by Jen Blood
“So, your ex was…?” He studied me. I tensed. “…Twenty—no, maybe seventeen, eighteen years older than you?”
I backed away from him. He stopped me, his eyes holding me as surely as his hands.
“You like powerful men,” he said. “Crave them, even. They’re in control or you are—and if you are, you’re not with them long.” He bit his lip, his forehead furrowed like he was working a complex math problem. If two trains leave Boston at the same time and one is traveling at sixty miles an hour and the other at forty, the wind is coming from the west and x is equal to 42.6, what makes Erin Solomon tick?
“Am I wrong?” he asked.
“I’ve never really thought about it,” I lied. My voice sounded colder than I’d intended.
I started to sit up, but Juarez wouldn’t let me go. He pushed me onto my back and an instant later was on top of me, his body pinning me to the mattress. His eyes bore into mine, his hands loose at my wrists. A vision of the attack on the island flashed through my mind.
“Get off me,” I said.
He didn’t move. His eyes had taken on that darkness again, a hint of the sadness I’d seen earlier.
“Is this the kind of power you like?” he asked, his breath hot in my ear. “Someone who takes what he wants, keeps things simple?”
I tipped my head up, intending to bite or head butt or…something. He kissed me, his tongue pressing past my lips without invitation. I wanted to be offended, repulsed. Terrified. Instead, my legs came up and wrapped around his thighs, my feet at the backs of his knees. He rolled so that I was on top again, and pushed the hair back from my forehead as he kissed me more slowly.
“I don’t like simple,” he whispered.
I had no answer for that.
I was afraid he was about to start talking again, but instead he turned his attention to my shoulder, then lower. His teeth grazed a sweet spot on my collarbone while I tried to divest both of us of our underwear at the same time—not that successfully. Mine were tangled at my ankles and his had him bound at the knees, but neither of us seemed interested in parting long enough to finish disrobing.
And then, the phone rang.
“Shit,” I said. “One minute—I just need one more minute.” I made no effort to keep the desperation from my voice.
Juarez managed a strained laugh. “Trust me, we’re gonna need more than one minute. I’m sorry.” He looked so sorry, in fact, that I thought he might cry. I thought I might join him.
I rolled off his body and pulled my underpants back up, while he went to retrieve his phone. He pulled on his boxers and answered with a hushed, “Juarez here.”
He straightened when he heard whoever was on the other end of the line, then went to the other room with an apologetic glance my way, gathering the rest of his clothes under his arm. I gave him what I considered a respectful amount of privacy—maybe forty-five seconds—before I followed him with the sheet wrapped around me.
The storm hadn’t let up while Juarez and I had been getting to know each other in the other room. The lights flickered as a gust of wind rocked the house and rain battered the windows. Einstein got up from his spot by the fire, whimpering now that I’d chosen to rejoin him. Jack stood at the fireplace with his shirt off and his jeans unbuttoned, his hand running distractedly through his hair as he listened to the caller.
“Listen to me,” he said. His voice was even, but there was no mistaking his anxiety. “You need to calm down. It doesn’t matter what happened—it doesn’t matter what you did. We can handle this.”
I touched his side. His arm came around me with an ease I found disconcerting.
“Matt?” I mouthed.
He nodded. “Just tell me where you are and I’ll come get you.”
Matt’s voice rose, loud enough for me to hear him shouting, though not clear enough to make out the words. Jack turned his back to me.
“Nothing will happen—everybody’s safe. I’m safe, Matt. You don’t need to protect anyone anymore. You just need to tell me where you are.”
The call went on like that for another ten minutes, Juarez alternately soothing and pleading, before he finally stopped talking mid-sentence and the call disconnected. For a few seconds, he didn’t say anything—just stood at the fireplace, still half-dressed.
“Where is he?”
“He wouldn’t say.” He ran a hand through his hair, his eyes wide and weary. “He didn’t sound good, though.”
“Do you think he’s dangerous?”
“To himself—absolutely. To others…I don’t know anymore. Maybe.” He took a step back. I handed him his jacket, already aware of what came next.
“You should go,” I said. “I can give Finnegan a call over at the sheriff’s office if you want, let him know you talked to Matt. That you’re still looking for him. But if you have any idea where he might be…”
He nodded. I expected distance from him—that inevitable, mumbled apology and the awkward after-kiss before we parted ways. Instead, we walked to the doorway of Diggs’ house with the rain pouring down, me still clad in only a sheet, Juarez exhausted and disheveled and surprisingly sweet, by my side.
“I’ll call you as soon as I find out anything,” he said.
He kissed me again. Whispered ‘thank you’ in my ear—presumably for all the sex we hadn’t had—and left. Einstein and I remained in the doorway, watching his taillights disappear into the night.
Chapter Twenty-Five
It was three a.m. when Juarez left, and I couldn’t sleep. I considered calling Diggs but refrained, afraid he might be trying to get some rest himself. I flipped the light switch in my bedroom. The bed was neatly made, everything on my nightstand at perfect right angles. I went over the events of the past forty-eight hours, lingering on the things I’d discovered at Noel Hammond’s house and then out on the island.
