She knew it probably wasn’t good to give in so easily to Maya’s demands. She already felt guilty about feeding the kid yet another fast-food dinner, but she just didn’t have it in her tonight for one more battle.
It took three trips to unload the car. Fortunately, along with the juice boxes, milk, cereal, fruit, coffee, and other groceries, Letty had tossed new bathing suits for both of them into the shopping cart, as well as an inflatable swim ring.
As soon as they were inside their room, Maya happily began to shed her clothes. She stood in the doorway of the bathroom, dressed only in her tiny white sandals, chanting, “Swim, swim, swim, swim.”
“Okay,” Letty said, laughing. She reached into a bag, ripped the price tags off the pink-and-white-striped two-piece she’d bought for her niece, and held it out.
“Swimmy, swimmy, swimmy,” Maya hummed under her breath, stepping into the bottoms.
“Swimmy, swimmy, swimmy,” Letty agreed, pulling the top over the child’s head.
“Now you,” Maya said, handing Letty the modest navy-blue one-piece she’d chosen for herself.
When they were dressed, with the inflated swim ring and newly purchased beach towels in hand, they stepped outside their room. Maya trotted determinedly toward the pool, which was enclosed behind a fence lined with neatly trimmed hibiscus bushes.
A large sign was posted on the gate. NO LIFEGUARD ON DUTY. NO GLASS IN POOL AREA. POOL CLOSES 10 P.M.
As they pushed through the gate, they saw two women swimming laps down the center of the pool.
“I can swim too!” Maya said, pointing. Which was true. As soon as her daughter could walk, Tanya had enrolled her in an impressive array of “Mommy and me” classes. Music appreciation, pottery, ballet, and even swim classes, which her father had arranged for her to take at a private club in the Hamptons the summer she turned three.
Evan, she reported, would happily pay for anything that smacked of self-improvement. Maya, as it turned out, was tone deaf, uninterested in pottery and ballet, but a natural in the water.
“Evan says it’s her genes,” Tanya said. “He was on his prep school water polo team.”
The pool at the Murmuring Surf was a far cry from the tony Hamptons. It was ringed with aluminum-framed tables and chairs, each grouping shaded by large faded yellow-and-white-striped beach umbrellas. Letty sat down and pulled a squirming Maya onto her lap. She unbuckled her sandals and pulled the swim ring over her head and around her torso.
“Now we swim,” she announced, standing up and reaching for the child’s hand.
Before Letty could stop her, Maya ran to the edge of the pool and jumped in, landing directly on top of one of the lap swimmers, who’d just reached the shallow end of the pool.
The woman stood up, pushed her swim goggles on top of her bathing cap, and batted her arms at the child bobbing contentedly in her orange swim ring.
“You!” she hollered. She glared up at Letty, standing helplessly at the edge of the pool.
She recognized the swimmer as Ruth, one of the motel guests they’d met earlier in the day.
“I’m so sorry,” Letty said, plunging into the pool. Maya reached up and wrapped her arms around Letty’s shoulders, hiding her head in the crook of her aunt’s neck. Letty patted the child’s back, but could already hear her sniffling and feel warm tears trickling down her neck.
The other swimmer reached the shallow end and stood up. It was Billie, their other neighbor.
“What happened?” Billie asked, looking from Ruth to Letty.
“Some people have no manners,” Ruth said indignantly. “She just let this kid jump on top of me.”
“It’s adult swim!” Billie said. “No kids in the pool during adult swim.”
“I’m sorry,” Letty repeated. “I had no idea. There wasn’t a sign or anything.”
“It’s common courtesy,” Ruth said. “Everybody here knows we swim laps from eight to nine every night. You didn’t see us? You just let your kid run loose, like a wild animal or something? I bet she’s not even wearing a swim diaper.”
“She’s not a wild animal. She’s a four-year-old child!” Letty exclaimed, feeling the rage building in her chest. “She’s been cooped up in a car or a motel room for three days and she just wanted to get in the pool and swim. Is that a crime? I’ve said I’m sorry she jumped on you. She won’t do it again, but there’s no need to get nasty.”
“I’m going to speak to Ava about this,” Ruth said. She turned to the other woman. “Come on, Billie. Let’s go.”
Billie nodded. “Newcomers!” she muttered, as she dog-paddled past Letty and the now-wailing Maya.
The two women climbed slowly up the concrete steps, water streaming from the baggy seats of their floral skirted swimsuits.
Maya lifted her head. “I’m sowwy, Letty,” she whispered.
5
SHE’D FINALLY MANAGED TO FALL asleep when she heard her phone ding softly from beneath her pillow. Letty looked anxiously down at Maya, who was burrowed into her side like a small, determined hedgehog. Or maybe a barnacle was a more apt description. Don’t wake up, she thought, reaching for the phone. Please don’t wake up.
It was another text from Zoey.
OMG. Evan showed up at my work today, yelling and carrying on about how I better tell him where you are. He almost got me fired. And then a cop came and asked a bunch of questions too. I told them I don’t know anything, because I don’t. They think you killed your sister. It’s crazy. Be careful, please.
Letty stared at the text, then deleted it without a response. She’d already disabled the GPS on her phone. She’d been debating getting rid of it, buying one of those cheap burner phones they sold in convenience stores, but she wasn’t ready to give up the lifeline her phone represented. Yet. She switched it off and willed herself back to sleep.
We’re safe, she thought. Nobody would look for them in this out-of-the-way town. She had been careful not to leave any tracks that could lead Evan to a place like the Murmuring Surf. The door was locked, the dead bolt engaged. Tanya’s go-bag, with the money and the ring, was hidden away. They were hidden, too. Maya was safe. She stroked the little girl’s curls, and listened to the reassuring sound of the child contentedly sucking on her thumb.
True, there was a cop sniffing around, asking prying questions. But Letty had questions of her own, so she intended to stay put and stay vigilant.
Letty still didn’t know how much her niece understood about what had happened to her mother, or how much she’d witnessed. Her prayer was that Maya had slept through Tanya’s violent murder, because she couldn’t bear to think about the alternative. At some point, she thought, she would need to get Maya counseling.
Tomorrow, Letty vowed, she would make a plan. Start thinking about finding a job and a better place to live. A ratty motel room was no place to raise a child. Was that what she was going to be doing now? Raising a child? It was a deeply unsettling idea. Letty had always harbored some vague notion that someday she would have the normal things that normal people had: a career, a stable marriage, a mortgage, a dog, and yes, even a child of her own. Preferably in that precise order.
But there was nothing normal about her life on the run.