When the Flood Falls

by J. E. Barnard

  Dee winced. “Yeah, somebody came, and just in time. In normal January temperatures, wearing jogging gear, I’d have been hypothermic in minutes. But a chinook blew through the night before, brought the temperature up thirty degrees by morning, and it was still near zero at dusk. Boney and Beau huddled up with me and that helped. Ironic, though: I’d been on top of the world four hours earlier, shaken hands on a huge East Village development deal after lunch, and was freezing to death by suppertime, with a useless phone and my dog dying at my feet.” She let out a sour laugh. “From development tycoon to Darwin Award candidate in half a day. I was damned close to falling into a frozen sleep when rescue finally arrived. The devil on horseback, as they say.”

  “The devil being your ex-husband?”

  “Neil? No chance. He never comes out here anymore. At least …” Dee hesitated. “I don’t think he does. He slimes around my office occasionally, trying to winkle deal tips out of my staff, but not when I’m there. This was one of my uphill neighbours, Jake Wyman. He was literally on horseback, out riding, and on the road only because he thought the hill trail would be too slippery for the horse in the dark. I’d hardly seen him since I handled some property for his ex-wife, and he might have been holding a grudge. Although I’m sure he would have helped, anyway. You don’t pass by on the other side out here, especially in winter. People would die.” She sighed, with gratitude or maybe resignation.

  “I owe him a lot. He wrapped me in his heavy jacket and then called his groom to get the horse, a blanket and transport for me, and a mug of hot tea, plus a vehicle to take Duke to the emergency animal hospital. While our other neighbour drove me to Calgary to get my foot X-rayed, Jake took Boney and Beau home for me. He didn’t mention his ex during all that, although when he came to get me from the hospital the next day he asked if I’d give him her current address. He’s not one to miss a chance.”

  A wife who didn’t want to be found by her ex-husband was a smart wife, in Lacey’s book. A woman was at highest risk of being killed by an ex-partner in the year immediately following separation. One reason she was a province away from Dan. Not that she thought he would come after her, but then she’d have said he would never raise his voice, much less his fist. After that first time, who knew what he was capable of? She swung the car onto the paved road, ignoring a back-seat growl and the prospect of herding these hostile setters into their pen for the night. “Did you give this Jake the information he wanted — out of gratitude, maybe?”

  “Of course not. Any lawyer would know better. I suggested he write to her in care of me and he said he would think about it. He never brought it up again. His chef brought me meals every day for the whole next week, which was a godsend because I was woozy with pain pills and grief, barely able to stand. Jake came every day, too, checked if I needed anything, and took Boney and Beau out running with his horse. He still does. They love it, and I sure can’t take them running right now.”

  “And the reckless driver?” As she signalled for the turn up to Dee’s road, Lacey realized she’d been driving beside the churning river and had not let it get to her. So that part of her cop’s focus hadn’t deserted her. Information gathering ahead of emotion. Always. “How did the police get him?”

  “Tip from a neighbour, and he surrendered himself a couple of weeks later. Too late to tell if he’d been drinking, but the hockey players around here party hard during the midseason break. They’re mostly rising NHL stars with too much money and fame and not much responsibility, except to their team. Anyway, he’s going to court next month.”

  “On what charges?”

  “A bunch,” said Dee. “Reckless endangerment, I think, and something like careless use of a vehicle. I’m a real estate lawyer; driving offences aren’t my strong suit. Nothing for killing my dog, though. He didn’t hit me, and a dog’s life doesn’t count in the police’s eyes. But I’ll get to make a statement, and I won’t hold back on what his actions did to my life. That’s my driveway coming up.”

  The dogs, to Lacey’s relief, went directly to their pen and took turns gulping the water left for them. She closed their gate, helped Dee up to the deck and around to a side door, then finally got her first look inside the vast varnished house. Mudroom first, cluttered like all of them with boots, coats, shelves stacked with miscellany. The kitchen beyond it was all varnished wood, black granite countertops, black appliances. That was her first impression, quickly displaced by the enticing aroma of baking pineapple. “Mmm.”

