by Nora Roberts
More had come than she’d expected, and stood in a small dark circle in the gloom. She and her uncle flanked her grandmother, with the sturdy Cecil just behind them. And Cade stood beside her.
Boots, bless her easy heart, wept quietly between her husband and son.
Heads were bowed as prayers were read, but Faith’s lifted, and her eyes met Tory’s. And there was comfort, so unexpected, from someone who understood.
Dwight had come, as mayor, Tory supposed. And as Wade’s friend. He stood a little apart, looking solemn and respectful. She imagined he’d be glad to be done with this duty and get back to Lissy.
There was Lilah, steady as a rock, eyes dry as she silently mouthed the prayers with the minister.
And oddly, Cade’s aunt Rosie, in full black, complete with hat and veil. It had caught everyone off guard when she’d arrived, with a trunk, the night before.
Margaret was staying temporarily at her place, she’d announced. Which meant Rosie had immediately packed to stay temporarily elsewhere.
She’d offered Tory her mother’s wedding dress, gone yellow as butter with age and smelling strongly of mothballs. Then had put it on herself and worn it the rest of the evening.
When the casket was lowered into the fresh grave, and the minister closed his book, J.R. stepped forward. “She had a harder life than she needed to.” He cleared his throat. “And a harder death than she deserved. She’s at peace now. When she was a little girl, she liked yellow daisies best.” He kissed the one he held in his hand, then dropped it into the grave.
And turned away, to his wife.
“He’d have done more for her,” Iris said, “if she’d let him. I’m going to visit Jimmy awhile,” she told Tory. “Then we’ll be going home.” She took Tory’s shoulders, kissed her cheeks. “I’m happy for you, Tory. And proud. Kincade, you take care of my little girl.”
“Yes, ma’am. I hope you’ll come and stay with us, both of you, when you come back to Progress.”
Cecil bent down to touch his lips to Tory’s cheek. “I’ll look after her,” he whispered. “Don’t you worry.”
“I won’t.” She turned, knowing she was expected to receive condolences. Rosie was right there, her eyes bird-bright behind her veil. “It was a proper service. Dignified and brief. It reflects well on you.”
“Thank you, Miss Rosie.”
“We can’t choose our blood, but we can choose what to do with it, what to do about it.” She tipped up her face, looked at her nephew. “You’ve chosen well. Margaret will come around, or she won’t, but that’s not for you to worry about. I’m going to talk to Iris, find out who that big, strapping man is she’s got with her.”
She plowed through the wet in a two-thousand-dollar Chanel suit, and Birkenstocks.
Struggling against twin urges to laugh and weep, Tory laid a hand on Cade’s arm. “Go take her your umbrella. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll be right back.”
“Tory, I’m very sorry.” Dwight held out a hand, and clasping hers, kissed her cheek even as he shifted his umbrella to shield her from the rain. “Lissy wanted to come, but I made her stay home.”
“I’m glad you did. It wouldn’t be good for her to be out in this weather today. It was kind of you to come, Dwight.”
“We’ve known each other a long time. And Wade, he’s one of my two closest friends. Tory, is there anything I can do for you?”
“No, but thank you. I’m going to walk over and visit Hope’s grave before I leave. You should go on back to Lissy.”
“I will. Take this.” He brought her hand up to the handle of the umbrella.
“No, I’ll be fine.”
“Take it,” he insisted. “And don’t stay out in the wet too long.”
He left her to walk back to Wade.
Grateful for the shelter, Tory turned away from her mother’s grave to walk through the grass, through the stones, to Hope’s.
Rain ran down the angel’s face like tears and beat at the fairy roses. Inside the globe, the winged horse flew.
“It’s all over now. It doesn’t feel settled yet,” Tory said with a sigh. “I have this heaviness inside me. Well, it’s so much to take in at once. I wish I could … there are too many things to wish for.”
“I never bring flowers here,” Faith said from behind her. “I don’t know why.”
“She has the roses.”
“That’s not it. They’re not my roses, not mine to bring her.”
