Sam thought of the day they’d left, of Tim, of scooping the tip of his ear into a plastic soup bowl and tossing the bowl into a dumpster along the road outside town. And she thought of Jake’s anger when he’d heard about her deal with Alexandra—of Jake rejecting her, sending her away with his beloved ruby in safekeeping. A lot of murky water churning under the bridge that day.
“I decided I’d try to get a modeling contract in Los Angeles,” she answered smoothly. “I couldn’t go without taking Charlotte, and I knew you had a … responsibility … to keep Charlotte with you.”
“Did it ever occur to you that I was worried sick? That I had no way of knowing if either of you were all right? You could have ended up in a gutter somewhere.”
“But we didn’t.” Sam removed her gloves and spread her fine-boned hands on the white tablecloth. “The day we got to L.A. I walked into one of the biggest modeling agencies in the country. I showed them the jewelry brochure I’d made. They took one look at my hands and offered me a contract. Call it dumb luck, but that’s the way it happened. They advanced me the deposit for an apartment. I went to work and made five thousand dollars the first month.”
“You could have stayed in Pandora. I told you I’d pay your bills. You could have been near Jake in prison—I’d have had Orrin speak to the authorities. Conjugal visits, special privileges. Didn’t you ever think of that?”
Since Sam wasn’t going to tell her how things stood between her and Jake, she didn’t answer. Charlotte had been twisting a napkin as if trying to wring blood from it. She smoothed it on the table. “Jake understood,” she said sweetly. “He wrote to Sammie every day.”
Sam stiffened. Alexandra looked at her skeptically. “And how is Jake?”
“As fine as a man can be after spending ten years in a cage.”
“I’ll tell you what I think.” Alexandra stroked one fingertip along the table’s edge, as if outlining her thoughts. “I believe you left because you were ashamed of him.”
Sam leveled a harsh gaze at her. “No.”
“Oh, I know you’re a very loyal person. You wouldn’t divorce him. You wouldn’t admit that his recklessness and his violence frightened you, that he’d ruined your life, your reputation. So you fled to California, hoping he’d forget you.” She leaned forward. “Samantha, you don’t have to stand by him now. He’s a free man. He can take care of himself.”
It took all Sam’s willpower to continue sitting there. I want peace, echoed through her mind. No more hard feelings. No more old feuds. “I love him. And he still loves me. The day he came home was the happiest day of our lives.”
One unerring truth, one ragged hope, and one enormous lie.
Alexandra’s eyes bored into her. “I heard that you were seen in town not long after he returned. With a bruise under one eye.”
“I had an accident.”
“Did you?”
“Jake didn’t hit her,” Charlotte said evenly, though she looked out the window as she said it. Her gaze swung back to Alexandra’s. “She’s like me. She’d never put up with a man who treats women that way.”
The pointed reference to Tim wasn’t lost on their aunt. Her face tightened. But she continued to train her attention on Sam. “You’ve made a great success of your life. I’m very proud of you. You have the look of a woman who has good taste, and class, and substance, a woman who’s grown accustomed to certain refinements. And what have you come home to? A log house in the middle of a wild cove, and a husband who has a criminal record. A husband whose closest companions have been murderers and rapists and child molesters. A man who will never quite be clean again. A man who has quite likely been damaged in ways that no one, not even you, can overcome.”
Sam struggled with the frayed limits of her patience. A cruel inner voice taunted her. Maybe it was true, that Jake would never be the same again. But she couldn’t believe that, couldn’t let her aunt’s insight weaken her determination. “I won’t even try to explain why you’re wrong about him. But you are wrong. You can’t change me. You can’t change my decisions. If that’s all you’ve been waiting for, you’re going to be disappointed.”
“Can you honestly tell me you never looked at another man while Jake was gone?”
“Oh, I looked. But that’s all I did.”
“Ten years. The prime of your youth. Without intimacy, without companionship, without children. Has Jake made that up to you? Can he ever make that up to you?”
