Faultlines

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  “Your grandparents who lived in the farmhouse next door, right? They haven’t died—”

  “I know.” He was annoyed. “Aunt Frannie stuck ’em in an old-folks’ home. If my mom was here, she would’ve never done that.”

  “Your mom is Jewel, right? Fran and Jewel were sisters?”

  “Yeah. After my mom had her breakdown, Fran sent her and me away to her uncle’s house in Colorado. They said she would get better there, but she didn’t. She got worse. She was doing real crazy shit, crazy even for her. One day men came and took her away. Her uncle said they were taking her to a hospital, where she’d get help. The bastard never checked on her, never took me to see her. They treated her like shit there, locked her up like an animal. It was no hospital. It was a nuthouse, the worst kind, and she died in there because of that asshole. He kicked me out. I ended up in foster care. You know what that’s like living where nobody wants you? Nobody cares? Where they beat you down just for shits and giggles?”

  Ricky’s eyes on Libby’s were intent, hard walls of anger, riven with defiance. Libby had seen the expression before on the faces of high school kids, the harder cases she’d worked with. The ones who’d been abused, damaged by their families or the system. Their rage was a defense, a tool of survival. Ricky was older than her students by a few years, but he wasn’t different. Down underneath that brittle glare was the history of a little boy’s bewilderment and his fear, along with an overwhelming sense of abandonment.

  She said, “I’m sorry, Ricky, but I don’t see—”

  “This. Is. My. Land.” He pounded the heel of his fist on the table with each enunciated word.

  She kept his gaze but could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t incite him further. Her dad’s shotgun might as well be in another country. She thought how easily Ricky could grab a knife, overcome her, the same way he had evidently overcome the nurse in the mental ward where he had been locked up like his mother. She wondered by whose authority he had been committed there. Foster parents? Child Protective Services? The justice system? She thought of Jordan, outside, oblivious, that he would walk into this at any moment.

  “It’s okay,” Ricky said. “I’m not mad at you. You didn’t know. Anyway, you tried to help me, you and your husband did, with my truck and all. You felt bad, I could tell.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I didn’t want to do it, but you kind of forced me.”

  “I don’t understand,” Libby said, even though she did.

  “I did it. I keyed my damn truck; I slaughtered the hog, too, the bird, the rats.”

  “What about the note? Did you write that, too?”

  “Yeah. I figured you’d think it was Huckabee who left it. You told me he warned you about keeping your doors locked.”

  “I did?”

  “Yeah. You said we should keep our vehicles locked up, too.”

  Had she? Libby guessed it was possible.

  “I figured you’d think it was him, that it’d scare you. I figured if I did what that wacko in Houston was doing, you and the cops’d think it was him, that he was after you all, and you’d leave. Get the hell off my land.”

  “Ricky, did you follow Beck from here? Did you run him off the road?”

  He looked at her, brows knit, drawing a blank. There was not a trace of the canniness that had marked his expression a moment ago. He didn’t know what she was talking about.

  “Here’s the deal,” he said after a moment. “You get Ruth Crandall to take the Little B off the market, okay? Then you and the folks that bought the parcel of land with my grandparents’ house—you guys can just sign papers, giving the ranch back. Simple.” Ricky leaned back, smiling.

  Libby smiled, too, as if it were the perfect plan.

  He extended his leg the way men do when they’re going to pull something from the pocket of their pants. Ricky was wearing worn but sturdy work jeans, and boots with thick soles. It was the uniform of a construction worker, regardless of weather or time of year. She wasn’t surprised when he brought the knife into her view. Unfolding it, he began to clean his fingernails with the tip of the blade. He was still smiling.

  Libby watched him, somehow fascinated, absorbed. “I’ll call Ruth,” she said, “but I’ll need to get my phone. It’s in the truck.” She started to get up.

  “No.” He jumped to his feet. “I’ll get it.”

  “All right,” Libby said, and her voice seemed to come from a distance. It came from some part of her that was unaffected by the blunt force of her alarm. Thoughts surfaced, that if Ricky left, she would grab the shotgun. Jordan—Jordan is outside. That was her specific thought when he came in the front door, and her heart stuttered. She looked from Jordan to Ricky, expecting him to make some move on Jordan, to somehow threaten him with the knife.

