All the Little Raindrops(71)

A couple of days later, Noelle stood at the window, watching as Callie sprinted down the beach, her red sundress flying out behind her, arms raised, as the kite she was holding rose high into the sky. Evan ran next to her, jogging leisurely but easily keeping pace, his head raised to the sky as well. She couldn’t hear them from where she was, but she could tell they were laughing, and it made her smile.

“He’s a natural, it seems,” Chantilly said, the whir of her wheelchair announcing her presence even before she spoke.

“He is,” she said. A natural father. It made her happy. And it made her ashamed. He’d accused her of robbing him, and she had. But she’d robbed Callie too. She saw that now.

“Hindsight is twenty-twenty, my love,” Chantilly said. Noelle glanced at her, her platinum updo as shiny and elegant as always, makeup flawless, her silvery-blue pantsuit perfectly pressed. She was a vision, and Noelle was often startled by her loveliness. She’d come to expect it. There was something about her that simply glowed. Noelle had remarked on it once, and the old woman had told her that if she glowed, it was because she was living her second chance, the life she’d never dreamed she’d have, and it made her shine from the inside.

Noelle had thought about that later and realized that she was living her second chance too. But she didn’t glow. Not like Chantilly.

Because you were given no closure, a small voice whispered. And because of it, you haven’t ever truly left it in the past. It casts a shadow. Not so much that you haven’t moved on. Not so much that you haven’t found peace. But it’s there, and it dulls your light. Even a little.

Okay, but what was she supposed to do about that? She’d formed her life around that unfortunate fact because there was nothing she could do.

Not then. But now?

Noelle sighed. “Yes,” she agreed. “I can see clearly that I should have told him about Callie. But he’s here now, and he seems to have forgiven me. Or at least he’s willing to put his resentment aside. He wants to have a relationship with her.”

“Are you going to tell her he’s her father?”

“Yes. Yes, when the time is right.” He’d been in South Carolina for three days, and Noelle could already see the bond they were forming. Of course, Callie was an openhearted girl who loved easily. But she and Evan clicked in a way she hadn’t seen Callie click with anyone else. Perhaps she recognized herself in him. Maybe their shared DNA called to them both. The same shared DNA that Leonard Sinclair had passed on. But she refused to think about that. About him. “He’s started a new investigation of the crime we survived together,” she said.

“Oh. Oh, I see. Is there still something to investigate?”

“He seems to think so.”

Callie stretched her arms high, the kite caught in a gust of wind, and Evan reached over, taking the strings from her and commandeering the swooping fabric. He ran in a wide circle, obviously pretending to be the one controlled by the kite, and Callie fell to the ground, her head tilted back as she clutched her stomach in fits of joyful giggles.

Noelle couldn’t hear them, but she could feel them between her own ribs, like the phantom kicks she’d felt even after Callie had vacated her body. She breathed out a laugh.

“What are you going to do?” When she glanced at Chantilly, she saw that the old woman was watching Evan and Callie frolic on the beach, and she, too, was smiling.

“I don’t know,” Noelle said. “His investigation led to questions about one of my father’s friends. And . . . I just keep thinking about the planners my dad always used.”

“Planners?”

“Yes, you know, the three-ring calendar books? He always had one. Even when he got a cell phone, he liked to write things down. It’s where he kept all the information about his scheduled jobs, appointments, et cetera. He even used it as a diary sometimes, you know, writing notes or memories in the margins. I packed all his stuff away in storage before I sold his house.” There had been no money to pocket from the sale. She’d been lucky the housing market was good and she could pay off the second mortgage. But she’d kept those planners, among other things that were valuable to her. “And I keep wondering if that planner might . . . I don’t know. Offer something small.” Or maybe it’d just be painful and heartbreaking to read through the things her father was doing in his final days. Painful and unnecessary.

“Maybe it’s time you clean that storage container out anyway,” Chantilly said. “The last time you took a few days off was to deliver a baby. You haven’t taken a vacation in seven years,” she scolded.

“This is a vacation.” She turned slightly, sweeping her arm around the beautifully elegant room with a view of the ocean to the beach itself, sun sitting high in the sky, where her daughter gleefully flew a kite.

“I’m glad you think so. But, Noelle, darling, perhaps it’s time that you go put your father to rest completely. Clean out his things and say goodbye, for real this time. And if there’s any chance, even the smallest one, of finding something that will help solve your crime, you must. Otherwise, they might still be out there, putting people in the same cage you once inhabited.”

Chantilly’s words hit Noelle like a cold gust of air, and she shivered. That was the difference, perhaps, between those who were able to find their shine without also being given closure. They were able to move on because they didn’t have to worry for the unknown souls out there who might be similarly victimized because no one had ever been brought to justice.