Chapter 1

Jessica

March, Present Day

Maple Ridge  

The vibrations of the bus under my feet do nothing to calm me. But I don’t think I’ll ever be truly calm again after spending five years in prison for killing my husband. My abusive husband.

I stare out the window. Blue sky peeks between gray clouds, so different from the endless blue I left in San Diego three days ago. Snow-topped mountains reach up, their sides blanketed with pine trees.

My fingers close around an imaginary camera in my hand. My old camera. And they itch to press the shutter-release button, to capture the beauty of the mountains. The freedom.

I glance at my watch, one of the few possessions I still own. If the bus is on schedule, we’ll be arriving in Maple Ridge, Oregon in fifteen minutes.

A place where I can easily disappear. Start a new life. Leave my past behind.

I twirl a goldish strand of hair around my finger. I haven’t gotten used to the color yet. Until three days ago, I’d spent my thirty-one years as a brunette.

From what I’ve read about Maple Ridge, the scenic town seems to be a haven for tourists traveling to the mountains. Someone is less likely to recognize me from all the “Wife Murders Heroic Cop” coverage than if I’d stayed in California.

The bus pulls up to the depot, which is nothing more than a tiny brick building. I wait for everyone to get off, then make my way down the aisle. My heartbeat is a series of large waves crashing against rocks during a storm, the rhythm and intensity due to fear or excitement or a combination of both.

My small suitcase is on the sidewalk when I step off the bus. I grab it, turn to the building, and see a woman looking at me through the large window of the bus depot. She’s in her early fifties, wearing jeans and a navy-and-white-striped top. Has to be Anne Carstairs. My new landlord.

Her straight, chin-length blond hair is ashier than mine. The sunny streaks look like the result of a salon. She didn’t grab a cheap hair color like I did while picking up bread, peanut butter, and a couple of apples at the grocery store.

I hitch up my black pants, which hang awkwardly on my body, and shiver. My short-sleeved top isn’t meant for the chilly temperature. It’s better suited for San Diego’s cool spring nights versus Maple Ridge’s brisk afternoons.

There wasn’t time to go clothes shopping once I was released from the women’s prison. No time to make a quick trip to the mall while Florence drove me to a motel. I didn’t want to deal with the media circus my release ignited. “Abused Wife Exonerated of Husband’s Murder.”

The next day she took me to the bus station. “Assuming the media doesn’t discover you’re in Maple Ridge, you should be able to get a new start. No one has to know about your past.”

“Does Anne know anything about it?” Is she okay with a former convict—even one innocent of the crime—living in her house?

“She knows you as Jessica Smithson. She doesn’t know you’re Savannah Townsend. I told her something traumatic happened to you, and you need a place to heal for a few months. She is happy to help. And you don’t have to worry about her asking questions. If there’s anyone who respects someone’s privacy, it’s Anne.”

I pull out of the memory and scan the bus depot. No one seems to be paying attention to me. The couple at the ticket counter is busy buying tickets. The woman with a baby is strapping the sleeping infant into its car seat. I’m just another nameless person arriving in town.

I’m safe now.

Safe. It’s been a lifetime since I felt that way. A lifetime since I didn’t have to constantly check over my shoulder or brace myself for another mean word or slap or kick or punch.

Anne opens the door for me, and I step into the warm brick building. The inside has a quaint, small-town feel. Clean and cozy and welcoming. Picture perfect for the tourists, and hopefully a taste of what I can expect for the rest of Maple Ridge.

“Hi, you must be Jessica.” Her gaze flicks briefly to my mouth and the two-inch scar from the corner of it down to my jaw. The result of a surprise knife attack. In prison.

I fight the need to duck my head, and I will my mouth into a smile, which fails to hit the mark due to the scar. “Yes. And you must be Anne.” I hold out my hand to her, the polite girl I was raised to be temporarily stepping up for the one who fears being touched. Fears, but at the same time craves the physical contact of another person. A grandmother’s touch. The touch of a best friend.

