Page 2 of I Would Die for You

He nodded. “It was either that or Australia—I couldn’t quite make it out.”

“Americans rarely can,” I said, smiling.

“So, what brings you here?” he asked, looking around. “To the lil ol’ town of Coronado?”

I’d taken a deep breath and begun to share my well-rehearsed backstory. But had I known then that I’d still be lying all these years later, perhaps I would have told him the truth.

2

The doorbell interrupts my thoughts, and as much as I can’t wait to see my favorite person, I rue another day having slipped past me without my achieving what I set out to do. Though I’m relieved to see from the grandfather clock in the hall that at least one of the hours I thought I’d lost has been credited back—it’s only two o’clock. So it can’t be Hannah back home from school just yet.

“Hello?” I say with a big smile, ever mindful of Brad’s observation soon after we met: “You Brits are a hard-to-read bunch,” he’d said, laughing. “I’d never know whether you were greeting a lover or a convicted murderer. The look on your face is exactly the same.”

I’d been mildly offended, not knowing what he meant, but took notice of the warm welcome I received in the coffee shop the next morning and how the person in the street would smile when I stepped in their lane, wishing me a good day, instead of scowling and tutting. I hadn’t even realized I was so British, but from that day on, I vowed to be more American.

“Nicole Forbes?” asks the woman on the porch, with a look of exaggerated expectation.

“Yes, how can I help you?” I say, still beaming, blissfully unaware of how misplaced my expression is about to become.

“Hi,” she says, thrusting her hand forward awkwardly. “My name’s Zoe Mortimer and I wondered if you could spare me a few minutes.”

It’s then that I hear it: the clipped syllables of a British accent. My defenses are immediately on high alert, barricading me into the fortress I’ve worked so hard to fight my way out of. But I reason that this woman—girl, really—whose name means nothing to me, might be about to offer her support to the conservation effort.

“What can I do for you?” I ask, my smile no longer quite so genuine.

“Could I come in?” she asks, looking around furtively, and I wonder if she’s from the city council, here on unofficial business. The thought that next week’s hearing date for the petition might have been canceled immediately gets my hackles up.

“Of course,” I say through gritted teeth as I beckon her into the hall.

Watching her step across the threshold is akin to watching Bambi step onto ice, and I suddenly realize that whatever news she’s come here to deliver, it isn’t good. I steel myself for being told that the hearing isn’t going ahead, that a decision has already been made, that—

“I’m writing a book,” she says. “And I wondered if I might be able to ask you a few questions.”

A rush of relief runs through me. “Of course—I’m always happy to do anything that might help the seals’ plight.”

Her expression changes, her earlier trepidation replaced by a forced confidence, as if she’s having to psych herself up. She flicks her dirty-blond hair out of her eyes and pulls her shoulders back.

“I wonder if you could tell me about your relationship with Ben Edwards,” she says, abruptly.

The heat that I’d thought I’d learned to control at the mention of his name creeps up around my ears, sending warning signals to my brain. The woman’s face becomes hazy, and although I can see her mouth moving, I can no longer hear what she’s saying over the thunderous roar that’s reverberating around my head.

I move toward the front door in a daze, desperately trying to claw back to one minute earlier, when I thought the worst thing this stranger could say was that the seals would remain unprotected.

“I… I…” I flounder.

“I understand you were there that day”—she looks away, as if the memory painshermore thanme—“when it happened?”

The weight of her words makes it sound as if she’s underwater—or maybe it’s me, drowning in an ocean of secrets.

“I-I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I bluster, my tongue feeling like cotton wool as it attempts to wrap itself around the lie. “You need to leave.”

“I just wondered what it must have been like to witness the demise of the biggest band of the eighties in such tragic circumstances. Conspiracy theories abound even today, twenty-five years later, but I just wanted to know, from someone who was there ringside, whatreallyhappened.”

“You’ve got the wrong person,” I say, more forthright now.

“But youareNicole Forbes?” she asks again. “Formerly Alderton?” She puts her bag, which I imagine being weighed down with the secrets of my past, on the hall floor.

The passive-aggressive action leaves me in no doubt that this woman has no intention of going anywhere. But she can’t stay here—I won’t let her. I won’t allow the home that I’ve spent the past twenty years transforming into a safe haven for my husband and my child be violated by the nightmare I’ve been running from for even longer.

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