Girl Under Water: An absolutely unputdownable and gripping crime thriller Read online

  “That’s really exciting,” Charlie said, getting up and following Zoe out of the restaurant. “I’m happy for you, Zo.”

  “Thanks. You know, I always wanted a sibling. And if I got to pick, I totally would have chosen a sister.” Zoe paused when they reached her car and stared at Charlie over the roof. “I was always envious of you and Allie.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.” Zoe shrugged. “I mean, it seemed like you came packaged with your very own best friend, you know?”

  Charlie felt a sudden pang of heartache.

  “Yeah,” she said, forcing herself to smile. “I guess I did.”

  Zoe unlocked the car, and they climbed in. The whole ride back, Charlie couldn’t stop thinking about how their roles had been reversed. Zoe had gained a sister whereas Charlie had lost one, and now Charlie was the one who was envious.

  SIXTEEN

  After Zoe dropped Charlie back at her car, she sat in the parking lot for some time, digesting her turkey Reuben and fries plus what she’d learned from Zoe. Gazing out the window, Charlie’s mind kept wandering back to what Zoe had said about motive.

  Charlie considered the most common motives for murder: greed, lust, power, revenge. In this case, greed was the most obvious choice, given the financial prowess of the victim.

  Dutch had six children, if she counted Jude, and all of them were set to inherit quite a bit of money upon his death. What if Dutch had threatened to write one of them out of the will? Alternately, what if he’d decided to leave his vast fortune to a charity for three-legged dogs? With a man as wealthy as Dutch, the possibilities on that front were endless. Nearly everyone in close proximity might have a reason to think they’d profit from his death.

  The flesh prickled on the back of Charlie’s neck. Once more, the faces of Dutch’s children flashed in her head one by one, this time adding a new name to the list:

  Marjory, the charity worker and prissy brand whore. Was she having an affair with her much younger assistant?

  Gloria. Wes. Brandon. Dara. Jude. Marjory. Did any of them make sense as a murder suspect more than the others? She didn’t want to believe any of them could do it, but it was her job to find out the truth.

  She drummed her fingers against the steering wheel, wishing for some epiphany to strike. Some jolt of intuition that would make one name stand out among all the others.

  And then one did come to mind. The missing piece to the puzzle of those closest to Dutch.

  Vivien Marley, his mistress.

  She found it curious that the police hadn’t been able to question the woman yet. Vivien Marley was arguably Dutch Carmichael’s closest confidante, and yet she seemed to be avoiding speaking with anyone about him. It was as if she had something to hide.

  Charlie got out her phone and dialed Vivien’s number for the second time that day. It went straight to voicemail, and though Charlie left a message, she was beginning to suspect that Vivien Marley was evading her too.

  “Have you noticed that Dutch didn’t have any grandchildren?” Allie asked.

  “What does that have to do with Vivien?”

  “Nothing specifically,” Allie said. “Just makes you think.”

  “About what?”

  “You don’t think it’s odd that none of Dutch’s kids have children of their own? They’re all grown adults,” Allie said. “It’s weird.”

  Charlie shrugged.

  “I don’t have kids.”

  “You really want to go there?” Allie said with a snort.

  “Go where?”

  “It’s just I have this theory. That the ‘I’m never having kids’ bunch got that way because their family is wacko.”

  “Who said I’m never having kids?” Charlie asked.

  “I just assumed.”

  Charlie said nothing, hoping Allie would drop it.

  “I mean, you’re not getting any younger,” Allie went on. “Those eggs of yours are probably halfway to hardboiled by now.”

  “That’s not how it works,” Charlie grumbled.

  “Regardless… what are you waiting for? Your AARP card?”

  Charlie’s phone rang, and she couldn’t help but hope it was the elusive Vivien Marley returning her call. But when she glanced at the screen, she spotted her mother’s number flaring on the display this time. It was an odd time for a call. Her mother usually waited until later in the evening.

  “Mom?” she answered.

