Sleep No More

by Susan Crandall

  “I understand.” She swallowed and forced herself to ask the hardest question. “The man on the motorcycle—who…?”

  Sheriff Hughes leaned forward, placing his elbows on the desk and lacing his thick fingers together. “Nineteen-year-old Kyle Robard.”

  Abby’s breath rushed out of her lungs. She felt as if she would deflate right here in this chair, shrivel and curl onto the floor, ready to be tossed in the trash.

  “Nineteen,” she echoed in a whisper. Kyle Robard. The name sounded familiar. Then it clicked into place. “Senator Robard’s son.”

  “Yes.” That single word hung in the air like a prison sentence.

  Could this get any worse?

  From the moment Jason heard how Kyle Robard had died, he felt as if someone had wired him to an electric current. God, why hadn’t Abby told him there’d been a fatality? Did she even know it yet?

  Once he had Kyle’s mother sedated, Jason said to the senator, “She should sleep for several hours. I doubt she’ll be in much better emotional shape when she awakens.” He looked Ken Robard in the eye. “It’s going to be important that someone stay with her at all times. At least for the first few days. I still feel she’d be better off in a facility—”

  “No!” The senator glanced toward his sleeping wife and lowered his voice. “I said no hospitals.”

  Jason looked into Ken Robard’s eyes. “I’m serious about this. She isn’t to be left alone. She’s already tried—”

  “I understand!” The senator blew out a breath. “I’ll make certain she’s watched.”

  “Call me right away if you have any concerns.”

  “Of course. Thank you for coming so quickly… and for your discretion.”

  Discretion. The word made Jason want to sock the guy in the mouth. Ken Robard had put his political career before his wife’s well-being too many times to count. Discretion. As if Jason would run out and sell this information to the highest bidder. The senator needed a serious adjustment in priorities.

  As Jason left the Robard master bedroom, he had to concentrate on decorum in order to keep from sprinting toward his car.

  Once behind the wheel, he couldn’t shake the image of Abby in the hospital lobby; bereft, alone, hurt. It probably wasn’t any of his business. He would likely be overstepping his bounds. But the thought of her dealing with this alone stabbed at his heart with a thousand tiny needles. Even in their short acquaintance, he’d seen her strong independence and the protectiveness she had of her father. She would be dealing alone.

  He had to at least check on her.

  He turned the key and put the car in gear. Then he headed straight back to Abby’s house.

  Although the electric buzzing in his veins continued, Jason felt a sense of relief when he saw Tom Whitman’s Explorer parked next to Abby’s little cottage. At least she wasn’t alone physically; mentally was another thing altogether. He doubted she would allow herself to lean on her father, not completely, not with his own mental health already an issue. Jason could offer that kind of friendship; a supporting shoulder, someone to help talk things through.

  Did she already know of Kyle Robard’s death? Or would he be the one to deliver the news?

  He got out of his car, knocked on the door, and waited for either Abby or her father to answer. It’d be easier to tell her father first—that was if he was in a good cognitive frame of mind. Then her father could break the news to Abby; bad news was always less sharp when delivered by someone who cared and sympathized with you.

  That thought made Jason realize, if he didn’t care and sympathize, he wouldn’t have driven like a madman to get here. Nor would he have cleared his schedule for the rest of the day, just in case Abby needed him.

  The door swung open. It was Abby, not her father. She looked surprised. She also looked like she’d been crying. Good. All of that restraint this morning had him worried.

  She didn’t say anything, just looked at him with those wide bourbon-colored eyes. They had the dull, traumatized look of someone on emotional overload.

  “I hope I didn’t wake you,” he said. “I thought perhaps your dad would answer.”

  “I took him home. And no, you didn’t wake me.”

  She didn’t invite him in. Suddenly, Jason’s conviction that she needed him, that he had a reason to be here, evaporated.

  Still, he pressed on. “May I come in?”

  She hesitated for a moment, her expression unreadable. Then she opened the door wider and turned away, walking leadenly to a sofa set before a huge brick fireplace. There were a dozen wadded tissues on the wood-plank floor and a rumpled fleece blanket spread out on the cushions.

  Jason closed the door softly and followed her. That sofa was the only place to sit, other than the stools at the island that separated the living area from the kitchen. He wondered if the limited furnishings were to keep the small space uncluttered or to make a statement of solitude.

  Abby seemed to accept his presence without question as she curled into the corner of the sofa with her legs folded on the cushion beside her. She drew the blanket over her lap and on up to her chin.

  Her gaze moved to the empty fireplace and fixed there. She didn’t say anything.

  There was something disturbing about her complete stillness. He didn’t know her well, but he’d seen enough of her to know she was always in motion. She radiated waves of surplus energy in the way that athletes did body heat.

  He studied her, lifeless eyes rimmed with sleep-deprived dark circles, pale fingers clutching the edge of the blanket as if it were the only thing keeping her from flying off into the stratosphere.

  She visibly shivered.

  Fresh firewood sat stacked on the wide brick hearth.

  “Are you cold?” he asked. “I could start a fire.”

  She nodded, a single motion, no more than a dipping of the chin. Her stationary gaze never wavered.

