by Lisa Jackson
Elle.
Not dead.
Not a ghost.
Very real and very sick.
“I can’t believe it,” he said. “After all this time, you’re alive?”
“Barely.” Her mouth twisted at the irony of it.
“But what happened to you? Why’d you disappear? Where did you go?” He was astounded that he was really seeing her again. Had she been here all the time, in this cabin not twenty miles away from the town where she’d grown up?
“This may take a while,” she admitted.
“That’s okay,” he said, though he did feel the pressure of time. “Jeannette? She knows? She had to. You”—he looked at the girl—“you were there, that’s where I saw you.”
“So you followed me here,” she said as if she’d already figured it out. “Shit!”
“Rebecca!” Elle reprimanded. She was propped up by pillows and in front of her was a coffee table strewn with magazines, an array of pill bottles, a water bottle, and several boxes of tissues. Pale and thin, her face drawn and showing wrinkles, age taking its toll, though obviously some kind of illness added to her frail state, she forced a sad smile.
“Hello, Lucas,” she said, barely moving. “I figured you’d be showing up.” She pushed herself a little more upright and winced with the effort. “What with all the commotion, you were bound to find us out.”
“Us?” he repeated, looking at the girl again. “And by commotion, you mean the murders? Of Monica and now . . .”
She looked up at him. “One of the counselors, I’m guessing.”
“Jo-Beth,” he said, though he probably should have waited until the department released the information, even though enough people knew because of Kinley Marsh and the rest of the ex-counselors being involved.
“This is your daughter?” he asked.
“Oh, yes.” She said it as if she expected him to know. “Rebecca.”
His eyes thinned as he studied the younger woman. “The girl in the coffin.”
“What? Oh, yes.” Elle sighed and rubbed the fingers of one bony hand with the pads of her other. “That.”
“Yeah. ‘That.’ Why? Why did you send out the text?”
“That wasn’t me.”
He believed it. The place looked like a time warp to 1970. Aside from one portable bubble-faced television with rabbit ears, the place showed no signs of technology. No wireless router, no satellite dish, no cable connection that he’d seen, not so much as a digital clock glowing in a corner. Elle, and whoever lived with her, was one of those people who survived pretty much “off the grid,” though she did have some electricity. But not so Rebecca, he suspected. “You?” he asked. “Why?”
“Not me either.”
Obviously there was at least one piece he was missing in this puzzle.
“What happened to you, Elle?” he asked, feeling the heat from the fire.
“First of all, that’s not my name.” She sighed with an effort. “I go by Caroline now. Caroline Brown. Don’t ask me why, it just sounded good to me at the time that I needed to come up with a new identity, which I did after I left Averille. It’s amazing what you can buy in Portland if you need it.”
“That’s where you got it?”
“A friend of a friend of a friend. That kind of thing. Once I had my new ID, I moved to Oakland, wanted to be in the Bay Area and San Francisco.” She fluttered her fingers. “Way too pricey.”
“But why?”
“Because of Rebecca, of course.”
Her daughter snorted.
“And you came back because?”
“She got sick, A-hole,” Rebecca cut in. “Why do you think?”
“Shhh! We don’t need that kind of language.”
“But he is. He’s the guy who dumped you, right?” With a surly snort, she stared at Lucas as if he were the worst kind of snake. “You dumped Mom when she was pregnant and took up with that skank Bernadette Alsace!”
“Pregnant? Then?” he said, and mentally did the math. “Wait a second, how old are you?”
“Almost nineteen. That’s right, Sherlock. I could be your fuckin’ daughter.”
“Rebecca, stop that!” Elle dissolved into a coughing fit, and Rebecca, who had been standing near the door, was at her side in an instant, offering water and tissues and swearing under her breath. “You need to be in a hospital.” She looked over her shoulder at Lucas. “Maybe you can talk some sense into her.”
“They’ll just put me in some kind of nursing facility.” To Lucas she said, “Stage four. Terminal. Nothing they can do, and I don’t want to be trapped in a room that isn’t my own, probably with some terminal roommate.” The coughing subsided and she dabbed at her lips with a tissue. “I’m fine here,” she assured him. “And it’s where I want to be.”