  “No,” the woman said, and Charlie recognized the voice of her mother’s nurse. “It’s Elaine.”

  The edge in the nurse’s voice betrayed how upset she was. Elaine was normally serene. Patient. Unflappable. It was what made her such a great caregiver for her mother.

  “Hey, Elaine. What’s up?” Charlie asked, gritting her teeth and waiting for the bad news to come.

  “I’ll tell you what’s up. I quit. She’s done a lot over these last three years, Charlie, let me tell you. But she went too far this time.”

  “OK, slow down,” Charlie said. “Tell me what happened.”

  “My brand new phone. She up and threw it into the pot of soup I was making, that’s what happened.”

  Charlie’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel.

  “Oh, Elaine. I’m so sorry.”

  The woman went on as if Charlie hadn’t spoken.

  “That was a twelve-hundred-dollar phone. A gift from my husband so I can take professional-quality pictures of my grandbabies. Ruined.”

  “I’m sorry,” Charlie repeated. “And of course I’ll replace the phone.”

  “That’s all good and well, but I’m done, Charlie.”

  Charlie felt a pang of panic run through her at the idea of losing Elaine now.

  “Elaine, please. I’ll give you a ten percent raise.”

  “No. No way. This is it. I have to draw a line somewhere. I hate to do it to you, because you’re a sweet kid, but you should have heard the way she was screaming at me, hollering about how my 5G was giving her a brain tumor. I will not stay in this house another minute.”

  Charlie clamped her mouth shut. She was afraid if she opened it now, she might scream. Her mother had done it again. Driven away yet another nurse. And as frustrating as it was, Charlie couldn’t blame Elaine for any of it.

  “Don’t be sorry,” she said, finally. “You’ve been amazing this whole time, and I don’t know what I would have done without you. Please send me the bill for your new phone.”

  When Charlie hung up, she felt a tremendous weight settle on her shoulders. She was so screwed.

  Her mother needed in-home care. Someone who could check in on her on a daily basis and make sure she took her morning and afternoon meds. Help with some of the day-to-day housework—grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning.

  The last time Charlie had thought Nancy was well enough to do away with the home nurse, it had only taken two weeks for her to spiral into another paranoid episode. By the time Charlie had realized she was off her meds, her mother had ripped up half the carpet upstairs and sledgehammered several holes in the walls, convinced there was black mold lurking in the subfloor and wall cavities. There was no mold. Only a few grand in drywall and flooring repair and another trip to the inpatient psych facility for Mommy Dearest.

  No, her mother needed a dedicated caregiver, and it couldn’t be Charlie.

  The problem was that private care wasn’t easy to come by on Salem Island, and her mother had gone through at least a dozen aides over the years. Elaine was the most recent, and she’d lasted the longest. Almost three whole years. Charlie doubted she’d be able to find someone with half the patience. And whoever was going to deal with Nancy Winters was going to need a boatload of it. Charlie had no illusions about that. The meds made her mother alternately lethargic and agitated, and on her bad days, she was a terror. A petulant, spoiled child in a grown woman’s body. Plunking Elaine’s phone into a pot of soup was rather mild, as far as her tantrums went, though the damage was on the expensive side.

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sp; Charlie watched a seagull pluck at a wadded-up McDonald’s bag across the parking lot.

  “You know you have to go over there,” Allie said. “To see Mom.”

  “I know.”

  “So?”

  “Just give me a minute, will you?” Charlie snapped.

  Charlie shook her head as if that might clear her mind the same way it erased the screen of an Etch A Sketch. Why did her mother have to have one of her meltdowns now, when she was right in the middle of a big case?

  “That’s not how it works. Shit happens, and you don’t get to choose when or where or how,” Allie said. “Trust me. I’m kind of an expert.”

  Allie’s refusal to let it go for even a minute annoyed Charlie, but she couldn’t deny the truth in her sister’s words. No one would have chosen for Allie’s life to have been cut so very short, least of all Allie herself.

