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‘Emotional, complex and laced with suspense, this fascinating story is a brilliant read.’
—Closer
‘An excellent read’
—The Sun
‘This complex tale will stick with you forever.’
—Now
‘A hugely addictive twist in the tale makes this a sizzling sofa read … a deeply compelling and moving new novel.’
—Heat
‘This exquisite novel about love and friendship is written like a thriller … you won’t want to put it down.’
—Bella
‘A bittersweet story about regret and hope’
—Publishers Weekly
‘A brilliantly told thriller’
—Woman
‘An engaging and absorbing story that’ll have you racing through pages to finish’
—People’s Friend
‘This compelling mystery will have you on the edge of your seat.’
—Inside Soap
‘A fabulous thriller with plenty of surprises’
—Star
‘Essential reading for Jodi Picoult fans’
—Daily Mail
‘Chamberlain skilfully … plumbs the nature of crimes of the heart.’
—Publishers Weekly
‘So full of unexpected twists you’ll find yourself wanting to finish it in one sitting. Fans of Jodi Picoult’s style will love how Diane Chamberlain writes.’
—Candis
‘The plot is intriguing and haunting revelations will have you glued to the very end.’
—Peterborough Evening Telegraph
‘I was drawn in from the first page and simply could not put it down until the last. I think I have found a new favourite author.’
—Daily Echo
‘[A] gripping summer read that’s full of twists and turns —5 stars’
—Woman’s Own
‘The compelling story of three friends who are forced to question what it is to be a friend, mother and a sister.’
—Sunday World
‘A gripping novel’
—The Lady (online)
‘Diane Chamberlain is a marvellously gifted author. Every book she writes is a gem.’
—Literary Times
‘A strong tale that deserves a comparison with Jodi Picoult for, as this builds, one does indeed wonder if all will come right in the end.’
—lovereading.co.uk
‘I couldn’t put it down.’
—Bookseller
Also by DIANE CHAMBERLAIN
The Courage Tree
Her Mother’s Shadow
Kiss River
Keeper of the Light
The Lost Daughter
The Bay at Midnight
Before the Storm
Secrets She Left Behind
The Lies We Told
Breaking the Silence
The Midwife’s Confession
The Shadow Wife
The Good Father
This story is dedicated to the memory of my grandmother, Susan Chamberlain, my inspiration and comfort.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
End Page
Prologue
ON HER ELEVENTH BIRTHDAY, DARIA CATO BECAME A HERO.
A deep hush had fallen over the Sea Shanty after the savage weather of the night before, and Daria woke very early, as usual, when the sky outside her bedroom windows held only a hint of dawn. She opened the window above her dresser to let the breeze slip into the room. The sound of the ocean was rhythmic and calm, not like the angry pounding of the night before, and she breathed in the smell of salt and seaweed. The sunrise would be spectacular this morning.
Quickly, she slipped out of her pajamas and into her shorts and tank top, then quietly opened her bedroom door and walked into the hallway. She tiptoed past her sister Chloe’s room, and past the room where her cousin, Ellen, slept. Ellen’s mother was asleep in the downstairs bedroom, and Daria’s parents were in their room on the third story. Her father would be getting up soon for early mass, but her mother, Aunt Josie, Ellen and Chloe wouldn’t be up for at least another hour. They didn’t understand the early-morning allure of the beach, but that was fine with her. She preferred solitude as she watched the sand and sea change color and texture each morning. This morning would be special, not just because of the storm, but because it was her birthday. Eleven. Kind of a dull number, and still two years away from being able to call herself a teenager, but definitely better than ten.
Daria padded quietly on bare feet down the stairs, trying to avoid the step that always squeaked. Would anyone remember her birthday this year? She was certain it would be nothing like the year before, when her mother had arranged a party for her with all the other kids on the cul-de-sac. No, this year was destined to be different, because her mother was different. She’d changed over this last year, and this first gloomy, overcast week of summer in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, had done nothing to lift her dour mood. Daria’s mother slept late almost every day and moped around the cottage once she did get up. She barely seemed to remember her daughters’ names, much less their birthdays. Chloe wouldn’t care, of course. She was seventeen this summer, the brainy one in the family, already finished with her freshman year at college and interested only in boys and what color nail polish she should use to paint her toes. That’s when their mother started changing, Daria thought, when Chloe went off to college. “I’m losing my little ones,” Daria had overheard her mother say to her aunt just yesterday.
And, of course, the kids on the cul-de-sac would balk at coming to the birthday party of an eleven-year-old this year, now that they were all teenagers. Every single one of them except her! It was a good thing she didn’t mind being alone all that much, she thought as she opened the front door and walked onto the Sea Shanty’s broad screened porch, because that was obviously the way it was going to be this summer.
