by B. J Daniels
Not as much as you’re scaring me, Marc.
She frowned. Why had she said that to him? And had it been last night? Lately, it seemed all the days ran together.
“Anna, are you still there?”
“Yes.” She recalled Mary Ellen’s words from earlier. That’s what Marc really wants. To start over, no more secrets between the two of you.
Secrets?
“Did something happen while I was in the coma?” Anna asked, a trembling in her voice she couldn’t control.
“What do you mean?” Mary Ellen sounded wary now.
Anna wasn’t sure exactly what she meant. “Marc is so different.”
“Anna, of course he’s different. How could he not be different after everything that has happened?”
She looked toward the hospital-room window. She knew she should stop, but it was as if too long, pent-up emotions had burst loose inside her.
She knew she should be talking about this with Gillian, not Mary Ellen. Gillian would understand. She wasn’t so sure Mary Ellen could, especially given her recent “friendship” with Marc. But Anna couldn’t seem to hold it back any longer.
“He’s like a stranger, Mary Ellen. I don’t know him. He…” She choked, unable to say the words out loud, even though she’d been thinking them for a long while now. She’d woken up after six months in a coma to a complete stranger who frightened her.
“I know Marc’s made mistakes, but he really is sorry and wants to make it up to you.”
Anna said nothing. She’d spent the past two months crying on her friends’ shoulders. No wonder she didn’t hear any sympathy in her friend’s tone—except for Marc. No wonder Gillian wasn’t answering her cell phone.
Anna had awakened from a coma as if only moments had gone by instead of months. Her friends had been by her side the whole time. They’d been relieved and exhausted and wrung out from the ordeal, and then when Marc had wanted a divorce, they’d tried to comfort her. Or at least Gillian had.
Mary Ellen’s alliances seemed to have shifted more to Marc’s side. Why was that?
“I wanted to let you know that I’m all right,” Anna said, feeling strangely desolate and far from all right.
“You’ll call Marc and tell him where you are so he doesn’t have to worry?”
She bridled at the reproach. “Would you mind calling him? Tell him I’m fine. I really can’t talk to him right now.”
“Anna, he’s worried sick about you. He needs to know that you’re going to forgive him and take him back.”
“I have to go,” Anna said, too despondent to talk any longer. She hung up before Mary Ellen could argue further.
Her hand shook as she put the phone down and lay back in the bed, her eyes hot with unshed tears.
POLICE CHIEF ROB NASH DROVE to his house and pulled up in front of his garage door, remembering Lucinda running out last night to get in that other man’s car.
He shut off the engine and sat for a moment just staring at his house. Lucinda had been too young for him and he’d known it. What would a woman her age see in an old man like him anyway? Security? A father figure?
The first time he’d laid eyes on her he’d known that she’d been running from something, that she’d needed a safe place. She had been happy when they’d first gotten together—that hadn’t been his imagination, had it?
He saw the curtain move, caught a glimpse of Lucinda’s face as she looked out the window at him before she let the curtain fall back again.
He couldn’t sit here all night. He opened the car door, feeling even older than his years. Disgusted with himself, he shuffled to the door. It wasn’t locked and swung open. She was standing by the window wearing that yellow dress he liked.
“Hi,” she said too cheerfully. “I was hoping that was you.”
“Who else would it be?” he asked, noticing that she was also wearing the diamond earrings he’d splurged on, and he caught a whiff of the expensive perfume he’d surprised her with on her birthday, a light scent that he loved on her.
Desire cut through him painfully. He closed the door, wanting to forget last night and take her in his arms and have everything be as it was before. But just the way she was dressed told him things were about to change.
“Rob, there is something I need to tell you,” she blurted out, and he saw how nervous she was.
“Lucinda, I’ve been up all night. Can’t it wait?” He stepped into the room, smelled pot roast, his favorite. He had no appetite, but he said, “Something smells good. I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”
“I made your favorite,” she said, though she seemed disappointed that she would have to wait to tell him whatever it was. She’d obviously gone to lot of trouble tonight to set this up. “Would you like to eat and watch the basketball game? That always relaxes you.”
He nodded, annoyed at her attempt to take care of him. Yesterday he would have thought it sweet the way his wife looked after him. Now it felt as if she were treating him like a feeble old man who needed to be waited on hand and foot.
As she stepped past him, he grabbed her, not sure at first if he planned to strangle her or hold her. His kiss was punishing as he shoved her against the wall and pressed his body to hers.
“Rob,” she gasped against his mouth.
He worked his hand between their bodies and ripped the front of the dress open, shoving the bra away to roughly cup her breast in his big hand.
“Rob?” she gasped as he ripped off her panties. He covered her mouth with his, silencing her more than kissing her. He fumbled to get his pants unzipped, shocked at how hard he was. And then he was inside her, slamming her against the wall.
She clung to him as he drove into her. He ignored her cries just as he ignored the frightened look in her eyes. Or the sadness as he came, his body shuddering with his release.
He let go of her and stepped back.
She looked down at her torn dress, then up at him, tears in her eyes.
The shock of what he’d done hit him with a force that threatened to drop him to his knees. Was this the kind of man he’d become?
