In the Waning Light

by Loreth Anne White

  “I did. Day after you left. Served as an army medic. Several tours. Long, long tours.” A smile creased his face, putting dimples into his cheeks. He opened his hands, palms up. “And look at me now—here I am. Back home on the bay.”

  Wind swirled, sending the old weather vane above Crabby Jack’s squeaking against rust. The deck down in the water below groaned under a tidal surge. Lucy the Lab sighed in resignation and lay down at Blake’s boots in front of the fire. Then, his words almost a whisper, he said, “God, you look good, Meg.” He cleared his throat quickly. “I saw you on TV a couple of weeks back, on that Evening Show. And Rose Thibodeau has your new book in her storefront window. She’s going to want you to come and do a signing or something now that you’re here.” His smile deepened. It put light into his eyes. But it was surface. Because in those eyes Meg read deeper currents. Old hurts.

  It twisted her gut.

  Her gaze dipped to his forearms. They were tan, the hair on them gold. They rested on thighs thick as her waist. His legs were splayed apart, his big hands clasped together. The sight and shape of him so familiar, yet not. A strange sensation rippled hot through her, like an ache. For home, lost things. And it came with something trickier. Darker. Sexual. She swallowed, slowly lifting her gaze to meet his eyes.

  “So, what does bring you home?” he prompted.

  Home. What in the hell was home, anyway? “I came to write Sherry’s story.”

  “Sherry’s story? As in a book?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, it’s work that brings you here?” A hint of derision, disappointment, glinted in his eyes.

  She looked away, out over the bay. An osprey hit the water with a smack, surfacing with a writhing fish, droplets glittering in the sky as the bird rose with its silvery catch. “To tell you the truth, Blake,” she said slowly, watching the osprey flap off, “I don’t really know what brings me here. I just needed to come back for a while. I need to see my aunt, sort out the house. The city has been sending warnings. They’ve threatened to take action if I don’t do something.”

  “It is an eyesore.”

  “I know. I drove by last night. In the dark it looked bad enough. I can only imagine what it looks like in broad daylight.”

  “And what’s with the camper?”

  “It’s sort of my office. The plan is to park it at the old house while I fix things up: power wash the walls, put in new windows, see what the interior looks like.” She met the intensity in his eyes, and heat flushed into her cheeks. “I didn’t want to stay there alone last night. The gate is locked anyway. So … I came here.”

  He weighed her carefully with his gaze, taking a measure of her intent.

  “I don’t get it,” he said suddenly. “Why come back and dig up all that shit, just for a story? Seriously, Meg—” He looked away for a moment. “So … how do you go about this, then? You interview everyone involved? Rehash every little sordid detail?”

  “I’ll try to speak with everyone who might still be in town: Ike Kovacs, Emma, Tommy, Dave. Keevan Mack, Ty Mack’s lawyer, the ME.” She paused. “You.”

  He cursed, eyes narrowing. “No one wants to go through all that again.”

  “I need to do it, Blake. I need to walk in my own tracks, so to speak. Just driving back into town last night, into the mist, past the old landmarks, after all these years, I started to feel things. Bits of memory. Maybe something will return—more pieces.”

  “And those pieces are going to tell you what, exactly? Nothing new. We know who did it. We know who suffered.”

  “I don’t expect you to understand—”

  “The hell I don’t. Is it for the money? The additional fame or notoriety this will bring you? You want to cash in on a tragedy that was this town’s, paint yourself as some heroic little victim who pulled through all on your own? Some kid who grew out of her own tragedy and family violence to tackle crime and justice head-on, and now, wow, look at you, all grown up, fabulous and famous and self-indulgent?”

  Anger thumped into her chest. “Bitter, is that what you’ve become, Blake? Because I can tell you now, it doesn’t become you.”

  He gave a harsh snort. “So what does it feel like—to profit from the pain of others?”

  “This was my pain—”

  “No, Meg. Not just yours.”

  Silence thickened between them. Her blood pounded. The pulse at his neck pumped. His hands knitted tightly together and his eyes flicked briefly to her engagement ring. Something darker, more primal, tightened his mouth.