Anne shakes my hand, her grip confident and friendly. She doesn’t seem to recognize me from all those times my picture was flashed on the news during my trial. But why would she? Savannah Townsend was gorgeous. Unforgettable. The two words my husband called me the first time we met.

Jessica Smithson is the one with the scars on her face. The scars the media never found out about.

I’m safe now. They’ll never find me.

“Did you have a pleasant trip?”

“I did, ma’am. Thank you.” My voice sounds rusty to my ears, the result of years of speaking as little as possible. Of trying to be invisible. For my own safety.

She makes a funny noise. “You don’t need to call me ma’am. It makes me sound old.” She glances at my small suitcase and then around the waiting area. “I wonder where they put the rest of your luggage.”

“This is all there is. I traveled light.”

Fortunately, she doesn’t question that.

Twenty minutes later, Anne steers her car into the driveway of a small two-story house. 

If I were asked to describe the house in one word, haunted would take top spot. The wooden siding needs several coats of paint. White? Possibly, if the remaining bits clinging to it are anything to go by.

“I know it’s not much to look at,” Anne says, her tone apologetic. “The place belonged to my great-aunt.”

I study the house, half expecting to see the pale form of a ghost peering down at me. I shiver. “Where is she now?”

“She died ten years ago. I’m finally at that place where I can let the house go. My husband and I plan to sell it at the end of the year.”

“You and your great-aunt were close?”

“Very much so. Did Florence warn you the place needs to be fixed up? We’re planning to renovate it before we put it on the market. We just haven’t agreed yet on what specifically we’re going to do. My husband and I have very different opinions on the topic.” Anne chuckles. “But I will warn you that the house is a bit of a mess inside. Not the kind of mess that begs for a roach infestation. But, well, you’ll see what I mean in a few minutes.”

“I’m sorry for your loss. Do you mind if I ask how your great-aunt died?” Will her restless spirit haunt me because someone murdered her in the house?

“She died of a stroke. But don’t worry.” Anne’s smile is somewhat reassuring. “My husband replaced her bed. It’s brand-new.”

“Thank you.” I can’t complain about living in a house where someone died. If not for Anne and her husband, I wouldn’t have a place to stay while I figure out what I’m going to do next. I have no references under my new name. I only have a bank account—thanks to my brother-in-law, Craig. “I can definitely clean up the place while I’m staying here.” It will give me something to do. Something to keep me from dwelling on the past ten years.

We climb out of her car.

“There’s a bike in the garage.” Anne points to the detached garage located farther back from the house. “It’s old and probably a little rusty, but you’re welcome to borrow it if you’d like. It has a basket attached to the front, so it’s perfect for shopping. My great-aunt loved to bike whenever possible. She practically lived on her bike until she was no longer able to ride it.”

“Thank you. That would be great.”

“The lawn mower is also in the garage.” We walk up the steps to the front stoop. “It’s manual, unfortunately. There’re also gardening tools in there.”

“When do plants start growing around here? If it’s okay with you, I’d be happy to clean up the area and plant some flowers.”

Small piles of decomposing leaves lie on the grass and winter-dead garden, but the place holds so much potential.

“In a few more weeks. It’s still too early to plant the annuals. I would wait for May to do that.” Anne unlocks the front door. “But I’m okay with you doing some gardening if you’d like.” Anne smiles at me, and I get the sense she’s going to say something else, but she just opens the door. We step inside.

The outside of the house looks sad, dejected, and the inside isn’t much better. The walls had been covered with bright floral wallpaper, but the color has faded and the paper is peeling.

We enter the living room. Dust covers the furniture, which is an eclectic mix of styles and eras that somehow works.

My husband would’ve hated it.

He would’ve also hated the chest-high piles of magazines, several rows deep, spanning the length of the far wall.

“Auntie Iris liked to be well read.” Anne glances around the room, embarrassment at the mess and her obvious love for her great-aunt tilting her lips, pinking her cheeks. “She enjoyed books but loved magazines and journals. Fashion, news, history, gardening. It didn’t matter what they were, she would read them. This is just a small sampling.” Anne nods at the collection. “The only place you won’t find them is in the garage and the bathrooms. 

