First loves.
He thought of himself, and Meg. His thoughts turned to Geoff, and he felt a sharp stab of guilt for not mentioning his brother’s secret relationship from the past. This was the first occasion where the need to bring it up had fully presented itself. From here, it edged closer toward a lie by omission, and not a lie from the past. But one hanging silent between them right now.
One more day … it will destroy a man’s marriage. It … it’ll kill him. Trust me. I … I need one more day to talk to him, allow him to prepare …
His skin grew hot. Blake rubbed the stubble on his jaw. “Sally dotes on her sister,” he said quietly. “Everything she does is for Lori-Beth. The scuttlebutt in town is that Sally never got over the fact she put Lori-Beth in that chair, and she’s devoted her life to atone. Her way of surviving the guilt.”
“You’re suggesting she vandalized my house for Lori-Beth?”
“Makes no sense, I know. But if you’re looking at what drives people, Lori-Beth drives Sally.”
A slow smile curved over her mouth. “You sound like Jonah.”
Cold instantly washed over his skin. He got up, went to fetch a bottle of whiskey and two gasses from the cabinet. He set the glasses on the table, poured a finger into each, and handed one to her. Their fingers brushed. Her diamonds winked. Something inscrutable entered her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He shrugged, reseating himself. He cupped his glass in his hands, warming and slowly swirling his drink as he stared at the fire. “It’s not like I don’t know that you’re going back,” he said quietly.
She didn’t reply. He glanced up. And hope kicked gently at his heart again. He quickly changed the topic. “And there’s the fact Sally works at Braden Cattle, where Mason and Keevan Mack work, and live. Where she likely got the blood.”
“Blood is extreme,” Meg said. “The use of blood makes me question her mental stability, if it is proved it was her. And shooting all the windows—there’s real aggression there. Passion. Rage. Over something.” She pushed hair back off her face, and the firelight caught the scar on her brow. He thought back to when she’d gotten the injury—the black gash against alabaster skin when he’d found her near dead in the waves. Geoff’s sack. His brother’s face at the dining table tonight when Meg had her flashback. That dark, unarticulated thing prowling at the fringes of his mind edged a little closer. He took a quick swig of his drink.
“I also went to see Tommy today.”
His gaze shot to Meg. “What?”
“He had a cancelled appointment. Could squeeze me in.”
He stared. “Meg, we had a deal. We do this together. That’s why you’re here, in my house.”
Her gaze flickered. A spark of anger? Irritation? He slugged back his drink, poured another. He held the bottle up to her. She shook her head.
He plunked it down hard. “What did he say?”
“Blake, I wasn’t in danger. And he would have been far less candid if you were hunkering there watching him.”
“Hunkering. Is that what you think I’ve been doing?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” She got up, and went to the window. Folding her arms tightly over her stomach, she stared beyond the black, beyond her own reflection. In the distance, the beam from the Shelter Head lighthouse washed the sky. Her red hair hung in a mad, curly tangle down her slender back, and all Blake wanted to do was sink his hands into that hair, fist it, pull her toward him, crush her sweet mouth under his, push her naked body down into his bed … He took a deep pull on his second scotch and cursed himself.
“What did Tommy say, Meg?”
She remained silent.
“Meg?”
She inhaled deeply, turned, and Blake’s chest torqued. Her face was sad. Her eyes confused. She was fingering her ring.
“He told me that Emma was a passive-aggressive. A pathological liar. That she’d lied to the police in saying Sherry had gone to the spit to make out with Tyson Mack. Tommy claims Sherry was going to buy drugs with Ty, that Ty had contacts. That both Sherry and Emma were into Ecstasy.”
Blake slowly lowered his glass.
“Tommy said Emma also lied to him in order to turn him against his own girlfriend. He claims Emma was trying to steal him from Sherry.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Thing is, I saw Sherry get on that bike with Ty. I spoke with them. And whatever cues I was picking up from those two, I was one hundred percent convinced there was a sexual attraction between them, and that they were going to do ‘it’ at the grove on the spit.” She paused, holding his eyes. “One of them—Tommy or Emma—is lying.”