  But it was slack in his hand hanging at his side, and he was staring at Jordan as if transfixed at the sight of him. The color drained from his face. His neck worked when he swallowed. He looked scared. More than that. He looked terrified.

  Libby’s eyes met Jordan’s. His shrug was almost imperceptible, an indication of his confusion that bordered on something more.

  “You’re dead, man, right?” Ricky closed his knife and shoved it back into his pocket. He took a step toward Jordan, stopped, cocked his head to the side. “C’mon now. I don’t believe in this shit, you know? The walking dead? Shit like that? Hell no.” Ricky glanced at Libby, smirked. “You seeing this?” He held out his hands toward Jordan.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Libby said.

  Ricky rounded on her, punching the air. “Do you see that guy there? Because if you don’t, I am fucking nuts like everyone says.”

  “I see him.”

  Ricky heaved a breath. “Okay, then. Okay. He was dead, but now he’s not.”

  Libby glanced at Jordan and understanding came, leaping between them.

  Jordan said, “You think I died in the car crash.”

  Libby was amazed at his equanimity, the quiet authority in his voice.

  “I know you did.” Ricky was half turned from Jordan and spit the words over his shoulder. He was shaky, suspicious, and still scared.

  Vulnerable, Libby thought. Like you would be if you were worried about your sanity, worried about whether what you were seeing before your eyes was real or a specter up from the grave. He didn’t trust her when she said she saw Jordan, too, and maybe she could make that work in their favor. She shifted her weight, taking what she hoped was an inconspicuous step toward the archway separating the kitchen from the living room. She didn’t have a plan in mind other than if she could, she would get to her phone or the shotgun. She wasn’t going to simply stand here and let herself or Jordan be carved up like this year’s Thanksgiving turkey.

  Jordan said, “You saw the wreck happen, right, man? I mean, you were almost in it, I heard.”

  “Car came right at me. Right fucking at me. I see it every time I close my eyes.” Ricky shut his eyes now and shivered.

  “Am I the driver?” Jordan asked.

  “Nah. Passenger. It was like that close with you guys.” Ricky held his thumb and forefinger apart, showing a sliver of space. “Then you went airborne. I never saw anything—heard anything like it. There was like a high whistling sound, then it was like some big giant was ripping apart metal, breaking glass. Goddamn driver popped up out of there like a cork out of a champagne bottle on New Year’s Eve, you know what I’m saying? He went up like somebody tossing a rag doll, then came down—bam!” Ricky slammed his fist into his palm.

  “You came over to us. I remember you were there. I heard you call 911.”

  “Yeah. I felt your pulse, bro. It was gone. I figured you had enough life left in you to get out of the car and over to your buddy, but then you, like, collapsed on top of him and died. You were dead,” Ricky said. “I know. I checked.” He was getting more distraught now.

  “It’s all right,” Libby said. She took another slow step, darting a glance at Jorda
n, who nodded. His self-control was astonishing; she was grateful for it.

  “Those ambulance guys,” Jordan said, and Libby took another step, “the paramedics, they got me back. You’d left by then, by the time they came.”

  “Yeah. I had to. Cops were on my ass that night. I’d been doing some stuff—I mean, I was on my own fucking land, up at my grandparents’ house, but there’s a warrant out—I couldn’t stick around, you know.”

  “Well, I’d probably be dead if it weren’t for you, so, it’s like I owe you. Owe you big-time.”

  Libby had come even with Jordy and slipped behind him so that she was between him and the front door. She looked at Ricky, but he didn’t seem aware of her anymore.

  His focus was on Jordan. “You sure you aren’t dead? I’m really seeing you?”

  “Yeah. I mean, it was bad for a while, but I got better.”

  “What about your buddy?”

  “He died, man. Not there, but later in Austin, at the hospital.”

  “Christ. I’m real sorry.”

