For the Sake of Their Baby

by Alice Sharpe

  He turned his back on the past. The future was where he was headed, where he was determined to spend his life, not locked away in a cell, locked away from everything and everyone he cared about, locked into memories as his only comfort.

  Taking a flashlight out of his pocket, he began searching each nook and cranny. Twine was so lightweight; the wind might have blown it anywhere, the rain might have driven it into a tiny crevice, the currents might have carried it north or south or halfway to Japan. It seemed an impossible task to find one little bit of twine.

  And so it proved to be. He gave up as daylight faded everything to shades of gray and even the white rope he needed to climb to get back to the landing above began to disappear. He climbed up the big rocks and over a stranded section of stairs that had yet to be washed away. It was then he saw something flutter in the wind.

  A twelve inch piece of string—no, twine—was wrapped around one of the rail supports, caught on a contorted nail. It was too short to be the piece he was looking for, but too coincidental to be unrelated. Perhaps Sinbad had chewed this piece free before Liz came along. He spent a few moments untwisting it, crammed it in his pocket and grabbed his rope for the ascent up the cliff.

  Yanking it hard, anxious to see Liz, he staggered backward as the whole length came hurdling toward him.

  LIZ AWOKE with a start. The house was twilight dark and silent. She glanced at the digital alarm clock and saw that it was after five o’clock.

  The last thing she remembered was Alex rifling through drawers, searching for the flashlight he’d had just the night before. Apparently, she’d fallen asleep, and as the baby kicked and rolled inside her, she sat up, angry with herself for leaving Alex alone to go down to the beach on a fool’s errand.

  Now, after a rest, the twine at Emily’s store seemed more a coincidence than some ominous portent of doom pointing a shaky finger at Emily of all people. Liz slipped on a sweater and made her way down the familiar hall and into the kitchen without turning on lights, anxious to keep her night vision intact. Sinbad yowled from his basket and she stopped to pet him and assure him how beautiful he was despite the raw wounds on his shaved neck and the ugly shaved area surrounding the stitches on his hip.

  “I’ll feed you in a few minutes,” she assured him as she let herself out the back door and made her way carefully across the damp grass toward the bluff, expecting to see Alex’s flashlight at any moment, heralding his return. Halfway there, she heard a noise behind her and jumped.

  A shadow seemed to move in among all the other shadows. She stared into the gloom, straining to hear something that would explain away what had startled her: a neighbor’s dog, a…well, a neighbor’s dog.

  “Alex?” she called.

  A dark shape seemed to dispatch itself from the recesses of the back of her house and move toward her, silent and ominous. Liz felt her heartbeat accelerate and the desire to run was quelled only by the knowledge that running from anyone in her present condition was all but pointless. Still, she poised ready for flight.

  She said “Alex,” again, hopeful, but knowing he would never come at her like this. “Who’s there?” she demanded, her hands unconsciously protecting her belly.

  The shadow stepped close enough that she finally saw the shape of a man—a big man. Harry Idle’s voice carried over the thumping roar of her heart.

  “Liz?”

  She almost crumbled with relief. “What are you doing out here, Harry?”

  He moved very close, so close in fact, that she could detect the odor of stale cigarette smoke on his clothes. “Your house is dark,” he said, coming another step closer. Liz backed away. “What are you doing out here in the dark by yourself?” he added. “I’m surprised Alex lets you wander around like this. You could fall right off that cliff and kill yourself.”

  Outrage at his sexist remark fled in the face of a growing feeling of alarm. She said, “Why are you in our backyard?”

  “I’m looking for you,” Harry said, advancing as she retreated. “You know, you shouldn’t be out here alone. It’s dangerous. There might be someone out here in the dark, someone who wants to hurt you.”

  Like him?

  “I think you should leave,” she said, fighting to keep her teeth from chattering with fear. The bluff wasn’t far away—the sound of the waves was more distinct and the edge more perilous. She couldn’t keep backing up without looking where she was going and she couldn’t afford to take her eyes off his face.

