The Secret Hour

by Luanne Rice

  Standing on the steps of a stranger, John looked into Kate Harris's gray-green eyes. Her hands felt warm and thin, and he suddenly wished she would touch his face. His breath was deep and ragged.

  “I'm a defense lawyer,” he said.

  Kate nodded. “I know,” she said.

  John weaved on the steps, as if a strong wind had started to blow, as if the tide had just changed and was pulling him out to sea. The current was strong, like a riptide. When he was a boy, he and his friends had skipped school and gone to Misquamicut for the day. John had gotten caught in the undertow, swept into a riptide. No matter how hard he fought it, the tide was stronger than he was.

  “Swim parallel to shore,” his father had always taught him—wise instructions for a boy who lived by the sea, who was bound at some point in his life to encounter a rip. In his panic, John had forgotten for a few minutes and, following instinct, had tried swimming straight back to the beach. Getting nowhere, tiring quickly, he had felt himself being tugged out to sea.

  “I'm in an ethical dilemma,” he said now, still holding Kate's hands. His voice was so low, he wasn't sure she'd heard him.

  “What?” she asked.

  “There's what I have to do as a lawyer,” he said, “and what I want to do as a man . . .”

  Tilting her head, her stone-gray eyes caught the light. They were deep and somehow warm, filled with unfathomable secrets and sorrow and mysteriously, at the same time, laughter and joy. Staring down, still holding her hands, John O'Rourke was almost overcome with the desire to kiss her.

  “What's the difference?” Kate asked. “Are the two parts so distinct?”

  An interesting question, John thought. Usually, until right now, perhaps not. He had become a defense lawyer because he was a good man, because he believed in every person's right to a fair trial, because he believed in the law. But this minute, John was at war with himself. He was Jacob wrestling the angel—only the angel was John's own heart and soul.

  “Yes, they're so distinct,” John said.

  “Then tell me what they are . . .”

  Gripping Kate's hand, John led her down the house steps, along the street—he wasn't going to walk her through the backyards again.

  The night was so cold, they could see their own breath. October ended with Halloween; at midnight, it would be November, the beginning of All Souls or All Saints—in spite of his Irish Catholic upbringing, John had never known one from the other. He had been a heathen in recent years. A stone church stood down the block—Spiritus Santi in Portuguese. Holy Ghost . . .

  In local custom, the congregants filed out in a silent, solemn procession, holding candles to welcome the spirits of their dead, to greet their lost beloveds . . .

  “Do you believe in anything?” John asked Kate as the people filed into the small cemetery.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “I do.”

  “Can you tell me what it is?” he asked, then laughed. He was trying to make a joke, but she wasn't even smiling.

  When they circled around the block to the parking lot, they both looked at the house and saw the father hanging a blanket over the girl's window. Five seconds later, not a crack of light was visible. The two of them stood very still, holding hands, watching to make sure they couldn't see the girl's shadow pass.

  Kate lifted up ever so gracefully on her toes, and now John knew exactly what to do. He wrapped Kate in a tight embrace, gave her a long, lingering kiss. He would have kissed her all night; the second she broke away, he was already yearning for more.

  “Kate,” he whispered.

  “She's safe now.”

  “No one's ever safe,” John said, stopping dead and taking her face in his hands.

  “Don't say that . . .” Kate said, her eyes filling with tears.

  He wanted to kiss her again, but he wanted to tell the truth more. Lies had nearly killed his family. He was putting his entire career on the line right now, and he wasn't going to mix it up with soft-pedaling the truth.

  “I know it for a fact,” John said.

  Kate shook her head, but he wouldn't let her go.

  “You know it too,” he said, his voice breaking. “Or you wouldn't be here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your sister would be home . . . safe at home. She'd be in her nice warm house; you'd be in yours . . . the last six months wouldn't have happened. She wouldn't have come into contact with my client.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You know . . .”

  “Say it,” she said, the words tearing out as she grabbed the front of his sweater. Her hand was bleeding, and the blood smeared across the green wool.