  Libby stepped from behind Jordan, going for the bedroom and the shotgun. She was afraid to leave Jordan in the cottage alone even for the minute or two it might take to get her phone. Ricky might appear oblivious, but she couldn’t count on that or anything. He was too unstable. Like an armed grenade. The slightest vibration, one wrong word, might set him off.

  “I guess you don’t want to tell the cops what you saw that night.” Jordan was making conversation.

  As a cover for her, Libby thought.

  Jordan said, “You know, the cops think I was driving, right? They’re getting me for manslaughter. I could get thirty years. You could tell them what you saw; they’d let me off.”

  Ricky said he’d like to help. “But there’s that warrant—”

  “Ricky?”

  He looked at Libby in the doorway, and when he realized she was holding a shotgun, he put up his hands and smiled, a rueful, one-cornered smile. “Now I know I’m dreaming.”

  The way he said it was so charming, Libby almost laughed; she was that fooled. She wasn’t prepared when he put his head down and charged at Jordan, knocking him down.

  Stumbling, Ricky yanked at the front door, kicking out at Jordan when he got to his knees. Jordan grabbed his foot, bringing Ricky down beside him. The men tumbled, a grunting mass of gyrating limbs.

  Libby watched breathless, light-headed. She couldn’t shoot for fear of injuring Jordan; she couldn’t get through the door to her phone. She passed precious seconds in a kind of jerky, slow-motion haze of panic and uncertainty, and then the disturbance was over.

  Ricky got free. Jordan had him, and then he didn’t, and seizing the moment, Ricky was gone through the door. Jordan went out, too, Libby on his heels. She was in time to see Ricky vault the picket fence and head east into the cedar thicket. He was soon lost to view.

  “Going to his grandparents’ house, I bet.” Libby set down the shotgun.

  Jordan stood looking into Ricky’s wake, hands on his hips, panting. “I had him, and then he went limp, like he was all out of fight.”

  “We need to call the police. They’ll get him.”

  Jordan took out his phone; he talked to the 911 dispatcher, and when he hung up, he said, “We’re keeping those people hopping today.”

  Libby sat down in a porch chair and dropped her head into her hands, taking a moment.

  She felt Jordan’s hand on her shoulder and looked up at him. “You were very coolheaded in there,” she said.

  “It was you,” he said. “I was just following what you did.” He sat in the chair beside her.

  “It’s not going to do him any good.”

  Jordan looked at her.

  “Running,” she said.

  “I thought about it.” He scooped something off the porch floor and tossed it.

  “You’re still here.”

  “Got no wheels. No way really to get anywhere. I could hitch, but where to?”

  They looked out, over the porch rail. Libby waited to hear a siren, but maybe since Jordan had told them no one was hurt, the police officer who came wouldn’t use it.

  “Besides,” Jordan said, “you can’t run from yourself, you know? It’s like my grandma says: ‘Everywhere you go, there you are.’”

  18

  I’m so afraid I’ll forget things about him. The sound of his voice, the way he laughed . . . ”

  “You won’t,” Sandy said. She reached over, cupping her palm over the knot of Jenna’s hands in her lap. They were parked in the driveway outside Sandy’s house, still sitting in the truck. “Trav’s memory, his essence, will always be with you. Even if his physical characteristics, those tangible things, dissolve, still, you’ll have your love for him.” She looked at Jenna, the sharp outline of her profile, and she thought how stupidly inadequate her words were, any words in the face of such loss—they were like vapor. Even the breath used to utter them was worthless.

  “I can’t cry,” Jenna said. “Earlier, that was really the first time.”

  “It’s all right,” Sandy said. “There’s no rule book.”

  “Don’t say I’ll get through it, because I might not.” Jenna turned to Sandy now, locking her gaze.

  “You only have to be here this minute, okay?”

  Jenna shifted her glance, looking out the windshield. “Thank God Jordy made it.”

  Sandy went still.

  “I mean it,” Jenna said. “I didn’t want to believe Trav would do something so stupid as to drive a car drunk.”

  What mother would want to believe it? Sandy couldn’t be sure that in Jenna’s shoes she wouldn’t have put herself into the same state of denial.

