Shadow Creek

by Joy Fielding

  “You saw that?”

  “I think pretty much everyone saw it,” Melissa acknowledged.

  “Including Jennifer?”

  “Definitely including Jennifer.”

  “I thought her eyes were going to pop right out of her head,” James said.

  “Shit.”

  “And then, of course, the two of you disappeared,” he added, “for … how long was it exactly?”

  “Thirty-three minutes,” Melissa said.

  “You counted?”

  “Of course we counted. What are friends for?”

  “Would you believe me if I told you we were just looking for Brianne?” Val asked.

  “Of course we would.”

  “Absolutely,” said James. Then, after a slight pause, “So, how’d it go? The search, I mean.”

  Val smiled. For thirty-three minutes she had actually managed to forget about Brianne, to forget about Jennifer, to forget about her mother, to forget about Evan. “It was great,” she said, unable to contain her delight any longer. “Best. Search. Ever.”

  Melissa let out a whoop of joy. “Amen to that. It’s about time.”

  “Amen,” said James, giving Val’s knee an appreciative squeeze.

  “Amen,” Val repeated, discovering she liked the sound of the word, and settling back into the crook of Melissa’s arm as James took a deep breath and began his ghost story. “It’s called ‘The Hook,’ ” he announced to the assembled gathering of mostly middle-aged faces, the younger campers having pretty much disappeared during the Sound of Music medley.

  “Oh, God,” Melissa wailed. “Not that old chestnut. I haven’t heard that one since I was ten years old.”

  James took a deep breath, continuing undeterred. “All day long the news was full of reports that a lunatic had escaped from a nearby asylum,” he began, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “They called him the Hook Man because he’d lost one arm in a freak accident and had replaced it with a hook, a hook he now used to kill and dismember innocent men, women, and children.” James looked around the campfire, eyes sparkling. “There was this girl. We’ll call her Sienna.”

  “Sienna?” Val and Melissa asked together.

  “I’m updating,” James explained. “Anyway, Sienna was sixteen and she didn’t give a hoot about the Hook Man or all the people he’d butchered. She cared only about what she was going to wear on her date that night with Bryce, the captain of the football team.”

  “Bryce?”

  James rolled his eyes. “Anyway, she finally selected a low-cut Tory Burch blouse, a pair of stone-washed skinny jeans from Dolce and Gabbana, and a fabulous pair of Manolo Blahnik leopard-print, five-inch heels.”

  “Nice touch,” Melissa said.

  James smiled, looking very pleased as he continued his story. “Bryce came to pick up Sienna in his silver Porsche. He drove to a secluded Lovers’ Lane where he parked and they started making out. Suddenly, they heard a scratching on the car door. ‘What’s that?’ asked Sienna, pulling out of Bryce’s arms and looking around. ‘I didn’t hear anything,’ Bryce insisted. ‘It must be your imagination.’ The song on the car radio was suddenly interrupted by a warning that the Hook Man might be in the area. ‘Take me home right now,’ Sienna ordered as the car started rocking menacingly back and forth, like someone was shaking it. Bryce immediately threw the car into gear and tore out of Lovers’ Lane, tires screeching. When they got to Sienna’s house, Sienna jumped out of the car. Then she stood there, screaming. ‘What is it?’ Bryce asked, quickly joining her by the passenger door. And then he saw it. Hanging from the door’s handle was a bloody hook!” James sat back, soaking up the applause that followed.

  Val suppressed an involuntary shudder, not because of the story, which was silly at best, and unsatisfying at worst. She was thinking that James’s story bore an uncomfortable resemblance to the recent murders in the Berkshires. Her eyes scanned the campsite, looking for any sign of Brianne. There’s nothing to worry about, she assured herself again. No need to feel spooked. There was no monster lurking in the dense bushes, waiting to hack her daughter to pieces. Besides, in a confrontation between the Hook Man and Brianne, she’d bet money on her daughter every time.

