Haven of Swans

by Colleen Coble

  The game was just about to get intriguing.

  “SO REALLY ALL WE’VE GOT IS YOUR NAME?” Deputy Doug Montgomery scribbled in his small notepad, then put it back in his pocket. He was a tall, raw-boned man, and Elena found him to be more a bumbling dimwit than a competent officer of the law.

  Seated on Bree’s sofa, Elena sipped her tea and tried to calm her shaking hands. This felt all wrong. “I seem to have lived in the Detroit area from the little we’ve gleaned from the Internet. And I taught ballet.”

  “I’ll make some inquiries.” Montgomery fixed her and Bree with a stare that tried for stern. “You should have come to me sooner.”

  “I know.” She kept her voice meek in the hope of turning his displeasure. “I was afraid. I’m still afraid. Someone attacked me, almost killed me. I can almost see his face in my dreams.”

  “I can understand that. I’ll make sure a deputy keeps an eye on things.”

  “Thanks, Doug,” Kade said. He walked the deputy to the front door.

  “Are you feeling okay about this?” Bree asked when the front door banged. She put her tea on the coffee table and brought her feet onto the sofa beside Elena.

  Elena shook her head. “I’m not confident he’ll be discreet.” The sunset had ended, plunging the room into darkness, and Elena leaned over to switch on a light. Distant thumps echoed through the ceiling above her head, and she could hear the children giggling. At least Terri had no notion there was anything wrong.

  “Doug isn’t the smoothest operator around, but he’s good at what he does. Let’s help speed up the process, make some more calls,” Bree suggested. She grabbed up the phone and pulled out the list of the Coxes in Detroit.

  Elena took the pages Bree held out but then laid them on the sofa between them. “It feels pretty hopeless, Bree. I don’t think I can face another ‘Sorry, I can’t help you.’ Maybe Montgomery will turn up something.”

  Bree studied Elena’s face for a long time before she nodded. “We need some fun. Let’s go geocaching after church on Sunday. I can dig up some locations that won’t take all day to get to.”

  Elena had heard Bree talking about the sport for weeks, but there’d been no time to actually do it. “How’d you get into that anyway? I would think it’s too much like search-and-rescue work to be fun for you.”

  “I think that’s why it does appeal,” Bree said. “It’s the other side of what I do. I love being out in nature and looking for something frivolous instead of serious. I get such a kick out of finding crazy things out there. Like the set of California Raisins that started singing when I opened the lid.”

  “How’d you get started?”

  “One of the clubs had an event up here two years ago. Kade was asked to coordinate sites for the caches, and I got roped into helping. After one weekend, I was hooked.”

  Elena giggled at the rapture on Bree’s face. “You’re so weird.”

  “But you love me anyway.”

  “Yeah, I do.” Elena touched Bree’s knee. “I don’t know what I would have done without you and Kade, Bree. Where I might be. Maybe six feet under.” She shook her head. “I wish I could remember more.”

  “If all of your memory doesn’t come back, you’ve got the important things,” Bree said. “Yourself and your daughter. I think all of us have wished we could start over a time or two. There’s something very appealing about a fresh slate.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. I’ve got no baggage right now.” She smiled. “That’s a good thing, right?”

  “Right.” Bree returned her smile.

  “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for the past months.”

  “It’s what friends do.” Bree patted the top of Elena’s hand as the phone rang on the stand. Bree reached over and grabbed it. She glanced at the screen. “It’s Doug.” With a click, the phone was on and at her ear. “Hey, Doug, what’s up?” She listened for a few moments. “I see,” she said, glancing at Elena. “You’re sure?” Nodding, she listened a few more moments, then clicked off the phone and put it back on its cradle.

  “He hasn’t found out something already, has he?” Elena didn’t like the stricken expression on her friend’s face. Or the way Bree was avoiding her gaze.

  Bree sighed. “Yeah, he did. It came right up when he ran it. The only Elena Cox in the Detroit area is a teacher who died two years ago. That’s the one we read about on the Internet. It’s not you.”

