by Lisa Jackson
They’d lived in the house for about two years. It was Sean Ingles’s architectural design, the last of his work for Bancroft Development and Hale personally before he’d left for Portland. Everyone said how beautiful the house was, how the rock and wood beams and shingled siding were a work of art, depicting the beauty of the Northwest to perfection. Hale supposed it was true, but somehow it had never felt like a home. Maybe it was too staged for him. Maybe it was too perfect. All he wanted when he came home was an easy chair in front of a television and a glass of wine or a beer and a good meal, which constituted anything from take-out pizza to soup and/or sandwiches to something gourmet and elegant. His tastes ran from pedestrian to exotic. He wasn’t picky, and he’d even cook himself, although his repertoire was somewhat limited.
He didn’t, as a rule, think he was hard to live with. Yet somehow Kristina made him feel like he was. Was he kidding himself?
Well, he’d moved the meeting over the office condo project per his wife’s instructions, and now he was trying to work up some enthusiasm for the romantic evening she had planned. Since he hadn’t seen her, he wondered if she was already in the bedroom. Uncomfortably, he recalled the conversation he’d had with his grandfather when he’d walked him to his car.
“Woman troubles?” the old man had asked after complaining loud and long about not needing a babysitter to get to his vehicle. Hale had accepted the verbal scolding in silence until Declan’s last comment.
“Kristina and I have a lot of stuff going on right now.”
“That’s a lot of bullshit, son. Pardon my French.”
Hale wasn’t about to go into it further and said simply, “Maybe Kristina and I can straighten some stuff out tonight.”
Now he walked down the hall to the bedroom, carefully pushing open the door. The nightstand lamps were on, set to the lowest setting of the three-way lightbulb, giving the room a soft ambiance. There was no sign of Kristina, however, and Hale stepped into the room and then ducked his head into the en suite bathroom. The room gleamed in chrome and Carrara marble with white towels. No Kristina.
“Where are you?” he asked aloud, wondering if she was playing some game. His gaze swept over the room, and he realized there was a note wedged between the quilted tan pillow shams. Apparently, it had fallen between the two pillows. He crossed the room in two quick strides and grabbed it.
Changed my mind. I’m not mad. I just need a little space. Kristina.
It was such an about-face, he might have wondered about its authenticity, except it was written in her distinctive handwriting.
He strode back to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, grabbing a Corona. There wasn’t much of anything in the realm of leftovers, so after a moment he picked up the phone and called Gino’s for the second time in two nights. This time he ordered a calzone stuffed with pepperoni, provolone cheese, mushrooms, and olives. For a strange moment he thought about ordering two, though he knew that Kristina wouldn’t touch it. But then he wasn’t thinking about her. He was thinking about Savannah.
“Is that all?” the voice on the other end of the line asked.
“Yeah.” Hale hung up and went back out to the garage, grabbing up his cell phone and jacket on his way to pick up the meal.
Kristina wasn’t a religious person in any way, shape, or form, but if there was such a thing as hell, she was surely living it.
She drove north and tried to calm her mind and her body. She’d been so susceptible, so hungry, and the things she’d done.... It made her blush to think of them. But even worse were the memories of other things. The sheer horror and depravity and the knowledge she possessed that could get her in serious trouble with the authorities or worse. And when she thought of Marcus and Chandra . . .
A small cry escaped her lips, and she pushed those horrific memories aside, seeking to bury them, as she had for months. She hated herself, and she was embarrassed, too, at how she’d appealed to Hale. Yes, she’d meant all those things, but even if he’d thrown her down on his desk and slid hard and deep inside her, driving to her core, though she might have had sexual fulfillment, she still wouldn’t be free.
Free.
She said it aloud, “Free,” tasting it on her tongue to see what it felt like, aware her voice had a hollow and fearful quality to it.
She’d made a pact with the devil, and it had ruined nearly everything good in her life. She had to stop it before it consumed her and all the people she loved. She had to stop it tonight.
