Healing Waters

by Nancy Rue

  “What?” Sully said.

  “Well—I figured out that whenever I needed money for costumes or a field trip or something, I could get it out of my dad if I went down to Shenanigans Bar when he was only two beers in.”

  Sully only let her stew in that for a moment. “So why didn’t you continue dance after high school?”

  Her face clouded. “At the end of my junior year, I made dance captain for senior year.” She looked at him. “This all sounds so high school.”

  “It was high school! Besides, it’s amazing how often the rest of life looks like it.”

  She glared mildly and went on. “The coach offered to give me free private lessons over the summer if I would help her with her junior dance camps. And then my father got fired for being drunk on the job, right before junior year ended, and my mother had to go to work full-time, which meant I had to stay home with Sonia all summer because she was only twelve.”

  Lucia shrugged as if that explained everything. Sully shook his head.

  “Nothing could be worked out?”

  “My dance coach said Sonia could come to dance camp for free, but my mother said no. It would interfere with her voice lessons and her piano lessons and her drama classes, which I had to drive her to.”

  Sully curled toward her. “Weren’t you angry?”

  “Sure—but what was I supposed to do about it?” Lucia smiled without mirth. “I’ll tell you what I did about it. I ate. All summer. I couldn’t even fit into my uniform in the fall, so I just quit the dance team.” She dropped her hands into her lap. “I don’t want to keep whining about this. It was what it was.”

  “Then let’s go back to our original question: when you were dancing, how did it feel to you?”

  She pulled in her chin again. “How did it feel?”

  He nodded.

  “I don’t know. I can’t even remember.”

  “Then before we meet again, Lucia,” he said, “I want you to dance.”

  I couldn’t sleep again that night.

  I could have attributed it to the futon I’d dragged down from the garret above the playroom to put next to Bethany’s bed. It was like sleeping on a cement slab. Or to the fact that my niece had an adenoidal snore that was loud enough to wake my mother from her grave.

  Not that Mother was really that dead. And if she were, Sullivan and I had done plenty to rouse her that evening. She yelled in my head, the way only an Italian mother can. Something along the lines of: Lucia Marie, I cannot believe you aired our family laundry to that stranger. And now you’re going to tell him more?

  Actually, I probably hadn’t told him enough. I’d lied when I said I didn’t remember what it felt like to dance. I did, but how ridiculous would it sound to say, “When I danced, I never felt like Clifford the Big Red Dog, which I did all the rest of the time. I was a fawn, prancing through the forest with my tail up, able to leave the ground and land without disturbing a leaf.”

  Sullivan Crisp would do more than grin if I came out with that.

  I gave up on the futon and went to the window seat Bethany and I had peopled with stuffed bears and rag dolls in princess costumes of our own creation. It was a motley crew, but she loved it.

  Even at this hour I could hear a boat out on the water. They busied the Cumberland all the time—wakeboard boats in the late afternoons, sending out tsunamis with their speakers blaring hip-hop— pontoons traveling at sipping speed in the early evening—the occasional houseboat at night, still bursting with laughter. This one sounded like one of the fishing boats I’d spotted near our bank just after dawn, deceptively quiet until the fishermen decided there were better prospects elsewhere and took off like some kind of marine NASCAR, hulls barely cutting the surface.

  I peered through the glass and tried to see it, but the light of the waning moon was fragile, only enough for me to see the layered rock wall. I decided oddly that I was glad it was shades of gray— like maybe there was strength in things that weren’t clearly black or white. Any minute now the mother tape would tell me how much she hated it when people blamed every issue they had and every mistake they made on their childhood sexual abuse or their parental neglect. Nothing that bad had happened to me. Something obviously had just gone wrong with my personality, something I did. Some punishment from God.

  Or not, Mother.

  Bethany stirred in her sleep, and I went over to make sure she wasn’t strangling on that rag thing. When I came back to the window, I saw more light on the lawn. It took me a minute to realize it came from the motion-sensitive fixture out on the deck a floor below me. What was moving down there?