  Jason shrugged out of his jacket and laid it across the arm of the sofa at the opposite end from Abby. After he unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, loosened his tie, and rolled up his shirtsleeves, he went silently about building a fire.

  Once it was going well, he stood and brushed his hands against one another.

  “That’s nice. Thank you.” Her voice sounded small and broken. Not like Abby.

  “Can I get you anything? Something to drink?”

  A weak smile curled her mouth. “Shouldn’t I be asking that? I’m the host.”

  “I didn’t come to be entertained,” he said quietly; a normal voice might somehow startle her, loosening her grip on the blanket that bound her to the here and now.

  After a beat or two, she shifted her gaze from the flames and looked him in the face. “Why did you come?”

  The helplessness he heard in her voice shot an arrow of pity right through his heart.

  He felt intrusive enough, barging in on her solitude. So instead of sitting on the sofa, he sat on the coffee table in front of her. “I didn’t want you to be alone.” It was as much of the truth as he’d admit at the moment.

  She looked down at him and her detachment drained away as if washed by a hard rain. Tears slipped from her eyes, silent and unnoticed. They rolled down her cheeks.

  She sounded as if she’d choke on her grief when she said, “I killed a boy.”

  Without thought, he moved to the sofa beside her. He gently pulled her against his shoulder. She resisted for only a half-second; he felt her surrender to grief and to the comfort he offered in every muscle of her back and shoulders.

  For several minutes there was only the crackle of the fire and her breathy sobs. He’d never felt so utterly impotent—even though he knew this kind of grief, this kind of guilt, had to run its course as surely as a fever must.

  She cried past the moment when her hot tears soaked through the fabric of his shirt, past the moment when she became limp against him, until, he guessed, there were no more tears left in her body.

  Slowly, she pulled away from him and rea
ched for the box of tissues on the table. She did it without so much as a glance at him, and he knew she was embarrassed.

  “Abby, look at me.”

  She did, with obvious reluctance; dabbing her nose as her eyes met his from beneath the sweep of her dark lashes.

  “I came because everybody needs a shoulder to cry on,” he said, speaking more frankly than he’d planned. “And I… I wanted to be yours.”

  When she would have looked away, he put a finger under her chin and held her gaze. “You’ve been through a horrible experience. You need someone.”

  “I’m fine, now.” She straightened. “Thank you.”

  He heard the dismissal in her tone. But he wasn’t going to be pushed away so easily. She’d been through a trauma and it was bound to get worse in the days ahead.

  “Do you know who the boy was… the one on the motorcycle?”

  Stiffening, she looked at him warily. “How did you know he was on a motorcycle?”

  “It’s a small town. I work at the hospital.”

  “Then you know who it was.”

  He nodded. “Do you?”

  She closed her eyes and swallowed. “Yes. I stopped by the sheriff’s office this morning.”

  “It may not have been your fault, Abby. He was nineteen and on a motorcycle. On that road he was most likely going far too fast.” He left it there, hoping she’d tell him what she’d been doing on that road and why she hadn’t told him in the first place that there had been another party involved in her accident.

  She didn’t. In fact, she didn’t say anything more at all. The vulnerability he’d seen in her before she’d given way to tears retreated behind a curtain of stark independence.

  He finally asked, “Have the police made any determination about what they think happened yet?”

  “An investigation team from the state police is working on it.” Her tone did not invite further questions.

  She looked terrified—as well she should be. Jason knew to what lengths Ken Robard was willing to go to prevent sullying his family’s golden name.

  But there was something else in her eyes that bothered Jason. She was pulling away with an air of self-preservation. She was deliberately keeping something from him.

  She suddenly got to her feet. “Thank you for coming by.”

  Thirty seconds later, Jason found himself back in his car. She’d been polite and appreciative as she’d shown him out. Even so, he had the feeling that a door had been closed between them. One that wouldn’t be opened again.

  CHAPTER 8

  The ringing of the telephone startled Abby awake. The book she’d been reading slid off her lap and landed on the floor with a soft thud.

  She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, had been fighting against it. Orange embers of the dying fire glowed in the hearth; she’d been asleep a while, then.

  The phone rang again. She reached for it with fumbling fingers and she looked at the clock. Two-forty.

  “Hello.” Her voice was raspy and the word barely understandable.

  There was no response.

  Abby cleared her throat and repeated, “Hello?”

  The only response was a slobbering indrawn breath. She heard noise in the background, music.

  “Is someone there?” she asked, her heart kicking against her breastbone.

  No answer, only a thin and unintelligible whine, a pitiful cry that spoke of intense suffering.

  The image of her father lying on the floor taken down by a stroke shot into her mind.

  “Dad? Do you need help?” She got to her feet and looked for her shoes. “Dad! Is that you? I’m coming.”

  A choked sob responded.

  Abby frantically looked for her cell phone to call 911; the EMS could get there faster than she could.

  Shit! She didn’t have a cell!

  “Dad, hang up. Hang up and I’ll call for help.”

  The garbled moaning finally began to form slurred words in a whispery voice. “W-why… wh-whyyyy… please… oh pleeease….” There was a sharp intake of breath. “… please don’t tell… p-pleeeease….”

