She took in the vista around them without seeing a thing. “He was so sensitive. I knew that, and yet . . . I should have been more careful. I should have broken it off as soon as I knew it wasn’t right, but I was too stubborn.”
“The phone call you just had . . . The note you got yesterday . . . There’s more to this story, isn’t there?”
Thad was so much smarter than he looked. “There’ve been two other notes.”
“The one I saw said, ‘This is your fault. Choke on it.’ Were the others like that?”
“The first one said, ‘Don’t ever forget what you’ve done to me.’ The morning the tour started, there was another. ‘You did this to me.’” A helicopter chopped overhead. “Until now, I thought he’d written the notes before he died and found people to mail them for him. But that phone call . . . It’s from a recording he made.”
“Obviously, he wasn’t the one who made the call.”
“Whoever he got to mail the letters must have done it. I don’t know. He was never vindictive.”
“Until he sent you his suicide email.”
“It was wrenching. And these notes . . .”
“Either he planned this before he killed himself, got someone to mail the notes and make that phone call, or you have an enemy on this side of the grave. Do you have any idea who that could be?”
She hesitated, but she was already in this far, and she might as well go the rest of the way. “His sisters were devastated, and they blame me. Growing up, it was only Adam, his mother, and his two sisters. He was the golden child. They all doted on him. Every spare dollar any of them made went toward his voice lessons. After his mother died, it was just his sisters. When I came into the picture, they weren’t happy.”
“They were jealous of you?”
“It’s more that they were protective of him. They wanted him with a woman who’d put his career first. Definitely not one with a big career of her own. If they found out he blew an audition or didn’t get a part, they blamed me. They thought I wasn’t supporting him in the way I should—that I put my career ahead of his. But I didn’t!” She looked up at him, pleading for understanding and hating herself for needing it. “I did everything I could to help him. I recommended him for roles. I turned down some opportunities of my own so I could be with him.”
He shook his head at her. “You women. How many men would do something like that?”
“He was special.”
“If you say so.”
She rubbed her arm and felt the gritty trail dust on her skin. “There was an autopsy, so the funeral was delayed. I don’t check my email regularly, and I didn’t see it until a week after he died.”
“The suicide email?”
“I should never have gone to the funeral. It turned into a scene right out of Puccini. Two sisters mad with grief publicly accusing me of killing him. It was horrible.” She blinked her eyes against a sting of tears. “Adam was everything to them.”
“That doesn’t excuse them for blaming you.”
“I think that’s what they need to do to work through their grief.”
“Very self-sacrificing. I’m traveling with Mother Teresa.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it? From where I stand, it looks like you’re hauling around a truckload of guilt for something you didn’t cause.”
“But obviously I did cause it. I was a coward. I agreed to marry him, even though in my heart I knew it wasn’t right. And then I waited until a week before the ceremony to end it. How’s that for cowardly?”
“Not as cowardly as going ahead with it.” He drew her gently to a stop. “Promise to tell me if you get any more of these surprises.”
“This is my problem. There’s no need—”
“Yes, there is. Until this tour is over, whatever happens to you affects me. I want your word that you’ll tell me.”
She shouldn’t have said this much, but there was something about him that invited confidences. She reluctantly agreed.
On the way back, she checked the number on her phone and tried to call. A recorded message said it was no longer in service.