The thought that Merilee could be down there in that mine dogs me. To think of her family tearing themselves apart, suffering so painfully, aching for closure, her mother dying with grief while her daughter’s broken body lies down a shaft so close to home. We don’t know for certain she’s down there. Yet everything fits. I could almost feel in my bones as we stared across that old bridge that her ghost was in that mountain.
As I head into the trees and near the cross-country skiers’ hut, I realize there is no longer a whisper of doubt in me that Jeb is innocent. And I’m boiling inside with rage toward the people who have done this to him. Those who have lied, kept this heinous secret, turned a blind eye all these years, stealing his life while they all built their own. Brutal, selfish cowards who set in motion a series of interlocking events that possibly led to even the death of my sister and brother-in-law. To Quinn coming into my home.
I wonder again, when does something really begin, and end? Can you pinpoint the moment you start on a collision course with others destined to cross your path?
I recognize the group of women huddled in rain jackets beneath the boughs of a huge hemlock. There is a sense of urgency in them, too, as they wait for their children. The storm and smoke are growing thick around us. Those kids should have come down already.
They all glance up sharply as I approach—Lily, Beppie, Stacey, Vickie. The emotion in their faces is raw and hostile. I hesitate. Something has changed. But my jaw steels with fight, and aggression pumps through my blood as I go up to them.
Beppie’s complexion is white and she glowers at me. Stacey’s eyes are narrow and resentful. Lily’s face is pugnacious, and Vickie, Levi’s personal assistant, stiffens visibly as I reach them.
“How can you do this, Rachel?” Lily demands immediately. “How dare you tear the town apart like this and drag that poor Zukanov family through hell again. You should never have brought his kid back here. Spawn of the devil, that’s what she is!”
I freeze dead in my tracks. “What did you say?”
“We know,” Stacey replies. “From Trey. We know that Quinn is his offspring.”
“Offspring?” I almost choke. My hands fist at my sides. I now know what it must be like to mentally crack, to kill someone. To feel pure, black hatred. To feel the rush of violence in one’s veins.
“We all know,” Beppie says darkly, strangely.
“If you hadn’t brought his kid back here,” says Lily, “he would have stayed away. Now look what you’ve done.”
Thunder cracks above us. They flinch. I feel nothing. Rain bombs harder.
“Trey? He told you?”
Stacey smirks.
“I don’t believe you people.” I’m shaking with the cocktail inside me now. “You’re blaming an innocent child for tearing lives apart? You’re blaming me?”
They stare coldly at me.
“I dare you all to place the blame where it really lies. Do you honestly think what your men said all those years ago is the truth? What if”—I go closer to them, right up to them, my gaze lasering each one of them in turn—“the crime never happened up north? What if someone borrowed a Jeep to go to the party at the gravel pit that night?” My gaze settles on Lily. “And what if that Jeep had a Hawaiian sticker on the bumper and was parked in a copse of alders near the Green River rail crossing when Jeb stopped at the tracks to wait for a train? What if there was old Jamaican ska music blaring from that Jeep, the Best of Damani Jakeel, perhaps?”
Lily swallows hard. Her hair is plastering to her cheeks with rain.
“What if the two girls got out of Jeb’s car at the tracks and ran back to that Jeep, and the Jeep was then driven up to the old copper mine?”
Lily started to shiver.
“Maybe the girls were brutally assaulted in the mine, and one died. Maybe it was even an accident, but everyone panicked. Maybe they threw her body down a shaft. Perhaps they didn’t know what to do with Amy, who was still alive, but they couldn’t just kill her there in cold blood. Possibly they drove her north twenty or so miles, in that Jeep, trying to figure out what in hell to do with her. Then they dumped her in that trapper’s shed. Perhaps one of the guys tried to strangle her with a rope. Whatever happened, a pact was made. A lie was told. They all said the girls never got out of Jeb’s car and that they’d seen him driving north with them. And when Amy was eventually found, still alive, the search for Merilee happened twenty miles north of where she really lay. At the bottom of a mine shaft. That hoodie with the drug packet wasn’t Jeb’s, so whose was it?”
