She reached for the door handle but hesitated. Her nerve had given out. Lucas wouldn’t appreciate anyone poking into his business. If he caught her, she’d be dead in the water. He might not give her a chance to tell her big news. He might be with someone else. That would be the worst, to discover that she’d been thrown over before she even had a chance to show him all her tricks. The idea that he had some other woman bent over the dining table was like lye on her skin. The not knowing gnawed at her, but fear of what she might learn held her in place. Doubt, like the mosquito that hummed around her ear, bit and sucked at her contentment. Two whole days had passed and she hadn’t heard a word from him. Most men, once they got a taste of her, couldn’t leave it alone. The only reason Dotty could come up with to explain Lucas’s behavior involved another woman. He was getting his pud pounded by someone else. She had to take action.
She got out of the car and walked the fifteen yards to the highway where she could see Lucas’s driveway across the road. The metal gate was open. Probably because he was expecting company. Dotty stepped onto the asphalt, got halfway across, and then hesitated. Headlights topped the hill to her east, and she bolted across the road and tumbled into the ditch by Lucas’s gate, lying flat in the thick grass. The last thing she needed was for someone to see her. She’d be the laughingstock of the town. The car slowed, and Dotty held her breath, hoping they hadn’t caught a flash of her moving into the ditch.
When the vehicle turned down Lucas’s drive, she covered her head with her hands until she heard it pass. She sat up quickly and caught a glimpse of Junior’s beat-up old Ford pickup. Someone was in the passenger seat, but Dotty couldn’t make out who it was. She got up, dusted the dirt off her jeans, and looked up the driveway. Curiosity was stronger than fear. She darted up the driveway, staying just in the edge of the woods. If Lucas was entertaining Junior on a Saturday evening, she wanted to know why.
By the time she got to the house, Junior’s truck was parked in the circle driveway and there was no sign of him or his passenger. They’d gone inside. She waited in the protection of the trees, listening. The mosquito had followed her from the car and brought several friends. Dotty slapped at her neck, bringing her hand away with blood all over it. At least she’d gotten one. Another insect bit her ankle above the sock. She slapped there. With every bite, she became angrier. Lucas didn’t have time to call her, but he had time for Junior Clements, the town loser. Now she was stuck hiding out in the woods like some kind of lovesick teenager or Russian spy, except she wouldn’t be anything but a bloodless corpse in another ten minutes, and all because Lucas treated her like some common tramp. She stepped out of the woods. He wasn’t going to get away with treating her like that.
She circled around the truck, intending to go right to the front door and knock. The truck windows were down, and Dotty peered in, making a face at the empty beer bottles and trash on the floorboard. Something else caught her eye. The cloth was rough and printed with a faint pattern like a flour sack. Curiosity won out over disgust at the filth in the truck, and she reached in and picked up the material. She held it up, the air slipping out of her lungs as she saw the eye holes and a mouth cut into the flour sack. A brown stain was strung across it. She dropped it on the seat and backed away from the truck. She caught her breath, turned into the thick woods, and started to run.
For a long moment, Frank stood in the doorway of Marlena’s hospital room. The light above the head of her bed was on, but otherwise the room was in darkness. Her face was turned to the window, which gave a view of blackness. In the soft glow of the light, Frank could make out her cheek and jawline, and he realized that from that angle, Marlena looked a lot like Jade. He cleared his throat, but Marlena didn’t stir.
“Marlena, Jade told me you were conscious.”
She didn’t react, but her voice floated back to him. “She said she had to tell you, but no one else.”
Marlena spoke without moving her jaw, and Frank remembered that it was wired shut to help the damage to her face heal. “She’s keeping her word. We have to find Suzanna.”
He entered the room and went to stand by the bed. When she finally turned to look at him, he had to steel himself against flinching. Her beautiful face had been destroyed.
“Suzanna is dead,” Marlena said.
“Are you certain?”
“She’s dead.”
