by B. J Daniels
“I heard the boat go out late last night,” she said, unable to just let him turn his back and leave yet.
Jonathan stopped, his back to her. “You’re mistaken, Mother.” He seemed to wait for her to argue the point, then continued toward the door, his injured gait even more pronounced. At the doorway, he hesitated. “What was that woman’s name? I seem to have forgotten it.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t recall, either,” she said, lying right along with him. She’d heard the boat go out last night and now she was positive her son had been on it. Was it possible Anna Collins had been telling the truth? At least the part about an appointment with a Fairbanks.
“Good night, Mother.” He closed the door and she listened to him retreat down the hallway.
She waited until she was sure he was gone before she dug her cell phone from her pocket. She wasn’t foolish enough to use the house phone, since she knew he would be expecting that.
While she waited for the line to ring, she picked up one of the many framed photographs she kept throughout the house. This one was of Jack and Jonathan when they were five and seven. They did look like twins, but were as different as night and day. Jonathan sullen and serious. Jack—Tears blurred her vision. She could remember Jack’s laugh and how it used to fill this huge house like summer sunshine. The pain of loss was nothing like the pain of missing that laugh.
When the other end answered on the fourth ring, she said, “It’s Ruth Fairbanks.” Her hand shook as she put the photograph back on the stand beside her bed. “I need to know everything you can find out about a woman named Anna Collins and a lawyer named Gillian Sanders of Seattle. I need it right away and I don’t want anyone else to know about this. Especially Jonathan. Oh, don’t sound so shocked. I’m more than aware of the kind of services you provided my husband.” Her smile was cold enough to chill the room. “That’s what I thought.”
Ruth gave him her cell-phone number, disconnected and dialed the police department, insisting that she needed to speak with Chief Robert Nash at once.
When he came on the line, he sounded half asleep.
“I need to talk to you. Not tonight,” she added quickly before he could make an objection. “In the morning.”
“What is this about?”
“Make it seven o’clock at the Lakeside Café.”
“The Lakeside isn’t open for the season yet.”
She smiled. “It will be in the morning.” She disconnected and called the café owner.
“WHY WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING like this?” Dr. Brubaker asked Anna, once he had her back in her hospital bed. He looked down at her, worry in his tired, old face. “You have pneumonia. I’ve put you on antibiotics, but I want you to understand, you are very sick and the only way you’re going to get better is if you stay in this bed and try to get well.”
“I had to find some answers. I was coming back.” She had dropped off into a deep sleep on the boat ride, wrapped in the blankets he’d brought for her. She’d barely awakened for the short patrol-car ride back to the hospital.
But since being hooked up again to the IV, her fever had dropped a little and she felt better already.
“It’s too much of a coincidence that I find a note with the name Fairbanks on it and what appeared to be an appointment with one of them and then I find out that the man I saw at the bottom of the lake was Jack Fairbanks,” she said. “Or at least his ghost.”
Doc nodded sadly.
“That’s why Officer Walker was so upset. He knew the man I had described was Jack Fairbanks.”
“Jack was Walker’s best friend. The three of them grew up together—Jack, Walker and their friend Billy Blake. They were inseparable.”
“I’m wondering now if his face is really scarred. Tonight I realized it could have been an optical illusion because of the water and light.”
“You really need to quit worrying about this and take care of yourself. I suspect you haven’t been eating or sleeping well since you came out of the coma.”
“Not really,” she admitted.
“Well, you will be able to get the rest you need now,” he said.
She had expected Walker to grill her endlessly about why she’d taken off the way she had to the Fairbankses’island. To her surprise he’d completely backed off. She was pretty sure Dr. Brubaker was responsible for that. She reached for his large weathered hand and squeezed it.
“Thank you.” She felt a surge of emotion toward him as he started to leave.
“Don’t go yet,” she said impulsively. “Would you stay just a little longer?”
He smiled. “If you promise to stay in this bed until you’re well.”
