by Jule McBride
“But you’ll never have to.”
“But I would,” he whispered back. And then he pushed in, going straight to her core, bringing his heat to hers. At the joining, doubts and fears vanished. Crank callers, lost memories and worries about a father he’d never known were entirely forgotten.
Someday the past might come calling. Maybe Dylan even knew, deep down, that the unspeakable past would bring unparalleled danger.
But not today.
Today there was only Alice, the light in his darkness. And only this idyllic secluded grassy place that belonged to both of them where no harm could ever come.
“ALICE, snap out of it. What are you thinking about, girl?”
Loving Dylan.
Alice Eastman Nolan had been thinking of the day they’d first met outside the general store, and of the day they’d made love in Cat’s Canyon. Was that really only a year ago? she wondered mistily. And was it really ten whole years since she’d met Dylan? Now she forced her mind back to the present—and her bridesmaid, Jan. “I was just wondering why I can’t hang up this veil. It keeps slipping off the hanger, Jan.”
“Here, let me help.”
“Nope.” Clad only in white lace panties and a bra, Alice turned away from her wedding dress, which was neatly hanging on the back of a door. Grinning at Jan, Alice held out the floral headpiece from which the veil hung, surveyed it, and then simply walked over and settled it on Jan’s head. “Look, why don’t you just wear it? Between the veil and the bouquet I’m throwing you, maybe Leland’ll get the message today and propose.”
Jan lifted the veil. Sadness touched her eyes, despite her smile. “I hope Leland will. But I always thought...” Jan’s cheeks colored. “C’mon, Al. We both know Leland had a thing for you back in high school. He was so jealous of you and Dylan...”
Leaning, Alice squeezed her best friend’s hand. “Maybe. But everybody knew Dylan and I would wind up together. And now we have. As of today, I’m an old married woman. Things have changed. Leland loves you, Jan.”
The words chased the doubts from Jan’s eyes. She laughed. “Yeah. I think he does. I guess I’d better go find him. Maybe I can round up Dylan, too, while you finish dressing.” She blew out an envious sigh as Alice stepped into the skirt of a gray linen suit. “I sure wish I was headed for Hawaii and a honeymoon.”
Alice playfully brought the veil over Jan’s face again. “You look like a bride already.” It had been an all-white wedding, and with the veil down, Jan could have been a stand-in for Alice. “Now go and find Leland,” Alice urged with a soft, encouraging laugh. “Ask him what he thinks of the outfit. He’ll get the picture.”
“I don’t know,” Jan said with a smile. “Men can be pretty dense.” She headed for the door, then turned. “How do I look?”
Alice did a double take. “Exactly like me. We could be twins.” Jan’s light blond hair was hidden under the veil, and the simple floor-length gown was a near replica of the one Alice had just taken off. “Now go on.”
Jan smiled. “I’m going.”
Alice waved her through the door. After she’d gone, Alice continued dressing, putting on a blouse and jacket, her mind racing ahead to tonight when she and Dylan would make love—and maybe a baby. Sighing and turning this way and that, she toyed with the scarf she intended to wear. After a few moments, she settled on simply knotting it in front.
“There,” she whispered with satisfaction. “That’s it.”
Suddenly, she cocked her head. Had she just heard something? Turning toward the closed door, she raised her voice and called, “Jan? Jan, is that you?” Was someone in the hallway?
No one answered.
Her eyes narrowing, Alice slipped into her heels and headed toward the door. She opened it and stared out, looking in both directions. A slow, unexpected shiver passed down her spine. The hallway was long and dark, and she’d seen no light switches.
Maybe Dylan had come down here to surprise her. “Dylan?”
Alice took a tentative step into the hallway. She heard nothing, and yet...she had the strangest feeling she wasn’t alone. Fighting another shudder, she wished this deserted wing of the church didn’t seem quite so creepy.
“Don’t be silly,” she whispered, knowing she was being ridiculous. She and Dylan had just gotten married here. It was hardly a dangerous place.
But then a scream sounded. Her head jerked toward the high-pitched single note. It was coming from the end farthest from the reception. Alice’s heart hammered. Something had happened to Dylan! That was her first illogical thought as she started running. As she neared the place she thought the scream had come from, it was abruptly cut off. As if someone...
