Writ on Water

by Melanie Jackson

  Rory blinked. The rest of his face remained passive, but she could almost hear the gears of thought grind to a halt, re-mesh and start to turn in another direction.

  As the silence went on, Chloe wondered if she had made a mistake in being honest. Maybe Rory simply wasn’t ready to trust her. Or to have her trust him. Such faith did imply a rather high feeling of intimacy on her part, and they hadn’t known each other very long.

  “He told you that we helped Claude get away from the police?”

  “Not in so many words . . . but yes. That you were hiding him.” Deciding to make a clean breast of things, she added: “Look, I already guessed about the break-in. The weberi moss in the cemetery was the giveaway. I guess Claude put it there to cover up where Isaac was trying to break into the tomb.”

  She waited for Rory to comment, but he didn’t say anything.

  “I know you planted the gun in the cemetery. It wasn’t there when I . . . when I found the body.” She stopped. Surprisingly, she still couldn’t tell him about the film. Her statement got another slow blink as it was assessed. “And I know about the damned car in the river.”

  Chloe exhaled slowly and started to turn away, glad to have the confessions over with, even if it upset Rory.

  “Wait.” Chloe might be done confessing, but Rory was not through with the conversation, and he reached out a hand to stop her. “Where are you going?”

  Chloe looked at the lavender blossom lying on the speckled tile floor, enjoying the feel of his hand on her waist even it was there for the wrong reasons, and said wistfully, “I’m going to the cafeteria while you see your father. Rory, damn it! I wish you would trust me. I told you before that I wouldn’t say anything about the cemetery. MacGregor might not have known who I was when we were talking, but the same rules of confidentiality apply. He trusts me—and I am more a stranger to him than to you. Why don’t you have a little faith?”

  It was Rory’s turn to exhale. He pulled her gently into his arms and laid a cheek against her still damp hair. That was much better.

  “Sorry, love. I didn’t mean to seem distant and untrusting. I have to tell you that I would far rather that you didn’t know anything about this, but since you do . . .” His shoulders lifted in what was almost a shrug. “All I can say is thank you. I don’t know many people who would be so loyal to their word.”

  Chloe wrapped her arms around Rory and kissed the midline of his chest.

  “Well, I’m sorry if I shocked you, but I’m glad that I told you. Now we don’t have to keep walking around each other, playing guessing games.”

  Rory shook his head. “Around each other, no, we don’t. But remember that no one else knows about MacGregor hiding Claude. It would be better if you could put it out of your mind and didn’t speak of it again. Not even to MacGregor. Claude is a fugitive and it is safer if we don’t know anything.”

  Chloe looked up into Rory’s somber face and nodded.

  “You are probably right. We won’t talk about it anymore. Hopefully your dad has it all out of system now that he’s confessed to Nancy, and he won’t say anything either.”

  “It’s for the best that we all forget about it.” Rory kissed her nose. “Shall we go see MacGregor now?”

  “Okay.” Chloe reluctantly dropped her arms. She felt cold without Rory pressed against her.

  “Let’s tell him the happy news.” Rory sounded mischievous.

  “What news?” Chloe asked suspiciously.

  “That he really almost has a daughter-in-law. I’d rather tell him before Morag does.”

  “What?” They were still conducting their conversation in whispers, but her gasp was loud enough to draw the nurse’s attention.

  “Well, almost-daughter-in-law sounds better than lover or girlfriend. A few lurid details about our afternoon might get the old ticker going again. He’s been worried that I don’t like females, you know. Maybe you could put in a good word for me, testify to my heterosexual nature.”

  “You say one word about being lovers and we will never share a shower again. And don’t you dare mention marriage. MacGregor will hound us mercilessly.”

  Rory’s eyes twinkled. “It might be fun to watch MacGregor hound you. Are you sure I can’t say just a tiny word or two? ’Cause I really am the type who likes to kiss and tell my father every last detail about my love life.”

  Chloe relaxed. “Everything has its price. You blab and you go without,” she warned him, her tone severe even as she worked to suppress a smile.

