“It’s all about the cut,” Peabody agreed. “Like if I wanted to try something ultra-low-rise? I don’t even want to think about it. That style comes around again, I’ve gotta take a hard pass. I did look, and it did come around like for a couple years in the ’30s—but with wide legs, like flared out from the knees down, so not the same.”
“Well, that sounds … incredibly ugly.”
“I’m going with you on that. And with my body type? I don’t want to think about that, either. We’ve got ten each,” Peabody said, then turned as Detective Norman stepped into the open doorway.
He wore yesterday’s suit with a navy tie.
“Sorry to interrupt. I wanted you to know Becca Muldoon showed up alive and well. I’ve just come from verifying that and getting her statement. She eloped. Took off to Las Vegas with a customer, got married, gambled, partied. She got back this morning, and is filing for divorce. Or not. It, she claims, depends.”
“Okay. Alive and well is good. I’m going to catch you up on where we are.” She stopped when her comp issued an alert. “Hold that.”
She read it out, dragged her hands through her hair.
“We’ve got another missing woman, one who fits the physical parameters. Mary Kate Covino, age twenty-five. Works at a marketing firm though, regular hours. Not at a bar or club or joint, no night work. Still…”
“She could be Elder’s sister, Dallas.”
“Yeah, she’s just the type. Norman, if you’re clear, I’d like you to start on a list Peabody’s generated. We’re going to go talk to Covino’s roommate to start, but I don’t want this list to hang too long. It could be a break.”
“I can be clear.”
“I’m going to fill you in,” Eve said as she rose, “and drop you off at your house. And we’ll keep you in the loop on Covino, one way or the other.”
“We can hope she’s like Muldoon.”
“We can hope,” Eve agreed, but she didn’t see it.
10
BEFORE
While Violet nursed the baby, she stroked her daughter’s cheek with one finger. The sensation was so lovely, and if it felt oddly familiar, she set that aside.
As far as she was concerned, her life began the moment she’d opened her eyes on the road, in the dark, and seen Joe’s face.
He was her world now. He and Joella. Her family.
She was Violet Fletcher, wife, mother—and oh, how she loved being both—the caretaker of Sweetwater, the lovely old home named nearly two hundred years before.
For weeks after he found her on the road, Joe checked religiously for reports of a missing woman, but no one looked for her. She knew, absolutely, no one would, because Violet hadn’t existed before Joe.
In her heart, her mind, in every cell of her body, she believed Joe had brought her back to life. He’d taken care of her, had given her a home, and a purpose. A job at first, she thought now as the baby nursed and the sunlight beamed through the windows of the nursery.
A guest room once, one where she’d slept those first months during her recovery, during the days and nights she’d spent cleaning the house, tending the garden, learning to cook while Joe worked.
She’d learned, had worked hard, had been grateful and content to be only his housekeeper even as she’d fallen so completely in love with him.
Everything she did, the washing, the polishing, even the painting when he finally agreed to let her, she did with an open heart. She believed, absolutely, that purpose—to tend to Joe, to tend to the house—helped her heal.
Then, another miracle, he’d wanted her, and he’d loved her. She hadn’t believed he could, or would. She’d taken the last name Blank, because her life before the moment he’d saved her was just that.
But on a perfect spring day, in the garden she’d help tend, she took his name, took his ring, and pledged her life to him.
To avoid questions, they’d made up a past for her—a spotty one, but it served. But the past meant nothing, and now she was Violet Fletcher, Dr. Joseph Fletcher’s wife, mother of Joella Lynn.
When the baby slept, perfect mouth slack and milky, she tucked her in the crib in the nursery she’d painted a soft sweet green. She smoothed the downy cap of white-blond hair and thanked God or fate or the sheer luck that had put her in this place.
She vowed she’d be a good mother, a loving one, a fun one, a patient one, a caring one.
“I’ll always be there for you,” she whispered, “and so will your daddy. He’s the best man in the world.”