Thunder booms right above our heads and sheet lightning pulses in the darkening clouds. The sky grows black.
“Where the fuck are you going with this, Rachel?” Stacey snaps suddenly.
“You’re frightening me.” Lily is sheet white. “You’re just trying to wreck our lives.”
Beppie reaches out to quiet Lily. But she’s listening intently to me, a strange look entering her eyes.
“No,” I say. “It’s not me or Jeb or my niece wrecking lives. Someone else already did that nine years ago. You’re just feeling the ripples of that now, feeling the impact of those lies.” My stomach is churning up into my chest. I know on some level I’ve lost it. I’m heading down a road from which there can be no return. But they already know Quinn is Jeb’s child. Thanks to Trey. Goddamn Trey. The whole town must know now. It’s over. Urgency pulses through me. I peer through the rain into the dark trees, desperate to see Quinn’s shape coming down on her bike through the trails, Brandy in tow.
“You’ve gone mad,” Vickie says. “Stark raving mad.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I have,” I say, staring into the trees, my clothes starting to stick to my body, my hair plastering to my cheeks. “Mad as hell that people could do this, turn a blind eye, send an innocent man to prison.”
“None of those guys could do something like that,” Vickie says. “I know Levi, I know he—”
I spin back to face her. “Right. It’s easier to believe that the guy from the wrong side of the river did it. Much easier than facing the truth. Because one of you must know something. At least one of you must have come across a black ski mask in a laundry basket, black clothes that smelled of smoke, or maybe even had some blood on them. Someone’s husband, or lover, or boss, took a blow to the face in the early hours of Thursday morning, and he has bruises and cuts on a knuckle from beating up Jeb. Someone here drives a silver SUV or dark truck.”
I turn on Beppie. “Perhaps someone here is also missing the handgun that shot Amy six months ago. Perhaps someone’s husband was in the city on the morning my sister’s house burned down. Perhaps someone’s husband has a dragon tattoo emblazoned across his ass! Because that’s one thing Amy did remember before she was shot dead six months ago—an undulating dragon moving between her friends legs as she was raped.”
Lily gasps. Beppie staggers backward. Vickie and Stacey stare, eyes huge.
“But hey, no worries. Because when we get ropes down into that mine, we’ll all know for sure.”
Lily makes a furious lunge at me. “I wish you’d die! Just go away, leave us all alone! I won’t let you do this to Adam, I won’t!” Beppie grabs Lily’s arm, holds her back.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Rachel,” Beppie says with a strange calm. “You need help. This is messing you up. And these accusations will hurt our children.”
“Like those lies in court ended up hurting Quinn? You all have a choice to make. And yes, think of your children. Do the right thing. They’re the ones who will judge you in the end.”
Suddenly the kids are coming, bikes bombing out of the trail. They’re spattered with mud and soaked with rain. Panic races across the women’s faces as they see the children. They seem trapped between me and their kids.
I catch sight of Quinn and I run to her, grabbing her handlebars before she’s even properly stopped. I
force a smile. “Hey, how was it?”
Quinn dismounts, takes off her helmet. She looks at me funny.
“Come, let’s get out of the rain.” I start pushing her bike and we walk smartly toward the truck. My heart is slamming. My throat feels as though it’s stuck together from dryness. Quinn has to run to keep up with me.
“Bitch!” I hear someone yell behind me. “Go to hell, Rachel!”
In my peripheral vision I see Brandy heading over to the group of women with Beppie’s girls in tow. They all huddle together, talking urgently. Brandy looks our way. She must be wondering why I didn’t wait to talk to her, to tell her I was taking Quinn. Right now I don’t care. I just want to get Quinn away from those madwomen.
“Why did they yell like that?” Quinn asks, aghast as she trots beside me. “Why did they call you that word?”
