What Lies Below: A Novel

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  “I wanted you to know what happened,” Warren said softly. “It’s probably nuts, but I thought it might help. That night—your husband—it was an accident. The clerk pulled a gun on me—”

  “I know.”

  “Yeah, but what you probably don’t know is that your husband stepped into the line of fire. He took a bullet for that kid. I had no idea he was going to do that. I didn’t shoot him on purpose. I wouldn’t have, not someone unarmed.”

  “That isn’t how the police say it happened. Where Brian’s body was found—”

  “I moved him. For a couple of seconds I had this idea I could hide his body, get away. Like I said, I wasn’t thinking. I never shot anybody before.” Warren’s gaze was locked on hers. “Your husband tried to save that kid’s life. It’s what I used to do, how I knew myself once.”

  Gilly couldn’t speak.

  “My life’s not worth shit now. Maggie’s gone; my kids hate me. The rest that was left, I took down myself. So I’m done, but before they lock me up, I wanted you to know the truth about that night, about your husband.”

  “Did he say anything? Brian? Before he died, did he—?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I mean he could have, I guess, but I didn’t hear—no.”

  Gilly walked to the cash register, and opening the drawer beneath it, she lifted out the revolver, a 0.357, that Captain Mackie insisted Cricket keep on the premises. It was loaded, and pulling back the hammer, she walked to where Warren was sitting and raised it until it was level with the center of his face.

  “Go ahead,” he said. “You’d be doing me a favor.”

  The moment held, and it was as if time, even the world turning on its axis, stopped. Don’t you want to take something from him? Like his life? Don’t you want to kill him? Karen’s query rattled across Gilly’s mind. Jake had expressed similar feelings, but when he’d had the opportunity, he hadn’t acted on them. Now it was within her power. An eye for an eye . . .

  And then what? The voice that was different from the monkey and Miss Two-shoes was asking. Who will feed Bailey after you go to jail? Who will make Zoe’s pancakes? Tell her silly stories? Brian wouldn’t want this, you taking revenge. The voice was shouting now. Think! You found Zoe. Your dream found her. What if there are other times, other people’s lives you could impact if you focus on the gift you’ve been given and the good you might do?

  She didn’t know if she believed in it, the good she might do. But somehow she understood she wasn’t a killer.

  Gilly lowered the gun, and disengaging the hammer, she returned the revolver to the drawer. She felt Warren’s eyes on her. She thought she sensed his disappointment. She pulled her cell phone from her apron pocket. “I’ve already given you—what you did, what you took from me—too much time, too much of my self—my soul. No more. I’ll let the justice system take over now.”

  He flattened his palms on the countertop and nodded once.

  Scrolling through her directory, she tapped the entry she needed.

  “Captain Mackie,” she said when he picked up, “could you send someone over here to the café? Warren Jester’s here, and he wants to turn himself in.”

  She was unpacking a box of dishes, the set of plain white with the gently scalloped edge that she and Brian had bought from Pottery Barn, when the doorbell rang.

  Bailey, lying at her feet, stood up and barked, looking up at her expectantly as if to say, Oh boy, company!

  She tousled his ears. “Some watchdog you are.”

  Leaving the kitchen, she wondered if it was April, or possibly Cricket at the door. They’d both been concerned for Gilly, her state of mind, when they had arrived at the café earlier to find several police cars, and Warren Jester being led to one of them in handcuffs. Cricket had insisted Gilly take the day off, go home, relax.

  But Gilly was too keyed up to relax. She felt different, less weighed down than she had in months—years, maybe. She felt free in a way that seemed distantly familiar. In her mind, it was as if she saw herself coming—back? To herself? She wasn’t sure. In the past people had spoken to her of closure. They had suggested—some had even promised—that when the man responsible for Brian’s death was caught, when justice was done, there would be closure. At least you’ll have that, they had said.

  Really? Would closure be there when she was scared? Lonely? Sick? Would it grow old with her? The questions, unasked, bitter, had stacked behind her teeth.