The rain had abated, and an icy wind had taken its place, the harbinger of a cold front that was moving in from the north. She realized she was shivering uncontrollably by the time she reached the house, and she worried briefly about her tires—would she pick up a nail?—as she drove into the gravel drive, with its fine layer of sawdust, the last traces of which were evident in the blowing wind as it scrubbed the area almost clean.
Clean. Another word she wanted to apply to herself. In her mind’s eye she envisioned a huge eraser that was inside her brain, exorcizing the terrible thoughts and desires that had taken root there.
All because of him.
Her jaw tightened. Well, she was through with him. Through with all his persuasions and lies, his cold eyes and even colder smile. He was a monster, and she’d been so weak. But now . . . now . . . she was feeling stronger. She and Hale were about to have a baby, and maybe it was latent motherhood—God, she hoped so—but all the nearly incoherent fretting and babbling she’d done for weeks no longer felt necessary. She was going to do something, by God. Tonight. Now. And he could just go fuck himself.
Picking up her flashlight from inside the pocket on the driver’s door, she tested the beam. Strong, she thought with a flutter of assurance. Just like she was. She climbed out of the Mercedes and looked at the old house. She’d chosen the venue for once—the Carmichaels’ house, which Hale was reconstructing. She wanted to feel Hale’s strength running through her. This was his project. A home base of sorts for her.
Exhaling on a sigh, she mounted the steps to the porch and tried the door, not surprised to find it locked. But the house was scheduled for demolition, and she knew it wouldn’t be tightly secured. The windows were either painted shut or wouldn’t close. Hale had said as much to her in passing once.
She was early. She’d planned it that way. She needed to catch him unaware to have any hope of coming out of this alive and well. Nervously she walked around the porch, which ran along every side of the house. In the dark, the old, decrepit building seemed sinister and almost anticipatory, like it was waiting for her. She shivered and shook that off. Ridiculous. Turning a corner to the beach side, she was hit with a slap of wet wind. She tucked in her chin and groped with her fingers for the window, tugging to open it. No luck. It took her until the third window and a growing desperation before she could get her fingers into the gap beneath it. With all her strength, she shoved it upward. It gave with a wrenching cry, and cradling her purse, she could finally shoulder her way in.
When she climbed through to the living room, she was accompanied by another gust of water-soaked wind, the water dragged off the ocean, as the rain had stopped. There was a puddle inside—the gap in the window had allowed its entry—and she felt dread settle into her heart. What she had planned was unnerving, and yet she intended to go through with it.
She stepped gingerly, still in the peep-toed shoes and outfit she’d worn to Hale’s office, hoping against hope to entice him with how desirable and luscious she looked. Her mind shied away from the humiliation of that failure.
Switching on her flashlight, she shone its beam upon the wooden rafters and the balusters of the narrow balcony above. She had been through this house with Hale and hadn’t liked its cottage style, though its ocean frontage was fabulous. But the house she and Hale had built was even more fabulous, and the ocean was right there, too. Maybe not at ground level, like this, but accessible via a stairway that hugged and curved down the headland.
Inside she was cold.
A quiver had set up residence in her gut. She had told him she would meet him at seven, and then had burned up the road to be here by six thirty. It was her turn to lie in wait. She’d played enough sexual games with him to know his MO, and though she had been a slave to his game—and had admittedly been sick with desire—she’d learned a thing or two along the way. Oh, yes, he had power and a way of setting her senses on fire, but after what had happened, she’d slowly been released from his grip. At first she’d thought it was his doing, that he’d let her go. But she’d come to realize over time that no, this was her own pleasure-drugged conscience slowly awakening, and though she’d panicked with Hale today, begging him to give her the same burning sexual thrill that the devil stirred in her, that same panic had given her a cold-eyed view of what she must do: confront him and kill what was between them forever, no matter what that took.
In fact, if she . . .
Something caught her attention. A noise? A smell? Something was definitely out of place.
