The Smoky Mountain Mist

by Paula Graves

  “But you haven’t found out what it is.”

  “Not yet.”

  Her lips twisted in a mirthless smile. “And I’m supposed to spill what it is to you, make it easier?”

  “I’m not the one trying to hurt you.”

  “How do I know that?” She pulled her hands free of his grip and pushed him out of her way, rising and pacing the hardwood floor until she reached the picture window. She met his gaze in the window reflection. “I don’t really know you. And what I do know scares me.”

  He couldn’t blame her. What he knew about himself would scare anyone. “I don’t want to see you get hurt, and whether you like my skill set or not, I can use it to help you out. So whatever you can tell me, whatever you’re comfortable sharing—I’ll listen. I’ll keep your confidence, and I won’t use it against you.”

  She turned around to look at him. “I’m taking a huge risk just letting you stay here, aren’t I?”

  She wasn’t going to tell him what scared her so much, he realized. It was disappointing. Frustrating. But he didn’t blame her.

  “Okay.” He nodded. “I can leave if you want me to.”

  She licked her lips and held his gaze, searching his expression as if trying to see what was going on inside his mind. “No. I know you’re feeling better, but head injuries can be quirky. I’d rather you stay here where I can look in on you every few hours to make sure you haven’t gone into a coma.”

  He grimaced. “What, you’re planning to wake me up every couple of hours or something?” He added a touch of humor to his voice, hoping to lighten the mood.

  It worked. Her lips quirked slightly, and there was a glitter of amusement in her blue eyes when she answered, “That’s exactly what I’m planning to do.”

  Behind the humor, however, he heard a steely determination that caught him by surprise. She apparently took the job of keeping an eye on him seriously, and he suspected it was as much for her own sake as his. Maybe it gave her a welcome distraction from the strain and grief of her life these days.

  He nodded toward the picture window. “Do you always leave these windows open like this?”

  Her brow furrowed. “Most of the time. It’s such a beautiful view.”

  “It is,” he agreed. “But it gives people a pretty good view of you, too.”

  Her eyes darkened, and she wrapped her arms around herself as if she felt a sudden chill. “I never thought about that.”

  She wouldn’t have. She wasn’t used to being a target, and Seth wished like hell she could continue living her life without precautions. But there was too much danger out there, focused directly on her, for her to let her guard down that way anymore.

  The windows were curtain-free, but he thought he saw levers on each double-paned window that suggested between-the-glass blinds. “Whenever it’s dark enough outside to see your reflection in the windows, you should close the blinds.”

  She pressed her lips in a tight line, as if it annoyed her to have to make even that small accommodation to the dangerous world around her. A sign of a charmed life, he thought, remembering how early in his own life he’d learned to take precautions against the dangers always lurking, both outside and in.

  Another way he and Rachel Davenport were worlds apart.

  Starting at the opposite end of the room, he helped her close the blinds until they met in the middle. She paused at the last window, gazing out at the darkness barely visible beyond their reflections.

  “You think I’m spoiled,” she said quietly.

  He didn’t answer. He’d more or less been thinking exactly that, although not with any disapproval. He envied her, frankly.

  “There’s a lot about my life you don’t know.” She closed the blinds, shutting out the rainy afternoon, and turned to look at him, her expression softening. “You look terrible. I think you may have a broken nose.”

  It certainly hurt like hell, but he’d examined the bones himself while taking his shower, where he could throw out a stream of profanities without offending anyone. Cracked or not, the bones and cartilage were all in the right places. “It’ll heal on its own.”

  “Said in the tone of a man who’s had a broken bone or two.”

  “Or ten.” He made a face. “I’m fine.”

  She looked skeptical but didn’t press him on it. She crossed back to the armchair and curled up on its overstuffed cushions, pulling her knees up to her chest.

  He didn’t feel like sitting, so he wandered around the den, taking in the good furniture—some antiques, most not—and the eclectic collection of knickknacks dotting the flat surfaces around the large, airy room. Tiny animals sculpted from colored quartz formed a menagerie on a round side table near the sofa. On the fireplace mantel sat a small collection of Russian nesting dolls, painted in bright colors.

  The fireplace itself was, thankfully, cold and unlit, though the extra heat might have helped to drive away the afternoon chill still shivering in his bones. He’d live without it, thank you very much.

  He didn’t care for fire.

  The house he’d grown up in would have fit in this room, he thought, or close to it. He, Dee and his parents had lived there in grim strife for nearly fourteen years, until his father had blown the whole damned thing up, and himself with it.

  He wondered what Rachel Davenport had been doing around the time of that explosion. Probably up to her eyeballs in homework from Brandywine Academy, the expensive private school she’d attended to keep her away from the Appalachian hillbillies who filled Bitterwood’s public schools.

  Envy is an unattractive trait. Cleve Calhoun’s voice rumbled in his ear, full of wry humor. Hilarious advice coming from the man who’d used envy, greed, pride and vanity with great expertise against all his hapless marks. But however bad his motives for teaching Seth a few practical life lessons, Cleve had been right most of the time. Envy was an unattractive trait. And unfair to the envied, in Rachel’s case.