Tory looked behind her, then shifted so they were standing together. “I can’t feel her here. Maybe you can’t, either.”
“I don’t want to go in the ground when my time comes. I want my ashes spread somewhere. The sea, I think, as that’s where I plan to have Wade ask me to marry him. By the sea. She might have felt the same, only hers would have been for the river, or near it in the marsh. That was her place.”
“Yes, it was. It is.” It seemed important, and natural, to reach out a hand and clasp Faith’s. “There are flowers at Beaux Reves, that was her place, too. I could cut some when the storm passes, take them to the marsh. To the river. Put them there for Hope. Maybe it would be the right way, laying flowers on the water instead of letting them die on the ground. Would you do that with me?”
“I hated sharing her with you.” Faith paused, closed her eyes. “Now I don’t. It’ll be clear this afternoon. I’ll tell Wade.” She started to walk away, stopped. “Tory, if you get there first—”
“I’ll wait for you.”
Tory watched her go, looked back over the gentle slope, the curtaining rain, the gathering ground fog. There was her grandmother with Cecil strong at her back, Rosie in her veil and Lilah holding an umbrella over her.
J.R. and Boots still by the grave of the sister he had loved more than he might have realized.
And there was Cade, with his friends, waiting.
As she walked to him, the rain began to thin and the first hint of sun shimmered watery light through the gloom.
“You understand why I want to do this?”
“I understand you want to.”
Tory smiled a little as she shook rain from the spears of lavender she’d cut. “And you’re annoyed, just a little, that I’m not asking you to come with me.”
“A little. It’s counterbalanced by the fact that you and Faith are becoming friends. And all of that is overpowered by the sheer terror of knowing I’m going to be at Aunt Rosie’s mercy until you return. She has a gift for me, and I’ve seen it. It’s a moldy top hat, which she expects I will wear for our wedding.”
“It’ll go well with the moth-eaten dress she’s giving me. I tell you what. You wear the hat, I’ll wear the dress, and we’ll have Lilah take our picture. We’ll put it in a nice frame for Miss Rosie, then we’ll pack them away someplace dark and safe before the wedding.”
“That’s brilliant. I’m marrying a very wise woman. But we’ll have to take the picture tonight. We’re getting married tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? But—”
“Here,” he said, as he turned her into his arm. “Quietly, in the garden. I’ve taken care of most of the details, and will get to the rest this afternoon.”
“But my grandmother—”
“I spoke with her. She and Cecil will be staying another night. They’ll be here.”
“I haven’t had time to buy a dress or—”
“Your grandmother mentioned that, and hoped you’d be receptive to wearing the one she wore when she married your grandfather. She’s running up to Florence to get it this afternoon. She said it would mean a lot to her.”
“Thought of everything, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Do you have a problem with that?”
“We’re going to have lots of problems with that over the next fifty or sixty years, but just now? No.”
“Good. Lilah’s baking a cake. J.R.’s bringing a case of champagne. The idea brightened him considerably.”
“Thank you.”
“Since you’re gra
teful, I’ll just add, Aunt Rosie plans to sing.”
“Don’t tell me.” She drew back. “Let’s not spoil the moment. Well, since everyone has approved the schedule and the details, who am I to object? Have you arranged for the honeymoon, too?” She saw him wince and rolled her eyes. “Cade, really.”
“You’re not going to argue about a trip to Paris, are you? Of course not.” He gave her a quick kiss before she could. “You might want to close the shop for a few days, but Boots really liked the idea of running it for you, and Faith had some ideas.”
“Oh God.”
“But that’s up to you.”
“Thank you very much.” She pushed a hand through her hair. “My head’s spinning. We’ll discuss all this when I get back.”
“Sure. I’m flexible.”
“The hell you are,” she muttered. “You just pretend to be.” She shifted the basket of flowers, handed him the shears. “Don’t start naming the children while I’m gone.”
Exasperating man, she thought, as she slid into her car and set the basket of flowers on the seat. Planning their wedding behind her back. Planning exactly the sort of wedding she wanted, too.