“We still have to find her.” Frank wondered how much of what Marlena believed was reality and how much fantasy or wishful thinking. No one who’d been through the abuse Marlena had received would want her daughter, helpless, in the hands of the men who’d hurt her so badly.
“The big man had her over his shoulder. He threw her on the ground and she didn’t make a sound. She didn’t move.” She took a deep breath, then another. “Her feet were bare. She had sand on the bottoms. She didn’t move, and she wasn’t breathing.”
“Are you certain?” Frank saw how hard she fought to hold onto her emotions. He wanted to touch her, the way he’d touched men dying on the battlefield, just the comfort of contact. He thought better of it, though. Marlena might not view a man’s touch as any kind of comfort.
“Yes,” she said. “I tried to forget what I’d seen. I tried to hide from it, but I couldn’t. Jade called me back. I wish I could just stop breathing and die.”
“You won’t ever forget, Marlena, but time has a way of taking the edge off the memory.” It was beyond him to lie, but he gave her what comfort he could. “Tell me what happened from the beginning.” His hand went to the pocket where he still kept her photo. If he had to, he would show it to her. She had to tell him everything.
“Suzanna was fishing. I’d set up the picnic about fifty yards from where she was, on a level place with some grass.” She tilted her chin up and swallowed, and Frank saw the marks along her throat where fingers had choked her. He gritted his teeth against the anger that swept over him. When he found the men who’d done this, he was going to make them understand the meaning of suffering. He’d learned things in the war, things that no man should know about pain.
“Go on,” he said. “Where was John Hubbard?” he asked, before she went too far with her lie.
“How did you find out his name?” she asked.
“We found his car parked on the road. A two-tone Chevy. I got the registration, and then I found those potato chips around the picnic area.”
“Does Lucas know?”
“I haven’t told him, and I don’t think Huey has figured anything out.”
“Tell him. Maybe he’ll come here and kill me.”
“Go on with what happened, Marlena. Maybe Suzanna was just unconscious.”
She sighed. “Johnny and I were making out on the picnic cloth while Suzanna was fishing. She knew not to come back where we were. We told her we wouldn’t bring her with us if she disobeyed.” She took another breath. “I’m not a bad mother. I love Suzanna, but I had to take her with me. Lucas would never let me leave the house alone. Suzanna never saw anything. She never suspected. She could mind when she had to.”
Frank thought about the headstrong little girl and understood how much she must have wanted to be with her mother to concede to a rule, any rule. In his past experience with Suzanna, he’d come to believe she deliberately set out to break any limits imposed on her.
“Did you hear anyone come up?” he asked.
“No.” She hesitated. “Johnny was kissing me. He’d do things to me that Lucas wouldn’t. He gave me pleasure. For the first time in my life, it was about what I liked and wanted.” Her chin trembled, but she didn’t cry. “What a fool I’ve been. I married a man more suited to be a prison warden than a husband, and I fell in love with a man who betrayed me in the worst way.”
Frank did put his hand on her arm, gently. “You don’t have to explain it to me.”
“I have to explain it to myself,” she said. “I have to understand how I could lose my daughter like I did.”
“No one could anticipate being at
tacked the way you were, Marlena. That’s out of the normal ken of anyone.”
“I was her mother. I should have protected her.”
“Tell me exactly how it happened,” he said, knowing that he couldn’t give her the absolution she sought.
“Johnny heard something in the bushes. We thought Suzanna had sneaked up and was trying to watch us. He got up. I remember, he said he was going to give her the spanking she deserved.” Her voice broke, and she turned her face away for a moment. When she looked back at Frank, she was crying. “The next thing I knew, this man with a sack on his head came at me. He kicked me in the ribs. I didn’t know what was going on. I screamed and tried to roll away. I was naked, and he was staring at me. He was yelling names at me, calling me filthy things. Then the other one came, and he had Suzanna over his shoulder with a sack tied on her head. He threw Suzanna down and he said, ‘Let’s give this whore of Babylon what she deserves.’”