  “Your sister was here,” John said, holding Kate tight, so she couldn't pull away. “And so was my client . . .”

  “Merrill?”

  “Yes,” John said. “He came into this back parking lot, to look at that young girl—” he gestured at the small house, the window now dark. “And he got frustrated. I think . . .”

  “Willa was buying gas,” Kate whispered, her eyes wild with fire.

  “Yes, I think she was.”

  “And he came upon her . . .”

  “He forced her into her own car,” John said, not sure, not positive of anything, but using his knowledge of his client's psychological profile and his methods of operation, to try to answer Kate's questions.

  “And made her drive away?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?” she asked with horror.

  “Because that is what he does.”

  “Did he tell you?”

  “Yes.”

  “About WILLA?” she asked, nearly screaming.

  “No—not about Willa. But about the others. About watching the girl in that window.” There—he had done it—breached lawyer-client confidentiality. One call to the court by Kate Harris, and John O'Rourke's career was over. Maybe it was anyway. How could he come back from this?

  “Oh, no, oh, no,” Kate was saying, shaking her head.

  “Sit down,” John said, leading her to her car. Pushing her down, so she could lean on the hood, holding her still with both hands on her shoulders.

  There were lines in life that good people never crossed. To John they had always been completely clear. They weren't like sins—lying, stealing. They were bigger; they had to do with vows, with the promises a good man made and had to keep in order to stay a good man.

  A good man didn't kill. Or cheat on his wife. And, if he were a lawyer, he didn't break his client's confidence. It didn't matter whether the client was a thief, a rapist, a murderer, or all three. The crime was beside the point because the principle was larger than anyone, or anything.

  The principle—the ethics of a lawyer keeping his client's confidence, of making sure the client received a fair trial—was something that John had lived by his entire life. He had learned it from his father.

  And his father's word and lessons were worth everything to John O'Rourke. He hoped to pass them on, through the generations, to his son and his daughter, and to their sons and daughters.

  “What do I do now?” Kate asked, beginning to shake.

  “You go home,” John said. “You stop searching.”

  “But Willa . . .”

  “Let the nightmare be over,” John said.

  “How can you say that? It feels as if it's just begun . . .” Her voice rising, Kate reached out with her scraped hand. She needed to touch John—he understood. She had just come face-to-face with the monster he encountered every day.

  “Kate,” he said. He knew he should leave now. He had given her what she'd asked for; holding her would only make it worse. But he wanted her so badly; he wanted to touch a human being who would touch him back, who would need contact as much as he did, a woman with river eyes and a loving gaze, who had been cheated on, who still cared enough about her sister to come all this long, long way.

  “I still have to find her,” she whispered, her hand held out. “Willa . . .�
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  John shook, wanting to embrace her. He took her hand instead. “You have her, Kate. Where it matters most.”

  “Where?” she asked, the word scraping from her throat.

  “There,” he said, pointing at her heart. “Inside. Take her home to your brother . . . let this go. Just let it go.”

  Sobbing softly, she bowed her head. John opened the car door. Brainer wanted to stay inside with Bonnie, but John grabbed his collar and urged him out. He stared down at Kate; if she looked up, if she reached for him again, he'd take her into his arms and never be able to leave. He almost wished she would; he wanted her to hold him, so he'd know he was still good.

  Instead, as Kate Harris cried alone, keening for her sister, John strode across the parking lot. Brainer kept pace, and he leapt into the backseat when John unlocked the wagon door.

  The girl's window was curtained and dark. John checked his cell phone—no message lights blinking. That meant Maggie and Teddy were at home with the Judge and Maeve. Merrill was locked up on death row. Everything was for now, if not safe, at least okay.

  Now, headlights on, John drove over to Kate. Sitting in his car, he watched until she raised her tear-streaked face and stared into the lights. His stomach flipped: How many of Merrill's, of other killers', victims had looked into headlights like his?

  Waiting, not rolling down his window—afraid that speaking to her would keep him from driving away—he watched as she wearily straightened. As if sleepwalking, she moved around her car, opened her door, climbed in. Bonnie's face peered over the dashboard, incongruously friendly and cute. Brainer barked.

