And Then She Remembered

  Beca Lewis

  Perception Publishing

  Copyright © 2023 by Beca Lewis

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  Contents

  1. One

  2. Two

  3. Three

  4. Four

  5. Five

  6. Six

  7. Seven

  8. Eight

  9. Nine

  10. Ten

  11. Eleven

  12. Twelve

  13. Thirteen

  14. Fourteen

  15. Fifteen

  16. Sixteen

  17. Seventeen

  18. Eighteen

  19. Nineteen

  20. Twenty

  21. Twenty One

  22. Twenty Two

  23. Twenty Three

  24. Twenty Four

  25. Twenty Five

  26. Twenty Six

  27. Twenty Seven

  28. Twenty Eight

  29. Twenty Nine

  30. Thirty

  31. Thirty One

  32. Thirty Two

  33. Thirty Three

  34. Thirty Four

  35. Thirty Five

  36. Thirty Six

  37. Thirty Seven

  38. Thirty Eight

  39. Thirty Nine

  40. Forty

  41. Forty One

  42. Forty Two

  43. Forty Three

  44. Forty Four

  45. Forty Five

  46. Forty Six

  47. Forty Seven

  48. Forty Eight

  49. Forty Nine

  50. Fifty

  51. Fifty One

  52. Fifty Two

  53. Fifty Three

  54. Fifty Four

  55. Fifty Five

  56. Fifty Six

  57. Fifty Seven

  58. Fifty Eight

  Author Note

  Also By Beca

  Acknowledgements

  About Beca

  One

  Ron Page had made them famous. None of them liked it. All of them prayed that a bigger news cycle would come around and the world would forget them and move on. Still, they knew that the likelihood was minuscule that people would forget that for years a serial killer had lived amongst them.

  But at least they could do their best not to fan the flames. None of them responded to requests for interviews or posted on social media. The Ruby Sisters pulled in, closed ranks, and decided to wait it out.

  And after Judith asked them to, the town of Spring Falls did the same. Never had Judith been as proud of her town because she only had to ask once. She invited everyone she knew—which was most of the town—to meet in April’s empty house.

  Judith stood at the front of the room, red hair flaming, and asked that they honor one of their own and protect April and their town. All the Ruby Sisters stood beside Judith, hands clasped, faces pale but determined. Except for April. April wasn’t there, and that made what happened even more real.

  “We are a community,” Judith had said. “If something bad happens to any of us, we stand by one another.”

  Booker Morris stood in the back of the room, quietly watching, but everyone knew that he, as the Chief of Police, supported Judith’s request.

  “If you know anything that will help, please share it with the appropriate person,” Judith said. “They will take it from there. This is not just one woman’s tragedy. It is all of ours. You know you can come to me anytime if you are in trouble, and I will do what I can to help.

  “And I know you will help April now by not gossiping and spreading rumors. By turning away requests from the media to dramatize what happened here.”

  Booker had watched the crowd as somehow Judith worked her magic. The worry and fear etched on the faces of many of the people in the room had begun to dissolve. Some faces reflected relief. Others sorrow. But Booker thought Judith had done it—diffused the bomb that Ron Page had thrown into their town.

  After Judith spoke, the Ruby Sisters moved through the crowd, talking, hugging, and soothing. Booker watched them all as they worked the room, but his eyes kept returning to Marsha. He had noticed how Marsha would often look away when Ron’s name was brought up in a conversation. Marsha’s face would pale, and she’d glance to the side or look down at her hands, fidgeting in her lap. Booker knew that Judith, too, had noticed Marsha’s reactions. Sooner or later, they’d get to the bottom of it.

  But that day, all they all wanted was for Spring Falls to return to the quiet, comfortable, almost unknown town they knew and loved. And for April to find some peace and come back to them.

  Harry the Hawk did what he had done all his life. He blended into the crowd. It was easy this time because everyone’s eyes were on the tall, red-haired woman speaking at the front of the room, urging restraint and kindness.

  Even if they weren’t watching the woman, Harry knew that now that he was this old, it was even easier to become invisible. No one would notice him hidden in the back of the room. Over the years, his once blond hair had thinned into little wisps and his tall, lean body stooped over as he leaned more heavily onto his cane than necessary.

  He was a nobody in this crowd, just as he wanted to be. As he always wanted to be. To his friends and enemies, he was Harry the Hawk, known for his keen awareness and ability to focus on a problem and resolve it. To everyone else, he didn’t exist.

  It had been a long time since he had found himself surrounded by people, because showing up in person was something he rarely did anymore. He had people who showed up for him. However, this time was different. Time was running out, and he had some debts to pay before he left this earth.

  Harry was not afraid of being recognized. No one knew him in Spring Falls. Strangely enough, it was why it was dangerous for him to be here. Because he was a stranger in town, someone might ask about him only because they didn’t know who he was. But Harry was counting on the fact that people rarely noticed old men. Because this time, what needed to be done could only be done by him.

