Chapter 4 - The North County Trace
The Interstate 5 North was an empty ribbon of gray concrete stretching between the brown coastal bluffs and the metallic sheet of the Pacific.
I sat in the passenger seat of Bethany’s Lexus GX. In the back, separated by the wide leather center console, sat the three children. The atmosphere in the vehicle had shifted from teenage rebellion to an uneasy, stifling dread. Marley had tried to ask three times why we were driving north instead of heading south to her mother’s house in Clairemont, but Bethany had answered with five words that brooked no rebuttal: Be quiet and watch out the window.
Cole had his forehead pressed against the tinted glass, watching the surf roll into the beach at Del Mar. June sat with her small canvas backpack between her knees, her fingers tracing the zipper.
I held my phone in my lap, tracking the Find My network.
Derek was careless with many things, but his vanity was his greatest vulnerability. When he bought the Audi Q7 two years ago, he had linked the vehicle’s integrated GPS navigation system to our shared family Apple account so I could track his arrival when he towed yachts down from the Long Beach boat shows.
A pulsing blue dot hovered steadily at the end of a residential cul-de-sac just off Avenida Encinas in Carlsbad.
742 Poinsettia Park Way.
"Take the Palomar Airport Road exit," I said quietly to Bethany.
Bethany signaled, sliding the heavy SUV across three lanes of light morning traffic. Her hands were locked onto the leather-wrapped steering wheel at ten and two, her knuckles pale, her profile sharp and focused like a hawk scanning a marsh.
"What is this place?" Marley’s voice came from the rear, pitched higher than usual, laced with the brittle anxiety of a child who realizes the map she was given is entirely upside down. "Mom, why is Eliza in your car? Why are we going to Carlsbad? Grandma’s house is in Mission Hills."
Bethany glanced into the rearview mirror. "Marley, if you speak one more word before I tell you to open your mouth, I am taking your phone and throwing it out the window into the lagoon. Do you understand me?"
Marley fell silent. The air in the cabin became thin, pressurized like an airplane descending too fast.
We turned off the main thoroughfare into a gated community of Mediterranean-style townhomes painted in pale sand and terracotta. The gates were open for the holiday weekend, decorated with artificial pine garlands and red velvet ribbons. We curved past manicured palms, a communal saltwater pool covered for the winter, and pulled onto Poinsettia Park Way.
"There," I pointed.
Parked in the short driveway of Unit 742, sitting beneath the shadow of a two-car garage, was Derek’s black Audi Q7.
Beside it sat a white Range Rover Sport with a private school decal on the rear glass.
The front porch of Unit 742 was flanked by two potted olive trees wrapped in twinkling white fairy lights. Resting against the front door was a large, flat Amazon box and a glossy white Apple Store shopping bag with thick woven handles.
Bethany killed the Lexus’s engine, coasting into a visitor parking bay sixty feet down the street, shielded behind the dense foliage of a flowering coral tree.
"Cole, June, stay in the car," Bethany said, her voice dropping into a low, clinical command. "Marley. Unbuckle your seatbelt and get out."
"Mom, no!" Marley whispered, her face pale as parchment, her eyes darting toward her father’s car. "What is Dad doing here? Who lives here?"
"Get out of the car, Marley," Bethany repeated.
I opened the passenger door, stepping out into the brisk morning air. The coastal breeze in Carlsbad smelled different from Point Loma—cleaner, laced with the scent of sage from the nearby canyons and the damp mulch of high-end suburban landscaping.
Marley climbed out of the rear seat, her sneakers dragging on the clean asphalt. She looked small now, stripped of the brittle theatricality that had carried her through the curbside performance twenty-four hours earlier. Her camera phone was clutched in her right hand, but her arm hung limp at her side.
"Eliza," Bethany said, nodding toward the house. "Lead the way."
We walked up the concrete sidewalk in a line of three: me, Bethany, and Derek’s fifteen-year-old daughter.
As we approached the Audi, the front door of Unit 742 swung open.
A woman walked out onto the porch.
Taryn West was forty-two, with honey-blonde hair styled in effortless, sun-bleached beach waves, wearing a cream cashmere turtleneck, tailored camel trousers, and shearling slippers. She was laughing, holding a ceramic mug of steaming coffee in one hand.
Behind her, carrying a sleek fourteen-inch space-gray laptop still wrapped in its factory protective film, was a teenage girl about Marley’s age. The girl was beaming, turning the machine over in her hands with pure, ecstatic delight.
"Mom, it has the backlit keyboard!" the girl cheered, her voice carrying clearly across the quiet cul-de-sac. "Derek said he got the upgraded processor so I can run the Adobe editing suite!"
Then Derek stepped out onto the porch.
He wore the forest-green sweater I had given him that morning.
He had an arm draped casually around Taryn’s shoulder. His hair was damp from a fresh shower, his posture relaxed, expansive, radiant with the easy confidence of a man who had successfully pulled off a masterstroke. In his free hand, he held a glass of orange juice.
"Told you I’d handle it, Chloe," Derek smiled, kissing the crown of Taryn’s head. "Nothing but the best for my favorite filmmaker."
Marley stopped ten feet from the base of the porch steps.
The sound that came out of her throat wasn't a word; it was a tiny, strangled gasp of air, the sound of a lung collapsing under sudden, catastrophic pressure.
Derek’s eyes flicked up from Chloe’s laptop, scanning the cul-de-sac.
His smile didn't fade immediately; it remained frozen on his handsome face for two terrifying seconds, a grotesque mask of holiday cheer, before his brain processed the three figures standing on the concrete between his Audi and the curb.
His daughter.
His ex-wife.
And his current wife.
The glass of orange juice in his left hand tilted. A bright yellow puddle splashed across the clean flagstones of the porch, soaking into the edge of the welcome mat.
"Marley?" Derek choked out, his voice cracking like dry wood. "Bethany? What... what are you doing here?"
Taryn’s laughter died instantly. Her head snapped toward the driveway, her hand dropping from Derek’s waist as if he had suddenly caught fire. "Derek? Who is that?"
May you like
Bethany took one slow, deliberate step forward, pulling her hands from the pockets of her camel coat.
"Merry Christmas, Derek," Bethany said, her voice carrying the clear, ringing authority of an executioner reading a warrant. "We brought the audience you wanted."
