Perception came quickly to him and softened to something like sympathy as he looked around the old barn. God knew what he was thinking, but when he looked back at her, his smile was gentle and dimpled and secretive. “When I was a kid I thought this was the creepiest barn in Turchen County. Old lady Ben— your mom, used to get me to haul stuff up here for her if I was with my dad when he came to pick up Lucy. Which was like all the time back then. Like those bundles of old newspapers back there. And for a long time she used to keep her emergency firewood up here.” He stood and stretched a hand out to Hannah. “She’d find a couple good-sized branches the wind knocked down, and she’d get me to ‘run ’em on up’ here . . . you know how she was.”
“I do,” she said, falling in love with this tall, quiet teenage boy as he prattled on for her comfort.
“Well, between you and me, I never came in here alone. If my dad didn’t come up here with his own bundle of junk, I stood at the door and threw it in. And you know what else?”
“No, what.”
“She never said anything about finding the bundles or the sticks or whatever other stuff she used to ask me to bring up here on the floor, just inside door. I think this place creeped her out, too.” She smiled at him and his brow furrowed. “You’re okay now?”
“I am. Thank you.” But she needed to be sure. “It’s wrong, I know, to ask you to keep things from your father but—”
He laughed out loud. “But he’s bossy and he overreacts to everything.” He finished her sentence on a note of intimate acquaintance and common capitulation.
“I don’t know about that but—”
“Trust me. The longer you keep him in the dark, the safer your secrets are.”
She nodded. She’d already figured that one out. He pulled on the string to turn out the light while she started to slide one of the big barn doors open with barely a glance at the drooping loft. And she left it open—whether to let the rancid memories out or the fresh air in was a toss up.
They started back to the house together.
“Do me another favor?”
“What’s that?”
“Do you think you could handle both of the Long boys at the recycling center tomorrow? I’ll call their mother tonight and make sure it’s okay, but I wanted to make sure it was okay with you first.”
He nodded, shrugged, and smiled—and looked at her as if now he thought she was talking a little crazy.
Grady brought pizza for the young cleaning crew and stayed to have a few pieces on his dinner break.
Did she look shaken to her core? Did she look afraid to let her thoughts wander further than the three large-sized pizza boxes Grady balanced on one hand when he strode into the kitchen? Would he be able to see in her eyes that she’d been to hell and back that afternoon without ever leaving the farm? Would he be able to tell by the tremors in her hands that every muscle in her body was programmed and set to run?
She hurried to take the boxes from him, to give herself something to do—something normal—to keep her hands and mind busy.
“Here, let me take those. I’m not sure Anna can eat pizza but I’m famished and the other kids, I’m sure, are starving, and I can fix Anna— Oh.” She opened the top pizza box and froze. Her stomach flipped and her emotions ping-ponged between anger and fear at his spying on her. “How did you find out that I like white pizza?”
He unzipped his jacket and started to take it off. He hadn’t missed the accusation in her voice and his eyes were watchful. “I didn’t. I didn’t know what kind you’d like, so I got one that’s half plain cheese, the other half with everything; a whole pepperoni because I know my kids like it, and the white one for Anna. You said nothing too spicy for a while.” He slipped his coat over the back of a chair without looking away. “I figured something would be close to what you preferred, but if it’s the white you like, so much the better. Is something wrong?”
“No.” She answered too fast and too sharp so she smiled. “Of course not. I’m tired and testy and I . . .”
“What?”
“I hate it here. I hate being here.” He wanted answers and explanations, why not give him a couple to keep him busy? More to the point, distract him, she decided impulsively. “I’m having a terrible time sleeping. I keep waking up. I bought sleeping pills over the counter, but if I stay here much longer I’ll need a prescription.” For something industrial strength, she thought. “I’m having a little trouble with my business. I can handle some of it by phone and the Internet—when I can find the time. But I need to be there for the rest. Joe’s helping all he can.” She reached up high to remove a stack of paper plates from the cupboard beside the refrigerator, fished napkins from the drawer below and set them next to the pizzas on the table. Overhead she heard heavy footsteps hurrying toward the stairs, like a small herd of starving caribou heading for the first patch of spring grass. Fine, so she wasn’t familiar with caribou, but it sure sounded like more than four sets of feet up there. “But Joe’s not me and my clients expect me. I’m tired and on edge and I have a lot on my mind. Okay?”
