Gary had come back, and with him the ghost of the child she’d been. The child who had hated so powerfully, who had forgotten herself when they put her mother in the earth. Jesse had left that child behind long ago, because the alternative meant a journey into shadowy places she did not intend to revisit.
Survival had been all that mattered after the hospital, climbing out of the darkness and staying out for good. Years in foster homes, working her way through college, proving her strength and self-reliance. Proving she didn’t need anyone. Not needing made her free—free to meet every challenge she set herself and to teach others to do the same.
She hadn’t failed in that. She hadn’t failed when she’d returned to Manzanita and made a place for herself here.
But Gary had come back, and the foundations of independence and discipline she’d built began to crumble like ancient ruins.
Jesse found herself halfway across town with no recollection of the journey. Behind her was Marie Hudson’s new restaurant, with stylish café-style chairs and tables lined up along the outdoor porch. The library was directly across the highway; not so strange she’d wind up here, where Al was working.
Al Aguilar, her best friend, who’d sold her the land on which she’d built her cabin, just across the field from his own modest house. The one man she knew she could trust. He was a librarian now, but once he’d been a psychologist. A doctor who worked with the mind.
There wouldn’t be many people in the library at this hour. It was never crowded at the best of times. But Jesse hesitated. What could she tell Al? That she was afraid she was being sucked back into the distorted memories of a grieving child?
Or that after seventeen years—despite all the evidence, all the incontrovertible facts—she still felt in the deepest part of her soul that Gary Emerson was responsible for Joan Copeland’s death?
She turned to face the short strip of buildings that held the restaurant and post office. Someone was standing in front of the tiny, vacant storefront at the end that had been up for lease well over a year. The gray-haired man was hammering a poster just above the grimy window.
Gary Emerson, the poster said in bold red and blue letters. Gary Emerson for State Assembly. The man stepped away from his handiwork and called to someone inside the building. The sounds of hammering and sawing drifted out the open door.
Jesse stared at the poster. In the hospital she hadn’t thought about Gary, or wondered what had become of him when he left Manzanita. His part in her life had become the biggest blank in her memory. Only after her last stint in the Peace Corps had she determined to come home, visit her mother’s grave and face the sadness that had kept her away so long.
But Gary had remained an unreal phantom, a shape her mind rebuffed whenever she got too close.
Until today. Strange how clearly Jesse could remember certain things now: how Gary had been liked by nearly everyone in town, how he’d had Manzanita eating out of his hand. Before Joan died there’d been talk of his running for mayor, other modest ambitions that meant a great deal in a small town.
State assembly was something else. In seventeen years Gary had outgrown the meager rewards a place like Manzanita could provide. He had power; power and prestige and respect.
All Jesse had struggled to make of her life was here in Manzanita. She believed in her work for search and rescue, in spite of the doubts that had come with Bobby’s death. She enjoyed her job at the Lodge. But Gary’s return had unleashed the turbulent and unreliable fantasies of a troubled child. If there was the slightest chance that those fantasies had a basis in fact …
Yes. Jesse squeezed her eyes shut. Damn it, yes. She’d overcome that childhood breakdown. What she felt and remembered wasn’t some symptom of mental illness. There had to be a reason for what had happened—today, and at that funeral so long ago.
She only had to find it.
“Lookin’ for something to do, young lady?”
The man who’d put up the Emerson sign was standing in front of Jesse, smiling amiably as he swung his hammer. “We could sure use a bit of help settin’ up the new campaign office. Let me tell you, Gary Emerson’s goin’ to be the best thing that ever happened to Manzanita.” He squinted at her, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You are from around here, ain’t you?”
The bizarre incongruity of his question almost startled a laugh from Jesse. She didn’t have time to form an answer. A second man emerged from the shop and took the elder by the elbow. Wayne Albright, who knew her well enough. He’d been at Joan’s funeral.
“Come on, Fred,” he muttered. “Don’t go bothering people. I need your help inside.” But the glance he cast at Jesse was wary, as if he expected her to march after them and pull down the signs with the same fury she’d once attacked Gary Emerson.
He remembered.
Jesse turned around and walked in the opposite direction. Toward the library, and Al. There was little enough traffic to dodge on the highway; even in the summer season Manzanita was a quiet town.
The library was quietest of all. It was deserted except for a retiree reading a magazine in one of the chairs clustered by the window.
Al was seated at the reference desk in the far corner, buried in a pile of books. “May I help you?” he said without looking up.
“What can you tell me about memories?”
He closed the heavy volume he’d been reading. “Jesse. Sit down.”
He didn’t show any surprise that she’d come. He was like that, Al Aguilar—placid, calm, steady. He reminded Jesse of a Buddha statue she’d seen once in Asia, perched high above the turmoil of human existence. When she was a child, he’d been like a deeply rooted stone in the middle of a raging river, someone who would listen to her without judgment.
“Memories?” he prompted, pushing the books aside.
“I saw Gary Emerson at the Moran funeral,” she said. “It was … unexpected.”
