Cold Waters (Normal, Alabama Book 1)

by Debbie Herbert

  Delaney plopped on the bed and patted the mattress.

  I sat beside her.

  “It’s like old times,” she said with a smile, running a hand through her sun-streaked locks and glancing at herself in the mirror. Tiny freckles dotted her nose and the tops of her cheeks like a faint sprinkle of pixie dust.

  “Sure. Old times.” I tried to match her light tone. But the long days and nights of my exile and the horror of our friend’s disappearance weighted the time between us. The distance stretched as taut as a pulled rubber band, until I feared it would snap and sting me.

  Her forehead creased. “Are you really okay? Will staying here be too stressful for you?”

  “I’m not going to break.” I stood and paced to work off my irritation. I had no right to feel indignant. She was only concerned, and with just reason.

  “All right, then.” Delaney stiffened and rose from my bed, her face averted.

  I’d gone and hurt her feelings.

  “Sorry. I’m fine, really. I wouldn’t have come if my counselor had advised against it. She says I’m perfectly capable of handling whatever happens. She even thought returning here might help me.” I rolled my eyes. “You know, confront my past issues.”

  Delaney regarded me soberly. “I hope she’s right. It won’t be easy. Folks around here have long memories and short fuses. They believe the worst.”

  “Let them,” I said, lifting my chin. I reminded myself it would only be for a few weeks. Maybe less. There were only a few locals whose opinions concerned me. “Do you ever see Ainsley’s parents?” My voice trembled, and I swallowed past the lump in my throat.

  Her blue eyes softened. “They’re . . . the same. Give them time.”

  “They’ll never change.” Even if they could forgive me, time would never alter the facts—I had been the last one to see their daughter alive, and I remained a person of interest in the open case.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re back. It’s glum with just Dad and me in this huge house.”

  “You told me he was going downhill, but I thought he’d recognize his own daughter.”

  “You can’t take it personally, Violet. His memory comes and goes.”

  “Is he still drinking?”

  “No. But that doesn’t stop him from trying. Every time he leaves the house, he wants to go to the liquor store. And he’s convinced there’re hidden bottles of alcohol around the house and grounds.”

  “Is he ever”—I faltered a heartbeat—“mean . . . to you?”

  “No. Not too bad. He’s shoved and slapped me a couple times and cussed me out, but nothing major. I’ve learned how to handle him when his temper flares.”

  I gaped at her and the casualness with which she’d said those words. “But you shouldn’t have to put up with that. It’s wrong.”

  Delaney walked to the mirror and dusted dirt from her T-shirt. “It’s life. Besides, he can’t help himself these days. It’s the dementia.”

  Dementia, my ass. He’d always been a harsh, hard man, especially when he drank. I forced myself to recall more pleasant memories. When sober, Dad was decent. He used to take us to the Dairy Queen every Sunday for orange Dreamsicles and had insisted one Christmas on getting us a puppy over our mom’s objections.

  The sound of smashing glass exploded from downstairs, followed by a loud curse. “Shit!”

  “I’d better go clean it up before he cuts himself.” Delaney hustled to the door and paused. “Rest up from your trip, and then we’ll eat dinner. I have your favorite—baked chicken and corn bread dressing.”

  I blinked back sudden tears. She might not have bothered to pick me up at the station, but she had remembered my homecoming and had gone to some trouble to cook.

  A better sister would have cleaned up the mess downstairs for her, or at least have helped. But I kicked off my shoes and lay on the bed. I was tired. Tired in the way that an emotional day drains your energy quicker than digging ditches. I closed my eyes and curled on my side, giving in to the lethargy. My breathing slowed, and my mind drifted to a numbing darkness.

  The darkness melted to liquid that glistened and shimmered. It swirled and rippled and beckoned. I swung on the rope out over the river and let go—dropping into its inky promise of coolness on a humid summer night. Water engulfed my sticky-hot flesh in a baptism of relief. I broke through the surface, laughing.

  Ainsley. Your turn.

