“I am, but I don’t find it necessary to embrace her in front of a lot of people. Don’t you know how embarrassing that is to me, your wife?”
“Embrace her? Throwing my arm around her shoulder is embracing her?” He shook his head and looked back at the television. “I think that hair color has seeped through to your brain.”
“And now you insult me!”
Rey didn’t answer and Tess felt a surge of fury toward him. He wouldn’t even take his gaze from a rerun he’d seen countless times to look at her when she talked. “If you’re so fond of murder mysteries,” she began in a waspish voice she couldn’t stop, “then why don’t you solve the mystery of who murdered your precious Dara and tossed her in the river to rot?”
Rey’s dark eyes slashed to her. She saw his hands—his beautiful but strong artist’s hands—tighten on the arms of his chair. “Don’t start, Tess. Just don’t start on Dara.”
“Oh? Because you can’t solve the mystery? Or because you can’t bear to even think about your lost love? Your one and only love.”
“Tess—”
“The beautiful girl you adored. The girl you put on a pedestal. The girl you remain faithful to in your heart even though you’re married to me. Well, let me tell you something, Reynaldo. Your precious Dara was pregnant when she died!”
Now she had his attention. He glared at her. “That is impossible,” he said in a slow, deadly voice.
“Why? Because you always used a condom when you were with her? To protect her? To protect your darling from unwanted pregnancy? You told me that once, you know, before we were married, when you’d had way too much to drink. You told me how careful you always were with her.”
“I can’t believe I ever confided that to you, no matter how drunk I got!” Rey shouted. “But I was careful with her. Always!”
“Well, my darling, someone wasn’t, because she wrote in her diary that she was pregnant. I stopped by your new interest Christine’s today like I planned, but she was inside with her precious deputy. The window was open and I heard them talking about Dara writing in her diary that she was pregnant. And to prove my point, the corpse you’re certain was your Dara was carrying a fetus. A baby that wasn’t yours!”
Rey jumped up from his chair. He loomed over her, and for a moment Tess was certain he was going to strike her. Hard. The rage in his eyes surpassed anything she’d ever seen in him, anything of which she’d thought him capable. His whole body trembled. Then, with a few guttural words almost hissed in Italian, he turned and slammed out of the house.
Oh, my god, Tess thought, trembling. What have I done?
4
“Gosh, what was wrong with Tess?” Jeremy had asked after she’d driven over the speed limit to get them home, refused to come in the house, and barely said good-bye before whizzing out of their driveway. “Do you think she didn’t like the Dara Pin?”
“There’s no way she couldn’t have thought the pin was spectacular,” Christine had said. “But you know Rey was Dara’s boyfriend. Maybe she felt a little jealous.”
“Oh. I didn’t even think of that. Rey sure did love Dara. I guess I shouldn’t have showed the pin to Tess.”
“You didn’t have any choice.” Christine had fished in her purse for the house keys as they walked up the front porch steps. “She just burst into the store.”
“Looking mad.” Jeremy had sighed. “Could we have pizza for dinner? I’ve been thinking about pizza all day.”
“Then pizza it is,” Christine had said. “Only let’s get delivery. I really don’t feel like going out to a noisy pizza place tonight.”
An hour later a huge pizza sat on the coffee table. They shared slices while watching television, Christine seated on the couch, Jeremy on the floor with Rhiannon beside him, waiting for bits of pepperoni, which she took gracefully between her sharp little teeth. The television blared out a horror movie Christine was definitely not in the mood for, but that had managed to entrance Jeremy, who’d insisted it be played on the VCR.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather see a comedy?” she asked as someone crept through dark halls wielding an ax.
“Nope. You’re supposed to watch scary movies when you eat pizza!”
“And where did you hear that rule?”
“From Danny Torrance. When he lived next door to Ames, we used to watch scary movies in his basement when he ordered a pizza. He said scary movies and pizza were a sacred ritual.”
“I had no idea Danny was so wise,” Christine said dryly. “How old was he when he made up this sacred ritual?”