  The streetlights illuminated Kate's face. She stared at him for a long moment. Then, raising her hand, she waved him away. John didn't wave back, just sat there waiting—not wanting to leave her alone in that lot. Finally, she put her car in reverse, backed away, and pulled out. Glancing in his rearview mirror, he watched her head west.

  He hung back a moment.

  Rolling down his window, he felt a blast of cold sea air. Congregants' voices rose, singing a hymn in Portuguese at the advent of All Souls. John thought he smelled the candle smoke. Turning his head, he saw them flickering in the distance, among the graves.

  As he always did, whenever he passed a church or thought of it, he said—by way of a prayer for the women his client had killed—their names. “Anne-Marie, Terry, Gayle, Jacqueline, Beth, Patricia, Antoinette . . .” Tonight he added a new one.

  “Willa,” he said out loud.

  Kate's red taillights disappeared around the corner, and John's heart began to pound harder. He'd just delivered the worst news a sister could ever hear. He wished he could make it easier for her, but he knew he couldn't.

  He had kissed her. That was something, wasn't it? Proved he wasn't totally dead inside, that he was still capable of some kind of connection? That Kate was, too? That betrayal hadn't killed them both? But her sister was gone, and the fact he had kissed her was nothing compared to that.

  John was sure she'd already forgotten it.

  chapter 13

  The flight to Washington filled Kate with memories of flying with Willa, of taking her up in the small Cessna, banking over the Potomac and flying east over estuaries of endless green to the sands of Chincoteague. The images were so shimmering and happy that, when she closed her eyes, she smelled tidal waters and salt hay. She remembered John's arms around her, felt his kiss . . . the happiness of touching someone again.

  Followed by the terrible reality of what he'd told her about Willa intersecting with Merrill . . .

  So, touching down at Reagan Airport, she didn't even bother to go home. She and Bonnie just walked out of the terminal, straight over to the private aviation hangar; Kate slid her Amex card across the counter and chartered the only four-seater available—the same old yellow Cessna she and Willa had flown a hundred times.

  The plane's interior felt like home. The cracked leather seats, the small blue plastic visor, the old-style control panel. Bonnie, aware of the takeoff about to come, curled up in back. Kate ran through her checklist, waved the wing flaps, and took off into the wild blue yonder from which she had just landed. Instinctively touching her neck, she reached for her white scarf.

  Of course, she had given it to Maggie. The scarf, a gift from Willa—purchased lovingly, with money from her savings account, from a Paris boutique—had been one of Kate's most prized possessions. Its thick, creamy silk had felt so soft around her neck, the fringe so jaunty and brave.

  “Every aviatrix should have one!” Willa had said.

  How true that was; and that was why Kate had given it to Maggie. There was something about that little girl—so vulnerable and courageous—that had pierced Kate, had reminded her of her own sister at that age. She thought of Maggie, her brother, and her father, wondered what they were doing at that moment. . . . Their families were connected now, in some deep and mysterious way, that had only a little to do with the kiss, with kissing John in the parking lot where Willa had disappeared, where his client had probably killed her . . . that kiss that Kate felt still, that told her body—her nerves and skin and heart—that she was still alive.

  Isn't it strange, she thought, that my sister isn't here anymore? But I am? How can that be? The truth hadn't sunk in yet. The reality was buzzing in her brain, but it hadn't made it down to her heart, her guts, her toes. Strangely and somehow upsettingly, John's kiss felt more real than anything. Her lips still felt it—the excitement, the warmth, the gentle touch of another human being.

  Heading east, the plane's roar comforted her. She loved airplane engine sounds, even the surges and hums that had sometimes made Willa jump. Flying home to her Atlantic barrier island home, Kate could almost believe her sister was right beside her.

  The truth was so hard to accept, she pushed it away. Concentrating on flying the plane, she passed over the Chesapeake Bay, the Eastern Shore of Maryland, then took a hard right and flew down the Virginia coast to the grass strip she knew and loved so well: Wild Ponies Airfield.

