Whirlwind

by Hilary Norman

‘Trying to get rid of me again?’ Liza said wryly.

  Michael said nothing.

  ‘Anyway, I can’t leave. My grandfather’s housekeeper’s gone to her family. He’d be alone.’ She looked up at the sky. ‘Would you want to drive to Boston in this?’

  ‘They say it’s going to get much worse tomorrow.’

  Liza shrugged.

  ‘Maybe we should go somewhere, get a drink?’ he said. ‘I’m staying in Woonsocket, at the Red Door.’

  ‘Bit far for a drink.’ Liza wondered briefly why he’d chosen to come to Shiloh late on a snowy night rather than in daytime, then realized that he probably had good reason for wanting to avoid locals.

  ‘Where then?’

  She thought. ‘Cady’s Tavern in Pascoag? It’s a biker place and it can get noisy, but at least it isn’t Shiloh.’ She shivered, and glanced over in the direction of South Maple.

  ‘You could call home,’ Michael said. ‘Stop your grandfather worrying, say you’ve met up with a friend. Probably best not to tell him who.’

  ‘Best not,’ Liza agreed. ‘Though he won’t be worrying. He’s asleep.’

  He’d referred to himself as a friend.

  Big improvement on threatening to break her neck.

  Though the night was still young.

  Cady’s wasn’t too crowded, the snow already keeping people off the roads, but the chicken wings were good, they served Sam Adams beer, and Michael was sure that this was the last thing Reaper would want him doing; but back there in the churchyard, running into her yet again, he had experienced a violent need for human company. And maybe this was more than meaningless coincidence, and illogical as it was, having unfairly singled her out for blame on behalf of every lousy journalist, what he actually wanted now, more than anything, was to risk spending an hour with Liza Plain.

  And if not now, when?

  ‘I can’t believe I’m eating again,’ Liza said, ‘but this is so good, and I feel—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I feel relaxed.’ She shrugged. ‘Which is unexpected.’

  ‘I guess so,’ Michael said, and drank some beer.

  ‘You seem very different tonight,’ Liza said.

  Guilt rose up and he shoved it away.

  He knew why he’d asked her for a drink. Not just for company, nor because she looked so great, but because he wanted, suddenly, to talk. Not about tomorrow – Whirlwind was the last thing he wanted to talk about. He wanted to talk about himself, and it was dawning on him, here, tonight, that maybe he’d been right about her all those years ago at Walden Pond, that maybe Liza Plain was what she had seemed back then. A good person.

  ‘Being in Shiloh,’ he began, ‘made me think about my mother.’ His voice was anger-edged but soft. ‘About how she started out with everything and ended up with less than nothing.’

  ‘She had you,’ Liza said.

  ‘Much good I did her,’ Michael said.

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Fragile,’ he said. ‘Brave. Disconnected, sometimes, she told me. I think she meant from herself.’ He paused. ‘She was just sixteen when she left Shiloh. She called it escaping, said she couldn’t stand another day in the place that had destroyed her world.’

  He took another drink from his bottle.

  Began sharing.

  Emily’s story first. Then his own.

  Told it all the way to 2001 and their meeting at the school, and what had come afterward. About Louise and her daughter and the events that had ultimately led to Emily’s death and his dark descent.

  Cady’s was emptying out but they’d ordered coffee, and Michael found that he was not yet ready to stop, finding release in the telling, knowing, at the same time, that he was perhaps just keeping tomorrow at bay for a little while longer.

  And not much more he could tell her without betraying Whirlwind.

  He looked at her face. ‘Don’t look so sad. It could have been worse.’

  ‘I guess,’ she said. ‘If you’d managed to kill yourself.’

  ‘It was what I wanted,’ he said, and abruptly stood, picking up the check.

  ‘Please.’ Liza got up too. ‘Let me.’

  ‘No way,’ Michael said. ‘This one’s on me.’

  She didn’t argue.

  He took out Michael Rees’s credit card, then put it away again, feeling sick.