  It wasn’t her fault she’d been loved and protected. Every child should be so blessed.

  “Shouldn’t you be resting?” Rachel asked.

  He turned to look at her. “I’m not tired.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly. “This isn’t your first beating.” It wasn’t a question.

  He didn’t know whether to laugh or grimace. He managed something in between, his lips curving in a wry grin. “No, ma’am. It’s not.”

  “Did you deserve them?”

  That time, he did laugh. “Some of the time.”

  “Why did you choose the life you did?”

  He wandered back over to the sofa, thinking about how to answer. When he’d been younger, he might have told her he didn’t choose to become a con man. That life had chosen for him. He’d spent a lot of time blaming everyone in the world but himself for his troubles.

  But everyone had choices, even people who didn’t think they did. Delilah’s childhood had been the same as his, but she’d chosen a different path, one that had made her a hero, not a criminal. He could have chosen such a path if he hadn’t let hate and anger do him in.

  That had been his choice. Nothing that happened before excused it.

  “When I was young,” he said finally, sitting on the sofa across from her, “I had a choice between two paths. One looked hard. The other looked easy. I chose easy.”

  A little furrow formed in her brow as she considered his words. “That simple?”

  He nodded. “That simple. I was angry and tired of struggling. I was eaten up with envy and mad at the whole damned world. So when a man offered me a chance to get everything I wanted and stick it to people who stood in my way, I took it. I reckon you could even say I relished it. I was good at it, and in a twisted way, I think it gave me a sense of self-worth I’d never had before.”

  “So why aren’t you still doin
g it?”

  “Because nothing good, nothing real, gets built on lies.”

  Her solemn blue eyes held his gaze thoughtfully. “Or you could be lying to me now. Maybe this act of repentance is all for show.”

  “I guess that’s for you to figure out.”

  She buried her face in her hands, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. “I’m so tired.”

  He knew she wasn’t just talking about physical tiredness. The past few months must have been hell on her emotionally, losing so many people who mattered to her, including her own father. “Why don’t you go lie down? Take a nap.”

  “I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on you, remember?”

  “I’m fine. Really. The ol’ noggin’s not even hurting anymore.” Well, not more than a slight ache, he amended silently. And it was mostly at the site at the back of his head where he’d taken the knockout blow.

  After a long, thoughtful pause, she rose to her feet with easy grace. He wondered idly if she’d taken ballet lessons as a child. She had the long limbs and elegant lines of a dancer.

  Delilah had always wanted to take dance lessons, he remembered. He wondered if his sister had made up for lost time once she’d gotten away from Smoky Ridge. He’d have to remember to ask her.

  “There’s food in the fridge if you get hungry.” She waved her arm toward the cases full of books that lined the walls of the den. “Lots to read, if your head’s up to it. There’s a television and a sound system in that cabinet if you’d rather watch TV or listen to music.”

  “In other words, make myself at home?”

  Her lips quirked. “I’m not sure it’s safe to give you that much rope.”

  He grinned back at her, unoffended. “Smart girl.”

  She headed for the stairs, but not before Seth saw her smile widen with pleasure.

  * * *

  RACHEL HADN’T PLANNED to take a nap. She had felt tired but not particularly sleepy when she’d climbed the stairs to her room on the second floor, but the whisper of rain against the windows and the long and stressful day colluded to lull her to sleep within minutes of settling on the chaise lounge in the corner of her bedroom.

  When she next opened her eyes, the gloom outside had gone from gray to inky black, and the room was cold enough to give her a chill. She rose from the chaise, stretching her stiffened muscles, and started toward the bathroom when she heard it.

  Music.

  Seth must have taken her at her word and turned on the stereo system, she thought, surprised by his choice of music. She hadn’t figured him for a Chopin fan.

  Then she recognized the tune. Nocturne Opus 9, Number 2. It had been her mother’s favorite.

  It had been playing the night she’d died.

  Rachel walked slowly toward the bedroom door, her gut tightening with dread. There were no Chopin CDs in the house. What the police hadn’t taken as evidence, her father had gotten rid of shortly after her mother’s death.

  How had Seth found anything to play?

  Did he know about how her mother had died? He might know the mode of her death, of course—the suicide had made the papers—but the gory details had never showed up in the news or even in small-town gossip. The police and the coroner had been scrupulously discreet, from everything her father had told her of the aftermath of her mother’s death.

  So how could he know about the music?

  She pushed open the door. And stopped suddenly in the center of the hall as she realized the music wasn’t coming from the den below.

  It was coming from the attic above.

  Acid fear bubbled in her throat, forcing her to swallow convulsively. Was she imagining the slow, plaintive strains of piano music floating down from above?

  Was she reliving the night of her mother’s death, the way she had relived it in a thousand nightmares?

  She had heard music that night as well, swelling through the otherwise silent house. It had awakened her from a dead sleep, loud enough to rip through the fabric of her tearstained dreams.

