The Night Before

by Lisa Jackson

  “Oh, yes, I have,” Griffin had insisted, nodding his head, his brown hair flopping in his eyes, his skin pale even though it was summer.

  “When?”

  “Tons of times. It’s . . . creepy.”

  Caitlyn had let the subject drop. Griffin, a neighbor boy whom Caitlyn and Kelly had been told to avoid, who was not allowed on the Montgomery property, had always sneaked over. He’d ridden his bike along an old deer trail through the woods and left it hidden in a thicket by the stream, until he had to go.

  Two years younger than Caitlyn and Kelly, Griffin was gullible enough to believe anything Kelly said. Secretly, Caitlyn thought he was fascinated by her sister and afraid to disagree with Kelly. The truth of the matter was that Griffin wasn’t any smarter than he was welcome at Oak Hill.

  Caitlyn tried not to mention his name around the house, for when she did, her mother would get that pinched expression on her face, as if she was worried or mad. As if Griffin had done something Mother disapproved of. Amanda, their older sister, had always rolled her eyes expressively whenever Caitlyn slipped and talked about him. Lucille, forever hovering near Berneda and usually polishing some piece of already gleaming furniture, had, behind Berneda’s back, pressed a thick finger to her lips, silently warning Caitlyn not to distress her sickly mother with talk of the boy. Caitlyn never understood why her mother disliked Griffin so, but assumed it was because of “bad blood,” which was always the reason Berneda Pomeroy Montgomery snubbed a person.

  But that had been years ago. Caitlyn didn’t know why she’d thought of him now. She hadn’t seen Griffin since they were kids; didn’t know what had happened to him. Today, she had to concentrate on the problem at hand. She sent a dark look toward the telephone, desperate to hear from her twin. She looked for her cell phone, missing since yesterday. Not in her purse. Not in the car. Not in the bedroom . . . not anywhere. Maybe she’d left it with Kelly . . . or at Kelly’s house....

  So why do you think Kelly will help you now? she asked herself as the walls seemed to close in on her. “Because she has to. She knows what happened!” she said so loudly that Oscar let out a bark. God, she was going out of her mind. Crazy. Just like Grandma Evelyn. In her mind’s eye she saw an image of the old woman, skin pasty white, eyes staring glassily as she lay on the pillow, hands cold to the touch.

  Caitlyn shivered, the image that had haunted her for nearly thirty years retreating into the shadows, but just barely. It was always there, ready to appear, mocking. Taunting. “You’ll understand someday,” the old woman had warned her.

  Suddenly Caitlyn had to get out, to break free, to get away from these bloodstained walls.

  “Come on, let’s go for a walk,” she said to the dog and took the stairs two at a time. Oscar bounded after her. Ignoring a stack of work on her desk in the den and the eerie sensation that assailed her when she stepped back into her bedroom, Caitlyn refused to notice the places on the walls where she’d scrubbed so hard she’d nearly rubbed the paint off. Nor would she think too hard about the absence of her sheer drapes which were still in the washer, or the discolored nap on the carpet where she’d washed the stained fibers with soap, water and every cleanser she’d found in her cupboard. To no avail. The spot was still visible.

  So what? It’s your blood, Caitlyn. Yours! No one else’s. Certainly not Josh’s. She had to believe that.

  Had to.

  The stains were just part of a huge optical illusion, that was all. It seemed like there was a lot more blood than had really been spilled.

  So why then was the water in the pail where you rinsed the rags bright, deep red?

  I just lost a lot of blood.

  Because you sliced your own wrists and don’t remember?

  It doesn’t matte. It only matters that the blood isn’t Josh’s.

  How do you know?

  I know—okay? So stop it! Just . . . stop! Her head was pounding, echoing with silent accusations and recriminations that gnawed at her guts, making her doubt anything she thought was real. “Hang on,” she told herself. She just had to get out. Walk as far as she could to clear her mind. Get away from here and sweat. That was all. Then she’d be all right. Then she could think straight again. Oh, God, please . . . Her hands shook violently as she twisted her hair up onto her head. Trying in vain to turn off the questions pounding through her brain, she stripped out of her clothes to don jogging bra, long-sleeved T-shirt, shorts and running shoes. Then, on impulse, she walked into her den, ignored the stacks of work and checked her e-mail. Maybe Kelly had sent her a message . . . She was surprised she hadn’t thought of it before. She clicked on her mailbox but saw nothing other than the usual offers of low-mortgage rates, discreet Viagra or a free peek at some porn site. Nothing from Kelly.

