Firefly Island

by Lisa Wingate

  “My sister’s doctor told her not to drink raw milk when she was pregnant,” Keren pointed out. “Of course, they tell all the farm girls that, and a lot of them do it anyway, but you should be careful.”

  Crossing my arms over my stomach, I leaned in and watched the milk scooshing into the bucket. I’d never really thought about where milk came from. In the store, it looked so … pristine and white and … sanitary. “I think I’ll just buy organic.” In general, I preferred to believe that food just appeared in the world, neatly packaged in hermetically sealed containers. “I’m hoping it’s a misunderstanding about the cow. Maybe Jack wanted it or something. Surely, he wouldn’t buy me a cow.”

  Both Keren and Al turned incredulous looks my way, as in, This is Jack West we’re talking about, remember?

  Al scoffed, then sifted a horseshoe from the dust on the barn floor and handed it to Nick. “The way that old coot’s been acting lately, I wouldn’t be too sure. He passed by me when I was coming out my gate the other day, and he waved. Actually waved. I heard he went into the Waterbird last Friday and asked a couple of the Docksiders how the fishing was.”

  Keren nodded. “Our bull ran through the perimeter fence last week, and instead of calling and threatening to sic his lawyer on us, Mr. West sent a couple of the ranch hands to help us pen up the bull and fix the fence. He didn’t even ask us to pay for the repairs.” Her eyes were wide with disbelief.

  Leaning against the side of the stall, Al hooked her thumbs in her pockets. “This keeps up, the old man’s not going to be any fun at all to have as a neighbor.” She pulled a face and I chuckled, but I felt guilty for laughing at Jack. In spite of all that we’d been through here, there was something incredibly sad about Jack’s life.

  “I feel sorry for him.” Keren offered a mirror of my thoughts. “He must have been so lonely all these years. I can’t imagine what it would be like, not having your family. I mean, we might have our little differences in our clan—there are so many of us, for one thing—but family means everything. I don’t know how we’d survive without each other.”

  Al turned toward the corner, hiding something. If she had any remaining family, she had never mentioned them. Her life, in some ways, seemed a lot like Jack’s, though I would never have said that to her.

  She cleared her throat before she spoke. “Well, I hate to say it, but he’s putting his eggs in the wrong basket with that son of his. That man is trouble.”

  “Oh, I hope not.” Keren cast an anxious frown at Al.

  Al’s expression was flat, her lips a thin, confident line. “If Mason West is spending this much time away from the wine, women, and song down in the state capitol, he’s here for a reason. And it’s not to reconnect with his daddy.”

  A chill ran over me. Chrissy had said the same thing, and with the same sense of certainty. “Then why? Why do you think he’s here?”

  The milk bucket went silent, and Keren looked up, waiting.

  Al shrugged. “I’m not a mind reader or a fortune-teller. I’m just saying, look at the man’s record. He’s a slash-and-burn politician—more coal plants, more strip mining, more access to public lands so his cronies can make money off resources that should belong to the public. Less money to teachers and schools, and more money to testing companies to produce state tests. Over a hundred million, last year alone. Who do you think the investors in those testing companies are? His contributors. His cronies. Mason West has made himself a multi-multimillionaire by serving up favors for the right people. He’s living the high life down there in Austin, and now he’s looking at a national bid. You tell me if you think he’s got any real interest in this ranch, his daddy, or in the development of grain that’ll make some farmer in Africa able to grow corn on the savannah. Mason is here for a reason. If I knew what it was, I’d …”

  My cell phone rang, the sound echoing through the barn, high-pitched and out of place, stirring the guinea hens from the rafters. Both Keren and I jumped, and then I slid the phone out to look at it. Daniel. Probably calling to check on the cow milking. I popped it onto speakerphone.

  The minute he said my name, I knew something was wrong.

  “Daniel, what’s the matter?” There was noise in the background, either voices or the radio. He wasn’t in the lab. “Where are you?” I was aware of Al, Keren, and Nick watching me.

  “Jack’s had an accident,” Daniel’s reply was rushed and breathless. “We’re on our way to the hospital in Gnadenfeld. I’m following the ambulance.” Al pushed off the wall, and Keren steadied the milk bucket.