Don’t be silly, she scolded herself, but her nerves tightened in spite of herself.
She took another step.
“Hey, lover.”
His voice shot a thrill of fear through her. She glanced up again, to the balcony. He was already here!
“I’m not here to play games,” she said, but her damn voice quaked as if she were terrified.
Then she felt it come at her, like a snake, like a rope, his overwhelming sexual power. Closing her eyes and gritting her teeth, she fought it back. She seized on the idea that if she were a block of ice, he couldn’t penetrate her, and it seemed to work, for she was not swamped by a desire so strong that it left her slack and panting and jelly-limbed. After a few moments, she dared to open an eye and glance upward.
He was holding a short, thick beam, his arms straining from the weight though he was strong. She registered this the same moment the beam hurtled toward her.
She opened her mouth to scream, turning.
Crash!
Pain blasted through her head as the beam smashed into her. Jarred and broken, she crumpled into a loose heap. She couldn’t move . . . couldn’t draw a breath. For a moment she lay awake, her eyes staring upward. Vaguely, she heard running footsteps, and then he was beside her, his face swimming like a mirage, until she focused and saw the intent look in his eyes. Her last thought was, He’s watching me die. . . .
And then she was gone.
CHAPTER 11
Savannah got out of bed while it was still dark, took a shower, then dried herself off, standing in profile at the mirror to get a good, hard look at her body. Yep. Pregnant. Really, really pregnant.
She towel dried her hair, then let it land lank against the bare skin of her shoulders as she searched for what to wear. As her shape had grown larger, her wardrobe had shrunk down to a tan shirt, a blue one, and a black one, and two pairs of black slacks. Today she went with the blue blouse and a gray pullover sweater, which she would team with the black pants and the black raincoat that hung, waiting, in the closet by the front door.
She’d never been much for high heels, either, which was a bonus in the career field she’d chosen, but occasionally, right now being one of those occasions, she longed to dress up and look attractive. A short skirt, a body-hugging top, a pair of three-inch heels . . . yeah, that would be great. Except she would look ludicrous given her third-trimester shape. Maybe after Baby St. Cloud arrived, and she went through a fitness program to lose the extra pounds . . . maybe then she would treat herself to a shopping spree in Portland. Go to one of those fancy boutiques downtown or up on Twenty-third. And if she was back at fighting weight, maybe hit Papa Haydn or Voodoo Doughnut for dessert.
She was smiling as she blow-dried her hair and snapped it into a ponytail. She added a bit of blush, then called it good. She spent the next fifteen minutes packing an overnight bag and eating some peanut butter toast. Then she looped the strap of her messenger bag over her neck and shoulder, slipped on a pair of black flats, grabbed her raincoat and her overnight bag, and headed out the door. She was in the garage, climbing into the Escape, when she hesitated, feeling the chill in the air. Cold front. Hmmm.
Back inside the house, she rummaged through her closet for a heavier coat. Finding a dark blue ski jacket, she eyed it skeptically. Sliding her arms through the sleeves, she realized it was not going to make it around her middle. She needed something bulkier, but she didn’t own such a thing.
I can buy a coat in Portland.
Tossing the ski jacket over her arm, she headed back outside, relocked the door, then climbed into the SUV, threw the jacket into the back footwell, and placed her messenger bag next to her on the passenger seat. She didn’t damn well care what the weather was going to do at this point. If bad weather hit, she would stay overnight in Portland. No harm, no foul.
She gave one more thought to the Braxton Hicks contractions, but they hadn’t started again since they’d quit the afternoon before. From everything she’d heard, first labors took a long, long time, so any way around it, she would make it back to the coast in time to have this baby. And, if by some outside chance that didn’t happen, well, Portland had some of the best hospitals in the state, most of them, actually. Sure, Kristina and Hale wouldn’t be there, but in some ways, that was okay with her. She wasn’t sure she even wanted either of them around while she was going through labor. She didn’t know if she could stand the ultra-solicitousness. A few nurses, a doctor . . . perfect.
