The Music of the Deep: A Novel

by Elizabeth Hall

  The breeze off the water was cold, and Brian put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him. “I’ve missed you so much, Robin. I’ve been miserable without you.”

  All her resolutions dissolved, pooling into the sand at her feet. She had missed him; she was glad he was back. At ten, she called her mother and told her not to wait up. And then they climbed the stairs to Brian’s bedroom. For the next week, they spent every night together.

  On New Year’s Eve, they went to a party at Stephanie Spencer’s house. Her parents were gone, and Steph was quick to put out word. It was the usual crowd, many of them Brian and Stephanie’s age, home from college, but also a few of the current seniors. Jim Butler, Robin’s friend from art class, was there, drinking a beer and watching everything like he could hardly wait to put it in his sketchbook.

  For the first half of the evening, Brian stood with his arm around Robin’s shoulder, sometimes hooking his elbow around her neck to pull her head in close to him so he could nuzzle her hair and kiss her temple. Stephanie watched it all, a beer in hand. She started the music, and a few couples, and even some singles, started dancing across the living room.

  When Robin came back from the restroom, Brian was dancing with Stephanie, both of them teetering slightly from the beer. Robin stood in the doorway, watching them, until Jim appeared next to her. “What do you say, Robin? Want to dance?”

  She nodded, and they swung out onto the floor.

  When the song ended, Brian reached for her arm and pulled her in close to him again. He stood with his arm on her shoulders, glaring as Jim Butler made his way over to the kitchen. “You been seeing that guy while I was gone?”

  Robin turned to him, incredulous. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s just a question, Robin. All I want is an answer. Have you been seeing that guy? Yes or no?” He pulled her in closer to him.

  Robin yanked away from him. “You have a lot of nerve. I don’t hear from you for four months, and now you’re pulling this shit? I’ll do what I want, and it’s none of your business. You don’t own me, Brian Carter. I don’t need your permission.”

  “I take it that’s a yes?”

  At that very moment, the voice of Stevie Nicks cut into the room, “Rhiannon” blaring through the speakers. Without turning to look away from Brian, Robin could hear the voices of Steph and her friends in the kitchen, joining in that same juvenile version of the song.

  Brian smirked. “Have you been spreading the magic around, Ro-ah-bin?”

  “You asshole.”

  Robin turned away from him and pushed through the crowd of dancing bodies. She found her coat on a chair by the door and left. Brian followed her outside, and a few of the partygoers watched through the living room window as the two of them stood outside on the grass, in the rain, obviously arguing. Brian leaned over her, and with his index and middle fingers, tapped her on the chest, as if he were trying to make a point.

  Inside the house, the music ended at exactly that moment, and several people heard Robin’s words, cutting into the night. “Don’t you ever touch me like that again.” She turned and headed down the road, into the darkness.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Alex unlocked the door and ran inside the entryway, trying to adjust her eyes to the darkness inside. She pulled her hood down and stood for a moment, letting her heart slow after the run uphill. Outside, the storm was raging, branches slapped against the roof and walls; wind whistled down the pipes and rattled the window frames.

  She took a deep breath and removed her jacket, reaching for the hooks in the dark. She took her glasses off, shaking the water on the floor. Lightning flashed, and for one brief second, she thought she saw the face of a young woman flash in the mirror next to the coatrack. It was a face she knew, although she couldn’t remember how. The woman was young, with long dark hair. Her hair was soaking wet, just as if she had been out in the storm with Alex. The room went back to darkness, and Alex took a step backward, her heart hammering.

  Behind her, she heard soft sounds of movement. She turned slowly, listening as the lock in the back door clicked. She could hear the sound of the doorknob turning. The door creaked; cold air rushed in around her. It was too dark to see anything.

  She put her hands out in front of her, feeling her way toward the kitchen, toward that open back door and the cold air rushing into the house. Halfway across the kitchen floor, she stopped.