“He already has, just by coming home.”
“Samantha, don’t misunderstand me. I want you to be happy. I’m afraid pride is holding you to a husband who no longer exists. I’m on your side. I will help you discreetly extricate yourself from this marriage and start a new life here.”
Nothing had changed. Sam’s stomach twisted sickly. There would never be any compromises with Alexandra. Only a battle of wills. All Sam could do was keep Jake out of it. “I understand you perfectly. You’re worried about Orrin’s political image. A niece who’s married to an ex-con doesn’t fit in with the Brady Bunch platform, does it?”
Cold rage segued into Alexandra’s eyes. “You can’t harm what I’ve created. And when Jake leaves your life in shambles again, I’ll be there to pick up the pieces. Just as I did with your mother. Because I seem to be the only person in this family who can distinguish between hard, cold reality and wishful thinking.”
“In other words, the end justifies the means.”
“Precisely.”
Sam stood. Charlotte followed, scowling from her to Alexandra. “This was a nice reunion,” Charlotte announced. “Let’s do it again in about a hundred years. Bring Tim next time. I’ve got a set of carving knives I want to show him.”
Sam took her by one arm with a warning grip. “What is that supposed to mean?” Alexandra demanded, posed on the edge of her chair.
“Nothing,” Sam answered. “Leave us alone. Leave Jake alone.” Her mind whirled. She had to play by their aunt’s rules. “You’ve had a score to settle since the day you married Judge Vanderveer—the day Sarah saw you for what you are. You feed off other people’s lives; you took her brother’s goodwill, his good name, even the respect that had existed between the Vanderveers and the Raincrows for generations.”
The words fell like small bombs, ripping away all pretense of civility, clipping the last of the polite veneer from her aunt’s expression. Sam looked down into that dangerous vortex—the pride and anger, the humiliation and the hatred for being humiliated—and she knew she should stop, retreat, think this through rationally.
But it was too late. Years of loneliness, then being pushed to the edge of despair every day since Jake’s tormented return, had found a channel. “That’s why the old ruby has always been so important to you—it’s a medal you can wear. It represents your claim on a history you never earned or even understood. Without it you’ll never forget you come from a family of ambitious mill bosses who used you to pull themselves up the social ladder.”
The silence that followed resonated through the room with chilling effect. Alexandra didn’t breathe; she radiated eerie calm. “What claim do you have on righteousness, Samantha? Your husband killed for you. You deserted him. I had people in place, watching, waiting. He never wrote to you. He wanted nothing to do with you. I suspect he doesn’t want you now. You don’t have the courage to admit that. You say hateful things to me because you know I’m telling you the truth. You have nothing.”
“I have the ruby. I’ve had it since I left town.” Her aunt’s eyes flickered. It was a naked, predatory flash of interest. “I’m the only one who knows where it is,” Sam continued. “And if you do anything, anything to interfere in our lives, I’ll make certain it disappears for good.”
She walked out, Charlotte trailing her with quick, urgent strides. Sunlight dappled them through the graceful firs as they crossed the parking lot in numb silence. “Sammie,” Charlotte said finally, her voice strangled. “I’m so proud of you.”
Sam leaned on th
e car and put her head in her hands. She wasn’t proud of anything she’d said. She had wanted to weave a safety net for her and Jake. Instead, she’d created a noose.
Behind the closed doors of the conference room of one of the state’s most powerful newspapers, a long table was strewn with coffee mugs, soft-drink cans, and photocopies of the anonymous handwritten notes. Excitement seeped into the air like the scent of blood. After much debate, two news editors, the executive editor, the publisher, and one of the newspaper’s lawyers traded a tacit look of agreement. The executive editor nodded her permission to the reporter who sat across from them, watching the interplay avidly.
“We’re going to keep this investigation close to our chests,” she told the reporter. “You check out every detail as quietly as you can. What you’ve got may be nothing more than half-baked rumors or outright lies. Either your pen pal has incredible access to the governor’s family, or he—she?—is a malicious crank with a vivid imagination. We’re not printing one word unless we have some solid evidence.”