Blake unlocked the old shed near the water. Clouds slid fast and silent across the sky, giving glimpses of a pregnant moon. Everywhere, water dripped, trickled, plopped. The sound of the nearby creek was loud.
Unable to sleep, Blake had come down here. Geoff had not returned after taking Irene home. It was now almost 3:00 a.m., and he’d not answered his cell. Blake told himself Irene must have gotten home safely, or the people from Chestnut Place would have called—they had Meg’s contact details, and the marina number. Geoff must have taken off somewhere afterward.
Fuck you, Geoff, why don’t you come the hell home so I can have this out with you …
Dark thoughts snaked through his mind as he edged open the old, waterlogged door, holding his kerosene lantern high. Cobwebs shimmered, and shadows jumped and ducked. He stepped inside, the floorboards creaking under his weight. The interior was dank. He could smell mold.
Maybe Meg was transposing. Maybe his brother being on the spit, and his sack being found on the same beach, was a coincidence. Stranger things happened. Maybe Geoff’s calling her Meggie had simply triggered an old flashback that meant nothing sinister around the dining table. Because no matter Geoff’s movements on the spit that day, Blake could not believe that his brother had anything to do with killing Sherry.
He set the lantern on a wooden table, and opened an old mariner’s chest. He found what he was looking for. It was bagged in plastic, faded, but still in one piece—it had been mothballed and the chest was lined with cedar, which was a natural repellent to insects. Emotion tugged at him and memories swirled as he removed his dad’s old crab hat from the plastic. He gave a sad smile, thinking about Bull, about the stories Irene had regaled them with around the table. The big, annual crab boils, festive events that brought Shelter Bay locals together, fostered an old-fashioned sense of community. At night they’d all gather round the fire pit to tell war tales about the season just passed, each raconteur trying to outdo the other with stories of the most ridiculous tourist moments that year.
The months that ended in “er,” Bull always used to say. Those were the good crabbing months: September, October, November. And December. When the waters turned cold and the crab grew fattest.
Blake dusted off the fading red crab hat. The googly eyes wobbled. He positioned it on his head, and went over to the rust-pocked mirror. In the quavering lantern light, past shimmered into present, and for a strange moment he saw his dad looking back at him from behind the rust stains. Shock rippled through him. The likeness, DNA, it lies in wait. Time comes full circle, but not quite. He grinned ruefully at himself, and he almost saw his dad smile. Almost heard Bull’s gruff voice among the cobwebs of the shed, here among his mother’s dusty, boxed paintings. And he wondered, could he re-create that sense of life, that vitality around the marina that had made him so happy as a boy.
Could he take the good parts of the past, of his parents, and move with those into the future? Leaving the bad bits behind. Not wasted, though, for he’d perhaps learned from the bad parts what he did not want for his own son. He’d perhaps learned how to be a better father than his own had been. Bull had terrible faults, a dark streak. He’d broken under the grief of loss. But he’d not been without love.
The googly crab eyes wiggled and the crab feet jiggled as he moved his head. Blake almost laughed at his imag
e. His most fervent wish, suddenly, was that Geoff was telling him the truth. That he could trust him. And even if Meg did return to her life in Seattle, that he and Noah and Geoff could be a solid family. Geoff could bring Nate to visit. Noah could bring friends home. He’d build up this marina. And he resolved right there: Come November, when the Dungeness crabs were pink and fat and plentiful, Crabby Jack’s would once again host a Shelter Bay community crab boil. He’d haul out this stupid hat to make people laugh, and they’d all talk about Bull and the boils of the good old days. And the marina and Crabby Jack’s would once again rock with soul.
Blake started to close the mariner’s chest, but he stopped as a cardboard box of photos in envelopes caught his eye. He reached for the top envelope, opened it, and extracted one of the photos. It was of Geoff and his friends around an old VW van, taken maybe twenty-three years ago—guys posed ridiculously in front of the vehicle. Blake recognized several from school days. Geoff stood atop the roof of the van, like a king—legs astride, arms crossed, chin tilted as if in pride. Henry Thibodeau crouched in front of the wheel. The words of Lee Albies curled through his mind.
