Violet Dawn

by Collins, Brandilyn

  He regarded her, eyes semiglazed. “What happened?”

  “Just a little seizure, that’s all. You fell coming back from the bathroom.”

  “Oh.” A long sigh seeped from him. He closed his eyes.

  Bailey checked the nightstand clock. A little past two. She would get John back to bed as soon as he felt strong enough to walk. He had plenty of hours yet to sleep. She would be extra quiet when she arose at six to dress for the day’s work at Java Joint. Bailey hated to think of leaving John alone all day, but she had no one to help her at their coffee shop. Besides, they needed every dime Java Joint brought in to help pay their bills. Medical costs were eating through their savings.

  “John, do you want some water?” She rubbed his arm.

  “Yes, love. Thanks.”

  Bailey pushed to her feet to head for the bathroom, heart swelling at her husband’s gentleness. Returning with the water, she helped John sit up. Pale-faced, he took the glass and raised it in a weary cheer. “Here’s lookin’ at ya, kid.” Bailey watched him drink it.

  She took the glass to the sink, then helped John to his feet. Picked up his pillow and walked beside him to the bed. Once he was settled, she plugged in their night-light, turned off the bathroom switch, and climbed in beside him. Her hand crept over to rest against his back. Already she could hear his even breaths of sleep.

  For a long time Bailey lay awake, praying. For John. For more customers at Java Joint so they could afford his medicine. I know the locals gossip there, Lord, and it seems nothing escapes their attention. But we need their business. She thanked God for the extra money He had already provided through Edna San. As sleep eluded Bailey, the petitions expanded to their son and daughter, now moved away and raising their own families. And Sally, the young woman at church who’d suffered such a hard childhood and now yearned for meaning in her life. Then to Bailey’s many friends. Finally drowsiness stole through her limbs.

  Before sleep overtook her, Bailey Truitt’s last request of God was for His protection from evil for her beloved Kanner Lake.

  THREE

  At the horrific sight, a scream ballooned in Paige’s throat. She threw a hand over her mouth to hold it back. Her balance teetered and she fell from her knees to one side, palms smacking against the deck.

  She froze, staring at the water.

  The head eased into a slow roll. A shoulder appeared.

  Paige’s thoughts writhed in a jumbled mass. This couldn’t be . She’d imagined everything. It was too dark to see. . .

  She reached out, fingers trembling above the tub’s light switch. Voices in her head shrieked — Don’t turn it on! Her hand drew back, stretched out again. She pushed the switch.

  Eerie blue lit the water. The top third of a body bobbed, face-down, the skin of its arms washed a pale, sickening aqua. Ash blonde hair floated around its head.

  Paige scrabbled backward, heart slamming into double time.

  This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t.

  Minutes passed before she could move. Then, from deep inside, the old survival instincts kicked into gear. Paige licked her lips, shuffled toward the tub on her knees. Her brain chanted a manic mantra — Get it out, get it out, get it out!

  She hugged her arms to her chest, trying to rein in her wild heartbeat. Her mind thrashed with questions. Was the rest of the body under the cover? What if it was only part of a body? What if a second person was under there? Who was it?

  Calling 911 was out of the question. She had plenty of reasons not to trust the police. Whatever happened next, she’d have to do on her own. And there was only one thing she could do.

  Somehow she managed to push to her feet, ankles like gelatin. She sidled down the side of the tub and reached trembling arms toward the cover. Gripped the warm, stiff edge and —before she lost her courage — wrenched it aside. It flopped over the two steps leading down to the lawn and landed with a heavy poof in the grass.

  Through unwilling eyes Paige peeked at the water.

  One body. Complete. A woman. Floating languidly, clad in a white short-sleeved blouse, red pants turned purple in the tinted light.

  No.

  Bile rose in Paige’s throat. She forced it down. Backed away from the mind-numbing sight. Those pants — she’d seen them at work just today. And the blouse.

  A dozen more questions bounced through her brain. How? When? Why?