“Okay.” He acted satisfied for the moment—but he didn’t have a choice to be otherwise as the young people swarmed the food, laughing and chatting and pushing them further away from each other.
Hannah sighed with relief and covered it with a hum of pleasure as she took her first bite of pizza—Alfredo-flavored cardboard that stuck to the roof of her mouth.
Running away would be smart. Wise. If only for a few days—to refortify her defenses, to remind her that the past was in the past and it couldn’t hurt her anymore . . . unless she let it; unless she let the secret out.
She could talk with Joe, make an appointment with Dr. Fry . . . but there was still so much to be done before they could put the farm up for sale. And leaving Anna here to finish up alone was unthinkable, of course. Not that she couldn’t handle it, she debated, nodding and smiling when the girl wordlessly offered her a second piece of the white pizza. Anna was amazingly independent. She could—
Hannah pulled up short. What was she thinking? She put the slice she’d been about to take a bite of back on her paper plate and her shoulders drooped. She was a coward. She’d been braver twenty years ago, tougher. Anna was counting on her. And Grady, blast him, watched her like she might sprout horns. She couldn’t run now. Not yet.
No more memories. No matter how benign or ordinary, they were a danger to her here where everything reminded her of something. She couldn’t afford another breakdown or chance being caught in such a weakened state ever again.
Another one of those things that are easier said than done. Just turn the memories off. She would if she could.
She glanced at Cal, busy helping Biscuit tease his sister about the mouse that had chased her around one of the bedrooms upstairs. She felt reasonably confident that he’d already forgotten what he’d seen in the barn less than an hour ago.
But her muscles still quivered in the aftermath. Part of her mind strained to hear the screams again thinking she could hide herself before they reached full pitch and she did something stupid to frighten Anna—or attract Grady’s already suspicious concerns.
Still, more than anything she wanted to run, to go back to Baltimore where she belonged, where she was safe and nothing haunted the peace she’d created there. Her gaze gravitated toward Anna and her friends; and while she expected to feel some sort of shame in wanting to make a break for it, she didn’t.
She was becoming very fond of Anna, but Anna didn’t know—no one knew. She was the last. And every day she was here she could feel the burden bearing down on her; her fear and guilt swelling, the strain threatening to shatter her sanity.
Chapter Twelve
Maybe he should have been an actor, Grady thought as he gave her two full minutes before following her oh-so nonchalantly from the kitchen—a slice of pizza in one hand and two more on a paper plate in the other. Another Pacino, perhaps, as he took a blasé glance into the dining room and then the liv
ing room to see that not quite half the stuff had been removed—and that had been the furniture. Or what about a Hugh Jackman, whose smile he’d heard was irresistible—not unlike his own, he hoped, when he used it to ask permission to sit below her on the steps, facing her.
“You’d think they’d never eaten before.”
Her smile was small but it did reach her eyes. “Well, I never would have dreamed that I’d enjoy their noise so much. I love listening to them talk among themselves.” She caught herself. “Not what they’re saying in particular, I don’t eavesdrop on them, but the happy, comfortable buzz they make when they’re together. The sound of their friendship.”
He nodded his understanding and wondered which famous actor he should impersonate now, which one had the most charm and subtlety to slip by her defenses.
She took a bite, chewed and swallowed—and to his surprise spoke first.
