You Don't Want To Know

by Lisa Jackson

  She pushed her hair from her face, trying to get her equilibrium, to come to terms with the fear and disappointment. As frantic as she’d been to get into her son’s room, at least in the dream she’d known him to be alive.

  “Are you okay?” her husband asked.

  She looked up sharply at him. There was that damned question again.

  “You were having a nightmare. Crying out. I thought you’d want to wake up.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. It had been so damned real. If she tried, she could still hear Noah’s plaintive, frightened voice.

  Hearing the whir of Jewel-Anne’s wheelchair, her eyes flew open again. She saw that the door to her room was open. Wyatt was the only one inside, but through the doorway, she could see both Jewel-Anne and Demetria, hovering. Ava sent an angry glare at the nurse, who herded Jewel-Anne and her contraption out of sight. “I could use some privacy,” Ava said.

  Wyatt was already walking around the foot of the bed. “I heard you screaming and I ran in here. I wasn’t thinking about anything but seeing that you were all right.” He closed the door gently, then leaned against it. Worried eyes assessed her, and she pulled the covers up to her chin.

  “I’ve had bad dreams before. A lot,” she said, her voice less sure than her words. She felt a quivering inside, and she swallowed back the panic that rose within. Maybe they were right. Maybe she really was cracking up.

  “You were in the guest room?” she asked, striving for normalcy.

  “No, I came in this morning. Caught a ride with Ian. I left you a text. Didn’t you get it?”

  “No . . . I . . .” She found her phone on the bedside table. She must’ve turned it off. Suddenly she remembered working on the computer until falling asleep. She hadn’t bothered turning off or charging either the phone or the computer. She’d even let the computer go into sleep mode, had left it on the bed next to her. Glancing at it now, she noticed that the screen was still dark, but that didn’t mean that someone hadn’t seen that she’d been reconstructing the night Noah disappeared. Hit one button and the computer would come to life. Wyatt could have waited until the screen went dark again before waking her. But he would have had to have timed it just right or gotten incredibly lucky because he couldn’t have predicted her nightmare.

  No, it was unlikely he’d seen the screen.

  So her secret was safe from him. He couldn’t know how desperately she was still trying to force together the jagged pieces of that horrible night.

  “You’ve been here a while?” she asked.

  “Dr. McPherson said you were very definite about needing your space, that no one was to disturb you. You’d made that clear.”

  “You talked to her? Already this morning?” She picked up her phone and turned it on. “What time is it?” The face of her phone read ten-thirty. She couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t slept in past seven in years, since she was a college student, and only then after pulling an all-nighter the night before. A tiny light on her phone was blinking, indicating she’d received at least one message while she was dead to the world.

  “How about I bring you some coffee?” Wyatt said, and her head snapped up at his kindness. A simple offer, and yet she was touched.

  “Thanks. But I’ll be right down.”

  “I’ll be in the office.” He smiled. “Join me.”

  “Okay.” Her heart lifted a little. Maybe there was still a chance for them after all. They had loved each other. Passionately and fervently. “Forever,” she’d whispered after saying “I do” in the garden at the small ceremony where she’d pledged to be his wife forever.

  So why was it she felt she couldn’t trust him? Couldn’t trust any of them? She knew the answer to that and wouldn’t go there, not yet. She plugged in the phone and saw that aside from Wyatt’s text, there were two other calls, one from Cheryl, rescheduling their next hypnosis session, and the other from Detective Snyder. It looked like a third call had come in, but the number was unfamiliar and no message was left.

  Hmmm, she thought. Could it have been a wrong number?

  While the phone was charging, she confirmed with Cheryl for a session the next day, then dialed Snyder’s number, got his voice mail again, and left a message asking if she could stop by the station the next day and go over information about Noah’s disappearance. Phone calls made, she then threw on her clothes, ignored anything remotely concerned with makeup, and hurried downstairs where she found Virginia already starting on lunch by peeling potatoes at the kitchen sink. “Good morning,” she greeted her.