  Paige willed herself into logical thought. What should she do? Call 911 after all? But how to explain this? “The body’s just here . . . I don’t know how . . . I had nothing to do with it . . .” Worse, the police and sheriff’s deputies would descend. They’d tramp through her house, ask probing questions about her background — questions she’d have to answer. In the morning, the news would plague the streets of Kanner Lake. Folks would talk, ask questions of their own. And it wouldn’t stop there. Reporters would hear. They’d hound her for details. Dissect her life. What if her face ended up on TV?

  Paige’s heart curled inward. Her hiding would be over. She’d end up dead herself.

  Skin pebbling, she stared at the gruesome sight. Maybe it wasn’t who she thought it was.

  Whoever it is, Paige, it’s still a dead body.

  She would have to turn it over to be sure.

  Paige gathered her courage — and put her mind on hold.

  She stooped and reached her fingers into the liquid. Her hand brushed water-scaly skin, and a shudder palsied her limbs. Paige steeled herself. Gingerly she wrapped a thumb and two fingers around the body’s elbow and pulled. The body skimmed sideways and bumped against the side of the hot tub.

  Paige let go and drew back, breathing hard. How to turn it over? She needed leverage, but no way was she stepping into that water.

  Maybe if it just pointed her direction, she could raise its head enough to see . . .

  Paige reached for a fistful of hair, then pushed the torso until it floated from her reach. Pulling the hair toward her, she nudged the body ninety degrees until its forehead bobbed against the edge of the tub. Bracing herself, she grabbed a handful of hair at the crown and pulled up.

  The head rose, but not enough to see the face clearly.

  She withdrew again, heart thumping. A sudden whiff of chlorine mixed with old perfume nauseated her. She knelt and turned her head away.

  Maybe she should call the police. She would have to trust them.

  But even if they were trustworthy, they would still ask their questions. And reporters would soon hear. Neither of those things could happen.

  Paige, think.

  Something clicked within her, like machinery gears sliding into place. She was on her own. A bomb had just exploded in her life — again — and she alone must pick up the pieces.

  Okay, Paige. You can do this.

  She stared at the body.

  First things first. Before she made any further decisions, she needed to see the face of the corpse. Make sure who she was dealing with. And to do that, she had to get the thing out of her hot tub.

  FOUR

  Vince Edwards awoke to a deafening blast.

  Eyes closed, the police chief of Kanner Lake turned over in bed and rubbed his temples. The imagined explosion echoed in his brain, trailing horrifying pictures of carnage and fire. Pictures of Tim.

  Vince’s muscles felt stiff. These days they were always tight. His headache throbbed just like the one he’d awakened to yesterday, and the day before. The pain had haunted him for about a month now. After dreaded Sunday — would it be gone?

  Turning his head, he checked the digital clock by his side of the bed. Two fourteen. Great. Another sleepless night.

  He listened for Nancy’s breathing. It sounded slow and even.Good. At least one of them slept. Better it be Nancy. Vince didn’t work on Saturdays, but she had to get up at four thirty to make her six o’clock nursing rounds at Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane. Despite that fact, a year ago he might have awakened her to talk. Just as Nancy might have awakened him when she couldn
’t sleep. Sometimes in the middle of the night they had worried about their son in Iraq. Was Tim safe? What was he doing? And they would take turns reassuring each other.

  Those days were gone.

  Vince stared at the ceiling, the familiar weight descending.

  A year ago he and his high-school-sweetheart wife of twenty-six years had been as well tuned as the strings on the guitar she liked to play. Working in harmony, vibrating at each other’s touch. But grief struck, with all its discordance. These days Vince couldn’t even make the old metaphor fit. These days they trod the treacherous ground of a waterlogged hillside, deceptively solid at its surface, unstable underneath.

  Vince massaged the back of his neck. After a few minutes restlessness drove him from bed. Treading quietly across the carpet so as not to wake Nancy, he fetched his lightweight robe from the chair near his dresser and slipped it on.

  Out in the hall he closed the bedroom door without latching it. Then eased down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he took two aspirin and microwaved some herbal tea. He didn’t particularly care for the taste, but peppermint tended to ease him back toward sleep. He carried it into the den.