Al snorted—his version of an obscenity—and settled in his chair, salt-and-pepper hair grazing his collar. His dark eyes held a flicker of emotion that didn’t disturb the tranquillity of his features. “I saw the signs across the street. State Assembly. He’s come back the big man he always wanted to be.”
Al’s scorn was no less cutting for its mildness. He had been one of the few people in Manzanita who’d held out against Gary’s easy charm and broad smile. Along with a lonely eleven-year-old child.
“Yes,” she said, grateful for the evenness of her voice. “When I saw him today, I … remembered. Al, I had flashes of things that happened at my mother’s funeral. Things I’d completely pushed out of my mind.”
“Such as?”
She ran her finger along the edge of Al’s desk, letting the repetitive motion work a calming rhythm as if she were sanding furniture in her workshop. “You were there. You know.”
He nodded. “Memories don’t always work the way we expect them to.”
Jesse breathed out slowly. She wouldn’t have to explain. “I didn’t ask for them,” she said. “I can hardly remember the hospital anymore, except that I was there.”
But she remembered the feelings. How much she hated that place, hated being crazy—though no one ever used that word. The reasons for her breakdown hadn’t mattered after she’d begun to get well. All she could think of was escape.
“There was no purpose in dwelling on the past, Jesse,” Al said. “It wouldn’t have made any difference.”
So deftly he avoided the embarrassing questions, the too personal observations. He didn’t care what she’d done back then, or how disturbed she’d been. They’d never demanded anything of each other, she and Al, and that was why she could ask for his help.
“It makes a difference now,” she said, meeting his gaze. “I hadn’t thought of Gary in years, but when I saw him today, something happened to me. I was eleven years old again. And I hated him. I hated him so much that I thought I might be losing my mind.”
The very calmness of her words must have convinced Al of her urg
ency. He leaned forward, resting his weight on his good arm, and studied her face. “Irrational feelings don’t necessarily equate with mental illness. In this case, it’s understandable—”
“There’s more to it than that. Everyone in town knew I didn’t like Gary when he was with us. But when my mother died—” She swallowed. “When she died, I was convinced Gary killed her.”
The library was very quiet for several heartbeats. Al’s brows drew together in the faintest of frowns. “You know that’s not possible, Jesse. He wasn’t in the area at the time of Joan’s death. He was never even a suspect.”
No. Not upright, much-admired Gary Emerson. He’d been innocuously distant from the tragedy.
Just like Jesse. She’d been somewhere out in the hills when Joan drank herself into a stupor and plunged into a current too swift, too strong.…
“They ruled her death an accident,” Jesse said tightly. “I wasn’t in a state to question that when I was in the hospital. Maybe if Gary hadn’t come back to Manzanita, I never would have.”
“But you are now.”
“I have to. If he had nothing to do with her death, if there’s no reason I should hate him, then maybe I am losing it. And I refuse to believe that.” She braced her hands on the desk and tried to make Al understand. “I know there’s something wrong about Emerson. Something dark. I think I always knew it. Either my instincts are right, or I won’t be able to trust them again.”
Al looked out the window toward the new campaign office. “You can’t bring back the dead.”
“But I can bring back the rest of my memories. The childhood I lost so much of in the hospital. All I get are fragments, and if I could just remember the time with Gary, when he was with my mother … I know the answer is locked somewhere in my mind.”
“And if the answer isn’t what you want to see?”
“It can’t be worse than not knowing.” She shook her head. “You’re a psychologist. There must be some way you can help me.”
Al pushed his chair away from the desk and stood, grabbing his cane. He paced toward the window, the cane beating out an uneven rhythm that revealed what his voice and face did not. “I’m not in practice. I haven’t been in years.”
“But you didn’t leave it because you weren’t good, Al. You have the knowledge and the education. There’s no one else I can trust.”
His sigh was almost inaudible. “Did you have some specific therapy in mind?”
“I’ve heard that hypnosis can help with the recovery of memories. Can you do that, Al?”
“I’ve had some training—” He hesitated and stared out the window for several seconds before he turned back to her. “It’s a controversial therapy, particularly with regard to so-called repressed memories. If you want my opinion as a psychologist, I don’t think you should rush into this. You have a stable life, Jesse, and Emerson will soon be gone.”
A stable life, where the only dangers were from the elements and nature, not to her mind and heart. That was what she’d fight to keep.
She got up and joined Al by the window. “I respect your opinion. But this is something I have to do.” She wondered how to explain so illogical a feeling to Al, who had such firm control over his emotions.
She’d thought her own control was securely intact. How wrong she’d been. One crack, and it could shatter into a million pieces. If she let that disintegration begin, she might find herself back in the hospital.
Anything was better than that. Anything.
“I want you to think about it, Jesse,” Al said. “Sleep on it, and if you still feel this way tomorrow morning, we’ll discuss it further.”
She nodded, but she knew her resolve wouldn’t waver. Gary Emerson could leave town in the next few minutes and it would make no difference.
She looked across the street. Wayne and his older friend were arguing over the placement of another Emerson sign, and a small group from the restaurant had gathered to watch and gesture over the new source of activity. Gary was already making waves in Manzanita.