  Dee hobbled to a stool. “Should be almost ready. I didn’t mean for you to make supper, but if I just sit here and give orders, can you finish the meal prep?”

  “Sure. You do remember I can’t really cook, right?”

  Dee laughed, just a small one, and some of the tension left Lacey’s chest. With Neil out of the picture, the Dee she knew might yet emerge from the shell of perfection that had seemed impenetrable on their last visit. Her earlier reluctance to see Dee seemed silly now. She’d expected to come here, hat metaphorically in hand, with her police career and her marriage in tatters behind her, grovelling for house-hunting contacts from a woman notorious for having her own life together. Not that she was revelling in Dee’s misfortunes, but they were a timely reminder that rain fell onto even the most organized lives. Friends got out the umbrella for each other. Today she was holding the umbrella, even though it meant dog drool in her car and exercising her culinary cluelessness. “What do I do first?”

  Half an hour later, the pasta was drained and Dee was tossing the salad. She was still propped up on her stool and alternating between ice wraps and warmth for her ankle.

  The dogs barked steadily at Lacey from the moment she stepped outside, growled while she poured their kibble over the fence into their bowls, and only stopped barking at her back once she was inside the house with the door shut. No welcome there. “I gave you a ride home, you ungrateful mutts,” she muttered, but not loud enough for Dee to hear.

  After that, she descended into the basement to bring up bottles of wine that would go well with the pineapple chicken. “Not that I can tell one vintage from another, anyway,” Dee confided. “The one we’re having tonight has fruity elements that I figure won’t be horrible with chicken or pineapple, and that’s the extent of my wine lore.”

  The basement and as much of the main floor as Lacey glimpsed through archways off the kitchen were more homey than the house’s facade. The furniture was comfortable, if expensive, its neutral hues livened up with textured throw pillows and blankets. The rooms were dim, though sunlight haloed every curtained window.

  “Do you mind if I open some drapes?” she asked after setting down three bottles of white. “It’s a lovely evening and I don’t get to be outside much, between work and the commute from Calgary.”

  Dee flipped over a few bits of leafy greens before answering. “Uh, sure. Just remember to close them tight before you go. I can’t be hobbling after you.”

  “Seems like you wouldn’t need drapes much out here.” Lacey slid back the kitchen curtains. “No neighbours close enough to peer in.” After a moment with no reply from Dee, she went on. “I was careful about my window coverings in Langley, never more so than when Dan first moved out. He wasn’t handling things well, and I was always conscious that he might be outside somewhere, watching my movements.” She let her voice betray some of the fear that lingered from those dark winter weeks. Let Dee know that it was okay to be afraid of her ex, if that’s what she was afraid of, and that the fear was nothing to be ashamed of.

  But Dee didn’t rise to that bait. “I always said he wasn’t good enough for you. Are you pouring that wine or not?”

  The pouring went on well after the meal had ended. In the vast living room, before they settled onto soft couches amid the colourful cushions and throws, Lacey again opened the drapes, partly to watch the spectacular view of distant mountains and partly to see how Dee would cope. She resolutely
ignored the ribbon of turbulent brown water winding through the valley and thought that as long as she couldn’t see the bridge from here, she might be able to ignore the risk that it would be closed by morning. She sank into softness as Dee brought out a photo album of their hike through the Algonquin Trail with puppy Duke. They toasted him and reminisced until the second bottle was done and spruce shadows came creeping across the terrace. The sun was going down, the forest closing in.

  Dee limped over and closed the nine sets of drapes with their power cords, then stood fussing with all the edges she could reach to make sure nobody could peer in through a gap. She said, half into the curtains, “You’re likely not in a shape to drive, even if you are an RCMP-trained expert with thousands of patrol kilometres a year. Stay here tonight. I’ve got extra toothbrushes and stuff upstairs, and your choice of spare bedrooms. And your commute to work will be really short in the morning. Hell, stay all week and be my legs. I might need a lot more wine brought up to get me through this last crush before the museum officially opens. If I’d known how stressful being the president of the museum’s building committee was going to turn out, I’d have evaded the honour. Will it all be ready before the gala on Friday, do you think?”

