Marta Perry

by Search the Dark

  Meredith, on the other hand, looked like a polished professional woman with her shining brown hair worn in a sleek, just-below-the-chin cut, neat slacks and a soft coral sweater, with a touch of gold at ears and wrist.

  Not on her hands, though. He’d seen that bare ring finger first thing.

  “I just learned from Jeannette that you were coming.” Those big brown doe eyes focused on his face. “I was surprised.”

  He managed a short laugh. “I’d say appalled was closer to the truth, right?” That came out sounding more bitter than he’d intended.

  “Just surprised. Because I remember hearing you swear that Deer Run had seen the last of you.” Those full lips might have trembled for an instant on the words.

  “We talk a lot of nonsense when we’re seventeen, right?” Things like I love you. I’ll always love you. He shrugged. “It was time I dealt with the property I own here. Had a few vacation days coming, so I figured I’d clear things up.”

  “I see.” She glanced away, as if at a loss for something else to say.

  He could remember when it seemed they’d never run out of things to say to each other. They’d walk around town in the summer twilight, sharing secrets and dreams as if they were two parts of a whole.

  Meredith seemed to regain her poise after the momentary lapse. “I guess this visit won’t be much of a vacation from work for you. What are you doing now?”

  He raised an eyebrow, wondering how she’d react. “Police. Detective Zachary Randal, Pittsburgh P.D., believe it or not. I imagine most people in Deer Run expected me to end up on the other side of the bars.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.” A faint flush touched her cheekbones, denying the words.

  “Come on, Meredith.” He put his hand on the gate, dangerously close to hers. “We both know what this town thinks of me.”

  “Deer Run has changed,” she protested.

  He took an obvious look down the street at the same lineup of century-old Victorian houses and small shops. A few cars were parked in front of the grocery store, an Amish horse and buggy was hitched at the side of the hardware store. The village snoozed under the shelter of the mountain ridge that seemed to cut it off from the rest of the world.

  “Really? Looks the same to me.” He raised an eyebrow and had the satisfaction of seeing a spark of anger in those brown eyes.

  “You shouldn’t judge what you don’t know.” Her chin came up, reminding him of the sensitive good girl who’d still had the courage to date the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks.

  The front door of the house rattled, and a high, sweet voice called out, “Meredith? Come inside, please. I need you.”

  The door closed again. Apparently Margo King had her daughter so well trained that she didn’t need to call twice.

  Meredith half turned away from the gate. “I’m sorry. I have to go in.”

  “Yeah. Right.” Bitterness welled up, raw in his throat. “I see one thing hasn’t changed at all.”

  Before she could answer he turned and walked away, his fists clenching as he tried to stamp down feelings he’d been sure had died a long time ago.

  * * *

  ANGER WAS MEREDITH’S only shield against pain, and she clung to it as she hurried into the house. If all Zach had to offer her was bitterness, so be it. He might at least have given her a chance to explain.

  The thought drew her up sharply. What was there to explain? She’d said she loved him, but she hadn’t had the courage to go against her family, her mother’s imagined social status or the opinion of Deer Run to prove it. Zach knew that as well as she did. Their love was long since dead and buried, and it might have the decency to stay in its grave.

  “What on earth were you doing, talking to that boy? Standing there at the front gate where everyone in town could see you—Meredith King, you should have better sense.” Her mother waited in the entryway, shaking with anger from the top of her carefully tinted hair to the tips of her neat leather loafers. “I can’t imagine how he has the nerve to show his face in Deer Run again. What’s he doing here, anyway?”

  Meredith sucked in a deep breath and prayed for calm. “I’m not sure, Mother. I believe he has some business to take care of.” She kept walking, heading for the kitchen. “I’d better put the goat’s milk in the fridge.”

  It was too much to hope that her mother wouldn’t follow her. “What kind of business? If he’s come back here to moon after you again, he might as well go back where he came from.”