“I promise.”
He took a chair next to her bed. “If you’d just have told me you wanted to go out to the island…”
“You would have taken me?” She saw the answer in his face. “Why is everyone so afraid of the Fairbankses?”
He laughed uncomfortably. “Big Jim was an icon. He’s barely cold in the ground, the family is still in mourning and you go out there and upset the grand duchess Ruth Fairbanks? Not to mention her son, who some say has his eye on the presidency. He’s probably on the phone right now with the governor asking for your head on a platter for upsetting his mother.”
“He’s really that well connected?”
Dr. Brubaker laughed. “More connected than the Pope. But don’t tell anyone I said that.” He smiled his grandfatherly smile. “You mentioned something about a note?”
She quickly explained about finding the scrap of paper in her coat pocket and how that had led her to the Fairbankses.
He frowned. “Can I see this note?”
“I don’t have it anymore. I showed it to Ruth Fairbanks and she kept it.” She saw his surprise. “I think she knows something. Or at least suspects what I told her might be true. I noticed that Jonathan and Walker don’t seem to get along.”
The elderly doctor smiled ruefully. “Jack and Jonathan, although they looked alike, were very different. Are you sure I can’t call your husband for you?”
Anna could feel herself fading quickly, but she needed to explain about Marc. She didn’t want Dr. Brubaker thinking badly of her. “I was driving the car the night my son was killed. That’s why Marc is so angry. He was divorcing me to punish me. I knew that. I know he thinks I must have been at fault.”
“How is that possible if it was a hit-and-run?”
“I might have somehow caused it.”
Dr. Brubaker covered her hand with his own.
Her voice broke. “I woke after six months of nothing to find out that my son was gone, dead, buried. I never even got to say goodbye to him. Maybe Marc is right. I can’t even remember what happened to me last night. Maybe I am crazy.”
“You’re not crazy,” Doc said quietly. “I’m sure the first memory loss was a direct result of your head injury. There is another possibility for your most recent inability to remember.” He seemed to hesitate.
“I thought you said it was from hitting my head again?” Hadn’t she heard him tell Walker that’s what she had? Or had she imagined that, too?
“It could be a disassociative or psychogenic fugue state. Memory loss can be caused by a horrific event the mind can’t accept. You have been under a tremendous amount of emotional stress, not to mention what’s happened to your body.”
“You think that would explain why I have no memory of why I drove to Shadow Lake? I wondered if it couldn’t have been something like that.”
“DF often involves sudden, unexpected travel from home with an inability to recall the past. Sometimes a person experiencing it will assume a new identity that will contrast sharply with his or her original identity.”
“Like a split personality? But I know who I am.”
“No, more like a form of amnesia, only there are no medical or neurological factors that account for the symptoms.” He lifted his hand from hers and she felt bereft for a moment. “The good news is that half of all fugues last l
ess than twenty-four hours.”
“And the other half?” she asked.
He smiled ruefully. “Let’s give it a little time and see what happens.” He looked as if he wanted to ask her something, but then changed his mind. “I’m going to let you get some sleep.”
She smiled her thanks, her eyelids drooping with fatigue.
He patted her hand and rose again from his chair. “If you need anything, have the nurse call me.”
“Thank you. For everything,” she said as her eyes closed.
“YOU LOOK LIKE SOMETHING the cat dragged in,” Billy Blake said as Walker joined him on the deck overlooking the lake.
Billy had coals going in the barbecue and what smelled like pork ribs on the grill.
“Kind of cold to be barbecuing, isn’t it?” Walker asked, popping the top on a beer from the six-pack he’d brought and handing it to his friend.
Billy took the beer, eyeing him suspiciously. “Bad day at work?”
Walker swore under this breath. “I just got back from a boat ride out to the Fairbankses’.”
“Little chilly on the water, wasn’t it?” Billy asked as if ignoring the part about the Fairbankses.