  The small yellow plane bounded down the flat and wide-open rutted ground of dry brown grass. Kate had called ahead, and she was met by Doris Marley, driver of the Bumblebee Taxi. Doris drove Kate to her brother's cabin without one second of silence, filling Kate in on every aspect of island life: gossip, deaths, one marriage, one custody battle, the need for a new roof on the feed and grain store, Doris's own difficulties with her mortgage, her septic tank, and her son's education—the typical hard-luck story all island cab drivers delivered to every big-city fare.

  The words ran together: “Another hard winter coming; gotta get my teeth fixed one of these days . . . lost another molar; Joe, Jr., wants to go to college, trying to scrape the money together for tuition, but it ain't easy when the septic tank gave out, had to have a new one put in . . .”

  “Thanks, Doris,” Kate said when they'd driven down the narrow road—drifted with blowing sand—into the pine barrens at the island's south end. She pulled out a twenty, told Doris to keep the change, and arranged for a pickup an hour later.

  “Thanksgiving's coming,” Doris had called after her. “Tell your brother he's welcome at our table . . . you, too, if you're home from Washington for the holiday!”

  Kate hardly heard, although she did notice that Doris hadn't mentioned Willa. Their sister's disappearance, though not officially explained, had made it into the island consciousness—and no one knew what to say.

  Matt's cabin was as weathered as the trees that surrounded it. Nestled among scrub pines, in a hollow of sand and dirt and pine needles, it blended in with all of nature. Brown owls made their nests in the holes of dead trees; Kate heard their great wingbeats at the sound of her approach. Bonnie, spooked, stayed close to Kate's ankles.

  Her brother's rusty red pickup sat out back. Blue plastic barrels, reeking with oyster brine, were piled in its bed. Mountains of oyster shells, as high as the rooftop, glistened in the wan November sunlight. Kate's throat caught; her brother was still
searching for Queen Pearl.

  She knocked on the door. No answer, so she knocked again. Pressing her ear against the dry and cracked wood, she listened for life. No sounds. She sniffed, smelling that omnipresent odor of cigarette smoke.

  “I know you're in there,” she called out. “So you'd better open up.”

  No human reply, but a seagull landed on the mound of oyster shells, creating a small, scuttling avalanche. More seagulls arrived—perhaps, seeing life, hoping for food. An animal moved through the brush; when Kate turned her head, she saw that she was being watched by a scruffy pair of wild ponies. Bonnie growled, very low, flattening her body to the ground.

  Finally the door was yanked open.

  “Hi, Matt,” Kate said.

  “Hi, Katy.”

  He was tall and bone thin, stooped over like an old man. His hair had grown to his shoulders, and it was matted and tangled, like the bed of brown pine needles that blanketed the sandy ground. Crouching down, he tickled Bonnie behind the ears, and she shimmied with love for Matt. His cloudy blue eyes looked across her head at the ponies. Kate watched as he took in their whiskery faces, their huge watchful eyes, their dirty white-and-brown coats.

  “They're hungry,” he said. “Winter's coming.”

  “I know.”

  Matt went to his truck and took out a closed container of slops from one of the island restaurants. Kate's stomach clenched—he'd gotten in trouble before, rooting through garbage, taking food for himself and the ponies. She watched as he pried open the lid, scattered the wilted salad and carrots and cole slaw over the sand, as the ponies stepped forward to eat.

  Matt's beard was long, almost all gray. The sight of her brother broke Kate's heart all over again.

  “Aren't you going to invite me in?”

  He stepped aside without a word, let her pass through the door.

  His cabin was its usual mess. He had insulated it since she was last there—pink fiberglass bales covered the rough-board walls, uncovered by beaverboard or any kind of wall material. Dirty dishes overflowed from the sink, onto the counter and formica table. A cigarette burned in a heaping ashtray, stale acrid smoke filling the air. Bonnie investigated the room, then curled up by the smoldering wood stove.