  A streetlight shone through the front window, casting a pale golden swath across the television and onto the hardwood floor. On the oak mantel above the fireplace, Vince could see the faint outline of a copper frame. In the darkness he couldn’t make out the photo, but he knew it by heart. Every inch of it. Twenty-year-old Tim in his army uniform, leaning against a battered white wall with his arms folded and that ever-present lopsided grin. One cheek smudged, brown eyes squinted against the sun. By divine timing, one of Tim’s buddies had snapped the picture last year. Three days before an insurgent’s bomb blew Tim apart.

  A year ago tomorrow.

  Fresh anxiety rolled over Vince. He set his tea down on the long coffee table and sank onto the leather couch. Somewhere deep within him, battered and weary hope whispered of better days to come. Perhaps the hope sprang from others’ words about the power of a year elapsed. By reputation, the first anniversary served as a Rubicon for the grieving. Vince wanted to believe it was true. Beyond that day he could no longer think, A year ago Tim wrote me this letter . . . A year ago Tim arrived in Iraq . . . A year ago Tim shipped out . . .

  Vince ran a hand along the smooth coolness of the sofa. Nancy absolutely dreaded the day. She’d made certain she would be off work, not trusting herself to rise from bed. She even declined the offer from their daughter, Heather, to drive over from Liberty Lake. Vince had promised to stay home with his wife to offer comfort. But laden with his own pain, what did he have to give? He could picture them both battling their private storms like wave-pitched ships on a roiling sea.

  Worse, Sunday wasn’t really the last of the one-year anniversaries. The following day would be the year mark of hearing the news. A few days later — the anniversary of Tim’s remains arriving home. Then the funeral.

  Maybe after that we can breathe again, he told himself. Maybe then.

  Vince drank his tea.

  His gaze wandered out the window, falling on the house across the street that had recently been bought — surprisingly — by a young married couple new to Kanner Lake. Quite a nice house for kids their age to afford. A dim light spilled from a pane in the upper level of the home. The nursery, Vince guessed. New mama was probably up tending her baby. The cycle of existence. There they celebrated new life. Here he and Nancy memorialized death.

  Vince frowned. What was that young mother’s name? Her husband’s? Nancy would remember. By now friendly Nancy, even amid her grief, would know all about the couple, especially the wife. Where the young mother had grown up, where her family lived, her life story. A year ago Vince would have known too.

  The tea had cooled a little. Vince took larger swallows, trying to suck down sleep.

  Of its own accord Vince’s gaze returned to the photo of his son. With eyes more adjusted to the darkness, he could make out the shape of Tim’s body. The blond head Vince had teasingly buffed so many times. The shoulders he had hugged.

  Vince stared at the picture as he drained his cup.

  After some time sluggishness pulled itself through his veins. Leaving the mug on the table, Vince quietly mounted the stairs. Slipped into his room and out of his robe. Into bed.

  Nancy slept on.

  He faced her, part of him longing to pull her close, nestle in the softness of her body. Tell his wife how much he needed her and vow to close the growing chasm between them. The other part told him not to disturb her peace.

  He turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling.

  Coward.

  As an undertow of weariness pulled Vince into the sea of sleep, he comforted himself with thoughts of the one strength that kept him going: his work as police chief. The job had become his lifeblood, his saving grace. The responsibility that managed, for bits of time, to turn his mind from the crushing loss. Truth was, he hadn’t been able to protect his son from death. He didn’t know how to revive his benumbed marriage. But Vince Edwards could protect his town. He could track down criminal behavior —and make sure it was prosecuted.

  For Kanner Lake citizens’ sake — and his own — what energy remained within him would be spent on that task.

  FIVE

  The woman was thin and not very tall, but she was also a dead weight.

  Paige knelt a little to the right of the head. Holding her breath, she bent over the water. She plunged her arms into the heat, under the body’s chest, and lifted. The woman came up and forward, but something snagged her head. With a groan Paige lifted higher until the head moved. Suddenly her strength gave way. She let go and the corpse started to sink, pulling the head back toward the water. She grabbed the woman’s shoulders and held on.