  The Hook Man didn’t stand a chance.

  FIFTEEN

  JUST HOW FAR IS this stupid lake anyway?” Brianne asked Hayden, not even trying to mask her impatience. They’d been walking around in circles for what felt like hours, she was being eaten alive by mosquitoes, and her once-beautiful Jimmy Choos, the open-toed, red stilettos she’d successfully snagged after waiting in line for hours in front of H&M with hundreds of other like-minded young women jostling to be the first in the doors when the store opened and the designer’s new line of reasonably priced footwear was introduced, were being pummeled into oblivion by the rugged terrain, their once-soft leather now bearing the scars of disrespectful twigs, their slender four-and-a-half-inch heels overwhelmed by ugly, fat clumps of mud. Not to mention, she’d already gone over on her right ankle again twice and it was starting to throb. She should have changed into her sneakers when her mother had suggested it, along with jeans and a sweatshirt. The white shorts and sleeveless T-shirt she was wearing had been fine when the sun was still out, but the temperature had dropped about twenty degrees in the last hour alone. She should have listened to her mother.

  Except then her mother would have won.

  Won what? Brianne wondered now, slapping a mosquito away from her left ear and ducking to avoid being slapped in the face by the wayward branch of a tree.

  She stopped to rub her sore ankle as Hayden disappeared around a bend in the trail. Damn it, this was all her mother’s fault. “Great,” she said, peering through the darkness after him, seeing nothing. Where were they anyway? He kept saying that the lake was just around the next tree, but it never was. Where was he taking her?

  Everything is turning to rat shit, Brianne thought, fighting back tears. She was supposed to be spending this time with Tyler, and instead here she was in the middle of nowhere, wasting half the night with the dorky son of one of her mother’s former classmates. And not only did his cell phone not work—his phone plan didn’t include texting. Who doesn’t have texting?

  “We might get better reception down at the lake,” he’d assured her after she’d tried, and failed, to get a signal soon after leaving the campsite.

  Except there didn’t seem to be any lake. There were just trees and bugs, and then surprise—more trees and more bugs. “Damn it,” she cursed, wondering if her mother was behind this little excursion, if she’d cooked up this whole scheme to teach her some kind of lesson—“Just go over and ask her if she’d like to go for a walk, casually mention you have a cell phone,” Brianne could almost hear her mother suggesting to Hayden. “Then take her on a nice long walk to nowhere.”

  Except that I’m the one who suggested the walk, she realized. I’m the one who asked Hayden if he had a cell phone. He’d just been making pleasant conversation, offering her a sympathetic shoulder to cry on. Of course, her mother might have decided that this was the best way to play her, knowing the way her mind worked.

  Except she doesn’t know how my mind works, Brianne thought defiantly. She thinks she knows me, but she doesn’t. She has no idea what I’m feeling. She doesn’t know me at all. Sometimes Brianne wondered if her mother had ever been young.

  Brianne heard a sudden rustling, the snapping of wood, and glanced warily over her shoulder. Hadn’t James mentioned the possibility of bears?

  “Brianne?” Hayden’s voice shook the leaves of the surrounding trees. “Brianne, where the hell are you?”

  “Back here!” she shouted, her words ricocheting off a nearby cluster of rocks.

  “Why’d you stop?” he asked, his face suddenly popping into view.

  “Are there bears around here?” she asked, ignoring his question.

  Hayden shrugged. “I don’t think you have to worry about bears.”

  What did th
at mean? Was he implying there was something else she should be worrying about? “Where’s the lake?” she asked, as if he might have moved it.

  “Just around the next bend.”

  “You’ve been saying that for the past hour.”

  Hayden checked his watch, then laughed. “We’ve been walking less than fifteen minutes.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No.” He held out his arm to show her the Swiss Army watch dangling from his slender wrist. “See for yourself, if you don’t believe me.”

  “I believe you,” she said, although truthfully, she wasn’t entirely convinced. “It just feels like we’ve been walking forever.”