I fake another smile. “You mean that word you called me once?”
“I didn’t mean it,” Quinn said.
“I’m sure they didn’t either. Come, let’s move faster.” The rain is pelting sideways now. I’m drenched to the bone.
As we near the truck, Quinn spots Jeb in the driver’s seat, hesitates. “He’s here? You brought him?”
“He wanted to come see where you ride.”
“He did?”
“Yes.”
She does a happy skip. And by God I want it to all come out right. I want her to be happy. I want us all to be free just to live in peace.
“Can he come for dinner?”
We reach the truck. Jeb gets out, takes the bike from me, lifts it into the back.
“What happened?” he says. Worry darkens his eyes. “It looked like you were getting into it with those women.”
“They called Rachel a . . . really bad word.”
“Hey, you.” He ruffles Quinn’s wet curls, opens the back door. “Hop in.”
She clambers up onto the backseat. Jeb closes the door. “What happened back there?” he asks me again.
I reach for the passenger door. “Later. Just drive. I don’t want Quinn to hear about it.”
He pulls out into the road but keeps glancing at me. I push wet hair back from my face. My hands are trembling like leaves. I finally understand what it means to lose one’s temper and fly into a blind rage, to act without logic. I can fully comprehend Jeb attacking his father all those years ago.
Thunder smacks again, almost above us. A jagged yellow streak stabs down from the sky. The wipers clack but have trouble keeping up with the rain.
“Jeb,” Quinn says from the backseat.
He tenses. Shoots me another hot glance.
I look away.
“Are you coming for dinner?”
“Yes,” I say. “He is.”
He drives in silence, hot energy coming off him in waves. He glances every now and then at my hands, which I press down hard on my wet jeans in an effort to hide the shaking.
As I boil spaghetti once again, for there has been no thought of grocery shopping, Quinn gets plates. Jeb comes up behind me, and under the rumble of the stove fan, which is sucking up steam from the roiling pot, he says, close to my ear, “What did you say to those women? What happened back at the bike camp?”
“They know,” I say quietly as I stir the pasta. “Everyone in town knows you’re her father. Lily called her ‘spawn of the devil’ to my face.”
He goes dead still. I glance up at him, nervous.
“Trey. He did this?”
I say nothing. I’m afraid of the fury crackling in his eyes.
“Jesus. I told you, that guy—”
“Enough. She’ll hear you.”
“You could have told me up front that he knew about her,” he growls near my ear.
“You didn’t ask, did you? It was obvious he’d know. I was going to marry him, and you were still in prison, supposedly guilty, supposedly unaware of your child’s sex let alone where she went.” I angrily stir the pasta, steam heating my face.
“Besides,” I add. “You could have told me you suspected Amy was murdered, that you thought my sister’s fire was deliberately set. You could have told me you thought there was an active killer lurking out here.”
“What are you talking about?” Quinn says behind us. We both jump.
Quinn is staring up at us, a look of worry entering her face.
“It’s nothing, Quinnie,” I say as brightly as I can, handing Jeb the pasta spoon and leading her to the table. “We were just arguing about how much hot sauce to put into the pasta.”
“I hate hot sauce.”
“That’s what I told him.”
“You’re not telling me the truth. You were fighting.”
“Here, sit.” I pull out a chair. “Jeb will bring the pasta.”
The radio is on. There is urgent chatter about the fires. Mount Barren is burning aggressively along the south flank now. There is a second storm cell moving in. It sounds as though things could get a lot worse. I make note to turn on my scanner and tune into the emergency channels as soon as we’re done eating. There’s always a chance the winds will turn away again, and we’re in a good place right here on the glacial lake. I hope it will all be okay. Rain hammers down on the metal roof. Wind rattles the window panes, bombing debris down onto the house.
Jeb brings the pasta and sets the pot heavily on the table. He’s steaming as he takes a seat. I can see his brain is racing.
I dish up, put a plate in front of Quinn.
“Why did my real parents give me away?” Quinn says.
