Strangers She Knows

by Christina Dodd

  Meanwhile, my Aunt Cora had died in a memory care center, I’d missed so much of my little girl’s life she was barely a little girl anymore and my married life had faltered at the altar.

  Turns out, that was the least of my worries. Our worries.

  I’m Kellen Adams, and the fun had barely begun.

  3

  Yearning Sands Resort

  Washington’s Pacific Coast

  This Spring

  Rae Di Luca stacked up her Level Three lesson books, opened the piano bench and put them away. She got out the Adult Course Level 1A book, opened it to “Silver Bells,” and put it on the music rack. “Mom, you have to practice.”

  Kellen didn’t look up from her book. “I know.”

  “When?”

  “When what?”

  “When are you going to do it?”

  “I’m at the good part. Let me finish this chapter.”

  “No, you have to practice now. You know it helps with your finger dexterity.”

  When had their roles reversed, Kellen wondered? When had ten-year-old Rae become the sensible adult and Kellen become the balky child?

  Oh yeah. When she had the brain surgery, her right hand refused to regain its former abilities, and the physical therapist suggested learning the piano. But there was a reason Kellen hadn’t learned to play the piano earlier in her life. She loved music—and she had no musical talent. That, added to the terrible atrophy that afflicted her fingers, made her lessons and practices an unsurpassed agony…for everyone.

  She looked up, saw Rae standing, poised between coaxing and impatience, and the Rolodex in Kellen’s punctured, operated-on and much-abused brain clicked in:

  RAE DI LUCA:

  FEMALE, 10YO, 5'0", 95LBS. KELLEN’S DAUGHTER. HER MIRACLE. IN TRANSITION: GIRL TO WOMAN, BLOND HAIR TO BROWN, BROWN EYES LIGHTENING TO HAZEL. LONG LEGS; GAWKY. SKIN A COMBINATION OF HER ITALIAN HERITAGE FROM HER FATHER AND THE NATIVE AMERICAN BLOOD FROM KELLEN; FIRST PIMPLE ON HER CHIN. NEVER TEMPERAMENTAL. KIND, STRONG, INDEPENDENT.

  Kellen loved this kid. The feeling was more than human. It was feral, too, and Kellen would do anything to protect Rae from threat—and had. “I know. I’m coming. It’s so much more fun to listen to you play than practice myself. You’re good and I’m…awful.”

  “I’m not good. I’m just better than you.” Rae came over and wrapped her arms around Kellen’s neck, hugged her and laughed. “But Luna is better than you.”

  “Don’t talk to me about that dog. She howls every time I sit down at the piano. Sometimes she doesn’t even wait until I start playing. The traitor.” Kellen glared at the dog, and once again her brain—which had developed this ability after that shot to the head—sorted through the files of identity cards to read:

  LUNA:

  FEMALE, FULL-SIZE POODLE/AUSTRALIAN CATTLE DOG/AT LEAST ONE OTHER BREED, 50LBS, RED COAT, BROWN EYES, STRONGLY MUSCLED. RESCUED BY RAE AND MAX WHILE KELLEN RECOVERED FROM SURGERY. FAMILY MEMBER. RAE’S FRIEND, COMPANION, PROTECTOR. MUSIC LOVER.

  Luna watched Kellen in return, head resting on her paws, waiting for her chance to sing a solo protest to Kellen’s inept rendition of “Silver Bells.”

  “Everybody’s a critic.” Rae set the timer. “Come on. Ten minutes of scales, then you only have to practice for thirty minutes.”

  “Why do I have to practice ‘Silver Bells’? Christmas isn’t for seven months.”

  “So you’ll have mastered it by the time the season rolls around.”

  “I used to like that song.”

  “We all used to like that song.” Rae took Kellen’s left hand and tugged. “Mom, come on. You know you feel better afterward.”

  Kellen allowed herself to be brought to her feet. “I’m going to do something wild and crazy. I’m going to start learning ‘When the Saints Go Marching In.’ It’s the next song in the book, and I like it.”

  “You can learn anything you want after you practice your scales and work on ‘Silver Bells’ for fifteen minutes.”