  Paid cash.

  Outside, the snow had eased off, but it took time to clear the fresh snow off the windows and to demist.

  They sat in the car with the fan blowing, waiting.

  ‘I have another question,’ Liza said.

  Michael didn’t answer.

  ‘What’s changed? How come you’ve talked to me tonight?’

  ‘Nothing’s changed,’ Michael said.

  ‘I’d say something must have.’

  He saw her confusion and felt a sudden intense urge to take care of one more thing.

  ‘Will you do something for me, Liza?’ he said.

  ‘If I can.’

  ‘Go back to Boston.’ He paused. ‘Not right now, not after you’ve been drinking, but in the morning.’

  ‘Why should I do that?’ she asked, mystified.

  He hesitated, because, oh, Christ, he wanted to tell her this too now, and maybe, with his world so totally upside down, maybe after all these years Liza Plain was the one person who might be able to help him, show him the way out of this.

  Except she wouldn’t want to help him if he did tell her, and anyway, he couldn’t. It was too late.

  ‘I can’t tell you why,’ he said.

  ‘Because I’m a journalist?’

  ‘No. It has nothing to do with that.’

  ‘Why then? Why do you want me to go? I don’t understand.’

  Michael understood very well. He wanted her to leave because maybe, if they hadn’t lost touch, if he hadn’t met Louise, if his life hadn’t imploded, then everything might have gone a very different route for them both.

  No point thinking like that now. Too late.

  He saw that she was watching him, troubled and uncomprehending, searched for something to say that might make sense.

  ‘Shiloh’s a rotten place, Liza,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not sure I believe that,’ she said.

  ‘Believe what you want,’ Michael said brusquely, then gave the windshield a rough wipe with his gloved hand. ‘I’d better get you back to your grandfather.’

  Harshness the only way then.

  ‘I could get a cab,’ Liza said, deflated.

  ‘Yeah, they’ll be lining up.’

  ‘I don’t get this, Michael. It was so good talking.’

  ‘Good,’ he repeated. ‘Maybe so, from a journo’s viewpoint.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ she said quietly. ‘I thought we’d got past that.’

  ‘We had,’ Michael said coldly, put the car into gear and slid them back onto the road.

  The village was sleeping when they arrived back, street lights out, and even up at the Shiloh Inn only a single lamp showed through a divide in the drapes of a second-floor room. St Matthew’s, at the opposite end of Main Street, was in darkness, drifted snow settled up against its stone walls.

  Michael pulled up at the corner of South Maple.

  ‘Better for you if I leave you here,’ he said. ‘Will you be OK?’

  ‘Of course.’ Liza could barely manage a smile. ‘You might hate Shiloh but it’s hardly filled with muggers.’

  ‘Just the occasional child killer.’

  ‘Oh, Michael,’ she said, exasperated and sad.

  ‘Emily was always certain that he hadn’t done it,’ he said.

  Liza looked at him. ‘Is that why you’re here?’

  The question surprising her, springing from instinct.

  He reached out and touched her left arm. ‘Liza, please just listen to me, and don’t ask any more questions because I can’t answer them.’ His eyes were more intense than ever. ‘You have to go back to Boston in the morning. Get out
before the storm hits.’

  She stared at him, and knew that what he was telling her had nothing to do with the weather. ‘I can’t leave.’

  ‘I can’t tell you why, only that you really need to go.’ He took a breath. ‘And one more thing.’

  ‘What?’ She was growing more bewildered by the second.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone you’ve seen me.’

  ‘Is that now, tonight?’ She was sharp now, ironic. ‘Or ever?’

  ‘Ever doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Just till after Christmas. Can you promise me that?’

  ‘Will you even believe me if I do promise? I’m a journalist, after all.’

  ‘You’re Liza Plain,’ he said. ‘I’ll believe you.’

  She stared at him again, glimpsed, for an instant, the young man she’d first met, and saw that he meant what he said. ‘Then I promise.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Michael said.

