He drew his gaze back to his father. “I have no idea, Dad.” He slumped into one of the chairs at the table near Carrie and reached underneath to comfort the dogs.
Ray stood leaning back against the rear wall, his expression drawn into a scowl, no doubt of hatred for the person who did this. He straightened. “We’ll keep the dogs inside nights now, if that’s all right with you, Carrie?”
“Of course. Of course it is,” she replied, tears still just below the surface.
Ray nodded. “I’d like to speak to Carrie for a moment, Jake, if you don’t mind. And I think we have a ranch to run here. Better get back down to business. There’s not a lot more can be done today ’less Dex comes by with any news.”
Jake towed his long frame from the chair, catching Carrie’s eye as he did so. It was as if he were asking her a question, and she had the sudden feeling he had something to say to her, but he only grabbed his hat and left the porch.
Ray waited for the sound of the front door closing.
“You all right now?” He hauled out a chair and sat opposite her.
She slowly put the lid of her laptop down and met his gaze. “You’re worried I’m going to leave because of all this, aren’t you?”
“Some,” he admitted. “I’d like to think we haven’t quite scared you off.”
“I think I have pretty good protection.” She reached across for his hand. “I am worried about one thing, however.” She entwined her fingers with his, feeling the callous of his palms against her own soft skin.
“My drinking. I know.”
He waited, gulping in air as if he might soon blow away the subject between them, yet she would insist on having it out.
“I had…a few drinks. No one got hurt by it, did they? I didn’t drive a car, I didn’t puke up, and I didn’t beat you—”
“You did snore something awful, and you stank like hell.”
Ray grimaced.
“Look,” she went on, “it was an awful night, I don’t deny that. But how do I know it won’t continue? How do I know next time it won’t be worse, the next time—”
“Listen—I want to tell you something. After you left back in May and I decided I was gonna try to pursue you, I stopped drinking. But I also went to AA a couple of times. I’m not an alcoholic, Carrie—eh, eh, wait a moment,” he said, putting out a hand to stop her from commenting. “I have a habit, not an addiction. There’s a difference. I got in the habit of coming in, in the evening, and starting to drink. And, yes, I had to break the habit, but I’m not addicted.”
“Some might say you’re in denial, Ray. I know you stopped once, though, so…”
“All right.” With a sudden movement, he was back on his feet. “I’d rather have you than a drink. I think…”
“You think you’d rather have me than a drink?” With a small smile, she raised her brows in question.
“Noooo. I was going to say, I think maybe I should throw it all out. I was keeping it to prove to myself I could resist, but if you’d feel better with it all out of the house…”
Carrie sat for a moment, studying her hands, taking in the prominent veins, the sunken skin. “I think I have to trust you,” she said at last. “I think if you tell me you’re not going to drink, I have to believe that, will believe that. Because otherwise, I’ll start wondering what else you’ve lied about.”
****
“I’ve been expecting your call.”
Jake hit his head back against the wall behind his bed as if he could knock the answer to his problems into himself. “I guess your mom told you, huh?”
“Oh, yes. She had a long session of crying down the phone and a blow by blow description of you retching outside the kennel. Charming. Is she still in shock?”
It was a wonder to him that Paige could manage to sound so disinterested while actually asking questions.
“No. No, I think she’s fine. She seemed to be mostly concerned with my dad’s drinking.” He grimaced a bit. “Maybe not. She was pretty shook up. Said these two eyes came toward her like floating eyeballs or something, and this ghostly knife, like something out of Macbeth. What the hell does that mean?”
She gave a sigh of exasperation. “It’s a play, Jake—it’s Shakespeare.”
“I know it’s a dang play, Paige. I have been to school.” He hit his head again against the wall. “I don’t know why the hell I called you. I thought you might be some help.”
“Well, Jake. We know whose eyeballs and whose knife they were, don’t we? And they didn’t belong to Banquo or Duncan.”
He snorted.
“You want my advice?”
“Go on, let’s have it.” Oh, brother, this is going to be good.
“Tell Ray everything. From beginning to end—”
“I can’t. It’ll be even worse now. I have the dog’s death on my head now. I can’t.” He heard himself, heard the note of pleading in his voice as if he were trying to argue with himself, convince himself.
“Listen, Jake, you listen to me. That maniac is not going to stop at killing a dog. You have to, at the very least, tell the police.”
He didn’t respond.
Suddenly, she let out, “Jeez, how did you ever survive the army for four years, for goodness sake? You’re such a wimp.”
He gulped a sharp intake of breath. “You still don’t get it, do you Paige? You still don’t understand. You and your independence, and your not caring.”
“If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t become a lawyer,” she retorted vehemently. “You think I don’t care? Do I have to cut my wrists every time something goes wrong?”
“You see everything in black and white, Paige, like lawyers do. But life isn’t like that. There are gray areas, too.”
“My, but we are philosophical today, aren’t we?” she cut in.
“Yeah. Look, we’ve discussed my problem with telling my father before.”
“Tell my mother,” Paige railed at him abruptly. “Go tell my mother and see what she says. She must know Ray pretty well by now, aside from in the biblical sense. And Jake?”
“Yeah.”