  Hayden glanced pointedly toward her feet, but said nothing. He didn’t have to.

  “You sure your phone will get better reception at the lake?”

  “No,” he admitted. “Look. We can go back, if you’d like.”

  After coming all this way? Brianne thought. After ruining my new shoes? “No. We’ve come this far. We might as well see if we can get your stupid phone to work.”

  “Who are you trying to call anyway?”

  Brianne frowned as they resumed walking. “Like you don’t know.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Your dad didn’t tell you?”

  “Was he supposed to?”

  Brianne came to an abrupt stop. “You’re seriously trying to tell me that your dad didn’t say anything to you about what happened this afternoon?”

  Hayden shrugged. “Just that there was some mix-up at the lodge about your room and that you guys would be spending the night at the campground.”

  “That’s all he said?”

  “I take it he left something out.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” She pushed her way in front of him, picking up her pace.

  And then suddenly, the lake was right there in front of them, the smooth surface of its clear water sparkling in the moonlight, like a picture on a glossy postcard.

  Hayden smiled. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  Brianne silently acknowledged that it was. “If you like that sort of thing.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Never really thought about it.”

  “I would have thought you liked to swim.” He picked up a pebble, gracefully flicking it into the lake. It skipped across the water’s glassy surface, creating a series of expanding ripples, like cracks in a mirror.

  Brianne watched the ripples round out and expand, only to disappear before they reached the shore. “Why would you think that?”

  “Wasn’t your mother on the swim team with my dad at school?”

  “Just because my mother likes to swim doesn’t mean I do. Do you like everything your father does?”

  “I was just trying to make conversation.”

  “No need. Can I try your phone again?”

  Hayden reached into the pocket of his jeans and handed her his cell without further comment.

  “Damn it,” Brianne said when she still couldn’t find a signal. “What’s the matter with this stupid thing?” She began pacing along the edge of the lake, shaking the small phone as if it were a container of salt. “Where’d you get this dinosaur anyway? It’s like from the Dark Ages.”

  “Hey. Careful. You’ll break it.”

  “I think it’s already broken.”

  “Sometimes it takes a few minutes.”

  “Shit.”

  “What’s with the urgency?” Hayden asked.

  “None of your business.” Brianne felt her shoulders slump. Could this night get any worse? “Promise you won’t tell my mother?”

  “Tell her what? Why would I tell her anything?”

  Brianne’s prolonged sigh combined equal portions of fatigue and defeat. “I’m trying to reach my boyfriend.”

  Hayden nodded, as if he understood. “A boyfriend your mother doesn’t like?”

  “She hates him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she thinks he’s too old for me.” And maybe because some nosy park rangers caught us without our clothes on in the middle of a public place in the middle of the afternoon, she added silently.

  “How old is he?”

  “Not that old.” Brianne decided it was probably best to avoid particulars. She tried the phone again. Still nothing.

  “We could walk some more. Shadow Creek is just up that way a bit.” Hayden pointed off in the distance.

  “You’re joking, right?” Brianne handed him back his phone as she sank to the ground, feeling the earth’s dampness immediately seep through her shorts. Hell, my shoes are already ruined, she thought. Might as well destroy the rest of my wardrobe. It was obvious she wouldn’t be meeting up with Tyler again tonight. Seconds later, Hayden was sitting on the ground beside her, although he was careful to keep a respectful distance between them. “Don’t get any ideas,” she said anyway.

  “What?”

  Brianne couldn’t tell from Hayden’s tone whether he was more shocked or repulsed by her suggestion. What’s his problem? she wondered. “So, you have a girlfriend?”

  He shook his head.

  “Boyfriend?” She was being deliberately provocative and was disappointed that the surrounding darkness prevented her from fully appreciating his reaction.

  “You think I’m gay?”

  “Are you?”

  “No. Why would you think that?”

  “It’s no big deal if you are, you know.”

  “I’m not.”

  “My mother’s friend James is gay.”