“He didn’t make it up, Christy. It’s a true thing.”
“Oh. Forgive me my lack of education.” She finished her second slice of pizza and drained her soft drink. Jeremy’s glass was empty, too. “Ready for more Coke?”
“Yeah, please. Only this time can I have Cherry Coke? It’s my favorite.”
“Cherry Coke and pizza. Jeremy, you’re a true gourmet.”
“Okay, whatever that means.”
Christine carried both glasses into the kitchen. She got out the ice trays and put four cubes in each glass, then reached for a regular Coke for herself, a Cherry Coke for Jeremy. She was just filling his glass when he let out something between a shout and a scream.
Christine nearly dropped the Coke can. She righted it on the counter, then ran into the living room. Jeremy sat rigid on the floor staring at the television, a look of stark terror on his face. “My dream,” he said in a chilling, almost disembodied voice. “My dream, my dream, my dream, my dream, my—”
Christine rushed to his side and took his face in her hands. “Jeremy, stop it!”
“My dream, my dream, my—”
She smacked his cheek. She cringed; he blinked; then his blue eyes finally focused on her. “Ouch.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, still holding his face, but with gentle hands. “What is it, Jeremy? What frightened you?”
He looked into her eyes, then at Rhiannon, who stood a foot away from him, back raised in alarm, then at the television. Jeremy pointed. “The movie! It’s my dream, Christy. My dream about being thrown in the water and not being able to see or breathe!”
He picked up the remote control and hit REWIND. In a moment, he replayed the scene that had frightened him. A man carried the limp body of a young woman with long, dark hair to the bank of a river. He laid down the body, which bore a bloody gash at the temple, on a carpet and began to slowly, methodically roll her over and over until she was completely encased in the heavy fabric. “Goodbye, Juliet,” he said softly, strange eyes burning in his blood-streaked face. “May you rest in peace.” And then he shoved her into the river.
The camera followed the roll of carpet down, down, down into the water. It invaded the carpet for a closer look at the body of Juliet. Then her dark eyes snapped open. She fought to raise arms trapped in their tight wrappings. She opened her mouth. Tiny, pitiful sounds emerged, but she was helpless, sinking to the bottom of the river, bound and doomed like a living mummy.
“She was alive!” Jeremy cried. “He threw her in the water and she was alive!”
“Jeremy, it’s only a movie,” Christine soothed as he buried his head in her shoulder, sobbing. “I told you we shouldn’t have watched this. It’s scary. But you usually don’t get this upset over a scary movie.”
“That’s because I saw this movie before,” Jeremy sniffled. “I forgot until now. I saw it the night I was at Danny’s party—the night Dara went away.” He pulled back and looked at her earnestly. “Just like the girl in the movie, Christy. That’s what happened to Dara! I know it!”
It took Jeremy almost two hours to completely calm down after the movie. When at last he got his nerves under control, with much comforting and reassuring from Christine, he seemed to deflate like a punctured balloon. “Christy, I’m awful sleepy,” he announced at nine o’clock. “I know it’s way before my bedtime, but I think I gotta say good night.”
“You need a good night�
�s sleep,” Christine told him. “Take Rhiannon down and let her cuddle you. She always makes you feel better. And in the morning, you’ll be a new man.”
“Who’ll I be?” he asked, in an encouraging attempt at a joke.
“Zorro. I’ll make you a cape tonight.”
“I’ll need a sword, too,” he said as Christine kissed his cheek. “And a mask.”
“I’ll get right on it. You and Rhi sleep tight.”
When he’d gone to his room, Christine sat down on the couch, feeling worn out from tension and fright. She’d never seen Jeremy react so violently to a movie or television show. But this movie had special meaning for him. He’d seen it the night Dara disappeared. And he’d known she was going to Crescent Creek. “That’s why he was so sure she vanished from there,” she said aloud. “That’s why he’s had all the dreams about her being trapped in the water. He blended the movie with her disappearance.”