  “ ’Morning.” After finding a mug in the cupboard, she poured coffee from the glass pot in the coffeemaker, then heated it in the microwave.

  “I was told not to call you for breakfast,” Virginia said, glancing over her shoulder.

  “It was fine.”

  “There are muffins or bagels, I think.”

  “I’m good,” she replied, and snagged a chocolate biscotti from a glass jar tucked into a corner of the counter. “This’ll do.”

  “Humph. Not much of a breakfast.” Virginia clucked her tongue as she peeled the thin skin off another potato, and Ava, determined to smooth things with her husband, headed to his office on the first floor.

  She found him seated at his desk in front of his open laptop, his cell phone cradled between his shoulder and cheek while he scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad. As she entered, he held up one finger, and when she tried to back up, he shook his head and waved her into a chair near the French doors that led to the veranda. She tucked one foot under her other leg as she settled into the chair, took a long swig of coffee, then dipped her biscotti into her mug.

  “Sure . . . I’ll be there . . .” Wyatt glanced at the small desk clock situated on the corner of his desk. “Let’s see. How about four?” His gaze shifted to Ava and he rolled his eyes as he listened to a long diatribe on the other end of the phone.

  Smiling, she turned her attention to the window where the glass was still heavy with moisture, the sun just beginning to warm the panes.

  She’d just swallowed her last bite of biscotti when he finally hung up. “Sorry,” he said, “had to do a little lawyer hand-holding. Orson Donnelly again.” He leaned back in his desk chair until it groaned in protest. “Between you and me, he’s a real pain in the ass.”

  “He’s the one who gave you the reference on Dern?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Dern worked for Donnelly’s son before Orson sold his place. He mentioned the guy was out of work, and since Ned had already taken a hike and Ian was a . . . less-than-enthusiastic rancher, I called him, had him fax over his credentials, double-checked with Donnelly that Dern wasn’t the reason his ranch was failing, and hired him.” He cocked his head to one side. “You have a problem with the guy?”

  “Just curious as to how he just showed up one day. Everybody else who works here I knew before they were hired, or in Simon’s case, because he married Khloe.” That much was true. She’d known Graciela because she was a friend of Tanya’s younger sister, a local who had grown up in Anchorville. Demetria, too, had lived across the bay but had worked at Sea Cliff before hiring on as Jewel-Anne’s personal caretaker. Even Ned had been a friend of Uncle Crispin’s, whom he’d hired on years before.

  So Dern was the outsider.

  “I thought I’d give Ian a break.” One side of his mouth lifted. “Maybe now he’ll have a chance to find his true calling.” He leaned forward and, placing his elbow on the desk, said, “Want to talk about your nightmare?”

  “Nope.”

  “It was about Noah again.”

  She didn’t bother answering, didn’t need to.

  “That’s one of the reasons you’re on medication. So you can rest. Get quality sleep. My uneducated guess is that either the prescription isn’t working, or you’re not taking your meds.”

  “Hmm,” she said.

  Frustration darkened his face. “You’d rather hallucinate, or nearly drown, or scream your way through some terrifying dream th
an take the meds?” When she didn’t respond, he said, “I know you don’t want to feel doped up. I understand that. But you’re not doing yourself any good or the rest of us, who have to be on edge worrying about you, listening to you scream in the night, or fishing you out of the drink before you drown. If Dern hadn’t been nearby the other night, I shudder to think what would have happened to you.”

  “I can swim.”

  “Ava.” He shook his head in disbelief. “If you hadn’t drowned, there’s always hypothermia and . . . you weren’t yourself. Who knows if you’d really be able to save yourself!” He made a sound of exasperation. “I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

  “How about trying to back off a little?”

  “Seriously? And risk you hurting yourself?”

  “What are you really suggesting, Wyatt? That I go back to St. Brendan’s?” She hadn’t even been home a month and he was trying to wash his hands of her. “Is that what you want?”

