The boat was maybe six yards from her. He wasn’t rowing now, just sitting there watching her, enjoying her helplessness. She used the moment’s reprieve to rid herself of her shoes and jacket.
Along the stretch of shoreline, an occasional light shone from a window, beckoning to her. Her own house was in darkness. She could just make out its shape against the darker woods, and the inky blue sky scattered with stars.
He was rowing after her. She swam, every stroke a reminder of where the oar had struck her shoulder. Thankfully, it had been a glancing blow, and wouldn’t halt her progress significantly.
“You’ll never make it back to shore, Marie,” he called out to her. “Get back in the boat. I won’t hurt you.” His insane laughter chilled her even more than the water. A little closer and he could finish her off with the oar if he chose to. She was swimming as fast as she could but she knew she was only buying time. Because the bottom line was, he could row faster than she could swim. Still, she swam.
He rested the oars. Charlie was taking his time. In no hurry. Even though the wind’s blade cut through his clothes, the way it had the weasel’s the night they rowed across from Harding. The night it all began. It had all led him here, to this moment. It was fated. Her death would free him.
She was about thirty yards from him now, he could just see her head above the dark water, pale arms emerging alternately from the choppy waves. He smiled to himself and reached once more for the oars.
And then he saw something that filled him with stark terror.
Daring a look behind her, Rachael was surprised at how far away from the boat she had managed to swim. And even more surprised to see Charlie standing up in the boat. He appeared to be taking bows before an unseen audience, looking as absurd as a character in a cartoon. Up and down he went, up and down. What is he doing? she wondered. And then she noticed how low in the water the boat was. And she knew.
Treading water, she continued to watch him bail water from the boat with what appeared to be only his cupped hands. From the frantic dipping and rising of his body, she could only assume the water was coming in faster than Charlie could scoop it out. Like viewing a surreal movie, she saw her tormentor shift his weight from one side of the boat to the other until suddenly, and predictably, it flipped over sending Charlie into the bay, leaving her with a vague sense of astonishment. For several long seconds, she did not see him at all. Suddenly he reappeared, reaching for the upturned boat. “Help me, Marie,” he cried out. “Help me. I can’t swim.”
She could not quite believe what she was hearing and seeing. This unexpected turn of events disoriented her. They did not seem real. None of it seemed real. Rachael looked back toward the shore. Strangely, it did not seem quite so far away as it had only moments ago. There was a faint throbbing in her shoulder, but nothing she couldn’t handle. The cold water acted as a balm on her flesh, torn from the nail.
She resumed swimming, her strokes cutting strong and sure through the choppy waves, taking her farther and farther from him. When next she looked back she could no longer see him in the darkness. His pitiful cries reached out to her. “Please. Help me.”
She rested, moving her arms and legs just enough to stay afloat. Can this be happening? Is it possible? The questions came with something more akin to amazement then relief. But relief did come, in a rush, like a damn bursting inside her and she was laughing hysterical laughter that quickly turned to sobs, so violent they caused her to swallow water, sobering her. She turned her back to him and once more, directing all her attention on the shoreline and the faint outline of her house, she swam toward home and safety.
Behind her, Charlie’s terrified cries pulled at her like hateful magnets. They wouldn’t let her be, threatened to break her rhythm. She tried not to hear them. To hell with you. Die, you crazy bastard. like you wanted me dead. Like you killed the others. She swam hard, intent only on putting more distance between them, on reaching shore. Determined not to hear him. Soon, his cries grew fainter.
A wave washed strands of hair into her eyes, stinging them with the salt water. She swam on. She did not hear him after awhile, just the water, the wind, her own harsh breathing. She wanted to live.
It shamed her to think that even for a moment, when her marriage crumbled, she had wanted to die. For life had never seemed so precious as it did in this moment, nor so tenuous.
Exhausted and shivering in the cold water, she tried to estimate how long she had been out here, swimming, treading water. A half hour? two hours? No, not that long. But she couldn’t be sure. She did know that shivering meant her body was trying to keep itself warm; she remembered that from a first-aid course she'd taken in school.
She blinked water from her eyes, pushed away the sodden tendrils of hair plastered to her face. I'm so tired. I just want to sleep.
Swim.
“I can’t.”
You can. You must.
She heard herself whisper ‘yes’. After maybe a dozen strokes, she knew it was no use. She had no strength in her arms. Nothing left.
You do. Don’t think. Push beyond the pain. You did before. Do it now.
Yes, I must try. Find the zone, stay in it. Like you do when you’re running.
And for a time it worked.
