Flashback

  CAIT LONDON

  FLASHBACK

  In much appreciation to HarperCollins,

  Avon Books Division,

  for their special attention.

  With a special thank you to my editor,

  Lucia Macro,

  for her care,

  and to Tom Egner,

  whose talent is responsible

  for my unique and great signature covers.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  “No, honey. I don’t think that is a good idea.”

  One

  “Once upon a time, there were three…”

  Two

  At the bottom of the apartment’s stairs, Rachel wiped her…

  Three

  In the light from a bald overhead bulb, Kyle moved…

  Four

  Just a month after Mallory’s death, Kyle Scanlon leaned back…

  Five

  At eleven o’clock at night, Rachel stood on the sidewalk…

  Six

  “You stole my cat, Scanlon. Since you left this morning,…

  Seven

  “Mallory?”

  Eight

  “Once upon a time there were three sisters….” Rachel ran…

  Nine

  Mid-May’s cool evening mist swirled around Atlantis Street’s lights and…

  Ten

  “It’s Kyle. Open up.” After Rachel’s frantic call, it had…

  Eleven

  After a night spent with Kyle, Feeling warm and wilty…

  Twelve

  “Real nice.” John Scanlon Jr. gave a low whistle as…

  Thirteen

  “You’re going to tell me,” Rachel whispered fiercely, her fingers…

  Fourteen

  “Rachel…I’m so glad that you called,” Shane Templeton said…

  Fifteen

  “What was that you were saying about Shane giving Mallory…

  Sixteen

  “Bob? We’re okay with each other,” Trina stated. “he’s just…

  Seventeen

  Rachel couldn’t bear the ugly idea trapped inside her. Insidiously,…

  Eighteen

  Mallory’s apartment, where she’d spent her last hours, suited the…

  Epilogue

  In the first week of August, the locals of Neptune’s…

  About the Author

  Other Books by Cait London

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  “NO, HONEY. I DON’T THINK THAT IS A GOOD IDEA.” TRINA Everly knew that her daughter was set to fight for what she wanted. A natural champion of just causes, Rachel was independent, logical, methodical, and determined when she’d decided to enter a fight.

  Twelve-year-old Rachel’s chin was set and Trina knew the battle was going to be a hard one.

  Rachel stood clasping the hand of a girl one year older, a thin, lost and frightened-looking foster child she’d brought home from school. Just looking at the girl caused Trina to ache, but she had her hands full raising her own two daughters and trying to set money aside for their education. She’d just gotten her own life on track, with a steady job and an income that paid the bills, if she watched her budget.

  In bib overalls and puppy dog tails that shook when she spoke, Rachel asked fiercely, “Why can’t you adopt Mallory, Mom? You haven’t even thought about it, have you? It’s only logical that you get another daughter. We can all wear about the same clothes and it’s not like having a boy or anything. One more tax dependent would save you money. I’d teach her how we run things here, doing our own laundry, vacuuming, whatever. With three girls—Jada, Mallory, and me—you wouldn’t have to do any house- or yard work at all. We’d designate duties, take care of the lawn, wash the car, and you could relax when you come home. You’d have more energy for your work…. And it’s the right thing to do, Mom. Admit it. ‘Many hands make light work,’ the saying goes, or something like that.”

  Trina shook her head. Rachel, as the eldest daughter, was more responsible than Jada, the youngest by two years. Keeping her own two girls dressed and fed and in the home Trina had purchased by working several jobs and playing billiards took every bit of her paychecks.

  Trina had been only nineteen when Rachel was born, only twenty-one and expecting Jada when her ex-husband deserted them. The terror of those early years still haunted her, fearing that she might fail her babies…that they would be taken from her.

  With hard work, everybody pulling, the three of them were living in a nice oceanfront home and the girls had a backyard swing and bicycles. Already Rachel, a high achiever, was determined that she was going to college, and though the expenses terrified her, Trina intended to support her daughter to the fullest.