The reporter smiled thinly. “The person who dropped this dynamite in the mail went to a lot of trouble to name specifics. I think it’s legitimate. But I’ll be careful. And when I’m done, we’ll have plenty to back it up.”
The lawyer cleared his throat awkwardly. “Why do you think this person singled you out? You’re not the only reporter who covers politics for this newspaper. No offense, but there are veteran reporters here who should have seemed like a better choice to an informant. Do you think this informant may be black?”
The reporter eyed him sardonically. “You mean I was chosen because us black folks gots to stick together?”
“Don’t be offended, I said. But to be frank, yes, I—”
“Maybe,” the publisher interjected, “the person picked Bob here because he—or she—likes the fact that Bob is homegrown. Born and raised in North Carolina.”
“A homeboy,” Bob added dryly. “I doubt it had anything to do with my awards for investigative journalism.”
“Leave my reporter alone,” the executive editor said, smiling. “I can think of about a dozen politicians who shiver at the sight of his by-line. Our mystery informant obviously knows Bob’s reputation.”
“Good enough for me,” the publisher said. “Run this stuff up the flagpole and see who salutes. Or who races for cover.”
On that note, the meeting ended. After the others filed out, the exec shut the door again and looked at the wiry young man who was staking his professional pride on a sheaf of notes sent by a stranger. “Bob, God help us all if this is a crock of shit.”
He looked pensive. “I’d like to think this character, whoever he-she is, was impressed by my ass-kicking journalistic credentials.” He tapped the frayed manila envelope on the table. “But I’ve got to tell you something—there could be a personal reason why I’m the one this is addressed to.”
“If you’ve got a hunch, now’s the time to share it.”
“It’s a long shot. Something damned few people would know, or take the time to learn.” He shook his head, puzzled.
“What?”
He frowned. “My parents were tenant farmers. I was born on a farm outside Pandora. Mrs. Lomax was still married to her first husband then. Judge Vanderveer. The Vanderveers ran that town.”
“Aw, jeez, Bob, that’s ancient history.”
“Not to me. The judge was our landlord.”
“Oh, shit.”
“I was just a kid when all the tenant families were evicted off Vanderveer land.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “There was no good reason for the eviction. My old man never got over it.”
“You think your mystery correspondent believes you have a grudge against the governor’s wife because she used to be a Vanderveer?”
“My old man said Judge Vanderveer wasn’t to blame. My old man said the judge’s wife was behind it. She divided the land into estate tracts and sold it to her cronies.” He smiled bitterly. “So, yeah, you could say I have a grudge against Alexandra Vanderveer Lomax.”
“I’m going to pretend you never told me any of this.”
“Don’t worry—I’ll give you a story that’ll stand on its own merits.” He held up the notes and the envelope. “But let’s just say that somebody out there knew I was the perfect choice for the job.”
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
Jake walked out of the woods weighed down by a muggy June morning, his thoughts, and the back-pack slung over one shoulder. He carried a good twenty pounds of rock he’d dug from the base of a waterfall. Twenty pounds of mountain bedrock that no one else would have given more than a passing glance. But when he finished chipping it apart, he’d find something—specks of color, the gleam of perfect crystals. His knack for mining had faded over the years; that had worried him. But the intuition was growing stronger every day. He could make a living the way he had before. That much, at least, consoled him.
Bo padded along, wheezing. “Old dog, you shouldn’t follow me,” Jake murmured gruffly. Telling Bo to stay behind was useless.
Samantha followed them both some days. When she could catch them before they left. Jake always knew when she was nearby. Thinking about her watching him was a key reason he couldn’t concentrate on his work—didn’t want to concentrate. It was pitiful and agonizing—the two of them slipping around in miserable secrecy, glad to be within sight of the other, unable to say so.
