Turning Secrets

by Brenda Chapman

  “You’re late,” he said when she slipped into the front seat. He’d parked under an oak tree and his face was half in shadow. He turned his head slowly to stare at her and sunlight reflected off his black sunglasses.

  “I was looking everywhere for Dawn. She must have left for the day.”

  “Shame,” said Shawn B. from the back seat. “But we’ll catch up with her later.”

  Vanessa gave Leo a nervous smile before looking straight ahead. She couldn’t make herself turn around to look at Shawn B. Knowing he was behind her was horrible enough.

  “Might be better anyway,” said Leo, and Shawn grunted what sounded like agreement.

  “Are we going back to the motel?” Vanessa asked. She wanted to make sure she had enough time to disappear inside herself.

  “Not today,” said Leo. “Remember that surprise I promised?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have a client who’s asked for a house call, or in this case, an office call. He pays out big time in exchange for discretion. You’ll do real well if you become his new favourite.”

  “What happened to his old favourite?”

  “She’s not around anymore.”

  Vanessa thought about the girl she’d seen in the motel parking lot who’d gotten herself killed. She said without thinking, “I saw that girl who died … at the hotel construction site down the road from the motel.”

  Leo had been about to pull out of the parking spot, but he stopped and looked at her. She could hear the squeal of leather as Shawn B. sat up in the back seat. “Where did you see her?” Leo asked. He acted casual, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket with one hand and glancing at her, but Vanessa felt her body tense. Why did I say that?

  “At the Blue Nights. Going into one of the rooms.”

  “How do you know it was her?”

  “I saw her photo in the news. I recognized her.” And now, why was she being so stubborn? She wanted to let the matter drop but Leo kept staring at her with a strange look on his face.

  “Was she with anybody?” asked Shawn beside her ear.

  She recoiled at his hot breath on her neck and banged her head against the headrest. The girl had been with that man but Vanessa had a feeling that saying so might get her into more trouble. She began to find the silence in the car threatening. She swallowed hard and said, “She must have been with a guy but I don’t remember seeing him.” Her voice wavered and she wasn’t certain they believed her.

  Leo sucked on the end of the cigarette and took a look behind him. “Whaddaya think, Shawn? Should we proceed as planned?”

  “Don’t see why not. Turn up the tunes, will you? I need some wailing electric guitar to block out this shit.”

  Dawn collected her books at her locker and left school a few minutes before the halls became clogged with students done for the day. She’d slipped out of class a few minutes early on the pretext of going to the washroom. The bus came a moment after she’d reached the stop, her hair loosened from its braid in her mad dash down the sidewalk.

  She’d gone out at lunchtime to a corner store and bought some snacks she thought her father might like. Chips and chocolate bars. Gum and peanuts. Aspirin. She’d had trouble concentrating in her classes, thinking of him lying in the woods, injured and in pain.

  She usually enjoyed the walk up Old Front Road at the end of her day. She could see the sparkling water through the trees from different spots. Most people grew thickets of trees on their property, making the road feel like it cut through the woods. Sun and shadows mingled in front of her as the tree branches swayed like feathery fans in the wind off the lake. She waited for the sense of calm that usually filled her as she got closer to home but today the feeling didn’t come. Instead, a growing anxiety buzzed in her stomach like a swarm of bees. She reached Gundersund’s house, set back from the road and less welcoming now that his wife was back. Before her arrival, Dawn would have used her key to get Minnie and bring her home to play with Taiku. Now, she walked on by.

  Taiku was waiting at the back door for her and they started off together toward the lake. Taiku found Fisher first, cutting off the stretch of rocky beach into the woods near the edge of their land. He was sitting on his sleeping bag, which he’d set on a layer of freshly cut cedar boughs. The tree branches overhead protected him from rain. He’d tied his food in a piece of cloth up a tree to keep the animals from getting at it. His face wasn’t as purple and puffy as it had been when she’d left for school. She handed him the bag of stuff she’d bought at lunchtime and he thanked her before setting it within reach.

