Penumbra

by Carolyn Haines

  Jonah stood at the edge of Lucille Longier’s yard in the pouring rain. He’d never seen a storm like this one, the sky so dark that late afternoon had turned to night. It felt as if the whole world was turning liquid. Everything in Jonah’s life that had been steady and reliable was falling apart. Mostly it was his view of himself that had shifted and shattered. He wasn’t the man he thought himself to be. It was only by providence that his daughter was alive and well. And now, no matter what it cost him, he would see to her welfare. Even if it meant crawling back to Lucille Longier and begging for the use of her car. The problem was the car was gone.

  Headlights cut across the yard, and he stepped deeper into the shrubs. It was Lucille’s car, and he could see that it was her behind the wheel. Someone else was in the front seat. A tall man.

  He watched as Lucille parked, got out, and went around to open the door for the man. He wobbled as he got out, and braced himself on the fender. Lucille supported him as she helped him through the rain and onto the porch. He settled into a rocking chair, and she hurried into the house.

  Jonah debated what to do. Lucille would never give him the car if he asked in front of another white person. She probably wouldn’t let him use it at all. But he had to find Jade. He’d called the shop and gotten no answer. He’d tried to call Frank’s house, but there was trouble on the line. Sheriff Huey wasn’t to be found, and Jade had disappeared without a trace. He needed the car to hunt for her. With each passing moment, his need grew stronger.

  The man on the porch slumped over as if he’d fallen asleep or passed out. Jonah stepped out of the shrubs. He walked across the yard, the rainwater rising over the tops of his shoes. He was almost to the porch when Lucille came out of the house, a glass of amber liquid in her hand. When she saw him, she stopped. Her empty hand went up to her mouth, as if to cover her expression of surprise.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, a tone of reprimand in her voice.

  “I came to borrow your car,” he said. “Have you lost your mind?”

  He shook his head. The man on the porch looked up, but his expression was uninterested. He was in torment, sunk far too deep in his own worries to give a care for anyone else.

  “No, ma’am. Jade is missing, and I need to find her. I don’t have a car, so I came to get yours.”

  “You think I should loan you my car?” She sounded amused.

  “Jade is your daughter. I’m not asking to borrow your car. I’m taking it.” He went to the driver’s side and checked for the key. It was in the ignition. “I’ll bring it back as soon as I can.”

  “If you take that car, I’ll call the law on you.”

  “Go ahead. I can’t find Mr. Frank or Mr. Huey anywhere. If I could have, I’d get them to look for Jade.”

  He opened the door and got in.

  “I’ll have you charged with car theft.”

  Jonah looked out the window. He saw the shell of the woman he’d loved for most of his life. The good part of her, the tenderness and caring, was long gone. He’s spent his life loving something that was only half alive.

  “You do what you have to do, Miss Lucille. As soon as Jade is safe, I’ll bring the car back.”

  He started the car, backed around, and left. In the rearview window, he saw Lucille bending over the man, holding the glass for him to drink. It was only as the view disappeared around a bend that he wondered who the man was and why Lucille was so solicitous of him.

  31

  Jade crouched beneath the kitchen cabinet, the butcher knife clutched in her hand. Junior had made it into the house. She’d heard him in the parlor, had tracked his progress through the dining room and into the kitchen as he’d walked around the table, his breathing harsh and eager.

  Now, he was upstairs, and she fought the impulse to crawl out of her hiding place and run. She couldn’t leave Marlena. If Junior found her, she had no doubt he would kill her. Jade shifted in her hiding place, her knees complaining along with her back. She was jammed around the drain pipes, contorted into the only space where she could protect Marlena. If Junior tried to go into the pantry, Jade intended to kill him.

  Bitter thoughts were her company as she listened to Junior’s tread. She’d played right into his hands. His threats and intimidation at the hospital had been intended to achieve one thing, a rash action, and she’d done exactly as he wished. She’d taken Marlena, the only witness to his brutality and the abduction of a child. By moving Marlena to an isolated house, with the phone out, she’d put her sister in imminent danger. If Marlena died, no one could testify against Junior.

  Thunder rumbled across the sky, and Jade felt the house tremble. The winds had shifted, coming out of the south now. Rain still drummed against the windowpanes, but it wasn’t as heavy. The storm was letting up. She imagined running out of the house to her car, driving through the puddles in the road, water splashing up in a muddy wing as she raced for safety.

  She couldn’t leave Marlena, though. Eventually Junior would find her, and he’d finish the job he’d started in the woods four days before.

  What little hope Jade had harbored that Suzanna was alive was gone. She thought of her niece, a child who’d never known unconditional love, or much love of any kind. Marlena had cared for the child, but she was deficit in the area of love. She’d never known tenderness or concern from Lucille, and she had no store to share with Suzanna. The child had lived unwanted and emotionally neglected, and now Jade accepted she was dead. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the tears away. She would grieve for her niece later, when she and Marlena were safe.