  Charlie sighed and glanced at the clock. It was late afternoon already. Elaine would have been there to watch Nancy take her morning meds, but someone had to be there to make sure she took the afternoon dose. And there was no one to do it but Charlie.

  She started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. It was time to go deal with her mother.

  SEVENTEEN

  The sky off to the west was ominously dark as Charlie drove. It looked like a storm was coming.

  Somehow, that seemed fitting as Charlie pulled to the curb outside of her mother’s home. She shut off the engine and stared up at the house, noting how little it had changed. The same dusty-blue siding and black shutters. A wind chime she’d made at fifth grade camp dangling near the front door. The fraying rope where there used to be a swing on the big hickory tree in the front yard.

  “You’re stalling again,” Allie said.

  “No shit.”

  Charlie braced herself. She’d visited her mother only a handful of times since she’d moved back. It was better, for a whole host of reasons, that she keep her visits brief and limited in frequency.

  She ran through the things she needed to accomplish while she was here so she could be in and out and done as quickly as possible: make sure the afternoon meds were taken, for one, but it would also be wise to take stock of the grocery situation. Nancy didn’t drive these days, so Elaine had always taken care of the shopping.

  “Don’t forget to turn your phone off before you go in,” Allie reminded her.

  Charlie held the power button on her phone and a message popped up asking her, Are you sure?

  She couldn’t help but internalize the question. Was she sure about turning the phone off? Yes. Was she sure about visiting her mother? Not so much.

  Charlie climbed out of the car, crossed the sidewalk, and approached the front door. She took a deep breath and knocked.

  She studied the lawn while she waited. She paid a neighbor to keep the grass mowed and was glad to see it had been freshly cut. Nancy complained if it wasn’t regularly maintained, and it was one less thing to worry about during today’s visit.

  Charlie knocked again and counted the seconds as they passed. At thirty, she tried the knob and found it unlocked.

  She opened the door a crack and called inside.

  “Mom?”

  There was no answer, which made no sense. Her mother was always home.

  Charlie was starting to get a very bad feeling, and that was when she got the first whiff of it.

  Smoke.

  She barged into the living room. A haze of sooty air billowed in from the kitchen. Charlie ran that way and found a full pan of bacon crackling away on the stove. Without thinking, she reached for the pan, and her skin sizzled on contact with the blazing cast iron of the handle.

  Charlie yelped. Snatched her hand away.

  Sucking on the burned spot on her fingers, she used her other hand to turn off the burner. Why hadn’t she done that in the first place?

  Being here always threw her off her game.

  A series of thuds drew Charlie’s attention away from the stove, and Nancy Winters appeared in the doorway to the basement. Charlie’s mom paused there on the threshold, staring. Charlie always had the distinct feeling that whenever her mother saw her after some time had passed, for a brief moment, she thought maybe Charlie was Allie. Back after all these years. Some kind of miracle.

  “Charlie,” Nancy said, finally. “What are you doing here?”

  Charlie pointed at the pan where smoke was still rising from the charred bacon. “You can’t leave things on the stove like that, Mom.”

  “What are you talking about?” Nancy brushed past her to the stove. “I didn’t leave anything on the stove. It’s burned because that’s how I like it.”

  Charlie threw her hands up.

  “Mom, I literally walked in and smelled smoke, and you were nowhere to be found.”

  “I was in the basement getting a can of beans from the pantry.” She lifted a can of Bush’s brown sugar baked beans. “Had a hankering for some beans on toast. Figured I was on my own for dinner since Elaine took off.”

  Charlie wanted to doubt the story as one of her mother’s patented little fibs. But she had the can of beans in hand.

  Maybe she’d overreacted, jumping to conclusions based on things that had happened in the past. Seeing what she’d expected to see and constructing a narrative to fit it. Mom’s got a screw loose and can’t be trusted to do something as simple as frying up a pan of bacon without burning the house down.