  Silence thickened in the waning-moon evening, and adrenaline pulsed through my body in waves of fear. My throat clogged, and I couldn’t take a deep breath.

  A sharp rap at the door burst the silence, and I jerked up, gulping oxygen. Deep shadows trembled in the dusk, and I shook my head, disoriented. This wasn’t my bare little room at the Serenity Hills Halfway House for the Emotionally Disturbed. This was a huge princessy room with a girly bedspread and ghostly paintings of ballerinas in pastel tutus, all pale arms and legs contorted into impossibly graceful poses.

  Ah yes, my old childhood bedroom.

  The pounding began anew. Bambambambambam.

  “What is it?” I stumbled out of bed, drunk with interrupted sleep and the nightmare’s hangover. “I’m coming.” I reached for the doorknob, but the door opened before I could grasp it.

  Dad filled the entrance, and the wrinkles on his face deepened with his scowl. But at least he’d donned pants and a shirt. “Time to eat, Violet. You always holdin’ things up for your mother.”

  Mom had been dead for years, but at least he recognized me now. The smell of chicken and pan dressing drifted up the stairs, and my stomach growled. “Be right down,” I promised. I rushed to the bathroom, washed my hands, and ran a brush through my hair.

  Downstairs in the formal dining room, Dad and Delaney were already seated, and I quickly took my place at the table. Second chair on the right—same as ever. Mom’s pink cherry blossom plates were set out, along with the better serving pieces and real silverware. Delaney had made an effort to make the occasion special.

  The moment I sat, Dad started eating at a fast and furious pace, as if afraid the food would be snatched away before he could finish.

  Delaney touched his shoulder. “Stop. You know you have to take your medicine first.” She picked up a tiny plastic cup by his plate and held it in front of him. The mixture of pills in different sizes and colors looked like a handful of M&M’S mixed with Good & Plenty candy.

  In one expert thrust, Dad emptied the bottle into his mouth and washed it all down with a chug of sweet tea. I wanted to ask why he needed so much medicine but decided to ask Delaney when he wasn’t around. Who knew how much he picked up from conversations around him? No need to make a bad situation more difficult for my sister. He took his meds willingly, and I had no right to start questioning things and possibly get him riled up. If anyone knew the importance of medication, it was me. I had my own pretty little prescribed pills stashed away.

  Delaney lifted her glass of tea. “Here’s to Violet’s homecoming.”

  Dad stopped eating and looked up with raised brows. “What are we toasting with?” he asked hopefully. “Wine’s traditional, but I prefer bourbon.”

  “Water,” Delaney answered, lips pursed. “Plain ole water.”

  “Well, that’s no fun,” he muttered, setting back to work on the chicken.

  She winked at me, and it felt like old times. Us against the parents and all their rules. I clinked my glass to hers. “To coming home.”

  Delaney dug a square of dressing from the pan and put it on my plate. Her charm bracelet tinkled and shone under the chandelier’s prismed light. As did a huge honker of a diamond on her left ring finger.

  “Are you engaged?” I asked, astonished.

  She held out her left hand and splayed her fingers wide. “Almost a year now. His name is Sawyer Harris, and we’ll be married next April.”

  Sawyer? What a prissy, preppy kind of name. I pictured a tall man with conservatively cut hair wearing polo shirts, tailored jeans, and dock shoes. Harris . . . th
e name didn’t ring familiar. “He from around here? Do I know any of his family?”

  “Don’t see how. They live in Birmingham.”

  Over a hundred miles from Normal. “Why haven’t you told me this before now? We’ve talked on the phone several times, and you never mentioned him.”

  “I wanted to surprise you and tell you in person.”

  She’d surprised me, all right. “But”—I nodded my head in Dad’s direction, whose attention was focused on the meal, apparently unaware of his precarious future, then lowered my voice to a whisper—“who’s going to take care of him when you get married?”

  Delaney set her fork down with a bang, and I jumped. “I don’t know, Violet.” Her words were deliberate and edged with something dangerous. “But I’ve been taking care of him for years, with no help from anyone.”