I stiffen. My gaze jerks to Quinn, then Jeb.
Jeb’s fork clatters.
Now she wants to talk about the adoption?
“Was there something wrong with me? Who were they?”
Thunder claps above the house. I wince as the lights flicker on and off. The power could go any minute. Clearing my throat, I say, “Maybe right now is not such a good time to talk about it—”
“You said it was good to talk. Now you don’t want to tell me, do you?”
Jeb and I exchange a hot glance. I clear my throat. “They’re not called ‘real’ parents, Quinn. They’re called birth parents. Sophia and Peter were just as much real parents as your birth parents were. Just in a different way.”
“Why did they give me away?” Her voice is going thin.
“There can be many reasons for an adoption. Sometimes, a mother and father can be in a bad position, or even too young to raise a child of their own.”
“What about my birth parents? Were they too young?”
It was finally all coming out now. The information has simmered and reached some kind of boiling point in Quinn, and now she is not going to let it drop.
I exchange another nervous glance with Jeb. We’re not ready to tell her . . . not yet. Not now. Not this way. It goes against everything he promised Sophia.
“Why didn’t my mom and dad tell me I was adopted? Why did they pretend?”
“I told you,” I say softly, leaning forward. “Sophia and Peter—your mom and dad—wanted to wait just a little while longer before they told you. Until you were a bit older.”
“Why?”
“Because they believed that you would understand things differently. “
“How did Missy know that I was adopted, then?”
I clear my throat, brain racing. “I think Missy might have overheard Trey and Stacey talking about it. Remember, Trey and I were going to be married, so he knew you were adopted. And there’s a good chance he might have mentioned this fact to Stacey because he’s going out with her now.”
“So other people know, too?”
We’re entering dangerous territory. My thoughts flash to the women. Spawn of the devil . . .
Anger rushes hot and instant to my face again. “Maybe a few know, Quinn. It’s not a negative t
hing.”
“Will I ever know who my birth parents are? Do you know?”
Jeb’s muscles are coiled like a spring. He’s not touching his food. I can literally feel his energy across the table and I avoid his eyes, because if I look at him again, Quinn will read me. She will know we are both keeping something from her.
“Is it a secret?” She picks at the frayed edge of her napkin.
Again, I clear my throat. “In certain adoptions, these things can be secret, and it’s a bit complicated in your case, but I want to promise you something. Right now. Look at me, Quinn.”
She lifts her eyes.
“I’m working on finding out all the details for you, the whole truth about what happened to bring you into Sophia and Peter’s arms . . . my arms. And when I know it all, I will tell you. Only the truth. Always the truth. You can trust me—I will not lie about this.”
Quinn lurches up from her chair, and she lunges into my arms. I hug her fiercely, stroking her hair.
Jeb surges to his feet. He paces in front of the storm-streaked windows. It’s getting dark out.
When I feel Quinn’s muscles ease slightly, I hold her shoulders, look into her eyes. “You okay?”
She bites her lip hard. Her eyes are dry and hot looking. Red spots sit high on her cheeks.
“I think we should go upstairs and run a quick bath, how about that? We’ll put some bubbles in, okay?” I’m not sure it’s wise to bathe in a storm, but it’s all I can think of. It’s something concrete and comforting.
I sit with Quinn while she soaks, then I rub her dry with a big fluffy towel. She remains mute and oddly distant the whole while, and it makes me edgy. I leave her to change, giving her some space, and I go downstairs.
Jeb comes up to me, takes my shoulders. “Is she okay?”
“I hope so. It’s going to take time.” I hesitate. “We should find a therapist, a professional to help us all through this, because I sure as hell don’t know what I’m doing.” As I speak I realize we really are forming some kind of dysfunctional family unit. And we’re not ready. This is all happening outside of our control, in spite of our best attempts to delay things. In spite of Jeb’s goal, Sophia’s wish, to clear his name first.
The Slow Burn of Silence (A Snowy Creek Novel) Page 31