Cold Waters (Normal, Alabama Book 1)

by Debbie Herbert

  So that was the name of Calvin’s father. I thought hard but couldn’t place a face to the name. I’d always been a loner at school.

  Libby stiffened at Delaney’s words and stepped around her, gripping her son’s hand. Calvin turned his head back sharply, gaping at my sister. “You know my daddy?” he asked.

  “Do I ever!” She lifted her chin and gave a loud, high-pitched laugh, a fake falsetto that razored down my spine with each note. I couldn’t imagine how it must have grated on Libby. Delaney went down on one knee, her face level with Calvin’s. “Next time you see your daddy, you tell him that Delaney said hello and to give me a call. Can you do that for me?”

  Calvin glanced back and forth from Delaney’s teeth-exposing grin to his mom’s flushed face and frowned. “You mad, Mommy? Is she a bad lady?”

  Nailed it. My hand involuntarily swung forward to give him a high five, but I caught myself in time and pressed it against my side.

  This time it was Libby unloosing a brittle laugh. “Manners, Calvin. Let’s get a move on.”

  I also stepped around Delaney and followed them down the porch steps, intent on apologizing for my sister’s rudeness. Calvin’s little legs raced to catch up to Libby’s angry stride. He stumbled on the driveway, and the container of watermelon chunks flew out of his hand and spilled onto the gravel. Luckily, he avoided scraping his knees, but the wailing of a tired, cranky four-year-old began again in earnest.

  “Sorry about that,” I told Libby.

  “Not your fault.” She ushered him into the car and buckled him in with efficient, practiced movements. “Calvin, honey, hush. We’re going home, and you’re going to bed.”

  I patted his hand. “Next visit, we’ll eat first,” I promised.

  His full lower lip stuck out in an adorable pout, and he sniffed and hiccuped in the way children do after the storm of their tears has passed.

  Libby shut the passenger door and walked around to her side of the car, her eyes peeled on me and avoiding Delaney’s gaze. “Your sister still outside?”

  “Yep. Standing on the porch, arms folded and smirking.” I hesitated for a heartbeat. “I’ve never seen you so upset.”

  Libby stared straight ahead into the darkness, car keys dangling at her side. “He was Calvin’s father,” she said at last. “I was eight months pregnant when he moved out of our house and returned to his own place, where they practically lived together. In the end, Delaney didn’t even want him. They broke up weeks later.”

  How could my sister have acted so callously? It was one thing to hurt me, but another to hurt my friend. Anger roiled in my gut. “And in the meantime, I gather that you gave birth by yourself and are raising a child alone.”

  “I don’t regret having Calvin,” she said quickly. “And Delaney isn’t entirely at fault. Harley didn’t have to be a shithead.”

  “Of course.”

  “I do hate her, though.”

  Astonished, I saw Libby swipe at her eyes.

  “You still love that idiot?” I asked.

  “What can I say?” She laughed feebly. “He’s my fatal weakness. And don’t you dare feel sorry for me. You have your own problems.”

  I glanced back over my shoulder to where Delaney stood in a pool of light, one leg crossed over the other and idly twirling her long blonde curls as she watched us. A golden angel of destruction.

  I’d never been so angry with her.

  “About that reverse gaslighting—” I said.

  “Huh?” Libby took a deep breath and exhaled, apparently reining in her emotions. “What are you talking about?”

  “At your house. You mentioned serving up some of Delaney’s own medicine to her. Call her bluff, so to speak.”

  “Exactly. Time for you to make a stand. She treats you like shit and makes you, and everyone else who’ll listen, believe you’re crazy.”

  “And from there it’s only a hair’s breadth to jump from crazy to crazy murderer.” Something about the cover of night made it easier to tell another person of my secret torment. I plunged on. “She told me that I killed Ainsley, that I confessed everything to her the night it happened.”

  “No. You couldn’t kill someone. I refuse to believe it. Delaney’s just poison.”

  A sharp rap sounded from inside the car, and we both jumped. Calvin knocked on the windshield again. Libby held up a finger. “One minute, Calvin.”

  “I want to rattle her cage,” I said quickly. “See if I can get Delaney to admit her lies. Find out the truth.”

