Or, she could make Claire feel better. Because maybe, when Claire had run off, she hadn’t really been thinking. Like the many times Murphy hadn’t thought to feed Siegfried.
As they walked out of the house, Murphy took Claire’s hand in hers and squeezed, and she said, “I’m glad you came back.”
Claire looked at her, startled, hot light in her eyes. By the time they had climbed into the back seat of the Subaru, she was wearing a small smile.
Murphy put on her seat belt as Mom started the car and, waving to Kerry through the windshield, began to follow the sheriff’s SUV down the bluff. On instinct, Murphy pulled out the rope from her puffer coat pocket.
Over, under, tug through and out.
There was a lot to think about. So much to figure out. But for now, the rope would do the trick.
THIRTY-ONE Eileen
She’d been wrong.
For two years Eileen had been wrong about everything.
But she’d also been right.
She was the daughter of Mark Enright, and she had been lied to. Those two truths remained unchanged. The details, though—she’d gotten those catastrophically wrong.
As she sat at the dinner table, nodding along to Kerry and Bonnie’s small talk, every one of those details went off like tiny fireworks in her brain: Mark Enright’s name change, the truth about the murders, Sophia Eschenburg’s rages, Eileen’s parentage.
The letters she’d found in the linen closet hadn’t been sent to a woman who’d had a fraternal affair, but to a girl who’d defended her innocent boyfriend in court. A teenager who’d left Rockport and gone to a place far enough away where she and Mark Enright could start again as Sullivans.
An emancipated foster kid and a wrongfully judged high school graduate—those were Eileen’s parents. That was the story, monumentally different from the one she’d been telling herself over swigs of Jack Daniel’s.
How could she have gotten it this twisted?
“Leenie.”
Murphy kicked Eileen’s boot under the table, returning her attention to brunch and the fact that Bonnie was asking Eileen a question, Pyrex dish in hand:
“Sweet-potato casserole?”
“Uh,” Eileen rasped. “No. Thanks.”
The scents wafting down the birchwood table were unreal: honey ham, green beans, parmesan mashed potatoes, candied pecans. Kerry’s wife, Bonnie, was on MasterChef level, and Eileen was hungry enough after skipping out on two meals. Hunger and appetite were two different things, though. Eileen’s body was too busy pumping all its energy to her brain; there was no room left for digestion.
Eileen looked across the table to her mother. She was wearing sweatpants and an oversize tee, her face unmade, and disheveled hair pushed behind her ears. She really must have booked it back to Oregon from Florida, not giving a damn about appearance.
Mom had been asked a barrage of polite questions by Bonnie, and not-so-polite ones by Kerry, including “What the hell do you do?” and “You’re saying you visited once and never told me?”
Mom had asked her own questions too, like “The two of you met in Portland?” and “What would bring you back here?”
When Bonnie asked Mom about the sweet-potato casserole, she flinched. Was she always this jumpy? Eileen had stopped paying attention