“Just looking at my stuff.” Quinn’s bedroom at Birch House was a girl’s museum of collectibles. She had years of feathers, birch-bark drawings, photos, pretty rocks, a hat made from the cattails at the end of the bay, a bird’s nest, a wall full of photos. The only thing missing at the lake had been friends, because of their need for privacy.
“Ready, Mom?” Quinn glided into the master bedroom wearing a checkered bikini made from a square of material the size of a tissue. “You like?” She struck a pose in front of Nikki’s French mirror.
“I like, as long as you don’t wear that in public.” Goldy’s typical work costumes—shiny bundles of asset-covering fabric—put her in a shaky position to criticize Quinn, but she didn’t want her daughter dressing provocatively.
“It’s just for here, Mom.”
“Then I like it.” This was Quinn’s week and Nikki’s mission to make it light-hearted and fun was driven by the fact that her daughter deserved to leave for college without worry pulling at her heart. Without knowledge of Shakespeare or what was about to change all their lives.
In the last months, twenty-six letters had arrived from Shakespeare, all similar. Recently they’d been arriving more frequently. The last one said very little.
My Dear Goldy,
Soon I will come to get you, to free you from this life of excess and indecision.
You’ll be frightened at first but I’ll make sure you don’t suffer too much.
When I’m finished, I’ll have you sing for me one last time. Something romantic, sweet and final. Of course you will tremble, beg. That will be delightful. When you hit the last note I will free your soul of my serenade, I will cut your tongue out, leaving you to never sing again. I’m sorry, my love but it is necessary. The drugs will ease your pain. You see? I do love you.
“She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?”
We’ll be each other’s last memory before we leave for the next life, the one where we are together.
This bud of love by summer's ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet…
Images of a deranged man with long, thinning gray hair and a scraggly beard always came to mind, dressed in dirty breeches, sitting beside a collection of medieval torture instruments, penning letters. Although they hadn’t identified him yet, Gateman was sure Shakespeare was in the L.A. area. A stationary stalker, they called the ones who didn’t physically follow their prey.
Nikki hoped the FBI was right. This lunatic made her skin crawl with descriptions of the heinous acts he’d perform on her. The image of him wanting to cut her tongue out and inject windshield washing fluid into her veins was something she couldn’t shake, no matter how hard she’d tried and his latest words had fallen on her like acid rain, the poison only slightly diluted by the FBI’s involvement.
Although Gateman thought the electrocution attempt was a message from Shakespeare, Goldy wasn’t so sure. It hadn’t been a strong enough current to cause any lasting damage. If someone had planned it, they either didn’t know what they were doing, or hadn’t meant to kill her. She’d suffered a few blisters but there’d been no amnesia, nerve damage, or heart problems. Or funeral.
****
Bedtime came early that night for both. Even though the maintenance man continued to hammer over at Dickerson’s, Nikki began to relax. Putting on an old T-shirt of Burn’s, she threw back the fluffy duvet and slipped into bed. The coolness of the cotton sheets was a long-awaited heaven except that she was without any prospects of filling the empty spot beside her with anyone but a feisty little pug mix.
“Is it lonely without Dad?” Quinn leaned against the door jamb.
“A little.” Nikki patted the bed for her to sit. “I’ll get used to it.” She didn’t want to say that it had been lonelier with a cheating husband lying next to her.
“I feel terrible for you because Dad has a girlfriend and you’re all alone, Mom.” Quinn stretched out on the duvet.
“It’s kind of nice to be alone, for a change.” She stroked her daughter’s arm. How did she end up with such a gorgeous kid? She’d been terrified to be a mother when she found out she was pregnant at twenty-one. “I’m not entirely alone. I’ve got you this week and Elvis for years and years to come.”
“I want you to find someone for yourself. Someone to love.” Quinn curled around Elvis’s small body while Nikki played with her daughter’s long auburn hair.
“I’m sure I will someday.” She moved a lock behind Quinn’s ear, fighting to keep tears from pooling.
“I just want you to make an effort.” Quinn sighed. “Even though you’re here at Birch House, don’t miss Dad.”