  But her heart went out to Mallory, the girl Rachel wanted her to adopt. With curly red hair and freckles dancing across her nose, Mallory was too thin and pale, her clothing worn and too tight on her budding body. She looked like she needed food and attention—and love, most of all, Trina thought, as she moved to the refrigerator and made the girl a sandwich. “Why don’t you eat this, Mallory, while Rachel and I have a little talk? Milk?”

  And then, because the girl seemed terrified, afraid to eat the food in front of her, Trina gave her a big slice of chocolate cake. “Here. Rachel made this, and you’ll hurt her feelings if you don’t eat every bit, okay?”

  Oh, why can’t I adopt this poor girl? Where does the ‘can’t’ list stop? Trina asked herself as she prepared to argue with Rachel, whose mind ran quickly, sharply when she was determined to have her way. Why can’t I? Because I’ve struggled through years to bring my two daughters, and myself, some kind of financial security, to buy a house, to get a job, and you, my oldest daughter, bore too much of the load.

  In the laundry room, she closed the door and faced Rachel, who had hopped up onto the dryer. Trina recognized her daughter’s expression, those brown eyes were dark and pinning in that intense expression, her young body taut. “We can’t do this, Rachel,” Trina began. “Mallory is a girl, not a puppy for you to bring to the house.”

  “She’s a girl, like me, and she needs us. Would you want someone to turn me away, Mom? You know what can happen to girls like her in foster care? Not all those places are nice, you know.”

  Trina sucked in her breath and because her daughter went right for the heart of her, she folded towels to give herself thinking room. “Honey, I know you have a generous heart, but I’m a single mother. I don’t know how the authorities would see me as a potential parent for Mallory.”

  “Well, love is the most important thing. Jada and me have got a lot of it to give, and so do you. I know what to do…I checked it out before even asking Mallory if she might like to live here. I wouldn’t want to promise something we couldn’t do. You always say to make certain of what you have before you try to sell it, right?”

  Rachel’s young face wasn’t just excited, it was fiercely determined, a look that Trina knew well. Because of their financial struggles, her daughter had grown up too soon, sometimes her viewpoints too adult, and when Rachel argued, her logic was already in place, rock-solid and bottom line. “You need references. And you’ve got contacts, good ones, and you go to church every Sunday. So you could have the minister write a letter for you. You’ve got the room, a nice house—you’ve almost got the mortgage paid off, and your car is paid for, too. You’ve got the means to take care of three girls, and with three of us here, taking the housework and yard work on, you’ll have more energy to invest in selling used cars and getting customers. Look at Jada and me. Look how healthy we are and how you take care of us. And Mom, no one fights better than you to get what you want.”

  My daughter does…. Trina could feel herself start to waver. “Boy, you�
��re really laying this on thick, aren’t you, Rachel?”

  Rachel leaned forward and put her hand on her mother’s shoulder, an old sales trick that she’d just learned while watching her mother put through a used-auto sale. “You can do this, Mom. You’re a fighter, that’s what they say about you. People respect you, because you fought to keep us together and now look what we have…. Details, that’s what you’re good at. You’re smart and you’re good. You know how to pressure. Or keeping up the pressure and getting things your way. Why, you’re a sterling example of a good mother capable of taking on another daughter,” Rachel ended decisively.

  All the details lined up, the sales pitch ready, Trina thought, her pride in Rachel weighing against the emotional and financial responsibility of another child. Nothing could stop Trina’s steadfast determination to give her daughters an education and thus a life better than she’d had, pregnant and married at eighteen, deserted and divorced at twenty-two with two babies in tow.

  “Okay,” Rachel continued firmly, “so you don’t know anything about Mallory. But her foster parents won’t care if she stays here for a while. They’re okay, I guess, but we’ve got a lot more going for us. You can get used to the idea gradually. We won’t mention that you’re thinking about adopting her. Meanwhile, I’ll work with her grades. She’s behind because of being moved around so much, so you might as well know that up front, but it isn’t because she’s dumb or anything. Let’s see, I’ll take care of that and—”

  Trina felt like she was in front of a runaway train. “Wait a minute, Rachel. I haven’t said this is a go.”