  What she felt now, the lightness, the tingling sensation in her veins and through her bloodstream—rather than a closing, it felt more like a sort of settling. A coming to terms.

  Acceptance. That was the word Gilly had used when she’d called her mom a bit ago to tell her that Warren was behind bars.

  “I feel as if I can accept it, that Brian and Sophie are gone,” she had said. “I know—I really understand now I can’t change it. It came over me when I held the gun on him, you know? I realized killing him wouldn’t change anything. I would still wake up every morning, breathing, alive, free or in a prison cell, and Brian and Sophie would still be dead.”

  “Yes,” her mom said. “But having him locked up will keep him from harming others.”

  If only it could have been prevented in the first place. If time could be rewound, Gilly thought, farther back than the night of Brian’s murder, to the moment before desperation drove Warren across the threshold of the first store he’d robbed, to when he’d still been a man with self-respect, a man of integrity, one who prided himself on serving others, not robbing and killing them. If someone had intervened then, stopped him, offered compassion, meaningful help for his wife and family . . .

  “He isn’t a monster,” Gilly said, and it was almost a lamentation. It would be easier if she hated him. Now she was confronted with the difficulty of finding a way to forgive him.

  “But it’s a relief he’s in jail, that he’ll go to prison, hopefully for a long time.”

  Gilly didn’t speak into the momentary pause her mother allowed for a response.

  “You left Houston to get away from the memories, the—the drama—but you ran smack into it again with that woman, the little girl who was kidnapped.” An element of protest thinned her mother’s voice. “When I think what might have happened to you—”

  “But nothing did, Mom. It’s fine—”

  “It’s the dreams, Gilly. It’s useless, I know, to tell you to stop having them, but you have got to stop talking about them. They go against the norm. People are disturbed by them—”

  “Mom?” Gilly interrupted. “Why does my dreaming bother you so much now? I can understand why it might have when I lived at home, but even then it was no reflection on you. It isn’t as if you’re any more responsible than me for what I dream.”

  Her mother sighed, and the sound seemed to convey reluctance and regret.

  Gilly waited, feeling herself on the cusp of understanding, of revelation, but it was almost as if she knew beforehand what her mother would say.

  “It’s no blessing, no gift, is it?” her mother began slowly. “From the moment you came to me the first time with the first dream—you were a little girl, no more than two or two and a half. You told me Daddy would be in a car accident that day, a fender bender. You said those exact words. I wondered where on earth you’d heard them, and not an hour later he called to say it had happened. Then I knew I’d passed it on—”

  “Passed it on?” Gilly struggled to get her mind around it. “Are you saying you dream, too? That you see things?”

  Her mom started to answer. Gilly cut her off. “All this time, all these years you’ve lectured me, cautioned me—you never once took my side when Dad criticized me, when he accused me of making it up to get attention, when he called me a freak and said I was trouble.”

  “I didn’t want you to have the stigma, Gilly. I thought I could—I don’t know—spare you? Talk you out of it? If I didn’t approve, if I treated your dreams like the curse they are—”

  “But you just said yo
u knew you couldn’t stop my dreaming.” Gilly paused. “Do you still dream? Do you see things?”

  “Your grandmother—my mother—encouraged me. She had it, too, the ability to see the future through her dreams. She said it was a gift, passed down. She didn’t know how far back it went. She said I should embrace it, but I never wanted the awful responsibility. I don’t want to know the future.”

  “You don’t have the dreams now?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Whether you have them, or the dreams themselves? Gilly might have asked, but from her mother’s tone, she knew the door was closed; there would be no further discussion.

  The silence between them lingered, becoming complicated with the number of other questions Gilly would likely never know the answers to: Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me grow up thinking I was weird? How could you pretend you didn’t understand? She felt the prickle of anger, of frustration, but it soon fizzled. What use were her feelings?

  “You aren’t coming home, are you?” her mom had finally asked.

  “No,” Gilly had said. “Houston isn’t my home. Not anymore.”