How irritating, and how lovely, to be known that well.
So why wasn’t she relaxed? As she turned onto the road, she shifted her shoulders. She just couldn’t quite break through the tension. Understandable, she reminded herself. She’d been through a hideous ordeal. She couldn’t imagine getting married within twenty-four hours with so much still tied up inside her.
But she wanted to begin. She wanted to close this door and open the next. She glanced at the flowers beside her. Maybe she was about to.
She pulled off onto the side of the road, where Hope had once parked her bike. And climbing out, she crossed the little bridge where tiger lilies burst into storybook bloom, then took the path she knew her friend had taken that night.
Hope Lavelle, girl spy.
The rain had turned to steam, and the steam rose out of the ground in curling fingers that broke apart, then twined together again around her ankles. The air was thick with wet, with green, with rot. Mysteries waiting to be solved.
As she approached the clearing, she wished she’d thought to bring some wood. Everything would be too damp to start a fire, and perhaps it was foolish to want to in all the heat. But she wished she’d thought of it, and could have laid one, the way Hope had.
Just thinking of it, remembering it, she caught a drift of smoke.
There was the fire, small and carefully built to burn low, a little circle of flame with long, sharpened sticks beside it waiting for marshmallows.
She blinked once, to clear the vision. But the fire simmered, and the smoke puffed sluggishly in the mist. Dazed, Tory stepped into the clearing, the basket tipping to spill out flowers at her feet.
“Hope?” She pressed a hand to her heart, almost to make sure it continued to beat. But the marble child who’d been her friend stood in her pool of flowers and said nothing.
With a trembling hand, she picked up one of the sticks and saw that the cuts to sharpen it were fresh.
Not a dream, not a flashback. But here and now. Real.
Not Hope. Never again Hope.
The pressure rose up in her, a hot gush of fear, and of knowledge.
In the brush came a rustling, wet and sly.
She whirled toward it. Password. She thought it, heard it sound in her head. But she wasn’t Hope. She wasn’t eight. And dear God, it wasn’t over after all.
Cade was in the garden deciding where they should set up tables for the wedding reception when Chief Russ pulled in.
“Glad you’re here. I just got news I thought you should know.”
“Come on inside where it’s cool.”
“No, I gotta get back, but I wanted to tell you in person. We got ballistic reports on Sarabeth Bodeen. The gun she was killed with wasn’t the same one Bodeen had with him. Not even the same caliber.”
Cade felt one quick knock of dread. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“Turns out the one Bodeen had when he broke in on Tory and your sister was stolen from a house about fifteen miles south of here, on the morning Tory’s mother was killed. House was broken into between nine and ten A.M. that same day.”
“How can that be?”
“Only way it could be is if Bodeen spouted wings and flew down here from Darlington County or if somebody else put those bullets in Miz Bodeen.”
Carl D. cupped a hand over his chin, rubbed it hard. His eyes burned with fatigue. “I’ve been in touch with those federals, and I’m piecing it together. The phone records show Miz Bodeen got a call just after two that morning, from the pay phone outside the Winn-Dixie north of town here. Now, we were figuring that would’ve been Bodeen calling her from here, telling her he was coming for her. That’s fine as far as it goes. But it don’t fit when you add the rest.”
“It had to be Bodeen calling her. Why else would she have packed up?”
“I can’t say. But you’ve got him calling from here at ‘round about two in the morning, getting up there, doing the shooting between five and five-thirty, then heading back here and moving south another fifteen miles, breaking into a house and stealing a gun, a bottle, and some leftover supper. Now, why would the man be zigzagging back and forth thataway?”
“He was crazy.”
“I won’t argue with that, but being crazy doesn’t make him able to all but break land and speed records in one morning. ‘Specially since it doesn’t look like he had any kind of vehicle. Now, I’m not saying it couldn’t be done. I’m saying it don’t make sense.”
“What kind of sense does it make otherwise? Who else would have killed Tory’s mother?”
