In the Blink of an Eye (41 page)

Julia's eyes snap open at a sudden clanking sound.

A few feet away, a detective's shovel has struck something solid in the widening hole around the lilac tree in the yard at Ten Summer Street.

The man bends over to examine it.

Julia's breath catches in her throat.

“It's just a rock,” a nearby police officer mutters.

The detective puts it aside and, with two other investigators, resumes digging.

A few minutes later, they finally manage to wrestle the lilac's root ball loose from the soil. It takes all three sweat-soaked detectives and several cops to carefully remove the large shrub from the spot where it has grown since that tragic, long ago April day.

Julia looks at Paine, standing beside her. He raises an eyebrow as if to ask,
Hanging in there?

She nods slightly.

Beside them, Miranda Cleary whispers something into Kent Gilman's ear.

Julia is glad they were given permission by the police to be here, too. Granted, the cops still aren't convinced they're going to find anything buried under this tree. And they all but said Miranda's audiotapes were a hoax.

But an investigation into the Biddles' past confirmed that there is no trace of Katherine Biddle's existence after the April of her junior year in high school. Records show that she never returned from spring break, and that her parents transferred her to a boarding school. Nobody ever thought to confirm their story. And nobody ever saw her again.

Silence hangs over the yard, broken only by the steady rhythm of the shovels sinking lower into the earth where the shrub once stood

Julia's thoughts turn to Rupert Biddle. Even now, days later, she remains stunned at the discovery that her neighbor was capable of killing Kristin and Iris to protect his terrible secret.

He killed poor Lincoln Reynolds, too.

When the police went out to his Sinclairville farm to question him about Katherine Biddle's decades-old disappearance, they discovered his body. The bullets were traced to Rupert Biddle's gun, and Lincoln's telephone records revealed that he placed a call to the Biddle residence on what was probably the day he died. Nobody will ever know what was said during that conversation. But whatever it was infuriated Rupert enough to send him over to Lincoln's place to kill the man he still loathed.

A ripple of little-girl laughter drifts into the yard through Pilar's open window.

Julia looks up in that direction, and then over at Paine. A faint smile touches his lips.

Dulcie is in Pilar's kitchen, baking brownies. Pilar, who flew back from her cruise the moment she learned of the Biddles' deaths, volunteered to baby-sit the little girl while the digging takes place. “Don't worry, I'll distract her. She'll be busy and happy,” Pilar said cheerfully.

The excavation wears on.

Heat lightning sizzles over the lake.

The air is oppressive, the sky ominously overcast.

All the world seems to be holding its breath.

Then . . .

“I've got something,” the detective announces, dropping his shovel and crouching at the hole. He reaches in, carefully brushing dirt aside with a gloved hand as the others press closer.

“It looks like a bone,” he announces grimly.

Julia's stomach turns over.

Miranda Cleary lets out a low wail.

It's what they were expecting, and yet . . .

Julia realizes that there was some part of her unwilling to believe that Rupert's story was true. That he buried his daughter's broken corpse in his own backyard.

Wiping tears that mingle with the perspiration on her face, Julia looks up at Paine. She's startled to see that his eyes, too, are glistening.

Side by side, they watch in bleak silence as Katherine Biddle's remains are unearthed, inch by agonizing inch.

“Hey, what's that shiny thing?” one of the detectives asks.

“It looks like jewelry,” another replies. “Wipe some of that dirt off.”

A moment later, somebody says, “Yeah, that's a ring on the finger. Looks like an engagement ring.”

Julia gasps.

Paine reaches for her hand. “You okay?”

She looks up at him. “I don't know why . . . I guess I assumed he would have taken it off her before he buried her.”

“Maybe he tried and couldn't get it off,” Paine says softly. “Or maybe he overlooked it.”

“Maybe.”

Julia watches solemnly as the detectives resume their gruesome task, unearthing the remains of a young girl whose only crime was to fall in love with a poor boy.

A slight gust stirs the branches overhead.

There is a loud, close clap of thunder.

Finally, fat raindrops begin to fall.

As Paine's warm grasp squeezes her fingers reassuringly, Julia lifts her face to the weeping heavens, welcoming the cool moisture.

And wondering if Katherine Biddle and Lincoln Reynolds are together somewhere at last.

Epilogue

December

Lily Dale, New York

T
HE SNOW BEGINS
to fall as Julia rounds the corner onto Summer Street.

Fat, lacy flakes drift down from the gray sky, the official start of the season's first blizzard. By tonight, if the Accuweather forecast is correct, Lily Dale will be buried under two feet of snow, with more on the way by daybreak and windchills well below zero.

It's perfect weather to stay inside by a warm fire, Julia thinks as she heads up the street, her head bent against the icy wind. Maybe later she can finally start writing out her Christmas cards. Just yesterday, she received one from Pilar in Alabama. In it, she wrote that she was already looking forward to getting back to Lily Dale in June, and promised to send Julia a postcard from her spring trip to Japan to visit her son.