  Not her? She absorbed the news in silence a minute. The little tidbits of information they’d collected were all wrong too. She hadn’t expected quite this clean a slate.

  “Then where did I live? Where’s my family?”

  “Doug is checking to see what other Elena Coxes are in Michigan, but it may be days before he figures it out.”

  She didn’t even know her own name. Maybe it was a good thing. Maybe her attacker wouldn’t ever know it either.

  9

  The stocking Gideon wore over his face the night he’d entered Eve’s house should have kept his identity safe. But his first day in Rock Harbor, he tensed, then relaxed when Eve’s gaze touched his face and moved on.

  He could take his time, observe her behavior in anonymity. It was nearly three weeks before the next full moon. He could choose his moves carefully, perfect his approach. Finish what he’d started with the others before ending at the beginning.

  He headed to the coffee shop and passed two men in park service uniforms, talking in front of the sheriff’s office. He slowed when he heard what they were talking about.

  The bigger man stretched. “Well, you ready to go shoot some more swans? I’d hoped we could get them all the other day, but that darned protest slowed us down. We’ve only got another ten or so to handle.”

  Gideon barely choked back his gasp. Shoot swans? What kind of maniacs would do such a thing? His hands curled into fists at his side.

  “I sure hate to do it, Kade. I hope none of them drown when we knock them out.”

  So they were just going to tranquilize them. But why? Gideon pretended to examine a shop window.

  “Me too,” the one called Kade said. “But it’s got to be done. I hope moving them works. If they come back to the trumpeters’ lakes and ponds, we’ll have to kill them. I’ve got my tranquilizer rifle in my truck. Did you bring yours?”

  “Yeah, I brought it.”

  Kade went to his vehicle, parked along on a side street, and took out a gun. Then he slid into a truck with the other man, and they drove off. Gideon clenched and unclenched his fists. There had to be some way to make the man pay. Glancing around, he saw no one on the side street.

  A shovel lay in the back of Kade’s truck. Gideon gave another quick glance around, then pulled a glove out of his lightweight jacket. He slipped it on and lifted the shovel out of the truck. With long strides he went to his vehicle around the corner and got in. He tossed the shovel in the back.

  Perhaps he could kill two birds with one stone here. That was an unfortunate but fitting metaphor, all things considered. He contemplated a plan that would make this Kade pay for his abuse of the natural order and let Eve know for sure her sanctuary had been invaded. The site of his first kill lay only an hour and a half from here. No one had ever discovered the grave.

  He dug around under his seat and pulled out a CD. When the music of Tchaikovsky filled his ears, he sighed and leaned back to let the swelling instrumental sounds minister to him. With the song blaring out of the speakers, he made his way to Highway 45. The music made him drive faster, and it was only an hour later that he spied the national forest road he needed.

  He hadn’t been here in five years, but he remembered the night he’d first answered his calling. Parking in the trees, he put on his gloves and grabbed the shovel and a plastic bag. A fifteen-minute hike brought him to the site, still undisturbed and peaceful.

  Half an hour later, sweating and dirty, he carried his burden back to his vehicle and put it in the back. Now to find a worthy place.

 
GIDEON ENDED HIS PRODUCTIVE DAY AT HIS sanctuary. He wasn’t sure anyone knew it was here. To reach it, he drove a barely recognizable path that was mostly covered with grass. Huge jack pine trees, stands of birch, and giant oak trees hovered in a protective canopy over the two-room cabin. And his angels guarded the place as well. It was as secure as any place in heaven or on earth.

  The first day, five years ago, when Gideon forced open the door and stepped into the cobwebbed cabin that smelled of mildew and rat droppings, he’d known. Known it was his place. The heart of his plans, the soul of his new life.

  Now, carrying a sack of groceries, he stepped to the porch and dug out the padlock key. It fit neatly into the shiny new lock and opened without a sound. Stepping to the single wall of cabinets, he set the sack on the counter and began to put away the food. He alphabetized the soups, stacked the boxed foods neatly so he could read the tops, then folded the paper sack and placed it under the sink.