  ‘Who would I tell, anyway?’ she said.

  Out of nowhere, he put out his hand and touched her cheek.

  And then he leaned in and kissed her.

  She hadn’t seen it coming, but knew, instantly, that it was what she wanted too, more than anything, and the kiss was fast, shocking, almost violent, filled with some kind of desperation, his face hot to the touch, his arms pulling her tightly closer.

  She broke away first, had to, because suddenly it felt wrong, too desperate, and what he’d just asked of her was crazy and she was too thrown by it all.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He sat back, looking shaken. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘Michael, I don’t understand what’s happening.’

  ‘And I can’t explain it to you,’ he said, tightly. ‘You need to trust me and you need to leave in the morning.’

  ‘You can’t just kiss me like that and tell me to leave.’

  ‘That’s all I can do,’ he said harshly. ‘Please. Now go. Just go.’

  Liza stared at him again, and then she turned and opened the door, got out, pushed the door shut behind her and walked quickly along Maple, not looking back, knowing he was still there, that he was watching her all the way.

  It was only when she reached her grandfather’s driveway that she turned.

  And saw him drive away.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Michael sat in the car back outside the Red Door Inn.

  The jangling in his mind so loud that it hurt.

  Any number of ways this Christmas could unfold for him now.

  One a brand-new option, the most tempting by a million miles. Drive straight back to Shiloh, figure out which was Liza’s window and throw snow up at it, then persuade her to drive back to Boston with him, and to hell with Christmas.

  And to hell with Whirlwind.

  This evening had changed everything. And nothing.

  He might feel differently, but he should have recognized that back at the start of the month when she’d tried approaching him and he’d rejected her so violently.

  And he should, of course, have realized that she might be here – though would knowing that have made any difference to his decision-making? He doubted it, still hiding as he had been behind his irrational shield of anger.

  Too late now.

  Blaming Liza Plain had been unfair, disproportionate and unfounded. She had yearned to become a journalist as he’d striven to become a teacher. Good and bad in both professions. And zero justification for his behavior toward her.

  Not as wrong, though, as what he’d done to her tonight.

  Spending time with her, opening up to her about the past.

  Kissing her.

  Unforgivable on so many levels.

  There’d been no one since Louise, and Lord knew he’d had little enough to offer her, but even if he could get out of this mess now, he had less than nothing to offer Liza.

  Nothing but bleakness with a screwed-up ex-con with suicidal tendencies.

  Though maybe life might not be nearly as bleak with a woman like Liza.

  ‘It would be,’ he said.

  Because he was the same man he had been a few hours ago.

  A loser.

  Besides which, he was not going to run out on Whirlwind. Not now.

  Not that Reaper would let him if he tried.

  So, depending on how things panned out, he might be back in prison before New Year’s.

  Or maybe the morgue.

  Until tonight, he’d have figured the latter the best option.

  Now he wasn’t quite as certain.

  Liza was in bed. She hadn’t closed the drapes and it was snowing lightly again, casting patterns on the closet door opposite the window, flakes settling whole on the glass like small design miracles before they dissolved.

  Like the promise of the evening just past.

  Michael Rider was keeping Liza awake.

  His history, so much of it tragic and disturbing.

  And the kiss, which had set off something she hadn’t felt in a long time, perhaps ever. And even before that, in the bar, she’d definitely been feeling that connection again.

  Though it wasn’t really that or even the kiss preying on her mind now.

  It was his asking her, repeatedly, to leave the village.

  It was the intensity of that, its oddness, with no explanation given except: ‘Shiloh’s a rotten place, Liza.’

  She might understand that from his perspective, but it was most certainly not enough to make her abandon her grandfather for the holidays now that she was actually here; besides which, Michael’s past hardly qualified him as the most reliable man in Rhode Island.

  Liza sighed, turned on her side, closed her eyes.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ she said.