  “I’m sorry.” Jenna squeezed Sandy’s hand, and she looked over at her, seeing her through a prism of tears, the tiny faultlines of their shared love and sorrow.

  Emmett came to the house. Sandy had called him before leaving Jenna’s—she’d called Emmett, not Roger, but Jordy’s dad. She had needed Emmett, and the fact that Roger didn’t even come into her mind until later wasn’t lost on her. She was taken aback by it when Emmett knocked on his own back door. She opened the screen, and she was so grateful for his hug. The comfort of his presence, his smell, the familiar and sorely missed shelter of his arms. He hugged Jenna, too, and watching them, Sandy felt the smallest flicker of hope that there might be a way to mend all the damage, to begin again, to make something new.

  Her phone rang, and her heart bumped when she saw Roger’s name on the ID screen. She walked into the mudroom. “Roger?” she said, greeting him, and she was cautious, tentative. “I guess you’ve heard about Huck?”

  He said he had and asked if she and Jordy were all right. “What a hell of a thing,” he said.

  She said yes, that it was, and then in a rush, she said, “About the other night. I’m so sorry for how I behaved—”

  “No,” he said. “It’s all right. You were entitled, given all you’ve been through.”

  “Thank you for that, but I don’t want you to think—I never meant to lead you on—”

  Roger said, “No,” again. He said, “I think you’re the only one who might be confused about where your heart belongs.”

  Her throat tightened. “You are a lovely man,” she said.

  He laughed and as quickly sobered. He said he and Patrol Sergeant Ken Carter needed to meet with Jordy. “There have been some developments,” he said, and he told her that Ricky Burrows had been apprehended, and how.

  Libby brought Jordy home. Sandy and Emmett waited for him in the driveway. She threw her arms around him first, hugging him fiercely, and when she stepped away, Emmett did the same.

  “You’ve had a hell of a day, kid,” he said, holding Jordy at arm’s length, checking him over.

  “Not a dull moment,” Jordy said, and Sandy smiled. His humor was balm.

  She leaned into the truck cab. “You’re really all right?”

  “Yes, thanks,” Libby said. “You heard Ricky was caugh
t?”

  Sandy said she had. “Up at the old farmhouse.”

  “One of the officers who was there when they arrested Ricky came by the cottage after and said Ricky was still pretty shaken up. He kept talking about seeing a ghost.”

  Sandy laughed; it was funny in a gruesome way, Ricky’s mistaken belief that Jordy had risen from the grave. But as Jordy had said, it might well have saved their lives. Sandy asked if Libby wanted to come in, but she said no.

  “I’m on my way into town to stay the night with Ruth Crandall,” she said.

  “I’m glad,” Sandy said, and she was. She didn’t want to think of Libby out on her place alone. Not after everything that had happened. “I’m so grateful to you,” she said, and it was hard, working the words past the knot in her throat.

  Libby’s gesture was dismissive, but Sandy sensed she felt it, too, that an odd sort of bond had formed between them, one that stretched across old bitterness and haunting regret, one that would exist somehow, perhaps stubbornly, in spite of their history. “Jordan told me there was news regarding his case. He didn’t know what it was.”

  “None of us do, yet,” Sandy said.

  “Well, I hope it’s good.”

  “Me, too,” Sandy said. “We’ll let you know.”

  “I’d like that,” Libby said.

  Sandy was following Emmett and Jordy into the house, where Jenna waited in the great room, when Roger pulled into the driveway. Ken Carter was behind him in his patrol car. Sandy felt panicked at the sight of them. She exchanged a worried glance with Emmett and then looked at Jordy. The color had drained from his face, and the scars that lanced the right side of his brow stood out, vivid and red, brutal reminders of how tenuous life can be. She looped her arm around his waist.

  They sat in the great room—Roger and Jordy on the sofa, Jenna and Emmett in the armchairs on either side of the fireplace, and Sandy on the matching ottoman. Only Sergeant Carter remained standing.

  He said, “You’ve heard we’ve got Ricky Burrows in custody—”