A Deadly Cliche (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

little girl?”
    Olivia sat very still for several minutes, trying to calm the cyclone of thoughts in her head. It was as if all she had known had been turned inside out, yet there was no going back. The past was over and done and the present was steadily slipping away.
    She continued to look through the contents of the suitcase.
    After her grandmother died, the letters ceased, but Olivia’s history lived on in yellowed newspaper clippings from the days in which the media followed her every move, hoping to catch the young and beautiful heiress doing something scandalous. Mostly, they detailed her presence at a museum gala or opening night at the Met, focusing on her escorts, who were usually handsome executives of the Fortune 500 variety.
    There was even a clipping from the Oyster Bay Gazette announcing Olivia’s revitalization projects downtown. Lastly, there was an object wrapped in an old towel and secured by two rubber bands.
    With care, Olivia removed the rubber bands and unrolled the towel on her thighs. A pair of metal objects fell to the floor. Olivia recognized them right away. They were her parents’ wedding bands. Forever tied together on a piece of frayed blue yarn, they’d been tucked in a fold inside the towel.
    Olivia clutched the rings briefly to her chest, cherishing the relics of happier times and then set them on the ground in order to continue unwrapping the towel. Peeling back the final fold, one of her father’s carvings was revealed. Olivia inhaled sharply, her eyes darting over the lines and indentations, the contours that formed the shape of a young girl standing in the shadow of a lighthouse, her hand shielding her eyes as she stared outward, searching, searching.
    It was her girl-self and the lighthouse was not Okracoke’s, but Oyster Bay’s. The beacon that had guided William Wade home time after time after time.
    “I’ve been so close!” she yelled at her father. “ Why? ”
    Olivia began to cry. “Why didn’t you come?”
    Cradling the carving in her hand, she sat in Betty’s chair and, after calming down, began to read her grandmother’s letters out loud. She relived a dozen years, explaining her version of events to her father. She spoke for over two hours, until the sun dipped below the waves.
    Turning on a single lamp, she eventually stopped talking. She pulled her chair closer to the window and then eased it open a few inches, inviting the ocean breeze into the room.
    Her father seemed to breathe easier as soon the sound of the water became audible. The rhythmic chant of the waves was faint, but to a man who’d lived a lifetime in tune to their music, it was enough to coax him into a more restful sleep.
    Olivia briefly left the room to let Haviland outside and see to his dinner, but afterward she waved off Betty’s offer to stay with the patient through the night.
    “I’m not going to give up our last bit of time,” she told the nurse.
    Returning to the soft chair by the window, Olivia sat as the sky morphed from steel gray to soot black, nodding off here and there but still alert enough to welcome the ochre dawn.
    The entire time she sat, listening as her father’s exhalations mingled with the lapping of the waves, she never released her hold on his carving. Olivia knew it was the only gift her father would ever give her, and even then, she’d had to discover it for herself.
    To Olivia, who’d watched her father whittle dolphins, sharks, and mermaids in front of the fire for countless winters and yet had never carved a token for his only child, it was enough that he’d finally done so.
    And he’d put all he had into that last carving; she could feel it in the wood. In the dawn light, it glowed with life, even as her father’s began to fade.

Chapter 18

    Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
    —MARK TWAIN

    O livia left her father’s side only when Betty insisted that she take a hot shower and eat some breakfast. Kim served her toast with cream cheese, bacon, and a bowl of fresh blueberries on the patio while Haviland explored the small garden behind the house.
    “Caitlyn’s keeping an eye on your dog,” Kim said, pouring herself a cup of coffee and sitting down across the table from Olivia. “He won’t run off, will he?”
    Olivia shook her head. “He’s obedient and very gentle. You don’t have to worry about Haviland becoming aggressive toward Caitlyn or your guests. He is energetic though. I’ll