“Stubborn old thing,” Rebecca muttered, but she said it with fondness. To Lucas, her attitude was still bristly. “I said, you ‘could’ be my father. I know all the history, but you’re lucky. You’re off the hook. You’re not my daddy. Just my fuckin’ brother.”
“Your what?” The girl had to be yanking his chain, but she looked dead serious and satisfied to have delivered the news to him. “Brother, but . . .” The dawning was like being thrown into a frigid cave, a jolt so severe, every muscle in his body tensed.
“Oh, Lord,” Elle said.
“What’s she talking about? Her brother?” But he guessed the truth and felt sick inside. “Jeremiah? You were—?”
“It was payback. To Naomi. For being with you.”
YOU WILL PAY.
The message cut through his brain.
Rebecca said, “This is one fucked-up family. Literally.”
“But you . . .” Lucas said, staring at Elle. “You went along with it? Or did he—?”
“What? Rape me? Oh, no!” She was vehement in her denial, her head scratching against the pillow as she shook her head. “No, no, it was nothing like that. Believe it or not, Lucas, your father, he always liked me. He was nice to me. Kind. Told me I was beautiful and that you were a fool. It was what I wanted to hear.” Sighing loudly, she stared at the fire. “I guess I thought I would get a little payback myself, against you, but it didn’t turn out that way. And then . . . As I was thinking I’d made a horrendous mistake, that my life was over anyway and I might as well end it, I went up to Suicide Ridge.”
“You jumped into the ocean and survived?”
“Not quite,” she admitted. “I wasn’t alone on that ridge.” She shivered. “I was pushed off, by the very man to whom I’d turned. The man who had been so kind, so nice.”
“Jeremiah?” he whispered, and nearly threw up.
She closed her eyes. “He . . . He wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of being a father again, the scandal and all, you know. And things weren’t great with Naomi; he couldn’t give her any reason that would make her appear the victim if they divorced. So I ended up in the ocean and when I didn’t die, when I didn’t drown and hypothermia didn’t get me, I washed up near Arch Cape.” She stared into the fire, as if reliving those harrowing moments, as if she were in another place and another time. “I stole some dry clothes from a dryer on a back porch and tried to figure out my life. The next night I thought I’d return to the camp to confront Jeremiah and you, to tell everyone the truth.”
“And that’s when you were seen,” he said.
“I guess. I didn’t know it at the time, but I heard about it later.” She brushed a strand of wheat-blond hair from her eyes. “I thought better of the idea, decided I needed to start a new life. My father . . . he would have killed Jeremiah and probably shunned me if he’d found out. The situation would have been intolerable.” She frowned slightly. “I guess I was a coward.” She coughed again, then cleared her throat. “I hitchhiked to Portland, hooked up with some people who knew how to keep their mouths shut, and decided to keep my baby. It’s been Rebecca and me ever since.”
“But your mother knows?” he said.
“Now.” She t
urned away from the fire to look at him, her eyes pained. “Because I got sick. I had to come back and she promised she’d keep my secret because of the life insurance she and Dad had taken out on me. The benefit had been paid long ago, and it seemed impossible for her to return it. The money was long gone.”
“But still . . .”
“It’s what we all decided.”
“So what’s with the haunting?”
“Naomi’s idea,” Elle said.
He tried to put the pieces together in his mind. “Naomi?”
“She saw Rebecca one day, noticed the resemblance, and got suspicious. Like you did today, she followed Rebecca here. She’d been pissed at me when she’d found out that her husband and I had been involved in an affair, but over time, she’d let it go. Probably because she was divorcing Jeremiah anyway. It wasn’t like I was the first person he screwed around with, and I certainly wasn’t the last. Naomi herself knew all about that,” Elle added. “Right? I mean, she knew from the other side of the coin what it was like to be the other woman. Wasn’t she involved with your father while he was still married to Isabelle?”
“Yes,” he said, remembering his mother.
