“I was worried about you,” said Jacqueline.
“I'm sorry, Jac. Really. How are you?”
“Feeling good. I've lost ten pounds and I look great. Isn't that awful?”
Madeleine laughed. “I know what you mean.”
“How are things out there? How are the kitties?”
“Not so good.” Madeleine exhaled and told her what had happened with Dale Russell and the Tanners.
Jacqueline was shocked. “I can't believe the man could be such a monster. You think he actually sicced the dog on the kittens?”
“I believe he intentionally let the dog off the leash when he saw the kittens in the yard.”
“Manny is going to be upset. He's been buying flea collars and catnip to bring out this weekend.”
“We still have the black kitten.”
“You know, I have a problem seeing Dale Russell get snippy over a few perch.”
“So did I.”
“Are you sure he wasn't joking?”
“If you had seen him you'd know.”
“Guess you're really making lots of friends out there, Mad. So far you've alienated Renard, Russell, and now the dirt-diggers.”
Madeleine sucked in her breath and went still. Her grip on the phone suddenly tightened.
“It was a joke,” said Jacqueline.
“I don't think it was,” Madeleine said.
“You have to admit you aren't exactly the friendly sort.”
Madeleine's nostrils flared. “What does that mean?”
“It means you don't get along with people, Madeleine. But you expect them to get along with you.”
“Are you forgetting Denise and Tim Lansky?”
“No. But they were transitory and your effort wasn't a sustained one. I think that's why you failed at teaching, because you've spent your life studying people, but you just don't seem to like them very much. They always let you down, don't they?”
Through clenched teeth, Madeleine said, “You don't know what you're talking about.”
“Maybe I do, maybe I don't. You've had a thing about weakness ever since I can remember. Sam Craven was anything but weak, but once he proved human you couldn't help but let your disappointment show. You helped drag him down and you know it.”
Madeleine's jaw went hard. “Jacqueline, don't say any more.”
“Does it hurt, Madeleine? Good. This conversation has been long overdue. Someone needed to tell you just how hard you are on people. You love invincibility, but no one is invincible, Madeleine. No one.”
“I know that.”
“You don't. Why haven't you spoken to our father in over two years? I know why. Because after his heart attack he kept right on smoking and eating and drinking and doing everything you and the surgeon general told him not to do. You couldn't make him care about his health, and now he disgusts you. He let you down by being human. By being weak.”
“I don't have to stand by and watch him kill himself,” said Madeleine, and the moment she said it she knew Jacqueline would pounce.
“The way you stood by and watched Sam? We all saw it, Madeleine. We all saw the way you treated him. I was ashamed, but I thought I understood. Now I'm not so sure. If you didn't love Sam Craven, then you've never loved anyone. You may not even be capable.”
“You're wrong,” said Madeleine. She was capable. She was more than capable.
“I hope so, Madeleine,” said Jacqueline. “Otherwise you're destined for a long and lonely life.”
Madeleine was silent a moment. Then she swallowed and said, “Now that you've got all this off your chest, should I be looking for alternative living arrangements?”
“No,” said Jacqueline. “Don't you dare. I'm your sister and I should be able to say awful truths to you without driving you away from me. You stay right there and get mad at me Friday if you have to, slap me, spit at me or poison my daiquiri, but don't leave. If you go now I'll never hear from you again. I know how you are. I'm sorry if I've hurt you, Madeleine, but I couldn't hold it in anymore. Just promise me you won't take off.”
“I can't promise. All the arrows you've flung haven't reached bone yet. I can't say what will happen when they do.”
“I'm not hanging up this phone until you promise. I swear it. I'll stay here until midnight if I have to.”
“I promise,” said Madeleine.
“You're lying,” Jacqueline charged. Madeleine rolled her eyes.
“I have no choice but to stay, Jacqueline. You know it, and I know it.”
“All right. Speaking along those lines, have you heard word from any of the people you wrote to?”
