by Nat Burns
“Aw, Don, I’m so happy for you. When will you see him again?” She took a long gulp of the tea, sorry that there wasn’t more of it. Her run and the subsequent dunk in the pond had made her thirsty.
“This weekend. We’re thinking about driving into the country, maybe doing some antiquing.”
“That sounds like a great idea. Wish I could go.”
“Now, Shay, I tried to talk you out of moving to that godforsaken place. My only hope is that you’ll come to your senses and move back here with your friends where you belong. How was it today?”
“It was good. Strange thing happened this afternoon, though. I was out running, really getting into it, forgetting all about Pepper, and I run right into this gorgeous blond tomboy. I knocked her over and into this cooler of fish she had.”
“Fish?”
“Yeah, she was fishing. Go figure. Anyway, there we were, in the mud, rescuing the fish by tossing them back into this pond.” The corners of Shay’s mouth lifted in unexpected merriment as she remembered the scene.
“And then what happened?” His voice was low and filled with curiosity.
“I was trying to carry some fish but slipped and fell, into the water, and of course, lost my temper, as usual.”
“As usual,” he echoed cheerfully.
“Then she started acting all bossy and it sort of scared me.”
“Like Pepper?”
“Yes, like her.”
“So then what did you do?” Real concern tinged his voice and she felt guilty for upsetting him yet again.
“Like I said, lost my temper, called her some rude names…”
“And beat a hasty retreat?”
Shay laughed. “Absolutely. How well you know me.”
“Shay…you should have stayed and dealt with it. Not let her put you off that way. Not all women hit. Most don’t. You know this. Until you can stay and deal with confrontation, you’ll never get over all this crap.”
Shay felt irritation stir. “I know, Dee. I seem to have no control over my reactions, though. My body is conditioned to react negatively even if my mind deems a situation okay.”
Both sighed simultaneously, as if knowing some things couldn’t be changed.
“I guess you haven’t had a chance to tell Doc Frye about this latest…but what does she say to do about the fear you still have?”
Shay walked to the window and looked out at the forest thicket behind the house, thinking again that she should clear the land to improve visibility all the way around her property. “I’m not seeing her anymore. Or anyone else.”
“Then you’ve made up your mind.”
Shay could hear his disapproval. She nodded, then realized that wouldn’t translate across the phone. “Yes, I need to do this myself. It’s not good to depend on a therapist the rest of your life.”
Don laughed. “Hell, I’m putting my therapist’s kids through college. I thought everyone had lifelong help.”
“Well, that may be, but I don’t feel good about it. I’m getting stronger every day. I should be able to deal with this.”
“I wish you the best, sweetie. You know I’m on your side. Whatever I can do to help, let me know. I’m a good listener too. I should charge the same fees therapists do.”
Shay laughed. Dee was such a dear friend. She thought of his comfortable job managing a branch of Regional Funds Bank. “You have more money than you can spend already. I don’t think you need any more.”
“Lifestyles of the rich and famous—a beer, a pizza and old Judy Garland movies until two in the morning.Hmmm.”
“Whiner. What about this new hunk? This Gregory what’s-his-name?”
Don fell silent and his voice changed, became more serious. “Who knows? I’m always willing to take a chance though. Here’s Donnie boy, let’s use him and stomp him a good one when we’re through.”
Shay replied quickly, disturbed by Don’s pessimism. “He may be the keeper, honey. Trust your instincts. You’re wise enough now to realize when you’re being used that way.”
“I hope so.” He sighed deeply. “He’s just so gorgeous, and I know I’ll want to give him whatever he wants.”
“Maybe he won’t ask. What does he do?”
“Legal. Working as a lawyer. Just started with that big firm over on L Street.”
Shay smiled and turned from the window. Her eyes scanned the bright front room, looking for shadows. “There, see. He’ll have his own money.”
“Yeah, that was part of the appeal. As soon as I saw his card, I fell in love.” He laughed and Shay joined in.