There was a card from Lorraine, too. She's been staying with her sister in Buffalo while she goes through rigorous daily physical therapy sessions. But she's making tremendous progress, and she, too, expects to be back in Lily Dale in time for the summer season. She's going to make a full recovery, thank God. She even managed to crack a weak joke the last time Julia spoke to her on the phone.

“I've definitely learned my lesson. This has taught me not to borrow your clothes anymore without asking, Jul.”

Julia barely managed to smile. After all, Lorraine was almost killed because she was wearing Julia's jacket. Rupert must have seen her walking that night, recognized the distinct orange color of the raincoat, and mowed her down, thinking it was Julia. The police later found evidence on his car's bumper that he had hit something.

The flakes are falling faster now, swirling through the air, clinging to rooftops and bare tree branches overhead. Julia has almost reached Ten Summer Street.

She walks past it every day on her late afternoon stroll. She tells herself that she needs to check on things while the house is empty, just as she used to do when Iris was away for the winter.

If only Paine and Dulcie were just away for the winter. If only Julia could look forward to their return with the spring.

But that isn't going to happen. According to Paine's mid-November update on the legal tug-of-war over the house, it looks like things are finally winding down. Most likely, Edward's lawyer is going to settle. They're going to sell the house and split the proceeds down the middle, with half going to Dulcie and half to Edward, who is only interested in cash, and not the old house.

The lawyers and Realtors will handle the sale. There is no need for Paine and Dulcie to come back to Lily Dale again.

Julia has known all along that she would never see them again after that heart-wrenching good-bye before they drove off on that last rainy July morning.

That didn't stop her from spending the last five months pretending. Hoping. Wishing . . .

At least they keep in touch fairly often. Rather, they did.

Dulcie called Julia almost daily when she first got back to California. Then the calls tapered off a bit. Finally, a few weeks ago, they stopped altogether.

When Julia called Paine and Dulcie to wish them a happy Thanksgiving, the operator informed her that the number had been disconnected. There was no forwarding information.

Stopping on the sidewalk in front of Ten Summer Street, Julia finds her gaze drawn, as always to the spot just behind the porch where the lilac once stood.

Poor Katherine Biddle.

At least now perhaps she can rest in peace. She was given a decent burial soon after the coroner's office released her body. Julia attended the service with Pilar.

Later Pilar took it upon herself to hire a landscaper to plant the shrub again in a different spot on the property at Ten Summer Street. But the shovels' blows had badly damaged the roots. The shrub eventually wilted and died. There will be no fragrant blooms this spring.

Maybe it's better that way.

Julia lifts her gaze to the house.

The house that might have been hers . . .

If things were different.

But it's better this way, Julia reminds herself.

After all, Iris died here.

Katherine died here.

Kristin's fate was sealed here.

Kristin . . .

My sister.

Even now, all these months after her mother blurted the bombshell during a long-distance phone call, Julia is struck by renewed surprise.

Kristin was my sister.

Anson was my father.

Dulcie is my niece.

Every time that shocking reality drifts into her mind, she has to fight back the urge to call someone—no, to call
Paine—
and tell him the astounding news. But she promised her mother she would never tell a soul, and she won't.

Even if keeping the secret means never claiming a share of the house at Ten Summer Street.

Even if it means never being acknowledged as Dulcie's blood relative.

Hungry for more information about the past, Julia tried to get Deborah Garrity to reveal more.

“Oh, I knew I never should have told you,” was her mother's wailed response.

And she probably wouldn't have told, if she hadn't happened to call Julia a few hours after Katherine Biddle's skeleton was unearthed. Her emotions raw, Julia sobbed the whole tragic story of Katherine's death, and Iris's and Kristin's murders, to her mother. Uncharacteristically quiet on her end, Deborah listened intently, then said slowly, “Julia, there's something you should know about the Shuttleworths . . .”

So. Now she knows. Her mother had an affair with Kristin's father right around the time Iris got pregnant with Kristin. Both Anson and Iris knew that Anson was Julia's father. Kristin, presumably, did not.

Julia can't help feeling hurt, even now, by Anson's detached attitude toward her all those years ago, whenever she visited the Shuttleworth household. No wonder he locked himself in his study when she was around. It wasn't that he disliked children. He just couldn't stand the sight of a little girl he had no intention of acknowledging as his own.

Yet the pain of his rejection is tempered by the memory of Irises willingness to tolerate the unwitting friendship between her daughter and Julia. It must have been heart-wrenching for her to welcome Julia into her home back when the pain of her husband's betrayal was still fresh. That she was kind to Julia back then is as remarkable, in retrospect, as the fact that she treated Julia as a surrogate daughter in recent years.