He felt sick. His beeper went off. He swore and turned away from her, unable to look her in the eyes and see himself as she saw him at this moment.
He felt like crying. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. “I have to take this.”
He stepped into the den and closed the door, nauseated from the smell of perfume, sex and roast beef.
“Nash here,” he said when he reached the dispatcher, his voice breaking.
“A Mr. Marc Collins is down here. He insists on speaking to you tonight.”
“Walker—”
“Mr. Collins insists on talking to the police chief. He says it’s urgent. Something about his wife’s missing gun.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
A DIFFERENT NURSE CAME in to check Anna. The small gray-haired woman’s name tag read Elle. She smoothed the bed covers, offered soothing words and checked the IV attached to Anna’s arm.
“Doc wants you to get some sleep,” Elle said.
Anna didn’t want to sleep. All she’d done was sleep. For six long months. And now here she was in another hospital bed being told to sleep. She had to remember what she was doing in Shadow Lake.
She watched as Elle closed the blinds against the approaching night and Anna’s view of the darkening waters of the lake. For that alone, Anna was thankful. She couldn’t get out of her mind the image of the man she’d seen outside her car window at the bottom of the lake—or his horrible scar.
She shivered and closed her eyes, knowing she wouldn’t sleep. Couldn’t.
When she got out of here she’d go back to the psychiatrist. Obviously, she was a lot sicker than she’d thought.
Elle left, turning out the lights and closing the hall door. Anna lay in the dark, her thoughts racing. She prayed that Gillian would call. Gillian could make sense of all this.
As she lay there in the dark, she knew in her heart that as m
uch as she might have wanted to take the easy way out, she hadn’t tried to kill herself last night. Which meant there was a logical explanation for all of this, including why she’d been headed for this town.
Remembering the items she’d found in her coat pocket, Anna suddenly sat up in the bed even though it made her head swim. Reaching over, she turned on the lamp on the nightstand and opened the drawer where she’d stuffed what she’d found in her coat pocket earlier.
The balled-up money had dried. She smoothed it out and put it and the credit card back in the drawer. There was no salvaging the credit-card receipt. She threw it away since the paper had disintegrated and the printing on it wasn’t legible anyway.
She picked up the scrap of folded paper, surprised to see that it was half of an envelope. The heavy paper had dried, the writing nearly legible.
What surprised her was that the writing wasn’t hers. The words and numbers were in Gillian’s handwriting.
A shudder moved through Anna. How had she gotten this? And why did just the sight of it fill her with anxiety?
She turned the envelope over in her fingers and saw Gillian’s return address. It appeared to be half of an envelope from Gillian’s office.
Turning the paper back over, she tried to read what Gillian had written. Was this just some note Gillian had written to herself? Then how had it ended up in Anna’s coat pocket?
On closer inspection, it appeared whatever Gillian had put down had been written in a hurry. A phone number? She tried to read what was written under the series of numbers. Her eyes blurred for a moment with the exhaustion.
Slowly, two words came into focus.
She felt her chest constrict.
Shadow Lake.
Anna stared at the paper, feeling light-headed.
She’d had this in her coat pocket. It had to be the reason she’d driven to Shadow Lake last night.
But where had she gotten it? Had she gone to Gillian’s? Marc had told Officer Walker that she’d seen him last night. If that were true, had she seen him before or after she’d seen Gillian?
She didn’t remember seeing either of them; nor could she explain why she’d been dressed as she had. But she’d obviously left for Shadow Lake in a hurry or she would have changed into something else. Walker had said there was a suitcase in the backseat of her car. She had a flash again of angrily throwing clothing into a suitcase.
Clearly there had been an urgency in her decision to drive to Shadow Lake. She was breathing hard now, fear growing inside her as she realized she’d been furious last night. According to Officer Walker, Marc had said she’d threatened to kill someone.
She made out two more of the words on the paper. Hwy 20 East. Anna’s fingers went to her scar. She traced its path as she tried to decipher the rest of the words Gillian had written on the scrap of paper. Wherever she’d gotten this note, it appeared to be directions Gillian had written down for her. Or for herself?
Whatever this was, it meant something. Something important. Important enough that Anna had raced up here. Important enough that she’d asked where to find the Shadow Lake Police Department.
She concentrated harder on trying to read the words. A name. Fair—something. Fairview? Fairchild? No, Fairbanks, she thought turning it in the light. Why did that sound familiar? James Fairbanks, of course. The former senator. He’d died recently. Hadn’t she read that he’d been buried in some small mountain town where his family had a summer home?
Underneath were two more words. Unfortunately the words, even if they hadn’t been hard to read, made no sense. If there had been an address, it certainly didn’t look like one now. In fact, it looked like it said “stop.” Stop what?
Preceding the word stop was what looked like “must.” Must stop? The thought made her heart race. Must stop someone? Gillian? If that were the case, then why hadn’t she just called the police department?
She looked in the drawer of the nightstand, found a Bible and a phone book. There was no Fairbanks listed.
Studying the writing on the scrap of envelope again, she saw that the first letter looked more like an R than an M. Rust Stop? Rest Stop.