  “You’re a hard woman, Chloe Smith.”

  “You have no idea.”

  MacGregor was awake and appeared quite lucid when he turned his eyes upon them. Chloe prayed that he hadn’t heard anything that had passed between her and his son out in the hall.

  “I hate all the damn whisperin’ in this place. It’s bloody gloomy,” he complained. “The women are all ugly and stubborn—even worse than Morag. I want to go home.”

  “The doctor says maybe tomorrow or the next day if your heart stays stable and you don’t have any more attacks.”

  MacGregor glowered at his son for a moment and then turned his attention to Chloe. His expression at once softened and he asked kindly: “Well, at least there is one pretty woman who comes to see me. How are you, girl?”

  “I’m fine.” Chloe smiled back at MacGregor and went over to take his hand. In spite of her warning to Rory about not saying anything to his father she found herself offering him some indirect encouragement. “You need to get better and come home. Morag is being mean to me.”

  “The old trout! And what is she doin’ to you, girl?” MacGregor’s voice was stronger than it had been that morning, but still not robust.

  “Glaring. For some reason she thinks I have designs on your son.”

  “Does she now?” MacGregor smiled. “Well, good. It would be perfect if he had some designs on you.”

  “Well, I expect he does, the cad—but probably nothing honorable.” Chloe watched Rory from the corner of her eye. He shook his head but was smiling slightly.

  “Sadly, girl, that is the way of men. They see, they lust. If you are lucky, they wake up one morning and decide to make a good thing permanent.”

  “I’ll tell you a secret.” Chloe leaned closer and lowered her voice. “It works that way with women too. Sometimes.”

  “And you lust after my son? Are you sure that you couldn’t do better?” MacGregor asked, enjoying this game. Chloe sent a quick glance at Rory, who stood at the back of the room, perfectly content to let her be the one to speak to his father. It was sad that even in this situation the two Patricks weren’t able to really talk to one another, but at least she could be a temporary bridge.

  “Well, Rory’s okay,” she temporized. “But I really have designs on Riverview—specifically the Limoges dinnerware we used the other night. And the rose garden. And I want Oleander, of course. I’d even be willing to keep you around since you can sing. So, as a package deal, it seems like a good bargain.”

  MacGregor laughed, and the monitor beside the bed began showing greater activity. Chloe glanced at the climbing numbers and hoped that this wouldn’t bring the nurse in to scold them.

  “I am going to step out for a breath of air,” Rory said. “Please feel free to plan my life without me.”

  “Okay, but it won’t be the same,” Chloe replied, smiling warmly. “You are so much fun to tease.”

  Rory smiled back and then slipped out the door.

  “You are good to us, girl. We’re not deservin’ of your generosity, but I am grateful for it. And Rory is too.”

  Chloe waved a shooing hand, not wanting to talk about indebtedness.

  “The nurse said you were here earlier.”

  “Yes, for a while.”

  “I don’t remember seeing you, just my wife. They had given me something for pain and it made me imagine things, didn’t it?” He sounded wistful.

  “I think that your Nancy is probably always close by.” Chloe gave h
is hand a gentle squeeze.

  “But it was you I talked to this morning, wasn’t it?” MacGregor’s eyes bored into hers, demanding the truth.

  Her policy of veracity was certainly getting a workout that afternoon. Chloe sighed. “Yes, it was.”

  MacGregor nodded. “I thought so. My Nancy would have been less sweet about things. She had a bit of temper about some matters.” MacGregor looked down at the thermal blanket, but he didn’t release her hand. Chloe had a feeling the catechism wasn’t over. “And did you understand what I was talking about—with Claude?”

  “Mostly.” Chloe also looked at the blanket and tried not to fidget. This was like getting quizzed in the principal’s office.

  “And does Rory know?”

  “That we talked? Yes. I told him just before we came in.”