  She was not alone. She could hear someone breathing, someone standing nearby in this room.

  “Happy New Year, Alex.”

  She started to step backward, unable to see in front of her or behind, still feeling the cold air blowing through that back door. “Daniel?”

  He laughed. “Were you expecting someone else?”

  She could hear him moving in the darkness, heard the creak of the wood floor as he placed his feet. Alex continued to move backward, her hands just behind her hips, feeling for the wall of the front room.

  “It’s one of the things I’ve always found so interesting about you, Alex,” Daniel continued, still moving slowly. “The way you think you’re so smart. The way you think you’re smarter than I am.”

  “Daniel. I . . .”

  She didn’t know where he was; she could still see almost nothing. But even through the pounding of the storm, she could hear his voice, coming down the hallway, not far away from her. She kept sliding her feet backward, one soft step at a time. Retracing her path, back to the front door.

  “You’re not as smart as you think you are. Did you really think you could leave me? Did you really think that I would just let you go?” He laughed softly, not more than a few feet away from her. “I’m the smart one, Alex. I prepared for this a long time ago.”

  She took another step backward.

  “You ever heard of those tracers? They’re tiny. The size of a watch battery. So easy to stick onto something. So easy to put one almost anywhere. Your mother’s car, for instance. Just in case. Just in case you got some crazy idea, and I needed to find you.”

  She shook her head. She said nothing.

  “That was a hell of a fight, that last one.” Daniel chuckled. “I had no idea you could be such a wildcat.”

  She could hear his breath, coming a little louder.

  “But nobody hits me, Alex. I don’t stand for that kind of thing.”

  His fist exploded in her face, and she fell backward.

  “You’re not nearly as smart as you think you are, you little bitch.”

  Alex had dropped to her knees on the floor; she held a hand to her face. Blood poured from her nose. She knew Daniel was above her somewhere in the darkness, though she could see nothing. This is it, she thought. He’s going to kill me. The thought was not as dark, not as terrifying, as she had always imagined. For the past eleven years, she had been resisting, trying to imagine a way to escape from this madman and his uncontrollable anger. She had no resistance left, no more will to fight. No more will to keep running.

  It was in that exact moment that she realized she was no longer afraid of him. She was no longer afraid of death. She was no longer afraid, period. She didn’t care what happened, she only knew that she would never go back to live with him, ever again. She pushed herself up from the floor and stood, her feet planted just slightly apart to give her more stability.

  “You want to kill me, Daniel?” She took a step sideways, still trying to gauge where he was from the sound of his breath.

  In the darkness, she heard him laugh softly.

  “Well, go for it. Kill me, if that’s what you need to do. But I’m not running anymore. I’m not hiding anymore. I’m not cowering in fear anymore.” Alex threw out her chest, her back as straight and as tall as she could make it. “I’m not doing it anymore. Go ahead, Daniel. Go ahead. Do whatever you need to do.”

  The back door slammed against the wall. They heard the crack of thunder. Another branch fell, somewhere just outside.

  There was a clicking noise, like t
he hammer of a gun locking into position.

  “Hold it right there, mister. I’ve got a .45 on your temple. If you so much as blink an eyelash, I’m going to blow your brains out.” There was no mistaking Maggie’s voice in the dark. “And don’t think you can hide. I can see exactly what you’re doing with these night-vision goggles.”

  None of them moved. The only sound was the sound of breathing—Daniel somewhere in the darkness of the kitchen; Alex standing in the hallway between the kitchen and front room, her hand on her bloody nose; Maggie somewhere in the darkness.

  Lightning flashed in the sky, and Daniel dove to the floor. A second later, the thunder roared.

  The front door flew open, and Emmie Porter stepped through, her white hair almost glowing in the darkness. “Alex? Are you okay? I thought I saw a light in the trees.”

  They waited in the darkness, unable to see where the others were. Except for the soft glow of Emmie’s hair, nothing was clearly visible.