“You are going to have to tell the police. Whatever happens, you must go tell the local police. Tell them your part in it. It’s going to be the only way to screw this guy good. Otherwise, he’ll bring you down with him.”
Putting down the phone, Paige stared for several moments at the textbook in front of her. The desk lamp made an island of light in the darkened room. She tried to imagine Jake now, the violet blue eyes and the strong chin with its dimple, which made him look so much more virile than he acted. Had he been right? Was she uncaring, cold and calculating without feelings for anyone or anything?
No, of course that wasn’t true. She dealt with things on her own, as she always had. Yet sometimes, studying at night, she would suddenly be aware of the silence; she would hear it like a scream, as if she stood in some damp, back alley in the early hours of morning, rain glistening on streets reflected in the shuttered eyes of night. Then perhaps a car engine would start up out on the street or there might be footsteps overhead, and she would try to focus again on the book she was holding until the silence disturbed her once more. It was a feeling she didn’t like at all, this total solitude.
‘No man is an island,’ Donne had written, yet Paige saw herself very much like an island. With her mother off with the Ryders and friends now mostly married or in jobs, which gave them little spare time, and she, herself, studying all the hours she could, she sensed an isolation that at times proved unbearable.
She called Jake back.
“Have you ever told your father you loved him?” she asked when he picked up.
There was silence on the end of the phone for a moment. Paige listened to Jake’s breath, could almost hear him thinking, ideas floating through his brain and trying to settle.
Then there was a dry laugh. “No. Dad told me a while back how much he loved me or some such nonsense. Said I made him proud. It was weird, and, of course, it
only made things worse for me about telling him about Robbie. Shoot, Paige, what the heck brought this on?”
“I don’t know how to do it. I think I should—tell my mother that is. But she’ll think I’m going to kill myself or something, and that it is my good-bye.” Was that what she really wanted? A touchy-feely encounter with her mother?
“Then you’ll have to wait ’til you see her. Hey, why don’t you fly out? Surprise her. I’ll pick you up at the airport an’ all—we have a spare room.” Although a spare room wasn’t where he would want her—that was certain.
“I can’t, lovely as that would be. I am in law school, you know.”
“Well. Wait ’til you see her. Throw your arms ’round her or something girls do.”
“I’m not touchy-feely, Jake.”
“Coulda fooled me.”
She let silence be her answer.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I shouldn’t of said them things about you being uncaring. That’s what’s brought this all on, isn’t it? But, I mean, you do care. You cared about your fiancé an’ all, and you’ve been a big help to me. Even if I don’t follow your advice all the time.”
Paige smiled to herself. “I have to go. Tell the police, Jake. Remember what I said. You must tell the police.”
****
While Dex had no news, he did call round periodically and stop for a coffee and a chat, distracting and rather annoying Carrie. It appeared the crime would go unsolved, unpunished, while the days passed and she and Ray were back in a routine. She sighed at having to spend increasing amounts of time on the phone to New York and Los Angeles to sort out various problems while the ranch got busy in its early autumn hunting season. She sensed Ray feared for the horses but hadn’t as yet done more than check them and make sure doors were locked.
“I’m thinking of putting up more security cameras,” he told Carrie as he stood, gently massaging her neck as she worked.
She nodded her head in agreement.
“I’m also thinking maybe we can—or rather you can—redecorate Robbie’s old room, the guest room, for a study. Gonna get chilly out here in the winter.”
She craned backwards and peered up at him. “I appreciate the thought, but I don’t know if it’s worth it,” she began.
“Well, it’s worth it to me. Even if you do have to go, it’ll be here waitin’ for you when you return.”
He stood waiting for her to say something, but she only clicked on her mouse and shut the computer down.
He tapped her on the shoulders. “I’ve been waitin’ for the moon to come out—”
“Going to howl at it?” she quipped.
“No. I’m going to take you for a ride and show you something special. Been meaning to take you, but had to wait for a full moon.”
“All right. Sounds good to me.” Still jangled by what had happened, she accepted his offer with some trepidation. “I hope you’re going to bring along a gun.” She said it in some jest but wondered about the actual wisdom of going out in the night.
“I don’t believe that’s necessary. Maybe you want to go out for dinner again instead? I don’t mind. Whatever you want.”
“Nope, I’ll be safe with you. I guess. And a ride sounds wonderful. Just what I could use—fresh air and a good-looking man to accompany me.” She got up and faced him.
“Good looking, huh? Damn handsome son of a gun is what I am.” He laughed at her smirk. “Tell you what, you go change into your riding jeans or whathaveyou and I’ll go saddle up. Meet me down at the barn. Okay?”
“Okay.”
More relaxed having had time to consider this ride, she let him lead her down to the pond with the horses in a slow canter. Ray said the horses weren’t run in the dark for fear of not seeing some hole or other obstruction, and Carrie was happy to just get out, get away from the computer and work. She had begun to feel like an old married woman with Ray, the routine the household had settled into a source of comfort rather than one of boredom. Yet, she realized that since the night of the crime, an increasing restlessness, a distance each one had tried to bridge in his or her own way, had permeated the ranch house.