  “Yeah, I kinda figured that.”

  “Subtlety isn’t exactly his strong suit. I keep scolding him for being such a stereotype, but he says he was raised by an eccentric single mother to be a dancer on Broadway, so what did I expect?” She laughed.

  “Seems like a nice enough guy.”

  “Nice enough for what?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Hayden asked.

  “Nothing. Why are you so touchy all of a sudden?”

  “I’m not touchy.”

  Brianne shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “What’s with the woman in black?” Hayden asked after several seconds of silence, his voice strained.

  “Melissa. She always wears black. It’s kind of her trademark. She’s pretty cool, actually.”

  “So, it’s only your mother you don’t like,” Hayden said.

  The casual observation made Brianne bristle. “What are you talking about? I love my mother.”

  “You love her. You just don’t like her.”

  “What are you talking about?” Brianne asked again.

  “Now who’s being touchy?”

  “I’m not being touchy.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t like my mother much, either.”

  “You don’t? Why?”

  “She’s a slut,” he said simply.

  “Whoa! Did you just call your mother a slut?”

  “Yeah, I guess I did. It kind of popped out. Sorry.”

  “No, don’t apologize.” Brianne laughed.

  “You think it’s funny my mother’s a slut?”

  “No. Of course not. It’s just that that’s what my mother calls Jennifer. My father’s fiancée. The one …”

  “With the legs,” Hayden said.

  Okay, so he’s not gay, Brianne thought. Still, there was clearly more to Hayden than she’d originally suspected. He might be a dork, but he was an angry dork. A dork with mommy issues. Which made him marginally more interesting. “So, tell me why you think your mother’s a slut.”

  “Because she cheated on my dad with half the planet. Don’t say anything,” he added quickly. “My dad thinks I don’t know.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “One of my friends saw her coming out of a motel one night with some guy who wasn’t my dad. He told me.”

  “I once saw my father making out with Jennifer in his car. Like they were two horny teenagers. Pretty disgusting.”

  Hayden
nodded. “Looks like we have something in common.”

  “Did she really sleep with half the planet?” Brianne asked, not appreciating the inference that she could have anything in common with someone so obviously uncool. She thought of her father, wondering how many other affairs he’d had. She knew Jennifer wasn’t his first.

  There was the time she’d walked past his study and heard him whispering into the phone, followed by a quick goodbye and a too-bright smile when he saw her, and there was that other time, a few years ago, when she’d dropped in on him at work only to find his office door locked and his new assistant away from her desk. She’d been about to leave when she heard muffled noises—giggles, sighs, low murmurs—coming from inside his office, and so she’d approached cautiously, putting her ear to the frosted glass of the door, then knocking gently. “Daddy,” she’d called out, growing bolder when she heard someone moving around inside. “Daddy, are you there?” It had taken a few minutes for the door to open and his new assistant, one Miss Jacqueline Gum, to emerge, slightly flushed and clearly flustered. “Why, hi there, Brianne,” Jacqueline Gum had said. “How are you today?” Her father had quickly waved her inside, smiling that too-bright smile. “Well, isn’t this an unexpected pleasure?” The next time Brianne had paid her father a visit she discovered Miss Gum was no longer in his employ. “How come none of your assistants lasts very long?” she’d asked him. He’d only laughed and shaken his head, as if to say, Beats me.

  “I heard my dad talking to his lawyer on the phone,” Hayden was saying, answering the question she’d already forgotten she’d asked. “He told the lawyer there were three guys that he knew of, including—get this—my uncle.”

  “No shit.” Wow, Brianne thought. This guy has to be seriously messed up.

  “Since the divorce there have been at least four more that I’m aware of,” he continued, unprompted. “She’s been dating this one guy now for about six months. Looks like he could be a keeper.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  He laughed. “You sound like my therapist.”

  “You see a shrink?”

  “I did for a while. My dad thought it was a good idea. To help me deal with the divorce …”