“Any idea how far back they date?” I eye the stacks with curiosity and not the dismay Anne is probably expecting.

“My guess is six or seven decades. She didn’t keep all of them, but she did keep most of her favorite issues. She had a filing system, but I never figured it out. I always figured I’d one day go through them. Check out some of the articles. Have a giggle over how much things have changed since the articles were written…or maybe not changed as much as you would’ve expected. But my failing eyesight makes that more difficult now. I only read large-print books, and I use large font on my devices.” Anne points to three stacks of magazines in the corner, separate from the others. Each magazine in this collection is in a Ziploc bag. “Those in particular were Auntie Iris’s favorites.”

I check the top few magazines. Their titles and dates appear random. The Vogue dates back to the 1940s. The other two are more recent issues, if you can call anything published in the 1980s as recent. There’s nothing to indicate why these were her favorites.

I return them to the pile.

“I’m not expecting you to live with the magazines,” Anne says. “My husband figures there might be some in her collection that could be worth something on eBay. We just haven’t found time to go through them. We decided it’s up to you to figure out what you want to do with them.”

A twinge of excitement I haven’t felt in a long time stirs to life, and I run my hand over an issue of The New Yorker from 1951. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are articles in these magazines that were written by some of the greatest journalists from several decades ago. The greats I studied in college.

Anne continues with the tour of the house, giving me insight into the woman who once lived here. “She suffered from arthritis, especially in her right hand, which she injured when she was younger. It made things more challenging as she got older. But when I was a kid, I remember her always tinkering around the house. Always trying to fix something. She was very much a hands-on type of woman.”

“Was she ever married?”

“No. She never found a man she loved enough for that. She once told me if I ever fell in love—the deep-in-your-soul kind of love—I should keep him. Cherish him. She didn’t want me to waste my life with someone who didn’t worship me.”

I follow Anne upstairs, suitcase in hand. A deep pain twinges in my back, radiating from above my left kidney. I do my best to keep it from showing on my face.

Anne opens the door to the first room on the right. Inside, the queen-sized bed, shelves, dresser, and a maze of stacked magazines pack the space. The stale, dusty smell of the house is stronger than downstairs.

Damn, when was the last time someone opened a window in here?

“Did Florence tell you my husband and I will be going to Europe in two weeks?” Anne asks. “Dan just retired, and my family is originally from England. So we figured it’s time we explore that side of the ocean. We’ll be gone for six weeks.”

“She did mention something about you traveling soon. The trip sounds wonderful.” My voice is soft with awe. I’ve always wanted to visit Europe. To take pictures. To tell the stories of the people who live there.

We finish off the tour and head to the front door.

“Do you still want to stay here?” Hope lifts Anne’s brow, lilts her voice. “I know it’s a bit of a mess. But the roof doesn’t leak, and the furnace works fine. So you don’t have to worry about freezing during the cold nights we’ll get for another month or two.”

“No, it’s perfect. It has a great view of the mountains. It’s the perfect place to heal.” Given where I’ve spent the last five years, it’s Bucking-freaking-ham Palace. And better yet, it doesn’t look anything like the house where I spent the five years of my marriage. That place had been cold, remote. But not in the physical sense.

She hands me the keys to the house and garage. “Welcome to your new home for the next few months, Jessica. I hope you enjoy staying here.”

I lock the front door after her, making sure it’s secure, and walk upstairs to the bathroom. I carefully lift the hem of my top and turn to inspect in the mirror the large sterile pad on my back. Blood isn’t seeping through, which is a big relief.

I reach awkwardly behind me and pull the pad and tape away from my skin, revealing the long, jagged wound above my left kidney. Where I was shanked. In prison.

The wound that almost cost me my life.

That deepened my resolve to be free of my past.

And to not repeat my previous mistakes.

© 2023 Stina Lindenblatt

Now available in ebook and print