“But I think everything is coming from Kathy, that she’s engineered everything.”
“That’s a little farfetched.” Chelsea heard her own words and smiled inwardly. What about this whole thing wasn’t farfetched?
“Look. Something happened to Kathy, something terrible. We’ve pretty much agreed she’s trying to get us to do something for her. Wouldn’t it make sense for her to stack the deck on her side? Wouldn’t she purposely paint a grim picture of Lucas McCord—a man we know tried to come between Kathy and the man she loved—even going as far as making him an enemy to you?”
A chill crept into Chelsea’s heart. She remembered Kathy calling in her dream, help me help me please help me. And Chelsea had vowed to do just that, for she was beginning to think that Lucas might have—
Ben’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Maybe she’s playing on your sympathy.”
Might have killed her. Stunned, Chelsea refused to follow this line of thought. Instead, she looked at Ben. “But I saw Lucas. And John. In the mine—”
“Couldn’t it have been an illusion? A kind of play, put on for your benefit?”
“A theater trick? Are you saying that’s all it was? Some sort of ectoplasmic stage set, for God’s sake?”
Ben said nothing.
“But it was real. And the house was real. It was hit by lightning.”
“Lightning’s an act of God—or nature—depending on your point of view.”
“No,” Chelsea said. “I was in the mine. I saw my grandfather. I talked to him. I saw him die.”
“Your grandfather didn’t die in the Copper Queen,” Ben said.
“What? But I saw—”
“He died in the Hellbent Mine. I looked it up. I have a photocopy of the newspaper article from that day.”
“But I saw him! Arguing with his father! I saw him bum to death!”
“You saw what Kathy wanted you to see.” Ben pulled on the rein and Pleasure Time reluctantly raised her head, “I’ll tell you something else. Lucas was nowhere near the mine when John died. He was in Europe—”
“No!”
“—And he flew home for the funeral.”
Chelsea stood up. “You’re wrong.”
“He was in England, closing a deal. I think we’re being manipulated.”
Later at the house, Ben showed Chelsea the photocopies of the stories he’d discovered at the newspaper office. John McCord had indeed died in the Hellbent Mine—the last property in Bisbee owned by Lucas McCord’s Pan Central Company.
One detail struck Chelsea as more than coincidence.
The article explained that, normally, oxygen should have been flowing through the tunnel, enabling John to reach the escape route with time to spare, but a freak weather change had turned the mine into a death trap. The cloudy day had caused an air inversion, changing the direction in which the good air flowed and sending smoke into the tunnel.
John’s terrified eyes loomed in Chelsea’s memory. What had he said? The air’s going the wrong way.
That part of her vision, at least, was accurate. Chelsea remembered what she’d read about lying. Good liars stuck as close to the truth as possible in order to make their stories more convincing. Could Kathy have done the same thing?
Abruptly, Chelsea remembered the scar—the scar from the rat bite. She had been in that mine—whether it was the Hellbent or the Copper Queen or the Lost damn Dutchman—and she had the scar to prove it. She told Ben so.
“You could have had the scar since your childhood and never even noticed it,” he replied.
It amazed Chelsea how much confidence Ben had. He followed his instincts, even when they flew in the face of logic. She’d also noticed that Ben didn’t berate himself when his perception proved wrong. He was completely unflappable. She envied that trait; her own mind kept turning in on itself like an animal eating its young. Even now, she had to look down to make sure the scar really existed. Which, of course, was a stupid thing to do. Because the scar was gone.
Thirty-three
Chiricahua College had been in session one week. Each class had met at least once; most of them were introductory sessions in which Chelsea outlined the classes’ schedule for the semester.
From now on, things would begin to get hectic, so when Uncle Bob invited her up to his ranch for the weekend, Chelsea postponed her regular Saturday adult art class and drove up in the morning.
Tucson and Bisbee were both part of the Sonoran Desert, but elevation, geology, weather patterns, and population conspired to make them very different. The corrugated hills of Bisbee rose out of grassland and mesquite; Tucson’s valley was much drier.