“You don’t know how close I came to shooting Jonathan tonight.”
Billy laughed. “You wouldn’t waste a bullet on him and you know it.”
“I’m serious,” Walker said, even though he wasn’t. His anger had been simmering since Jack’s death, but hopefully he was too smart to shoot Jonathan Fairbanks and spend the rest of his life behind bars—if Ruth Fairbanks didn’t talk the state into executing him.
“You aren’t going to start with that conspiracy theory of yours again, are you?” Billy groaned as he got up to check the meat on the grill.
Walker saw that he’d been right. Pork ribs, his favorite. “Smells good. Kinda late for dinner though, isn’t it?”
“Funny, I had a feeling you’d be stopping over after you got back from the island, so I made extra.”
“You knew I went out there?” Walker asked in surprise.
“You forget. I’ve got a police scanner. Heard the call and since I saw the chief heading home earlier, I figured you’d have to make the run out,” Billy said. “So what’s the story?”
Walker wished to hell he knew. He popped the top on one of the beers and took the other chair near the grill. “That woman who went into the lake?” Walker asked.
Billy nodded, confirming that everyone in town had heard by now.
“She went AWOL at the hospital, stole some clothing from the nursing-home laundry and took a boat ride out to see the Fairbankses, who weren’t glad to see her.”
“No kidding.” Billy sounded interested as he put the lid on the grill and sat back down.
“She’s crazy. Seriously. First she tells Doc that her kid was with her when she crashed into the lake. Then she’s like ‘oh, sorry, no he wasn’t.’ Like it skipped her mind that the kid was dead and has been for eight months. Killed in a hit-and-run, mother driving.”
Billy let out a low whistle. “Rough.”
“Doc says it was because of her head injury from eight months ago, the hit-and-run, so she was all fouled up thinking she was in the hospital for the first accident and could rewrite history or some fool thing. That’s why she thought her son was still alive.”
Billy shook his head and stared out into the darkness.
“She says she doesn’t remember anything before or after she went into the lake, but she takes off to see the Fairbankses’,” Walker continued, glad to get it off his chest. “Doc, hell, he’s buying into everything she says. He’s acting like she’s the daughter he never had.” Walker shook his head and took a drink of his beer.
Feeling Billy’s intent gaze on him, he turned and said, “What’s that look for?”
“Just wondering why this woman has you so worked up?”
Walker snorted. “She’s crazy as a loon and the chief is…hell, I don’t know what he is doing. He’s washed his hands of it.”
“So she’s attractive?”
“Are you listening to me? Sure, she’s attractive, pretty, I guess. That’s not the problem. She’s crazy. A nutcase. And you should meet her husband.” He swore and took another drink of his beer.
“Married, huh? So why’d she go out to the island?”
Walker shook his head. What the hell had Anna Collins been thinking? He’d wanted to question her tonight, but even he could see that she was sick. Doc told him she had pneumonia when he’d called a few minutes ago to check on her.
“She friends with the Fairbankses?” Billy persisted.
Walker had thought he wanted to talk about this but realized he didn’t want to anymore. He put down his half-full beer and got up. “I really should go.”
“Your shift’s over, right? So what’s the hurry? The ribs are almost ready. You had anything to eat today?”
Walker sighed. Even if he left now, he’d have to tell Billy sooner or later anyway. “She swears Jack Fairbanks saved her life the other night on the bottom of the lake.”
“No shit,” Billy said.
Walker rubbed the back of his neck. “Really, I should go. I’m lousy company tonight.”
“Stay. We’ll finish that six-pack you brought, eat some ribs and freeze our butts off out here on the deck.”
“That’s all you have to say about her claiming she saw Jack?”
Billy laughed. “Hey, you already said she was crazy. Kind of blows the hell out of your theory that Jonathan killed him, unless Jack has come back for vengeance.”
“Not funny. And yeah, I still think Jonathan had something to do with Jack’s death. He’s been jealous of him since they were kids.”