  There was a clatter and the line suddenly went dead.

  “Dad!” She immediately dialed his number.

  It rang once.

  Twice.

  I should have called 911 first.

  Just as she was about to disconnect, he answered. “Hello?” His voice was gravelly from sleep, but clearly understood. Not the voice of moments ago.

  “Dad? Are you all right?”

  “ ’Course I am, Jitterbug. What’s wrong? You sound upset.”

  A shuddering breath left her. “I just got a call… I thought it was you.”

  “What kind of call?” Protectiveness sharpened his tone.

  She thought about the voice. “It must have been someone drunk dialing—or maybe kids messing around.” Her knees felt weak with relief and she sank down on the couch again.

  “Maybe I should head out there—”

  “No need,” she cut him off. “I was only upset because I thought something might be wrong with you. But you’re okay, so I’m okay.” Or she would be when her heart slowed back into a normal rhythm.

  “I’m coming anyway.”

  “Dad, I don’t need a babysitter. It was just a random call. Besides, I have your car.”

  He huffed. “Never shoulda let your mother talk me into selling the other one.”

  Now that sounded like the dad she knew. She chuckled. “I’m sorry I woke you. I’ll call you in the morning.”

  “You’d better.”

  “Night, Dad.”

  “Night, Jitterbug.”

  For a moment, Abby sat on the couch with the phone in her hand. That voice slithered around in her mind, wrapping her nerve endings in acid. The more she tried to force it out, the more tenaciously it clung. Although it hadn’t been more than a rough whisper, it had been so intense, so filled with pain. It reached something primal in her, something instinctive that immediately wanted to recoil.

  I’m exhausted and making too much of this.

  She got up off the couch, shaking her arms to rid herself of the creeps.

  At least that call had awakened her. She wasn’t taking any chances of sleeping again until she figured out some way to safeguard against leaving the house in the middle of the night.

  Yesterday when she’d come home from the hospital, at least one of her questions had found an answer. Although she had no recollection of the time between when she left Jeter’s and when she awakened in the swamp, the evidence was there to prove she’d been home. Her bed had been unmade; she never left her bed unmade. An empty milk glass sat on her nightstand. At that point, there had been no surprise left in her, just a heavy, dull acceptance. There had been no reasonable explanation that put her on Suicide Road. So she didn’t fight the unreasonable any longer. Sleep-driving. God, how much more dangerous could she get?

  For now, she had to stay active to avoid falling asleep again. Tomorrow she’d tell the police her theory and go from there.

  Surely sleep-driving constituted some form of negligence. Would they charge her with a homicide?

  The thought sent a shaft of new fear through her heart. But she had to do what was right and accept the consequences—something she’d known all along, but hadn’t truly faced until now. At least if they locked her up, she wouldn’t be able to unwittingly hurt anyone again.

  She put on her garden shoes and let herself out her front door. She’d get a head start on that garland for the Ostrom wedding. It might be the last ceremony she ever did flowers for.

  As she walked toward the carriage house in the velvety darkness, a deep sadness settled in her chest. And if that sadness had a voice, she realized, it would sound just like that scratchy, desperate voice she’d heard on the phone tonight.

  At seven-thirty a.m. Abby was making much-needed coffee in her kitchen. The only sleep she’d had since the accident was that unintentional nap last night. She was so tired her bones ached—or per
haps that was from the accident. She hoped the coffee would at least clear her foggy head.

  Hearing a car pull up in front of her house, she went to the front window and looked out. The lane ended about forty feet from her front steps, as it used to stop in front of the big house. Deputy Trowbridge was getting out of his cruiser and putting on his hat. The slanting sun glinted off the brass nameplate on his chest, stabbing her eyes with a shaft of light. He reached back in the car and pulled out a small plastic box, then headed for her door.

  She hadn’t noticed before how young he was. He looked more like a fresh army recruit than an officer of the law. He moved with an air of arrogance that reminded her of his skeptical questioning at the hospital, spurring a streak of defensiveness in her.

  Last night’s resignation ducked behind her dislike of his attitude and the irrational hope that he was here to tell her the accident investigation team had concluded that Kyle Robard had been responsible for the accident, that he’d been drinking, or high; that she had been the victim.

  Her mouth went dry as she took a deep calming breath and opened the door before he knocked.

  “Ms. Whitman.” He tipped the brim of his hat. “I apologize for the early call, but we have a few questions about the accident.” He didn’t sound at all sorry; he sounded as if he was going to relish every moment of what he was about to do.

  She stepped back and opened the door wider. “Come in.”

  As he stepped across the threshold, he removed his hat. Abby wondered why he put it on for the short walk to the door in the first place. Probably for intimidation.

  She realized he was just standing there, waiting.

  “Please, sit down,” she said.

  He sat on the edge of the seat at one end of her sofa. Because it was the only place to sit in her living room, she sat at the other end.

  His gaze moved from her face to her hands and back again. She realized she was twisting them in her lap. She tucked them beneath her thighs.

  “First of all, we need your fingerprints, in order to help sort out the scene,” he said.