  Paige needed fresh air. Craning her neck to the side, she dragged deep breaths through her mouth. When she could summon more strength, she reached both arms beneath the woman’s jutting ribcage. Lifted with all her might and pulled. The body barely moved. Paige tried again. No good.

  She let the body go once more, her chest heaving. This time the woman’s chin caught on the edge of the tub, securing her. Paige sat back on her haunches, waiting for her nerves to stop vibrating.

  This wasn’t going to work. She would have to get in the water.

  Despite the warm night, goose bumps popped down her arms. Paige’s mind spewed questions and terrors but she forced them away.

  Pushing to her feet, she moved to the corner of the tub. Holding on to the side, she ventured, grit-teethed, into the blue-lit water. First she hunched upon the couch where she previously lay. Then she stepped off it, to the bottom. The woman’s left hand floated beside her, long pink nails inches from her leg. Paige batted the hand away.

  She edged forward, bent her knees, and stretched her arms beneath the woman’s hips. Counted to three and lifted the corpse, shoving it forward until the shoulders lay on the edge of the hot tub. The head hung down toward the deck. Paige rested, then pulled up again. The body moved a little but the arms hooked on the edge. Cautiously Paige released her hold. The woman remained in place.

  Paige climbed out of the tub, stood over the woman, and grasped both shoulders, hauling with all her might. The body slid out halfway, reached the pivot point, then shot out. Paige stumbled back and fell, the woman’s torso landing on her legs. She shrieked and shoved it off. Scrambled to her feet, brain reeling with revulsion.

  The woman teetered on her side, facing the opposite direction. Paige grasped a shoulder and pulled the body onto its back. A faint slap sounded as it shifted into place.

  The glazed eyes of Edna San stared at the sky in violated shock.

  The sight punched Paige in the gut. She jerked away, air rasping in her throat. Aged movie icon Edna San — the most famous, and infamous, citizen of Kanner Lake — here. Dead on her deck.

  Paige had fallen asleep in bed after all. She hadn’t come out here in the middle of the night, hadn’t stumbled upon thi
s shocking discovery.

  This was a nightmare.

  She forced her gaze back to the body, all too real. What was that on Edna San’s neck? She squinted through the blue-illumined darkness. Angry marks, deep bruises. Strangulation?

  Paige shoved a hand through her hair, thoughts kicking like dust in a sandstorm. Who did this? Most important, after the way this woman had accosted her in the store yesterday, who would believe she had nothing to do with it?

  Fresh panic seized Paige by the throat. She bent over, dropped her face in her hands, wishing she could cry. But too much pain and too little rest had dried up her tears long ago. What should she do now? Run? Again?

  She didn’t want to run. She loved Kanner Lake already. The water, the beach, the forest and hills were soothing to her soul. She had just begun to build her new life here. All she had to do was lead a quiet existence and keep her face out of the papers. By this time, anyone looking for her was not likely to find her in this small tourist town a mere ninety minutes’ drive from the Canadian border.

  If they did find her, she didn’t stand a chance.

  But running would only make matters worse. Edna San’s body found on her deck — and meanwhile she’d disappeared? Who in the world would believe in her innocence then? The police would hunt her down, discover her past. Plaster her picture on newspapers and television sets across the nation . . .

  No. She could not run.

  Weakness flushed through Paige’s limbs. She lifted her head toward the mocking heavens. You’re not real, God, are You? If He existed up there, He floated in a cloud of indifference. Played chess with the angels, people as their pawns.

  A crackle sounded from the woods. Paige spun, nerves tingling. Her eyes stabbed the darkness, seeing nothing. Only then did she remember her towel on the deck, the dim blue illumination upon her body. She sidestepped quickly toward the towel, wrapped it around her. Leaned down to punch off the light.

  The deck fell into darkness.

  Slowly Paige straightened, heart fluttering. She pierced the forest with her eyes once more. Was someone out there?