  No one wanted to be inside today—certainly not Rae Di Luca, certainly not Kellen Adams Di Luca, and they certainly did not want to be upstairs in their private quarters in the Yearning Sands Resort. Not when spring had come to the Washington state Pacific Coast. April and May’s drenching rains turned the world a soggy brown. Then, on the first of June, one day of blazing sunshine created green that spread across the coastal plain.

  Kellen made her way through the ten minutes of scales—the dog remained quiescent for those—then began plunking out “Silver Bells.”

  As she struggled with the same passage, her right hand fingers responding only sporadically, Luna started with a slight whine that grew in intensity. At the first high howl, Kellen turned to the dog. “Look, this isn’t easy for me, either.”

  Luna sat, head cocked, one ear up, one ear down, brown eyes pleading with her.

  “I would love to stop,” Kellen told her and turned back to the piano. “How about a different tune? Let’s try ‘When the Saints Go Marching In.’”

  She played the first few notes and out of the corner of her eye, she saw the dog subside. Then, as she worked on a tricky passage, made the same mistake, time after time, the dog sat up again, lifted her nose and howled in mourning for the slaughter of the song.

  Rae giggled, and when her mother glowered, the child controlled herself. “Come on, Luna, I’ll take you outside.”

  The dog didn’t budge.

  “She thinks she’s helping you,” Rae explained. “Come on, Luna. Come on!” She coaxed her out the door, turned back to Kellen and said sternly, “Twenty more minutes!”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Kellen struggled on, trying to make her recalcitrant fingers do her bidding. Even when she finally got the notes right, it wasn’t a piano tune so much as jack-in-the-box music. When at last the timer went off, she slumped over the keyboard and stared at the fingers of her right hand.

  They were trying to atrophy, to curl in and refuse to do her bidding ever again. But the physical therapists assured her she could combat this. She had to create new nerve ways, train another part of her brain to handle the work, and since two hands were better than one and her right hand was her dominant hand, the battle was worth fighting. But every day, the forty minutes at the keyboard left her drained and discouraged.

  Behind her, Max said, “Turn around and let me rub your hands.”

  She noticed he did not say, That was good. Or even, That was better.

  Max didn’t tell lies.

  Kellen sighed and swiveled on the piano bench. Again that Rolodex in her brain clicked in:

  MAX DI LUCA:

  MALE, 38YO, 6'5", 220LBS, ITALIAN-AMERICAN, FORMER FOOTBALL PLAYER. HANDSOME, TANNED, CURLY BLACK HAIR, BROWN EYES SURROUNDED BY LONG BLACK LASHES. ONCE HIGH UP IN THE DI LUCA FAMILY CORPORATION, STEPPED DOWN TO RAISE HIS DAUGHTER, NOW DIRECTOR OF THE FAMILY’S YEARNING SANDS RESORT ON THE WASHINGTON COAST. KIND, GENEROUS, RESPONSIBLE, LOVING. A STICKLER FOR DUTY. FAR TOO MUCH WILLPOWER, WHICH IS IRRITATING TO KELLEN IN MATTERS RELATING TO THEIR MARITAL STATE.

  He took her right hand gently in both of his and, starting at the wrist, he massaged her palm, her thumb, her fingers. He used a lavender-scented oil, and stretched and worked the muscles and bones while she moaned with pleasure.

  He listened with a slight smile, and when she looked into his face, she realized his lips looked fuller, he had a dark flush over his cheekbones and his nostrils flared as he breathed. She looked down at his jeans, leaned close and whispered, “Max, I’m done with practice. Why don’t we wander up to our bedroom and I’ll rub your…hand, too.”

  He met her eyes. He stopped his massage. Except for the rise and fall of his chest, he was frozen in that pose of incipient passion.

  Then he sat back and sighed. “Doctor says no.”

  “Doctor said be careful.”

 
“Woman, if I could be careful, I would. As it is, nothing is best.”

  “I am torn between being flattered and frustrated.” She thought about it. “Mostly frustrated.”

