The Man, The Moon And The Marriage Vow

by Christine Rimmer

  “Don’t give up…”

  “Don’t give up…” She repeated the words, feverishly, over and over, as Erik seemed to fade from her arms.

  She was alone again.

  She closed her eyes. The hot tears kept coming, burning her skin as they trailed down her cheeks.

  When she looked again, her father was bending over her. “Evangeline, Evangeline. What will I do with you?”

  She realized, in a far-off way, that somehow she had fallen off the bed onto the cold concrete floor.

  Gideon had bound her with long chains, two of them, attached to manacles at her wrists and bolted to the blackpainted brick walls above the bed. They were very light chains, but also very strong. And now, they were all tangled around her, hurting her.

  She watched, semiconscious, as Gideon pulled a little key from a back pocket. He unlocked the manacles, untangled the chains, and threw them off to either side of the bed. Then he scooped her up and put her back on the mattress.

  Dazed, she held up her unbound wrists. They were red where the manacles had chafed them.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I guess we don’t need those anymore.”

  He didn’t say why. He didn’t have to. She was too ill to plot an escape now, and too weak to carry it out. She knew that—and he did, too.

  “You’ll be more comfortable now, I’m sure of it.” His voice was sad and gentle. She turned her head and saw the envelopes. His junk mail, on the bed stand where he’d tossed it when he saw her on the floor. He put a hand on her forehead, a cold hand. He must have been outside, getting the mail.

  “There, now,” he said. “You rest while I go through my letters.”

  Don’t give up, Erik’s voice whispered in her mind.

  Gideon reached across her, to scoop up the envelopes once more. She only got one glimpse, but it was enough. In her mind, she captured the address on the top envelope.

  Her father smiled at her. “Rest, now. Just rest.” He carried the mail to the chair by the door and began to sort through it, humming.

  Evangeline pressed her eyes closed. She pictured that envelope. Every detail of it. She let it fill her mind.

  Erik swam to consciousness to find himself standing in front of a painting he had never seen before.

  Outside, the rain still beat against the windowpanes. But Erik hardly heard it. He stared at the painting for a long time, planning how to use what he knew without being called a lunatic.

  When the plan was solid in his mind, he went to his bedroom, closed the door and called Nevada. He’d chosen her over Faith because, since Evie’s disappearance, Jack had been in contact with Faith. The deputy would be less suspicious if Nevada came forward with new information at this point.

  Nevada didn’t hesitate. She said she’d back Erik one hundred percent. They spoke for a while longer, going over her story in detail, so it would sound convincing when she told it.

  Next Erik called Jack. He explained how he’d just hung up from talking with Nevada, how Nevada had been going through some old correspondence of hers, searching for anything that might lead to the whereabouts of her father, and possibly Evie.

  “She’s found an address for him, in Oregon,” Erik said. “She scribbled it on the back of an envelope a few years ago. Apparently Gideon had called her, to try to harass her into revealing Evie’s whereabouts. And she’d managed to get his address out of him before he hung up.”

  Jack said nothing for a moment. Then he sighed. “That stinks, Erik.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, it doesn’t fit what we know about Gideon. That man wouldn’t give his address to anyone, especially not one of his daughters. He’d be too afraid they might use it to track him down, turn the tables on him and make him stop bothering Evie. And why would a bright woman like Nevada have mislaid such an important piece of information for all this time?”

  “Look. I only know what she told me.”

  Jack was silent again. Then he grudgingly agreed, “All right. Have you got the address—and Nevada’s phone number?”

  Erik gave them to him.

  “I’ll call Nevada right now and talk to her about her story. And if it checks out, I’ll contact the Oregon authorities and have them look into it.”

  “And how long is that going to take?” Erik made no attempt to hide his impatience.

  “Erik, look—”

  “No, Jack. You look. I’m going there. Myself. Right away.”

  “Erik—”

  “Come on. What do we have, really? We have nothing, no shred of evidence that Gideon Jones is the one responsible for Evie’s disappearance. From what you’ve been able to dig up, Gideon has no record anywhere of trouble with the law. There’s nothing for the Oregon authorities to go on. The most they’re going to do is stroll on over to the address Nevada gave me and have a talk with Gideon—if he’s there and when they get around to it.”

  “Erik—”

  “I’m not through. The point is, I can do that. I can get myself to that address in Oregon in, say, eight hours tops. And I can have a little talk with my father-in-law. And that is exactly what I’m going to do.”

  “Erik.”

  “What?”

  “I see your point.”

  “Damn right you do. You’re a smart man, Jack.”

  “One thing.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  For the first time in a week, Erik felt himself smile. “That’s what I hoped you’d say.”

  Since Erik couldn’t find a flight that would get them there faster than driving, they took Evie’s van.

  They left North Magdalene at 2:00 p.m. and crossed the border into Oregon at eight that night. It took them three more hours to find the house. It was fairly isolated, as they’d expected, on a narrow road several miles from a town called Prineville.