  She’d felt nothing but anger at the sound. Anger at her mother’s harsh words, at the stubborn refusal to see things her way. She’d been fifteen and pushing against the fences of her childhood. Her father had been the more reasonable of her parents, in her eyes at least. He’d recognized her need to unfurl her wings and fly now and then.

  Her mother had just wanted her to stay in the safe nest she’d built for her only child.

  A nest that was smothering her to death.

  She’d hated the sound of that music, the piercing trills and the waltz cadence. She’d hated how loud it was, seeming to shake the walls and shatter her brain cells.

  Or maybe that had just been how it had seemed afterward. After she’d climbed the ladder up to the attic and seen her mother swaying to the music, her gaze lifted toward the unseen heavens, one hand waving in rhythm and the other closed around the butt of George Davenport’s Colt .45 pistol.

  Terror stealing her breath, Rachel stared up at the ladder. The very thought of climbing into the attic was enough to make beads of sweat break out across her forehead and slither down her neck like liquid fear.

  But she had to know. Not knowing was worse, somehow.

  Biting her lip so hard she feared she’d made it bleed, Rachel reached up and pulled the cord that lowered the ladder to the attic. Music spilled out along with the ladder, louder than before. Not the rafter-rattling decibels of her memories but loud enough.

  Swallowing hard, she started to climb the ladder, clinging to the wooden rungs as if her life depended on it.

  She’d had no warning of what she’d find that night. There were things she’d gotten used to about her mother—her obsession with cleanliness, her moodiness, her occasional outbursts of anger—but none of those things had seemed more than the normal foibles of life.

  Maybe her father had sheltered her from the worst of it. Or maybe it wasn’t as bad when her father was around. But he’d gone on a business trip, one that had eventually led to his securing the capital to start his own trucking business after working in truck fleet sales for most of his adult life. He was due back that night, but he’d been gone for almost a week.

  Maybe a week had been all it had taken for her father’s palliative influence to wear off.

  Rachel tried to put the memories out of her head as she forced herself up the final few rungs and stepped into the attic. But the memories rose to slap her in the face.

  A plastic drop cloth lay on the hard plank floor of the attic, just as it had that night. And across the drop cloth, blood splashed in crimson streaks and puddles.

  Fresh blood.

  * * *

  SETH HAD FOUND an old Dick Francis novel in one of the bookshelves and settled down to read, but his weariness and the rain’s relentless cadence made it hard to stay awake. He’d closed his eyes for just a moment and suddenly he was back on the road to Smoky Joe’s Saloon, the steel girders of Purgatory Bridge gleaming in his headlights.

  He parked behind Rachel’s Honda and got out, deeply aware of the brisk, cool wind whipping his hair and his clothes. It was strong. Too strong. It would fling Rachel right off the bridge if he didn’t get to her.

  But no matter how far he walked, she was still a few steps farther away, dancing gracefully along the narrow girder as if she were walking a tightwire. Her arms were out, her face raised to the sky, and she was humming a tune, something slow and vaguely familiar, like one of the classical pieces his sister had learned in her music class at school and tried to pick out on the old, out-of-tune upright piano that had belonged to his grandmother.

  Suddenly, Rachel turned to look straight at him, her eyes wide and glittering in the faint light coming from the honky-tonk down the road.

  “You can’t save us all,” she said.

 
A gust of wind slammed into his back, knocking him off balance and catching Rachel’s clothes up in its swirling wake, flapping them like a sail. She lost her balance slowly, almost gracefully, and even though he threw himself forward, he couldn’t stop her fall.

  He crashed into the girder rail in time to hear her scream. It seemed to grow louder and louder, even as she fell farther and farther away. The thirty-foot gorge became a bottomless chasm, and the scream went on and on....

  He woke with a start, just in time to hear a scream cut off, followed by dreadful silence.

  Chapter Seven

  Taking the stairs two at a time, Seth reached the second-floor landing in seconds. Down the hall, Rachel lay in a crumpled heap at the bottom of a ladder dropped down from an opening in the ceiling.

  “Rachel!” Ignoring the aches and pains playing chase through his joints and muscles, he hurried to her side, nearly wilting with relief when she sat up immediately, staring at him with wide, scared eyes. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  “I don’t know.” She sounded winded. “I don’t know if I’m okay.”

  She looked terrified, as if she’d been chased down the ladder by a monster. Tremors rolled through her slim body like a dozen small earthquakes going on inside her, making her teeth rattle. Her fingers dug into his arms.

  He wrapped her in a bear hug, cocooning her against his body. She melted into him, clinging like a child.

  What the hell had she seen?

  “I need to go downstairs,” she moaned. “Please, I can’t be up here.”

  He helped her to her feet and led her down to the den, looking around desperately for a bar service. “Do you have any brandy?”

  She shook her head as she sat on the sofa. “Dad had liver cancer. We all stopped drinking after the diagnosis.”

  Of course. “Okay, well, maybe some hot tea.”

  As he started to get up from where he crouched in front of her, she grabbed his hands and held him in place. “Don’t go.”

  “Okay.” He settled back into his crouch, stroking her cold fingers between his. “Can you at least tell me what happened?”