But if all went as planned, she’d be turning and burning and back in Tillamook before it got dark, anyway.
She glanced at the clock on her dash. Six a.m.
She’d be in Portland by eight.
Dawn was still a long way off, but Catherine was seated at the table in the kitchen, staring out the back windows that looked upon the garden—more bare ground than plants this month—and, beyond it, the graveyard. She hadn’t found the leather box with Mary’s journal, and the only thing a trip to her sister’s bedroom had accomplished was to leave Catherine in a state of melancholia that threatened to zap her of all her energy.
She was sitting in the dark. She didn’t need a light, as she kept her gaze trained out the window and watched as the blackness seemed to be slowly lifting, the depth of hue leaching to gray as morning arrived. Seagulls were cawing loudly, and she envisioned a wildly flapping flock fluttering above the sand and slapping lightly through the receding waves, searching for a meal.
She used to love the beach. As young girls, she and Mary would race across the flattened sand and into water cold enough to numb your feet in minutes. At that time there was no worrying about “gifts,” even though there were signs of what was to come, because, although their special prowesses came into bloom when they were passing through puberty, there were tendrils that took root even early on: Catherine’s faint moments of precognition, when she would see something she didn’t understand, like sudden pouring rain behind her eyelids, which would disappear instantly when she lifted them and stared into a cloudless sky; or Mary’s laser vision as she watched boys flying kites and using skimboards.
But she and Mary had ignored the signs. Hadn’t really understood what they were. Until that time Catherine had watched two lovers kissing, the man’s hand slowly sliding down his partner’s back and over the rounded curve of her bottom, and Mary had said in a knowing tone, “I’m going to take him from her.”
Catherine hadn’t known what to make of that. Mary was eight years old. But sure enough, she stood there in the sand and stared and stared and stared, and the man stopped touching his friend, as if he’d been burned, and he looked around, searching for something, his gaze dropping briefly on Mary but then moving on when he saw she was just a little girl.
Well. That had been just the start. Catherine had seen things that both awed and horrified her in the years since. And when she thought back to her own ill-fated affair, the way Mary had handled it, the memory left a burning cinder inside her chest that even now flamed hot with i
njustice. If she . . .
Movement outside the window.
Catherine froze, stayed perfectly still, her eyes straining. Someone was creeping along, trying to duck beneath the windows, heading toward the back door. Her pulse jumped, but she waited until she was certain they were past the point of seeing her, then silently got to her feet. She grabbed a small cast-iron pan that always sat on the back burner—a weapon wielded more than once before—and moved to the nearest light switch and waited. If they came in through the storeroom and alcove . . .
She heard them moving cautiously, carefully, and her heart rate increased. Had someone gotten over the fence? She knew there were places where the foliage grew close to it, and with the right amount of brush and rocks and boards, it would be possible to climb over the fence. Hadn’t Ravinia done just that the night Justice tried to scale the fence? And many times since, she was sure, though the girl wouldn’t admit to it.
A woman’s form suddenly filled the room.
Catherine switched on the light.
“Ravinia,” she said into the sudden glare as Ravinia took a large step backward, her breath sweeping in on a gasp.
“What are you doing here?” Ravinia demanded.
“Thinking,” Catherine answered shortly. “Something you spend too little time doing.”
Underneath Ravinia’s cloak Catherine saw the legs of a pair of dark brown pants. At the lodge she wore dresses, but on her evening forays it was the pants that Ophelia had made for her at Ravinia’s behest.
“I’m over eighteen,” Ravinia answered hotly. “I can leave anytime I want.”
“It hasn’t been that long since you fought with Justice.” Ravinia had been trying to escape at the time, but she’d been wounded by Justice’s knife, and it had cooled her ardor for a time.
Automatically Ravinia reached up and touched the shoulder where the knife had penetrated. The blade had hit her collarbone, which saved her from a deeper cut. “Justice is dead.”