… he told my PI that he saw a red VW van parked behind trees near the trail that led to this infamous make-out spot where Sherry Brogan was strangled …
Blake frowned. Who was the owner of this van? He reached for another photograph but stilled as he heard a noise outside, a clutter of rocks. Then came the snap of a twig, and a soft crunch of gravel. He became conscious of the pistol holstered at his back. Slowly, he replaced the box of photos and moved to the door. He listened. But all he could hear was the drip and plop of water. The distant rush of the swollen creek.
He reached for his weapon, and holding it ready, he flung open the door, waited. No more noise. He stepped out. Listened again. The world was all shadow and shimmer and shining with water in the moonlight. The light in Meg’s dormer was off.
A scuffle sounded on the bank. He spun toward the sound, heart hammering. A shadow, bushes moved. He heard a rattle of stones. Someone scuttling up the path.
“Hey! Who’s there?” He ran toward the bank.
A car door slammed up on the coast road.
“Hey!” he yelled, scrambling up the twisting trail that snaked through the scrub up to the road. He popped out on the road, breathing hard, as tires squealed and brake lights flared momentarily at the end of the road.
Silence descended. Just the waving fronds of conifers. A shadow of a nighthawk across the moon. The moon silver on the bay.
Mouth dry, he slid his Glock back into his holster and peered down through the scrub toward the marina. From up here, through the branches, he could see yellow light glowing in Meg’s window now. She’d been roused.
As he took a step back toward the path, his foot kicked something soft. A black glove. He bent down to retrieve it and weighed it in his hand. Leather. Expensive. He scanned his surrounds again before making his way back down to lock the shed, moonlight showing his way.
Screaming rent the air. The kind of screams that gut the human in you. The kind that rise out of raw terror. A sound that bypasses the logic center of the brain and zings right into the nervous system. Meg raced toward the terrible sound, not away, even as her mind told her to flee. She scrambled wildly up the bank, hand over foot in avalanching white sand still hot from the sun’s radiation throughout the day. As she neared the dune ridge where scrub grew thick and the shore pines marched in hunched shapes across the sky, wind hit hard off the sea. Rain began to bomb down. It was turning to dusk, a strange purplish-orange quality in the sky—the kind that comes from distant forest fires and crackles with the electricity of simmering storms. The screams died. She stalled, the sudden silence even more terrifying.
Moving more cautiously now, her breathing ragged, she crested the ridge. And froze. In the strange waning light she saw … a thing of horror … Sherry, white and naked, splayed against black loam like a broken doll. All Meg could see was the bare, white body. Noise roared in her head. Her vision narrowed. Trees seemed to close in around her. Wind, rain began to lash hair against her face. She knew there were others, in the shadows.
See them, Meg. Try to see them …
She tried to peer harder. And then another sound snapped her to action: “Get her! Fuck! … Stop her—get her, or we’re all fucking dead!”
Meg turned and fled back down the dune, and into tussock that was land-mined with horse droppings. Twigs tore at her face. Saw grass sliced her legs.
She heard footfalls thudding behind. Heavy breathing. Louder.
“Meggie!”
She ran faster. Her toe caught under a root and her body slammed to the ground. For a second … how many seconds? … she couldn’t move. Rain pummeled her back. The sky darkened. She heard him coming closer. With Herculean effort she managed to scramble back onto her feet. She made for the south point. She knew where to hide, how to dive into water and disappear under foam and froth, and come up in secret under rock, in a grotto where there was a cave. A cave Blake had shown her. All she had to do was reach the beach, the water.
A hand grabbed her arm. She screamed and jerked free, tearing her shirt across her breast. He gripped her again, and swung her around …
His face. She saw his face.
Meg screamed from the bottom of her lungs.
The noise jolted her awake. She was shaking. Sweat drenched her body and soaked into her nightgown. Her breaths came shallow and fast. She got up on one elbow and reached for the lamp, clicked it on. Light flared into the dark, chasing away shadows. And she heard it … a screech of tires.
Not a scream.
Tires squealing.
Up on the road.