  Why he had waited this long to deal with the past was hard to say. Probably because, despite his reputation as a predator when it came to business dealings, Harry knew he was a coward in life.

  He had lived his whole life behind the scenes, pulling strings, making things happen, watching like a hawk over people’s lives. And then doing what was necessary for whatever he considered the greater good. But uncharacteristically, although he had carefully watched over the life of someone in this room, he had done nothing to hurt or help.

  Harry knew that staying away, and doing nothing, had been a cowardly thing to do. It was so much easier to observe from a distance. It was safe living inside a world that he created and controlled. However, his doctor’s diagnosis confirmed what he already knew. Which meant it was time to do something that he should have done years before.

  As the red-haired woman and her friends began moving through the crowd, Harry turned, and leaning heavily on his cane, walked quietly out the front door, and into the frigid air.

  The winter wind snapped through the trees, bringing with it the smell of smoke that he could see streaming from one of the houses down the street. He had always loved that smell, and Harry wondered why he hadn’t indulged himself more often with a fire in the winter.

  A car door opened, Harry ducked his head, threw his cane in first, and then folded himself into the back seat. As the car moved away from the Ruby House and into the night, Harry turned and looked back at the crowd streaming out the front door. He caught a glimpse of her as she stood in the doorway, saying goodbye to the crowd.

  Yes, he had some wrongs to make right, but timing was everything, and today was not the day.

  Two

  Marsha Melinda Martin lay on her back in the middle of the floor on her rose-colored yoga mat in the big downstairs room of the Ruby House and stared at the newly painted ceiling. She closed her eyes and opened them again. No, nothing had changed. She was still lying on the floor, wishing she was someone who had courage and vision and could just decide to do something and then do it.

  Instead, she waited for the right timing for almost everything, which was pretty much never. The reason she had gotten as much done as she had in April’s house was because everyone kept pushing her to complete the project, and even more so because she wanted April to come home.

  As Marsha lay on her mat, she watched the early morning light stream through the curtainless windows filtered through the maple tree outside the window. The red haze from the buds made patterns on the floor that looked like a dance to Marsha.

  Once a dancer alway a dancer, she thought. Even when you don’t act like one, she added. But the yoga mat was part of her recently formed determination to renovate herself the same way she and Seth were renovating the house.

  Seth was the foreman, Judith handled the money, and Marsha made sure everything flowed well. This was all with April’s permission, who promised that she would return when she was ready.

  But it had been months now, and April still wasn’t home. They had fixed the plumbing, updated the electricity, patched cracks in the walls, painted, and replaced the roof—and still no April.

  They had recorded everything, hoping that when April returned, she could use the videos to start her design business. And now that they were done with all the repairs, and Apr
il still hadn’t returned to Spring Falls—instead of finding something else to do, Marsha lay on the gleaming wooden floor and asked herself why she seemed incapable of deciding anything or moving on.

  Even though almost a year had gone by since she had returned to Spring Falls, she was still living at Cindy’s house. During that time, Bree had found the daughter she thought she had lost. Mary was living in Spring Falls with her husband Seth and their new baby girl, Rho. Judith and Bruce were falling in love. And April had discovered that her husband of over thirty years was a serial killer. Big, big changes.

  But she and Cindy were as they were before. Cindy was running her art gallery, while trying to hide the fact that she was painting again, and Marsha was lying on the floor of the Ruby House trying to hide her terror at becoming part of the world and doing something with her life.

  Fixing the Ruby House had been easy for her to do because it was a project with a purpose, and she could hide behind the scenes while doing it. She had thrown herself into the project until now. Now it was ready for April’s touch, and she felt lost again.

  April, Marsha sighed, thinking of her friend who had gone so far away. April had left Spring Falls to be with her children as they absorbed what they learned about their father. It was the right thing to do, but Marsha missed her so much that sometimes it felt as if her heart was living in Canada with April.

  It surprised her. Marsha had thought of herself as a loyal friend, always supportive, but definitely not someone who would miss anyone when they weren’t there.

  After all, she had left Spring Falls and moved to New York to dance on Broadway without a second glance back at her friends. Sure, she had kept in touch once in a while. She had let them know when she moved out of New York to open a dance studio once she discovered she would never be good enough to be a Broadway star.

  But, if Bree’s husband had not sent them all a letter asking them to take care of Bree after he passed away, she might not have ever seen her friends again. So missing people was not her style at all. Or at least she hadn’t known it until now.

  Sitting up, Marsha stared at herself in the row of mirrors that lined one wall of what was going to be a dance studio. What she saw was a woman who had gained a little too much weight, whose hair had been dyed a little too blond, wearing clothes a little too tight and much too old to be considered fashionable.

  What has happened to me? Marsha asked herself. And are you going to do anything about it?

  Her cell phone lying beside her vibrated. It was a message from Judith.

