I Know A Secret by Tess Gerritsen extract

As part of the I Know a Secret blog tour an extract from chapter one.

Chapter One

When I was seven years old, I learned how important it is to cry at funerals. On that particular summer day, the man lying in the coffin was my great uncle Orson, who was most memorable for his foul-smelling cigars and his stinky breath and his unabashed farting.  While he was alive, he pretty much ignored me, the way I’d ignored him, so I was not in the least bit grief-stricken by his death. I did not see why I should have to attend his funeral, but that is not a choice seven-year-olds are al- lowed to make.  And so that day I found myself squirming on a church pew, bored and sweating in a black dress, wondering why I couldn’t have stayed home with Daddy, who had flat-out refused to come. Daddy said he’d be a hypocrite if he pretended to grieve for a man he despised. I didn’t know what that word, hypocrite, meant, but I knew I didn’t want to be one either.  Yet there I was, wedged between my mother and Aunt Sylvia, forced to listen to an endless parade of people offering insipid praise for the unremarkable Uncle Orson. A proud independent man.  He was passionate about  his hobbies! How he loved his stamp collection!

No one mentioned his bad breath.

I amused myself through the endless   memorial service by studying the heads of the people in the pew in front of us. I noticed that Aunt Donna’s hat was dusted with white dandruff that Uncle Charlie had dozed off and his toupee had slipped askew. It looked like a brown rat trying to crawl down the side of his head. I did what any normal seven-year-old girl would do.

I burst out laughing.

The reaction was immediate. People turned and frowned at me. My mortified mother sank five sharp fingernails into my arm and hissed,  “Stop it!”

“But his hair’s fallen off! It looks like a rat!”

Her fingernails dug deeper. “We will discuss this later, Holly.” At home, there was no discussion. Instead, there was shouting and a slap on the face, and that’s how I learned what constituted appropriate funeral behaviour. I learned that one must be somber

and silent and that,  sometimes, tears  are expected.

Four years later, at my mother’s funeral, I made a point of noisily shedding copious  tears  because  that  was  what  everyone  expected  of me.

But today,  at the  funeral  of Sarah  Basterash, I’m not  certain whether anyone  expects  me to cry. It’s been  more  than  a decade since I last saw the girl I knew in school as Sarah Byrne. We were never  close,  so  I can’t  really  say that  I mourn her  passing.  In truth, I’ve come to her funeral  in Newport only out of curiosity. I want  to know how she died. I need to know how she died. Such a terrible tragedy  is what  everyone  in the  church is murmuring around me.  Her  husband was  out  of  town,   Sarah  had  a  few drinks, and  she fell asleep  with  a candle  burning on her  night- stand. The fire that  killed  her  was merely  an accident.  That, at least, is what everyone says.

It’s what  I want  to believe.

The little church in Newport is packed  to capacity,  filled with all the  friends  that  Sarah  made  in her  short  life, most  of whom I’ve never  met.  Nor have I met  her husband, Kevin,  who under happier circumstances would  be quite  an attractive man,  some- one I might make a play for, but today he looks genuinely broken. Is this what  grief does to you?

I turn to survey the church, and I spot an old high school class- mate  named  Kathy sitting  behind  me, her face blotchy,  her mascara smeared from crying. Almost all the women and many of the men  are  crying,  because  a soprano is singing  that  old  Quaker hymn “Simple Gifts,” and that always seems to bring on the tears. For an instant, Kathy  and  I lock gazes,  hers  brimming and  wet, mine cool and dry-eyed.  I’ve changed  so much  since high school that  I can’t imagine  she recognizes me, yet her gaze is transfixed and she keeps staring  at me as if she’s spotted a ghost.

I turn  and face forward again.

By the time “Simple  Gifts” is over, I too have managed to produce tears,  just like everyone  else.

I join the long line of mourners to pay my last respects, and as I file past the closed coffin, I study Sarah’s  photograph, which  is displayed on an easel. She was only twenty-six, four years younger than  I am,  and  in the  photo  she is dewy and  pink-cheeked and smiling,  the  same  pretty  blonde  I  remember from  our  school days, when I was the girl no one noticed, the phantom who lurked in  the  periphery. Now  here  I am,  my skin  still  flush  with  life, while Sarah,  pretty  little Sarah,  is nothing but charred bones in a box.  I’m sure  that’s  what  everyone  thinks  as  they  look  at  the image  of Sarah  Before the  Fire; they see the  smiling  face in the photo  and imagine  scorched flesh and blackened skull.

The line moves forward, and I offer my condolences to Kevin. He murmurs, “Thank  you for coming.”  He has no idea who I am or how I knew Sarah,  but he sees that  my cheeks are tearstained, and  he  grasps  my hand  in gratitude. I have  wept  for  his  dead wife, and that  is all it takes to pass muster.

I slip out of the church into the cold November wind and walk away at a brisk pace, because  I don’t want to be waylaid by Kathy or any other  childhood acquaintances. Over the years, I’ve managed to avoid them  all.

Or perhaps they were avoiding  me.

It  is only  two  o’clock,  and  although my boss  at  Booksmart Media  has given me the whole  day off, I consider going back  to the office to catch  up on emails and phone  calls. I am the publicist  for  a dozen  authors and  I need  to  schedule media  appearances,  mail out galleys, and write pitch  letters.  But before  I head back to Boston,  there  is one more stop I have to make.

I drive to Sarah’s  house—or what  used  to be her house.  Now there  are only blackened remains, charred timbers, and a pile of soot-stained bricks.  A white  picket  fence that  once enclosed  the front garden  lies smashed and flattened, wrecked by the fire crew when they dragged  their hoses and ladders  from the street. By the time the fire trucks  arrived, the house must already have been an inferno.

I get out of my car and approach the ruins.  The air is still foul with the stench  of smoke.  Standing there  on the sidewalk, I can make out the faint glint of a stainless-steel refrigerator buried in that blackened mess. Just a glance at this Newport neighbourhood tells me this would  have been an expensive  house,  and I wonder what sort of business Sarah’s husband is in, or if there’s money in his family. An advantage I certainly  never had.

The wind gusts and dead  leaves rattle  across  my shoes,  a brittle sound  that brings back another autumn day, twenty years ago, when I was ten years old and crunching across dead leaves in the woods.  That day still casts its shadow across  my life, and it’s the reason  I am standing here today.

I look down  at the  makeshift memorial that’s  materialized in

Sarah’s  honour. People  have left bouquets of flowers,  and  I see a mound of wilted roses and lilies and carnations, floral tributes to a young woman  who was clearly loved. Suddenly I focus on a bit of greenery  that  is not part  of any bouquet but  has been  draped across  the other  flowers,  like an afterthought.

It is a palm leaf. Symbol of the martyr.

A chill scrabbles up  my spine  and  I back  away.  Through the thudding of my heart,  I hear  the  sound  of an  approaching car, and I turn  to see a Newport police cruiser  slow down  to a crawl. The windows are  rolled  up  and  I cannot make  out  the  officer’s face,  but  I know  he’s giving  me  a long  and  careful  look  as he passes  by. I turn  away and duck  back into my car.

There  I sit  for  a moment, waiting  for  my heartbeat to  slow down  and  my hands  to stop  trembling. I look again  at the ruins of the  house,  and  I once  again  picture Sarah  at  six years  old. Pretty little Sarah Byrne, bouncing on the school-bus seat in front of me. Five of us rode the school bus that  afternoon.

Now there  are only four of us left.

“Goodbye, Sarah,”  I murmur. Then  I start  the  car  and  drive back to Boston.