  “The security stuff will be,” said Lacey, setting aside for the moment her leap of joy at being offered any bed that wasn’t her old patrol buddy Tom’s much older rec-room couch. Between three weeks of crash space and him lining her up with AWL Security Services for the museum job, the favours were adding up fast. “Wayne is driving himself and me hard to get every metre of cabling in and every uplink tested, inside and out. I can’t speak for anyone else’s job.” Dee, she noted, was still standing, her hand clutching the edge of the last curtain. She didn’t want to be here alone tonight. Would she say why if asked outright? “I shouldn’t drive tonight, you’re right. Can I take you up on the bed and the toothbrush? If you make the offer of a longer stay tomorrow, when we’re both stone sober and wide awake, I promise to give it due consideration.”

  “Spoken like the cautious old McCrae of our university days,” said Dee, taking her hand down from the drapery. “How could you have faced that dangerous job year after year when your personal life is more carefully calculated than an insurance actuary’s?”

  Soon Lacey was settling into a luxurious upstairs bedroom with magazine-quality décor. Dee’s master suite, from which she had retrieved pajamas and other sleepover necessities, was twice the size and even more lavishly appointed. Its occupant, though, was not much different from the old Dee, who still walked her dogs with messy hair and no makeup, who teased and laughed and reminisced. She would not care if her old friend didn’t arrange the matching throw pillows quite as artfully on the bed in the morning.

  Despite the relaxation brought on by the wine and the soft cuddling of the pillow-top mattress, Lacey had a hard time dozing off. The stresses she’d held at bay all evening were niggling again: her lack of a home, her uncertain post-RCMP job and future, Dan dragging his feet on both the divorce and selling their house in Langley, and yes, whatever had Dee so frightened she wouldn’t leave a drape open day or night. The nighttime sounds of the surrounding forest, so soothing by day, whispered ominously by night of beasts on the prowl and hinted at the wildness in the hearts of the trees. Trees like in the fairy tales, whispering, surrounding human habitations, cutting them off with impenetrable hedges and …

  At some point along the restless path to full sleep, when the trees were stooping over her bed, clutching at her shoulders, she roused to find Dee bending over the bed, shaking her shoulder and whispering urgently. “Lacey, wake up, please. Please wake up. There’s someone on the deck and the dogs aren’t barking. Please!”

  Chapter Two

  For a long, frantic minute Dee shook and whispered at Lacey, but her friend didn’t stir. She had to wake up, to listen and look and scare away the footsteps on the deck. Unless it was all another horrible trick of Dee’s overworked imagination, a side effect of the pain meds and the stress, and there was nobody out there at all. Dee crept to the nearest window and slid the handle over slowly, slowly, willing the wood not to stick or squeak. As soon as the frame opened enough to admit a thin line of nighttime air, she stopped. Bending down, she edged her ear to the crack, pulling back her hair to hear better. Anything? Anyone?

  There! Another footstep. A man’s boot heel, surely. She sagged against the windowsill, torn between relief that she hadn’t imagined this and terror at the confirmation that the prowler was real and outside right now, maybe trying to get in. After a slow, deep breath, she slid the handle back over to block out the night and shuffled the two paces back to the bedside.

  “Lacey! There’s someone on the deck. Please wake up!”

  “What? I’m awake.”

  Dee repeated herself. This time Lacey seemed to take it in. She swung her legs out of bed and reached for the lamp. Before flipping the switch, though, she stopped. “This has happened before, hasn’t it? Is this why you really wanted me out here tonight?”

  “Not the only reason, but yes, I’ve heard someone other nights. Never seen anybody.” Please believe me, please believe, please go look and make them stop.

  “Okay.” Lacey’s face was a white blur in the dark room. “Here’s what we do. Don’t turn on the lights just yet. You got your cellphone up here? Take it and lock yourself in your bathroom. If I’m not back in five minutes, or you don’t hear me calling out to you and you think somebody has entered the house, call the police. You have 911 out here?”