“You are such a pain. Go do something banky. I’m going to unpack the china boxes and fill up Mother’s china cabinet.”
“Okay, but remember. She’s in jail, Shay. Jail. Bars, butchy matrons, the whole nine yards. She’s probably loving it. You can relax and enjoy life a little.”
“I will. I know. Love you, honey. Thanks for being my friend.”
“My pleasure, you know that. Hey, watch out for those gorgeous tomboys, though. I hear they’re in season out there in the country, so they may be looking for shelter.”
“You are so full of it,” Shay replied, laughing.
After signing off, Shay scrounged yesterday’s tuna salad from the refrigerator and made herself a sandwich. Eating alone at the small, wooden table, she glanced around her silent kitchen and felt a sense of gloom approach. She didn’t like spending all her time alone but knew it would be a long time before she would be able to trust and allow someone to enter her life. The thought saddened her.
The death of her parents, so close together, had taken its toll, leaving Shay with a huge void in her life. And since her time with Pepper, Shay had lost touch with most of her established friendships, personal and business. Being a victim of abuse sometimes brings out a latent fear in people; Shay had seen it in several friends’ eyes when the court case had become public knowledge. Now she faced the task of building a new life for herself in an entirely new town. She sighed and chewed. The task seemed so overwhelming; she wasn’t even able to focus on it for any length of time.
Shay longed to be who she had been before Pepper entered her life.
Pepper. Dorothy Presley Pope: a handsome, muscular butch with white blond hair and dynamic blue eyes. She had a sweet smile too, one so sweet that it easily melted a woman’s heart. It certainly had melted Shay’s heart. Even now, when Shay pictured that practiced smile in her mind, her knees grew weak. The other images more than made up for that sudden lapse into weakness, however: the drunken rogue, the weeping penitent, the angry harridan.
Shay sighed and finished her sandwich. Fish. Fishing. She thought of the tall tomboy then and pictured her in her mind. What she could remember. Mostly she remembered perfect white teeth in a tanned face and strange eyes the color of pale coffee. She’d never seen eyes quite that color before. The color helped make the eyes more expressive, the café au laitmirroring the rapidly changing emotions Shay’s behavior had engendered in her. Embarrassment and remorse nagged at Shay, and she vowed to apologize if their paths ever crossed again.
CHAPTER THREE
The house Liza shared with her father and her younger brother, Richard, was modest in appearance but rich in location. Situated at the edge of the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge, the aged, rambling home occupied a prime piece of real estate. Developers wanting to buy him out for the oil rights had already approached her father many times. Liza knew how much he loved it, though, and was sure he would never sell. This was part of the reason why, when he had been diagnosed with skin cancer and was preparing to undergo treatment, he’d called Liza home from the outskirts of Montgomery, to care for him and also, she was sure, to help jump-start her love of the old home place.
The second born of Tom and Sienna Hughes’ four children, Liza knew she was the most dependable. The oldest, Steve, successfully sold insurance for a living but drank more than a little and wore a belligerent attitude as though it were a three-piece suit. His wife
, Mary, an old school chum of Liza’s, complained constantly, and Liza had listened to way more grief about her brother than she cared to admit. Two good things had come from their stormy marriage and Liza adored them. Her nephew, Mason, was a very mature ten, and her niece, Stevie, six, was a bundle of charm and manipulation.
Liza’s younger sister, Chloe, was a Type A dynamo. If the theory of birth order flip-flopping was true, then Chloe was the poster child. Bypassing both Steve and Liza in ambition, she worked as a legal assistant, controlling the offices of Warren and Warren better than if she were a senior partner. Nothing happened in that office without her stamp of approval and both elder and younger Warren repeatedly sang her praises. Clearly, they relished her hypercontrol, which allowed them to go freely about the business of representing clients and bringing in the money.
The youngest child, their brother Rich, would forever be the baby of the family. It seemed he hadn’t matured a lick since their mother died almost five years ago. Her death had been rough on him, and now, at age twenty-two, he’d yet to deal with the loss effectively and move forward. He worked as a cook at the local wings and beer pub and seemingly wanted nothing further out of life.