From the porch, Daria could look directly across the cul-de-sac and see Poll-Rory, Rory Taylor’s cottage. Even Rory, who had been her summertime buddy for most of her life, was now fourteen and pretty much ignoring her. He seemed to have forgotten all the hours they’d fished together, crabbed together and raced against each other while swimming in the sound.
There were no lights on inside Poll-Rory. She looked at the upstairs window she knew to be Rory’s bedroom and felt a prickly pain in her heart.
“Who needs you, anyhow,” she muttered, pushing open the screen door and descending the steps to the cool sand. She began walking toward the beach, where she could see the sky just beginning its silent, peach-colored glide toward sunrise.
All six cottages on the cul-de-sac were built on stilts, like most of the oceanside structures in the Outer Banks. The Sea Shanty, built by her father and uncle the year Daria was born, was only the second cottage from the water, so Daria quickly reached the low, grass-covered dune overlooking the beach. She glanced at the cottage where Cindy Trump lived, the only home on the cul-de-sac directly fronting the ocean, to make sure it had not been damaged by the storm. It was perfectly fine. She envied Cindy and her brother for living right on the water, but her father said the beach was narrowing in Kill Devil Hills and Cindy’s cottage would one day plunge into the sea. Still, Daria thought it would be neat to be able to look out your bedroom window and see nothing but water below you.
The beach was beautiful! The storm had washed the sand clean, and the tide had left behind a deep, wide row of shells, waiting for her to sift through them. The sun was already a thin sliver of copper on the horizon above the water, which was so calm it looked more like the sound than the ocean. Nothing like last night’s turbulent, frothy waves. She sat down on the dune to watch the sun’s rapid ascent into the iridescent sky. The sand was cool and damp, and she dug her bare feet into it.
Large, brown, orb-shaped horseshoe-crab shells dotted the beach, an eerie spectacle in the coppery light. They looked like something from another planet. She had never seen so many of them at one time, but they only held her interest for a moment or two before she began thinking again about the social dilemma facing her this summer. Although the Catos had been at the Sea Shanty for less than a week, Daria could already see how this summer was going to shape up, and the picture wasn’t pleasant. She went over the cul-de-sac kids in her mind, wishing she’d made a mistake in figuring out their ages. Chloe was seventeen and Ellen, who’d be with them for most of the summer, was fifteen. Cindy Trump was sixteen, her brother, Todd, thirteen. There were seventeen-year-old twins, Jill and Brian Fletcher, in the cottage next to Poll-Rory. Next door to them was that really quiet girl, Linda, who was fourteen and always had her nose stuck in a book. An old couple, the Wheelers, lived next door to Daria, and their three children were so grown-up, they were married. Last year, Daria had occasionally played with Rory’s sister, Polly. Polly was fifteen, but she had Down’s syndrome, so it was like playing with someone much younger. But even Polly seemed to have moved far beyond Daria this summer, at least in terms of physical development, if not interests. She had breasts that Ellen and Chloe were talking about with envy.
Once the sun was fully above the horizon, Daria set out for the inviting line of shells. Her shorts had deep pockets, so she would be able to carry whatever treasures she found. Her bounty would annoy her mother, who now complained about her collecting buckets of “useless” shells each summer, even though she’d never said a word about it before.
The sand was deliciously cool beneath her feet as she walked along the line of shells. She had progressed only as far as the Trumps’ cottage when she spotted the largest horseshoe-crab shell she had ever seen smack in the middle of the broad strip of shells. The shell looked odd to her, raised up a bit, as though perhaps the crab might still be inside. Curious, she extended her leg, and with her sandcovered toe, kicked the brown globe onto its back. Daria blinked in disbelief. A bloody baby! She shrieked before she could stop herself, then took off across the sand, screaming and waving her arms, wishing now that she were not all alone on the beach.
She’d run the distance of several cottages when she stopped short. Had it really been a baby? Could it have been a doll, perhaps? She looked back over shoulder. Yes, she was certain it had been a real, human baby. And in her memory, she imagined the small, almost imperceptible movement of a tiny, blood-covered foot. Surely that had not actually happened. She stood rigidly on the beach, staring back at the shell. Okay, maybe it really was a baby, but it couldn’t possibly be alive. Very slowly, she walked back to the overturned shell. The ocean was so quiet that she could hear her heartbeat thudding in her ears. Standing above the shell, she forced herself to look down.
It was a baby, a naked baby, and not only was it stained with blood, it was lying next to what looked like a pulpy mountain of blood. And the baby was alive. There was no mistaking the tiny movement of its head toward the sea, no mistaking the weak, mewling sound escaping from its doll-like lips.