  “We could sit at the edge of the beach, in the sun,” she said. “Kala texted me that she won’t be home for another hour at least and nobody else comes down this way.”

  They chose a flat rock warmed by the spring sun. Dawn rested her hands on its smooth surface and let the heat travel up her arms. Fisher moved carefully and lowered himself gingerly into place, but he said he wasn’t as stiff as he had been. He’d slept away the morning and afternoon. Another few days and he’d be ready to dance a jig.

  “How long will you stay?” she asked.

  “I’ll leave when my face heals a bit more. Don’t want to scare anybody.” He looked across the water and breathed deeply in and out. “You could come with me. I’ll get a job on a boat and rent a cottage near the ocean. When your mom gets out of prison, she can stay until she gets back on her feet. Longer if she wants.”

  Dawn didn’t know why she felt like crying. She wished with her whole heart that their lives had been different. That he wasn’t so all alone. “I don’t know, Dad,” she said finally. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “I know. Just thought I’d put it out there.”

  They sat without talking and Taiku ran in and out of the water. He shook himself off and they laughed as the water sprayed across their legs.

  “He’s a good dog,” said Fisher. “I had a hound dog named Shamus before I went in the pen.”

  “Can you get him back?”

  “He died two years after I went in. He was ten years old and sickly when I left him.”

  “You can get another dog when you move to Nova Scotia.”

  “I could.”

  A dog would keep him from being lonely. Dawn’s spirit lightened at the thought.

  Fisher patted his pockets and pulled out the crumpled pack of cigarettes. He removed a half-smoked one and lit it, squinting at her through the smoke. “How’s school going?”

  “Fine. I like school.”

  “I never did.” He laughed. “You got all the brains in the family.”

  Dawn looked above the lake to the horizon. The sun was losing strength, and the light had changed. “I need to go in. I get supper going for Kala.”

  “Run on home, then. I’ll be fine here.”

  “Are you warm enough?”

  “I enjoy sleeping outside. I feel safe in the woods and I like knowing you’re nearby.”

  “I’ll bring you more water in the morning.”

  “And a cup of coffee would be good if you can manage it.”

  “Okay.”

  She called to Taiku and scrambled across the rocks with him bounding ahead, crisscrossing into the bushes and back. She looked behind her once to wave but her father was gone, returned to his sleeping bag with the bag of snacks.

  Dawn had been cautious several months earlier when she’d first realized who it was standing across the street from her school. She’d worried that he wanted something from her. He hadn’t, though. Everything she’d given him had been without him asking. He’d never touched her. He’d respected her space and she relaxed in the unpressured ease of their meetings. He was her father but he would never be her parent. He was a stranger whom she would have helped even if he wasn’t her dad.

  It wasn’t that she needed him. She wanted him to disappear without anybody knowing that he had been here. Yet she needed to understand why she felt this invisible tie to him. Why she wondered what it would feel like to hold h
is hand in hers.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Marci was at her desk by 7:00 a.m. She’d brewed a pot of coffee and was on her second cup when the other reporters straggled in just before 9:00. The urge for a cigarette made her fingers twitch but she refused to give in. She wanted to call Rouleau but she wouldn’t give in to that craving, either. He’d sent her a text the evening before, around eight, saying that he wouldn’t be over and she’d been disappointed, even though she’d already guessed that he wasn’t going to show. Waiting around for him to call was so high school. The very idea of letting a man do this to her again filled her with disgust. The question was, what was she prepared to do about it?

  She looked out the window at the morning haze blotting out the view of the sky. Her drive to work had been done in darkness; the sun started peeking over the distant treeline when she pulled into the parking lot. A ribbon of pink-and-violet sky broke the line of indigo by the time she’d locked her car and entered the front door. She’d had the radio tuned to CBC and sighed at the forecast. Unsettled weather. Periods of sun but mainly cloudy. Carry an umbrella to be on the safe side. Another day of crazy weather north of the forty-ninth parallel.

  Screw this, she thought, reaching for the phone on her desk. Better to know if Rouleau’s dumped me than wait around like a Jane Austen bimbo.