Grimly concentrated, Rachael swam, and kept swimming until her arms began to feel like slabs of concrete. Then she treaded water some more.
The shore blurred in her vision, seemed a hundred miles away. Land glimpsed in the distance. So far from her reach. How could that be?
Forty
Captain Sorrel had scarcely brought the car to a stop when Iris bolted from the passenger seat and bounded up the porch steps. For an old gal, she’s in damn good shape, he thought, a tad slower in getting out of the car himself.
Rachael’s Cavalier was in the yard. There was no night-light on, and the house itself was in darkness. Iris felt an awful dread even as she rang the doorbell, already sensing there was no one in the house.
“Rachael,” she called out. But there was no answer; she hadn’t really expected one. Still, she called out her name again, pounded on the door. A hollow demand for her to be all right.
Elton swept the powerful beam of his flashlight along the ground by the edge of the house. Minutes later he was standing beside Iris on the porch. “There are fresh footprints under the kitchen window, Iris. The window’s unlocked. Looks like someone got in that way,” he added unnecessarily.
“Oh, dear God…”
“I think this situation warrants the breaking of a rule or two,” the captain said. It took two hard kicks to the door before it flew open.
Inside, they were met with ominous silence. She followed Elton into the kitchen, where a telling puddle of water beneath the window confirmed Elton’s suspicions of how the intruder had gained entry. They searched upstairs and down, but there was no sign of Rachael. Of anyone.
Where was she? What had he done to her? Iris looked around the kitchen as if the answer might be written on the walls, or on a refrigerator door magnet. Elton was talking into his cellphone, his back partly toward her to prevent her hearing. It didn’t.
In the livingroom, Iris saw the crumpled up note on the end table. She unfolded it, read it and passed it to Elton with a hand not quite steady. After reading the note, the policeman slipped it into an evidence bag, sealed the bag. They went outside just in time to see Peter driving up. As he hurried toward them, Iris could see her own fear reflected in her nephew’s eyes.
“Aunt Iris. Captain. What’s going on? I’ve been trying to call Rach…”
“Something terrible has happened, Peter.” Iris tried to stop her voice from shaking. “Martin Dunn, the man Rachael rented the cabin to is not a photographer at all, as he claimed. He’s a murderer. He murdered his own sister. He killed Heather.”
“What? What are you talking…?”
“We don’t know that for certain, Iris,” Captain Sorrel cut in. “Butwell, it does seem that Martin Dunn and Charlie Morl
ey are one the same person, Peter. But we’re only guessing here.”
But Iris wasn’t guessing. She knew. Everything added up to it. The vision she’d had of the girl, the article, Rachael resembling Marie Morleyeverything.
“Martin Dunn is actually the name of Morley’s biological father,” Elton said. “He apparently saw his parents’ names on some papers when he was a kid. He never searched for either of his birth parents as far as anyone knows, but he did remember the name. When he got out of the nuthouse, he used it for his own. A private joke, I suppose. At least, that’s his shrink’s story. And it’s a long, involved one,” he said to the confused man before him. “Enough to say he’s a murderer.”
“And he has Rachael, Peter,” Iris said, her own voice breaking.
“No…” A single word of denialdenial of the unthinkable.
“Sorry,” Sorrel said. “Wish I had more time for tact, folks. But your friend is in serious trouble. I’m going to check the cabin out. I’ve already called for backup.”
“I’m going with you,” Peter said.
“No, he could have a weapon. It’s better if…”
“You’ve got a gun. Use it if you have to. I’m going, damn it, Elton.”
“Me too,” Iris said. “I’ll get another flashlight.”
“Great,” Sorrel muttered, but he didn’t argue further.
As the three made their way up through the woods to the cabin, Peter and Iris walking behind Captain Sorrel, Iris recalled the words Rachael had used in describing her tenant: ‘Too good to be true’. Oh, dear Lord, why wasn’t I listening? Even at the dinner last night, the bad feelings had churned inside her like some foul witch’s brew. A couple of times when someone spoke to her, it was as if the voice had come from far off, out of some other dark and alien dimension.
The cabin came into view. Elton moved toward it warily, gun drawn, his other hand waving them back, telling them to come no further. But it was evident that no one was inside.
The door to the cabin was wide open. The first thing Iris saw was the overturned chair on the floor, strips of tape still clinging to the arms and legs. The sight restricted her ability to take a complete breath.
As soon as they stepped inside, Iris saw what looked like a pair of women’s gloves lying on the floor. Rachael’s? Last night, Rachael had casually mentioned that her good leather gloves were missing. Her daughter had given them to her, she said. Iris’ gaze shifted to the Lysol can on the floor. To the cigarette butts overflowing in the sardine can, by the cot. The place reeked of stale cigarette smoke. She looked back at the gloves, took a step in their direction.