Elle nodded. “Anyway, it was Naomi’s idea to have Rebecca ‘haunt’ the town and especially Jeremiah. You know, to mess with him. With his head. By that time they were split, and she thought he was screwing her over in the divorce by holding on to the property her father had owned.”
“He was.”
“Rebecca agreed. Thought it was fitting, I guess. Maybe it was her way of getting some of his attention, the daughter he never wanted.” She sighed, the flames of the fire reflecting on her even features. “So, she was in.”
“Served the old bastard right,” Rebecca said, her mouth pinching at the thought of her old man. His old man. “I need a smoke.”
“Don’t! Honey—” But the girl was out the door before Elle could put up any kind of argument. Through a window facing the porch, Lucas watched as she lit up and drew deeply. Another half sister, he thought, like Leah. All of them were fathered by the same son of a bitch.
Leah.
He cringed inwardly at the thought of how his sister was going to react to the news of her parents’ involvement in the scandal. Then again, she was used to it, had suffered through their divorce and heard the ugly accusations and heated arguments between Jeremiah and Naomi for most of her adolescence and all of her adult life.
“You have to testify, Elle,” Lucas said, turning back to the woman he’d once thought he’d loved. “About Jeremiah trying to kill you.”
“Too late.” She shook her head and glanced up at him. “What good would it do?”
“It’s the truth. Justice.”
Her smile was weak. “I wouldn’t make it to the trial. The doctors are giving me weeks, Lucas. Not months and certainly not years.” Clearing her throat, she said, “No, Jeremiah will have to deal with his Maker when his own time comes. God will be his judge.”
“But you can’t let him get away with it!”
“Nothing I can do. Really. You have to accept that.”
The fire popped and hissed, the smell of wood smoke heavy in the air, and Lucas wanted to rant and rail, to shake her, to somehow convince her to stand up and fight, but as he saw the pain in her eyes, noticed how gaunt she was, he couldn’t do anything more than apologize.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “For my part in this.”
She waved him away. “You were a teenage boy. You fell in love with me, until Bernadette came along. As for Naomi, that . . . well, I won’t lie. That’s messed up, Lucas. Really messed up. Your own stepmother? Because she was hot? Sexy? Or to get back at your dad?”
“I don’t know.”
Her lips twisted a little. “I suggest deep psychological counseling.” Then she laughed and the laughter turned into a coughing fit. She doubled over and scrabbled for a tissue. He handed her the box and felt like hell.
“You need to see a doctor.”
“Trust me, I’ve seen more than any person should,” she said, finally taking a deep breath. “Just do one thing for me, okay?” she asked, and he was already nodding, guilt for how he’d treated her and guilt for surviving and being healthy while she was so obviously ill, convincing him not to ask what she wanted. She continued. “Tell me you’ll help look after Rebecca when I’m gone. Mom’s agreed, but she’s older and . . .” She started coughing again, doubling over in spasms.
That was it! She was too ill to make any decisions on her own. “You’re going to a hospital. Right now.”
“What? Oh, no, no, no! Lucas, please don’t . . .” But he was already dialing 9-1-1 when Rebecca, smelling of tobacco smoke, returned.
“What’s the address here?” he demanded as his call connected, and Rebecca rattled it off automatically, her anger dissolving as she saw her mother struggling to breathe.
“Are you okay?” she asked anxiously, kneeling at her mother’s side, taking hold of one bony hand. “Mom?”
“Of course she’s not okay! Look at her.” He hung up. “An ambulance is on its way. Ten, maybe twelve minutes.” He wished it would arrive faster.
Rebecca was still rubbing the back of her mother’s hand with her thumb. “She’ll just discharge herself. She’s done it before.”
“Fine, but she’s going. Now.” He’d had it with pussyfooting around. “And you,” he said, changing the subject abruptly. “You want to tell me why you dressed up and laid in a coffin for Naomi to take a picture?”
“She paid me a thousand bucks,” Rebecca said, her eyes flashing as she straightened and let go of her mother’s hand. “I thought it would be fun. Y’know? A kick.”