It may not have been my father who had been living in his old cabin, but someone had clearly been there recently. The same someone who had attacked me and killed Hammond? If it was, then it stood to reason that Hammond had figured out who that someone was—which was why he was dead. The fact that I was still clueless about who the bad guys were in this unfolding drama had presumably saved me up to this point.
For the first time since Hammond’s death, I remembered the notes and clippings I’d taken from his house. I went to the closet and felt blindly along the top shelf for the shoebox I’d hidden Hammond’s research in.
It wasn’t there.
I’d been rushed and in a panic when I’d returned from the island with Juarez the night of the fire. Despite that, I’d still taken the time to hide Hammond’s research, aware of how critical what I might find in those faded notes might be. Shoe box, top shelf. There was no question in my mind.
I did a perfunctory search of the rest of the bedroom anyway, though I knew I wouldn’t find what I was looking for. When that was done, I retrieved my cell phone from Juarez’s bedroom floor. Dawn was still hours away—anyone in their right mind would be sound asleep at this hour—including the woman who, I was sure, had taken the shoebox filled with Hammond’s research with her when she high-tailed it out of Littlehope just a few hours before.
Frankly, I wasn’t at all concerned about interrupting my mother’s beauty sleep.
Kat’s cell phone went straight to voicemail. I tried her house phone, and got the same result after six rings. An answering service picked up when I called her office. I left messages of varying degrees of urgency at each number. I considered getting in the car and driving to Portland. I’d track her down, give her holy hell for going through my room, and force her to give me back my stuff. And then, I’d demand to know why the hell she’d taken it in the first place.
Portland was two hours away, though. There was a typhoon raging outside, and I didn’t want to go anywhere until I’d heard back from Juarez. There wasn’t a lot I could do for him, I knew, but I still wanted to at least be there to find out how things with Matt resolved themselves.
/> Matt. I thought again of the most plausible scenario I’d come up with so far, given everything I knew about the Paysons now: Matt and Ashmont, about to kidnap Rebecca and take her away from the island. When Isaac found out, he…what? Decided to make a clean break from the church by killing everyone in the congregation, so he could be with Rebecca? That made no sense.
But then, there wasn’t a whole lot about this that did make sense. Who was the man who chased Dad and me on the island that day? What was the secret Rebecca had been holding over my father’s head? And why was her rosary in Isaac Payson’s bedroom twenty-two years after the fire that had killed them both? I thought again of everything I’d learned about Rebecca and Zion Ashmont, including Rebecca’s apparent compulsion to sleep with every man of the cloth who crossed her path. Their remains had never been found.
Joe Ashmont had known they were out there; Reverend Diggins had known they were out there. Edie Woolrich had told me she’d gone out to the island to tend to Rebecca and Zion over the years, presumably providing medical care of some kind. Which meant they must have had some kind of medical documentation, right?
If it was general knowledge that they were out there, and medical records had been available, why hadn’t anyone been able to identify their bodies with the rest of the victims in the Payson fire?
I thought about Zion Ashmont for a minute.
Rebecca had been Native American, Edie had said. Dark-skinned. Zion was born in ’77.
“I was only seventeen—two years older than you…” Juarez had said.
Jack Juarez, a teenager with no memories of his childhood, whose life changed abruptly when a stranger from Maine showed up and became his mentor. His friend. Uncle Matt.
I went to Juarez’s room with my heart hammering so hard my teeth rattled. The cardboard boxes I’d noticed the day before were still there, pushed up against the wall and sealed with duct tape. I used my fingernails to open them, too impatient to look for a knife. Someone else might have felt guilty, may have had some stab of conscience at such a blatant violation of personal space. I had none.
The first box was filled with books, DVDs, and a few CDs that made me wince. I expected they were things Matt had been hanging onto for Juarez for a while. Einstein eyed me accusingly from Juarez’s bed, where he’d hunkered down among blankets still tangled from Jack’s and my thwarted tryst. I ignored him and went for the second box.
A handmade afghan was on top, with a couple of cracked knickknacks beneath—salt and pepper shaker policemen that I was sure must have belonged to Matt; a crudely carved dolphin with JJ and the year—1993—on the tail. There was a small stack of letters that I looked at but didn’t read, all of them addressed to Matt. Jack’s name and a Miami address were in the upper left corner. I was just starting to feel guilty for the breach of trust when I caught a glimpse of what looked like a feather, half-hidden in an old tapestry I hadn’t bothered to take out.
I moved the fabric aside.
Everything stopped.
One feather became several, stitched together to form one of two delicate wings. Placed carefully in the tapestry to keep it safe, a Payson angel stared up at me with piercing, china-blue eyes.
◊◊◊◊◊
The rain was still falling and the wind was still blowing when I left the house that morning. Einstein stayed out just long enough to do his thing before he leapt into the car, settling in the backseat without complaint. It was six a.m. Kat had probably been asleep when I’d called before, but I had no doubt she’d be up now. I tried every contact I had for her, yet again. Yet again, I had no luck.