  Libby nodded. “I’ll help.”

  I didn’t know if Libby’s alliance came from her belief in me, her hatred of my sister, or some combination of both. Whatever the reason, I was merely grateful.

  “What did you have in mind?” she asked. “Maybe start with photos of her and Doc Eddie together? We could mail them to his wife.”

  We both stared at Delaney, who’d settled into the porch glider swing with crossed legs, swinging her top foot back and forth, looking idly amused at having upset my friend and her young child. “I thought I’d start with her most obvious lie, the one most easy to expose.”

  Libby quirked a brow. “The stolen money from your trust fund?”

  “No. The fiancé.”

  “Ah, okay. Count me in. Call me later, and we’ll figure something out.”

  I stood in the driveway, watching as Libby pulled onto the road. And I kept watching until the blip of red taillights disappeared into the night. I longed to go with them, ached to go anywhere, really, other than back into my own home. Reluctantly, I walked to the porch and tried to skirt around Delaney, who regarded me with an ugly smile. A blonde troll guarding a bridge, a monster that I knew would extract a hefty price for stepping into her lair.

  “You really shouldn’t have let Libby and her brat into my house,” she said. Her words were delivered in a sweet and calm manner, but I wasn’t fooled.

  “He’s not a brat, this is not your house, and I can have friends over if I want.”

  “Libby’s a slut. Everybody knows that.”

  “Maybe she’d be married and respectable in your eyes if you hadn’t hooked up with her boyfriend.”

  “Is that what she told you? If it hadn’t been me, he’d have found someone else. Harley wasn’t going to stay with that whore for long.”

  “Stop calling her that! You’ve got some nerve. Sitting there with your tousled hair and smeared lipstick and reeking of liquor.”

  One moment Delaney was on the glider, looking smug as a cat full of tuna, and the next moment her claws came unsheathed. Her blue eyes blazed as she sprang up and grabbed my arm. “Don’t you ever speak to me like that again,” she said with a hiss.

  I twisted my arm, and she held on tighter, her fingers bruising the soft flesh of my forearm.

  “Let go of me.”

  “Do we have an understanding?” she asked.

  “Please. You’re hurting me.” I despised the tremble in my voice and the burning tears that gathered in my eyes.

  Delaney gave a slow smile. “That’s better. Now go get Dad cleaned up and put in bed.”

  Abruptly, she let go, and I leaned against the house, rubbing my abused arm. Despite my pathetic plea for mercy, I was even more determined to extract revenge and somehow save myself and my father from her tyranny. Slowly, I pushed away and opened the door.

  “Murderer.”

  My head snapped back around to where Delaney had repositioned herself on the swing, fanning her flushed face with one of the discarded magazines she kept on the glider. She wasn’t even looking at me. Her head leaned back against the metal swing, and her eyes were closed.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  Her eyes popped open. “Nothing. What are you talking about?”

  “Did you just call me . . . a . . . a . . .” I couldn’t say the vile word.

  “I didn’t say anything. You must be hearing things.” Her eyes widened, and her lips turned downward. “Poor Vi. I didn’t realize hearin
g voices was one of your, um, symptoms.”

  I stared at her—hard. Hearing voices? No. It had never happened before. She was playing head games with me again.

  But even after I’d coaxed Dad inside and assisted with his bedtime ritual, even after Delaney had retired to her bedroom, and even after I’d bathed and lain in bed, my mind raced.

  Murderer.

  Over and over and over, the word bounced around in my brain, ricocheting into every twisted nerve and synapse. Three guttural syllables of condemnation. It had to stop. So I did the only thing I knew to do. I opened the nightstand drawer and took two antianxiety pills. When the alarm rang in the morning for work, I’d have hell to pay. But groggy and grumpy I could handle. A sleepless night questioning my sanity—and my basic human decency—was far, far worse.

  Another thirty to forty minutes before the medicine took effect. I kicked off the bedsheets and turned on the lamp for my nightly reading. I’d read until the words ran together and my eyes itched with fatigue. In the open nightstand drawer, I scrounged for the paperback Cora had loaned me.

  It wasn’t there.