  “I’m just fine.” Max didn’t usually resort to sarcasm, so that told her a lot. Married almost two years and no sex. He was a good man, but he was coming to the end of his patience.

  “If we’re refraining because we’re worried I’m going to pop a blood vessel while in the throes of passion, I’d like to point out there are solutions that you might enjoy.”

  “That isn’t fair to you.”

  “You’re massaging my hand. That’s pretty wonderful.”

  “Not the same.” Again he took her tired hand and went to work.

  Bitterly she said, “Kellen’s Brain. It’s like a bad sci-fi fantasy.”

  He laughed. “It’s improving all the time.” When he had made her hand relax and Kellen relax with it, he said, “I’ve been thinking—the Di Luca family owns Isla Paraíso off the coast of Northern California. The family bought the island seventy years ago with the idea of placing a resort on the island, but now that doesn’t seem likely. Someone needs to go there, look things over, make decisions about its fate.”

  Kellen nodded. “You want to go there? See what you think?”

  “Actually, I thought we should all go there.”

  He was still working her hand, but with a little too much forcefulness and concentration.

  “Ouch,” she said softly.

  He pulled away, horrified. “Did I hurt you?”

  “Not at all. Except that you’re treating me like a child.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re not telling me what’s really going on. Why do you want to go to this island?”

  “I told you—”

  “I don’t doubt that what you told me is the truth. But it’s not all the truth. Max, what’s wrong?”

  Max sighed, an understatement of a sigh, as if he dreaded what he was about to say. “You’re not going to like it.”

  “I gathered that.”

  “Mitch Nyugen.”

  “What about him? He’s dead.” She remembered she couldn’t always trust Kellen’s Brain. “Isn’t he?”

  “Yes. He was buried in the Cape Charade Cemetery.”

  “Was buried?” Unease stirred in her belly.

  “This week, his widow arrived from Wyoming.”

  “He wasn’t married.” That brain thing. “Was he?”

  “No.” Max was as sure as Kellen was not. “Yet the woman who claimed to be his widow had all the necessary paperwork to have his body exhumed.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “She had the coffin placed in the chapel. Last night, the undertaker, Arthur Earthman, found her there, with the coffin open. She murdered him, and almost killed his wife, Cynthia. The widow escaped ahead of the sheriff, and she left her calling card.”

  Kellen knew. She knew what Max was going to say. “She cut off Mitch’s hands.”

  “And took them.” Max looked up at her, his brown eyes wretched with fear. “Mara Philippi is back. And she’s here.”

  4

  Kellen felt the same terror that shone in Max’s eyes.

  Mara Philippi. My God. That nightmare had been put away once. All the terror, all the horror that was Mara Philippi had been in federal prison in solitary confinement. “I knew I’d seen her. At our wedding, talking to Rae.”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me again how she escaped the prison?”

  “She is a master at manipulating people, giving them what they want and getting a favor in return. You know how her people feel about her.”

  “Fanatical dedication. Until she kills them and takes their hands for her grisly souvenirs.”

  “You killed Mitch. She never got his hands.”

  “Until now.” Kellen took a few breaths, gave herself some time to ease that feeling of claustrophobic fear, before replying. “You think if we went to this island, we would be safe.”

  “I would like to hope so. If we went quietly, quickly, without fuss.”

  “How soon?”

  “Right away.”

  “Who’s going to catch Mara?”

  “Not you, my darling. You are still recovering.” He cupped her atrophied hand again.

  “I’ve been recovering for more than two years!”

  “Recovering from having a bullet removed from your brain!” Max could be forceful when he wished. “You’re not going to track Mara down. We’ve got every kind of law enforcement on the case. Local police, state police, Coast Guard, FBI, Interpol. Law enforcement hates when civilians try to handle crimes by themselves, mostly because people end up dead.”

  “I know.”

  “Plus they want Mara back behind bars. Do you know how foolish they look that she escaped and they didn’t even know it?”

  “I suspect. But we live at Yearning Sands Resort.” Kellen waved a hand around at their luxurious manager quarters. “We’re protected by a great security team.”