“Ruth was afraid of mice. She thought rats and mice were the same thing . . . and spiders. She hated spiders. Anything she could hear or feel but not see in the dark terrified her.” He realized the story was being prompted by Lucy’s antics earlier in the day, standing on a chair, hollering for Biscuit and her brother to come save her from a small gray mouse. He saw, too, that her expression was amused for the moment, recalling a fond memory of her sister. “Spiderwebs that pulled at her hair or brushed across her cheek would send her into hysterics. And it was our secret for years and years.” She looked away and frowned. “I guess I’ll never know how he figured it out . . . that if he put us both in the cellar and removed the lightbulb at the top of the stairs, she’d scream and cry—but only for the few minutes it took for me to wrap her in my arms and convince her I’d protect her from everything that crawled down there.” Her eyelids took a long blink. “God, she was little.”
“How old were you?”
She shook her head vaguely. “Six maybe. Nine when he finally figured out he had to separate us to get the best results. I got sent to the attic. It was cold up there but there was an electrical socket in the overhead light fixture. He took out the bulb, but as you know, there’s more stuff in that attic than you can shake a stick at—and a window. Sometimes I had daylight. When I didn’t I had a small lamp that I covered with a piece of soft carpet that warmed and lit the little space I made for myself . . . and for which I got the third worst beating of my life because it was also a cozy little fire hazard up there.” An odd little smile rippled across her lips. “After that he strapped me to a chair up there to keep me out of trouble. For my own good.”
He could tell by the mocking look in her eyes that those had been her father’s words and she hadn’t believed them then any more than she did now.
“And Ruth?”
She looked away and shook her head like she might not answer. He watched her force the wedge of pizza in her mouth and bite down, chew, and do it again. As he was about to give up on the answer, starting to debate if he should ask the question again, her voice came soft and wispy.
“We all had our own special kind of hell here and the cellar was Ruth’s. If she wouldn’t go down on her own when he told her to, he’d simply pick her up—kicking and screaming—and take her down.” She started a new piece of pizza, like keeping her mouth full and the story coming in parts made it easier to tell. “I used to wonder why he didn’t just shove her off the top step when she cried and begged him not to make her go down there, but as I got older I realized that a fall could kill her and then all his fun would be over.”
She looked into Grady’s eyes, but he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. Her shields were up, protecting her as if she were merely telling a story—about someone else, someone she knew but not intimately anymore. “That’s what it was for him, you know. Fun. He loved hurting us and scaring us and controlling us. It made him feel important and powerful. Plus, it was just plain amusing, I guess. Ruth would cry and scream and shriek in terror for hours on end—beg him to let her out. He especially liked it when we begged. She’d find her way up the stairs to the door, and when he figured out she felt slightly safer there, up off the floor, he’d open the door and take her back down to the bottom . . . though he never tied her up that I know of . . .” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, resting it between two railings. She shook her head. “I wonder why he didn’t. Maybe he was afraid she’d lose her mind and stop screaming, huh?” She shook her head again, dropped what was left of her pizza on the plate, and tossed it on the step above hers before looking at him again. “Is this the kind of information you keep following me around to find out? For your good-home-environment file on me? Think I’ll take Anna back to Baltimore and lock her in a closet now?”
“No.” He made his answer as clear and firm as he could make it. “But don’t try to tell me that growing up in this house didn’t affect you.”
“Of course it did.” She gave a soft, mirthless laugh and brought both arms up between them to display her naked wrists. “I can’t wear watches or bracelets . . . or cotton socks that are too tight around my ankles. And I wouldn’t recommend grabbing me by the wrists for any reason, because I fight dirty.”
“So noted.” His keen eyes caught a spark of evasion in her eyes as if he was a guard dog and she was tossing a bone in one direction while she escaped in another. “But that wasn’t your hell . . . being isolated, being tied up wasn’t . . .” Her blue eyes flashed. Surprise. Fear. A warning to back off before they looked away. But that wasn’t going to happen. He may not know this grown-up woman, Hannah, but the Hannah they were talking about he knew very well. “Your hell was having to listen.”