Would she meet him again, today or tomorrow, at the post office or on the way to her job at Blue Rock Lodge? Would he do as he’d done this morning—merely stare at her, as if she were still the little girl who’d gone at him tooth and nail, screaming of betrayal?
Would she repeat the same performance, attack him like a deadly enemy? Hatred was better than fear—the devastating, paralyzing fear that made her turn tail and run. But she couldn’t seem to master either emotion.
Somewhere in her memories she’d find the way to face what she didn’t understand. Face and conquer Gary Emerson.
“I’d better get going,” she said to Al. “I have a hiking group at the Lodge this afternoon.” She didn’t let Al see any hesitation as she walked out into the sunshine and crossed the highway.
People in the group observing the sign-hanging noticed her approach. Heads turned and leaned together in a buzz of conversation. Jesse walked past them to the post office, emptied her box, and headed for home.
Home was at the edge of town, hidden in a copse of trees near the back of Al’s three-acre lot. The modest patch of ground with its tiny creek and woods had provided welcome solitude when she’d come back to Manzanita. A hill rose directly behind the cabin, and every morning Jesse could see the deer arrive to graze on the gentle slope.
The cabin was sanctuary; no one invaded her privacy here. This was a place she’d made for herself, and not even the malignant specter of Gary could enter uninvited.
She pushed open the door and went into her small kitchen, setting a kettle on for herbal tea. She thumbed through the junk mail and found the letter from her father’s lawyer; monthly, regular as clockwork, and to be ignored like the others. She put it on the pile of like letters on top of the refrigerator. Even after his death, her father tried to atone for abandoning his wife and child.
Jesse had inherited the money he’d accumulated after he’d left them. The lawyer was constantly reminding her of that, sending her reports and financial statements. She could be wealthy. All she had to do was accept her inheritance.
Guilt money. She wanted nothing to do with it. She would have given the world when she was seven years old to know that her absent dad still loved her.
Now it was far too late.
She poured her tea and sat at the kitchen table. An hour to get herself together, and then it was off to Blue Rock for the hiking group. She couldn’t turn up at the Lodge in less than top condition, mentally or physically.
She wouldn’t let them down.
She finished the tea, put the kettle away, and changed into her oldest jeans. The smell of wood shavings in the workshop was soothing and safe. In the rhythm of sanding and polishing, she found the comfortable silence within herself that no one could touch. And if, in that silence, she remembered a dream of love and happiness, roses and a laughing child and a man with blue eyes, she didn’t for a moment let herself believe it was real.
That night the dream was different.
Jesse had come home at eight, gratifyingly tired, and dropped into bed soon after. During the hike, herding her city folk over one of the easier mountain trails, she’d almost managed to put thoughts of Gary and the funeral behind her. Her drive home from the Lodge had turned up no sight of him, or of anything else that could trigger painful memories.
Maybe Al was right; the past was dead and buried. Digging it up again was more dangerous than simply waiting for Gary to leave. Surely this unwanted mental turmoil would go away, sooner or later, and leave her in peace.
She’d almost convinced herself when she went to bed, focused only on the oblivion of sleep.
And then the first dream came, lancing through her brain like an electric current.
She knew at once where she was. The cabin at the resort she shared with her mother—plain, cozy, the furniture worn but serviceable. The best accessories were saved for the guest rooms and lodge. But now, four years after Dad’s disappearance, even the guest rooms were
becoming run-down, the resort steadily losing money.
Angry voices crackled in the air as Jesse crouched just outside the open living room window. Mom’s voice—and Gary’s. Mom’s words were slurred the way they often were when she’d been drinking. Gary sounded nasty and contemptuous and frightening.
“Do you think you can threaten me?” he asked with dangerous softness. “Do you believe there’s anything you can do to hurt me, you bitch?”
A sob caught in Joan’s throat. “I … took you in … I can’t pretend—”
Her words ended abruptly. Jesse grabbed the edge of the windowsill and lifted herself with her arms, feet braced against the wall.
Gary had Joan by the shoulders, a grip that must have been painful. Only Jesse’s terror kept her from crying out.
Because she’d always hated Gary. Always feared him. Even though he gave her smiles and easy banter meant to be friendly—smiles that barely hid the same contempt he showed her mother. In public he acted the perfect surrogate father.
In private they were enemies in an undeclared war. A war Gary forever seemed to be winning.
“I’m warning you,” Gary said, shaking Joan again. “Now you know what I can do. You know what will happen if you push me too far. There’s something that matters more to you than the pathetic courage you’ve found in that bottle.”
“No,” Joan whispered. She shuddered violently. “You wouldn’t. Please.”
“You should have thought about that before,” he said. “You’d better start thinking with whatever brain you’ve got left.” He released her and she stumbled into the kitchen cabinet. “In a few days I’m going to Redding with Wayne and the boys. When I come back you’d better have forgotten all about this, Joan.” He reached over to the counter and grabbed a bottle by the neck. “Here. Go find yourself some little hole in the wall and have a blast.”
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