“Nothing yet, but I haven't given up hope. I'm sure there's something out there just perfect for a selfish, weakness-hating misanthrope like me ... providing I can fool anyone into thinking I like them long enough to get a job.”
Jacqueline snorted. “How did I know that was coming?” When Madeleine said nothing, she sighed. “You know I love you, Madeleine. I know you love me too.”
“I thought I wasn't capable?”
“I'm the exception,” said Jacqueline. “Right?”
“Yes,” Madeleine told her. “And I promise I'm not going anywhere. All right?”
“All right. We'll see you on Friday.”
“Okay.”
They said goodbye and Madeleine slowly replaced the receiver on the cradle, hurt beyond words by everything her younger sister had said to her. She wasn't the person Jacqueline had described. She wasn't so shallow, or so cruel.
She loved strength in people, yes, but she didn't judge their worth using strength as a basis. She knew people were fallible and prey to all sorts of weaknesses.
And she had been getting along just fine with everyone until Russell decided he couldn't take no for an answer, and until Sherman Tanner decided to put her in her place. It wasn't any of Jacqueline's business to know how she was getting along with Eris Renard. Madeleine didn't know why she felt that way, but she did. She didn't want to share any part of him yet, not even to talk about him with her sister.
Still she had a lot to think about that day, her mind returning again and again to all Jacqueline had said. The business about their father was true. Madeleine became so frustrated with him it was impossible for her to maintain contact. She could not imagine caring so little about life and one's own body, particularly after her father had watched his own mother die of emphysema and stood helplessly by as a stroke left his father completely paralyzed. The old man had been sent to a home for stroke victims, where he eventually succeeded in starving himself to death.
The sympathy she felt for her grandparents was heartfelt. Little knowledge about diet and health had been available to them. Her father, on the other hand, had been bombarded with the consequences of his actions for the last few decades and knew exactly what he was doing to his body and what medical lengths would be required should he succumb to illness. Still he was unwilling even to try and live healthy, if only for the sake of their mother. If anyone was selfish, Madeleine thought, it was him.
But then Jacqueline had always been Daddy's girl, not Madeleine, and since Jacqueline worked in the medical profession and was married to a doctor her father probably figured all his bases were covered in the care department.
Madeleine was nobody's girl. She usually found herself standing slightly apart from the others, an observer rather than a participant. She begrudged Jacqueline none of the pampering and attention she received, because Madeleine did not want it. She did not require any such attention and found it only too easy to separate herself from the people who had raised her. She did not miss her parents the way Jacqueline did.
She thought she might miss Jacqueline, if she were gone. A sister was different.
And Jacqueline was special, much more open and giving than Madeleine, warmer, more loving and affectionate. She gave and received so easily, causing envy in Madeleine's breast more than once in her life.
But she was still wrong about Sam.
Madeleine had given him every chance. She had taken everything on her own shoulders and waited patiently for him to recover himself, to show an ounce of initiative and the drive she had believed he possessed. How much more had she been expected to give to a man she wasn't certain she loved to begin with?
You may not even be capable.
Madeleine closed her eyes and let her head fall forward onto her hands as she sat at the kitchen counter.
There was a sharp pain in her middle as she thought of Eris. It intensified when she thought of him smiling at her, or touching her. She had never felt that with Sam. She had never felt anything but mild sexual arousal, nothing like what she experienced when Eris touched her. Nothing in her life even came close, not the anxiety-filled experimentations with a crude high school date, not the hot, hurried fumbling of a college boyfriend, and not the perfect Sam, with his smooth sexual expertise. No one had touched her as deeply as Eris, with his quaking limbs and unpracticed skills as a lover.
Even her natural modesty was overcome when he placed his hands on her. She did not automatically cower under a sheet or hide behind her arms while he looked at her. She wanted him to look at her.