She sighed and closed her eyes, but she didn’t deny it. After a second or two she squeezed her eyes shut tighter and used both her hands to push her short, shiny hair away from her face. Then she laughed, sort of.
“He used to get so pissed at me.” Suddenly the threads on the worn stair runner needed plucking. “And I could never do anything right. I couldn’t cry when he hit me so he’d hit my mother instead. I came defective from the factory, you see. All I ever felt was anger and defiance. It made him crazy. That first night Ruth spent in the cellar alone I called to her. I figured if I could hear her, she could hear me. I told her to be brave. I told her the longer she cried the longer he’d leave her there. I told her that the mice were more afraid of her than she was of them. I told her to find something to beat the floor with like I showed her to keep the mice away. I told her she was a big girl, that she needed to be . . .” The loose thread on the rug broke free and startled her. “He wrapped duct tape across my mouth and around my head at least a dozen times and told me if I touched it before morning he’d leave Ruth in the cellar for a week.” She shrugged. “Mama pulled out half my hair trying to get it all out before school the next day. But I would have gone bald if I’d thought it would keep Ruthie out of the cellar.”
She dropped the thread on her uneaten pizza and sat up straighter, indicating she was preparing to get up—that what she’d told him was just an old story and he could take it or leave it.
“I believe you, Hannah.” His throat was tight so the words came out in a whisper. He wanted to shout it, to keep her there and talking to him, but she just nodded and asked if he wanted a cup of coffee for the road.
“No, thanks. Keeps me awake and I have a board meeting tomorrow.” He moved his legs and let her step by. Though she held on to the railing with her free hand, he automatically put a supporting hand under her forearm to assist; and despite the fact that he detected no overt shaking of her hands or arms, there was a distinct trembling within. The story had cost her. And the gift had been given to him.
Part of him was grateful, the other part wanted to dismantle something with his fists. An hour ago he’d thought he knew about her childhood. Horrible, shocking, unspeakably appalling and other such words that indicated he didn’t—couldn’t actually—comprehend the magnitude of it. Those few details made his blood run so cold it burned like fire, and still he couldn’t wrap his head around
it. He was a man of the world. He’d seen things and he knew humans could be more vicious than animals. But how anyone could look into the face of a child and inflict that kind of cruelty was beyond him. So was the sort of strength required to survive it . . .
And whether Hannah told him professionally for his home environment assessment or personally because they’d once been good friends, it didn’t matter to him. She was talking and all he wanted to do was listen.
“I didn’t realize the sheriff’s department was run like a company with a Board of Directors,” she said on her way back to the kitchen. He hurried to catch up with her.
“Well, I hadn’t thought about it before, but I guess it is. We all have to answer to someone, I suppose. My board is the County Board of Supervisors and the County Administrator. They approve my budgets; keep me on the up and up—”
“Bitch him out when the deputies aren’t writing enough speeding tickets or fining people for being one minute late on their parking meter,” Lucy chimed in as they filed into the kitchen. “Or my favorite: running down jaywalkers on Main Street where the crosswalks are four blocks apart. And they refuse to even think about painting in two more to make it convenient for people. They want you to jaywalk, risk your own life, basically, if you were anywhere but here, just so they can make Daddy catch you and write you a ten-dollar ticket.
“He hates his job,” she announced. Hannah turned her head to look at him and he held out his hands—he couldn’t deny it. “He’d much rather be on patrol or even in investigations than pushing papers and fighting with the Board of Supervisors but a sheriff makes the big bucks, and he has mouths to feed.” She opened hers and then batted her eyes at him.
He took this opportunity to snap her lips closed with a single knuckle under her chin. “Remind me not to put you on my reelection committee.” He flipped open the pizza box to see if any remained—scowled at his offspring when he found it empty. “And I don’t hate my job. It’s not as . . . rewarding as when I worked chiefly with the public, is all. I liked chasing down the jaywalkers.”
What Happened to Hannah Page 16