  “An accident? What happened?” The day suddenly felt surreal, as if everything around us had stopped moving.

  “I don’t know all the details. Something happened on the cliffs above the Cedar Break plot. His truck slipped out of gear and rolled over the edge. I’ve gotta go, Mal. I’ll talk to you at the hospital.” He hung up, and I stood there staring at the phone, trying to process. A sense of dread and disbelief filled the sunny day with sudden shadows.

  Al’s gaze met mine again, and she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, slowly shaking her head. “Wonder where Mason West was when that happened.”

  The words were an unnerving echo of my thoughts. I was wondering, too.

  Men and fish are alike.

  They both get into trouble when they open their mouths.

  —Jimmy D. Moore

  (Left by Roger the dog, often the smartest one in the room)

  Chapter 20

  When I arrived at the hospital, Daniel was in a waiting area with several ranch hands and various people who appeared to have been part of the emergency response team that had rescued Jack. The air in the room was stretched gauzy thin, the discussion taking place in careful whispers intended not to ripple the fragile fabric. Conversations stopped and glances turned my way as I entered. Daniel stood up and met me near the door.

  “Where’s Nick?” he asked, anxiety sketching lines over his forehead.

  “Al stayed with him at the house. The Jeep wouldn’t start, so I drove Al’s truck over here. How’s Jack?”

  Daniel moved to the wall near the door, and I followed. “We’re waiting for the doctors to tell us. It was bad, Mal. His heart stopped on the way to the hospital, and they had to resuscitate him. They’re doing CT scans now, checking for internal bleeding.”

  I glanced around the room, trying to process everything, struggling to put together the pieces. All I could think of were Al’s final words before she tossed me her keys and told me to take the truck.

  Find out where Mason was when it happened.

  I scanned the anxious faces in the room, looked at Chrissy in the corner, sitting on the arm of a chair, her body curled protectively over Tag’s. Was she thinking the same thing I was thinking—that her husband could have been in that truck with Jack?

  “Where’s Mason?” Ears seemed to shift my way when I mentioned the name.

  “Talking to the sheriff’s deputy about the accident.” Daniel shrugged vaguely toward the hall. “I’m not sure where they went.”

  “What happened, exactly?” I searched Daniel’s face for the things he wasn’t saying. He was worried, and not just about Jack’s prognosis. There was something deeper that he was afraid to give voice to.

  Stroking his bottom lip with his thumb and forefinger, he blinked slowly and turned his attention from me to the window, as if he were trying to look across the miles and see the Cedar Break cliffs for himself. “Apparently they were parked at that test plot above the lake. Mason got out to take some pictures and step off some square footage for the lake house he wants to build. Jack stayed in the truck and slid over to the passenger side to stretch out and take a catnap. According to Mason, Jack had been up with the stomach flu last night and hadn’t slept much. Anyway, when Mason turned around, the truck was rolling toward the cliff. He tried to get to it, but he couldn’t make it there in time. Jack attempted to bail as it was going over the edge. He hit a patch of cedars about twenty feet down. T
hat’s the only reason he survived the accident. That’s Mason’s version of what happened, anyway.”

  I watched Daniel’s teeth worry his bottom lip, saw the tension in his fingers as he combed them through the dark curls of his hair.

  “But you don’t believe him… .”

  Pulling in a quick breath, he shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know what I believe. Why did the truck just slip out of gear like that? Jack’s ranch truck was pretty new. It’s not like the gears are worn out. And why didn’t Mason hear it when it started rolling? It’s pretty quiet out there, normally, and it’s rocky. The tires would’ve been moving over gravel.”

  “What are you saying? You think Mason might have … left the truck out of gear on purpose?” The words were hard to even say. The idea seemed so melodramatic and farfetched. Why, after all these years, would Mason come here to reunite with his father and then attempt something so sinister?