  Rick breezed into her office and she pulled her hand back. He plopped down in the visitor chair, dunking a tea bag into a bright-yellow mug while he looked her over. “Is that a new sweater?”

  “I do have some half-decent pieces in my closet.”

  “Well, pull them out more often, girl. It’s refreshing to see you in something from this decade. The green goes well with your coppery hair.”

  “Stop. You’ll have me blushing.”

  “I doubt that. How’s it coming with the murder case? Still making meaningful music with the delish sergeant in arms?”

  “None of your business.” She smiled and batted her eyelashes.

  “Coy becomes you.”

  “Goes with the sweater.” The phone rang and her heart jumped until she saw Scotty’s name on the screen. She picked up and listened to him tell her to make the trek to his office before the phone went dead. She stood and grabbed her iPad. “Duty calls,” she said with false gaiety.

  “Give my best to Scotty,” Rick said. “I know I’d sure like to.”

  She was still running Rick’s sexual innuendo around in her mind as she took the seat across from her boss. She’d wondered about Scotty’s personal life since she started at the paper. The thing was, Rick said that same suggestive line about every man around, regardless of his orientation. She suspected Scotty preferred women but couldn’t pinpoint why. He was unmarried, forty-something, and short. The jury could swing either way.

  Scotty looked at her over his computer screen. “I got your piece on the Nadia Armstrong killing. It’s thin. Doesn’t add anything new since your previous posts.”

  “Nothing new has happened. I thought her sister’s interview gave context.”

  Scotty’s voice rose higher to a singsong key. “Nadia grew up in Ottawa, lived on the street, got pregnant, and moved here to start a new life.” His lips lifted sideways. “You said that in yesterday’s scoop, and I use the word ‘scoop’ lightly. Rearranging the sentences doesn’t make the rehash news. Get me something newsworthy. That’s what we’re paying you for.”

  She accepted the implied reprimand without comment, knowing that the story hadn’t been her best effort. She pushed herself out of the chair. Scotty was already typing on his keyboard, eyes focused on the screen, his charming way of telling her that he’d said all he planned to say. Short and sweet. Just like him. Well, short, anyway.

  She walked back to her desk to get her jacket and log off her computer. She hadn’t wanted to go this route since it felt disloyal to Rouleau. Silly, really, since one had nothing to do with the other. She had a right to milk her sources.

  Rouleau could have called me.

  Rick was busy on the phone as she walked past but he saw her and gave a thumbs-up. She saluted him before reaching into her pocket for her cellphone. She hesitated as she ran through other possibilities. Every one of them led back to this. She was a journalist. She had to set all qualms aside and do whatever it took to get her story.

  It was time to give Woodhouse a call.

  Dawn was late for school. She’d spent half an hour on the beach with her dad and Taiku that she shouldn’t have. She’d missed her usual bus and had to catch the next one, which put her twenty minutes behind. The halls were nearly empty when she ran to her locker and anxiety made her fingers fumble with her lock. She got it open on the third try.

  Her first class had started and she tried to slip in unnoticed. She would have made it if one of the class clowns hadn’t yelled, “Look who’s late!” Mrs. Barnes turned from the chalkboard and saw Dawn slinking over to her desk at the back of the room, but didn’t comment.

  Dawn slumped low in her chair and opened her notebook as Mrs. Barnes began talking about the history unit test on Friday. Dawn listened while copying the points from the board. Emily turned around when a boy at the front asked a question. Her voice was a cross between a hiss and a whisper. “Did Vanessa’s mother call you?”

  Dawn shook her head. “No, why would she? I doubt she even knows my name.”

  “Vanessa missed supper and it was nearly nine o’clock when her mom called to see if she was at my house. Vanessa hadn’t even checked in.”

  “Girls!” Mrs. Barnes was staring at them. Emily straightened around.

  Two strikes, Dawn thought, relieved not to have been given a detention. Mrs. Barnes was known to hand them out freely for the smallest of reasons.