  There was the sound of something crashing on the second floor, and Jade thought again of running. If Junior searched the second and third floors, she might have time to get to town and get help. But once she started her car, he would realize she was gone. Then he would know Marlena was helpless in the house. No. She couldn’t risk leaving, but she had to think of a place where she’d have the element of surprise. Popping out of the cabinet was a poor choice. The first strike of the knife would be at his calves. Not really a lethal point unless she was lucky enough to sever an artery.

  She eased the cabinet door open and crawled out. She kept the knife with her, the blade glinting in a burst of lightning. She stepped into the pantry, where Marlena slumped in a chair. Jade touched her cheek, feeling only a hint of warmth. She was alive, but for how much longer if she didn’t get medical care? Jade found a sheet in the laundry and draped it over her. It wasn’t much of a disguise, but on first glance she looked like a piece of furniture.

  The sound of footsteps on the staircase drifted through the open pantry door, and Jade felt panic rise in her lungs. Junior was coming back down, and he was trying to be stealthy. Jade closed the door to the pantry and tiptoed into the dining room. There was a sideboard by the parlor door. If Junior came in through the parlor door, she’d have a chance. If he chose to come in from the foyer door, he’d see her almost immediately.

  She used a dining table chair to climb onto the sideboard, then flipped the chair over so that it clattered onto the hardwood floor. She heard Junior pause. He gave a low chuckle.

  “I’m tired of this game of hide-and-seek. Now come on out like a good girl, and maybe I won’t hurt you.”

  She felt her heart in her ears, a thudding sound that blocked out everything else. The hand clenching the knife was numb. She held her breath and waited, listening to his footfalls move slowly through the parlor toward her.

  “Where’s that slut?” Junior asked. “Give her to me and I’ll let you go.”

  Jade’s breath came in tiny, shallow puffs. She waited, intent only on the sound of his approach.

  Through the crack in the door, she could see him, a dark bulk. He stopped in the doorway, suddenly alert. Lightning lit the room, and for an instant, Jade thought he was looking directly at her. She thought her heart had stopped, but it bumped painfully against her ribs.

  He took another step into the room.

  Jade tens
ed, ready for the pounce. Another step. Maybe two.

  Junior looked from side to side in the darkness. He turned in her direction, as if he could scent her. “When I find you, I’m going to hurt you bad,” he said as he walked forward.

  Frank passed the Buick doing seventy-five, and the fan of water that sheeted over his windshield almost wrecked him. The Buick was moving fast, too. He recognized the car as Lucille Longier’s. He got the patrol car under control, did a U-turn, and headed after the Buick with his lights flashing. In the heavy rain, he’d been unable to see who was driving the car, but if Hubbard was in the vehicle, he was going to jail.

  The Buick pulled to the side of the road, and Frank got out and walked to the driver’s side. He was surprised to see Jonah, alone in the car.

  “Mr. Frank, I have to find Jade.”

  Jonah’s words sent a chill through Frank. He leaned toward the window. “She said she was going to spend the afternoon with you.”

  “Some man peeped in on her. She went to town to talk to you.”

  Frank didn’t move. He felt the rain beating down on him, the drops sliding down his face and into his mouth. He heard the motor of the Buick running beneath the sound of the rain. He saw Jonah staring into his face, but he was removed from all of it. “When did this happen?” he asked.

  “This afternoon, about one o’clock. She went up to the sheriff’s office and she never came back. I can’t find her anywhere.”

  “Did she recognize the man peeping at her?”

  Jonah shook his head. “She didn’t say she did. She was scared.”

  “She might be with Marlena. Have you tried the hospital?”

  “No. I’ll check her house again and then the hospital. Where are you going?”

  Frank met his gaze. “She might be at my house.” Jonah turned his face so that he stared at the road. “If she’s there, bring her to the hospital.” “I will.”

  Jonah stepped lightly on the gas and the Buick drew away. Frank stood in the rain a moment before he got in the patrol car, his body processing the emotions that rippled through him. Once behind the wheel, he pressed the gas pedal to the floor, sheets of water flying to each side. He passed Jonah and saw the look of worry on his face, but he didn’t slow. Hubbard wasn’t important any longer. Nothing mattered except finding Jade and making sure she was safe.

  He was almost at the Drexel city limits when he cut off the highway, speeding down the narrow dirt road, ignoring the standing water that crossed it. Halfway through the water, the car shifted, sliding to the right. He pressed the gas harder and swung the wheel. He came out of the slide, hit the asphalt of Highway 13, and drove, mud flying everywhere behind the car.

  He turned down his drive going too fast, and he had to brake to avoid hitting a tree. In his headlights, the camellia bushes looked like towering walls of black. Limbs slapped the car as he swerved around each curve. When the house came into view, it was dark. Tree limbs were scattered around the yard, and in the lessening rain, the house looked washed and faded. He pulled to the back and saw Jade’s Hudson with a sigh of relief. The shed doors were open, a fact that tickled his mind, and when they banged wide in the wind, he saw Dotty’s car hidden in the dark recesses. Dread touched him. He slammed on the brakes, killed the motor, and raced toward the dark house.