A moth fluttered against the screen of the hospital window, and in the silence of the room, Frank heard someone walking down the hall. The footsteps passed, and he took a long breath.
“Where was Hubbard?”
“I don’t know. The two men started kicking me in the stomach and ribs and face. I tried to crawl to Suzanna, but they kicked me back. I looked up, and Johnny was standing about fifteen feet away. He looked right at me. He started to say something and then he turned and ran.”
“Did the men go after him?”
She shook her head. “No. They must not have seen him. The skinny one sat on my head and held my arms, and the big one spread my legs and told me if I didn’t quit struggling, he would hurt me bad. And he did. He hurt me.”
“Marlena, did they rape you? Do you remember?”
She shook her head. “They put a limb in me. They said I was too filthy for their dicks to be inside me, so they used a limb. Then the big one got a knife and began to cut me. He said he was going to take out everything that made me a woman.” She turned her head away. “I’m tired, Frank.”
“Just a few more questions.” He got the glass of water from the table beside her bed and held it so she could sip out of the straw. “What happened next?”
“I must have passed out. When I woke up, they were gone. Suzanna was gone, too. I crawled around looking for her. I couldn’t see very well. I got up and tried to find the road. That’s the last I remember. I went down the river some and then headed west.”
“I found you in the woods. You Were unconscious.”
“You should have left me there to die.”
“Marlena, did you know these men?”
She didn’t answer for such a long time that Frank wondered if she’d slipped away into sleep. He wouldn’t have blamed her. What she’d endured was too brutal.
“I’ve thought about that,” she finally said. “How would they know I was a whore? If they were strangers, why wouldn’t they think I was married to Johnny? Why wouldn’t they think Suzanna was our daughter?” She looked at him. “They had to know me.”
Her logic touched him with cold, because she was right. “Would you remember their voices if you heard them again?”
“I don’t know. They were excited. If they sounded like that, maybe I could.”
“Why are you so certain Suzanna is dead?”
She hesitated. “Because if they knew who I was and they knew who Suzanna was, they would never have hurt me like they did unless they’d already killed her. Once they’d killed Lucas’s daughter, they figured they couldn’t do anything worse, so they just did what they wanted to me.”
“And Hubbard. Do you think he was involved in this?”
Marlena closed her eyes. “Please, Frank, just leave me alone.” Her hand reached up and grasped the nurse call. She pressed the button. “I want morphine. Ask the nurse for it, please. Tell her I’ve been moaning in pain and need something.” She turned her face away from him. “I’m not going to talk anymore.”
20
Only the third story of the Kimble house was visible from the road, and that during the day. No lights burned in the third floor windows, so in the darkness, Jade felt as if she were riding into the unknown when she turned down the driveway. Some Kimble had loved plants. Imported camellia bushes lined the driveway and then, neglected, had grown from shrubs into dense, towering trees. The driveway was a tunnel of darkness, and Jade’s headlights kept picking out shapes that moved and shifted as the car crept forward, giving the illusion that ghosts flitted ahead of her.
Jade had heard Jonah talk about the Kimble house and the many wonders that his father, Mose, had built into it. She’d never been inside, though. Never even in the yard. There had been no need for her to go there. When her headlights picked up the first floor of the rambling old Victorian, she slowed to get a better look at the intricate gingerbread trim. She finally stopped, awed by the craftsmanship that had gone into the detail. The front door opened and Frank stepped out onto the porch. He’d changed clothes and looked more relaxed, though sadder. When he beckoned closer, she drove to the steps, killed the lights, turned off the car, and got out. The momentousness of what she was about to do held her frozen beside the car. Frank came down the steps and drew her into his arms, giving her time to resist if she chose to do so.
“What did Marlena say?” she asked, knowing that she was simply stalling the inevitable. If Marlena had revealed some clue as to Suzanna’s whereabouts, Frank would have gone to hunt for the little girl.