  The mailbox with the address painted on it stood on a wood pole by the road, and a dirt driveway led between a gap in a barbed wire fence up to a run-down-looking clapboard house. In the bare yard stood a single scraggly leafless elm and an ancient black van very much like the one Angie Leslie had described to Jack.

  “Well, what do you know?” Jack muttered.

  “What now?” asked Erik.

  “Hell,” Jack said, reaching over the seat and grabbing his police-issue revolver, all snug in its holster. “Park. Let’s go knock on the door.” Jack strapped on the gun as soon as he got down from the van. “Just hang tight here for a minute, all right? I’ll check things out around back.”

  Erik nodded and Jack disappeared around the side of the house. He returned shortly thereafter. “Everything looks sealed up tight. There is a back door. I tried it.”

  “And?”

  “Locked. But I probably should keep an eye on it, in case he tries to get out that way.” He touched the handle of the revolver. “You want this?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Okay, then. Give me a minute to get in position on the side of the house, where I can see how you’re doing and keep an eye on the back door. See that pine over there?” He pointed to a tree several yards to their left. “I’ll get behind that. Then you go for it.” Jack moved away.

  Erik counted to sixty, then started for the porch.

  The old boards creaked as he tread on them. And then he was standing at the door. He glanced to the left and then right. All the windows had dark curtains on them. Sealed tight, as Jack had said.

  Feeling strange, as if this whole thing wasn’t really happening, Erik lifted his hand and knocked on the door. Then he waited. He heard no movement inside the house. Just the hoot of an owl, far off somewhere.

  He knocked again. Still nothing.

  There was a small diamond-shaped window at the top of the door. He peered into it. All he saw was darkness.

  He tried the door and found it locked.

  He was just thinking he was going to have to put his shoulder to it, see if he could break it in, wh
en Jack materialized at his side.

  “Looks like no one’s going out the back way,” Jack said.

  “No one’s answering, period,” Erik said.

  The two men looked at each other. Then Jack said, “I know what you’re thinking. It’s called breaking and entering.”

  “Jack. I know she’s in there. I can feel it.” He turned his shoulder to the door.

  Jack put his hand on Erik’s arm. “Hold on.”

  “What?”

  “I used to be a private investigator, you know?”

  “I heard.”

  “Got me all kinds of questionable skills doing that kind of work.”

  Erik watched in amazement as Jack pulled a couple of wires from his pocket and set to work picking the lock on the door. Within thirty seconds, there was a click. Jack’s white teeth flashed in the darkness.

  But there was still the dead bolt to deal with. Jack handled that, too, with a some kind of plastic card.

  And then at last, the door swung back onto a dark foyer. Erik stepped inside and felt for a light switch. He found it within seconds. He flipped it on.

  Light bathed the small space. And just beyond it, on the floor of the barren living room, a woman lay, her back to them, her body tucked tight in a fetal curl.

  “Evie,” Erik breathed, hardly aware that, beside him, Jack had drawn his gun.

  “Careful, easy,” Jack was saying.

  But Erik paid him little heed. Five steps and he was standing over her. He dropped to his knees at her back. “Evie. Sweetheart…”

  She didn’t move.

  “I’ll look around,” Jack said.

  Erik waved him away. Nothing mattered but the thin, curled-up body before him.

  “Evie. I’m here.” He touched her shoulder. She neither moved toward his hand nor pulled tighter into herself.

  He gave a tug. She fell back against his knees, like a husk of herself, an empty shell.

  “Oh. Evie…” He didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to know.

  But he had to. He put two fingers against her throat, seeking a pulse.

  There was nothing.

  She was gone.

  A keening cry came from him then, a cry that should have shamed him, it was so desperate and full of pain. He grabbed at her empty, lifeless body, gathering her into his arms and rocking her, his mind screaming, crying out, over and over, in a litany of lost hope.

  Too late, too late, too late, too late…

  He hated himself, for all those nights in the meadow, those nights of his numbness, when he didn’t believe. When they talked of the past, and then when they just clung together, doing nothing to find out where her father had brought her.

  Precious time, wasted. That’s what it had been. And he would never forgive himself for this. Never, in a hundred thousand years.

  “Evie, oh Evie,” he moaned as he rocked her. The words came out of him of their own accord. “Evie, don’t leave now. Evie, please. Come back. We need you, Evie. The kids. Me. We love you and need you. Please. Stay with us…”

  And above him, looking down, someone heard. And answered.

  And that was when he felt her lips move against his neck.

  He pulled back, smoothed her filthy hair off her forehead. “Evie…?”

  Her lips moved again, forming his name. “Erik.” She tried a smile, a ghastly thing, her face was so pale.

  But to him, she had never looked more beautiful. He pulled her, tenderly, against him once again. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “All right now. We’ll get you to a hospital, right away.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Evie woke in the hospital forty-eight hours later. Erik was there, sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. He told her what she already knew—that she would be all right now—before calling the nurse to say she had awakened at last.

  They let her go home four days after that, and for a while she stayed in the king-size bed upstairs, while Darla and Tawny and Nellie treated her like a queen. They even moved the computer up there, so Pete could show her a thing or two about it while she got her strength back.