Has just been killed!
It wasn’t Dylan, though. The scream was a woman’s. Alice knew that now. But was it Jan? Had Jan tripped or fallen, maybe? Speeding her steps, Alice thanked God she was a nurse. If Jan was hurt, she’d know what to do. Her heel slid across the slick wood floor. She skidded, then caught her balance. Rounding a corner, she hit the hallway where Dylan was supposed to go to change. Weak light was coming from a half-open door to the choir’s robing room.
Alice’s palms hit the door. As she rushed inside, her eyes landed where a stained-glass window reflected light on the floor. It looked as if colored pieces of paper had been strewn across the wood. Except one of the red spots wasn’t a reflection of the decorative glass. It was a widening pool of liquid.
Blood!
Alice gasped, her eyes fixing on Jan.
Racing forward, tears springing to her eyes, Alice stared at the back of the white dress. It was slashed with blood. Jan’s blond hair was barely visible beneath the veil, but it was definitely her. Going to her and rolling Jan over, Alice forced her frantic hands to seek the wound. Or wounds. There were many, Alice realized. And oh, God, the worst wound’s to the heart! Even as she pressed Jan’s chest to staunch the blood, Alice realized Jan was dead. Yes, blood was only eddying in the gashes now because Jan’s heart wasn’t pumping anymore. Raising a band, Alice shoved aside the veil and pressed Jan’s neck. But the pulse was gone.
“She’s dead,” Alice whispered. Lord, what was wrong with Alice? Why wasn’t she moving more quickly? She was a nurse—and-yet everything was different when it was your friend who was...
Dead!
Suddenly Alice jerked her head toward the open door, realizing she was in danger. A murder had just occurred here! The killer could still be in the room. Her eyes fixed on the door. Was someone behind it? Hiding? It was so dark in here....
Powerless but to stare at the white dress and veil again, and into the staring empty eyes of her best friend, Alice now understood she herself was probably the intended victim.
How do I look? Jan had asked.
Exactly like me.
Wrenching around—Alice’s eyes locked with the door just in time to see it slowly shutting. Someone was behind it!
Moving too fast, she scurried back and slipped in blood, then had to fight the burning bile rising in her throat. Turning, she quickly swiped her hands down her skirt, smearing off the blood. If her hands weren’t dry, she couldn’t defend herself. And she couldn’t get out of the room now. Backing up, she nearly tripped over Jan’s body. Her stomach lurched.
And the door finished swinging shut
“Thank God,” Alice gasped in relief. “Oh, thank God.” Behind the door was the four-year-old ring bearer from the wedding party.
“Dylan,” he whimpered, his eyes wide with terror, his teeth chattering. “Dylan killed Jan. I saw him kill Jan and then he ran away.”
Chapter Two
A year and a half later
“Who is this?” Alice demanded. She hugged her waist, anxiously clutching a handful of the navy dress she’d chosen to wear during her second marriage, this time to Leland Lowell. When there was no response, she curled her hand more tightly around the phone receiver. “Why don’t you say something!”
There was still no answer, only harsh, bar
ely audible breathing. It was the seventh such crank call today. Alice snapped, “This is somebody from the Rock Canyon Reporter, right?”
It might have been, because the line went dead.
Sighing, Alice slammed the receiver into the cradle. Ever since the recent announcement of hers and Leland’s marriage, the paper had rehashed Jan’s brutal murder, Dylan’s disappearance and the accusations against him—as if Dylan could actually commit a murder! Sudden tears welled in her eyes. Well, she guessed the intrusive interest of local journalists was to be expected, since Jan’s murder was one of the few such events in the entire history of Rock Canyon. “Still, I wish they’d stop!” Alice burst out. Why couldn’t people just leave them all alone? This was hard enough on everyone. Jan’s father, Sheriff Sawyer, had done everything he could to find his daughter’s killer. And then, months later, Nancy Nolan’s attacker.
Alice shivered, and it had nothing to do with the bleak, dark snowbound landscape beyond the window of her father’s study. Her heart suddenly squeezed tight. Her father. The cancer that Ward Eastman had fought for so many years had finally claimed him in September.