Fighting nausea, Daria took off her tank top and knelt in the sand. Carefully, she began to wrap the shirt around the baby, only to pull away in horror. The bloody mountain was attached to the baby! There was no way to leave it behind. Gritting her teeth, she wrapped the shirt around everything—baby, mountain and half a dozen shells—and stood up, cradling the bundle in her arms. She walked as quickly as she could up the beach toward the Sea Shanty. She stopped once, expecting to be sick, but she felt the trembling of the small life in her arms and forced her feet to continue walking.
Once in the Sea Shanty, she laid the bundle down on the kitchen table. Blood had soaked clear through the tank top, and she realized there was blood on her bare chest as she ran up the stairs to her parents’ third-story bedroom.
“Mom!” She pounded on their bedroom door. “Daddy!”
She heard her father’s heavy footsteps inside the room. In a moment, he opened the door. He was tying his tie, and his thick, usually unruly, black hair was combed into place for church. Behind him, Daria could see her mother, still asleep in their double bed.
“Shh.” Her father held a finger to his lips. “What’s the matter?” His eyes widened as he saw the red stain on her chest, and he stepped quickly into the hall, grabbing her by the shoulder. “What happened?” he asked. “Did you get hurt?”
“I found a baby on the beach!” she said. “It’s alive but it’s all—”
“What did you say?” Her mother sat up in bed, her brown hair jutting from her head on one side. She looked suddenly wide-awake.
“I found a baby on the beach,” Daria said, pushing past her father to reach the bed. She tugged her mother’s hand. “I put it on the table in the kitchen. I’m afraid it might die. It’s really tiny, and it’s got a lot of blood on it.”
Her mother was out of the bed more quickly than Daria had seen her move in months. She pulled on her robe and slippers and raced down the stairs ahead of both Daria and her father.
In the kitchen, the baby was just where Daria had left it, and the bundle was so still that she feared the baby might now truly be dead. Daria’s mother did not balk for an instant at the bloody sight, and Daria was impressed and proud as her mother lifted the crimson tank top away from the infant.
“Dear God in heaven!” Daria’s father said, taking a step backward. But her mother was not repelled. With the practiced hands of the nurse she had once been, she began moving efficiently around the kitchen. She filled a pan with water and put it on the stove, then wet a dish towel and began cleaning the baby with it.
Daria leaned close, made less afraid by her mother’s matter-of-fact handling of the situation. “Why is it so bloody?” she asked.
“Because it’s a newborn,” her mother said. “She’s a newborn.”
Daria looked closer and could see that the baby was indeed a girl.
“Where exactly did you find her?” her mother asked.
“She was under a horseshoe-crab shell,” Daria said.
“Under a horseshoe-crab shell!” her mother exclaimed.
“She was with all the shells washed in from the tide,” Daria said. “Do you think the storm last night washed her up on the beach?”
Her mother shook her head. “No,” she said. “She would have been washed clean then. And she would have been dead.” Her lower lip trembled and her nostrils flared with quiet rage. “No, someone just left her there.”
“I’m calling the police.” Daria’s father headed for the living room and the phone. His face had gone gray. Aunt Josie passed him on her way into the room.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Oh my God!” Her hand flew to her mouth as she saw the baby lying on the kitchen table.
“I found her on the beach,” Daria explained.
“All by herself?” Aunt Josie asked. “Where on the beach?”
“Right in front of Cindy Trump’s cottage,” Daria said. She saw her mother and aunt exchange glances. People always did that when they talked about Cindy Trump, but Daria didn’t have a clue why.
“The placenta is attached,” Aunt Josie said, peering closer, and Daria knew she must mean the bloody mountain still lying next to the baby.
“I know.” Daria’s mother shook her head as she rinsed out the wet cloth under the faucet. “Isn’t this just unbelievable?”
Daria thought of Chloe and Ellen still asleep upstairs. They shouldn’t miss this. She started toward the kitchen door.
“Where are you going?” her mother asked.
“To get Chloe and Ellen,” Daria said.
“It’s not even eight o’clock,” her mother said. “Don’t wake them yet.”
“Teenagers sleep the sleep of the dead, I swear,” Aunt Josie said.
Chloe and Ellen would probably blame her for not waking them, but Daria thought it best to be obedient just then. She stepped close to the table again and watched as her mother slipped the blades of the kitchen scissors into the boiling water for a moment, then snipped the cord coming from the baby’s belly button. Finally, the baby was free of the horrible, pulpy mass. Aunt Josie brought a towel from the downstairs bathroom and Daria’s mother wrapped it around the newly bathed baby and lifted the bundle to her chest. She rocked the baby back and forth. “Poor darling little thing,” she said softly. “Poor little castaway.” Daria thought it had been years since she’d seen so much life in her mother’s eyes.
The policemen and rescue squad arrived within minutes. One of the rescue-squad workers, a young man with long hair, nearly had to pry the infant from Daria’s mother’s arms. Still wearing her robe and slippers, she followed the baby to the ambulance. She stood watching the vehicle as it drove away, and she stayed there for several minutes after the ambulance had turned onto the beach road from the cul-de-sac.