  “Of course.” Dee wanted to explain that it would take ages for them to get here, but Lacey was already halfway to the stairs, her borrowed pajama pants flapping against her legs. She swung around the newel post and paused, one hand on the banister.

  “Any weapons in the house?”

  Dee shook her head, then realized she’d only be another shadow in the deep dark of the guestroom and said softly, “No.”

  “Lock yourself in,” Lacey repeated and sank away, her footfalls mere whispers on each carpeted stair.

  Left alone in the blacked-out upper hall, Dee lowered the hand that she had stretched out after her friend without realizing it. The night crowded her, squeezing the breath from her throat and swallowing the last shreds of comfort left by Lacey’s presence. She crept to the top of the stairs and crouched, listening with all her might to the faint sounds of movement through the house. Lacey must be peering out the doors and windows before she stepped outside. With a thrill of horror, Dee realized she had not told Lacey where to find a key. Would her friend open a door, walk outside, and risk being locked out, at the mercy of whoever was out there? Or risk leaving a way in for a prowler intent on reaching Dee?

  She couldn’t just lock herself in the bathroom, leaving herself no escape route. She could go down, give Lacey the keys, then hide on the main floor, where there were at least three ways out if she needed them. More if she counted windows.

  “Lacey?” she whispered down the stairs, as loud as she dared. But of course there was no response. She crept three steps down, peering into the gloom below. No hint of starlight filtered through her drapes, which were drawn shut obsessively well. No way to know if someone was outside any particular window or door except by moving aside the drape. How many nights had she done just that — crept downstairs to peer out while trying not to move the cloth noticeably, always dreading being confronted by a face peering in?

  Her ankle twinged, a reminder to keep moving or sit down. Which would it be: go downstairs and stand ready to help Lacey, or go hide and let someone else face the terror she was shirking?

  Dee Phillips, she told herself fiercely, crouched in darkness on the third stair, You have survived broken bones, a broken marriage, law school, and the most cutthroat profession in the so-called civilized world. You will not hide while someone else defends your turf for you. She stood up straight, clutched her cellphone tight and the railing tig
hter, and descended, step by cautious step, into the abyss.

  Lacey peered out past the curtains on the kitchen window, the last one on her circuit. Nothing moved that she could see. And surprisingly, she could see plenty. The circling spruces made a dark palisade, but the open spaces gathered what light sprinkled down from the stars and the sliver of moon. Her night vision was operating at full strength after her long grope through the blacked-out rooms. Three stubbed toes, a smacked and stinging elbow, and one fast grab at a lamp that had teetered as she reached past it. That was all she’d gained so far. Was it time to turn on the outside lights, assuming she could find the right switches? She moved toward the mudroom, bumping her hip bone on the black granite countertop, and let her fingers drift along the wall. Switches — which ones did what? She didn’t press any to find out.

  She slid aside the blinds on the mudroom’s exterior door. Still nobody. Just the furniture on the deck and the hanging baskets above. A few shadows large enough to hide a man, or a deer, if it stood quite still. She could walk outside and yell for whoever it was to show themselves. Say the cops were on their way. They probably should have called the police right away, but if it was only a deer going after the flowers, she’d feel like a fool. And an even bigger failure. Only a few weeks off the Force and she couldn’t handle walking around a house at night? She’d have been laughed off the job, if she were still on it. But there was a difference, a confidence, to walking a perimeter with a heavy flashlight, heavy boots, a heavy vest, and a dispatcher on the other end of your radio. Here, she’d be walking out in Tweety Bird pants and T-shirt and bare feet, if she couldn’t find her workboots in the dark, strange house. The dogs still hadn’t made a sound. She couldn’t tell from this angle if they were asleep in their shelter or lying drugged — or worse — by the gate. Going out there was the next logical step. Or rather, putting on her workboots was. She tied the laces in the dark, tucking in the trailing ends in case she had to chase down a prowler.