Read Online A Bookmarked Death by Judi Culbertson - Free Book Online

and find out if either brother had been out of the county last week.
    I couldn’t call today, of course. It was already late evening in England. Instead, it was time to make the call I was dreading.
    A S I LISTENED to her ringtone, I wondered what Elisa’s mood would be. Would Ethan’s letter have changed everything?
    “Delhi?” She sounded shocked to hear from me.
    “Yes. Hi.”
    She didn’t say anything for a moment. “I have to tell you. My father sent me a letter this morning. I mean, he mailed it Saturday.”
    “I know. The police were here.”
    “Already? I shouldn’t even be talking to you!”
    “Elisa, Colin didn’t hurt the Crosleys.”
    “Oh, no?”
    “No. He was home with me the whole time.” The lie slipped out before I had a chance to even think about it. All I knew was I couldn’t lose her now.
    “Really?”
    “Really.” What I should have said to Carew and Olson. Now it was too late.
    “But why would my father warn me about him?”
    “I don’t know. Except that he was very angry with us. He thought we’d disrupted his life.”
    “Well, you did. If you hadn’t come looking for me, none of this would have happened! They’d still be here, living in Providence, and planning my graduation party. They were going to have a big party at the yacht club, on the dock, with lights and everything.”
    What could I say to that? “But he sent you a graduation present?”
    “He did. A check for sixty thousand dollars.”
    I caught my breath.
    “You still don’t get it. I don’t want the money, I’d live on the street if it would bring them back.” Her voice ended in a wail.
    “I know. It’s a terrible thing.” But I fought to push back the bitterness that was rising in my throat, burning as fiercely as the residue from the fire when I had gone to the house. The Crosleys had ruined our lives by kidnapping our daughter. But in her eyes she had thought we were the criminals. “I wish I could make you feel better,” I added.
    “Well, you can’t.”
    I had a flash of Elisa as a toddler when we hadn’t had time to stop for the ice cream she was demanding. She had turned her head away from my explanations, refusing to be placated, and nursed her anger the whole way home. And that was when she was two.
    “And the police there are no help. They said they have to autopsy them to find out how they died and confirm their identities. Like they can’t tell? I can’t even plan a funeral!”
    “I know the police. I can try and find out more.” As I said it my mind was running through the five stages of grief. Disbelief first, but anger came soon after. It was hard to believe Elisa would ever reach acceptance.
    “I went out to the house. It’s—bad.Was there a caretaker or anything, someone who stopped by to get things ready when your parents were going to be there?”
    “What—why do you want to know about her? Do you think she was careless and left something flammable around?”
    “No. But anything she saw might help. Maybe she saw someone lurking around who shouldn’t have been there.”
    “Huh.”
    Just thinking about a caretaker made me realize again how different Elisa’s upbringing had been compared to the one she would have had with us. We had traveled to digs and guest lectureships at universities as well, but strictly on the no-frills track. She had already seen our house.
    Rather grudgingly Elisa looked up the caretaker’s direct number and gave it to me.
    “Hannah told me about graduation,” I said. “We’d like to come.”
    Silence. “I definitely want Hannah there.”
    “I’d like to come too.”
    “Well, I can’t stop you.”
    No, you can’t. I’m your mother for God’s sake and I have every right to be there! It’s not my fault that our lives were interrupted.
    “But not him . I don’t want him there.”
    She broke the connection.
    I F YOU HADN ’ T come looking for me, none of this would have happened.
    I sat in the living room as the evening darkened