  The next moment was a madness of movement. Alex felt Daniel’s arm as he reached out and grabbed her, locking his arm around her body, half dragging her toward the back door. She struggled against him, kicking and yelling, “Leave me alone!”

  There was the sound of a shot being fired, and suddenly Alex was free of his grip, dropping to the floor.

  The back door crashed against the wall, and the sound was followed by loud thumps and bangs on the back porch. There was a thud, as if something heavy had fallen.

  “Got him! I nailed the bastard!” Caroline’s voice rose in triumph from the back porch.

  Another voice sounded in the darkness. “Caroline, is that you?” David turned on the headlamp that he wore on his forehead. He tipped his head back to get a good look at Caroline, in fighting stance, standing over the body of Daniel Frazier.

  “Coldcocked him!” Caroline said, raising her eyes to David’s and then immediately raising one hand to shade her eyes, blinded by the glare of his camping headlamp. In the other hand, she held a bottle of champagne.

  “What did you do, christen him?” David asked, his headlamp moving up and down.

  “It was the only thing handy when I ran out the door.”

  The noises on the back porch were immediately followed by the crash of the front door flying open again. Grace’s voice came from the darkness. “Alex? Emmie? Are you okay?”

  Grace turned on her own headlamp and focused on Alex, huddled on the floor of the kitchen. “Police are on their way,” Grace added as she went to help Alex up from the floor.

  They both turned to see Maggie, slumped in a kitchen chair. Her skin was gray; her eyes were enormous. “Oh, God!” she whispered. “I wasn’t sure where that bullet went. He hit my arm, and the gun went off. I didn’t even know the thing was loaded. That gun belonged to my uncle George. It hasn’t been fired in fifty years. Scared the hell out of me. I was afraid I might have shot you. Are you okay, Alex?”

  Alex nodded. She raised a hand to her cheek, the one that had absorbed his fist just a few moments before. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

  Caroline’s voice reached them from the back porch. “Hey, Maggie? You want to point that gun at this no-good stinking vermin? Just in case he wakes up?”

  Maggie rose to her feet and stood at the door to the back porch, swaying slightly, her gun wavering as she aimed at Daniel’s back.

  “I got this,” David muttered. “Just don’t shoot me, Maggie, okay?” He stepped over Daniel, lying sprawled on his stomach, and pulled Daniel’s hands behind his back. From his pocket, he whipped out a long cord and began tying Daniel’s hands together.

  Caroline examined him in the bouncing light of his headlamp. “What are those? Knitting needles?” She looked at David’s face. “What were you going to do? Knit him a sweater?”

  David finished tying Daniel’s hands. “Addi turbos. Solid steel. Circular. Forty-seven-inch cord. Quite practical, actually.” He looked at her, and she shaded her eyes from the glare of his headlamp.

  Caroline watched him as he finished wrapping the cord around Daniel’s hands. “It might appear, to the casual observer, that you have practiced this hand-tying-with-knitting-needles maneuver in the past.”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass. It was the only thing I could find when I was running out the door.” David stood and released a long breath.

  They heard the wail of a siren, and the room was lit with the flashing red and blue reflections of the lights on the sheriff’s vehicle.

  The deputies came in from both the front and the back, yelling as they stepped into the room, their flashlights scanning the crowd. “All right, hands up!”

  “No need. We’ve got the perpetrator all trussed up,” David said. But he held his hands in the air anyway.

  Daniel was just regaining consciousness.

  Maggie lowered her pistol and leaned against the kitchen counter. Her voice was breaking, as if all the wind had been sucked out of her. “Oh my God. I want that man out of here. Breaking and entering. Assault.” She pointed her nose toward Alex, sitting on another kitchen chair, a bag of ice on her cheek and Grace kneeling nearby. “If I’d known the gun was actually loaded, I would’ve killed the son of a bitch.”