“Don’t touch anything,” Elton ordered. He was down on one knee shining the flashlight over the blade of a shovel propped against the wall, behind the stove. “Looks like blood,” he said to no one in particular.
“Oh, no…”
The note of horror in her whispered words made him look up. “It’s dried, Iris. Been there awhile.” Leaving the shovel, he checked out the washroom and broom closet, retrieved an olive green boot from the closet floor. Holding it up gingerly by its top, he looked questioningly at them.
“Sure as hell looks like one of Hartley’s,” Peter said hoarsely. “Why did they let this bastard out if they knew he was cold blooded killer?”
He’d asked the same question himself. “From my conversation with Whittaker, I gather Morley could be downright charming when it suited him. He was crazy, but apparently not stupid. He told them what they wanted to hear, so they figured he was better and let him go. Shrinks like to think they cured you. Makes them feel god-like.”
Peter shook his head at the comment and went outside, returning a few minutes later. “George’s boat’s missing.”
“That right?” Sorrel said, frowning, but making no immediate connection between Peter’s news and the missing woman.
“Just the two sawhorses left that it was sitting on.”
“Kids, you think?”
Peter shrugged. “Who else would bother with that old siv?”
The singular thought struck the three of them simultaneously: Charlie Morley would have no way of knowing what condition George’s old boat was in?
Forty-One
Like a child learning to swim, Rachael splashed feebly at the water. Ineffective, clumsy efforts at best. She was so tired. She wanted only to sleep. Just close her eyes and sleep forever. So tired. So very tired. Stop moving your arms and you’ll just slip away. It will be over. Just then a rogue wave crashed over head, nearly taking her under. When it subsided, she gulped in precious air and knew how badly she wanted to live. I want to get to know Peter better. To become a better artist. I want to hold my grandchildren.
Yes. And you will. Her grandmother’s voice again.
I’m not so sure, Emily.
She pushed on even though her efforts now were barely moving her forward. It was not long until her arms refused to lift out of the water at all, until she could not feel her legs. She floated on her back for a time, starred up at the upside bowl of stars, fragmented in her blurred vision. She was moving her arms just enough to keep her drifting farther away from shore.
In her darkest moments when letting go seemed the easy choice, even the welcome choice, the voice would return to her, urging her on. Encouraging her. But the voice was growing fainter now and she had to strain to hear it. Her arms and legs kept moving as if with a will of their own. But barely. Now and then she would call for help, but she was no longer sure if she was making any sound. Thought and memory flitted through her mind like birds on the winglike bluejays darting from tree to tree. Images of Peter laughing, of Iris brushing green paint onto the rim of a bowl. Of her children creating playdough creatures at the kitchen table back in Deering. She moved as if in a dream. Once, she even imagined she heard a siren.
Then, ever so faintly, she heard the drone of what sounded like an outboard motor. She must be hallucinating. Everything had an unreal quality about it, like in the grey zone between sleep and waking.
But the drone was louder now. In her dreamlike state, she turned her head in the direction of the sound, and saw a yellow light bobbing above the surface, speeding through the night toward her, growing larger and larger as it came closer, like a huge yellow sun. She blinked her eyes, expecting it to disappear again, merely a mirage to further torment her. But it didn’t disappear. Rachael tried to raise an arm to signal where she was, but managed only to slip beneath the water. Resurfacing, coughing the salt water, she cried out weakly, “I’m here. I’m here.”
Minutes later, familiar, gentle hands were lifting her from the water and helping her into a boat. As those same hands wrapped her in something warm, she heard Peter say, “Hit it, Captain.” He held her close, murmuring “You’re safe now, Rachael. It’s over.”
His reassuring words kept repeating themselves in her heart, and at last she gave herself over to the blessed oblivion of nothingness.
Forty-Two
Rachael remained in hospital for four days recovering from severe hypothermia and exhaustion. Ironically, Greg was up on the next floor, in intensive care, following the removal of his spleen. She went to visit him two weeks later and was relieved to see that he was almost back to his old self, even to flirting with one of the young nurses. Clearly, there would be other Lisas.
He had wanted her back not because he loved her, (though he insisted that he did) but because she represented safety to him. As Jenny’s Cove had represented safety to her. But she knew now that the only real safety came from within.
Fingerprints lifted from the cabin proved beyond doubt that Martin Dunn and Charlie Morley were indeed one and the same person. Other connections would be made, linking him to the murder of a number of women, Heather Myers among them.
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