  A chill rippled through me, and I backed involuntarily away from the window.

  The author of a hate letter, looking to express his hatred in person.

  Patrick Fargason, coming to avenge his gay brother.

  Hudson himself, armed with his sharpened chef’s knife.

  Holly, the cruel, thieving nanny, ready to break in and take the rest of the valuables.

  Accompanied by Bryson and his supply of cyanide.

  I pulled a pink throw around me. The lights had probably been bumped on by a deer family or maybe even Harry the Heron. Or Sullivan out for a midnight stroll. There was no need to call 911.

  But it didn’t escape me that the people I’d just conjured up— Patrick, Hudson, Holly, Bryson—were all on the list Agent Schmacker had gone over with Sonia, and left for me to discuss with Bethany. She’d been right on one count: Bethany did know more about what went on around here than I’d given her credit for.

  My mouth went dry. I ought to call Agent Schmacker and at least tell her about the hate letters. What she did with them was up to her. Which was exactly what held me back.

  Patrick Fargason didn’t have to tell me his brother was ruined because the FBI had come to his workplace. I knew only too well how that happened, all in the name of justice.

  Another light came on, this one at the other end of the deck. My fear zone gained another five thousand square feet. Bethany and I were here alone. The doors were locked and dead bolted, but the alarm wasn’t turned on. Everyone had abandoned ship without telling me how to operate it.

  Stop. Just stop.

  I lay resolutely down on the futon and pulled the covers up to my chin and tried to do what Grandma Brocacini always said to do: pretend you’re asleep until you are. But my mind slid into the forming of an escape route for Bethany and me.

  The process had almost put me out when I heard a shout down in the yard. Under our window.

  I sat up, heart like a battering ram in my chest.

  The shout came again—an urgent male voice, calling, “Stop right there!”

  Sully shouted again as he tore across the lawn. “I said stop!”

  The figure didn’t. The man—it moved like a man—took an abrupt right turn and headed down the slope for the river. Sully kicked his heels out behind him, taking the terrace in strides that strained his hamstrings.

  Ahead of him the figure seemed to go airborne and thudded to the ground with a curse.

  Sully dodged the rock he’d tripped on and made a dive for the body that struggled to get back on its feet. Sully’s arms took in nothing but air until one hand hit cloth. He clawed it into his fingers and held on as the man tried to kick free. In the same instant that Sully realized he was clutching a pant leg, a heel slammed into his mouth and sent him rolling sideways.

  Footsteps pounded the turf toward the river, and Sully tried to get up to go after him, hands plastered to his lower face. But Kick Boxer had too much of a head start. The sound of a motor bit into the night before Sully could even make out that the guy had climbed into a boat. It growled its way down river, leaving Sully panting on the dock.

  He put his fingers to his mouth and drew back blood. What just happened? One minute he was talking about theodicy into a microphone, and the next minute he was auditioning for SmackDown on Sonia’s lawn. He looked down into the river and shivered, even in the night heat. Dang, thi
s thing was cursed.

  “Sullivan?”

  He jumped a foot and wasn’t altogether sure he didn’t wet his pants as well. Lucia stood on the rock ledge, wrapped like a burrito in that white bathrobe that was about six sizes too big for her. She held a lamp, complete with shade.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said.

  “That’s okay. I was already scared.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Did you come down to rescue me?” He tried to grin, but his lip screamed in protest.

  She looked at the lamp. “It was the first weapon I could find.”

  “You probably would have done more good than I did. What is that, Snow White?”

  “Yeah, Bethany’s into princesses. Sullivan—what was that about?” Sully wiped at his mouth again and walked unsteadily up the dock walkway to the bank. His legs were like cooked pasta.

  She met him there, eyes squinted. “Ouch,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, you oughta see the other guy.”

  “Should we call the police?”

  Sully reached for his phone. “No,” he said. “Do you have Deidre Schmacker’s number?”

  “The FBI? For a prowler?”