“I already put his picture away.” Nikki pointed to the drawer on her bedside table.
Quinn smiled at her mother, kissed her cheek, and left for her own bedroom. “Don’t spend all night watching that guy on the ladder next door,” she teased.
“Sweet dreams, darling girl,” Nikki smiled. The man was probably just a fix-it guy from town. Reporters wouldn’t come this far. They were back in L.A., perplexed about her sudden retirement. It wouldn’t occur to anyone yet that the choice to re-invent herself had been made for Nikki eight weeks earlier, when a tiny life inside her took root and began to grow from a stranger’s seed.
He was frustrated. Why hadn’t Goldy stayed in Los Angeles where celebrities belonged? It would be so much easier. This remote location changed everything. All the careful planning was a joke now that Goldy was hiding out at Louisa Lake. Hell, he’d have to be on his toes with this one.
Lugging the stepladder back to the garage, he tried to put it away without making a sound. The lights were out at Goldy’s, which meant any noise he made would probably be heard by the two women lying in bed over there. Fuck. The thought of Goldy in bed, only footsteps away from where he stood made his blood quicken. Her long blonde hair, that body, her smile. He’d fantasized about kissing that smile. At the last Goldy concert, he’d fantasized about more than that. Him and thousands of other men in the audience.
If he marched over there right now, let himself in to her house and slipped upstairs to her bedroom, what would she do? The reality was that she’d be terrified. He had to stay away from her. Things were about to go down, and he needed to keep a clear head.
****
As she made her morning cup of tea, Nikki noticed that the Chevy truck was still parked beside the garage at the Dickersons. The maintenance man had stayed the night. His hammering went on until well after ten. Maybe the Dickerson family was getting ready to put the place up for sale. She hoped they didn’t sell it to anyone who actually wanted to use the property. Having an absentee neighbor had been handy when they visited the lake.
Edna’s son, Andy, the DA in Seattle, was in charge of the house now and Nikki punched in his cell number. When she got voice mail, she simply left a message. “It’s Nikki Crossland. Can you call me back on this number? I have some questions about your lake house and who’s over there.” Andy had been trustworthy in the past about the secrecy of the Burnsides showing up at the lake, each year.
Later that day, Andy Dickerson left a short message saying he had a guy over there. “Just ignore him,” he said.
Even though the “guy” was gone, Nikki contacted Sheriff Harold Gaines of the Louisa Lake Police Department, one of the only people she knew in town. “Are the Dickerson’s selling?” Harold had once told her that he knew all the gossip on the lake.
“Not that I know of.”
“I just wondered because there was a maintenance man out here.”
“Probably just that.” It sounded like she’d interrupted his lunch. He was a big guy, with a doting wife and retirement staring him in the face. Nikki imagined him with a tray of food in front of him.
“Can you let me know if you hear anything? And Harold, as always, it’s a secret I’m here, so I’d appreciate you keeping it under that sheriff hat.”
“Roger that.”
****
Labor Day was over, and the lake was once again engulfed in the September hush. Without Quinn, Birch House seemed in desperate need of everything. It would take days to adjust to the deafening silence. They’d had such fun together, just what Nikki envisioned. Their toe nails were Petal Pink, they’d trimmed each other’s hair, written a little song about themselves, suffered together through sunburns, finished the book
Little Women
, invented three new recipes to put in the Birch House Cookbook, water skied, and walked the loop with Elvis each day. They had even created an account for Nikki on Dating.com that she secretly had no intention of using.
When Quinn slung her duffle bag into the trunk of the car and slammed it shut, Nikki had watched through tears. “It’s a five-hour drive to the coast,” Quinn said. “I know. I’ll be busy writing the movie soundtrack.” Her daughter had always taken a back seat to Goldy’s career and that thought brought a new wave of tears to Nikki’s eyes. “I love you, my sweet Quinny.” Her lips lingered on her daughter’s forehead as she took in the familiar scent. “You are my golden child.”