  Jonah sat in the car, the windshield wipers swishing across the glass. In the Buick’s headlights, he saw the trunk of the sweet gum tree that had fallen across the road. It was a big tree, at least four feet in diameter, and a saw would be required to remove it. For some reason, he was reluctant to leave the Buick. It wasn’t the rain that bothered him. He couldn’t put his finger on it, just a feeling of dread. He had to find out if Jade was okay, and he tried to reason with himself that she’d headed home and then found her way blocked by the tree.

  He picked up the flashlight that he kept in the glove box and got out, the rain singing against his skin. He stepped over the tree and continued the walk to Jade’s house. At the edge of the yard, he stopped. The house was dark and silent, foreboding even. Rain ran off the tin roof like a waterfall, and he could remember the sound of it inside the house, when he’d been safe with Mose and his mother. Now, the house looked dangerous.

  He gripped the flashlight like a club and walked up on the porch. When he twisted the doorknob, it came off in his hand. His heart pumped staccato. He eased the door open and walked inside. If his baby girl was in here, hurt, he had to find her. At first he heard only the drum of the rain on the tin roof, but his ears adjusted, and beneath that was a slow rhythmic creak. He listened in the darkness, trying to place the sound he recognized almost like a part of his body. He’d heard it all his life, all his childhood. He knew it, suddenly. He clicked the flashlight on and swung the beam to the corner of the room. Pet Wilkinson sat in his mother’s old rocking chair, a grin on his face and a piece of flour sack cloth on his lap.

  “Where’s your girl?” Pet asked, then reached to his side and picked up a stout wooden club. In the flashlight’s yellow beam, his features were white, his eyes feral.

  Jonah clicked off the flashlight.

  32

  Dotty held the paddle in the water, steering the boat as the boy had told her. Down the long miles of the rain-swollen river, she’d become adept at using the paddle as a rudder. Paddling wasn’t necessary; the current was swift, and she’d learned to search for and avoid eddies that could grasp the boat and suck it down to the bottom.

  The rain had lessened, but the boy still used his hands to bail the boat, which either had a leak or was filling with rain. The woman was curled in a fetal position in the bottom of the boat, her face opalescent in the occasional flashes of lightning. The boy had covered her with the curtain, and Dotty didn’t know if she was alive or not. Dotty could do nothing for the woman one way or the other. She had to focus on holding the paddle like a rudder, even though her hands were blistered and cracked. Just before they’d made it to the river, her left foot had slipped on a root and now her little toe dangled precariously, held on by a hunk of flesh. She’d almost severed it. Once she got back to town, Dantzler Archey was going to suffer. She turned her face into the rain as her thoughts curled hot and angry. She would live because she wanted to make sure he paid for all he’d done. Whenever she felt ready to drop the paddle and quit, when her shoulders burned with exertion and her foot throbbed with pain, she visualized Archey, naked and staked to the ground as she poured honey over his penis and waited for the ants to find him.

  “Go left,” the boy said in his strange voice.

  She might not have understood him except she saw him waving in a burst of lightning. She repositioned the boat paddle and felt the small wooden craft swing toward the left bank. She’d given up trying to imagine where they might be on the river. It shifted and curved, and she’d lost all sense of direction and only hoped they were still on the Chickasawhay. The boy had told her there was a small community on the river, a place called Merrill. The river was running swift and fast with the rainwater, a virtual flood.

  “Slow down!” the boy cried.

  She used the paddle in backward arcs, frantically trying to halt the swift progress of the boat. If they overshot the landing there would be no paddling against the current and they might end up, starved to death, in the Mississippi Sound.

  “Look!” The boy was trying to stand up in the boat, making it rock from side to side.

  “Sit your ass down!” she cried, swinging the boat in a half circle. She saw it then, the white arms extended, the back floating gently on the current. Naked and beautiful, the slender spine disappeared into the dark waters. It was a child’s body.

  She maneuvered the boat so that she was beside it. She could hear the skull knocking gently into the side of the boat just as the rain stopped. She knew she should reach out and catch the fan of dark hair that floated like silk on the water, but she couldn’t bring herself to touch it.

  “Grab it,” the boy said. He was hunkered down in the bow,
ready to crawl toward her and help.

  She shook her head. “No,” she said.

  “Get it,” the boy demanded.

  She couldn’t force herself to touch the body. She shook her head, even though the boy couldn’t see her.

  She felt the boat rock again and knew he was coming to the stern. She didn’t protest but held the paddle in the water so the boat stayed beside the body.

  The boy crept to the side, his hand snaking fast and clutching the hair. Grunting from the exertion, he began to pull the body into the boat. Dotty grabbed an arm and then a leg and helped him haul the cold, dead thing into the bottom of the boat, where it fell beside the boy’s mother. Dotty felt nothing at all. It was the body of a small person, a child, but in the darkness she couldn’t tell the sex. She didn’t want to know. She waited for the boy to get back into position in the bow, and then she steered the boat back into the current.

  “Shouldn’t be far now,” the boy said, and he spoke quietly, because the rain had stopped and silence had fallen over the river. “We’re in the forks,” he said. “Take us left.”

  The boat seemed to glide on the still water. The current was swift, but without the noise of the rain, it seemed they moved across glass. The clouds were shifting in the sky, and an occasional glint of moonlight illuminated the water like a silver pathway before the clouds thickened again.