  He grabbed her arm. “You’d better come with me.”

  She twisted free and tried to turn, but her feet slipped on the grass. She ended up on her hands and knees, twisting as much as she could to face her attacker.

  Harry loomed over her, hands plucking at her sweater. She screamed and the next thing she knew, a light appeared, a man yelled, Harry disappeared and Ron leaned down beside her.

  “Liz,” he said, “are you hurt? Here, take my hand, come on now, get up slowly, be careful.”

  He pulled her to her feet. Liz felt like crying, not from pain but from relief. She held onto Ron’s arm, swallowing her tears, facing Harry, shaking with outrage.

  Ron said, “What in the hell were you doing to her?”

  “I wasn’t doing nothing,” Harry insisted.

  Liz tugged at Ron’s arm. “I can’t find Alex,” she gasped.

  Ron flashed his light on Harry who covered his face with his hands. “What did you do to Alex?” he said, his voice low and threatening.

  “I didn’t do anything to anybody,” Harry said. “I was just looking out for her. You’re here now, I’m leaving.”

  “Wait a minute,” Liz said. “What do you mean that you were just looking out for me?”

  “Your lights were all off and I thought I saw someone on your porch. I was going to call the cops but I thought I’d take a quick look for myself. You startled the hell out of me.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me this?” Liz demanded. “Why did you act so threatening?”

  “I didn’t act threatening.”

  “The hell you didn’t,” Ron said.

  “I’m not taking any more of this,” Harry said and turned to leave. Ron reached out as if to stop him, but Liz pulled him back. “Never mind Harry, Ron. Alex went to the beach a long time ago. The stairs are broken two thirds of the way down. He might have slipped or—”

  “Stay here,” Ron said as he started down the beach stairs.

  She called, “Be careful,” as she looked over her shoulder to make sure Harry Idle had really left.

  ALEX TIED a waterlogged piece of driftwood to the end of the rope and, swinging it into the gloom above, aimed for the landing and the rail surrounding it. He’d been stuck on the beach for half an hour now. Every once in a while, the stick would thud on the landing and seem to catch, but it always came back and, a couple of times, damn near brained him.

  He knew he was in no real danger. The tide was low and if need be he could hike down the beach and eventually find a gully or another way up the bluff. It would take a few hours, but it was doable. Only the potential of what was happening to Liz kept him swinging the rope.

  Wasn’t this one of the main reasons he’d bought that damn phone? What was the point of having the blasted thing if he forgot to carry it?

  He’d examined the end of the rope with his flashlight and knew it hadn’t been cut. Someone had loosened it or perhaps the knot he’d tied had worked itself open. That one was hard to believe. If there was one thing he knew about, it was tying knots and he’d bet a bundle that his had stayed in place.

  He looked up when he heard the pounding on the stairs that signified someone was coming. A zigzagging light heralded help on the way, and he hoped against hope that it wasn’t Liz, not so pregnant, not in the dark. Still, if she was on the stairs it meant she wasn’t trapped in the house with a homicidal maniac, right?

  “Liz?” he yelled.

  A voice yelled back. A man’s voice. “Are you hurt?” The light had stopped o
n the last landing.

  “Is that you, Ron?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. Don’t worry, Liz is fine.”

  Thank heavens. He said, “I’m going to throw up a rope. Loop it around the stanchion up there. Tie it off. Watch out for the stick tied to the end of it.”

  “You got it.”

  Within a few moments, he was at the landing, Ron’s extended hand a welcome help as he climbed onto the wooden platform. He clapped Ron on the back, damn near hugged him. “Liz is okay?” were the first words he spoke.

  “She’s fine. When I got here, I found someone named Harry hassling her—”

  Alex was off like a shot. Ron had left Liz alone with Harry lurking about? He took the stairs at breakneck speed, no easy task in the dark. He found Liz at the top, a small dark shape with a distinctive side profile, his wife and his baby—his life—and he ran to her, to them, gathering her into his arms, kissing the side of her head, holding her as close as he could.