  “Damn.” She clicked off the computer and with Oscar at her heels, hurried downstairs, where she peeked out the front blinds and saw no trace of reporters on the street. Still, she’d be careful. She slapped a pair of sunglasses over her eyes and added a baseball cap to her disguise, as if she were some high-profile celebrity, for God’s sake, then clicked on Oscar’s leash. She pushed her way through the iron gate of the back courtyard and hit the street at a brisk pace.

  Later, she’d deal with her family.

  Later, she’d deal with the reporters.

  Later, she’d deal with the police.

  Later, she’d find out what the hell happened last night.

  Adam checked his watch and frowned. He’d intended to stay only an hour and nearly three had passed. He didn’t dare stay any longer. It wouldn’t be long before the police had figured out that Rebecca was Caitlyn Montgomery Bandeaux’s therapist. Which might be a good thing. Then they’d start looking for her, which, of course, would eventually lead them to him. He didn’t have much time.

  Carefully, he took the files he needed, stuffing them into a backpack he found in the closet. A backpack he recognized. One that had hung on a peg near the back door when he’d been in college. He’d thought she’d probably thrown it away, but there it hung, dusty, a few cobwebs clinging to it, empty except for an old parking receipt, a grocery list and a nearly empty tube of lipstick.

  An image of her gulping the last of her coffee as she eyed the kitchen clock in their crummy upstairs apartment sliced through his mind. “Oh, God, I’m late. Dr. Connally will kill me!” She’d brushed a coffee-flavored kiss against his cheek, grabbed the backpack from its peg and flown out the door. “Don’t forget to feed Rufus!” she’d called over her shoulder as the screen door slapped shut.

  Rufus was their new kitten—snow white and big trouble. Cradling his cup, Adam had walked barefoot to the screen door, stared through the torn mesh and watched as she’d lithely thrown a leg over the seat of his mountain bike and pedaled into traffic. With no helmet, her red hair streaming behind her, she’d headed uphill toward campus while the new kitten had attacked his bare ankles and feet.

  Now, in her abandoned office, his throat tightened as he remembered the girl she’d been nearly fifteen years ago. A lot of time had passed. Their lives had taken divergent paths. The carefree twenty-two-year-old had grown up and matured into a woman he’d loved and hated; adored and despised.

  It was funny how time had a way of tarnishing even the brightest futures.

  So where the hell was she?

  He glanced around the room one last time. Not that he wouldn’t be back. He’d found a key ring in the top desk drawer and had pocketed it.

  He didn’t figure Rebecca would mind.

  Seven

  The walk helped.

  Caitlyn’s head was clearer than it had been when she’d woken up, but her memory was still fragmented and dull, the night before coming at her in shards of frosty glass, images in murky color and slow motion. In the kitchen she noticed that there were sixteen new messages on her answering machine, and she refused to listen to any of them. Most likely they were all reporters. She checked the numbers on Caller ID. Some were anonymous, others unfamiliar; none
were from Kelly’s little cabin on the river.

  Upstairs, she threw on a sleeveless cotton dress that she covered with a lightweight but long-sleeved sweater, then walked across the hall to her den.

  Snagging her keys from her desk, she figured her hair would dry on the way to Oak Hill. But she stopped when she saw the digital readout of her office clock. It was correct. Hadn’t lost so much as a minute of time. Showed no sign of a power interruption.

  Unlike the clock radio in her bedroom.

  She looked at the other clocks in the house. All were keeping perfect time. There was no sign of any interruption of electricity to them.

  The hairs on the back of her neck rose.

  If there hadn’t been a power outage, then there had been some kind of power interrupt, as if the clock had been unplugged. But when she’d cleaned up earlier in the day, the plug had been firmly in the light socket. And it wasn’t that particular socket because the lamp, attached to the same source, had been just fine.