  “I need to do it, Blake, for me,” she said coolly, quietly. “I’m going to write it and might never publish it, but I’m going to damn well write it to The End.” Anger firmed her resolve. It drove the guilt down deep, pushing back all the complicated things she was feeling for Blake right now. Her jaw tensed and her voice lowered. “What I saw on the spit that day is still inside me. I know it’s there, repressed. And it’s like a sick black cancer that has never stopped growing. It festers. It circles my dreams. I wake up nights, hot and … it’s messing with me.” She took a beat, marshaling herself. “Forgive me if I need to try and heal it.”

  He blew out air, got up, went to the railing. He fisted his hands around the wood banister, neck muscles taut as he glared out over the bay, toward the lighthouse, toward the point where he’d found her unconscious all those years ago. Where he’d saved her life. Sun glinted on his wedding band.

  Meg’s stomach folded softly into itself as she noticed it.

  “The End,” he repeated, quietly. He turned to face her, the rays catching the gold streaks in his dense brown hair.

  “The End happened eighteen years ago, the day you left, when you ran away—”

  “I didn’t ‘run’ away. I went to start a new life, to study—”

  “You just cut us all out, not even a damn Christmas card. Not even a note for my father. Or for Kovacs, or Emma and Tommy. And yeah, I did ask them. I did wonder if they got luckier than me. And what about Irene? You never came home to see her.”

  “I used to see her at the prison, when I went to visit my—”

  “Listen to yourself.”

  She lifted her chin. “We’ve been through this, Blake. I’ve put it all behind me.”

  “Clearly, Meg, you haven’t, because look, here you are, needing to resolve something unresolved.”

  She glowered at him, her skin going hotter, her pulse jackhammering. He held her gaze like that for several long beats.

  “I just need to tell it, Blake.” Her voice caught, and it startled her. She cleared her throat, looked down at her hands. “I didn’t think I did, but I do.”

  He seated himself beside her, his muscled thigh almost touching hers. He sat silent a while. “I’m sorry.” He paused. “I … just missed you.”

  Her attention returned to his wedding band. She thought of that last kiss, and her insides turned hot and twisty.

  “You know it’s not going to go down well, your being here, doing this?” he said quietly. “No one is going to welcome it. Or you, because of it.”

  She looked up and met his eyes. His lips were so close. She recalled the scent, the taste of him like it was yesterday. “I imagine there will be questions like yours, Blake, people wanting to know why.” She cleared her throat again. “And there will probably be an initial reluctance to speak. But in my experience, from the cases I’ve done, it’s been positive for people to tell their stories. Cathartic. It’s not like anyone has anything to hide.”

  A darkness darted through his eyes, and Meg felt a sudden tremor of unease. He rubbed the stubble on his jaw, glanced out over the bay, as if struggling with something, then he smiled. But this time it seemed forced. He reached over, took her hand.

  “Welcome back, Meg. Whatever the reason—it’s good to see you.” He hesitated. “Can I fix you some breakfast, coffee?”

  She withdrew her hand and surged instantly to her feet. “I’m fine, thanks. I’ve got everything I need in my shell back t
here. I can pay for the night and be gone in an hour or so. I’ll get keys from Irene, park at the house.”

  He came to his feet and dug his hands firmly into his pockets. “I’m not accepting your cash. Could never do that. Stay as long as you want.”

  She wavered, feeling awful about leaving him like this, about all the things she wanted—needed—to say, but couldn’t. She ached with every fiber of her being to just hug him tight, bury her face into his chest, say sorry, tell him that she’d missed him, too. And in that instant Meg knew with a horrible, cold certainty that Jonah was right. There was something wrong with her, because she couldn’t do it.

  He nodded to her ring. “So, when’s the big wedding, then?”

  “I need to do this first.”

  “You mean write this book?”

  “Yes.”

  His brow hooked up.

  She changed the subject quickly. “And you—married, I see. Who?”

  “Allison McMurray.”

  “Allison from my class?”