He crossed the clearing where his parents’ house had stood, where they and Ellie had died. He mourned them as if their graves were still fresh, and he listened for their voices, tried to feel the breath of their shadows. Sometimes he was certain he did, but bitterness and grief—unsettled business—made him ashamed to answer.
His black mood gave way to wary surprise. A knitting needle protruded from the red-clay earth before his tent. A slip of notepaper had been taped to it, fluttering in the soft breeze like a small flag of surrender. Or a challenge. Samantha’s way of leaving a message and a point.
He scooped it up. Someone called. A tracking job. I have the details. I’m going with you. No arguments. You can’t drive—you haven’t renewed your driver’s license.
He shut his eyes and laughed humorlessly, rubbing the tip of the knitting needle along his lower lip as if he could taste her through it. He’d served time for killing a man, and that didn’t repulse her, but, by God, she wasn’t going to let him get as much as a speeding ticket.
Whale music. Sam sat in the middle of Granny’s spring, in cold water to her waist, dressed in white shorts, a white T-shirt, braless, with a boom box perched on the shallow bank beside her, listening to a CD of mournful instrumental music that evoked images of large, solitary mammals calling to their lost mates in dark waters.
A little eccentric, to say the least. She didn’t care. It suited her mood these days. Every time she thought about her encounter with Alexandra, she felt angrier at herself, and more depressed.
Lost in black thoughts, she splashed the cold, clear spring water to her face and let it splash heedlessly down her thin shirt. There was something to be said for ritual bathing. If she sat here in Granny Raincrow’s spring, maybe she’d rinse away her failures.
“It’s not a birdbath,” Jake said behind her.
She twisted quickly and stared up at him through a length of damp blond hair that slid seductively in front of one eye. He stood at the edge, his feet hidden in a thick fringe of ferns, as if he’d been planted in their midst. His presence charged the cool, shadowy air. His shuttered gaze dropped down her body, where the water had plastered the thin cotton to her breasts. The look in his eyes made her dizzy. She shared that raw and barely restrained hunger. But she could only provoke him, and he would only keep away.
“Okay, so I’m a bird,” she said. She flashed a look at her chest, then back at him with challenge. “A yellow-crested titmouse.”
The whale music rose to a haunting crescendo. He scowled at the big portable player as if searching
for distractions. “You wanted to talk to me. I can’t talk with that fish opera going on.” He moved quickly to the boom box, dropped to his knees, and jabbed one blunt finger against a delicate button. The music continued, but the cassette berth opened. He stared at the player, his expression growing darker. He balled his hand and smacked the top of the player. “How do you turn off the damned radio?”
Sam gaped at him. “Don’t whack my boom box. That’s not the radio playing, it’s …” Her voice trailed away. He wasn’t familiar with compact discs. The world had moved on without him for ten years. Compact discs, VCRs, fax machines, portable computers, car phones. Cable television. A thousand small changes waiting to remind him that he’d been left behind.
Her throat aching, Sam scrambled over to the player and pressed a control. The music ended abruptly. Beneath a small window on top, a shiny disc spun to a stop. His eyes narrowed as he watched, and understood. A muscle flexed in his jaw.
Sam was close enough to hear the soft intake of his breath and see the brief glimmer of humiliation in his large, hooded eyes. She ached to reach for him, to hold him protectively. Their eyes met. Sam struggled to hide the tenderness he might mistake for pity. “The important things haven’t changed,” she said hoarsely. She gestured toward herself. “No strange new equipment here. Push my buttons.”
“Samantha.” He spoke her name with warning. He spoke it with a raw undertone of desperation. She leaned closer, drunk on the sound. “I haven’t heard you say my name in ten years. Please, say it again. I sit on the porch at night, wrapped in nothing but a blanket, praying that you’ll walk up and say my name, and slide your hands under the blanket, and—”
“Stop it.” His voice was ragged. He vaulted to his feet and walked a safe distance away, his big shoulders hunched. “You said I have a tracking job. Tell me the details in the car. You got your wish—you’re going. We’re wasting time.”
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