  “No!” He looked at her sharply, his hazel gaze drilling deep into hers. “Of course not. But I’m running out of options here.” His fingers splayed into the air, as if he was about to fend off any other objections. “I just wish you could quit fighting me. I lost a son, too, you know. I’m just trying like hell not to lose my wife as well.”

  Her throat closed and tears threatened her eyes as they always did when he was kind to her. “He’s alive.”

  “I want to believe that, too. Really. But whether Noah’s alive or . . . not, he’s gone, Ava. You have to accept that. He’s not coming back. If he’d been kidnapped that night, then why hasn’t anyone contacted us? Why no ransom note? And . . . and if he was sold to another couple who was so desperate for a child, why hasn’t he been found? There were pictures of him plastered all over the media. The newspapers. Television. Radio. The Internet, Facebook, and MySpace and you name it. We tried everything. You remember what a circus it was!”

  She did. Those first few days filled with hope and despair and panic and the soul-numbing fear that they’d find his body.

  Wyatt’s face was lined with concern. “You have to face facts, Ava. Noah is gone. It kills me, too.”

  “But last night, I heard his cries.”

  “You were dreaming!”

  “No, they were coming from his room.”

  “It was just the wind or . . . or this old house creaking or God knows what, but something was permeating your mind, infiltrating your subconscious and twisting it into some kind of weird manifestations within your dream.”

  “I know what I heard,” she said, and from the corner of her eye she saw Jewel-Anne zipping toward the elevator. Jewel slid a glance at the open door of the den but didn’t meet Ava’s eyes.

  Wyatt caught the exchange and pushed back his chair. He rounded the desk and softly but firmly shut the door. Then he crossed the floorboards to stand directly in front of her. “Ava, please, I’m just trying to keep things together.”

  “I’m not trying to thwart you, Wyatt,” she said, her voice raspy with emotion. “I just have to do whatever I can to find out what happened to Noah.”

  “Even if it means sacrificing your health? Our marriage?”

  “I don’t want to sacrifice anything, Wyatt. And I shouldn’t have to. I just want to find our child. Let me do it.”

  She walked out without waiting for his answer.

  CHAPTER 16

  He wasn’t getting it, Ava thought the following morning as she grabbed her jacket, slid her arms through its sleeves, and walked outside. Wyatt wouldn’t let himself see her need. He didn’t understand her and therefore wouldn’t, or couldn’t, help her. Ever since she’d returned from St. Brendan’s, neither she nor Wyatt had brought up the D-word. It was almost as if by silent, mutual agreement they’d decided to try to make the relationship work, that no papers would be filed.

  But it wasn’t working.

  They both knew it.

  Wyatt had kissed her good-bye before he’d headed to the mainland yesterday, but the kiss had been a quick buzz on the forehead, nearly an afterthought. A duty.

  Theirs was a complicated relationship, and maybe always had been. Maybe she’d been young, naïve, and hadn’t wanted to peel back the layers and look too closely at their marriage. She pocketed her phone, grabbed her purse, and was on her way outside when she ran into Ian on the first floor.

  “I’m going into town to pick up Trent,” he said. “Need anything?”

  “Trent’s here?” Ian’s twin lived in Seattle.

  “In Anchorville. He texted a couple of hours ago and asked if I could come get him. He said he tried to reach you, too, but you didn’t answer.”

  She must’ve missed the call that had come in.

  “Ask your husband. He invited him.”

  “Wyatt didn’t say anything,” Ava said.

  Ian lifted a shoulder. “That’s just what Trent told me. I don’t think it’s a secret. No big deal.”

  Ian was probably right and she decided not to start planting suspicions in her own mind. It was crowded enough as it was. “All I want is a ride across the bay, if you’re going.”

  “You got it. So what is it this time, business or pleasure?” he asked as they walked toward the boathouse together.