  “What if that was me out there, Mom? Wouldn’t you want someone to be kind to me, to love me and feed me?”

  Her heart proud, her mind wary, Trina held the breath that Rachel had just taken away with that last statement. “I’ll think about it, Rachel, and that’s all I’m promising.”

  “We can do this, Mom,” Rachel said brightly as she hopped down and gave her mother a quick hug. “I know we can. There, now I think that went well, don’t you?”

  “Don’t get your hopes up—or Mallory’s. I’m only thinking about it,” Trina stated carefully, but already she suspected that if she could manage it, Mallory would be theirs….

  One

  “ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WERE THREE…”

  Rachel Everly had to see where her sister had died. She gripped the handrail leading up the side steps to the second-story apartment. The first step creaked a little, as if warning her not to trespass.

  “Once upon a time, there were three sisters, Mallory. Now, damn you, there’s only two. I’ve got a right to be mad.”

  In late March the first floor of Nine Balls Billiards Parlor was dark and silent in the night. The howling wind swept through the streets of Neptune’s Landing, carrying the creaking sound of the business’s swaying sign on Atlantis Street. The Oregon coast’s salty mist swirled around Rachel, the tide a rhythmic pulse, sounding almost like a heartbeat in the distance, beating endlessly against the jutting black rocks.

  With beachfront access to the Pacific Ocean, the town of Neptune’s Landing offered business executives and the wealthy pricey oceanside homes. The real estate developments clustered along the beach, containing magnificent homes, or expensive condos with club houses, swimming pools, and tennis courts.

  Located away from the town’s thriving chic business center, Atlantis Street lay closer to the older, oceanfront, historic section of town. Trees lined the street, shadowing the turn-of-the-century homes that had been converted into businesses to accommodate tourists. In the mist, streetlights glowed eerily upon the wet bricks of the street, an inheritance from the first wealthy families who had settled in Neptune’s Landing. Once, horse-drawn carriages rolled across those bricks, the wheel rims clattering noisily, but now only the dense fog moved quietly through the too quiet streets.

  The candy maker’s Sweets sign and Natasha the Fortune Teller’s pink lighted sign were only indistinct shapes in the fog. The mist hid a variety of less flashy signs for day spas, beauty shops and health food store signs in the elegant two-story homes’ front yards.

  With her sisters, Rachel had grown up in Neptune’s Landing, had ridden her bicycle down these same streets on her way to pick up shells at the beach.

  She looked around the parking lot adjacent to the billiards parlor. In the past few years, neglected by the owner, Mallory’s billiards business had declined. Empty now, the parking lot was once filled with very expensive luxury cars and SUVs, owned by the patrons of the upscale billiards parlor, Nine Balls. Most of them had very expensive custom-made tables in their homes, and until the last few years Nine Balls had provided a sedate place to relax away from home. Undeterred by gossip, a few women still enjoyed Ladies Only times, where they could relax without a beer-and-guys-tavern atmosphere.

  Above the game room was where the owner had lived, and in later years, gossip questioned how many men had gone up those same stairs to bed the owner of Nine Balls and the town tramp, Rachel’s adopted sister.

  Rachel closed her eyes and saw Mallory as a scared, ragged thirteen-year-old, then later, as a laughing teenager rushing into life.

  Today, thirty-four-year-old Mallory had been laid in her grave.

  Tears brimmed and slid softly down Rachel’s cheek. “Oh, Mallory. I could have helped you. Why wouldn’t you let me in?”

  She looked up the steps to the apartment’s door. Its window was a cold, silvery square, the mist on it glittering, lit by the streetlights.

  Rachel rubbed the ache in her chest and forced herself up the stairs, her fingers gripping the handrail, locking to it with each step. At the small platform, she looked down the stairs, and wanted to run away from what she might find.