Bob McCord’s house was situated on eight acres of mesquite-forested land off Woodland Road on the northeast side of town. The pink-adobe main house had been built in the 1940s as part of a large ranch, since subdivided. The windowsills, doors, and trim were painted a royal blue in the Mexican style. A forest of cactus, large and small, ran up the foothills of the Catalina Mountains.
No matter how many times Chelsea visited her great-uncle’s place, its beauty dazzled her.
She spent all day by the pool or in it, finishing one book and starting another, and went riding the next morning. Afterward, she walked to the main house. Bob was up and about.
“You have a good ride?” he asked. He, too, had just showered and wore a terry-cloth robe.
“Wonderful.”
“Good. You’re really doing me a favor, you know. That old fellow needs the exercise. I don’t think I’ve ridden him more than twice this year.” A towel hung around his neck, the ends draping over his burgundy robe. “Orange juice?”
“Please.”
He reached past her to pour the juice into her glass.
A medicinal smell filled Chelsea’s nostrils. She barely suppressed a grimace.
Uncle Bob paused. “Something wrong?”
“No, nothing,” Chelsea replied. He looked at her strangely, so she added, “My nose tickles.”
“Maybe something’s blooming.” Uncle Bob returned the plastic jug to the refrigerator.
She’d smelled it before, recently. The odor she associated with green tile and chrome instruments. . .
“. . . Sydney.” Bob was sitting opposite her. His eyebrows rose in consternation.
“Excuse me? I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.”
“You’re in outer space somewhere. Must be the heat. I said, you missed Sydney’s call.”
Then Chelsea remembered. The room with green tiles was a biology lab; she had been studying anatomy to help her draw human figures better. The smell was formaldehyde.
Bob was looking at her, waiting for her to say something. “How’s she doing?”
Bob sighed. “Better. She wanted you to know how much she appreciated you staying with her.” Mr. Chips stood by the door and cried, “I’ll get it.” Bob brushed past Chelsea to open the door. She caught the odor once more.
Formaldehyde. No question about it. But something else, too. Something rotten. The antiseptic smell was trying to cover it, but it didn’t—not quite.
Bob sat down. To her relief, Chelsea caught only the slightly perfumed scent of soap. “Damn cat of yours has me jumping up and down like a jack-in-the-box. Why can’t he decide whether he wants to be inside or outside?”
“He’s just making sure you know who’s boss.”
“Cats are odious animals.”
Outside, the sky darkened. Thunder grumbled in the distance.
Suddenly Chelsea thought of the camera. It didn’t smell anymore, but she could still remember its odor. Sickly sweet, cloying—the smell of decay. The memory of it tainted her nostrils, and she breathed through her mouth.
Bob consulted his watch. “Looks like we’re in for a thunderstorm. Awful early in the day.” He stretched his legs. “How’s Sydney’s money holding out?”
“I hardly think she’ll be able to go through her trust fund in a lifetime,” Chelsea replied.
Bob sighed. “
But she’ll try.” He shook his head. “I hate to see her waste her life that way. Still, what can you do?”
“I met some of the people from her church. I have to admit they rallied around her—bringing food, taking her places. I honestly think she’d be in a lot worse shape without them.”
“Rallied around her money, you mean. Well, she’s not going to get her hands on this company. Even if she were a blood McCord I wouldn’t let her have the stock. That’s yours.” He looked out the window; suddenly he looked old. “At least I’d have the satisfaction of knowing that if there ever was a crisis, you’d do what’s right. You wouldn’t let anything happen to the company. You’re a true McCord, and that’s something to be proud of.” He brightened suddenly. “How’s that book of yours coming?”
“Just fine” Chelsea lied.
The rain poured down. The scent of creosote, alfalfa, and wet grass lingered in Chelsea’s nostrils.
Uncle Bob continued to stare out the window. His face looked haggard, and for a moment his ruddy skin seemed translucent. Then he smiled, and she realized she must have been imagining things.
Closing her eyes, Chelsea drew in the rain scent, savoring its sweetness. And almost gagged.
The death smell was stronger than ever. It was coming from Uncle Bob.