How Julia aches to hug Iris to thank her for her friendship—and for allowing Kristin's.

No wonder . . .

The words keep running through her mind. Now it all makes sense. The indestructible lifelong bond between her and Kristin. Julia's fierce sense of responsibility toward Dulcie. Her acute longing, even now, for both of them.

No wonder . . .

And yet . . .

Would Julia have felt any less attached to Kristin if there weren't a blood bond between them?

Would she feel any less deprived by Dulcie's absence now?

She's spent a lifetime it seems hungering for family. Not just for the family she's lost—her grandmother, and the father she assumed she never knew—but for the family she's always longed for: siblings, a husband, children of her own.

She might never marry or become a mother.

But at least I had a sister . . . wherever you are, Kristin.

At least I have a niece . . . wherever you are, Dulcie.

As she stands staring at the house at Ten Summer Street, lost in thought, Julia is suddenly struck by the realization that something is different.

Startled, she gapes at the front door, adorned by a simple pine wreath with a red velvet bow.

Julia frowns. Who could have put that there?

Maybe the Realtors are already preparing the place for sale, trying to make it look homey again.

The snow is coming down hard now. She should get back home. Turning away from the house, Julia takes a deep breath . . .

And realizes that the chilly air is tinged with woodsmoke.

She turns again slowly, looking up at the old house.

A thin tendril of smoke wafts from the chimney.

Stunned, Julia walks slowly up the steps.

She lifts her hand to knock.

“Julia!” The front door is thrown open. “Daddy saw you through the window. Are you surprised to see us?”

Framed in the doorway, Dulcie is neatly dressed in a black velvet jumper with a lacy white blouse and polished little black Mary Jane shoes. There's even a ribbon in her hair—tied a little lopsided, but Paine is getting much better.

The little girl launches herself at Julia, throwing her arms around her.

Julia hugs Dulcie back, opening her mouth to speak, but her voice seems to have vanished.

Paine appears in the stair hall. His hair is neatly trimmed, she realizes, looking up at him over the top of Dulcie's head. He's clean shaven, too. And something else is different . . .

“Dulcie, let Julia come in and close the door. I just got the fire going and you're letting all the heat out.”

It's his eyes, Julia realizes. They're no longer overcast with worry. Now they're twinkling at her, with no sign of bruise-colored trenches beneath them.

Julia finds her voice at last. “What . . . what are you guys doing here?”

“We came back,” Dulcie says simply.

“To sell the house?”

“To buy it,” Paine says with a grin. “I got a few decent jobs over the last few months—after I cut my hair and made myself presentable,” he adds with a laugh. “They were only commercials, but the money was good. Enough so that we can buy out Edward's half and—”

“We're going to fix up the house so we can come back in the summer,” Dulcie cuts in excitedly. “And we might live in New York City, too, in the spring. Daddy's friend Stan is going to—”

“Slow down, Dulcie,” Paine cuts in, laughing. “There's a lot to tell Julia. There's no rush. We're sticking around for a while.”

Over his shoulder, she can see that the familiar stair hall is stacked with boxes.

Paine follows her gaze. “That's all our stuff,” he says. “I rented a truck to get it here. This time we took our time driving across the country. I figured it might be awhile before we do it again.”

“We went to the Grand Canyon, Julia,” Dulcie says. “And we climbed down inside it. I could feel how big it was. It was awesome.”

“That's great, Dulcie.” Julia's gaze meets Paine's, finding unaccustomed warmth there.

“After we got back, I felt like we didn't belong in California anymore,” he tells her. “I don't know where we do belong, but it wasn't there. Maybe it isn't here, either . . . but we're going to find out.”

Julia ponders that.

She looks over at the familiar stairway, almost expecting, even now, to see or hear something there.

“What do you think of our plan?” Paine asks.

“I think . . . I think that Iris would have liked this plan,” Julia says slowly.

Yes. Iris would have liked knowing that they're going to give this old house, and Lily Dale, a chance.

“What do
you
think?” Paine is watching her carefully.

“I think it's a good idea, too,” Julia says honestly.

As for Kristin . . .

Well, Kristin would have liked to know that Dulcie is where Julia can keep an eye on her.

Somehow, it doesn't matter to Julia now that Dulcie and Paine might never know the whole truth. All that matters is that Kristin will always be a part of her. Now, so will Dulcie . . .

And maybe Paine, as well.

Julia glances from daughter to father, still barely able to believe her eyes. “I never expected to see you guys again.”

“I thought of calling you to tell you we were coming back, but Dulcie wanted to surprise you.”

“I thought it would be a good Christmas present for you,” the little girl says, giggling.

“It definitely is, Dulcie. It's the best Christmas present ever.”

As Julia speaks, she swears she can hear a faint ripple of joyous laughter echoing through the old house.