  Of course it’s Judith, Marsha mumbled to herself. Judith was relentless. It is almost as if she can see me lying here doing nothing.

  “Let’s have a business meeting,” Judith texted.

  Sighing, Marsha answered, “yes,” as she unconsciously moved through a down-dog to get herself off the floor.

  “Lunch at ParaTi’s in an hour?” Judith asked.

  “Okay,” Marsha responded, and sighed again to herself. She knew why Judith chose a public place. It was so Marsha would have to make herself look presentable.

  She both hated and loved Judith for her consistent pressure to be doing something, being someone.

  Easy for you, Judith, Marsha said to herself, knowing she was whining again. She could blame all her problems on her terrible childhood with a drunk mother and a nonexistent father. But lots of people had terrible childhoods and managed their lives just fine.

  “It’s the secrets you keep that make it worse, and that’s your fault,” Marsha said to the woman in the mirror.

  Maybe I should get Mimi and Janet to make me over, Marsha thought, thinking back to the changes the two of them had made in April when she moved back to Spring Falls.

  Marsha looked around the room, seeing herself once more in the mirror as she did so. Behind her, she could see the silhouette of the tree reaching for the light. Trees remade themselves every year. Why couldn’t she? The overweight, unkempt woman in the mirror couldn’t be her. She used to be so much more.

  Marsha knew she did nothing about herself because she was a coward. And she was starting to hate being a coward. Eventually, her sense of adventure would have to kick in. She knew it would. It had happened before. Otherwise, how had she gotten herself to New York?

  But, Marsha had to admit, this time she might need a big push to get going. She hoped it would be a gentle push, but maybe that was too much to ask for.

  Three

  Judith placed her cell phone on the desk in her office, adjusted the small plaque on her desk that said, “Judith Zoe Accountant,” and stared at the closed door. She knew there were clients waiting on the other side. Her assistant, Nancy, had buzzed her more than once to remind her she was running behind schedule.

  Judith liked her office, maybe even loved it. It was her space, and like all her spaces, it was arranged just the way she wanted it to be. Her leather and chrome chair fit her perfectly, and if she swiveled just a bit, she could see the pictures she had so carefully chosen to impart comfort and strength and perhaps a little inspiration.

  She had the walls painted a soft pink that was so light that people often thought they were off-white. Judith, with April’s help, had chosen pink on purpose. It calmed and soothed. Plus, it set off her coloring. Judith wasn’t vain. She was practical. She was in the business of fixing things, putting things in order, and assuring her clients that all would be well. Everything helped.

  Including the light scent from the fresh flowers that always sat on top of the wood cabinet to her right. The long low cabinet that contained all her files, files that were never laid out where they would clutter the space and her mind. To her clients, Judith looked as if she always had everything in control, and that was exactly how she liked it.

  There was a window behind her that looked out into an alley, so Judith wasn’t missing the view by being in front of it. She had placed a light film covering on the window so that no one could see in. Gauzy white curtains floated in front of it, adding to the sense of lightness and comfort she wanted her clients to feel.

  And, yes, Judith had placed her desk in front of the window on purpose. The light from the covered window wasn’t so bright that it blinded her clients, but it hid her face and revealed theirs. It was how she always met new clients. If it was someone she knew well, she lowered a blind behind the curtains and flicked on the lights embedded in the ceiling above the window so they could all see each other equally.

  The clients waiting for her were people she knew well, so she had lowered the blind and turned on the lights. Everything was in place, but still Judith waited. She leaned back in her chair, fingers steepled, thinking about April and Ron and what she could have done better, and what she could do now.

  Although the Town Meeting she had held months before had gone well, some people in town were still gossiping about the horror show that Ron Page had been. And even though they should know better, many people wondered how his wife of over thirty years had not known.

  The question is, how did none of us know? Judith asked herself. If April was to blame, they all were. But they hadn’t known. And to blame themselves, or anyone but Ron, was both foolish and dangerous because it kept them locked into anger, guilt, and sorrow, and they needed to move forward.

  Judith had told them all to let the police continue their search for Ron, but they would rebuild their lives and the town based on the principles Judith so firmly believed in. Community kindness and community action. They didn’t have to agree with each other about everything, but they did need to respect and listen to each other.

  It was how she had built her business, and the result was she had her hand in almost every business in town. Which made her the perfect pivot person for the town’s rebirth out of the Ron Page, serial-killer-at-large story.

  Judith huffed at herself for even thinking of Ron. She had people to take care of, and she had a plan for at least one of her friends. Like it or not, she was going to make sure they all not only survived, but thrived, despite what they had gone through.

  As always, her thoughts moved first to April. When April and Ron had moved away after college, she and April had kept up weekly phone calls. And now that April was in Canada with her daughter and her family, Judith had started up the weekly calls again. But just as it had been when April lived in Silver Lake, they only brushed the surface of what was going on in April’s life.