Entering the house, Liza paused to press a kiss to her father’s forehead. He sat in his favorite easy chair watching a sports channel. This last round of focused chemotherapy had left him shrunken somehow. Gone was the overlarge, overloud man Liza remembered from her childhood. She still admired the hell out of him, however, as he was handling the fight against his illness with a grace and stoicism she found fascinating.
“Any calls, Pop?”
Tom looked at her with some confusion. “Are you expecting any?” he asked, his voice concerned.
Liza laughed and picked up the mail from the hall table situated just off the living room and rifled through it. “Damn, Pop, make a girl feel needed, why dont’cha?”
Tom laughed, realizing how his innocent question could be misconstrued. “Sorry, Baby Gal. No, no calls.”
“Shoot. I was hoping Hector would call me with the stats so I wouldn’t have to call the office myself. It’s always so uncomfortable when she answers.”
Tom fingered the remote, muting the patter of the announcers. “I thought Estella told you Gina wasn’t usually in the office after three o’clock.”
Liza studied a white envelope with the return address of Meadows Produce in Montgomery. She sighed. Another check. Money in the bank just didn’t replace a good relationship. “I know, Pop. It’s the one saving grace. I guess I’ll go call, even though,” she re-entered the room, glancing at her watch, “it’s cutting it a little close.”
“Well, what happened to you?” Tom asked, finally noticing her mud-coated clothing. “You’re going to ruin the rug.”
Liza looked down at the ancient braided rug that covered the pocked wooden floor. It had been in the house as long as she could remember and looked like it.
“Pop, come on,” she said, making a face. “This rug?”
Tom had the grace to look embarrassed. “What did you do, catch the fish with your hands?”
“No, it was a traffic accident, sort of. Fisherwoman versus jogger. Jogger won, I think.” She looked down at her overalls. “I guess I’d better go clean myself up. Hey, the jogger was a woman living at the old Carson place. Have you heard anything about someone moving in up there?”
Tom studied Liza’s face, his mind obviously whirring as he gave her question a good amount of thought. “Seems like Bernie Cohen said something about a new woman in town. Said she was a looker.”
Liza scowled. “Bitch, you mean. She’s ornerier than a water moccasin.” She paused in thought, looking much as her father had looked while thinking. “I guess she looks okay. A redhead.”
Her father just grunted, his interest having shifted back to the game, so she made her way down the hall to her bedroom. She’d wait another hour or so before calling Meadows. Maybe Gina would have left by then for sure.
In her room, Liza loosened her coveralls and placed them in the hamper just inside the bathroom door. She’d wash them later tonight before the stain set in too well. Alabama soil this low in the Gulf was sandy and heavy with white clay. It often left stains in fabric. She also removed her socks and boots, leaving them on the tile floor. Her T-shirt joined her overalls in the hamper and she switched on the shower.
The heat felt good. She stretched her left side under the stream to expand and warm the muscles that had been hit when she’d fallen on the cooler. Looking down she saw that a bruise had already begun to darken along the side where the edge of the cooler had caught her.
Her mind drifted to the woman. Shay. She remembered how she’d felt upon first seeing her, when she was lying there in the mud, fish flopping all around. Her hands idly soaped her body as she remembered their time together and how the wet clothing had hugged Shay’s delicate curves. She wondered what she had done to set her so on edge.
Liza shoved her head under the water, rinsing shampoo from her thick blond hair. She probably hated her and never wanted to see her again. Liza grinned into the stream of water. She seemed to be having that effect on just about all women these days.
CHAPTER FOUR
Odd. There was a dim light shining in her office. Who would be in the office at this hour? It was too early for the cleaning crew and besides, they usually had every light blazing while they worked. Jim William, at the front desk, should have warned her she had a visitor. Jim was responsible for noting the after-hours coming and going of the employees and patients in the Health Network building. She’d stood by his desk for several minutes too, shaking the wet snow off her umbrella into his waste can. They’d even made small talk, for goodness’ sake! She paused in the hallway, uncertain. She shrugged off her fear. This building was about as secure as a building could be. Obviously, it must be someone approved by Jim or he would never have allowed the person inside.