Reverend Diggins had always been an early riser—I was thrilled to see that that hadn’t changed over the years. When I pulled in front of the church, his PT Cruiser was the only vehicle in the lot. Across the street, the general store was already in full swing. Pickups were packed in tight, fishermen in yellow slickers loitering outside with cigarettes and hot coffee. It looked like a casting call for the next Gorton’s fish sticks spokesman. I searched the crowd for a sign of Ashmont or his truck, but saw neither.
If possible, the Reverend looked even less enthusiastic about seeing me today than he had on our first visit. His office was chilly. Reverend Diggins looked up from his desk with a frown when I entered, and the temperature dropped another degree or two.
“I know it’s early—I just had a couple more questions, if it’s all right.”
He nodded to the same chair I’d argued with him from two days ago. I sat. There was a ledger open on his desk, a silver fountain pen on top. He put the pen in a felt case and closed the ledger before addressing me.
“I’m glad that you came, actually,” he said, surprisingly enough. “I’m afraid I was a bit harsh with you the other day.”
“It happens.”
He actually looked amused at that. “I imagine it does. What can I help you with this morning?”
“I thought you might have some old pictures here. Of picnics and special events, that kind of thing.”
“Still interested in Rebecca Ashmont, I take it?”
“I’m just curious about her—she caused quite a stir. When I’m writing her for the book, I’d like to have a picture of some kind in my mind.”
“You should be careful—you’re developing a bit of an obsession.”
I looked at him, reminded inexplicably of those old Victorian paintings where the faces remain impassive while the eyes seem to follow your every move.
“I don’t think I’d be the first person obsessed with Rebecca, do you?”
“She was an unusual woman. She certainly had an effect on the people she touched, if that’s what you mean.”
“And did she ever touch you, Reverend?”
The words were out before I could stop myself. The Reverend stiffened. Rather than dignify the remark with a response, he stood and went to a bookshelf on the back wall. He ran a bony finger over the spines until he came to a thick, leather-bound volume.
“This covers the years she was here—you can start with that.”
He returned to his desk and opened his ledger once more as I took the album and flipped through. I found what I was looking for after a few minutes of scanning faces and captions. I turned the album so the Reverend could see.
“That’s her?”
He nodded, but I couldn’t read his expression.
In the first photo of her, a woman with thick, black hair was seated at a picnic table by the water, a single braid hanging loose over one shoulder. Her face was heart-shaped, with high cheekbones and full lips. Thickly lashed, wide black eyes stared back at me. In the first few shots, Rebecca was svelte, with long legs and slim hips. In the next set, she’d gained weight, thickening around the middle, her breasts perceptibly fuller.
“She was pregnant while she was here,” I said.
“Was she? It was quite a few years ago—I’m afraid I don’t remember it that well.”
I let that go for the moment. When I flipped the page, Rebecca stood in front of the church. Something had changed about her since her last photograph. It was her eyes—there was something otherworldly about them that I hadn’t seen before, like she wasn’t quite all there. She held a toddler in her arms—a little boy, maybe two years old. He was dark like his mother, with thick black hair and wide black eyes. I thought again of the blue-eyed angel hidden in Jack’s things.
“Do you remember her son at all?”
He shook his head, too fast to have actually given the question any real thought. “No. Rebecca had left the church some time before that photo was taken—she came back to the mainland for a picnic, if memory serves. Before that, I hadn’t seen the boy since he was an infant. I never saw him again after that day.”
He got up again and returned the photo album to its spot on the shelf. Afterward, he headed straight for the door.
“I’m sorry—that’s all I can tell you about the matter. If you’ll excuse me, I have morning devotionals to attend to.”
I rose
without a fight. At the door, I couldn’t resist getting in a final question.
“Did you know Joe Ashmont didn’t think he was the boy’s father?”
He wasn’t surprised. “I seem to recall rumors to that effect.”
“Any idea who it might have been if it wasn’t Joe?”
Much to my surprise, he smiled at me. “Subtlety is not your strong suit, Ms. Solomon. Are you asking if I fathered the child?”
The fact that he was laughing at me took a little of the bite from my interrogation. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
We were still sequestered in his office, but the Reverend looked at the door as though confirming that fact. He returned to his desk and sat down. I remained standing.
“I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell my son,” he said.
“Of course,” I lied.
“It would not have been impossible for me to have been the child’s father,” he said.
“So, you had an affair with Rebecca Ashmont,” I said.
He looked a little queasy. When he looked at me again, I was reminded that I was speaking with a scholar of some repute, and not just some Bible-thumping hick. I made a mental note to handle the rest of the interview accordingly.
“I am not unaware of the feelings you and my son harbor toward organized religion. I understand that you find our practices archaic, if not overtly hypocritical. But I take my position very seriously. I always have.”
“Which is why you slept with one of your congregation, possibly knocked her up, and then sent her back to her abusive husband, I suppose.”
Any trace of amusement vanished from his face. After a few seconds, he managed a placid smile.
“I take full responsibility for my actions. I was under no spell, and I certainly was not under duress.”
He paused, considering his words. “With that said, I would like you to understand that Rebecca was an extremely persuasive young woman who believed herself to be fulfilling a very specific role.”