  Dawn tried to concentrate on the unit review but her mind kept returning to Vanessa. She hadn’t seemed like herself the last few weeks. Was she that unhappy at home? Maybe staying out with Leo was her way of rebelling — or it could be a cry for attention. Either way, Dawn thought Vanessa was getting herself into trouble. There were better ways to make people notice you. Had she been with him all night?

  Emily grabbed her arm on the way out of the classroom after the lesson ended. “Vanessa’s in biology. Let’s wait for her at the lockers. I want to find out what happened when she finally got home.”

  “She made it home then?”

  “Yeah, I didn’t get a chance to tell you that she sent me a text around eleven. Her mom told her to let me know everything was okay.”

  “Where was she?”

  “She never said so I guess we’ll find out.”

  They waited in the hall at Vanessa’s locker, getting jostled by students on their way past. The corridor echoed with loud voices and a herd of footsteps tromping in either direction. Finally, Dawn spotted Vanessa coming toward them. She had that vacant look on her face which looked waxy under the fluorescent hall lighting. She was wearing a red sweatshirt with the school crest centred over her chest, tight jeans ripped at the knees, and yellow runners. She gave a limp half wave as she approached.

  “Did you get in trouble last night?” asked Emily.

  “A bit. I’m grounded for a month.” Vanessa turned her back on them and began spinning the dial on her lock. She tossed back her hair and shot Emily a grin. “My mom is picking me up after school for the rest of the week so I ‘can’t get up to no good.’”

  “You don’t seem all that upset.” Emily looked skeptical. “Where were you, anyhow?”

  “Out with Leo. I lost track of time.” Vanessa stooped to pick up a book and threw some others onto the pile. “Aren’t you going to be late for class?”

  “I have a few more minutes,” said Emily. She looked at Dawn. “What about you?”

  “Spare. I’ve got to get to the library, though.”

  Vanessa slammed her locker door. “I wanted to break up with Leo. If I’m not around, maybe he’ll find somebody else.” She turned her head sideways and looked at Dawn. “He likes you.”

 
“Well, I’m not interested in a boyfriend. Especially not one you’re dating.” Dawn couldn’t believe Vanessa would think it, much less suggest it.

  Vanessa gave a quick smile. “Having a boyfriend wasn’t as much fun as I’d imagined.” She started walking away from them. “See you at lunch, Em,” she said.

  Emily grabbed Dawn by the arm. “Her mother must have found out about Leo, and now she’s in bigger shit than she’s letting on. I never did get to meet him. We’ll have to work on her to find out the truth. See you at lunch?”

  “Maybe. I might go for a walk.” Dawn should have told Emily earlier about meeting Leo. She wasn’t sure what kept her from telling Emily now.

  “Later, then.”

  Emily let go of her arm and started a half jog toward the far end of the building. Dawn turned in the other direction and hurried toward the library. Was she the only one who thought something was off with Vanessa? She didn’t know Vanessa well but there’d been a big change in her appearance, and she was always staring at nothing until somebody pulled her back to the present. Dawn’s mother had had that same beaten-down look after the first year living with Gil Valiquette. Drifting in and out of conversations. Startling like a deer does when you come across it unexpectedly in the woods. But Vanessa had been dating Leo only a few months and she could dump him anytime she wanted. He wasn’t living with her, controlling who she spoke to and counting every dollar she spent. He wasn’t manoeuvring her out of the way so he could be alone with her twelve-year-old daughter.

  Dawn reached the library door and almost collided with two boys on their way out. She had half an hour before English class to study for the history test and then she’d rush to the store to buy more supplies for Fisher. When she’d found him sitting on the beach this morning, he was eating the last of the chocolate bars. His face was slightly less swollen and some of the purple had changed to a dull yellow. He could open his right eye wider than a slit. She was using the money she’d earned doing research for Mr. Rouleau at the university to buy Fisher’s supplies. If he left soon, she might still have enough to get the bike she had her eye on. Kala would never have to know that she’d used her savings to take care of the father she was forbidden to see.