“I won’t be a minute,” she told him as she turned for the house, noticing for the first time that he wore brown shoes. He must be new, she thought to herself. Most of the agents she knew dressed pretty well, and probably wouldn’t wear brown shoes with a black suit. Old brown shoes at that.
“Take your time,” he smiled and strolled down toward the stream.
The fashion eccentricities of her new companion forgotten, Kendra entered the back of the house, and was stunned by its silence. She found herself tiptoeing across the kitchen floor, then laughed nervously. This was, after all, her home.
She ran up the stairs to the second floor and grabbed an overnight bag from her closet. She had just finished stuffing it with the few things she thought she might need for a few days and had started back down the steps when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Kendra, where the hell have you been?”
“Adam, hi. I was at the Mission. Father Tim’s . . .”
“Has Will’s replacement arrived yet?”
“He just did. I came in to pack a few things to take to Selena’s. He’s waiting outside. Did you need to speak with him?”
“Not really. I just wanted to make certain that he’d gotten there and that everything was all right.”
“Everything is as all right as it’s going to be, I suppose.” Noting the tension in his voice, she asked, “Is something going on that I need to know about?”
“Yes. But first of all, I’m in Tucson, at the airport. My plane will be taking off any minute now, so listen carefully.”
“What are you doing in Tucson?”
“I’m about to tell you. But I need for you to sit down.”
“I’m sitting.” Her forehead creased with concern. “What’s happened?”
“I got a call from Sheriff Gamble early this morning.” Adam began to reiterate his earlier conversation with the sheriff.
“Wait. What we thought was because could mean bee caves?”
“That’s what Gamble suspected, but someone was going to have to search the caves.”
“And that would explain why you’re in Tucson. You wanted to be the one to search the caves.”
“Yes. Well, Gamble and I searched. I brought some beekeepers gear from Quantico and we went from cave to cave. There were millions of bees, Kendra. Millions, in these caves. God only knows how long these colonies have been there. Several of the caves were simply giant hives.” He hesitated, then said, “We found some remains.”
“Remains?”
“Remains of someone who’d apparently gone into the cave and was stung to death. The scraps of his clothing were literally covered with thousands of dead bees.”
“Oh, my God, that’s horrible. What a horrible way to die,” she whispered.
“Kendra, there was a backpack found near the mouth of the cave.”
“A backpack?”
“Zach’s wallet was inside.”
“The body . . . do they think the body is Zach’s?” Kendra’s mind scrambled to process the news.
“The possibility is being considered.” Adam appeared to be choosing his words carefully.
“And Ian?” she asked.
“There was no sign of a second body.”
“But maybe in another one of those caves, but that wouldn’t make any sense. Why would they have gone into different caves?” Her head began to spin. “Farther back, then, in that cave where they found Zach. Maybe Ian had wandered back there.”
“Kendra, there is no way anyone could have gotten any farther into those caves without being stung to death. And all of the caves have been checked out. I’m sorry, Kendra, but there’s only one body, and we won’t know for certain if it’s your cousin until the ME is finished.”
“But if that’s Zach,” she said as if she hadn’t heard him, “then where’s my brother?”
“We’re trying to figure that out. In the meantime, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Where will you be later tonight?”
“Try Selena’s first. She left word at the Mission that she’d meet me here, but she hasn’t arrived yet. Here, write down her phone number.” Kendra gave him Selena’s number.
“I’ll give you a call when I’m on my way back.”
“Okay.” She didn’t protest. All of a sudden she missed him terribly. “Any thoughts on what time you expect to arrive?”
“It all depends on when they allow the plane to leave. Can you keep safe until then?”
“I’ll do my best.”
She rested the receiver down, reflecting on Adam’s news. A body had been found, but only one. A backpack had been found. Again, only one. Zach’s. If the body in the cave was Zach’s, then where was Ian’s? And if he hadn’t died in the cave with Zach, where was he now? Where had he been for the past ten years?
She was sitting with her elbows on the desktop, her chin in her hands, wondering what to think, what to believe, when she noticed that the light on the answering machine was blinking furiously. Kendra pushed the play button.
“. . . to get you yesterday afternoon . . .” Selena was saying. “. . . before I left, but there was no answer. My sister-in-law broke her elbow—in-line skating with the kids—by the way, remind me to pass on that next time the opportunity arises. Anyway, I drove up here to take care of my niece until things settle down. I expect I’ll be back by tomorrow, by then they should have been able to arrange for someone to come in to help out. I brought Lola with me, by the way, because there just didn’t seem to be quite enough chaos in my brother’s house the last time I was here.”
Selena paused, then laughed self-consciously. “There was one other thing. . . . I know you’ll think I’m crazy. But, well, I’ve been having the worst dreams, Kendra. Dark and threatening and well . . . well, the darkness seems to be directed toward you, though I can’t pinpoint what or who or why. But it’s gathering around you . . . surrounding you . . . I can’t explain it and I don’t know what it means.” She laughed again, the laughter sounding forced. “Okay, yeah, I know. Nutty Selena.”