  I was almost positive that was where I’d left it, same place as always. Maybe the second drawer. I knelt on the floor and went through my assorted odds and ends—a few crystals, a deck of angel oracle cards, tissues, a notebook. The book was jammed in the back, a string of polished silver draped between its pressed pages. I opened it up, and a necklace slid into my lap. My pulse quickened, and my arms tingled with numbness, although I couldn’t say why the necklace filled me with dread. With trembling fingers, I held it to the light.

  A small cross dangled from the end of the chain. It swayed back and forth in my shaky fingers, a pendulum of calamity. I knew that cross, this necklace. I’d remember it if I lived to be one hundred. The way it perfectly fit into Ainsley’s cleavage, the petite design drawing attention to her firm, rounded breasts. A symbol of purity juxtaposed with the flesh-and-blood reality of lust.

  But what was it doing here?

  I clenched it in my fist, the cross digging into my palm. I upended the drawer, strewing its contents across the floor.

  Where had this come from? It hadn’t been there when I’d moved in weeks ago and unpacked my meager belongings. I was sure of it. Had Delaney planted it there? And of course, if so, that begged the question of how it had come to be in her possession.

  A strange noise filled my bedroom, and it took me a moment to realize it originated from me. A low, keening moan that vibrated in my chest. I clutched my stomach to press against the twitching pangs. I unclenched my fist and stared at the metal cross. A last, tangible connection with Ainsley. I remembered how it had glowed against her pale skin on that dark night. Grief consumed me, a black chasm that sucked me in with the weight of its powerful gravity.

  Chapter 29

  HYACINTH

  July 2, 2007

  I stared at the battered body. Ainsley Dalfred. Brazen, daring, and always pushing boundaries—precociously sexy. Everywhere she went, the girl flung pheromones willy-nilly. But now, naked and stripped of makeup, she appeared young. Vulnerable, even.

  Delaney’s innuendos ate at me, poisonous as hemlock. Violet and Ainsley’s friendship seemed too intense. I suspected Ainsley was a bad—even dangerous—influence on my daughter.

  “Violet!” I called again. Where had she gone?

  The night’s silence mocked my cries. I couldn’t do this alone. Parker was dead-to-the-world drunk and Delaney nothing but a nuisance. I left Ainsley and swam back to shore.

  I dropped the T-shirts and shoes as though they weighed a ton, then sank to my knees and dialed the old familiar number. Dear God, let it still be a working number. By the third ring, a desperate sob escaped me. It was no good. I was alone. No one to help me, no one . . .

  “Hello? Who is this?”

  His voice was rough with sleep and his tone impatient. Yet it still stirred all the love for him that I’d denied and suppressed. Even now, in the swirl of a crisis, Boone’s voice touched me like an intimate caress. Our affair had ended before Violet had even been born, but I’d never stopped loving him.

  “It’s me.” I didn’t even bother saying my name; he’d know it was me.

  “Second,” he mumbled.

  I waited. I’d wakened him from a sound sleep next to his wife, and he was hurrying into another room to talk, not wanting to wake Ellie. Didn’t matter to me if I’d interrupted the woman’s sleep or if the call had angered her. I was past tiptoeing around their marital relationship. Let her think what she would. Ellie could do nothing to harm me, and Boone’s problems with her were his own business. Parker had guessed about my affair, but considering his own many indiscretions, he could hardly claim outrage about my infidelity.

  “Hyacinth? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Violet.” Silence strummed through the line. “Your daughter,” I added unnecessarily.

  “Go on.”

  “She’s missing.”

  There. I’d said the words aloud. The unthinkable had happened.

  “For how long?”

  His voice was sharp and authoritative now; he’d been roused to full cop mode.

  “I last saw her when I went to bed three hours ago. But she’s not in her room now.” I could hardly breathe, and my voice rose into a full-blown, high-pitched panic. “I can’t find her.”

  “She’s a teenager. Most likely she’s slipped out to meet a boy. Does she have a boyfriend?”

  I wished. If only it were that easy. I rushed to explain, a waterfall of words tumbling from my mouth. “No. You don’t understand. There’s a body. Ainsley’s not moving, and I-I don’t—”

  “Body? Who’s Ainsley? Take a deep breath and slow down.”