  With no help from me. The accusation silently spun about the dining room, and my face warmed. Stunned shame twisted my gut. Not only had I never helped, but the idea of offering to do so had never occurred to me.

  “Sorry, Delaney. I’ve been wrapped up in my own . . . problems.”

  Her features relaxed. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything. Of course you had to take care of yourself. I couldn’t expect you to tend to anyone else when your own . . . health . . . has been so fragile.”

  Underneath the table, I made a sign of the cross for a blessing, then took a slow sip of tea and collected myself. “I’m stronger now,” I said, hoping she didn’t catch the tremble in my voice. I cleared my throat. “I’ll take care of Dad some while I’m here. Give you a break.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t expect anything.” She took a dainty bite of butter beans and chewed.

  I spooned more dressing into my mouth, but my appetite had disappeared. Did she want me to help or not? Maybe she didn’t think I was capable.

  “Sawyer is amazing. He’s an architect. We met at an art gallery in Birmingham, and it was love at first sight. He told me I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.” Delaney’s eyes glowed, and she played with the emerald pendant on her necklace. “Spoils me rotten too. Takes me to the nicest restaurants and concerts, buys me whatever I want, and he’s so—”

  “What about Dad?” I interrupted, knowing that once Delaney got on the topic of herself, she could ramble on for an eternity.

  “What about him?”

  “Who watches him while you’re out with your boyfriend?”

  “Oh, that. I hire someone to sit with him. Anyway, Sawyer and I went to the symphony last weekend and had—”

  I tuned her out. My spartan existence at the halfway house and her expensive dates with the perfect fiancé were so far apart she might as well be talking about living in a colony on Mars. I glanced over at Dad, who had finished eating and leaned back in his chair. His eyes closed, and I worried he’d fall asleep and keel over on the hardwood floor.

  “Is it his bedtime already?” I asked.

  “Actually, he usually takes a nap after an early lunch, but with the excitement of your visit, he stayed up later than normal. Plus, his medication makes him drowsy.”

  In other words, I’d disrupted their schedule. “I’ll be glad to help while I’m here,” I assured Delaney again. “Why don’t you take tomorrow off? Maybe go to Birmingham for the day to visit Sawyer?”

  “I’d love to—but are you sure you can handle it?” Hope battled with doubt in her eyes.

  “Sure,” I lied. “Piece of cake.” I turned to Dad and saw that his eyes were half-open, and he was staring at me. “We’ll be fine, won’t we?”

  He stood and pointed a finger. “Who are you?” he yelled, shaking with rage. “What are you doing in my house?”

  “Calm down, Dad.” Delaney stood and drew his attention. “It’s Violet. Your daughter. Remember, I told you she was coming for a visit? It’s time for your nap.” She led him from the table, and I sat alone, wondering why I’d ever come home. I could have holed up at a cheap motel until Delaney mailed the inheritance money. No doubt my counselor would describe my return as some deep psychological need to find love and acceptance. And she’d encouraged me to come back and face my past.

  But hope had been washed out of my spirit long ago. Seemed I was destined to end life like the long line of my grim, unsmiling ancestors whose portraits haunted the hallways.

  After washing the dishes, I escaped to my bedroom for a few minutes and opened my box on the dresser. The largest item was the whittled bird that Seth, a fellow patient, had given me one Christmas at the Cottonwood mental institution. That went on my nightstand, where I could view it last thing at night and first thing in the morning.

  Next, I removed a small metal coffee can filled with buttons that used to belong to my grandma. I gave it a shake for good luck and set it on top of my dresser. Finally, it was time to unpack my smaller treasures. I gave a silent thanks to Luanne, a kindly caretaker at Cottonwood, who had held them in safekeeping. Because of her tender mercy, they’d been protected from theft and curious eyes. Whenever I wanted to hold the mementos for comfort or luck, Luanne would unlock them from the cabinet and leave me with them for as long as I wanted.

  Carefully, I lifted out the dozen plastic trays that held my crow keepsakes, the various gifts they’d bestowed on me when I was younger: paper clips, buttons, an earring, marbles, nails, bits of broken glass, shiny pebbles. I’d kept everything—except their occasional offerings of dead baby birds.