Now Alice’s throat threatened to close, and a soft gasp escaped. Dylan was gone, her father was gone, and she felt so alone. Oh, God, don’t start crying! If she wasn’t careful, she was going to lose it. Again. How could so much pain be visited on one person? she wondered. What had she done to deserve all this? What had Leland done? Or Jan and Dylan?
A year and a half ago, they’d all been so happy. Jan and Leland had been on the brink of an engagement. Alice, herself, had been so sweet, so innocent. The proverbial happy blushing bride.
“And a fool,” she muttered.
Why hadn’t someone—her mother, maybe—told her how fast one’s luck could change? Now Alice found herself recalling happier times and the preparations for her wedding to Dylan: choosing the music, which had been Mozart’s Adagio from a sonata in E-flat. And the bright spring wildflowers, and the matching, white dresses...
One of which had wound up being covered with blood.
Remembering how Jan had looked, lying in a pool of her own blood, Alice shut her eyes. How could she have been prepared to find her best friend murdered? Or to have her new husband accused by a child eyewitness of the murder?
After Dylan vanished, Alice had simply collapsed. Oh, she knew she should have been comforting Nancy Nolan, but she’d done what her father’s doctor told her, taken to her bed. Alice had washed down all the pills they’d prescribed, too—the mood elevators, antidepressants and Valium.
Until the day, last summer, when Nancy Nolan was attacked in her cottage on the ranch property, and so badly beaten that she’d been in a coma ever since. The police said it looked as if she’d stumbled upon a burglar during a standard break and enter. Other people, Sheriff Sawyer among them, were convinced Dylan had come back. Dylan had killed Jan, at least according to the sheriff, and then Dylan had returned to murder his mother. So the logic went.
No one would listen to Alice. Lord knew, she’d begged and cajoled. She knew whoever killed Jan also might have killed Dylan, since Dylan would never leave without explanation. Sure, the sheriff looked for clues. But Alice knew he hadn’t looked hard enough.
Instead, there’d been psychological speculation: that the prospect of having a wife had awakened a long-buried hatred of women in Dylan Nolan, which was why he’d snapped on the day of his and Alice’s wedding. Because they were dressed exactly alike, obviously, Dylan thought Jan was Alice when he’d plunged the knife into her chest. So the sheriff said. Later, when Nancy Nolan was attacked, he said that made sense, too. Dylan had returned to kill the woman he had feared most as a little boy—his mama. Didn’t all male killers hate their mothers? And weren’t a lot of serial killers just like Dylan—intelligent, talented golden boys whom you’d least suspect? “Just look at Ted Bundy,” the sheriff and townsfolk had said.
But Alice knew better.
She’d loved Dylan Nolan since she was thirteen years old. He could never kill anyone. Definitely not her. Nor would he ever leave her. All those fool lawmen had opened and shut the case too fast. Didn’t they understand that they’d never know the real perpetrator? Or his or her motivations?
No, there was only one reason for Dylan’s disappearance. He was dead. Otherwise, he would have contacted Alice. Deep in her heart, Alice was a hundred percent convinced that whoever killed Jan had killed Dylan, too. And last year, that same person had tried to murder Nancy Nolan.
Even worse, that vile monster was still free.
Alice shut her eyes, thinking of Nancy, lying in a coma at the River Run Hospital. In a strange way, the attack on her mother-in-law had energized Alice. It had made her want to fight back. The day she’d heard about it was the day she’d risen from her bed and walked.
Dylan had been gone a year when she got up and resumed the nursing job she’d started before her marriage. Now, it was Alice who patiently exercised Nancy’s limp body every day, and who prayed that her ex-mother-in-law would revive from the coma.
Every day, while Alice checked the pupils of Nancy’s unseeing eyes, Alice’s emotions stirred. No, she’d find herself thinking, whatever bastard killed Dylan and Jan and hurt Nancy was never going to get the best of Alice Eastman. Alice was older now. Wiser. Angrier. She knew life was precious—and she wasn’t giving up. Yeah, she dared that SOB to come near her. Without so much as a blink, Alice Eastman would very calmly take down one of her daddy’s old shotguns and kill him.