  Only when the kitchen was in perfect order did he allow himself to enjoy the main reason he loved it so. He made a peanut butter sandwich, pushed open the back door, and stepped out on the porch. A small, beautiful pond backed up to the cabin. The water reflected the spill of moonshine. Loons cried out. The tremolo they made had been described as insane laughter, but the deep, rich tones reminded him of a moaning aeolian harp.

  His angels were here somewhere. He stepped down off the porch and strolled to the water’s edge. He’d known the minute he saw the pond that the swans he loved would hover over these waters like gods. Deep-throated cries came to him now. Sonorous like trumpets and just as thrilling.

  They glided into the moonlight. Their beauty swamped his senses. Ethereal and glowing with white light, they came nearer. “My angels,” he crooned, throwing the bits of the peanut butter sandwich in his hand to them.

  The darkness of the island in the middle of the water drew his gaze. He’d go there later tonight to make sure everything was ready for her.

  AFTER CHURCH, ELENA ACCEPTED BREE’S OFFER TO take her geocaching. They stopped to pick up Naomi, then went out to the woods.

  “We won’t stay out long,” Naomi said. “Donovan is taking me out for dinner tonight.”

  “Are you sure Anu is okay with keeping Terri and Davy?” Elena asked.

  “She’s in her element,” Bree assured her. “We’ll only be gone a couple of hours. She’ll let them bake cookies or something.”

  Bree parked the Jeep along a bank of blooming columbine. Humming, she opened the back door and let Samson and Charley scamper out. The dogs nosed through the wildflowers and moss.

  “This is going to be so fun,” Bree said. She unzipped her backpack and pulled out a GPS unit, then shouldered the pack. “Let’s go.”

  Once in the woods, the clouds of biting, stinging insects descended to feast on every bit of uncovered flesh. The incessant buzzing alone was enough to drive a person mad. Only an idiot would endure this for the sake of “fun,” Elena decided, but she kept her opinion to herself when she saw the eager way Bree and Naomi plunged through the thickets.

  So what did she enjoy most in life? The natural beauty of this place pleased her. Did she prefer art galleries and museums? Spas and manicures? Whatever she had been in the past, she could change now if she wanted, while she didn’t remember.

  But it wasn’t this.

  Elena’s nylon head net trapped her warm breath and added to her discomfort. “How much farther?” she called to Bree and Naomi as they started up a hillside.

  Bree brushed her short red curls out of her eyes and consulted the GPS. She wore no netting, relying instead on insect repellant. “Not far. It should be just over the hill.” She pulled a handful of pistachios from her pocket and offered some to Elena.

  Elena shook her head and turned to survey the hill Bree had indicated. Charley romped in last autumn’s leaves on the hillside while Samson rolled on his back in the vegetation.

  “I’d like to find something fun today,” Naomi said. “Bree has been hooked since she found a rare Elvis album in the original sleeve.”

  Bree’s smile flashed. “There are snippets of culture just lying around. You’ll be hooked too.”

  Elena paused and looked toward the sky. The trees seemed to crowd in on her, and she found it hard to inhale enough oxygen. The peace of the forest should have soothed her, but her gaze kept darting from bush to shrub. Her ears strained for evidence of a hostile presence. What was wrong with her?

  “We should bury something ourselves,” Bree said.

  Elena tried to enter into the spirit of the hunt. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Maybe something about search-and-rescue and dog training?”

  Naomi punched her lightly on the arm. “We’re the only ones who care about that. Other people probably think we’re nuts. Hey, what am I saying? I think we’re crazy sometimes.” She swatted at the flies buzzing around her head.

  “A lot of people are fascinated with what the dogs can do,” Elena said. “I had no idea until I met you. We could put in some pictures of your most memorable finds—like the day Samson found a body under the water. Well, that might be gruesome. How about when Charley found that little girl who had been missing for two days?”

  “You’ve been paying attention to our stories,” Naomi said, her smile breaking out.

  “A little.” Elena smiled back. She caught a glimpse of blue through the trees. She started toward it. “Hey, water. Is it a pond or a lake?”