Her breath on the counter was as warm as her thoughts and she lifted her head to get off the stool and get something to drink when the phone rang. She reached over and plucked the receiver from its cradle, expecting to hear Jacqueline again. “Hello?”
“Is this the woman who lives in the log cabin?” asked a muffled male voice.
“Who is this?” Madeleine replied.
“Someone who's watching you. I'd be careful, living up there all alone. Anything could happen.”
“Is that you, Russell?” Madeleine demanded.
The caller hung up.
“Damn you.” Madeleine slammed the phone down, and then her brows met as she realized her lie to Jacqueline had just become truth. She put on some sandals and stalked down to the swimming beach, determined to wait and see if Dale Russell would come by as Jacqueline had once predicted.
Russell wasn't there, but Bruce Beckworth and two of his friends were on the beach, talking to some teenage girls. When Beckworth saw Madeleine he hopped over the girls and came to stand before her, forcing her to stop or go around him. She stopped.
“How's that old truck runnin’?” asked Beckworth.
“Just fine, thanks. Do you mind?”
“Do I mind what?”
“Would you please move?”
“Don't think I will. Not for a snotty little bitch like you.”
Madeleine turned on her heel and walked in the opposite direction, wondering why nothing in life could be easy. She groaned under her breath when she heard him following her, and she turned and said, “Just leave me alone. Please.”
“Don't want to,” said Beckworth, grinning at her.
She kept walking, wondering if he was bald under his cap. That might explain some of his young belligerence.
“Guess you live around here, huh?” he said behind her, and she nearly stopped again, wondering if his could possibly have been the voice on the phone.
No. He didn't even know her name, or the names of Jacqueline and Manuel. There was no way he would have the number.
Madeleine hurried her steps, and she heard him laugh and then speed up. When he gripped her by the arm and yanked her around, she was ready for him, landing a solid kick square in his crotch and shoving up on his nose with the heel of her hand. Before she could even look to see how effective she had been she was off and running, tearing up the path and not daring to look behind her.
As she passed Briar's Cove she saw the woman with the glass of tomato juice standing in her yard and watching. Madeleine ran straight to her and asked for help. The woman lifted the glass and took a sip before saying, “Get behind me. Here he comes.”
Madeleine glanced over her shoulder and saw the man in the cap, his face purple, coming after her.
“Earl Lee,” yelled the woman, her voice unaffected by the man running toward her. “Toss me that twelve gauge by the door.”
Beckworth was ten feet away from the women and closing in fast when Earl Lee opened the door and tossed out a shotgun. The woman dropped her tomato juice and had the shotgun in her hands as Beckworth skidded to a halt. Madeleine stayed well behind the woman, her chest heaving from the mad dash up the hill. She saw the woman lift the shotgun on a level with the brim of the baseball cap and heard her say, “You the one who messed with that little girl?”
Beckworth's eyes rounded. “What little girl? I ain't no—”
The shotgun lowered to point at his crotch. Over her shoulder, the woman asked Madeleine, “What do you think he was going to do with you when he caught you?”
“I don't know,” Madeleine breathed. “Hurt me.”
“Maybe we oughta hurt him.”
“Hey, goddammit,” said Beckworth. “I wasn't doin' nothin' but talkin' to this bitch when she unloads and kicks me in the balls.”
“You know him?” the woman asked Madeleine.
“No,” she said. “He accosted me once before and Officer Renard stopped him.”
‘‘You know Renard?” she asked, still holding the shotgun on Beckworth.
“Yes, I do.”
Beckworth's lip was curling. “So do I. Tell that jerkoff my fine was a big hundred dollars. Paid it out of my pocket and had dinner with the judge at my dad's house later that night.”
“Must have a little dick,” said the woman to Madeleine, and Beckworth's head jerked up to stare at her. She continued, “Men with little dicks got all kinds of things to prove to people, mainly that a little dick don't matter as long as you can beat up who you want and buy what you want.”