It wasn’t only Quinn she missed. Walking around the house after her daughter’s departure, memories of Burn ghosted her. She missed his jokes, his good-heartedness. Everybody loved Burn. Especially women. It had taken Nikki years to turn her love for him into something manageable, eventually finding a place in their lives for his behavior. She hoped the next few months wouldn’t be filled with loneliness, especially over Burn, who probably hadn’t thought twice about her since she’d announced her retirement.
With thoughts aimed at the deck hammock, Nikki took a novel outside. But before she could deposit herself in the swinging bed, something moved over at the Dickersons’ house and she scooted behind the branches of a leafy rhododendron at the deck’s edge. A man stood perfectly still at the side door of the log cabin, staring into the forest.
She grabbed the binoculars from the patio table and crept across the grass, to the cover of a dense clump of trees. The fix-it man now stood where the dock met the beach, his arms folded across his chest, staring across the bay. He looked younger than she’d imagined. Maybe in his late thirties, but from this distance it was hard to tell.
He moved to the shadows of the large cedars along the beach. She couldn’t see his face, wearing what looked like a Mariner baseball cap with sunglasses. An arm lifted to adjust his cap then he turned and, staring directly at her hiding spot, tipped his hat to her.
She buckled back into the bushes. “Oh, God.” Maybe he was only adjusting his hat. Dropping to the grass, Nikki lay in a ball wondering if it was too late to go undetected. Had he seen her peering through the trees? She covered her head with her arms and backed farther into the dense brush.
“Oh God, oh god, oh god. Don’t see me!” Nikki whispered. Elvis barked behind her. “Shhh! Elvis! No barkies,” she hissed.
Jumping circles around her, Elvis begged to play, now that she was on his level.
“No, Elvis. Mommy is sleeping.” Nikki lifted her head from her arms and tried to steal another look across the water.
He was gone.
Was he gone?
Yes.
Did he see her? Maybe not.
Did he?
If so, would he have seen the binoculars from that distance?
Probably not. He didn’t have binoculars. Where was the sun? In his eyes?
No.
In her eyes! And illuminating her side of the bay.
Shit. Damn. Shit damn.
Running toward the house, Nikki gasped when she caught her reflection in the glass door. Oh no. She was wearing a red sundress! Red was the worst color for standing out in the forest. She yanked it off, stripping down to her blue bikini. If he looked again, he’d wonder if his eyesight was playing tricks on him. Maybe he’d think he saw a red bird. She winced at the likelihood of a hundred and fifteen pound red bird.
Her instincts told her to get to the kitchen. She ducked behind the counter and plopped on the floor to think. “Who was that guy?” she asked Elvis, who hunkered with her. The dog threw his little nose in the air and raced out the open patio door, barking his way across the deck and around the side of the house.
“Elvis!” she hissed.
“Hey, little guy,” a strange voice said, overtop of Elvis’s barks. “Where’s your Mom?”
Oh God! He was at the side of the house. Nikki looked out the kitchen window where she separated two blind panels and tried to look around the corner, without success.
Where was her pepper spray? She had to exercise caution. The whispery voice said something else but the only clear word was “binoculars.”
Nikki groaned as she grabbed her robe from a bar stool, put the pepper spray in her pocket, and followed the sound of Elvis’s barks around the side of the house.
****
Was this the right decision, coming over like this? It was risky, but god dammit, Goldy Burnside, world famous rock star and probably the only celebrity he’d ever had a crush on, was next door. From what he knew, it was just him and Goldy on the whole east side of the lake right now.
He’d done his research. The title of the house was in the name Nicole Ann Crossland. And that was Goldy. She’d never been here in September before but here she was, probably counting on privacy. Having her close by made his plan easier in some ways.
When Goldy rounded the corner of the house, his breath caught in his throat. This was better than a slow-mo beer commercial. She was drop-dead gorgeous. Of course she was. In the grocery store she’d been wearing a sweat suit, a hat, and sunglasses—covered up and incognito. Today she looked more like the rock star. Shit. How was he going to do this? He really didn’t want to feel tongue-tied. What was his name? Oh yea, Pete Bayer, this time.
Her smile was all show. It originated and stayed in the mouth. He didn’t blame her. His smile was probably goofy, complete with drool.