  I drew a ragged breath. “I think Ainsley might be Violet’s girlfriend; at least, that’s what Delaney implied. But you know how she is. Can’t be trusted for shit. So I came down here, to the river, and—”

  “You’re babbling. Get off the phone with me and call the station. They’ll make a report, then notify me, and I’ll come straightaway, along with the other cops. We’ll do a thorough search.”

  “No! No cops. Just you.”

  “But—”

  “No cops,” I insisted. “Didn’t you hear me? There’s a dead body.”

  “All the more reason—”

  “Violet’s your daughter. For once in your goddamn life, get over here and help her. It’s the least you can do.”

  “Sec.”

  A muffled, garbled voice in the background. Ellie must have walked in on him.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be right over.” I recognized that official tone. His wife was standing nearby, all ears. “Your address?”

  I gave a short, hysterical laugh. “Cut the act. Park your car nearby, and walk out of my backyard and then down to the rope swing by the river. You know where that is, right?”

  “Ten-four.”

  “Don’t let anybody see you or your car. I mean it.”

  “Right. We’re on our way.”

  “And Boone? Hurry!”

  The connection went dead. My shoulders slumped, and I dropped the phone. Loud, wrenching sobs shook my body. Whatever had happened here tonight was bad, very bad. My life had been touched by evil, and it would never be the same.

  Dear God. Please help us find Violet. Please let her be okay.

  Time ticked by, slow and deadly as the unsuspecting Titanic ship advancing toward a glacier. Despite the heat and humidity, chills spasmed through my body. Shouldn’t take more than ten minutes for him to arrive, but I took little consolation in that fact. I’d never felt so profoundly alone. Draped on a boulder amid the rolling river, Ainsley’s body lay lifeless, a monument to some terrible violence.

  A sickly yellow light strobed through the tree trunks. The ground slightly rumbled, and limbs and leaves fiercely snapped under the weight of car wheels.

  Boone, at last.

  I lurched to my feet and ran toward the fog light. Second
s later, the light extinguished, and I hesitated. What if it wasn’t Boone? What if it was a murderer returning to the scene of the crime? Quickly, I ducked behind a tree, hardly daring to draw a breath.

  A flashlight shone through the darkness, its beam scanning up and down, left and right—advancing in a slow, methodical search.

  Chapter 30

  VIOLET

  Present day

  A black void coated my mind, a rip in the thread of my memory.

  I dropped Ainsley’s jewelry and crab crawled backward on the hardwood flooring. The necklace glittered against the dark wood like a harmless little doodad.

  I rose unsteadily to my feet and shoved it under my bed. Then I paced the room, trying to put the final pieces together. What else had I done to Ainsley that night while I’d lost all control? How had her jewelry ended up in my possession? Damn it, empty pockets of memory still eluded me. I could only recall fragmented sensations from much later that night—the slap of shrubs and tree limbs, the loud sound of my breath wheezing in and out of my chest, sticky sweat falling from my forehead to my eyes.

  Later, Mom and Detective Kimbrel had found me wandering the woods. But I couldn’t decipher the precise point where my memory returned, as opposed to what I imagined had happened next based on what others had told me. That fateful evening was followed by days in bed where I didn’t want to awaken to the hushed house. Mom would bring me in bowls of soup and iced tea. I didn’t want to see anybody. Detective Kimbrel had come once, gently asking a few questions and taking notes. Dad had stood in the doorway, frowning and watchful. Neither he nor Delaney had visited my room.

  Occasionally, I’d hear loud arguing down the hall between Mom and Dad. I’d bury my head in the pillows and drown them out. I had done my best to keep myself shielded, wrapped in a cocoon. But it didn’t, couldn’t, last.

  Red eyed and pale, Mom had entered my room one day and announced that I needed help. And by help she’d meant to get out of the house and leave. I’d arrived at the mental health facility shell shocked and depressed, a transplanted stranger in an alien world of other lost souls. A universe of zombies tucked away in a lovely redbrick building that more resembled a Georgian mansion than a prison.