The doctor moved slowly toward the door, keys in hand. The keys were unnecessary. The door was open, gaping several inches wide. Instead of wisely backing away and calling for help, Dr. Rachel Frye leaned her weight against the door, pressing it open with no sound. Gingerly she stepped inside, tiptoeing so her heels wouldn’t tap on the tile entryway. It seemed there was no one inside at first, and then she saw the man. He was short, his long dark hair streaked with gray, and he was wearing a dark blue flannel shirt over tan trousers and hiking boots. As Dr. Frye watched, the man cursed softly and opened yet another drawer.
“Hey there, what are you doing? This is my office and you can’t be in here.” Dr. Frye’s indignant tone was automatic, a knee-jerk reaction to the violation she felt. She switched on the overhead lights. The fellow looked up and fixed her with bright blue eyes set in a scarred, gaunt face.
“Where do you keep them,” he asked, his voice rough and urgent, a slight foreign accent evident. “The patient files?”
“What files? You need to leave. Now!” She moved toward the telephone, peering closely at the intruder, trying to remember if he was a patient. If so, it might be something she could handle by herself.
“Who are you? Are you a patient? I don’t think I recognize you…” He was older than she’d originally thought.
“The files,” he repeated, moving toward her. Though short, he was sturdy in build and no less menacing than a taller person. “The patient records, where are they?”
Dr. Frye suddenly realized anew the possible danger. She moved back a step and stiffened her spine, unwilling to show her fear. She lifted the handset, certain now that she needed help.
The powerful man moved with eel-like grace through the room and was on her before she had a chance to complete dialing the front desk. As she fell, she thought about her gentle, helpless husband Lawrence. He’d be lost without her. As would her patients. Unable to catch her breath as the man’s hands closed about her throat, she stared into his eyes with sudden recognition as the light dimmed around her. Sorrow filled her; sorrow for herself and
for those she was leaving behind.
The assailant stood above her, chest heaving with exertion. His gaze was hard and dispassionate. He looked at his hands as if amazed that they could so easily crush a neck. After a moment, he resumed his methodical search of the office, finally grabbing up the woman’s briefcase which had fallen, from her lifeless hands, to the floor.
CHAPTER FIVE
Placide’s Place was like a second home to Liza. She’d visited often with her mother, coming several times a week to the large house overlooking Dooley’s Folly to visit her grandmother, la Mémé, Rosaries Hinto, and to eat cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches washed down with sugary hot tea. As Liza approached the wide side door today, striding along the narrow, pocked sidewalk, she inhaled the familiar perfume of wild roses and touched their laden, swaying branches.
The tall, two-story home was fashioned of ruddy, locally created brick supported by eight-foot-long, twelve-inch-square beams of paisley-patterned black locust. It had been built when the area had been covered by ancient trees that had to fall before a home could be built. Sturdy panels of this wood made up the thick, iron-hinged doors as well. Liza, as a child, had spent much precious playtime battling to swing open their heaviness.
Inside the house, more of this wood, shiny from years of polishing, adorned the walls and most interior surfaces. When younger, Liza had fantasized that she was on a great ship, a cramped sailing vessel, trapped on a windless sea. Her grandmother’s minimalist attitude and sparse decorating style had inadvertently fueled this fantasy.
This hilly, rugged section of Maypearl was one of the oldest in the area. While most of rural Maypearl featured pine thicket and scrub growth in the sandy, poor soil, this area was more like cooler northern climes, with towering deciduous trees such as elms, oaks, dogwoods and beautiful crape myrtles and even some evergreen trees such as ficus and holly. Coming here was much like entering another world, one that an older Liza cherished now more than ever before.