She hesitated, then added, “You know, maybe you’re right, maybe I shouldn’t have tried so hard to push all of that out of me. Maybe I should have left well enough alone. Maybe I’d know how best to interpret the impressions that I’m getting. Damn, Kendra, I’m sorry if I’m scaring you. I probably shouldn’t have said anything at all. If I could figure out how to erase this tape from here, I would. Anyway, you have my brother’s phone number. Give me a call when you get this message and I’ll deny that I ever said any, well, any of the stuff I just said. I’m sorry. I guess it’s just silliness. . . .”
Kendra frowned. Selena must have left that message before she called the Mission to tell her that she’d meet her here at the house at five. Maybe Selena’s sister-in-law was released from the hospital earlier than expected.
Kendra stood up and opened the middle desk drawer for her phone book, a small loose-leaf notebook covered in a plaid fabric in which she kept every phone number she’d recorded practically since college. She’d just located the number for Selena’s brother when she heard the soft shuffle of a foot behind her.
“Hello, Kenny,” a soft voice said from behind.
She looked over her shoulder at the man who stood in the doorway.
“Peter . . . ?” What was he doing here? And where was Joe Clark?
“No, no. Not Peter.”
“Where’s Joe Clark?” she asked.
He took one step into the foyer, and she noticed his shoes. Brown leather. She knew where she’d just seen them.
“Guess.”
She shook her head, confused.
“Oh, come on, now. You can figure it out. We all know what a smart cookie you are.” He circled her. From one pocket he drew out something dark and furry, which he draped over his top lip. “Look familiar?”
He slipped dark glasses on and she gasped.
“Who are you?”
Pausing behind her, he whispered in her ear, “Here’s a clue. How many people call you
Kenny?”
“No one . . .” Her hand flew to her mouth, remembering.
“Ahhhhh.” He smiled with great satisfaction.
“No.” She shook her head.
“Say it.” He leaned directly into her face. “Ian. Say it. Ian.”
Kendra tried to step backward, but the desk was in the way.
“Now, after all the years you grieved for me . . . you did grieve for me, you and Mom, didn’t you?”
His eyes narrowed and Kendra tried to peer into them, tried to determine their depth, but she saw nothing. How could these dark, blank eyes be Ian’s? Was this his face? It had been so long since that summer day they’d put him on the plane to Arizona. Had the young boy’s soft face smoothed into such lean angles?
“How could you be Ian?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper, her brain refusing to acknowledge this face as the face she’d so recently studied, so recently sketched. No. No no no no no no . . .
“How could I be anyone but?” He appeared slightly amused. “Well, I suppose I really can’t blame you. I have been a bit . . . scarce.”
“Why?”
“Why? Why have I been scarce?”
She nodded as if dazed.
“Why did I . . . disappear?”
Again she nodded.
“I’d had enough,” he whispered in her ear, as if sharing a confidence. Then the whisper became a hiss. “Enough of her rules and her demands and her school and her arguments and her—”
“My brother never would have just walked away from his home. It wouldn’t have happened,” Kendra interrupted, shaking her head slightly, side to side. “No. He had no reason to run away, he had—”
“You think only poor kids run away, Kenny? Only poor kids from broken, neglectful homes?” He snickered. “You are just like her, aren’t you? You’ve grown up to be her. Just like they say, every woman, eventually, becomes her mother.”
“You’re not him.” She shook her head again. “I don’t know who you are, but you are not Ian.”
He grabbed her arm and looked deep into her eyes, as if waiting for some revelation. “Well, then, how to prove . . . I know.”
He snapped his fingers as if something had just occurred to him. “You can test me.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Go on. Ask me something. Anything.”
She stared at him, wondering how this could be.
“Kenny, this silence is not at all welcoming. Why, one might think that you’re not happy to see me. And you should be welcoming me with open arms. After all these years, I can’t tell you how disappointed I am.” He stared at her through soulless eyes. “You should be happy to see me. You should know me, Kenny.”
Kendra stared unblinking at the stranger who demanded recognition. She knew the face, all right. She’d sketched it over and over, several times over the past few weeks.
It couldn’t be her brother’s face. It just couldn’t.
“Where have you been?”
“Well, now, you know the answer to that. You know where I’ve been staying.”
“Before that. Before you went to Father Tim’s. If you’re really my brother, you would have come here.”
“I did want to come here . . . it’s my right to be here, same as yours. Smith House. It’s mine, too.” He stiffened slightly, then said, “But I wanted to be able to see you for a while first. To get to know you, so to speak.”
“You were spying on me? Watching me?”
“Every chance I got,” he admitted, the smirk still in his eyes, if not on his face. “I admit I found Father Tim’s by accident, but once I found out that you were one of the funders of the Mission, well, you have to see the irony of that.”
“No,” she told him. “No, I don’t.”
“All these years, I’ve supported myself. I come back to Smith’s Forge and immediately find the Smith money just waiting to take care of me.”
“How did you support yourself?” Heart pounding, she forced herself to appear calm. Keep him talking.
“Oh, there are lots of ways for a good-looking little boy to earn what he needs. You wouldn’t believe all the things I’ve learned to do for money. Then again, you probably wouldn’t want to know.”