  “Good.” MacGregor nodded. “You’ll see that he leaves Claude there then. There is no need to move him. He’s with family and—” MacGregor stopped and closed his eyes. His face screwed up with pain.

  “What’s wrong?” But she already knew.

  “Damn it to hell and back and again,” he gritted out. The bedside monitor burst into panic mode, the lights jumping into the red and the alarm going off.

  “Get a doctor!” Chloe shouted at the curtain. Her instruction was unnecessary; there were already feet rushing about in the hall. “Hang on, MacGregor. They’ll be here in just a second.”

  A strange nurse pulled back the curtain and dragged a cart into the room.

  “You’ll have to leave now.” Her voice was more than brisk.

  Chloe looked down at the hand that still gripped hers tightly. The nails were tinged with blue. “MacGregor?”

  “Yes—leave, girl.” It took an effort but he forced his fingers to unclench. His lips also looked vaguely azured. “Find Rory and look after him—and don’t forget what I told you. You leave Claude be!”

  “I won’t forget,” Chloe promised as more people ran into the room and a nurse took her firmly by the arm and propelled her out of the way.

  “Nancy!” MacGregor choked.

  Chloe stood outside the door for a moment, but found the sounds beyond the curtain to be unbearable. Not knowing what else to do, she fled for the waiting room, hoping Rory was there.

  She was terribly afraid that this time, MacGregor really was dying.

  Death is an evil—the gods have so judged;

  had it been good, they would die.

  —Sappho

  Chapter Fourteen

  MacGregor was dead. The words, though not the acceptance of them, had been all that had occupied Chloe’s mind for the last three days while arrangements for MacGregor’s cremation and memorial service were made. Because there had been no one to go with her to the cemetery while she continued her work, even if she had had the heart to be there with MacGregor dead, there had been nothing to do except stay at the house where all Riverview mourned MacGregor’s passing with old-fashioned crepe bows on the doorknockers and shrouded mirrors. Even the grandfather clock in the library had been stopped, so its chimes did not strike. It was creepy and depressing.

  Roland Lachaise had arrived at Riverview on the day following MacGregor’s death, but rather than being a comfort to her, her employer had looked so bereft that Chloe spent much of her time trying to comfort him on his loss instead of the other way around.

  And, after all, why should he comfort her? He didn’t know that she was also bereaved. There wasn’t any good way to make clear the bond she had formed with MacGregor without explaining everything that had happened at Riverview, including Claude’s disappearance and Isaac’s murder. So she said nothing. Instinctively, she had a feeling that anyone who had not been in the trenches with them the last couple of weeks could ever understand the union that had evolved between her and the Patricks because of their shared wariness of Sheriff Bell.

  Her days were understandably lonely, but she was all alone in the evenings too. That was much worse. Rory had not sought out her company at night since the day MacGregor died, a fact that bothered her tremendously, though she supposed that perhaps he stayed away lately because of Roland being in residence and having some misguided chivalrous impulse to protect her from her boss’s displeasure at her unprofessional behavior. It was a nice thought, but Roland was bound to suspect something when she failed to return to Atlanta by the end of the week.

  Whatever his reasons for avoiding her at night, Rory wasn’t around a great deal at any other time either. And when he was . . . It wasn’t that Rory was cold to her. He was always kind during the day when she bumped into him, but he was obviously distracted when they talked and he was often away at the nursery for hours at a time.

  At first Chloe had blamed his daytime distance on grief and the emotional drain of the logistics of orchestrating a sufficiently grand passage into the afterlife for his father. But Rory was managing those details, and also running his business, without any apparent difficulty. And as time went on, and some of the emotional cloud lifted from around her brain, Chloe began to think again.

  Was Rory was avoiding her? Not Riverview and its ritualized unhappiness, but her?

  If so—why? Did he regret their affair? Or was it something else? Something connected with Claude and Isaac that hadn’t been aired when they were telling each other the truth?

  Of course, Rory had never said that he was telling her the truth. The admissions had all been on her side.