  Someone unplugged the clock either on purpose or by accident and then, in his hurry to leave, forgot to reset it.

  Who? Why? And for God’s sake, what did it have to do with the blood that had been spattered all over her bedroom?

  A fleeting image burned behind her eyes.

  The bar. Loud music. People laughing, talking, packed in so close you couldn’t move. Caitlyn sat in a booth, two drinks in front of her, waiting, looking at her watch, noticing the bartender staring at her through the crowd, sipping one drink . . . then another . . . come on, Kelly. Come on. Where the hell are you?

  The image shrank away as quickly as it had appeared, and Caitlyn was left knowing no more of what happened than before. But she couldn’t dwell on it now. Her family was expecting her.

  She double-checked that the doors were locked, then was out the door and on the road, driving east out of the city, glancing in her rearview mirror to make sure no one from the press or police was following her.

  “You’re paranoid,” she muttered, catching her reflection in the rearview mirror as she stopped at a traffic light. The other vehicles seemed innocuous, no dark van or SUV with tinted windows hovering a few cars behind. She made a few extra jogs though the shady, narrow streets just to be sure, then berated herself for her apprehension. As she turned onto the main highway and cruised out of the city limits, she stepped on it, needing to get out of the city, away from the police, away from the press, away from the blackness that surrounded last night.

  She pushed the speed limit, her thoughts spinning as rapidly as the wheels of her Lexus. So why hadn’t Kelly called? she wondered, flipping down the visor.

  Maybe she did. While you were out walking Oscar. Or while you were in the shower. You were the one who turned off the ringer on the phone. There’s a chance that Kelly was one of the sixteen calls, you know.

  Gnawing on her lower lip, Caitlyn realized her mistake. She should have checked the messages and tried once more to catch her sister before she faced their mother. Now, she’d have to wait several hours and she didn’t dare mention Kelly’s name at Oak Hill.

  Caitlyn’s fingers tightened over the steering wheel and her palms began to sweat as the suburbs gave way to fields and marshes. She shoved in a Springsteen CD and tried to get lost in the music of the E Street Band, but it proved impossible. She couldn’t forget that Josh had been killed, that the police seemed to think she was somehow involved, and even she herself couldn’t explain her whereabouts or actions at the time of his death.

  And all that blood in your room . . . how did it get there? Drained from your body? Come on. If you’d lost that much, you would be in a hospital right now, probably on the receiving end of a trasfusion.

  She swallowed hard, nearly missed a corner, the car’s wheels sliding in loose gravel strewn upon the road’s shoulder. Heart racing, she eased off the gas.

  So whose blood was it? Josh’s? But he was blocks away in his own house.

  Maybe you moved the body.

  Maybe you moved it in this car.

  Her stomach clenched.

  Sweat dotted her forehead and she slid a glance into the back seat. No dark stains. Nor on the passenger side. Of course she hadn’t killed Josh and taken him home. What was she thinking? This was crazy. Nuts.

  Just like Grandma Evelyn.

  She began to tremble. First her abdomen, then her calves. Don’t do this . . . don’t think this way. She concentrated on the road. The ribbon of asphalt with its middle broken stripe, up and down, over small rises and into shallow gullies. Her breathing was coming in short gasps. Horrid images sped through her mind. A quick vision of Josh at his desk, of the blood. On the corner of the desk was a copy of the damned lawsuit claiming she’d been negligent in their child’s death.

  Negligent! As if Jamie hadn’t been everything to her; the very reason for her life. “Bastard!” she spat, tears beginning to well as she thought of the hours she’d spent at her daughter’s bedside, the mad rush she’d made to the hospital, the mind-numbing terror as the doctors and nurses in the ER tried and failed to get her precious baby to respond and then . . . then . . . the horrible words, wrapped in sympathetic looks, kind gestures, a gentle touch on her arm when she was told that Jamie had “passed on.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bandeaux,” Dr. Vogette had said softly to her in the hospital’s waiting room with its soothing blue and green couches, potted palms and piped-in music. His expression had been sober, his eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, concerned. “Sometimes this happens with a virus. We did everything possible . . .”

  “No,” she said vehemently, nearly veering off the road. “No, you didn’t, you bastard. None of you did all you could!”