  The doorbell rang again now, and Bailey looked back at her, hurry up written all over his expression.

  “Okay, okay,” she said to him. And she was thinking if her visitor was April, she’d just get Bailey’s leash, and they would walk him to the park. But when she opened the door, the suggestion died on her tongue.

  “I hope we didn’t wake you,” Jake said.

  Gilly touched her hair at her temple, and higher up, where her messy ponytail was fastened with a rubber band she’d found in one of the boxes. She was barefaced, barefoot, and dressed in ratty cutoffs, and her heart was pounding in her regret over it. But why did she care?

  “I told Daddy we should have called.”

  Gilly looked down at Zoe, adorable in yellow shorts and a lime-green T-shirt centered with a yellow daisy. A halo of words around the flower read: YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE. Her pigtails were tied with green ribbons. Gilly was glad to see the faded blue ribbon circling her wrist. She had wondered if anyone had thought to retrieve it. Kneeling, she drew Zoe into her embrace. “I’m so happy to see you.”

  Zoe’s arms tightened around Gilly’s neck. “I told Daddy we had to come.”

  “I’m so glad.” Gilly sat back.

  “He didn’t think you would be home, but I knew you would be.”

  “Oh?”

  “Sometimes I have magic dreams, too.”

  “Really?” Gilly looked up at Jake.

  He shrugged. “Her dreams seem uncanny sometimes. I never thought about it before, but now, since everything that’s happened—”

  Gilly opened the screen. “Would you like to come in?”

  “If you feel like it. I heard what happened at the café this morning.” His glance dropped to Zoe.

  Gilly understood; they wouldn’t discuss the details while Zoe was within earshot. She said, “I’ve unpacked the rest of the glasses. I could make lemonade.”

  They went into the kitchen. Gilly introduced Zoe to Bailey, and she knelt beside the table to coo to him and rub his ears. Bailey rolled onto his back in ecstasy, making Zoe giggle. Her laughter was a tonic, a boon.

  Setting the sack of lemons on the counter, Gilly turned to look at Zoe, reveling in the sound. She exchanged a glance with Jake.

  “I should have come before now, should have at least called to tell you she was—” He stopped. “God, when I think what could have happened if it hadn’t been for you—” His voice broke. He cleared his throat.

  They looked away from each other, as if by mutual agreement.

  Gilly said, “I don’t know where the lemon press is, but I did find a pitcher.”

  Jake said, “I know how to squeeze lemons.”

  Smiling at him, giving him a look, Gilly said, “When life gives you lemons . . .”

  He hooted.

  Bailey found his ball and brought it to Zoe, and the two went into the backyard to play.

  “She looks wonderful,” Gilly said. “Back to herself. Is she?”

  “Well, she’s quit asking me so much about the lady with the scratches on her brain.”

  Gilly was at sea.

  “Zoe told me you said that’s why Karen was shooting the gun. Because her brain had scratches.”

  Gilly laughed. “I’d forgotten. I didn’t know how else to explain it so she’d understand.”

  The light of humor flared, but only briefly, in Jake’s eyes. “I’m having trouble finding an understandable way to explain about her mother. Zoe wants to know where she is, when she can see her.”

  Gilly had wondered about Stephanie, but it wasn’t her place to ask.

  “She’s still in jail,” Jake said as if he’d read the question in Gilly’s mind. “She hasn’t got bail money, and I’m not helping her this time. Maybe if she’s in there long enough, where she can’t drink and do drugs—”

  “She’ll wake up.” Gilly paused. “I did,” she added quietly.

  “That’s what I hope for.” Jake kept Gilly’s glance a long moment before turning back to his task. He squeezed the last of the lemon juice into the pitcher.

  “Stephanie wants me to bring Zoe to the jail to visit, but I can’t decide if that’s a good thing. What if it only scares her or confuses her more than she is already?”

  “Maybe if you let a little time go by, you’ll see what to do. Zoe herself might tell you. She’s a strong little girl. She has a joyfulness about her, a kind of irrepressible spirit.”