  Sully took the lamp and nodded for her to follow him toward the house. “I don’t think it was just any prowler. He had on a hood and a mask, Lucia. He made his getaway in a boat with at least 250 horsepower—and I know it was a four-cycle from the sound of it. That’s a high-end motor. It doesn’t look like an attempted burglary to me.”

  “Then what? Are they still after Sonia?”

  “The press hasn’t gotten wind that she’s back in the hospital,” Sully said. “The point is, the FBI should be notified of anything unusual.” He dabbed at his lip again. “I think this qualifies. Look, I probably shouldn’t stick my nose into something that isn’t any of my business . . .”

  She stopped at the bottom of the steps that led up to the dock and frowned at his lip. Her face was ghostly white in the light.

  “I think you’ve stuck more than your nose into it,” she said. “And I can’t handle the FBI alone.”

  It would have been a perfect segue if they’d been in a session. Sully just nodded.

  “I’ll get the number,” she said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Deidre Schmacker arrived in yellow sweats, stripped of makeup but as brisk and awake as if it were noon. She brought an entire platoon of people in blue vests that ever-so-subtly announced they were the FBI in large yellow letters on the back. Armed with flashlights, they combed the lawn and fingerprinted the dock and the deck posts and all but dragged the river, while Deidre questioned Sullivan in the kitchen and I made her tea. I hoped they’d be gone before Bethany woke up, though I wasn’t sure how she was sleeping through any of it.

  Sullivan was polite and cooperative, patiently going over and over the details until I wanted to ask if Grandma Schmacker needed to get a hearing aid.

  “Can you think of anything at all that might help us identify him?” she said for what must have been the twelfth time.

  “From what I could tell, I think he was shorter than me,” Sully said again. “Didn’t have much heft. Wiry.” He nodded at the ice bag I’d given him. “He was strong enough to take me out.”

  “And you’re sure he didn’t say anything?”

  I ground my teeth and plunked the teapot in front of her. Did she want it in blood?

  “Just that one four-letter utterance I told you about, when he tripped and fell. If he hadn’t, I never would have gotten hold of him.”

  When Schmacker launched into a review of what the cloth felt like, I was ready to head for the pantry and devour its contents.

  “Dr. Crisp, you’ve been very helpful,” Agent Schmacker said finally. “Now if you’ll excuse us, I’d like to speak with Mrs. Coffey privately.”

  I froze, fingers around the teapot handle. “I would rather he stayed.”

  “This will just take a few minutes.” Her eyes did their grandmother droop. “If you don’t mind, Dr. Crisp.”

  He gave me a reassuring look, but I felt less than bolstered as I went mechanically to the counter stool she nodded to. I was reenacting a scene that had happened to me before.

  What now? I was about to be implicated in the continued threats on my sister’s life?

  “This is a nice tea,” she said. “Won’t you join me in a cup?”

  “No, thank you,” I said. I would rather drink hemlock.

  “You don’t care much for me, do you, Mrs. Coffey?”

  As hard as I tried to remain expressionless, I knew my eyebrows shot up.

  “I’m an observer, just like you are,” she said. “I see these things.”

  I shrugged. “Does it make any difference whether I like you?”

  “It makes a difference that you trust me. I know this must be hard for you. I looked into it—you had a rough go with the FBI when your husband was arrested. That can leave a bitter taste in your mouth.”

  She obviously wouldn’t leave me alone if I didn’t give her something.

  “Okay,” I said. “I did come across some hate mail for Sonia, just yesterday, that I was going to call you about.”

  “I’m not accusing you of holding anything back, Mrs. Coffey, although I would like to see those.”

  “I’ll go get them.”

  She put an unwelcome hand on my arm. “That can wait. My concern right now is not for Sonia. She’s in a safe place—unlike Bethany.”

  The air in the room went dead. I was surprised I could breathe in it.

  “Bethany,” I said. “You think whoever came on the property was after Bethany?”

  “I think we have to consider the possibility. Someone obviously isn’t done with Sonia yet, and anyone who would go to the kind of professional lengths that this person did would also know that she is not here.”