  “It’s a pond,” Bree said. “Real pretty. We could take a break and eat our snack.”

  Elena moved through the trees to the pond. Once she was in sunlight, she’d feel better. She fought through a thicket and stepped into the clearing. Her next breath took in the sweetest air. If only she could stay here and not have to go back into the woods.

  “Oh, look, swans,” Naomi said from behind her. “They’re so beautiful.”

  At the sight of the beautiful birds, Elena’s knees went weak. She could almost hear ethereal music, but it must be in her head. She closed her eyes and listened to the melody. She began to move with her eyes closed. Behind her lids she could see a stage, and beautiful women dressed in white twirling across it.

  She became aware that her arms were out from her body and she was dancing on her toes. Opening her eyes, she blinked and came out of her trance, if that’s what it was.

  “You looked beautiful. What was that you were humming?” Bree asked.

  Elena hadn’t realized she was humming, but she could still hear the music echoing in her head. “‘Dance of the Little Swans,’” she said. Until she uttered the words, she hadn’t realized she knew them.

  “From Swan Lake?” Bree asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you dance in it sometime?” Naomi asked. “You were dancing like a real ballerina. Did you dance professionally?”

  Did this mean her memory was coming back? It was the first clear memory Elena had had in weeks. She began to smile. “Maybe. I remember lights and a stage.”

  The wind shifted, and Samson lifted his nose in the air. Charley’s tail drooped, and both dogs began to howl. In perfect synchronization, they raced up the hill away from the pond and disappeared over the crest. Their howls continued to punctuate the air.

  Bree went pale and looked at Naomi. Both women wore expressions of dread. “What’s wrong?” Elena asked. Her fingers tightened on her walking stick.

  “Maybe it’s a dead deer,” Naomi whispered.

  Bree shook her head. “We know better. We’d better go take a look.” She and Naomi plunged after the dogs.

  “What’s going on?” Elena shouted after them. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Reluctant to be left alone, she followed the women and looked ahead to the dogs. They dug at the ground and continued to whine and howl.

  Naomi swallowed hard, and her gaze locked with Bree’s. “Should I call it in?”

  “Let’s check for sure.” Bree stood a few feet from where the dogs cowered with their t
ails tucked between their legs. She glanced at her GPS. “I have a really bad feeling about this.”

  Elena gulped, and her gaze went to the dogs and to the bundle they had uncovered. Samson was defecating. Charley retched and coughed. “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

  Bree squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry you had to see this. The dogs have found a dead body. Human.”

  “Are you sure?” Elena couldn’t bring herself to look.

  “Positive. The dogs are giving an unmistakable death-scent reaction. The grave looks to be shallow. Samson, Charley, come,” Bree commanded. The dogs turned and moved to her. Both still had their tails tucked.

  The two women approached what appeared to be a pile of rags peeking out from the dirt. Elena hung back, telling herself there was no reason for the terror that darkened the edges of her vision.

  Naomi stooped and peered at the shallow grave. “Don’t get too close. We don’t want to contaminate the evidence,” Bree warned.

  Elena swallowed the sour taste in her mouth and stopped about five feet from the bundle. A tuft of blue clothing that looked like silk poked from the grave. The detailing clearly signaled female. She caught a glimpse of white bone. The victim had been buried awhile.

  “Elena, could you call it in?” Naomi tossed her phone to Elena.

  The women blocked her view of the grave. Elena’s hands shook. She stepped back to the pond and called 911. Her trembling intensified, and it was all she could do to choke out their coordinates to the dispatcher. She managed to mumble the details to the man on the other end of the line, then she returned to Naomi.

  Samson pushed his nose against Elena’s hand and whined. She rubbed his ears. “I’m okay, boy,” she whispered.

  Bree touched her shoulder. “Are you really?”

  “No, but I’ll deal.”

  “If you want to go back, we’ll wait here for the deputies.”

  Elena straightened. “I’ll wait with you.” Her gaze went back to the body. “Has Samson found many dead bodies?” Clasping her arms around herself, she took another step back.