  “What do you think?”

  He laughed. “That there’s not much of either going around right now.”

  As they passed by the dock, she glanced at the graying boards and tried to convince herself that she hadn’t seen Noah the other night, that it had all been just a trick of the fog and her own willing mind.

  Blue smoke and mirrors.

  Ian ferried her across the bay and offered to pick her up later, but she declined and left him to meet his twin at the Salty Dog.

  First stop: the Anchorville Police Department, where she was meeting with Detective Wesley Snyder.

  “You know, Ms. Garrison, I’m sorry, but we don’t have any new leads,” Detective Snyder said from the other side of his cluttered desk. He was a tall man, his suit coat sleeves riding up his arms. Light gleamed off his bald head, and he looked at her from a face etched with genuine concern. His “office” was a cubicle, one of several with half walls that separated it from other, identical semiprivate offices. Though the walls were padded, the sounds of jangling telephones and other peoples’ conversations, the thud of footsteps, and the hum of printers and fax machines seeped into the space.

  Ava was perched on the edge of one of the uncomfortable visitor’s chairs and trying to find a way to get through to the one man in the sheriff’s department she considered an ally. “I just thought that if I saw your notes, what you’d pieced together, and compared it to what I have, maybe I could find something that was missed earlier . . .” She saw the answer in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t do that. We’ve been over this before.”

  “I’m Noah’s mother.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m not allowed to let anyone outside of the department see what we’ve got. It could compromise the case. You know that.”

  “It’s been two years.”

  He ran a hand behind his neck. “I know, but I can’t break the rules. However, if you have anything you think might help, by all means leave it with me.”

  “I don’t have any hard evidence, if that’s what you mean. Just what I remember from that night.”

  He found a thick folder on his desk and opened it as he plucked a pair of reading glasses from his jacket pocket, shook the bows open, and shoved the half-lenses onto the end of his nose. “Let’s see.” Flipping several pages over, he stopped halfway down the stack, grunted his approval, and pulled several pages from the clip that held them fast. He scanned the pages, then slid them across the desk.

  She recognized her statement from the night of Noah’s disappearance. “This is what we’ve got from you. Oh, and I think this, too . . .” He dug a little deeper in the file and found a few more pages, this time part of an interview that had been recorded and transcribed. Most of the informat
ion was the same as what she’d compiled over the last few days. He said softly, “Was there something more you wanted to add?”

  She started to feel foolish as she recalled when she’d made this statement. They’d been at the house, in the dining room, and Detective Snyder’s little recorder had been sitting on the table as the interview had progressed, its pinpoint, red light flashing as she spoke. She’d told him all about the party the night before, where everyone had been in the house, what she remembered of the night. It was the very same information she’d put together again.

  “No,” she admitted, feeling the heat climb up her neck as she sat back in the chair. “This is what I remember.”

  He replaced the pages and his eyes above the half-lenses were kind. “Well, if you think of anything else, please, let me or someone here know. And I promise, I’ll keep you in the loop if anything new develops.” He stood then, indicating the interview was over, and she left feeling deflated.

  Of course the police wouldn’t listen to her; not without some hard evidence, something beyond conjecture, or her own visions, or her own damned needs.

  She walked out of the station and took a deep breath. Clouds were rolling in off the Pacific, dark and gray. A blustery, relentless wind was chasing along the waterfront, and the temperature seemed to have dropped ten degrees since she’d entered the police department. Tightening the belt of her sweater coat, she walked the seven blocks to Tanya’s salon.

  Raindrops were just beginning to splash against the sidewalk as she ducked under the striped awning of the Shear Madness salon. A small bell tinkled as she pushed open the door to the small shop. Along one wall was a row of three stations, each complete with pink sinks, pink chairs, and small faux crystal chandeliers sparkling overhead. The first station was occupied, a woman leaning back in the sink while her beautician washed her hair, the smell of recently used chemicals heavy in the air.