  Everything on me shook. I gripped my hair, my knees, the counter.

  “Put this on,” she said. She hung her sweat jacket around my shoulders and filled the teacup, which she slid toward me. “Drink that.”

  “You can’t mean that somebody would try to hurt Bethany to get at Sonia,” I said.

  “We don’t know. No direct threats have been made, but we’ll have the house watched. And you’ll let us know if you see or hear anything the least bit suspicious.”

  “Of course I will.” My hands went to my temples, and I pressed until my thoughts began to line up. “The list—Bethany said Holly, one of the nannies, was fired because she stole from Sonia.”

  “Good. We’ll look into that.”

  “And Patrick Fargason.” My teeth jittered against each other. Dear God, please don’t let me throw up. “He came here about eight o’clock tonight.”

  I somehow managed to describe the visit, eyes closed, words pinning the details like tacks on a board. His ruined brother. The missing money. Their hatred for Sonia.

  “You say he was stocky,” Deidre said.

  I nodded.

  “Dr. Crisp described tonight’s intruder as being thin.” She paused. “That is incredibly helpful, Lucia. I know you would do anything to protect that child. It’s obvious that you love her.”

  I could feel my eyes narrowing. “You aren’t just suggesting she’s in danger so I’ll give you information.”

  “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

  “You did it to Sonia.” I shoved my forehead into my hands. “I’m sorry—I’m just upset.”

  “Of course you are. If you’re referring to our posing the possibility that Sonia might have arranged her own near-death experience, it was a theory we worked with. We’ve had more than one celebrity beat himself up and claim to be mugged, just for the publicity. In Sonia’s case, we’ve now discarded that. Which brings us back to Bethany. And yourself. You are part of Sonia’s family too. We have spoken to your father, by the way.”

  I brought my head up. “Is he a suspect?”

  Agent Schmacker smiled. “No. And you don’t h
ave to regard everyone as suspicious. You can leave that to me.”

  I detected a twinkle in the liquid gray eyes.

  “I do it so well. But I hate having to alarm you,” she said.

  “I needed to know. I have to take care of Bethany.”

  “Then keep things as normal for her as possible.”

  “She starts school Monday. Should I not send her?”

  “No. Just don’t put her on a bus. Drive her yourself. We can talk about precautions.” She slid the tea toward me again. “You have to take care of yourself, Mrs. Coffey. This is a stressful time, and you need to be in the best possible condition to help us.”

  I took a sip from the cup and made an involuntary face.

  “You don’t like it?” she said.

  “It’s not my favorite,” I said.

  “That’s a shame. Tea is so good at taking the edge off the uglies.” She looked at me with grandmother sadness. “And I’m afraid we will still have more of those to deal with.”

  Monday I drove Bethany to school myself, as Agent Schmacker suggested. If she’d told me to dress her in a suit of armor, I would have. Normal, normal, she’d drilled into me. Warn her about strangers, of course. I’d told her there was no need. Bethany already had a suspicion of unknown people that made her a good candidate for the FBI.

  By the time I walked Bethany inside the school, the sweat matted my hair to my forehead and soaked through my top. Why did these Southerners send their children to school when it was still ninety degrees? The anxiety alone emptied my sweat glands.

  When I saw Bethany’s teacher, Miss Richardson, in the classroom doorway, it occurred to me only briefly to hate her. She was a rail-thin blonde in her late twenties, wearing horizontal stripes that would have made me look like Tweedledee or Tweedledum. Or both. But she squatted down to greet Bethany and asked her name in a voice that made me want to stay and be in first grade.

  Bethany looked up at me.

  “This is Bethany Cabot,” I said.

  “Can you introduce me to your mom?” Miss Richardson said.

  Bethany nodded, bouncing her curls. “This is my mom, Aunt Lucia.”

  “How lucky are you?” the teacher said. She stood up and smiled at me. “We’re going to be just fine, Aunt Lucia Mom.”