  Frankly, the crows had first noticed me because I was a messy eater as a kid. We’d unload from the family station wagon, and crumbs from our fast-food forays would spill from my lap. The ever-watchful crows would swoop in and feast.

  Some people said they were ugly, but I found their raven-black plumage—sometimes tinged with bright green or deep purple—fascinating. I had read up on them and taken to leaving shelled peanuts on my balcony for them to eat. In return, they’d brought me these bits and baubles. Our unusual friendship had gained such local notoriety that when I was ten years old, the Birmingham News had run a story on the crow gifts, and the article had subsequently been picked up by the Associated Press. Folks around Normal had called me the crow girl—until four years later, when everything had been overshadowed by the events of That Night.

  Now, they called me a suspected murderess.

  Chapter 2

  VIOLET

  July 2, 2007—eleven years earlier

  Mud squishes between my toes as we pick our way through the swampy woods. Ainsley’s hair, crow black as mine, melds with the July night. A sliver of moonlight illuminates the pale places of her body where the sun never shines.

  The elliptical beam of the flashlight pierces the dark shadows. The limbs of the moss-covered oak form a webbed tangle against the moon. Skeeters and frogs roar in the night—insects on a bloodsucking mission and amphibians croaking their horny pleas.

  “Here,” she says, throwing her lemon-yellow T-shirt on the lowest branch of a white oak. It hangs like a tempting bit of citrus next to a grungy towel we keep here for our skinny-dipping soirees.

  I throw my faded pink T-shirt next to hers, watching as she carefully knots her long hair into a bun at the top of her head. She arches a brow. “Aren’t you gonna put your hair up?”

  “Nope. No need.”

  I don’t have to explain what that means. Ainsley has a pretty fair inkling of my homelife. Her parents observe every little detail about her, whereas mine are too busy arguing with each other to pay me much attention. Only Delaney will notice if my hair is damp in the morning. But my sister can hardly tattle, seeing as how she often joins us.

  Tonight, I’m glad Delaney is home in bed and I have Ainsley all to myself.

  I try not to stare at Ainsley’s chest. Only one year older than me, and she’s already developed boobs. Will I ever grow a pair?

  I plunge into the water. It’s as warm as a bath, but at least it’s wet. Anything to escape the mosquitoes and wash off the film of sweat that coats me like armor the minute
I step into the humid air.

  A splash and then water rippling at my waist mean that Ainsley has followed me into the river. I dive under, reveling in its complete liquid caress. I pop up next to Ainsley, and she shrieks, yet a grin splits her face.

  “Payback will be hell,” she promises.

  Laughing, I swim back to shore. “Only if you catch me,” I tease. But I’m not worried. We’re swamp mermaids. We have a secret bond out here in the wild darkness as we swim and play and explore.

  This is our private world where no one can see us. A magic place where we can do as we please in these stolen night moments when we sneak out of our respective homes. The promise of summer stretches before me—full of excitement and just the teeniest bit of danger. But the danger is a spirited dance on the sharp edge of a knife.

  It keeps us tingly and daring and alive.

  Chapter 3

  VIOLET

  Present day

  Piece of cake? I’d be eating humble pie by dinner. Dad was killing me. If I’d had any sense, I’d have waited a few days before volunteering to Dad-sit, given him time to get used to my presence.

  I shook my head as he slipped out of my sight. Reluctantly, I left the back-porch shade and followed him through the yard as he muttered and poked with a broken tree limb among the flower borders. I twisted my long hair up on the top of my head and secured it with a hair tie.

  “Are you ready to go inside now?” I asked for the gazillionth time. “It’s hot out here.”

  He mumbled and didn’t bother to look up, still thrashing the stick between plants and dragging deep lines in the dirt. He ritualistically etched these soil mandalas, yet they seemed to bring him frustration rather than peace.

  “Delaney’s not going to like you messin’ with her flowers,” I warned. “You’re going to be in trouble when she gets back”—please, God, let it be soon—“and probably me too.”