  “Don’t be silly.” That came out too sharply. “You know all that was over a long time ago.”

  “You shouldn’t have talked to him at all.” Her mother sank onto a kitchen chair, pressing her fingertips to her temples. “It gives me one of my headaches just to think about Zach Randal, right at my front gate, looking like some kind of a hoodlum.”

  Zach had looked a bit rough around the edges, hadn’t he? That had always been part of the allure, Meredith supposed. It was classic, a good girl like Meredith King falling hard for the boy who was bad to the bone, or so people said. And Zach, with his disdain for small-town attitudes, had seemed to enjoy shocking the denizens of Deer Run. If he wasn’t cutting school, he was sauntering in late. And he’d been quick with his fists at the slightest opportunity.

  “I understand he’s a police officer now,” she said, opening the refrigerator door to shield her face while hoping to head off some of the inevitable speculation.

  “I suppose he told you so, and you believed him. Just like you always did.” Her mother’s voice went up an octave, and she stopped massaging her temples to clutch at her chest—never a good sign. “You believed him no matter what we said, causing your poor father so much grief.”

  Tears spurted from her mother’s soft brown eyes, and her words came in little gasps. She was working herself into a state of hysteria, and if Meredith didn’t intercede, she’d end up with a frantic call to the doctor, insisting she was having a heart attack.

  “Now, Mother, that’s all in the past. There’s nothing to worry about anymore. Zach is only here for a few days, and then he’ll be gone and we’ll never see him again.” Her heart seemed to lodge a protest at that, but she kept going. “I’m sorry his return upset you, but it doesn’t need to. Why don’t you come upstairs and have a nice rest before supper?”

  Still soothing, Meredith led her mother gently to the stairs. They’d played this scene so often she knew it by heart. First it had been Daddy doing the soothing and comforting, and now it was Meredith’s job.

  Keeping her voice calm, her touch gentle, she guided her mother up to her bedroom, pulled the shades, tucked her under the coverlet. Experience had taught her that it was useless to try and reason with her mother—she was no more amenable to reason than the average two-year-old. And too much emotion led inevitably to the racing heartbeat that frightened her mother as much as it did Meredith.

  According to the doctors, her mother’s atrial fibrillation was not nearly bad enough or frequent enough to require anything other than the mild medication she was on. Their assurances had never comforted her mother.

  Finally, after repeated promises that Margo would never be subjected to the sight of Zach Randal again, Meredith was able to get away. An easy promise to make, wasn’t it? It was hardly likely that Zach would care to confront Margo King after what she had done to him.

  Meredith had barely reached the kitchen when she heard a tapping on the back door. Through the window she spotted Rachel, who’d probably cut across the back lawn between their houses in the shortcut they’d developed in the past few months. The elderly Amish seamstress whose small house sat between the two didn’t mind their frequent trespassing.

  Meredith opened the door with a sense of relief. Here was someone she could confide in without the need to protect her feelings.

  Rachel ca
me in, handing her a package as she did so. “This was on your back porch.”

  Meredith glanced at the label as she led the way into the kitchen and sighed. “It looks as if Mother has been watching the Shopping Channel again. I can’t seem to convince her that we can’t afford every little thing that appeals to her.” She’d have to have another of her futile talks with her mother.

  Rachel nodded in sympathy. She knew all about getting by on a small income, since she was supporting herself and her young daughter by turning her former mother-in-law’s house into a bed-and-breakfast. “She still doesn’t understand that her investments aren’t paying off the way they used to?”

  “Understand? She won’t even listen. Says it gives her a headache.”

  Meredith put the kettle on the stove with a little unnecessary force. Rachel was the only person in whom she confided, and Rachel was safe. Their childhood friendship had blossomed into a solid relationship since Rachel moved back to Deer Run.

  “How is she taking Zach Randal’s return?” Rachel lowered her voice, as if Margo King might be lurking around the corner.