Her breath caught. Rest Stop. Fairbanks. Hwy 20. Shadow Lake. And a phone number?
Was it possible she had planned to meet someone named Fairbanks and that’s why she’d driven to Shadow Lake? To meet a total stranger at a rest stop? Never. It just wasn’t something she would do.
Unless Gillian was meeting her there.
Or unless she was following Gillian there.
Neither made any sense except that she had driven to Shadow Lake last night with an urgency that worried her.
All of it was so out of character, she couldn’t even imagine doing something so…impulsive.
She must have been out of her mind. Or…or, she realized as her pulse spiked, it would have to have been a matter of life or death.
She fingered the torn envelope, trying to make sense of why it would have sent her racing to Shadow Lake like a bat out of hell in the middle of the night.
A small corner of the envelope had been turned over. As she flattened it out, Anna saw a tiny word printed in the far right bottom corner almost like an afterthought.
Tyler.
Her heart took off like a missile.
While the rest of the words had been written in Gillian’s hurried scrawl, Tyler’s name had been printed carefully. Slowly. Small and perfect. Like Anna’s son. The word as rueful as a sigh. Like the prick of a knife to the heart.
Anna covered her mouth with her hand to hold back the howl that she’d fought to keep at bay for the past two months.
Tyler.
She wanted to expel her anguish until her lungs burst. To pound the walls with her fists until her hands bled.
Tyler.
Her heart swelled like the choked-back sobs in her throat. The letters blurred, then came into sharp focus. Just the sight of his name a physical pain.
Under it, even smaller was written “Luke 2:12.”
Anna had seen the Bible in the drawer of the nightstand. She took it out and, after hurriedly wiping her eyes, leafed through it until she found the passage.
Luke 12:2: “The time is coming when everything will be revealed; all that is secret will be made public.”
ANNA HEARD THE DOOR TO her room open and quickly palmed the note and shut the night-table drawer. She hid the scrap of paper away like a cherished secret. If it meant what she thought it did…
Her heart pounded at even the thought of what Officer D.C. Walker would say if he knew about the note she’d found in her coat pocket.
But why should she fear that? She hadn’t done anything except had a car accident and almost drowned in the lake.
Or had she? She didn’t know what she’d been planning to do once she got to Shadow Lake. Or worse, what she had done. If only she could reach Gillian. She must be in a place where her cell phone couldn’t pick up.
The thought made Anna feel a little better. Still, it wasn’t like her to take off for a few days without letting either Anna or Mary Ellen know where she’d gone.
The nurse bustled into the room. “I thought you would be out like a light by now.”
Anna yawned. “Close.”
Elle checked Anna’s IV then picked up her water pitcher to refill it. “You want me to call the doctor and get you something to help you sleep?”
Anna shook her head and yawned again. “Is there a rest stop near Shadow Lake?”
The petite elderly nurse raised an eyebrow.
“I think I’m starting to remember more about last night.”
Elle gave her a sympathetic smile. “The rest stop is at the top of the mountain.” She pointed in the direction of the cliffs where Anna had gone into the lake.
“It must be close to where my car went off,” Anna said in surprise.
“I’m not good with distances, but I would imagine you could have seen the rest stop in your rearview mirror from where you went off the highway.” She
parted the drapes. “You can almost see it from here.”
It was too dark to see anything but some faint car lights through the trees. “Is it the only rest stop near here?”
“Only one for seventy miles,” the nurse said, letting the drapes fall back into place as she continued to the bathroom to refill the water pitcher. “Is there anything else you need besides to quit trying to force your memory? What did Doc tell you to do?”
“Get some rest,” Anna said.
Elle turned to smile back at her. “So you were listening. Take his advice. The doc knows what’s best.”
Anna nodded. “Have you known Dr. Brubaker for long?” she asked.
“All his life,” Elle said, raising her voice to be heard over the sound of the running water. “He grew up here and came back after he finished med school. It’s hard to keep a doctor in a town this far from everything. We’re fortunate to have one, especially someone as good as Dr. Brubaker. I don’t know what the town will do when he retires and now that his wife, Gladys, is gone….”
Anna licked her dry lips, her heart pounding as she asked, “Do you know the Fairbankses?”
“Personally?” she asked as she came out of the bathroom with the pitcher of water. “No. They don’t come into town much.”
“The family summer home isn’t in Shadow Lake?”
Elle shook her head. “Big Jim’s widow, Ruth, I heard is staying out on the island most of the year now along with her daughter-in-law. Jonathan usually stays in Washington, D.C., but I think I heard he’s back now. Probably needs to spend more time with his mother now that Big Jim is gone. Big Jim had Alzheimer’s. That’s always so much harder on the family than the patient.” The nurse shook her head.
“Where is the island?” Anna asked.
Elle patted her arm. “You think you can keep me chattering and I won’t notice that you’re stalling on going to sleep?” She chuckled. “You’ll be surprised what some sleep will do for you. You’ll be feeling much better in the morning. You’ll see.” She turned off the lamp next to the bed and started to leave. “Doctor won’t like it if I tell him you’re still awake.” The door closed.