  It was only after this suspicion entered her besotted brain, and she started thinking back with an eye for detail, that she recalled her last conversation with MacGregor. Given her undivided attention, a paradigm shifted, and the seed that had so painfully occupied her subconscious for the last week finally sprouted. It began to heave its tendrils of doubt out into her waking thoughts, and other, unpleasant explanations for Rory’s avoidance of Riverview began presenting themselves.

  The fruit of knowledge—or at least of her supposition—was bitter. Once she tasted the crop of speculation, all her ugly suspicions and insecurities popped out again, demanding to be examined. Horrors propagated like weeds. She couldn’t dig them out fast enough to ever get ahead, and Chloe was finally forced into asking herself some of the nasty questions she had shelved after becoming Rory’s lover. Her tidy explanation of what had happened with Isaac and Claude, which had begun to crumble when it was subjected to mental pressure, was melted down completely in the crucible of logic.

  Instead of fighting her intuition, she now began to listen to it when it whispered. And open to accepting unpleasant facts, she began to have strange visions every time she stood idle—snippets of scenes like trailers for a B movie. The most persistent image was of Roger rubbing at Claude, rubbing at Claude’s bedroom door, then rubbing on the black door that led into tomb forty-six. It was like a connect-the-dot puzzle, or a math equation: a equals b, b equals c, therefore a equals c.

  At first she wondered if she weren’t receiving some guidance from beyond the grave, but forced herself to immediately eject such irrational credulities from her brain. She was not her Granny Claire, and she couldn’t afford such superstition about the dead if she were to continue with her present line of work. If she believed that the dead could talk to her, could invade her brain with messages, she would never be able to set foot in a cemetery again.

  But the spells—the mental pictures—persisted, and minus the presence of paranormal interference, no tangible reason for the strange and ghastly visions that presented themselves could be found. It was as if the apparitions had inserted themselves into her psyche and would not go away, not even when she slept.

  Yet, in spite of everything, the nightmares and suspicions, she wished that Rory was there with her. Maybe his presence at her side would keep the hallucinations away when she slept.

  And maybe, her conscience said sharply, she needed to know the truth to end the indisposition.

  Proof either way was attainable, but for days she did not seek it out. The exorcism of discovery might wo
rk to end her visions, but it seemed too rude a thing to do while observing MacGregor’s death.

  And . . . she was afraid.

  Of course, the very fear that made her hesitate to know the truth was also a shameful goad. Thanks to Granny Claire’s insistence that Chloe was going to start having the Sight, would one day have to testify for the dead and dying, she felt she had to act to disprove the notion of psychic channeling. Having some form of ESP she could accept—but not messages from the dead!

  There were other matters at stake, too. Could she walk away and leave her crazy fear unchallenged and still retain any self-respect? If she backed away from this situation, wouldn’t the horror only mature and breed other fears when she went on to a new job and her imagination again caught fire? And more practically, if she let the cemetery grow over without investigating, if she never knew for certain what was in tomb forty-six, could she ever really forget what had happened here?

  But on the other hand . . . Chloe got up and took a turn about the bedroom, feeling confined and restless.

  Could she live with the answers if her new fears proved factual? And whatever would she say to Rory if they were correct? True or false, could she ever face him again after proving her lack of trust? There was historic precedent to consider. The messenger often got blamed for bad news.

  Chloe looked out her bedroom window. It was dark enough for twilight, though it was only just past noon. The clouds overhead brooded. The storm the Munsons had predicted earlier that week had finally arrived, and the Atlantic billows were swollen with rain. She could only wonder why the tempest hadn’t broken yet. Perhaps it waited on MacGregor. Maybe the storm would hold back its violent tears until after the memorial service.

  Maybe it held back so she would have a last chance to tell someone about the car in the river.

  It was a foreign thought. Chloe shivered.

  “Gran?”

  “And why haven’t you come to me about this nasty problem?” the voice of Granny Claire asked, as the light in the room dimmed. Chloe was willing to bet that though these bulbs had dimmed by half, the rest of the house remained bright.