  “It’s okay to talk. She’s taking a nap.” Meredith set two mugs on the counter. The late-September day was cool enough to switch from iced tea to hot tea for their afternoon break. “So the rumor mill is turning already, is it?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Rachel hesitated, her usual gentle expression concerned. “If you don’t want to talk about it...”

  “I’d rather talk to you than anyone. I just can’t believe Zach has come back. I never expected to see him again after what my mother did.”

  “Your mother?”

  “You didn’t know? I guess you might not have.” Rachel had still been Amish then, and their childhood friendship had faded by that time. Amish teenage girls were helping their mothers or preparing for marriage at a time when Englisch girls were engrossed in cheerleading and the latest hairstyles.

  The kettle shrieked, a suitable sound for the way Meredith felt. She poured water over the tea bags.

  “My parents didn’t want me involved with Zach, as you can imagine. He was the rebel, constantly in trouble with everyone.”

  She had to smile. It had been such a classic story—like Grease without the music. Or maybe more like West Side Story, even though no one died.

  “When we started getting too serious, my mother came up with a simple plan to get rid of him. I had let him into the house when she wasn’t there, and she claimed money was missing from her desk drawer. She said Zach had taken it, and she threatened to prosecute if he didn’t go away and leave me alone.” The words were as dry as dust in her mouth. “He was ready to leave Deer Run behind, anyway, I suppose. He wanted me to go with him. I said no.” She set the mugs on the table with a clunk and sank into her chair.

  Rachel studied her face for a moment. “Did you love him?”

  A fair question, wasn’t it? In a similar situation, Rachel had run off to marry Ronnie Mason, to the dismay of both their families. It hadn’t turned out well, but at least Rachel had her little Mandy by way of compensation.

  “I thought I did.” Meredith shook her head. No point in evading the truth. “Yes, I loved him. I just didn’t have the courage to go with him.”

  “Maybe you did the best thing.” Rachel’s voice was gentle.

  “I doubt that Zach saw it that way. He ended up branded a thief because of me.” She sucked in a breath. “Now he’s back, and he’s...” She hesitated, trying to find the word to express what she’d sensed from him. “...bitter, I guess. I can’t blame him. I just wish I knew what to say to him.”

  “Maybe you need to tell him how sorry you are. For your sake, if not for his.” Rachel had a way of going to the emotional heart of the matter.

  “I’m not sure he’d want to hear it.” She saw again the dark intensity of his gaze.

  “If he’s not willing to forgive you, then that’s his right.” Rachel still had a typically Amish attitude toward right and wrong. “But you’ll have cleared the slate, and you can move on.”

  Meredith stared down into the amber liquid in her cup, as if she’d see an answer in its depths. “Suppose...suppose I find I don’t want to move on. What if I still have feelings for him?”

  Rachel didn’t speak for a moment. “Either way, isn’t it better to know the truth?”

  The truth. The words were an echo of what Sarah had said to her earlier. Life seemed easier, somehow, if you could settle for a polite fiction that glossed over the difficult facts. But some people would only be satisfied by the truth, and she had an uncomfortable feeling that she might be one of them.

  Rachel leaned back, sipping her tea, ready to talk or listen or forget, whatever Meredith needed. A wave of gratitude went through her. Maybe that was really the definition of a friend... Someone who could hear all the bad stuff, empathize and then let it slip away.

  She took a gulp of her tea, letting the hot liquid dissolve the lump that had formed in her throat.

  “I met with my cousin Sarah this afternoon,” she said, abruptly changing the subject. “Apparently rumors are going around that Aaron Mast killed himself.”

  Rachel’s clear blue eyes clouded. “Oh, no. We tried to be so careful not to let anyone know what we’d found.”

  “I’m beginning to think there’s no such thing as a secret in Deer Run,” Meredith said. “Sarah’s so upset about it. And Aaron’s parents, as well. She asked me to find out if it’s really true.”