Beckworth opened his mouth to say something to the woman, but a look at the shotgun changed his mind. He pointed at Madeleine. “This ain't over yet. Count on it.”
He turned around then and walked down the way he had come. The woman with the shotgun started laughing, and she went on laughing even after Beckworth turned and threatened her, too.
Madeleine stared at the stout woman and saw that her amusement was genuine and that she seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed the entire exchange. Madeleine moved to extend her hand and introduce herself.
“My name is Madeleine Heron. Thank you.”
“You're welcome, Madeleine. My name is Gloria Birdy. That's my husband, Earl Lee, standing ready at the window in the house there.”
“Earl Lee Birdy?” Madeleine said, and Gloria shrugged.
“His mama had rocks in her head. She thought it was funny.”
‘‘You handled that rather well,” Madeleine had to say.
“Just like old times,” said Gloria. “Me and Earl Lee worked as corrections officers for years.”
Madeleine lifted her brows in surprise. “You were a prison guard?”
“I worked honor camps, mostly. Earl Lee worked the hot house.”
“The hot house?”
“Leavenworth. He did Lansing, too, just before he retired. We're pretty much used to walking trash you could say.”
“He didn't frighten you,” observed Madeleine.
“Not hardly,” said Gloria with a snort. “You see as many damned crybabies behind bars as I have and you tend to rethink the whole male macho thing, if you know what I mean.”
Madeleine smiled and Gloria bent to pick up her fallen glass of tomato juice. Half the juice was still in the glass.
“You see his face when I said what I did about his dick? Nailed that one, I could tell. His hands started twitching like they wanted to cover it up.” Madeleine laughed out loud, and Gloria laughed with her. “You wanna come in?”
“Yes,” said Madeleine, surprising herself. “Thank you.”
She followed Gloria inside the house and found herself being introduced to Earl Lee, who was every bit as tall as Eris, but twice as big around. The man took her hand and shook it, his huge hand surprisingly gentle.
“Have yourself some trouble down at the bay today?
” he asked, and Madeleine briefly told them both what had transpired before she rushed up the hill. While she was still thinking about it, she mentioned the disturbing phone call and saw both Gloria and Earl Lee shake their heads.
“Bad business going on at the lake this year,” said Gloria, and the conversation took off from there, with Madeleine contributing what she knew and then trading gossip back and forth about the various lake residents—chief among them, Sherman Tanner.
Gloria made a face of disgust. “Have you caught him in the graveyard yet?”
“I've seen him out there,” said Madeleine. “I wasn't sure what he was doing. I went to look the next day, but I couldn't find any overturned earth.”
“Did you find any sticky stuff decorating the markers?” asked Gloria, and Earl Lee groaned and turned away.
“Sticky stuff?” asked Madeleine, and Gloria made an obscene gesture with her hand over her crotch. Madeleine blinked. Her stomach turned.
“You're kidding.”
“Nope.”
“The man is sick. How disgusting.”
Gloria grinned. “Maybe you'll help me, Madeleine. I'm always threatening to go out there with a camera and catch him at it. Next time you see him up there, call me. I've got the right equipment. We'll get a frontal shot and post copies of it all over the park.”
It was past dark before Madeleine got up to leave, and she assured both the worried Birdys that she would run all the way home and scream at the top of her lungs if anyone threatened her.
At home she found not Eris waiting for her, but Dale Russell, and she marched onto her porch and asked him just what the hell he thought he was doing.
He got up from the step and smiled. “Whoa. I guess you haven't seen Renard. I told him to tell you I was just kidding around with you about the fish. I got a license for you and everything.”
“You weren't kidding and both of us know it. Why the sudden turnaround, Dale? What are you up to?”
He held up a hand and looked slightly annoyed. “Hey, I'm just trying to be nice here. I was doing my job, for one thing, but for the record, I was joking. Come on, Madeleine, give me a break.”
“Did you call me today?” she asked. “Was that another joke?”
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