At least that was one mystery solved, she thought. And for her, it was an important solution. For days she’d worried about Jeremy’s dream, his certainty that Dara had lain trapped underwater, especially after Dara’s body wrapped in plastic had surfaced. Jeremy hadn’t known she was in the water. He’d only imagined she was because of the confluence of the movie and Dara’s disappearance. For Christine the answer made perfect sense. But what about for other people, people like Sheriff Teague? No, it wasn’t enough. Her brother’s innocence still had not been proved.
She wasn’t certain how long she’d sat on the couch thinking before she remembered she hadn’t collected the day’s mail. She flipped on the porch light, unchained the front door, and looked outside at her heaping mailbox. “Please tell me those aren’t all bills,” she said aloud.
Christine unloaded the box and carried everything inside to sort. This week’s People magazine. A catalog from a clothing company. An Avon circular. Four pieces of mail marked: “Occupant.” The electric bill. The cable bill. A credit card bill. The phone bill. And a card in a pink envelope. Her fingers seemed to tingle when they touched that envelope, and instinctively she knew it was not as harmless as her other mail.
She sat down on the couch again, staring warily at the pink envelope. Her name and address had been typed, but the envelope bore no return address. Slowly she opened it and withdrew a card. On the front of the card was a picture of a beautiful little girl with blond hair the shade of Christine’s.
When she opened the card, three photos fell onto her lap and she gasped. One was a Polaroid shot of Dara. She wore jeans and the suede jacket she’d favored. Her long black hair blew out behind her, and she looked worried as she strode along a brick walkway Christine recognized from Winston University. Clearly Dara had not known someone was photographing her.
The second photo was of Patricia. She, too, wore jeans and a denim jacket, the one she’d had on when Christine found her body. Her brown hair was tied back with a bright yellow ribbon, and she smiled as she reached for the knob on the door at the side of the red barn.
Christine was the subject of the third Polaroid photo. The light was dim and she was kneeling in her backyard, picking up Rhiannon, who was crouching under a lawn chair. She knew from her outfit and Rhiannon’s position that the photo had been taken on the day Christine returned from the hospital, the day after someone had attacked her in the gym.
With trembling hands, she finally opened the card. A piece of paper was taped over the card’s original verse. On the paper had been typed two lines:
Pretty maids all in a row,
Who will be the next to go?
CHAPTER 17
1
An autopsy revealed Patricia had died of a broken neck. No bruises or lacerations appeared on her body that were not consistent with the fall from the loft. Sheriff Teague would have been happy to conclude this was not a homicide, but according to Michael Winter, not even Teague could ignore the carefully strewn hay over the body. They had also found a portable CD player in the loft along with burning candles, although the family insisted Patricia Prince feared heights and would not have chosen the loft as a place of solitude. So the investigation into Patricia’s death would continue, although her funeral was being held less than seventy-two hours after Christine had found her.
The day was beautiful. How sad, Christine thought as she and Jeremy drove to the church. Patricia didn’t live to see the terrible gray days and the cold rain end. She didn’t get to see the sun hanging lemon yellow in the sky again, warming the air, drying the saturated ground, coaxing the spring flowers to bud in glorious color. She’d missed it all.
Christine had told Jeremy that perhaps it was better if he didn’t show Ames the Dara Pin on this day. “He’ll already be sad enough about Patricia,” she said. “Reminding him of Dara might be too much. Let’s wait awhile. In fact, let’s just steer clear of him today.”
“Steer clear of him?” Jeremy had repeated, looking incredibly handsome in a charcoal gray suit. “Doesn’t he need us today?”
“Maybe he needs Wilma more. We might just upset him.”
“I don’t understand.”
No, he wouldn’t understand, Christine thought. She still hadn’t said anything about being fired or Ames’s antagonism toward her, which she feared might show itself in hostility toward Jeremy as well. Jeremy would be baffled and hurt, and the only way she could think of to avoid it was to keep him away from Ames.
“Will you just accept what I say on this one day without my going into a big explanation?” Christine had asked. “Just this once?”