  The drapes in Reaper’s room at the Shiloh Inn were three-quarters closed, the bedside lamp still on, the occupant of the bed lying tidily, as was his habit, in the center of the mattress, arms straight down by his sides.

  He wished that Isaiah had not come to Shiloh tonight. Had not made contact with that young woman.

  He knew a little about Liza Plain – knew something about every person present in the village tonight.

  His head ached, and his chest, but his pain level in general was nowhere near its worst. His medication working for now, and no sense in mulling over tomorrow.

  On the bedside table, four bottles of tablets and a water glass.

  Beside them, a gold cross on a long chain. A substantial thing.

  Not his. Something borrowed.

  For a special occasion.

  Revelation.

  Reaper’s eyes closed, but his lips moved as he murmured something.

  The same word over and over.

  ‘Soon.’

  In Woonsocket, Michael was tossing and turning.

  No sleep for him this night. Perhaps no sleep ever again, he thought, not even eternal rest. Damnation more probable.

  The kiss still warming him, its folly still goading him, fear uppermost in his mind.

  Of tomorrow.

  He closed his eyes again, sick with fatigue.

  Emily’s face appeared, laughing, happy, then disappeared, Liza there instead, her lovely blue eyes filled with confusion.

  Another face blotted her out, of a man he’d found hanging at Garthville.

  Worst thing he’d ever seen.

  Michael opened his eyes, shuddering, tilted his head toward the window and stared out into the night.

  Thought about Revelation.

  ‘Not long now,’ he said.

  FORTY-SIX

  Liza had waited until eight to get the phone number from Directory and call the Red Door Inn, but when she’d asked for Michael Rider she’d been told they had no guest of that name.

  She had thought briefly. ‘Michael Cromwell?’

  Negative, and why would he?

  Nothing to be done but get on with the day.

  Christmas Eve.

  Long day.

  She’d made Stephen breakfast and then she’d driven to Greenville to pick up so
me shopping from Glover’s, including a couple of bottles of wine for herself, and when she’d got back, her grandfather had dressed himself neatly: well-pressed slacks and crisp white shirt, navy wool cardigan, polished shoes, his white hair tidily combed and clean-shaven, all of which he’d clearly managed himself.

  Clearly no dementia to blame for his roughness last night. Just an unpleasant old man with anger issues.

  ‘Someone called several times,’ Stephen had said as she was putting food in the refrigerator. ‘Hung up when they heard my voice.’

  ‘Any caller ID?’ Liza had asked.

  ‘I’m not senile, Liza,’ Stephen had said sharply. ‘No number. Just a time-waster.’ He’d looked at her intently. ‘Someone for you, perhaps.’

  ‘Why should it be for me?’ Liza had said.

  Michael flying straight into her head.

  Her lips humming suddenly with the memory.

  She had shaken that off, wondering nonetheless if it might have been him, had made lunch, forcing herself to be nicer, to make allowances. Best way to survive Christmas, and then she could go back to her real life.

  The long day had gone on.

  Michael was cursing himself.

  He’d found Dr Stephen Plain’s number in the phone book that morning, had tried it twice, hesitating when the old man had picked up, then hanging up because Christ knew he’d done more than enough harm talking to Liza last night without inviting her grouchy grandfather to ask questions about him.

  His own bad temper having made him delete Liza’s personal details after he’d told her in early December to leave him the hell alone, he had no other means now of asking her one last time to get out of Shiloh while she still could.

  Not that she’d listen anyway, not without the truth. And even then, she’d probably refuse to leave her family, might even call the cops.

  So, nothing more to be done.

  Except follow directions.

  Long, long day ahead.

  For Reaper too.

  A longer one to come.

  Perhaps his last.

  Hard for his team too, soon to be leaving comfort and safety behind and getting themselves to their new waiting posts because of what the weather experts were now calling ‘The Blizzard to End All Blizzards’; and with plenty of derelict farm buildings in walking distance of Shiloh, it had not been hard for Amos to pinpoint the temporary shelters needed.