  He nodded, his eyes shuttering. He was closing her off. She didn’t know why it hurt that he’d married sweet, gentle Allison who’d tried so hard to befriend her at school, but it did. It was ridiculous. Sometimes the kid inside never died. She had no right to jealousy or any sense of proprietorship over Blake.

  A big, rusted Dodge truck rumbled suddenly down the driveway and into the gravel lot in front of the office, a boat on a trailer in tow. It came to a stop and the truck doors swung open. Two older men outfitted in jeans with suspenders and flannel shirts clambered out.

  “Yo. Sutton,” one called out to Blake with a wave of his hand. The other positioned a ball cap onto his head.

  “I … I should let you get to it,” Meg said, watching them.

  “Yeah. Later.” And with that, he turned his back on her and walked off to meet the men. His stride was long, powerful. The movement rolled into his shoulders. A stubborn bull, like his dad. And as Meg watched, she felt torn. The shape of her world had just shifted, and she was no longer certain where her center lay.

  “Hey, Sutton, any crab bait today?”

  Blake approached his customers, two old-timers in their late sixties. “Harry, Frank, you guys are bright and early.” He opened the shop door for them. The bell chinkled as the men entered and Blake followed. From his fridge he took a bag of fish heads. “How many you want?”

  “That one bag is good.”

  Over the shoulder of Frank, who was peeling notes from his wallet, Blake watched Meg, long red hair blowing in the sea wind as she made her way back to her camper. A memory of that fateful day snaked into his mind, Sheriff Kovacs grilling him with a scary-ass intensity in his eyes.

  Harry followed Blake’s gaze. He frowned. “That looks just like—isn’t that—”

  “Meg Brogan, yeah.” Blake took Frank’s cash, put it in the till.

  “What’s she doing back?”

  “Got some ghosts to slay, I think.” Blake gave a soft snort. “Going to write a book about the Sherry Brogan murder.”

  The men paused, then exchanged a glance. A current passed between them.

  “A book? What in the hell for?” said Harry.

  “Cash in on a personal tragedy, is my bet,” grumbled Frank, picking up his bag of fish heads, the dull, dead eyes peering through the cold plastic. “I seen her on TV. She’s big shit now. Tara and Jack would turn in their graves if they knew she was going to drag all that old crap out. Won’t look good for Shelter Bay, neither, being splashed all around bookstores all over the country as the place of a gruesome killing.”

  Defensiveness rose in Blake, but he kept his yap shut.

  Frank started for the door. Harry wavered. “So, how’s she going to do it, go talking to everyone who’s still around, hauling out memory baggage from old closets?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I can tell you one person who’s gonna be really pissed. Sheriff Kovacs. That case ate him and his wife up whole. Changed the whole damn town. Never the same after that. Like an era gone.”

  “And now his boy is running for sheriff,” Frank added, pushing open the door. “Her timing sucks.”

  Blake followed the men out. He handed them crab pots, watched them go load their boat. His father’s contemporaries. Friends of the old sheriff.

  Meg was backing her rig out. Her vehicle headed up the driveway and took a left onto the coast road. Guilt, hurt, a twinge of anger filled Blake. If he hadn’t been so hung up on Meg all those years ago he might have made a better go of his marriage. He’d have a better relationship with his son. And now that he was finally on track, plans for the marina, could see his life here with Noah, here she was. Like a bad penny. Because his body still reacted to her like a teen on hormone overdrive. Or was it just knee-jerk muscle memories chasing down old neural channels before he had time to think them through? He turned to go down the gangway, telling himself to use his head next time he ran into her. If there was a next time.

  He could have handled that conversation better, that was for sure. He’d been an ass. It was self-defense and he knew it. Because he couldn’t want her. She was spoken for and sporting a big-ass diamond cluster to prove it.

  And she was wrong about one thing. There were still secrets to keep.

  “She’s able to recall the smallest details from decades ago, but can get confused by the present.” The director of the assisted living facility glanced up from the file on her desk and peered at Meg over small-rimmed glasses, as if examining something rather distasteful. And Meg supposed she was. In the eyes of everyone here she’d abandoned her aunt.