Jeremy had shaken his head. “I don’t get why you want me not to talk to Ames, but I’ll do what you say. I’ll steer clear. I won’t go up and hug him. But I can just say hello, can’t I?”
“Sure. But he’ll have his mind on other things. Don’t be upset if he doesn’t say anything back.”
When they reached the church, which Patricia had formally been a member of, but rarely attended, Christine was amazed by the number of cars lining either side of the street. Patricia had not been liked in Winston. Ames, however, was highly respected. And Wilma had a hundred friends, all of whom knew how close her family was to Ames. Probably only a handful of people had actually come here for Patricia’s sake, if that many. Christine wondered if Patricia would have cared.
The interior of the church was somber, almost tomblike. Christine had never liked it and knew Patricia had only joined because some of whom she considered Winston’s “best” families belonged. Christine’s impulse was to slide unobtrusively into a pew at the back of the church, but she knew that action would be noted and commented on at length when the funeral ended. After all, she and Jeremy had been Ames’s wards. They were almost family. They had to sit near the front, where she saw Ames already seated stiff and tall, Wilma beside him. She and Jeremy slid into a pew behind them. Wilma turned and smiled. Ames caught Jeremy’s eye and had the good grace to nod at him. Christine he ignored completely.
To Christine, the minister seemed to drone for hours. She attributed her feeling to nerves until she saw Wilma squirming uncomfortably. He must be droning if she’s restless, Christine thought. Maybe he was carried away by the packed church and couldn’t tear himself away from the podium. Next he’d tell a couple of jokes, then burst into a rendition of “Feelings” or some other ballad. . . .
Stop thinking like someone having a nervous breakdown, she told herself sternly. She had to get through this excruciating situation although she felt giddy from apprehension and lack of sleep since the arrival of the card and the photographs, which she’d dutifully reported to Michael. But no matter how agitated she felt, she had to keep control of herself because she had to look out for Jeremy. She didn’t want him crossing Ames’s path. And surely this minister who didn’t even know Patricia couldn’t think of much more to say about her.
Suddenly everyone was rising and a relieved murmur surged behind her. The service was finally over. Ames turned and headed up the aisle, not looking at her and Jeremy. Wilma followed with
a bracing smile for both of them. Behind Wilma was her husband—a small, quiet man who looked like he’d been weathered like an old piece of leather. Then came Streak, perspiring and tight-faced. Other members of the Archer family followed. Patricia’s mother had claimed she was too ill to attend the funeral, which Christine had learned from Wilma. Wilma didn’t believe the woman. “She didn’t even sound upset when I talked to her right after Ames did,” she’d said huffily. “I thought maybe I could talk some sense into her. Patricia was her only living child. But no. Cold as ice, that woman. Maybe she’s the reason Patricia was so hard inside.”
Christine and Jeremy followed the Archers out of the church and Christine rushed Jeremy to her newly repaired and returned Dodge Neon, not allowing him time to go near Ames. “You’re acting weird, Christy,” Jeremy complained. “I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong.”
“I will. Later. Just follow my lead.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Stay right by my side. Don’t try to force yourself on Ames.”
Jeremy sighed loudly. “You already told me not to talk to him because he’s too upset. I don’t know why talking to me would make him more upset. I still think you’re just being weird.”
“Okay, I’m weird. But I’m your big sister, so do what I tell you.”
The Prince family plots lay in a cemetery only a mile from the church. After they’d parked the car and walked down a grassy slope to the spot, Christine was surprised to see that the hole for Patricia’s coffin had been dug an insulting two plots away from the one she knew Ames had reserved for himself right beside Eve’s. People would talk about this affront that equaled a slap in the face to Patricia, just like the lack of a visitation the night before the funeral and skipping a reception at the Prince home after the service. People would want to know why Ames had decided to demean his second wife at the time of her death. Christine was certain Wilma had tried to bully him into maintaining a respectful ceremony. Clearly, she had failed.
If She Should Die Page 28