Billy raised a brow. “Then he must have been pretty freaked out when your woman nutcase told him she’d seen his brother alive on the bottom of the lake.”
Walker hadn’t thought of that. “Yeah,” he said as he lowered himself back into the chair and picked up his beer again. Now that he thought about it, Jonathan had been rattled. It gave him no small amount of satisfaction to realize that.
The smell of the ribs made his stomach rumble.
“You know, he did seem…scared.” Walker glanced over at Billy. “I’ve said from the beginning that son of a bitch is hiding something.”
“Wonder what Jonathan will do if she keeps insisting Jack is alive,” Billy said, giving him pause.
Did Anna Collins have any idea just who she was messing with? Jonathan would crush her like a slug under his boot heel.
“I can’t figure out what her game is,” he said.
“Blackmail? If you’re right about Jonathan’s guilt…”
He looked over at Billy. “What if she knows something about Jack’s death?” Walker said, thinking out loud. “Something that could bring down Jonathan Fairbanks?”
“I’ll drink to that,” Billy said, lifting his beer can. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted. Closer, a car engine revved, the sound dying away into the darkness.
AFTER RUTH FAIRBANKS’S CALL, followed by a call from Doc about his patient, Chief Nash didn’t even try to sleep.
What had been a slow winter with nothing going on other than the usual nuisance calls about barking dogs, snowed-in side streets or a vehicle off the road, Nash hadn’t expected all hell to break out come spring.
He wondered if there had been a full moon the night Anna Collins went off the road and into the lake. The same night he’d caught his young wife cheating on him.
He rubbed his hands over his face. And now Ruth Fairbanks had demanded a meeting with him first thing in the morning. Just what he needed. Anna Collins had certainly stirred up a hornet’s nest.
He thought of Lucinda. He felt like shit. He couldn’t keep hiding from her or what he’d done or what he’d seen. He shoved himself up from the couch.
It was late enough that he didn’t see a soul on the drive the few blocks to his house. When he pulled up in front of the garage, the house was dark a
nd he was hit with a horrible thought. What if Lucinda had left him?
As he got out, he checked the garage, terrified he wouldn’t find her car in it. With more relief than he deserved, he saw that her car was still there. She hadn’t left him. At least not in her own car.
He reminded himself that she could have left with her lover. The thought made him break out in a cold sweat.
Clumsily, he got out of the car, fear making him weak as he headed for the front door. As he entered the house, he held his breath, desolate at the thought that he would find it empty.
For the first time, he admitted that he’d made mistakes when it came to his wife. He should have dealt with a lot of issues before they’d run off to Vegas to get married. He’d known she had secrets, but he hadn’t wanted to open that can of worms. He’d hoped that once they were married they could just put the past behind them.
The dishes were still on the table untouched from earlier. He could smell the fading scent of pot roast. His stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten in almost forty-eight hours. No wonder he felt so weak.
He stumbled past the kitchen and peered into the darkness of the bedroom, his chest heaving painfully. For a moment, he didn’t see her. She was so small, curled on her side in their bed. Relief swept over him and he slumped against the doorjamb, fighting tears.
He loved her. Damn it. He loved her. He could forgive her almost anything.
He moved to the chair beside the bed like a sleepwalker, his heart pounding so hard he feared she would hear it. Lucinda’s blouse was lying over the back of the chair by the bed. With trembling fingers, he drew it up, clutching the fabric to his face, gulping in his wife’s scent on a sob as he sat down.
He didn’t know how long he sat there, crying quietly, clutching her blouse. After a while he put it down, went into the bathroom, closed the door and washed his face with cold water. He hardly recognized the face in the mirror.
As quietly as possible, he took off his uniform and, after opening the bedroom door, slipped into bed. He lay motionless for a few long minutes just listening to Lucinda breathe. She hadn’t stirred, but he had a feeling she wasn’t asleep.