  Jake washed his hands.

  Gilly handed him a towel.

  He kept her gaze. “I’ve wanted to bring her to see you. She’s asked, but we haven’t been out anywhere, really.”

  “It’s all right.” Gilly smiled at him. She didn’t say she’d gone early to the café every Wednesday since Zoe’s rescue in anticipation of seeing her and her dad.

  He folded the towel. “Folks in town have been great, but, you know, they want to talk and talk, and the press—I don’t want Zoe exposed to it. All the questions, the gossip and speculation. At least the media seems to have finally given up. I was surprised not to see them here, after this morning.”

  “I had a little help from a detective in Houston.”

  “Carl Bowen?”

  “You know him?”

  “We met briefly at Karen’s house.”

  “Ah. Well—” Did she imagine the sardonic edge in Jake’s voice? “He called in a favor. It must have been a big one. There’ve been no reporters here.”

  Jake leaned against the countertop, close enough that Gilly could smell his aftershave, something fresh and citrusy.

  “Warren came because he wanted to explain.” Gilly spoke after a beat.

  “He just showed up?”

  “Yes. I wanted to shoot him.”

  “We talked about that, didn’t we? I thought I was the one stoked for revenge. You only wanted to forget.”

  “I know. I never imagined I was capable of taking someone’s life, or even wanting to, but for one awful, horrible moment, I could truly see it—see myself—” Gilly looked away. “It’s disturbing, knowing I have the capacity.”

  “I think everyone does in the right circumstances. If someone you love is in danger, if their life is destroyed, and yours, too, because of what they did—”

  Gilly met Jake’s gaze. “But you didn’t do what you said you would do.”

  He frowned.

  “You got the gun from Liz—Karen—that day. That’s why it went off, right? But you didn’t shoot her.”

  “It was totally unplanned. She was talking about us, the way we were all those years ago. I guess you know she was pregnant. It was our baby, and she—the baby was stillborn.”

  “It’s not something you get past easily.”

  “No. I wish I’d been a better—a better person, a stronger guy for her then.”

  “You were a kid.”

  “That’s what my mom said. Somehow
it doesn’t—maybe it’s an explanation.” Jake wiped his face. “It was rough, listening to Karen. I felt bad for her, but at the same time she had the gun, and I had no idea what she’d do. Her state of mind—”

  “But then you got the gun. You could have shot her the same as I could have shot Warren, and you didn’t.”

  “I thought of Zoe, that she would be without her mom and her dad.”

  Gilly took the pitcher of sweetened lemon juice to the sink and added water.

  “She’s talked about you every day. Miss Gilly this and Miss Gilly that.”

  She looked at Jake.

  “From the first pancake you made for her, the first fairy tale you told her, she’s talked about you. And I—I don’t mind. I like it. Even when she isn’t talking about you, I’m thinking about you.” Jake cupped her elbow, and Gilly looked at his hand there, feeling the warmth of his palm. She tried to resist it, to pretend she didn’t feel the tiny thrill run on little mouse feet up her spine.

  He raised her chin so that she had to meet his eyes. “I don’t know what this is between us, and I can feel how you don’t want it to be anything. My head is telling me the same thing. But maybe we should ignore those voices—” He paused, looking intently at her. “What?”

  Gilly knew it was the way she was smiling that made him ask. “It’s just I have quite the circus of voices in my brain.”

  “Do you?” He grinned. “So what are they saying? You think we could see where this goes? It doesn’t have to be more than we make it, right?”

  “No,” she said, and the surge of her trepidation was threaded with the crystalline lightness of new possibility.

  “Good,” he said, and she shivered slightly when he slid his palm down the length of her arm and twined his fingers with hers.

  Zoe clattered through the back door, Bailey at her heels. “Miss Gilly, when we make pancakes again, can they be in the shape of Bailey?”

  Gilly looked down at her. “Absolutely,” she said.

  “Can I help? Can I make the dough?”

  “It’s batter,” Jake said. “Pancakes are made from batter.”