“Is that what you’re here for? Money?”
“You know one thing I missed all these years?” He ignored her question and took a step toward her. “Remember when I was little and you used to make me pancakes in the afternoons when Mom was going to law school?”
Kendra shrunk back, her mind still muddled. As a youth, Ian had been troubled, yes, but had his defiance, his growing bouts of rebellion, concealed something deeper? He had been seeing a child psychiatrist that last year, but her mother had never discussed with Kendra the nature of his problems or what had caused them. There was an air about the young man who stood before her that was sinister, almost unholy. If the seed for such had lain dormant in her brother, could she have been blind to it?
This is a dream, she told herself. A really, really horrible dream.
“I never forgot how you used to do that for me.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and she flinched from his touch as he turned her around so that she was facing the kitchen door. If he noticed her revulsion, he did not acknowledge it. “I want you to make me pancakes, just like you used to do. That would be the perfect welcome home for me.”
He pushed her through the doorway, her feet leaden, her mind numb. “And coffee. I’d really like some coffee.”
Kendra stood at the counter, confused. How could she complete such a mundane task?
“Now, you cook, and we’ll chat, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” he promised. “We have a lot to catch up on. Of course, I’ve kept up with you. Big-time sketch artist, eh? I remember when you used to draw people. Remember you drew Mrs. Lentini, that mean-tempered lady who lived across the street, and you made her look so mean? Mom tried to pretend she was horrified but she laughed anyway.”
She searched the cupboards for the ingredients for pancakes, her head filled with a loud humming born of nerves and the sheer effort to maintain a composure she was close to losing.
Who was this man?
He seated himself at the kitchen table, facing her where she stood between the sink and the stove.
“You’re still skeptical, aren’t you. Hmmmm, shall I talk about the old house? The house we grew up in, in Princeton?” Without waiting for her response, his words tumbled out quickly. “It was brick. It had a small front porch with white pillars. Red patterned rugs in the front hallway and big, wide steps that went up to the second floor in a curve. There was a basket on the table near the front door for the mail. There were always flowers on that table, and a lamp with blue swirls on it.” He looked up and asked, “Isn’t that how you remember it?”
“That house was photographed several times for magazine articles. Anyone could have access to that information. You’ve proven nothing.” She was barely aware that her hands had begun to sweat.
“On to the sunroom, then,” he smiled. “Heavy wicker furniture. There was a big round table with a glass top, there were always books stacked on it. She—Mom—always read more than one book at a time. She carried them with her in a canvas bag that had an orchid painted on it. Dad had bought it for her. There was a round pottery ashtray. She smoked cigarettes but prided herself on the fact that she never smoked more than five a day.”
He paused, then asked, as if it mattered to him, “Did that change, once she became a senator? I mean, smoking’s become so politically incorrect, hasn’t it?”
He took a pack from his own pocket, lit one, then tossed the match toward the sink. He missed the mark and she bent down to pick it up. Her hands were trembling.
“You can give me something to use as an ashtray, or I can use the floor,” he told her without expression. “It’s all the same to me.”
She opened the cupboard and took out a saucer, handed it to him.
“Thanks. Now, back to the sunroom.” He in
haled deeply, letting the smoke out slowly as if suddenly deep in thought.
“We gave her one of those rock tumblers for Christmas one year. She picked up stones everywhere she went, then, when she had a bunch, she’d put them in the tumbler. It was a very slow process, it would take hours. She put them, those pretty polished stones, all over the house. There was a flat basket filled with them on the table next to her bed.”
Kendra’s head began to pound.
“The furniture was covered in blue-and-white-and-yellow swirly fabric. There were lots of pillows. The walls were blue, like your shirt.”
She closed her eyes and saw the sunny paisley seat cushions her mother had made for the old wicker furniture she’d bought from the estate of an elderly neighbor.
“These are antiques, Kendra,” her mother had said. “They don’t make them like this anymore. See how sturdy?”
“The dog, Elvis, he was a mix of dachshund and Cairn terrier, the result of an unfortunate coupling of the dogs who lived in the houses on either side of ours—chewed the legs of one of those wicker chairs and she, Mom, was just beside herself.” He continued smoothly, his voice a steady and unrelenting stream. “There was a gardener. His name was Mr. Jackson. Mom gave him some of Dad’s clothes after he died. He had a brown leather jacket of Dad’s that he wore for years. Elvis chewed that, too.”
He paused and looked up at her. “Not enough?”
She stared at him blankly.
“Mom almost didn’t let me go out west that summer, because I’d been in trouble all year long.”
“What kind of trouble had you been in?” she heard herself ask.
“I used to push open the screen in my bedroom window and climb out on the sunporch roof, then up into that big magnolia tree.” He grinned at her devilishly. “Want to know what I did then?”
She wasn’t sure she did.
“I used to climb up as high as I could go, and just sit there in the dark, waiting for Mrs. Flaherty, our next-door neighbor, to get undressed for bed.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“You were eleven years old.”
“I’d been watching her for two years.”
Kendra was speechless.
Until Dark Page 25