Thirty-four
That afternoon, Chelsea and Bob drove up to Mount Lemmon for lunch in Ski Valley. Bob didn’t smell at all. Chelsea decided that the odor might have come from the open window in his kitchen; perhaps a small animal had died in the cactus garden. Chelsea’s mind shied away from the other smell (formaldehyde . . . I wonder if they use formaldehyde at funeral homes?) and concentrated on having a good time. After all, that was the point of this whole weekend, wasn’t it?
And on the drive back to Bisbee, Chelsea tried not to think about lightning out of a clear blue sky or Mary McCord’s photo album or Uncle Bob’s offhand remark (they were sipping coffee, watching the hummingbirds, and no, he didn’t smell at all) that Mary McCord could predict when a person would die. Chelsea tried not to wonder if that kind of thing ran in families.
School was great. Chelsea had forgotten how much of a kick teaching was. She fit into Chiricahua College as if it were a favorite article of clothing—one she’d worn for years.
No corpses jumped out at her from doorways, no holes opened up in the fabric of time, nothing weird happened at all. There was a period of about three weeks, as the dry September days mellowed into fall, with college classes and private students clamoring for her attention and more and more time spent in Ben’s company, that absolutely nothing bad happened.
It wouldn’t last.
But before things started getting weird again—and when they did they would get weird in a hurry—Chelsea’s life was a multicolored tapestry of friends, job, fears (mostly at night), and a slow, bittersweet journey toward a new life.
Gary asked her out to dinner, and Chelsea turned him down. She knew he didn’t have much money, and he wouldn’t let her buy. He came over, and they made spaghetti instead, shared a bottle of wine, and played Scrabble. They both got tipsy, he told her he loved her, and she said they hardly knew each other, and the next day they both apologized.
Sunshine, on the few occasions Chelsea saw her, seemed to have taken on a desperate fragile energy—she vibrated like a tuning fork. The bright, fevered look in her eyes meant Sunshine was obsessed with something (wasn’t she always?), but she refused to talk about it. Sunshine hadn’t mentioned the man in her life for some time now, so Chelsea assumed that the broken love affair was the problem.
After returning from Tucson, Chelsea called Uncle Bob every day for a week. She was a little concerned for his safety—no reason she could put a name to. Except that smell, of course, but by this time she’d begun to think the smell had been conjured out of her imagination.
When time allowed, she and Ben combed the town in search of older Bisbee residents. Most hadn’t known Kathy, and those who did couldn’t say where she’d gone. Chelsea found herself falling for Ben, but she still didn’t trust her judgment and was content to let things take their own pace. She was also waiting for him to tell her about his wife. He didn’t.
Uncle Bob’s campaign for governor moved to television.
Chelsea sold several drawings at the convention center’s fall art show. Most were portraits of a hauntingly beautiful girl from the 1940s.
Mr. Chips moved from his favorite spot on the windowsill to his new favorite spot on the couch.
Chelsea’s book went nowhere.
The nights got colder.
The shadows grew longer.
Oh, and there was the argument. Ben and Chelsea had the same argument in various forms throughout September. Ben believed Kathy was the genesis of everything. Chelsea believed Lucas was real.
One night, Ben and Chelsea went to the Copper Queen bar to hear an acoustic band. Chelsea had been reluctant to go at first. Her last experience with the Copper Queen bar was still fresh in her mind. In the end, they compromised and sat on the terrace. They could hear the band through the open doorway.
She was glad she had brought a sweater. Light spilled out of the bar, reminding Chelsea of her favorite Van Gogh painting, Cafe Terrace at Night. It could have been quite romantic, except that she and Ben ended up arguing again.
“That corpse was real, not an illusion. Lucas McCord tried to kill me,” Chelsea insisted.
“I think it was meant to scare you.”
“Well, it did,” Chelsea said, her voice shaking. “It damn well did!’
Ben propped his elbows on the metal table and leaned forward. “All I’m saying is don’t take everything at face value.”
“You think that I’m so dumb I can be manipulated like that? That all someone has to do is . . . spoonfeed me what I’m supposed to believe and I’ll go along?”