“I can’t answer that. I gotta work with facts here. He had the wrong gun, we got nothing to show the man had a car. Now, could be we’ll find one yet, and the gun that he used on his wife. That could be.”
He took his handkerchief out of his pocket, wiped the back of his neck. “But it appears to me, if Bodeen didn’t do those murders up in Darlington County, maybe he didn’t kill anyone. That means whoever did is still walking free. I was hoping to have a talk with Tory.”
“She’s not here. She’s—” White hot fear burned through his belly. “She’s gone to Hope.”
Tory opened herself, tried to feel him, gauge him. But all she saw was dark. Cold, blank dark. The rustling moved in a circle, a taunting. She turned with it, even as the saliva dried up in her mouth, she turned to face it head-on.
“Which of us did you want that night? Or did it matter?”
“It was never you. Why would I want you? She was beautiful.”
“She was a child.”
“True.” Dwight stepped out in the clearing. “But so was I.”
It broke her heart. One quick snap. “You were Cade’s friend.”
“Sure. Cade and Wade, like twins themselves. Rich and privileged and handsome. And I was their chubby little token. Dwight the Dweeb. Well, I fooled them all, didn’t I?”
He’d have been twelve, she thought, staring at the easy smile on his face. No more than twelve years old. “Why?”
“Call it a rite of passage. They were always first. One or the other of them, always first in everything. I was going to be the first one to have a girl.”
Amusement—it couldn’t be anything but amusement—danced in his eyes. “Not that I could brag on it. Kinda like being Batman.”
“Oh God, Dwight.”
“Hard for you to see that, you being a female. We’ll call it a guy thing. I had a bad itch. Why shouldn’t it have been my good friend Cade’s precious sister I used to scratch it?”
He spoke so calmly, so casually, that the birds continued to sing, liquid notes that ran like tears.
“I didn’t know I was going to kill her. That just … happened. I’d snuck some of my daddy’s whiskey. Drink like a man, you know? My mind was a little fuzzy.”
“You were only twelve. How could you
want such a thing?”
He circled the clearing, not really coming closer, just stalking, a patient, anticipatory cat and mouse. “I used to watch the two of you, skinny-dipping, or sprawled out here on your bellies telling secrets. So’d your old man,” he said with a grin. “You might say I was inspired by him. He wanted you. Your old man wanted to fuck you, all right, but he didn’t have the guts. I was better than him, better than any of them. I proved it that night. I was a man that night.”
Town mayor, proud father, devoted husband, loyal friend. What kind of madness could hide so well? “You raped and murdered a child. That made you a man?”
“All my life I heard, ‘Be a man, Dwight.’” The amusement died out of his eyes so they turned cold and blank. “For Christ’s sake, be a man. Can’t be a man if you’re a virgin, can you? And no girl would look twice at me. I fixed that. That night changed my life. Look at me now.”
He spread his arms, stepped closer, watching her. “I got confidence, got myself in shape, and didn’t I end up with the prettiest girl in Progress? I got respect. A beautiful wife, a son. I got position. It all started that night.”
“All those other girls.”
“Why not? You can’t imagine what it’s like—or maybe you can. Yeah, maybe you can. You know how to feel it, don’t you? Their fear. While it’s happening I’m the most important person in the world to them. I am the world to them. There’s a hell of a kick to that.”
She thought of running. The idea whipped in and out of her mind. And she saw the gleam in his eyes, saw he was waiting for her to do just that. Deliberately she slowed her breathing, opened herself. There was the blankness again, like a pit, but around the edges was a kind of ugly hunger.
Recognizing it, anticipating it, was the only weapon she had. “You didn’t even know them. Dwight, they were strangers to you.”
“I just imagine they’re Hope, and it’s that first night all over again. They’re nothing but tramps and losers until I make them into her.”
“It wasn’t the same with Sherry.”
“I didn’t want to wait.” He shrugged. “Lissy isn’t much on sex these days. Can’t blame her. And that sexy little teacher, she wanted it. Wanted it from Wade though, stupid bitch. Well, she got it from me. She wasn’t quite right though. Not quite. Faith’s perfect.”