  Our strange conversation the day Mason had given Nick the toys from the little house slid through my mind. I crossed my arms over my stomach, squeezed my elbows hard against my ribs. Maybe Daniel thought I was out of my mind, bringing up a suspicion like that, but that nagging feeling I’d had about Mason was now exploding like fireworks in my head. There was a history of people meeting strange fates in the West family. As frustrating as life under Jack’s thumb had been, I couldn’t help but remember the tender look on his face as he knelt over Nick’s sandpile.

  Daniel tasted his lower lip again. “Jack was driving, though, or Mason says Jack was. And typically if Jack’s in the truck, he does insist on being at the wheel. If the truck was left out of gear, that would mean he was the one who did it. Apparently he got his foot hung up in the seat belt, trying to jump out the door, and that’s what actually dragged him over the edge. One thing different, and Jack wouldn’t have survived at all.”

  In the hallway, an orderly rattled by with a supply cart. I watched it pass, thought of Jack broken and battered. I imagined the net of thick cedars catching him, saving him from the rocks below. “But something is still bothering you.” I touched Daniel’s chin, turned his face toward mine, and stretched closer to him. “What are you not saying, Daniel? If you know something more, tell me. We have to figure this out before anything else happens. You could’ve been in that truck. You could’ve been in that truck with Jack. What are you hiding from me?” In that moment, I felt the depth of my love for my husband, the fierce devotion to our life together, to our life here. Somehow, in the past weeks, this place, this man, had become home for me. I wouldn’t let anyone threaten that.

  He closed his eyes, took a moment to think, then looked at me again. “It’s just that Jack never parks the truck pointed toward the lake like that. My first day here, he specifically told me not to. He related some story about his wife and his stepson going out Christmas tree hunting in one of the pastures years ago. They left the truck out of gear, and it rolled over a cliff into the lake. No one was in it, but it almost ran them over. Supposedly it’s still down there under the water somewhere.”

  “Did you tell the sheriff’s deputy that?” I thought of the letter in the cookbook. Her letter. If the letter was hers, could that accident be the reason she was afraid, the reason she was planning to flee the ranch with her young son?

  “I haven’t talked to the deputy, and they haven’t asked me any questions. I don’t know if they’re looking at it as anything more than an accident. Jack has mentioned a few times that the sheriff’s department in this county isn’t very proactive. Mart McClendon, the game warden, was there and helped with the rescue. He asked me a few questions about how I thought it happened, but that was about it.”

  “You should have told him what you just told me.” Overhead, the air-conditioner clicked on, and cold, antiseptic-scented air slid over my bare shoulders, raising gooseflesh.

  Daniel slid a hand over my skin, a placating gesture. “Let’s just take things a step at a time. In the weeks Mason has been here, he hasn’t done anything to make me think he would try to … stage a murder. Because that’s what it would be. No way you would expect anyone to survive going over that cliff in a vehicle. I was at the Cedar Break right after the accident—remember, this afternoon, I told you I was going out there to gather some samples? When I drove up, Mason had already called 9-1-1. He had help on the way. Why would he do that, if he wanted Jack dead?”

  I slid into Daniel’s arms and pressed hard against his chest. “I just keep thinking that you could have been in the truck. What if you’d been out with them today?” For an instant, I saw a future without Daniel—Nick growing up with no father, this new baby never knowing Daniel at all. No more mornings of drowsily rolling over in tangled sheets and reaching for Daniel, curling my body against his, feeling warm, protected, complete.

  I realized how lucky I was, how much I loved him. It didn’t matter where we lived—ranch house in Texas, hut in Borneo, tent in Timbuktu—as long as we were together.

  “I’m okay. I’m fine.” His kiss fell soft on my hair, and I took in the scent and the feel of him—the laundry soap from our washing machine, the shaving cream from our bathroom, the musky cowboy-hat-shaped soap that Daniel’s brother had given him at his bachelor party, the faint smell of new paint from our freshly repaired closets. Ordinary scents. Beautiful scents.

  “You have to be safe, that’s all,” I whispered. “I think you should tell someone what you told me.”