  “You okay? Ron said Harry—”

  “I’m all right,” she interrupted, but her voice sounded shaky.

  Cupping her cheeks, he kissed her forehead. “What happened to you? You took so long, I was coming to see if you were hurt—”

  “Trouble with the rope,” he said.

  Ron appeared just then and they all straggled toward the back of the house.

  Ron said, “What in the devil is going on around here?”

  Alex opened the door and switched on a light. Sinbad meowed and blinked his blue eyes. Ron leaned over the barricade to pat the cat and looked up at them.

  “Emily came into my office this afternoon, very worried about Liz because of a phone conversation the two of them had had this morning. She said something about Liz finding Sinbad on the beach stairs…well, you know how cautious Emily is, how she worries about…things. I thought she was overreacting, but I agreed to come out here after work and check on you guys.”

  As he straightened up, he stared hard at each of them in turn. “I tried calling from the car but no one was home. I didn’t think much of it until I got here and found all the lights off and both your cars parked out front. As I was knocking on the door, I heard Liz scream. Harry was standing over her. It looked as though he was hurting her.”

  Alex felt a quake inside. Harry mauling Liz? He wanted to march across the street and tear Harry into bite-size pieces of fish food. As a matter of fact, what a dandy idea. He started moving toward the door, but Ron stepped in front of him.

  “Better get out of my way,” Alex said softly.

  “Not until you calm down,” Ron said.

  Liz reached for his hand and he met her gaze. “I’ve been going over and over Harry’s actions. I don’t know, maybe I misinterpreted things. He said he saw someone over here and he was worried that you’d be mad at him again, so he came to investigate and maybe I startled him as much as he startled me.”

  Unwilling to cut Harry Idle one iota of slack, Alex thought of the intruder’s car racing away in the middle of the night; it had been parked in front of Harry’s house. He thought of Harry’s two-decade-old grudge against Devon Hiller. He and Liz had more or less ruled Harry out because of the size of his hands as compared to the gloves and maybe even more because of his physical condition, which made the idea of him vandalizing the stairway seem ludicrous.

  But what if Harry wasn’t working alone?

  What if he was in cahoots with the woman he said did Hiller’s gardening, the one who had wangled him an invitation to the fateful party, the one who must be in pretty good physical condition to do her job. Or maybe someone else, maybe someone who worked at the mall and carried the same hatred in his or her heart that Harry did.

  “I don’t think he was really trying to hurt me,” Liz said.

  “Sorry, Liz, but I don’t agree,” Ron said.

  Alex agreed with Ron, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, his mind wrapped around the fact that, as usual, there wasn’t a thing they could pin on anyone. He couldn’t swear his knot hadn’t come undone by itself, Liz couldn’t swear Harry had done anything more than unwittingly frighten her.

  They were still at square one.

  Liz patted Ron’s arm. “I’m fine,” she told him. “I know Emily is worried about me, but please, reassure her I’m doing great.”

  Ron was not to be deterred. “And Sinbad,” he said, eyebrows raised. “What happened to Sinbad, Liz?”

  “His leg—”

  “How about his neck? Come on, you can trust me, what happened to the little guy?”

  Alex fought not to resent the familiar, friendly way Ron cajoled Liz and the smile that curved her lips in response. He made a mental bet with himself that Liz would hesitantly try to reassure Ron. He knew she hated the secrecy, the operating on a need-to-know basis that made such sense to him. The truth was a big issue with her, as was trust; she’d resented Alex for not trusting her when it counted most and he just couldn’t see her turning away from that position when it concerned Ron. Ron had been the one she had depended on while he was away and Alex could sense her struggle with the desire to re-establish this cozy relationship that must have brought her such comfort.

  He felt a spasm of jealousy followed by a sigh of sorrow.