The phone rang again, startling her. Snatching it up, Alice brought it to her ear, but only heard a dial tone. She slammed it down again.
No doubt, it was a nosy reporter from the Rock Canyon Reporter, gauging Alice’s mood and trying to get a quote. “How do you feel about getting married again today, Alice?” he probably wanted to ask. “Don’t you fear a replay of the events of your first wedding?”
No, she wanted to shout. Because this time there aren’t any bridesmaids. Jan’s dead, remember? Dylan’s gone—probably dead, even if the sheriff never found his body! Anger laced with foreboding flooded her. Sometimes she wondered about the crank calls Dylan used to get when he was in high school. What if one of the kids they’d grown up with—some boy who’d harbored jealousy over Dylan’s accomplishments—had murdered Jan and Dylan? Alice had tried to discuss the matter, but Sheriff Sawyer and the police already had an eyewitness to the murder. They weren’t looking for further proof. Or suspects.
Not that Alice blamed the sheriff. The four-year-old ring bearer had said exactly what the sheriff wanted to hear. In light of the testimony, it was easy for Sheriff Sawyer not to ask more questions, to ignore the problems with the child’s story—that he was only four, that he was traumatized, that the room was dark. The sheriff had lost his only daughter. Despite his skills as a lawman, he was a father, too. Quickly naming Dylan as Jan’s murderer had let the sheriff rest easier at night.
Alice sighed. Turning away from her father’s desk, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the darkened window glass. She might feel like hell. But she sure looked good. Bags under her eyes were carefully covered by makeup concealer, her hair was pulled back by two simple velvet-covered clips. The tasteful navy knit dress she was wearing for the ceremony was flattering.
Once again, her insides turned to jelly. What was she doing? How could she marry someone other than Dylan?
Because he’s dead!
Alice could barely remember the days after her wedding, much less the papers her father had brought her to sign that annulled her first marriage. She’d signed them without even understanding what they were. Later, it was Leland who stepped in and filled Dylan’s shoes at the ranch while Ward Eastman’s health failed. It was Leland whom Alice began talking to in the evenings when she returned home from work at the hospital—sometimes about the ranch, or her father’s health.
And then, one day, she and Leland had started sharing their mutual losses. They’d even speculated on the murder
. Leland said he agreed with Alice, that Dylan could never commit murder. For himself, Leland only wished he’d been able to propose to Jan. That way, he’d said, Jan would have died knowing how much he loved her. But Leland loved Alice, too. At least he had in high school. Which was why they’d come to an understanding.
Dylan and Jan were never coming back.
And Alice and Leland were all that was left.
“But marriage?” Alice whispered now. Dylan had been her one love. Her life. Wasn’t marrying Leland a betrayal of his memory? Her heart wrenched inside her chest; she was sure it would break. She could live a thousand years, and nothing would ever ease the pain of missing Dylan. He was her rightful soul mate, her lover, her life partner. He was Alice’s husband, no matter what the legal papers said now.
Alice could never love Leland in that way.
Staring unseeing into the reflective glass of the window, she decided it looked like a hologram. In it, she could see the objects of her father’s study—the heavy mission oak desk and cracked black leather armchairs, the old humidor and cases for his reading glasses. In these past months since his death, neither Alice nor her mother could bring themselves to change the room.
Suddenly her lips parted in mute protest. For years, a lucky horseshoe hanging above her father’s desk had been turned up like a U. “So our luck never falls out, Alice,” he’d always said.
Now Alice saw the nail had loosened, and the horseshoe was turned the other way. How long had it been like that? This year and a half. That’s for sure.
“Yeah, the luck’s sure run out,” she murmured.
Past the reflections from her father’s study, Alice stared into the dark night. Heavy snow lay along tree branches nearest the window, and dagger-like icicles dangled from the leaf-bare boughs. Her eyes followed the long tree-lined driveway down to the ranch’s front gate, then to the dark mountains in the distance. Through the woods, the light in her own living room flickered. This past year she’d been staying in one of the ranch’s guest cabins, a three-bedroom log cabin that was similar to Nancy Nolan’s.