Page 62 of What Happened to Lucy Vale
Rachel felt certain that if she could just reconstruct Nina’s final afternoon, she would know what had happened to her.
“Mom.” Lucy’s voice carried over the Byzantine arrangement of clothing racks from the dressing room. “Mom, come look.”
Rachel returned to see Lucy showing off in a hot-pink dress with beaded straps.
“Option number one,” Lucy said, doing a twirl. “What do you think?”
Before Rachel could answer, a voice at her elbow said, “Very pretty.”
Rachel turned, expecting a salesperson, and instead got a shock: next to her was Tommy Swift’s mother.
Lucy must have recognized her too. The smile fell from her face. She glanced at her mother uncertainly.
“It’s cute,” Rachel said, keeping her voice light. Her heart was beating very fast. “Let’s see the next one.”
Lucy withdrew behind the curtain. Tommy’s mother didn’t move. She just kept standing there, smiling blandly at Rachel. Rachel reached for her first name. Nancy.
“Your daughter’s very pretty,” Nancy said. She had a soft, slightly raspy voice that was inflected with a deep southern drawl. “I’m Nancy Swift. You’re new to the area, aren’t you?”
They shook hands. Nancy’s grip was soft, practically limp. Her hands were tiny like the rest of her. Rachel remembered that an article in theRockland County Registerhad remarked upon that fact. Somehow this five foot three woman had given birth to a boy who grew to be six foot five.
“Newish,” Rachel said. “We’ve been here since the start of the school year.” She didn’t mention that she had relatives in Willard County, had been visiting southern Indiana since she was a baby. She never did.
Nancy nodded. “You’re in Lydia’s old place, aren’t you?” Rachel was surprised by the easy way she said Lydia’s name. As if Lydia Faraday were an old friend, a mutual acquaintance, someone who’d simply moved away. “I hear you’re a book writer.”
Rachel shouldn’t have been annoyed, or even surprised. She’d tried as hard as possible to steer away from the termjournalist, a word thatstartled and set people on edge even under the best of circumstances. And she’d been careful about using a pen name for her first book and making sure there were few identifying details about her online.
Still, the truth had a way of getting out, especially when it was inconvenient. She was at least partially to blame; there was no way to assemble research about Nina Faraday’s disappearance and her mother’s death without poking around, stirring up questions, chasing down people like Danny Wilkes.
“I’ve writtenonebook,” she said simply. She searched Nancy’s face for judgment or suspicion and found nothing. Nothing but a benign, slightly dazed expression, as if her soul had been drained of all opinion before it could touch her eyes. It gave her the innocent look of a deer in headlights, and Rachel didn’t trust it.
Lucy flounced out of the changing room again, this time wearing a dark-blue dress with a twinkling pattern of silver threads that looked like stars. She seemed surprised to find Nancy Swift still standing there.
“Number two,” she announced and did a slow twirl. Rachel gave her the thumbs-up. Lucy frowned briefly and withdrew again, swishing the curtains closed on an efflorescence of whispers.
“If you ever want to talk to someone ...” Nancy let the words trail off just before they became an invitation. “I know it can be hard to get settled in a new place. Especially a place like this. So many of us have been here since before the cows.”
Rachel’s spine stiffened. Was this, she wondered, Nancy’s subtle way of reminding Rachel that she and Lucy were outsiders? She had a sudden paranoid suspicion that Nancy knew about the anonymous notes that had shown up in her mailbox. Maybe, she thought viciously, Nancy had even put them there.
Maybe she was worried about what Rachel, the book writer, would uncover.
Either way, she realized, Nancy Swift had given her an opening.
“Actually, I’d love to talk,” Rachel said, keeping her voice bright and friendly. It was true. She’d love to hear what Nancy Swift had to say about Nina Faraday and her son’s erratic behavior after her disappearance. “We can have lunch.”
Nancy looked taken aback but obediently provided her cell phone number and email. Afterward she briefly took Rachel’s hand between hers. Her palms felt like paper, brittle and fragile with age even though she couldn’t be seventy yet.
“Tell your daughter I like number two better,” Nancy said with a little smile. She gave Rachel’s hand a final pat and moved off, engulfed by the next canyon of taffeta and silk. Rachel felt confused and slightly guilty. Had sheimaginedthe threat inside Nancy’s remark? Was it possible that Nancy Swift was simply being friendly—that it was she who, as usual, was hunting for hidden motives? Either way, Nancy Swift had given her an opening.
“What was that all about?” Lucy reemerged from the dressing room, this time wearing pale blue. Bailey and Savannah trailed after her, all ruffles and whispers of fabric. All three girls were barefoot, wide-eyed, conspiratorial.
“She was just saying hi,” Rachel said. She spun Lucy around in a circle. “This one’s cute,” she said.
“Mom, are you serious? This one’s a joke.”
“Do you know who that was?” Bailey asked Rachel. “That was Tommy Swift’s mom.”
“What did she say to you?” asked Savannah.