  By mid-December, she was much better, able to open her store again and work half days. Will Bacon, who ran the local clinic, warned her to take it easy, though. Pneumonia, Will said, could ruin a person’s stamina for quite some time.

  For years after that, Evie always felt that Jack Roper looked at her strangely. Jack had gone down into the basement of that old house. And he’d seen her father on the floor, knocked out by one of the bricks from the wall.

  What Jack could never figure out, he said, was how Evie, in her condition, managed to work that brick free of the wall, let alone heft it and hit the old man with it.

  Once or twice, Evie was tempted to explain to him about telekinesis. But she never did. Jack was such a practical soul. She doubted he’d believe her anyway. And that whole time was such a blur to her now, anyway. She thought she’d willed that brick out of the wall and through the air. But she’d never be absolutely positive that was what she had done.

  And she had no memory at all of crawling up the basement stairs and into the living room where Erik said he’d found her.

  No, really. She thought it was probably best to just let the whole thing go. Let Jack look at her strangely. She could live with that.

  A few days before Christmas, Erik and Evie flew to Oregon and paid a visit to the institution where Gideon had been confined. The old man didn’t recognize her. The doctors said it was the way it often went, in cases like these.

  During the flight home, Evie thought—as she had a hundred times since that day she woke in the Oregon hospital—that maybe they should talk about it all. But they didn’t. They glanced now and then at each other, shared a loving smile, and listened to the low drone of the powerful engines that were taking them home.

  Christmas was beautiful. “The best we ever had,” Becca said. Nevada and Faith showed up in the afternoon. They all went for a huge dinner at Darla’s. Even Nellie came for that.

  New Year’s Eve, Erik and Evie went to a party at Delilah Fletcher’s house. At midnight, they kissed beneath the mistletoe in Delilah’s living room. Then they went home and made long, wonderful love in their king-size bed.

  Afterward, as they held each other, Evie thought again of talking to him of the miracle of her rescue five weeks before. She remembered the meadow, and the dreams of him. And the envelope she’d stared so hard at, with the address of the old house on it.

  But she said nothing. Erik had already explained to her how he’d found her. Nevada had come up with the address at the last minute; she’d forgotten she had it, and then discovered it scrawled on an envelope after all hope was gone.

  And really, as each day passed, Evie saw less and less need for talking about it anyway.

  The strange dreams of Erik in the meadow had helped her. In them, she’d told the truth about herself and her past. And in them, Erik had accepted that truth, gone on loving her in spite of the wrong she’d done. It didn’t matter that it hadn’t been real. The important thing was that she felt forgiven for those years when she had told lies about her visions for her father’s gain.

  At last, nothing of the past bound her anymore; all the darkness had turned to light. She could lead a happy, normal life with her newfound family.

  And as the weeks—and then the months—went by, Evie learned something else about herself. The strange powers that had haunted her for over twenty years of her life were gone now. No visions ever came to her, to be blocked out by the wall. She saw as others saw at last. No more. And no less.

  She wondered, at times, how that had happened. Erik had told her that she’d died on the living room floor of that old house—and come back when he called to her. Just as she had died when she was ten years old, returning then because her sisters had needed her so.

  Was it possible that when Erik had called her back, she’d left her gifts behind? For another time, perhaps, when she was more capable of usi
ng them well?

  She’d never be sure. It was all speculation.

  And in the grand scheme of things, she wasn’t even positive that it mattered. What mattered, for Evie Jones Riggins, was that life in North Magdalene went on, full and rich and good.

  In April, on a bright, clear morning after the kids had left for school and Erik was gone to work, Evie decided to put some of the family’s outerwear away in the spare closet in Erik’s studio before she headed over to Main Street to open her store.

  She set the coats across a corner chair and stuck her head in the closet, planning to push the canvases in there out of the way. But a tricky ray of sunlight found its way into the dark space and played upon the image of a pale, gnarled hand.

  Curious, Evie pulled that canvas out into the light.

  It was a painting she’d never seen before—a painting of her father’s hand, scooping up a stack of mail, the address of the old house where her father had imprisoned her printed clearly on the top envelope.

  Evie set the painting on an easel. She stared at it for a long time.

  And then she decided she needed her husband. Right now.

  She went out and found him, at his brother Joshua’s house. Erik was just getting ready to paint the house a hideous green color that Joshua’s wife, Wilma, had picked out herself. Evie marched into the yard and took her husband by the hand.

  “Evie, what’s going on?”

  “Come with me, please.”

  “Sweetheart, I have work to do.”

  “This won’t take long. An hour, tops, and you’ll be back here slathering that stuff that looks like pea soup all over Joshua’s house.”

  “Shh.” He shot a look toward the front door. “Wilma will hear you.”

  “Then come with me and I’ll shut up.”

  With a put-upon sigh, he let her lead him out the front gate and back home, where she pulled him up the stairs and pushed him into his studio.

  He saw the painting then. He turned to meet her eyes. “Evie, I…”

  She felt as if she just might cry. “It all really happened, didn’t it? It happened for you, as much as for me?”