  You aren’t welcome in my home, Rachel, Mallory had screamed furiously over the telephone just a month ago. Because it’s mine, all mine, a part of me that just might not meet your Miss Perfect standards. Oh, and don’t try that Good Samaritan act on me. Your mom took me in…she adopted a tramp foster kid who didn’t turn out okay, got it? Think of me as a wasted effort. Leave me alone!

  No one had been in the apartment since “the body” had been removed. The Body, so impersonal, so cold, Rachel thought. With shaking hands, she inserted the key, turned it, and opened the door. The interior of the apartment was cold, damp, and musty with stale cigarette smoke, the place where Mallory had chosen to take her life. Why?

  Rachel stepped into the living room, closed the door, and leaned back against it. She listened to the wind, and Mallory’s vanilla scent came to curl softly around Rachel, as if welcoming her…vanilla, sweet, good…just as her sister had been until later years.

  “Once upon a time…” Once upon a time there had been three sisters, loving each other, sharing secrets—Rachel, Mallory, and Jada. Then Mallory had stepped into the shadows, excusing herself from that bond, appearing only at family gatherings when absolutely necessary. And now she was gone, leaving Rachel without closure for an adopted sister she’d loved…. Grief and anger and love weren’t a stable mix, and Rachel felt frustrated and helpless.

  “‘Mom, Rachel, Jada, I love you’ is a hell of a suicide note, Mallory. I’m mad at you. You could have come to me for help. You could have told me anything. But oh, no, you just up and killed yourself, didn’t you? Did you think of Mom, who loved you like her own daughter? Did you think of Jada, who’s crying at the house right now? In the very same bedroom we shared growing up? Damn you.”

  Rachel could almost hear Mallory’s voice, taunting her in a husky, smoky singsong. Naughty, naughty. Good girls don’t cuss.

  The slight vanilla scent seemed stronger. “Yeah, well, Goody-Two-Shoes does curse, given enough reason, and I’d say you killing yourself is enough, Mallory.”

  She hadn’t been in the apartment for years; Mallory had made it clear that it was off limits. Grief and frustration took Rachel as she went striding around the apartment. The decor was dark and heavy, more suiting a man than a woman
. But then Mallory had made no effort to hide the fact that she had gentlemen callers, men who came in the night and left her well rewarded….

  “I earned this place,” she’d said fiercely. “It’s mine, bought and paid for with hard times that you’ll never know, Miss New York City girl.”

  Heavy maroons, trimmed in gold, softened the dark brown furniture, a humidor standing beside a big leather chair.

  Rachel studied the entertainment center. Mallory had always been very careful about her music, choosing it to suit her mood. Rachel pushed the On button and whiskey-smooth rhythm and blues music poured into the room, perfect for dying. Like a living heartbeat, the music throbbed through the silence…. I’ll be with you forever, till the tides no longer flow, till doves no longer fly and roses no longer bloom, till spring rain comes no more…. I’ll be with you forever…. On the far, still side of tomorrow….

  The song tore at her heart and, unable to bear more, Rachel turned off the music. She passed into the neat kitchen; she took her time opening and closing cabinet doors and drawers. In them, the few unmatched dishes and some cheap silverware and utensils were dusty and unused. Rachel automatically rinsed dried coffee from the drip machine and replaced the pot. The refrigerator held nothing, but there were a few frozen dinners in the freezer.

  In the bedroom, drawers had been riffled, a framed painting of the French Louvre Museum tilted slightly. “You missed the Mona Lisa, Mallory. You always wanted to go there, and now you can’t. Did you ever think about the rest of us? You see what you’ve got me doing, Mallory? You’ve got me talking to no one. And I am mad at you and I don’t care if it is irrational.”

  In her mind, Rachel heard Mallory blow a puff of cigarette smoke and say in a bored tone, Yeah, well, hard times for everyone, sis. What are you going to do now, come after me?