  “When her short-term memory trips her up it can make her defensive. Irene sometimes thinks people are out to fox her, or that there’s a conspiracy afoot.”

  Meg cleared her throat, feeling for all her thirty-six years and lifetime of experience like a kid in front of the school principal. “I … hadn’t realized it was so far advanced.”

  “Her dementia is heading into what we call stage four—a CDR2—moderate impairment. At the moment she manages her own hygiene,” the director said crisply. “And although she’s fine with social activities, outings, chores, she’s reached the stage where she needs to be accompanied when she does leave the facility. As she progresses into stage four, and it can happen quite rapidly, her spatial and time disorientation will increase, and it’s at this point that our loved ones can get easily lost, and when short-term memory becomes seriously impaired. It’ll be difficult for her to remember anything new, including people she’s just met.”

  “Why did no one tell me?”

  The woman, handsome, with soft silver hair swept back into a sleek chignon, regarded Meg across the expanse of her desk as a judge might stare down a petty criminal in the dock. “Irene asked that we withhold informing any relatives as long as we could, so as not to alarm you, or force you into returning prematurely.” She cleared her throat. “But it’s appropriate that you’re here now—decisions will need to be made.”

  “So I can take her out?”

  “As long as she’s signed out by a responsible adult, she’s free to leave.” The director smiled thinly as she got to her feet. “I’ll show you through.”

  Meg followed the woman and her loudly clacking heels down the overly warm corridor. The place smelled of antiseptic, and bacon and eggs and burned coffee being served for breakfast. Is this what it all came down to? A place like this? Irene had put her life on hold to care for her brother’s child. And this is where Meg had left her aunt; this is how she’d thanked her. She swore internally, and vowed she was going to make this right. She would atone. One way or another, while Irene still had time.

  Jonah’s words dogged her into the bowels of the facility.

  You haven’t even been to see Irene since she went into that home. You haven’t returned in eighteen years. You can’t put roots down here, yet you can’t go back, either. See? You have not put it behind you. This is not about your work. It’s about your pr
oblem with intimacy, with letting people in. You want connection, yet you push people away …

  Her skin prickled and a pearl of sweat slid slowly down between her breasts. The director knocked on room 117, opened the door, let Meg in.

  “If you need to talk further—”

  Meg nodded, her gaze fixed on the frail, stooped woman pacing in front of a window, scratching at her sleeve.

  “Irene?” she said, stepping into the room. The door closed quietly behind her.

  Her aunt spun around. Her jaw dropped.

  “Tara?”

  “I … no, it’s me, Megan.” She went forward.

  Irene hesitated, confusion chasing through her features. Her hand touched the silvered hair at her temples.

  “You … look just like her—your mother. My goodness. I … I didn’t expect to see you, Megan. What … are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you, of course.” She kissed her aunt’s cheek. Irene’s skin was cool, papery, but her scent was familiar—lavender, lemongrass—and it brought a rush of memories.

  Irene’s gaze darted around the room in panic. “I … I should get some chairs in here. More chairs.”

  “The bed’s just fine.” Meg seated herself on the edge of the bed. “You’ve got a pretty view of the garden. I like the birdbath right outside.”

  Irene looked out the window, as if seeing the view anew.

  Meg swallowed. The long good-bye is what Nancy Reagan called it. Today was a start. She still had time. And suddenly this was no longer just about the book, but so much more. It was about setting right all sorts of past wrongs. It was about growing up and beyond being the self-indulgent “victim” as Blake had so brutally called her this morning. And he’d had a right to do so.

  Irene finally took the lone chair. She stared at Meg. “It’s been so long,” she said in a whisper. “When did I last talk to you, Megan, how many years ago?”

  “I phoned,” Meg said gently. “Remember? At least once or twice a month since you moved in here.” She cleared her throat. “I’ve come to see how you’re doing. And I’m going to fix up the house. Give it a paint job, spruce up the garden. Maybe you’d like to come and help? Or just watch? Sit in the garden, if the weather turns, while I try and work that darn mower.” She smiled. “I see the gate is padlocked.”