  “Let’s see what they find out about Jack, first.” Daniel’s answer ruffled the hair near my ear. “If he comes to and is able to talk, he might shed some light on what happened. I don’t want to stir up trouble where there may be none. It’s possible that Jack just wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing, and he parked in the wrong place. He’s been pretty manic since Mason came. Maybe he just had his mind on other things.”

  “Maybe.” But every cell in my body was screaming that this wasn’t accidental.

  “And to tell you the truth, Mason was beside himself after the accident. I know what I’d do if that were my dad, and that’s pretty much the state Mason was in. If he was faking it, he’s one heck of an actor.”

  But maybe he is, I thought, and then the idea seemed off-base and unkind. Perhaps I was creating ridiculous drama where there was only an unfortunate accident. “Okay.” I leaned into my husband and hung on, waiting, trying not to overthink things too much, but I couldn’t stop.

  Twenty minutes ticked by, then thirty, then an hour, as the people in the room moved from place to place, from hushed conversation to hushed conversation. My mind returned over and over to that day on the porch with Mason, to words that seemed to have double entendre, to gut feelings and subliminal impressions. To the letter from the cookbook, the obvious fear. I’d assumed that, if the letter was hers, she was afraid of Jack. What if that wasn’t it at all? What if she was afraid of Mason? He would have been a young adult then. What if he saw the new wife and the cute stepson as competition? What if he didn’t want them around?

  My father always said that a gut feeling will tell you more about a man than what he says. If you’re ever in doubt, go with your gut, Mallory.

  My gut was still saying terrible things that I didn’t want to believe, whispering warnings as the number of people in the room increased. Reverend Hay showed up, along with Mama B.

  Claire Anne Underhill from the hardware store arrived a few minutes later, obviously trolling for information. “Lucy Rivers told me it’s all over the police scanners, and a Dallas news station even sent a helicopter to film the story. They’re bringing a crane in to get the truck back out of the lake.” Her eyes widened, sparkling like small blue gems beneath her neatly hairsprayed bangs. “It’s just so fortunate that Jack was able to get out when he did. Has there been any report on his condition? I’ve been so worried. If we hadn’t been in the middle of a delivery at the store, I would have closed up and driven here right away. Mason must be beside himself. Just beside himself.” She scanned the room like
a beauty pageant contestant making sure to work all sections of the audience. “Where is Mason? Is he all ri-ight? Does he need anything?”

  “He’s with the sheriff’s deputies. But if he does need anything, all of us from the ranch are here,” Chrissy said, strangely territorial considering her usual sentiments about Jack.

  Claire Anne helped herself to a seat by the window, not about to be squeezed out. “It’s just like those know-nothings from the sheriff’s department to trouble the poor man at a time like this. Really, I have half a mind to contact my stepson and tell him to give the sheriff a call. Maybe they’ll listen to someone from the county commission. Mason West is a state representative, for heaven’s sake. If they’re not careful, they’ll give Moses Lake a bad name. What with the drug arrests up in Chinquapin Peaks last year and the Proxica Foods scandal, this county doesn’t need any more bad publicity.” She checked the door again. “Is there no news about Jack’s condition?”

  “We’re still waiting for the doctors to tell us something,” Reverend Hay answered, because no one else did. He had the patient look of a man accustomed to not letting his parishioners rattle him.

  “It’s just so tragic,” Claire Anne lamented. “Such a terrible accident. I hope Mason is bearing up all ri-ight.” She peered through the doorway again, checking the hall. When Mason West didn’t magically appear, she settled back in her seat, her long, coral-colored fingernails toying with a loose thread on the arm of the chair. Silence descended over the group. Another twenty minutes ticked by. Al texted my cell to see if I knew anything. I told her we hadn’t heard.

  “This is ridiculous. I’m going to figure out what’s happening,” Daniel finally whispered in my ear. “They must know something by now.” He pushed off the wall and left the room. Chrissy watched him go, then rose from her chair and came to stand by me.

  “Where’s he goin’?” She kept her voice low, glancing over her shoulder at Claire Anne. “Was that something about Mr. West on your phone just now?” She motioned to the cell. I hadn’t even realized I was still holding it. My thoughts were spinning down the corridor with Daniel, wondering what he would find.