“He went for a run.”

“Can you give him my phone number? Ask him to call me back. I really need to reach Charlotte.”

“Yeah. Okay.” The boy stuffs the slip of paper with my phone number into the back pocket of his jeans, where I fear it will all too easily be forgotten, but there is nothing more I can do. My hunt for Charlotte all comes down to a teenage boy who will probably toss those jeans in the washing machine without ever remembering what’s in his pocket.

I climb back into my car wondering if I should just spend the night in Boston rather than drive the four and a half hours back to Tucker Cove. My apartment has been sitting empty for weeks, and I should probably check on it anyway.

This time I avoid Commonwealth Avenue and instead take an alternate route, so I won’t have to drive past Lucy’s apartment. My no-go area is expanding. In the days after Nick’s death, I forced myself to step through Lucy’s front door only because she so desperately needed my comfort. Then I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t tolerate her hugs, couldn’t look her in the eye, so I just stopped going to see her. Stopped calling her, stopped returning her voicemails.

Now I can’t even drive past her building.

    My no-go areas keep expanding, like spreading blots of ink on the city map. The area around the hospital where Lucy works. Her favorite coffee shop and grocery store. All the places where I might run into her and be forced to explain the reason I’ve dropped out of her life. Just the thought of encountering her makes my heart pound, my hands sweat. I imagine those black blots enlarging, spreading on the map until the entire city of Boston is a no-go zone. Maybe I should move to Tucker Cove forever and lock myself away in Brodie’s Watch. Grow old and die there, far from this city where I see my guilt reflected back at me everywhere I look, especially on this road to my own apartment.

This is the road where it happened. There is the intersection where the limousine slammed into Nick’s Prius, spinning it around on the ice-slicked street. And that lamppost is where the crumpled Prius ended up.

Another black blot on the map. Another place to avoid. All the way to my apartment, I feel as if I’m driving an obstacle course where every corner, every street, is a bad memory, waiting like a bomb to explode.

And in my own apartment is the most devastating memory of all.

It doesn’t hit me, not at first. When I step inside, all I register is the stale air of a home where no window has been opened in weeks. Everything is as I left it, my spare keys in the bowl near the door, the last few issues of Bon Appétit stacked on the coffee table. Home sweet home is what I should be feeling, but I’m still agitated by the drive, still unsure if I really want to spend the night here. I set down my purse, drop the keys in the bowl. I haven’t eaten or drunk anything since this morning, so I walk into the kitchen for a glass of water.

That’s where it hits me. New Year’s Eve.

The memory is so vivid I can hear the pop of corks, can smell the rosemary and sizzling fat of the roasting porchetta. And I remember the happy, happy taste of champagne on my tongue. Too much champagne that night, but it was my party; I had spent all day in the kitchen shucking oysters and trimming artichokes and assembling mushroom tarts, and as my apartment filled up with my three dozen guests, I was ready to celebrate.

    So I drank.

Everyone else did, too. Everyone except for Lucy, who had the bad luck of being on call for the hospital that night. She and Nick had driven separately, just in case Lucy had to leave the party for an emergency, and that night she sipped only sparkling water.

Of course she was called in, because it was New Year’s Eve, the roads were icy, and there were bound to be accidents. I remember looking at her from across the room as she pulled on her coat to leave, and thinking: There goes my perfectly sober sister, off to save another life, while here I am, finishing off my sixth glass of champagne.

Or was it my seventh?

By the end of the evening, I had lost count, but what did it matter? I wasn’t driving anywhere. And neither was Nick, who’d agreed to sleep in my guestroom because he was too wasted to get behind the wheel of a car.

I stare down at the kitchen floor and remember those cold, hard tiles against my back. I remember the nausea of all the champagne sloshing in my stomach. Suddenly the nausea is back, and I cannot stand being in this apartment a moment longer.

I flee the apartment and climb back in my car.

By this evening, I’ll be home again, in Brodie’s Watch. This is the first time I’ve actually thought of it as “home,” but now it seems like the one place in the world where I can hide from the memories of that night. I reach for the ignition.

My cellphone rings. It’s a Boston area code, but I don’t recognize the number. I answer it anyway.

“My son told me to call you.” It’s a man’s voice. “He says you came by my building a little while ago, asking about Charlotte.”

    “Yes, thank you for calling. I’ve been trying to reach her, but she hasn’t responded to any emails and she doesn’t answer her phone.”

“Who are you, exactly?”

“My name is Ava Collette. I’m living in the house in Tucker Cove that Charlotte used to rent. I have a few things that she left behind, and I’d like to send them to her.”

“Wait. Isn’t she still staying there?”

“No. She left town over a month ago and I assumed she went home to Boston. I mailed her package there and it bounced back to me.”

“Well, she hasn’t been back in Boston. I haven’t seen her since June. Not since she left for Maine.”

We’re both silent for a moment, pondering the mystery of where Charlotte Nielson might be.

“Do you have any idea where she is now?” I ask.

“When she left Boston, she gave me her forwarding address. It’s a PO box.”

“Where?”

“In Tucker Cove.”

Twenty

Donna Branca isn’t the least bit alarmed by what I’ve told her.

“The man you spoke to is just her neighbor, so he might not know where she’s gone. Maybe she’s out of state visiting relatives. Or she’s traveling abroad. There’s any number of reasons why she didn’t go home to Boston.” Her phone rings and she swivels around to answer it. “Branca Property Sales and Management.”

I stare across the desk at her, waiting for her to finish the call and continue our conversation, but I can already see she’s tuned me out and is fully focused instead on signing up a new rental property to manage: four bedrooms, view of the water, only a mile from the village. I’m just an annoying tenant, trying to play detective. This is Tucker Cove, not Cabot Cove, and only on Murder, She Wrote would a summer tourist investigate a woman’s disappearance.

    At last Donna hangs up and turns back to me with an expression of why are you still here? “Is there some reason you’re worried about Charlotte? You’ve never even met her.”

“She doesn’t answer her cellphone. She hasn’t responded to emails in weeks.”

“In the letter she sent me, she said she’d be out of touch for a while.”

“Do you still have that letter?”

With a sigh, Donna swivels around to a filing cabinet and pulls out the folder for Brodie’s Watch.

“This is what she mailed me from Boston, after she vacated. As you can see, there’s nothing alarming about it.” She hands me a typed letter which is, indeed, matter-of-fact.

Donna, due to a family crisis, I had to leave Tucker Cove immediately. I won’t be returning to Maine. I know there’s still two months left on my lease, but I’m sure you’ll have no problem finding a new tenant. I hope my deposit will be enough to cover the early departure. I left the house in good condition.

Cellphone coverage will be spotty where I’m going, so if you need to reach me, email is best.

Charlotte

I read the letter twice, my puzzlement deepening, and look at Donna. “Don’t you think this is strange?”

“Her deposit covered everything. And she did leave the house in good shape.”

“Why didn’t she mention where she’s going?”

“Somewhere out of cellphone range.”

“Out of the country? Into the wilderness? Where?”

Donna shrugs. “All I know is, she was paid up.”