  The deputy exhaled and nodded. “Almost wish you would have. Tons of paperwork, either way. But now the state of Washington has to host the animal.” He helped maneuver Daniel to his feet and steered him out the back door, toward the sheriff’s vehicle. They could hear him, reading Daniel his rights.

  The other deputy scanned the group with his flashlight. “I’ll need to get statements from all of you. But first, is everyone okay?”

  David and Caroline had joined the group in the kitchen. They were nodding, the light from David’s headlamp bouncing up and down, and there were several murmurs of reassurance. Grace knelt in front of Alex, trying to help her stop the bleeding from her nose. Maggie had slumped into a kitchen chair.

  The deputy took a deep breath and said, “Thank God. We could hear that gunshot as we were coming up Main Street.”

  His flashlight swept through the front room for one brief second, and then came back to rest on Emmie Porter. She was leaning against the wall by the front door. Her eyes were glazed and unfocused. Her right hand was across her body, holding on to her left side. Her skin was gray in the weak light. Something dark was seeping through her fingers, dripping down her side and onto the floor.

  “Ms. Porter?” the deputy asked, walking into the front room. “Are you all right?”

  Emmie slid slowly down the wall and crumpled on the floor, her head falling forward onto her knees.

  Behind the deputy, Grace Wheeler screamed. “No!”

  She ran into the front room and crouched next to Emmie, pulling her friend’s body close to her. “No. Emmie. No.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  “Good morning, Brian. Happy New Year.” Emmie waited a moment.

  Brian Carter was still half-asleep. “Morning, Emmie. Same to you.”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Did I wake you up?”

  Brian’s voice came through, still coated with sleep. “Yeah. I was out pretty late last night.”

  “I’ll let you go back to sleep. Can I talk to Robin?”

  There was silence on the line, and Emmie felt as if she were in a large, quiet room, waiting for a pin to drop. Everything went a little off-kilter.

  “Uh. She’s not here. I thought she was at your place.”

  Emmie swallowed. “No. No, she didn’t come here last night. I thought she was with you.”

  Brian sounded as if he was now awake. “No. No, she’s not here.”

  Emmie felt a shiver. “Could you check and make sure? The couch, maybe? Or one of the spare bedrooms?”

  “Hang on.”

  Emmie could hear him, laying the phone on the table, walking through the house, calling, “Robin?” She swallowed. Her stomach had the tiniest cramp.

  Brian picked up the phone. “She’s not here, Emmie.”

  Emmie made a so
und, a small leak of air. “I ah . . . umm. Huh. I thought you went to that party together.” In her head, Emmie tried to tick off any of the other possibilities for Robin’s whereabouts. The café, maybe? Was it open today, on New Year’s Day?

  Brian cleared his throat, now fully awake. “Yeah. We went to that party at Stephanie Spencer’s house. Pretty good crowd, you know. Most of the kids home from school. The old high school crowd.”

  Emmie swallowed again. “Didn’t Robin come home with you?”

  There was a small beat of silence. “Uh. No. No, she didn’t.”

  Emmie waited, her heart beating faster. She felt as if Brian were responding in slow motion, and she wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. “Why not? What happened?”

  He let out a long exhale. “We had an argument. She left before I did. Said she was going to walk home. I thought she was headed to your place.”

  Silence buzzed through the telephone line.

  “Emmie? Maybe she went for a swim.”

  The words struck Emmie like a cacophony of discordant notes, a jangle of clashing sounds. A swim? In the middle of the winter? In the middle of the night? In the middle of a storm? What the hell did he mean by that?

  “A swim?” Emmie repeated.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. She did some crazy shit sometimes.”

  Emmie could not breathe. By the time she hung up the phone, her sense of time passing had completely warped. Every second seemed like a lifetime.

  Finch stood in the kitchen, a cup of coffee in his hand. “What’s wrong?”

  She raised her eyes to his. “Robin isn’t at Brian’s house. They went to that party, but he says they had a fight and she left before he did. He doesn’t know where she is.”