Meanwhile, the policemen were full of questions, mainly for Daria. They sat with her on the screened porch of the Sea Shanty and went over and over the details of her discovery until she herself began to feel guilty, as though she had done something terribly wrong and would be hauled off to jail any moment. After questioning her for nearly half an hour, they sent her inside while they spoke with her parents and Aunt Josie. Daria sat on the wicker chair in the living room, the one right next to the window that opened onto the porch, so she could listen to whatever the grown-ups had to say.
“Can you tell us what teenage girls live on this cul-de-sac?” one of the policemen asked.
Aunt Josie began ticking them off. “That cottage there on the beach,” she said, “There’s a fast girl lives there. Cindy Trump. I’ve heard the boys call her Cindy Tramp, because she’s easy, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t say that, Josie,” Daria’s mother scolded.
“But I saw her yesterday,” Daria’s father said. “She didn’t look pregnant to me.”
Daria leaned her cheek against the wicker back of the chair, positioning herself to hear better. This was fascinating talk.
“I saw her, too,” Aunt Josie said. “She had on a big white shirt, like a man’s shirt. She could have been hiding anything under there.”
Daria could almost hear her father’s shrug of defeat. Aunt Josie had been married to his brother, who had died five years ago, and she always seemed to get her way with Daria’s dad.
Aunt Josie began speaking again. “There’s that girl Linda, who—”
“She’s only fourteen,” Daria’s mother protested. “And she’s so shy. Why, she can’t even talk to the boys, much less…” Her voice trailed off.
“We’d still like to know what girls are on the cul-de-sac,” one of the policemen said. “Whether you think they could be the mother of that baby or not. How about in this cottage? Any girls besides Supergirl? Daria?”
Supergirl? Daria grinned to herself.
“Yes,” Daria’s father said, “but they’re good Catholic girls.”
“My daughter, Ellen, is fifteen,” Aunt Josie said. “And I can assure you she was not pregnant.”
“Same for our daughter, Chloe.” Daria’s father sounded insulted that Chloe might be considered a suspect. “She goes to Catholic University. Got in when she was only sixteen, so you can guess she spends most of her time hitting the books.”
Daria wasn’t so sure about that. Chloe was smart enough to get good grades without doing much studying.
“Anyone else?” one of the officers asked.
“In this cottage?” Aunt Josie asked. “No, but there’s a couple more girls on this block. There’s Polly across the street.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Josie,” Daria’s mother said. “She’s mentally retarded. Do you really think—”
“She’s right to tell us,” one of the policemen said. “Who else?” He and Aunt Josie sounded like old buddies.
“I think the only other one is that Jill girl,” Aunt Josie said.
“She’s the Fletcher girl.” Daria’s mother’s sounded resigned. Every girl on the cul-de-sac was going to be on that list, whether she wanted them to be or not.
Daria saw Chloe descending the stairs from the second story and put her finger to her lips. Chloe frowned as she reached the living room. She walked over to her sister on bare feet.
“What’s going on?” she whispered, trying to peer out the window onto the porch.
“Don’t let them see you!” Daria grabbed a fistful of her sister’s wild black hair to pull her head down.
“Ouch.” Chloe extricated herself from Daria’s grasp. “Why are the cops here?”
“I found a baby on the beach,” Daria said.
“You found what?”
“Shh,” Daria said. But before she could explain further, their father stepped into the room.
“Chloe, good, you’re here,” he said. His hair was mussed now. He could never keep it looking neat for long. “I was just coming in to get you. You and Ellen need to answer a few questions for the police.”
“Why?” Chloe looked surprised. Her usual olive complexion had a waxy cast to it in the pale morning light, and Daria guessed she was nervous about having to talk to policemen.
“It’s all right,” Daria said. “I talked to them for a long time. They’re pretty nice.” Of course, though, I’m Supergirl.
“Get Ellen,” her father said to Chloe, who rolled her eyes and offered him a look of disdain before stomping up the stairs. That defiant attitude was brand-new. Chloe had been away at college all this year, only joining the family at the Sea Shanty a few days ago, and Daria had not yet adjusted to the change in her sister. Chloe had always been her parents’ pride and joy, with her straight-A report card and adherence to their rules. Suddenly, she was acting as though she didn’t need parents at all.
“And you.” Daria’s father looked straight at her, and she knew she’d been caught eavesdropping at the window. “You go on upstairs now. You must be tired. It’s already been a long morning for you.”
Daria did not want to go upstairs; she wanted to hear what the police would say to Chloe and Ellen, and she should be able to. She was eleven now, not that anyone seemed to have remembered. And if it hadn’t been for her, this whole commotion wouldn’t be happening at all. But her dad had that stern look on his face that told her she’d better not argue.