  “We are. But Mara worked here. She knows this place far too well for comfort, so let’s not put our people in the line of fire.”

  “Of course, you’re right. But we can’t leave right away. Rae has a week of school left.”

  “She’s homeschooled. By my mother. With five other children. I’ve already hired extra protection for the children. It won’t be hard to convince the parents to be careful. Cape Charade is abuzz with horror since last night’s murder. Killing the undertaker…cutting off the hands of a corpse…” Max looked pale and sweaty. “Do you know why Cynthia Earthman is alive? Because Mara gave her a message for you.”

  “For me? Not you?”

  “For you,” he repeated. “She told Cynthia, ‘Tell Kellen I’ll take everything from her, the way she took everything from me. I’ll make her sorry she betrayed me.’”

  “I didn’t betray her!” Silly to care, but a knee-jerk reaction.

  “And you’re not the one who brought her down. I did.” Max had tackled Mara before she fired a fatal shot into Kellen. “But the message was specifically for you.”

  “At one time, she considered me a friend.” Once, when Kellen had received a threatening gift, Mara had been kind. She had offered help. “She thinks she knows me.”

  “She’s a serial killer with issues we can’t imagine.”

  Kellen could imagine a few of them. “When she was handcuffed, and we were waiting for law enforcement to pick her up, she said, ‘I chose you as my opponent because I thought we were alike, that you were worthy.’”

  “Alike in strength, she meant, and worthy of a good fight. She still sees you as her opponent.”

  “And as a false friend. You know what else she said? She said, ‘You think I’m done? I’ll never be done.’” Kellen balled her hands into fists, then stretched them as far as she was able. “She’ll never quit.”

  “She’s insane.”

  “Absolutely psycho. We have to tell Rae.”

  “What? No. Rae is a child!” Max could not have been more appalled.

  “She’s ten, and she’s a brave, savvy child. Remember when she went with me into the Olympic Mountains?” If he didn’t recall, Kellen did, and all too well. “Killers on our trail, bullets flying, and that kid—she was seven, Max—kept up, bandaged my wounds, found help when I would have died.”

  “I know. She was wonderful!” Max’s eyes went dark with old terrors. “And I was petrified. No, Kellen, we can protect Rae. Let her be a kid along for the ride.”

  “She’s not going to forgive us when she finds out we pulled the wool over her eyes.”

  “If we play this right, she’ll never know.”

  He was just so hopeful, so scared, so concerned about his baby girl, Kellen had to yield. “All right, but we
’ll revisit this decision as needed.”

  He obviously didn’t mean it, but he said, “Sure. Sure.”

  Kellen wanted to ask if there were any leads, but without warning, her words had vanished and she was mute, her throat constricting with terror and the desperate need to take the world back to where it had been five minutes ago, before she knew Mara had returned to deal death once more.

  She had exercises for this. Breathing exercises. Relaxation exercises. She fought panic to get that first, long breath.

  Max didn’t recognize Kellen’s struggle. “Taking Rae out of school a week early isn’t going to affect her in terms of what she learns. Even my mother lets the kids enjoy the last week of school with the minimum of work.”

  Kellen breathed slowly, deliberately, the way her therapist advised.

  Max continued, “All they do is have pool parties, cupcake parties, field trips. I haven’t spoken to my mother yet, but—”

  From the door a furious voice said, “You want to take me out of school for the last week? Why? Why would you do that to me?” Rae stood there, her cheeks bright red, her eyes blazing.

  Max jumped guiltily, and turned to face their daughter. “Honey, it’s no big deal—”

  No, Max. Wrong answer, Max. It’s a big deal to her. But even as Kellen fought to speak, the constriction in her chest and throat grew, strangling her.

  Breathe!

  Rae’s voice rose. “No big deal? For you! What about me? You want to take me away from Chloe? And from Maverick and Rayleigh? We’re in class together. We play Dragon Spit together. We go everywhere together. They’re my best friends.”

  “I know, sweetheart.” Max probably thought he was being conciliatory. But he was doing it wrong. “This is an emergency—”

  “Emergency!” Rae’s voice calmed. “What kind of emergency?”