She sat fully up in bed and wrapped her arms tightly around her knees. She rocked, trying to calm her breathing. Each time the nightmare haunted her, there was a tiny bit more. And this time she’d seen. A face.
Geoff Sutton’s face.
It made no sense. She couldn’t trust the image. Meg knew just how fallible memories could be. She’d been looking into Geoff’s eyes under the dinner table as she’d flipped into a flashback. And now she’d inserted that image into her own memory. Her own daytime research, conjecture, experiences, were sliding into the nightmare of sleep.
She couldn’t trust her own mind. But it nevertheless rattled her. Raised questions she didn’t want to ask.
Knowing she’d never get back to sleep now, she got out of bed and took off her drenched nightgown. She dug a clean T-shirt out of her bag, pulled it over her head, and reached for her mother’s journal. She climbed into bed and leaned back against the pillows, opening the diary to where she last left off.
Emma and Tommy are home for spring break, and they came by again today. It heartens me so to see them both. Beautiful, strong. Sherry’s friends. It keeps my daughter’s spirit alive for me. And it helps me refocus on small things, like making coffee for her friends. Emma brought cookies today. Her mother baked them. Emma told me it was unusual for her mom to bake—she spends so much time at the pharmacy—so I better enjoy them. It made me laugh. She’s enjoying her studies so far, and plans to be a pharmacist like her mother, maybe even take over the small business on Front Street one day, if the big chains don’t gobble it up first.
I told them both I was investigating, that I was beginning to think Ty Mack might be innocent, and that I was doing everything I could to learn more, as fast as I could, before Jack’s trial come December. I asked if they had any idea who else might have wanted to hurt Sherry, if they could think for me …
Meg stilled. She lunged for her digital recorder, found the file of the interview with Emma she was looking for, wound it forward, and pressed play.
“Did my mother ever express any doubt to you guys about Ty’s guilt at that time?”
“No. I don’t think so. I don’t really recall …”
A blatant lie? Or had Emma truly forgotten? She rewound, hit play again. Emma’s “no” was curt and swift. What did that me
an? How does one forget something like that? Meg turned the page in the journal, read further.
Emma is such a dear, sweet girl. When she went into my bathroom she came out with a worried look in her eyes, and she told me those pills I had in there were powerful. That mix. Tranquilizers, sleeping pills, anti-anxiety. She said her mom had spoken about some of that medication in particular, and how evidence was growing that it could cause depression, and worse. There was a suicide rate associated with those pills. She told me to be careful, maybe speak to my doctor about slowly coming off them, and taking up yoga, or maybe joining a group to talk through things. Tommy was supportive. He seemed worried, too. I think Emma will be good at her job one day. I think of Sherry and how she was planning to be a doctor. And the loss again becomes unbearable …
Meg scanned through her digital recorder and located the file with Tommy’s interview. She wound it forward, pressed play.
“She never told you about her suspicions that Ty might be innocent?”
“Never.”
Frowning, Meg wound the conversation a little further forward, hit play.
“Her suicide didn’t come as a surprise?”
“No, Meg. It did not. Emma was studying pharmacology, and she’d seen the collection of pills that your mom was taking in the bathroom. She told me what they were for—anxiety, depression, insomnia. Tara was on a bad cocktail …”
Meg sat back, the Tommy interview replaying through her mind in its entirety.
“Emma proved to be a passive-aggressive. A pathological liar. She lied to me. Everyone. Even the police …”
An icy thought twisted through her mind: Could Emma have tampered with those pills? Meg scrambled over her bedding to reach her laptop. She fired it up, and punched in the names of her mother’s drugs. They came in capsule form. Capsules could be refilled, or tampered with. She inhaled, casting aside the idea—it was too extreme. Or was it? Because … if her mother had not taken her own life, someone else had. And the verdict had definitely been an overdose. Forcing someone to swallow an excess of pills would in all likelihood have left signs of a struggle, and raised flags in an autopsy. But what if capsules could be filled with increased levels of active ingredients? And the person who swallowed them had no idea how much medicine they were taking? And who better to do that than someone with some pharmacological knowledge and access. Was it even possible?
In the Waning Light Page 27