“A kick?” Lucas repeated, and shook his head as he kept one eye on Elle, who had settled back against her pillows, some of the fight knocked out of her. “And you’ve been ‘haunting’ the area, right? Tore your dress at Crown Creek?” He was anxious, needed answers. Wished to high heaven the ambulance would appear.
“Stepped on a damned berry vine, ripped the dress, and cut my ankle. How’d you know?”
“Honed powers of detection,” he said sarcastically. She was starting to piss him off.
“Yeah, sure.”
Maybe he should cut her a break, but he couldn’t stand the thought of Elle lying here, dying by inches, while her daughter at Naomi’s prodding was getting her jollies by scaring the townspeople and visitors. For what? So that Naomi could exact some sort of revenge against Jeremiah? So that Elle could? Hell, so that Rebecca herself could?
Where the hell was the ambulance? Elle was lying peacefully now, her eyes closed, her breathing regular, but she needed medical attention and a clean environment, not this smoky, drafty cabin.
His phone chirped and he saw the number for the station appear on his screen. “Just a sec,” he said, and stepped away from the couch as he answered. “This is Detective Dalton.”
“We’ve got a situation,” a dispatcher told him. “Nine-one-one just took a call from Bernadette Warden, who claims she’s at a local camp near Cape Horseshoe. She says a woman identified as Naomi Dalton is shooting at her and her sister, Annette Alsace. Deputies are responding.”
Shooting? His heart nose-dived. Bernadette? Naomi? “I’m on my way!” he said, fear galvanizing him. He spun on his heel and ordered, “Stay with your mother.”
“Why? What’s going on?” Rebecca demanded as he flew through the door. “Lucas!” she said, following him. “What is it?”
“All hell’s breaking loose!”
He took off at a dead run down the lane and through the trees to his Jeep. Once behind the wheel, he flipped on the ignition and hit the gas, reversing until he found a spot wide enough to turn around. He cranked on the wheel and floored it. Tires spinning in the mud, the Jeep fishtailed, then straightened.
Daylight was stealing through the forest, seconds ticking off. What the hell were Bernadette and Annette doing at the camp? Why was Naomi shooting at them? Nothing was making sense,
no matter how he analyzed it.
He was twenty minutes away, maybe thirty.
Too long for any kind of gun play.
“Son of a bitch,” he growled, punching the accelerator and driving like a madman. He had to get there. Fast. But deep in his heart he feared that he was already too late.
CHAPTER 43
Camp Horseshoe
Now
Bernadette
Noooo!
Through the trees Bernadette watched Annette fall, her body convulse as she hit the ground.
Naomi was stalking her, pistol trained on Annette’s unmoving body, ready to kill her if the first bullet hadn’t taken her life.
No, no, no!
Bernadette couldn’t let the monster murder her sister! Annette could already be dead, but there was a chance she was still alive.
“Stop!” Bernadette yelled, showing herself, her fingers clenched around the wet stone. Naomi’s head snapped to attention and, spying the older Alsace sister, she turned the gun on a new target.
A slow, wicked smile crept across her face, changing what had once been a beautiful visage to something evil and sick. “So there you are. Willing to give yourself up for your sister?” She kept walking toward Annette’s body, though she kept the gun trained on Bernadette, who was twenty yards away. As she passed Annette, she gave the unmoving body a kick in the ribs and there was no scream of protest, no response whatsoever. “Such heroics.”
Bernadette’s heart sank. Her sister was probably dead. She blinked against an onslaught of tears. How had it come to this?
“You know, I should shoot you right now and then finish off your sister if she isn’t already trying to break past Saint Peter at the pearly gates.” With a quick glance at Annette’s body, she frowned. “Probably a waste of a good bullet, though.” Emotionless, she said, “But I don’t think I can carry you both back to the hall.” As if that were her largest problem right now. Not Annette’s life-or-death situation, not whether or not to kill Bernadette, but how to pack out a body. “So you”—she waggled her gun at Bernadette—“you do the work for me. And drop that pathetic rock. You’re not going to hit me with it.”