  An oncoming truck blasted its horn, the driver holding a hand outward with fingers extended as if to remind her that she was an idiot as all eighteen wheels sped by carrying a load of gasoline. “Yeah, yeah, I know,” she muttered under her breath, trying to regain control not only of the Lexus but of her composure as well. Checking the rearview mirror, she saw the semi disappear around a corner.

  You’re cracking up Catie-Did. You are absolutely cracking up. She could almost hear Kelly’s voice, heavy with recriminations.

  “Pull yourself together.” She slowed for the bridge, then caught a glimpse of the plantation just on the other side of the river.

  Oak Hill.

  Symbol of all the Montgomery wealth.

  A reminder of days and grandeur long past.

  A hint of Old Georgia and genteel Southern ways.

  And a facade. A damned sham. Behind the solid oak doors, beveled glass windows and thick white siding lurked secrets and lies and tragedy. So much pain.

  Don’t dwell on that now. You can’t. Just do what you have to do.

  Determined not to fall apart, she gritted her teeth and wheeled into the long straight lane guarded by ancient oak trees. There were thirty-nine trees, one having blown over in a storm and never replaced. She and Griffin had counted them time and time again. “I’ll meet you at number seventeen,” he’d whispered to her often enough. Seventeen had been his favorite.

  She slowed as she approached the main house. Three full stories above the ground, the first two complete with verandahs and railings, the third peeking out of dormers in the sloped roof. Once grand, it now stood in a state of disrepair. White paint had grayed and was beginning to chip and blister.

  Tall black shutters, once gleaming, now baked to a dull sheen beneath the unforgiving Georgia sun, surrounded paned windows of old, watery glass. And the shrubbery was no longer manicured, but overgrown and rambling despite the work of a year-round gardener. Where once there had been parties and laughter and gaiety, there now was silence and shadow, ghosts and wraiths, tragedy and lies.

  Only Berneda, Caitlyn’s mother, and her sister Hannah continued to live here. There were a handful of servants, of course, and fortunately Lucille Vasquez had remained. Caitlyn understood why her mother stayed on—this was the only home she’d known in over
forty years—but she couldn’t fathom why her youngest sister elected to stay in this tomb of a plantation. At twenty-six, Hannah should have been out with people her age, living on her own, not holed up in this huge, decaying reminder of the Old South. But then, Hannah had always been a little off, out of step, and even out of touch.

  Like you?

  Caitlyn ignored the nagging voice in her mind and followed the driveway to the side of the house. Her heart sank. Troy’s black Range Rover was already parked in the lengthening shadows behind her mother’s Cadillac. So he’d beaten her to the punch. Great. Troy had probably hightailed it here the minute his important appointment had ended. So much for breaking the news herself.

  She climbed out of her Lexus.

  Hushed conversation and a hint of cigarette smoke drifted on the breeze.

  “ . . always trouble . . . since the accident . . . hasn’t been herself . . .”Her mother’s soft, dulcet tones floated over a honeysuckle-scented breeze and Caitlyn tensed. So she was the topic of conversation. Again. Today, she supposed, it made sense. Other times she wasn’t so sure.

  “She needs help,” Troy said over the sound of clinking ice cubes. “Serious help.”

  “I thought she was seeing someone . . . after Jamie passed on . . . Oh, Lord, trouble just never stops, does it . . . the twins were always . . .”

  Caitlyn’s spine stiffened, and her mother’s voice was more muted, as if she’d turned her head away.

  “. . . I just never knew what to do . . . so fragile, not strong like the rest of you . . . sometimes it’s difficult to be a mother.”

  Give me that strength. Caitlyn was tired of everyone handling her with kid gloves. Yes, she’d been frail and had fallen apart after the accident and then again when her baby had died, but who wouldn’thave? She ducked through a clematis-draped arbor and hurried up two brick steps to the back porch.

  Conversation dwindled. Her mother turned to look over her shoulder as she sat, back to the stairs at a glass-topped table. Sipping iced tea, she fanned herself with the fingers of her free hand. She was dressed as if for a social tea—a long gauzy skirt and print top, polished pumps on her feet, a string of pearls around her throat.