Ben shrugged. “You can be impressionable.”
“Impressionable? Tell me, Ben, why are women impressionable, while men are just forceful?”
Ben’s voice was harsh. “You have a chip on your shoulder, don’t you? No one’s out to get you because you’re a woman. So you’ve been tossed out of one job and had a bad marriage. It’s time you realized that there are a lot of worse things in this world.”
Chelsea opened her mouth to reply, but saw the controlled anger on Ben’s face. And the emotion behind the anger: anguish.
Chelsea’s own anger vanished. How could she be so insensitive? Ben must be thinking of his dead wife. Jason’s petty cruelties and infidelities paled in comparison. Not knowing if it was the right thing, Chelsea reached forward and grasped Ben’s hand. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I know about your wife. Frank told me.”
Ben didn’t reply. His eyes were stony.
I’m sorry. I’ve been thoughtless, complaining about my problems when you’ve been through a lot worse.” She struggled under his gaze, floundering. “I mean, to lose someone you loved . . .”
“I didn’t love her,” Ben said. “I hated her.”
Chelsea hadn’t known what to say, so she said nothing. Ben changed the subject. The case was closed. Now they sat in silence, nursing their drinks. The music buzzed on the air, but Chelsea barely heard it. She was alone with her thoughts. Ben sat across from her, but he might have been twenty miles away.
A friendly manifestation might be nice right now, Chelsea thought. To liven things up.
A little after that, Gary came up the steps to the terrace, whistling. When he saw Ben was with Chelsea, his face fell. “Chelsea. I just drove by your house. Thought maybe you’d like to hear the band. I guess you heard about it already.” He glanced at Ben, his smile pasted on.
Chelsea asked him to join them, despite the daggered glance Ben shot at her.
“Okay, sure,” Gary replied, pulling up a chair. “But I don’t want to intrude—”
“You aren’t intruding.” Ben’s voice was brusque. “Besides, it’s getting crowded in there. I don’t think you’ll be able to fin
d a table.”
The rest of the evening was strained. Gary knew that something was going on, but he was too polite to mention it. He managed to keep them talking for a while. Chelsea couldn’t keep up her end of the conversation; her mind kept returning to Ben’s revelation. Eventually, like a car running out of gas, they coasted into silence. After a short time, Gary, uncomfortable in the extreme, bade them good night. Ben and Chelsea left soon afterward.
They walked back to Chelsea’s house, where Ben’s truck was parked. They were almost to the house when Ben touched Chelsea’s shoulder. “I’m sorry” he said.
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry for.” Wife-hating wasn’t exactly a crime. Neither was speaking ill of the dead.
Ben pulled her around to face him. “I was going to tell you about Carol. But it’s hard for me to talk about.”
“Apparently not that hard. You certainly left no doubt in my mind how much—”
“Shut up, will you? And listen, for once.” Ben sighed. “How I felt about Carol has nothing to do with how I feel about you.”
“Oh? And just how do you feel about me?”
Ben said nothing. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Chelsea resisted for a moment, then gave in. She could do nothing else.
The night closed around them, the air molding their bodies together. Somewhere in the hills, a coyote cried. Chelsea heard a rustling sound near the house. An owl? Or Mr. Chips in the bushes, after some frightened night creature?
Their kiss lasted only a minute or so and lasted forever . . . encompassed the world, and yet was the smallest, most delicate gift imaginable. Chelsea wanted to hear him say he loved her, wanted it so badly she almost asked.
But she didn’t. Perhaps her emotions had been locked away too long; the words just wouldn’t pass her lips.
Another rustling sound, somewhere on the side of the house. Mr. Chips sauntered toward them, his dark shape winding through the yard. Ben drew back and looked at Chelsea. His eyes glittered like blue ice. Unreadable. Like Jason’s eyes, only Jason’s eyes were gold. Somewhere nearby, a truck started, a deep, throaty rumble that rent the night. Chelsea picked up Mr. Chips, stroked his ticked fur, soothed by his closeness, his vibrating purr. She didn’t return Ben’s gaze.
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