The Road to Maine Is Bloody Part 8

Stephen pressed his flat hand against his lips and sighed, before dropping it back to his lap and speaking again. “Annie started receiving the same kind of letters but hers were different. At first I thought it was just the rantings of a crazy woman but when she started getting letters that were similar to my books, I knew I had to end things with Annie, for her safety but the letters didn’t stop because she knew that I loved Annie. Your Mom moved away and took you with her and that was the last I heard from her.” 

“I didn’t contact her for any reason, hoping the threats would stop and for a while they did. Ashley, I didn’t write that book based on your mother. I wrote it more than five years before we met. I promise you, I’d never have harmed your mother.” He said softly, tears beginning to well up in his eyes and he stared at the fireplace. 

Ashley nodded, wiping away her own tears and reached across the space between them, squeezing his hand. “I’m sorry if I thought you had something to do with her death. I spent years wondering if I hadn’t been out with my friends, if Mom wouldn’t be alive today. I treated her so badly, hating that our family was broken up and blaming her and later blaming myself after she died.”

“My father didn’t even care enough to come with me to my Mom’s funeral. He just bought me a ticket and said he’d pick me up when I got back. The truth is, when I went to live with him after she died, I thought my stepfather had something to do with it and the police even questioned him but they didn’t have enough evidence to charge him.” Swallowing, her lower lip quivered with fear and she twisted her hands together nervously.

“There’s something I never told anyone. I found some letters he wrote to a woman here in Maine. They were in some white envelopes with a American flag stamp in the right corner on each one and he told her he loved her and how he wanted to be with her but didn’t want to upset me by leaving. He said he hated my mother for keeping him from her and he wished she were dead so he could marry her but he’d get nothing in a divorce.”