  “I can understand how they feel. Suicide goes against everything the Amish believe. But how are we supposed to come up with something new after all this time?”

  Meredith appreciated the we. Rachel wouldn’t let her deal with the problem alone. “At this point, I don’t have a single idea. But I’d like to go through the scrapbook we kept that summer again. Would you mind if I picked it up?”

  She, Rachel and their friend Lainey Colton had kept a scrapbook of their imaginary world that summer, filled with their observations and the illustrations Lainey had drawn. Meredith had already been through it several dozen times, but perhaps there was something she’d missed.

  “I’ll drop it off for you,” Rachel said, still looking concerned. She glanced at her watch. “I didn’t realize how late it was getting. I hate to cut this short, but I told Mamm to send Mandy home at four-thirty.”

  “No problem. At the moment, I don’t have any idea of how to do what Sarah wants.” She rose, putting the mugs in the sink.

  “Maybe if we both think about it, we’ll come up with something.” Rachel touched her arm in silent sympathy. “As for the other...well, try not to worry too much about Zach. He’s not a boy any longer. He’s responsible for his own happiness.”

  Or unhappiness, Meredith added silently. Still, Zach hadn’t seemed unhappy. Just bitter.

  “Say hi to Mandy and your folks for me.” Meredith walked with her to the back porch. The breach between Rachel and her family over her leaving the Amish faith had healed, and Rachel considered herself fortunate to live only a stone’s throw from her parents’ farm on the far side of the covered bridge over the creek.

  Meredith stood for a moment on the back stoop, watching as Rachel cut across the intervening backyard. All of the backyards on this side of the road ended at the creek, which formed a boundary between the village on this side and the Amish farms on the other. Meredith kept her backyard mowed to just beyond the garage, as her father always had. A little farther on, a tangled border of raspberry bushes spanned the space to the trees that crowded along the creek banks.

  If she went down the path behind the garage, it would lead her to the small dam that emptied into a wide, inviting pool. The pool where Aaron Mast died.

  A breeze touched her and set the branches moving, a few leaves detaching themselves to flutter to the ground. The sun was just beginning to slip be
hind the mountain, but the shadows already lay deep under the trees around the pond.

  She rubbed her arms, unaccountably chilled. She hadn’t liked going to the dam since that summer. It had figured in too many bad dreams.

  She didn’t believe it was haunted by ghosts. That was nonsense. But it certainly was haunted by memories.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MARGO SLIPPED AWAY from the kitchen door, her terry-cloth slippers making no sound at all. But she wouldn’t be heard in any event. Meredith had gone out on the back porch with her friend. She’d never know her mother had been out of bed at all.

  A lady doesn’t eavesdrop. It wasn’t polite. But what was she to do when her own daughter kept secrets from her?

  Margo’s anger flickered as she made her way up the stairs, her hand on the railing for support. Really, Meredith should have better sense, but it certainly wasn’t her fault. No one could say that Margo hadn’t done her best to raise her only daughter properly.

  It was a mother’s duty to protect her child, even when that child was an unmarried woman of thirty. She winced, Meredith’s age reminding her uncomfortably of just how old she was. Still, her friends assured her she didn’t look a day over fifty.

  Margo padded into her bedroom, sending a satisfied glance at her image in the mirror. Like a Dresden doll, her father had said of her the evening she’d gone to her first dance. Certainly the boys had agreed. She’d had her pick of boyfriends. If only she hadn’t imagined herself in love with John King....

  She fluffed up her pillows and settled back against them, frowning a little. The issue now was Meredith, and how she could be protected from her weakness where Zachary Randal was concerned.

  Good riddance to bad rubbish—that was what people had said when he’d left town all those years ago. Margo had bathed in a glow of righteousness for weeks over her role in making his departure come about. Zach had left, and Meredith had been protected from him. Goodness only knew what might have happened if Margo hadn’t intervened when she did.