The horses splashed through the creek and started the climb up to the first rise. Carrie remembered there had been a meadow here, a beautiful, spring-flowered meadow, but now there was just the moon lighting a path across to the next rise.
“We’ll go slow here,” Ray advised, “in case of gopher holes.”
The horses picked their way across, straining to have a run and shaking their heads in dismay. Then, at the next ridge, Carrie saw it, understood why Ray had waited for a full moon.
“It’s so beautiful,” she gasped. “So beautiful.”
The moon hung above the still pond, like a grand chandelier above a great polished table, reflected in its tranquil water, immobile. It appeared Carrie could reach out and touch it, the vast orb within her range. For a moment, she saw herself as incredibly small again, a speck in the limitless expanse of universe spreading before her.
“This is where you first kissed me,” she said suddenly, the memory surprising her.
“Yep. And you let me, and then told me you were goin’ home. Great thing, that. Let a man kiss you and then…” He took in a breath and moved his horse nearer to hers. “I got you in the end, though, didn’t I?” He leaned across and brought her face to his, finding her lips waiting.
“You wore me down, Ray Ryder,” she said softly. “A girl can take just so much chasing before she succumbs. All those phone calls.”
He sat back straight in the saddle. “You gonna give me warning about leavin’, aren’t you?” There was an unusually serious note in his voice.
“Of course. I’m not even sure when. Things are happening, as you’ve no doubt gathered from all the calls.”
There were pinpoints of light in his dark eyes, boring a tunnel to his soul.
“I’ll be back though. You’re not rid of me yet.”
Chapter Twelve
Jake had once been told by his father he should expect to be shot if he ever interrupted Carrie while she was working. It was a joke, of course, but he was aware there was an amount of truth in it—a large amount of truth. Mabel now avoided the back porch until Carrie took a break for lunch or phone calls. His father recounted he had to sit quietly by Carrie without saying a word, maybe reading or doing a crossword, until she recognized him. “Comes ’round” was how his dad had actually phrased it, as if she went into a trance while writing, as if she had gone to another world like some medium or seer and had to be brought back to the present.
As Jake worked in the office at the front of the house the Friday of the week following his conversation with Paige, he saw his father’s newest pickup park in front; Carrie got out and waved his father off down the lane to the lodge. Jake gathered himself and stood waiting as she entered, some shopping bags from Fredericksburg dangling from an arm.
“Your father has the patience of a saint,” she affirmed as she spotted Jake. “I just wanted one morning to go round town, and he watched me try on about every pair of cowboy boots in the state of Texas. What a man.” A small giggle of joy matched the light in her eyes.
“You don’t mind being seen in the pickup, then?” Jake wondered.
“Mind? No, why would I mind? Everyone rides them in Texas and, anyway, this new one is downright luxurious. Don’t know what it would look like if someone muddy got in after working, but it’s really very comfortable. It’s the old one I dislike. I get rattled about in it. I’m sure it has no suspension.” She surveyed Jake, his hands in his pockets as he slouched his long frame against a wall, staring at her. “Are you all right? Is something the matter?”
His mouth moved like a fish taking in air. “Can we talk somewhere? I mean, can you spare me a few moments? Please?”
Carrie blinked, wariness and misgiving crossing her face. “I’ll just put these away,” she said. “You want to meet me in the sunroom?”
He pondered what was going
through her mind as she put away her purchases and prepared to meet him, if she thought it was about Paige. Although, he doubted she ever told her mother about their phone conversations. Had Carrie suspected him of some involvement in Alamo’s death, been surprised at how severely he had reacted that night?
Jerking out a chair opposite to where she always sat, he stood waiting until she entered. She nodded uncertainly to him as her chair squeaked out on the tile floor and she sat down, placing her computer aside, almost as if it were her symbol he had her undivided attention.
“So.” She said the word quietly, more a statement than a question, and waited.
“I don’t know where to begin, but I need your advice. Maybe your help.”
Carrie nodded in response.
Jake opened his mouth to speak, but nothing would come out for a moment. His tongue thickened in the desert of his mouth; he needed water.
“Is this to do with your father? Our relationship?”
“No, absolutely not. Well, not really.” He finally sat and bowed his head, studying his hands, as if he were praying, biding for a bit more time.
“Are you in some kind of trouble?” she hedged.
“Yeah. You might say that.” Pull yourself together, man.
“Is this to do with…with Alamo?”
“Yeah.” Go on, go on.
Carrie stood to open the porch door slightly, letting in the perfume of the warm autumn day before she sat back in her chair, staring at Jake, her hands folded together on the table. “I wondered, you know, when it happened, why, who would do this? When I told Paige, there was something in her voice as if she knew something, something she wasn’t telling me. And then I thought of the way you looked at me that night, as if you were asking something, needing to talk to me then. I guess as a writer you make studies of people. I just had a hunch. You’re generally such a calm person, Jake…well, generally.” She gave him a little smile. “Of course, you would be badly affected by that…that slaughter of your dog. But it just seemed, for someone who had seen what you’ve no doubt seen, it seemed so…” She stopped, no doubt realizing he was waiting and she was prattling on. “Go on, please. I’m sorry. Go on.”
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