  Charlie felt a sudden rush of guilt.

  Emptying the can of beans into a resealable plastic container, Nancy popped it in the microwave.

  “Hungry?” she asked.

  “No,” Charlie said, knowing it was best to keep the visit short-lived. “I just ate.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Her mother shuffled around the kitchen, getting out a plate and silverware and depositing two slices of bread in the toaster.

  “Are we going to talk about what happened with Elaine?” Charlie asked.

  “What about it?”

  “You destroyed her property, Mother.”

  “I told her a thousand times I don’t want those cancer bricks in my house.” The toaster dinged, and Nancy snatched up the pieces of toast. “Last time I checked, it’s my name on the deed. My house. My rules.”

  “Why couldn’t you just ask Elaine to take the phone outside?”

  “Because asking worked so well before? How many times do I have to ask for something so simple before I take action?”

  “Well, she’s gone now.”

  Nancy scooped a generous portion of beans onto her plate.

  “Good riddance. To her and all the rest, like the thief that came before her.”

  Charlie grumbled.

  “Dominique was not a thief.”

  “Was so.”

  “She was not. You said she stole some old VHS tapes—which doesn’t even make sense to begin with, because they have no value—and then I found them in a box in the attic a few months after she quit.”

  Nancy dropped her plate onto the kitchen table.

  “She didn’t quit. I fired her thieving ass. Other things went missing too, by the way. And those were tapes of your sister’s dance recitals, so you just watch your mouth with that ‘no value’ nonsense.”

  Charlie rubbed her temples. She wasn’t sure why she was even bothering with this line of questioning, but if her mother didn’t figure out a way to get along with her nurses, they’d eventually run out.

  “I don’t know what the big fuss is about anyway. Elaine was useless.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Charlie said. “I’m the one who has to find another nurse.”

  “What for? I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I’ve told you time and time again, I don’t need a babysitter.”

  Charlie didn’t take the bait and instead let the conversation lapse into silence.

  Eventually her mother flipped open her Big Book of Crosswords and started a puzzle. That was when Charlie saw the pill organizer on the table
and remembered the main reason she’d come. She knew Nancy usually took her afternoon dose with dinner to keep the meds from upsetting her stomach. It was one of the reasons she ate so early. But Charlie hadn’t seen her mother take the pills yet.

  Charlie watched her finish her meal, and then Nancy puttered over to the sink and rinsed her plate and silverware. After sliding the dishes into the dishwasher, she returned to the kitchen table. Charlie waited for her to take the pills, but her mother only returned to her crossword puzzle.

  “Mom?”

  Nancy didn’t glance up from her puzzle.

  “Mom, aren’t you going to take your afternoon pills?”

  “I already did,” Nancy said, still not looking up.

  This was classic. If her mother sensed even the slightest gap, she’d wiggle through it. And she apparently thought Charlie was gullible enough to take her word for it.

  “Check for yourself. The pill compartment is empty.”

  From the side of her eye, Charlie scoped the compartment. It was empty. Even so, Charlie got out her phone.

  “Don’t make me throw that thing in the garbage disposal. You know the rules. If you’re going to call Elaine, then do it outside.”

  Nancy’s eyes were still glued to her crossword puzzle as she spoke.

  Charlie gritted her teeth and went out on the porch, switching her phone on.

  Pulling up Elaine’s name in her list of contacts, Charlie hammered out a text.

  Did you see my mother take her meds today?

  Charlie wandered the yard while she waited for a response, noting a few spots where moles had been digging. Charlie would need to address that at some point unless she wanted to hear endless rants about “crippling mole infestations” from her mother for the next several months.

  A few moments later, her phone chirped.

  Yes. Meant to tell you that. Sorry.

  Charlie texted back.

  Morning and afternoon?

  Elaine’s response was faster this time.

  Correct. I had her take the afternoon dose before I left. Wanted to make sure she was set for the day.

  Charlie went back inside, turning her phone off again.