  And then, just as Alex expected her to launch into an explanation, she leaned back against him, just a little bit, hardly noticeable, but he felt the subtle shift of her weight and the warmth of her body as it grazed his. Her words supported her body language, as she spoke softly but firmly.

  “It’s like we said, Ron. Sinbad had a terrible accident, that’s all.”

  Alex felt a swell of satisfaction.

  Ron shook his head. “Listen,” he said, serious now, gazing at them without a hint of humor in his eyes. “Sooner or later, this is all going to get to be too much for you guys. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know that something is wrong that goes beyond Alex getting ready for a new trial. I hope you guys don’t wait too long to ask for help.” He looked directly into Alex’s eyes and added, “I know something about allowing yourself to become…isolated. It can be dangerous. Not just for yourself, but for others. I—well, let’s just say I have some experience in this facet of life. When you need to talk, I’ll be here for you.”

  As Liz saw Ron to the door, Alex considered Ron’s warning. Was he right? Was Alex jeopardizing Liz by not going to some law enforcement official, perhaps going so far as to bypass the sheriff if that were possible?

  There other things to consider as well. The cat’s situation and the sabotaged stairs weren’t an accident. The stolen gloves, ditto. He had to consider the possibility that tonight, his rope hadn’t come undone on its own, that Harry had seen someone lurking around the house. If it was true, there was a question begging to be asked:

  How many more times could Liz’s attacker screw things up?

  Didn’t the law of averages suggest that sooner or later, he or she would get it right, that sooner or later, Liz would die?

  Why? What did she know?

  Or was it something else?

  Chapter Nine

  As Ron’s taillights disappeared down the road, Liz caught Alex’s arm and said, “Did you find it?”

  He extracted a piece of twine from his pocket and together they hurried back inside the house. As Alex headed to the bright lights of the kitchen, Liz retrieved the package she’d brought home from Emily’s store.

  The differences between the two samples of twine were immediately obvious. The twine from the beach stairs was the color of oats, that from the yarn shop, molasses. They were a different gauge as well, the stair twine being much sturdier and thicker.

  “They’re different,” Liz said as she sank down on a kitchen chair, flooded with relief. “Emily had nothing to do with any of this.”

  Alex sat down opposite her and took her hands in his. He juggled them thoughtfully, as though weighing one against the other. “It would appear that way,” he said at last.

  “But…” she prompted,
hearing it in his voice.

  He released her hands and sat back in his chair. “But does it really mean anything?”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “I mean, so what if the twines don’t match? You and I have a spool of green twine in the garage, a length of natural color in my glove compartment that came wrapped around something or other, and I found a bit of yellowish stuff in the junk drawer in the kitchen. Twine is twine and yet it isn’t.”

  She sighed deeply. He was right.

  “I know it’s next to impossible to imagine your friend, Emily, as some kind of fiend.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Or corruptible.”

  Liz nodded, but as she did, she realized something had been tugging at her memory, something all these recent thoughts of Emily had brought to mind. Feeling her way, she said, “I keep thinking about that day at Tony-O’s. You were using the phone at the back of the restaurant. I came inside after talking to Sheriff Kapp. I was upset and when Ron asked why, I mentioned running into the sheriff. You should have seen Emily’s face, Alex. Her eyes got wide and she looked all around the place. I thought she was worried about you, but then it became clear that Emily couldn’t care less if Kapp nabbed you or not.”

  “She’s a sweetheart,” he said dryly.

  “I think the look of abject fear was for herself, not for you.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “Maybe she has a trunkful of old parking violations.”

  “Maybe she robbed a bank back in San Francisco before she moved up here.”

  “Maybe she’s in a witness relocation program.”

  “With her brother?”

  They smiled at each other, the playful banter relieving some of the tension that had been building for the past hour or so.

  “And what did you make of Ron’s warning?” Alex added.

  “You mean his comment about isolation, about knowing how it could work against you in the long run. Maybe it had to do with the time he spent caring for his dying mother. I’ve heard caregivers can become very isolated.”