“She believes the men who attacked her knew her.”
Jade was stunned. She’d assumed all along that strangers had done this terrible thing. No one who knew Marlena would hurt her in that way. No one would take Lucas Bramlett’s daughter and not fear what it would cost them. “Do you believe that?”
“Yes.”
His fingers clasped her elbow, and she allowed him to lead her up the steps and to the front door. She heard the paint crunch beneath her feet, and it registered that the house was well-maintained, except for the peeling porch. She went inside, stopping in the foyer. Her gaze swept up the curve of the staircase. “Jonah talks about this staircase all the time. His father, Mose, made it.” She walked over and touched the wood. “It’s warm, just like Jonah said.”
“Your grandfather was an accomplished carpenter. He put life into the wood.” Frank’s hand covered hers on the banister. Jade felt something tighten in her lower belly.
“He isn’t really my grandfather.” Jade slipped her hand from beneath his. If she did not, she would turn into his arms and kiss him. She stepped away. “I’ve heard Jonah talk about the Sellers family, but he would never say much about my father. Just that he was a handsome man with a talent for music. He says that’s where I get my singing voice. Then on the other side … to think that Lucille is my mother is bitter.” She stared at a landscape without really seeing it. “I wish Ruth and Jonah were my real parents.”
“None of us got to pick our relatives. We just make the best of what we’re given.” Frank came up behind her. He touched her arm lightly. “Are you hungry?”
“No.” She hadn’t come to eat.
“Would you like a drink?”
“Yes.”
“What would you like?”
She hesitated. “I haven’t drunk a lot. I don’t know. I don’t like whiskey or beer.”
He touched her shoulder lightly, turning her so that she faced him. “I know just the thing.” He kissed her cheek, then led her into the parlor. “Have a seat,” he said, waving in the direction of a sofa and wing chairs. “I’ll be back.”
He left the room, and she heard him in the back of the house. Instead of sitting, she went to the mantel and examined the portrait of the lovely blond woman who gazed at her so frankly. Behind the blonde there was a darker woman, almost hidden. From the back came the sound of a hollow pop, and Frank returned with two tall, slender glasses filled with a pale gold liquid. She took one and saw the bubbles rising in it.
“Champagne,” he said.
“I’ve never had any.” She tasted it, feeling the fizz of the bubbles against her lips. It tickled the inside of her mouth. “It’s good.” “But not good for you,” he answered.
“Who’s the woman?” she asked, raising her glass toward the painting.
“Greta Kimble, my grandmother,” he said. “And the other woman, the dark one?”
“She wasn’t in the portrait originally,” Frank said. “I painted her in myself. It’s my great-aunt Anna.”
“You painted her in?” Jade examined the painting more closely. It was impossible to tell two different artists had done the work. “It’s very good.” The dark eyes of Anna Kimble held her. “A little troubling, though. Why is she in the background like that, almost sinister?”
“Anna killed my father’s twin. An accident, I’m sure. Then my grandfather killed her, and that wasn’t an accident. I painted her the way I see her.”
Jade had the sense that someone had reached out from a dark corner of the room, a grave-cold hand touching her arm. Chill bumps rippled down her back. “The way you see her?”
“Yes,” he said. “I see the dead. They watch me.”
“I’m not afraid of the dead,” she said. She was far more concerned with the living and the cruelty they committed on a daily basis. “Why do the dead watch you?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “When I was younger, I thought they meant to harm me. I thought it was because I wasn’t supposed to be in this house.”
Jade spent hours alone with the mortal remains of those who’d crossed over. She knew their thoughts and wishes, heard their voices speak to her when their mouths were sewn shut. “But that isn’t what they want, is it?”
“You aren’t afraid?”
“Not of the dead,” she said. She downed the champagne and held her glass out. Frank took it wordlessly and went to refill both glasses.
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