The Waterfall

by Carla Neggers

  She found a tennis racket in her closet. A knife-cut of pain carved through her chest. Tennis. She hadn’t played since Colin had died.

  She snatched up the racket. She’d scoop up the bat and fling him into the woods. It wasn’t evidence. It was a damn dead bat.

  She spun around, racket in hand.

  Sebastian was there as if she’d conjured him up herself. He jumped back a step. “Easy.”

  “Don’t you believe in knocking?” She didn’t lower her racket. “You’re like a damn ghost. I can’t—I—” She made herself breathe. “I can’t have you here.”

  “I heard you yelling bloody murder.” His voice was steady, dead calm. He was slightly damp from the rain. “I called from the back door. When you didn’t answer, I came to find you.”

  She pointed with her racket. “There’s a dead bat in my bed.”

  “So I see. Charming.”

  “Bats don’t fall down dead on wedding-ring quilts.”

  He said nothing. It was obvious the bat hadn’t fallen or crawled there to die.

  “Daisy made that quilt,” Lucy said. “It was in an old trunk in the attic.”

  “I remember it,” he said softly. His eyes didn’t leave her.

  Her breathing steadied. Her legs were shaking under her, and she became aware of her appearance. The lace-edged black dressing gown, her damp hair, her bare feet, the spots of white powder on her throat. She remembered her reflection.

  Sebastian took the tennis racket. His fingers touched hers, and it was all over. She fell against him, his mouth finding hers, her dressing gown making her feel almost as if she were wearing nothing at all. His body was hard, lean, unrelenting. Desire spilled through her, hot, aching, overpowering. It had been so long. So very, very long.

  Then she was standing in the middle of her bedroom carpet, and Sebastian was staring out her window. Just like that.

  Lucy quickly recovered. It was the dead bat. It had robbed her of all self-control. “Well. I don’t even want to know what that was about.”

  He glanced at her, his gray eyes narrowed into slits. “Pretty obvious to me.”

  “The lonely widow finds a dead bat in her bed, and next thing she’s throwing herself on the man who swoops in to her rescue? I don’t think so.”

  Sebastian picked up her tennis racket. “Takes two.”

  “To what? Play tennis, get rid of the bat—”

  “Lucy.”

  He’d meant the kiss. Obviously. It took two to do what they’d done. He hadn’t forced her. She obviously hadn’t forced him.

  She winced, still tasting his mouth on her. “I’m a little addled. Don’t worry about the bat. I’ll get rid of it.”

  “I can take it on my way out.”

  He was leaving. Thank God.

  “You’ll be all right alone?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Whoever left that little present here isn’t trying to hurt me or the kids.”

  “Maybe not yet.”

  “You didn’t see anything?”

  He shook his head. If he was irritated with himself for not catching the bat-depositor in his two days of sneaking around, he didn’t show it.

  Lucy stared at the bat. Bats outside were fine with her. Bats inside, dead or alive, weren’t. If nothing else, there was rabies to consider. “It’s awfully daring, don’t you think, to slip in here, drop a bat on my bed and slip out again?”

  “It was daring, yes.” He patted the racket with one hand. She could see his mind working. He knew how someone who wanted to harrass and intimidate operated. “But I’d say your friend here doesn’t leave much to chance.”

  “Meaning he or she, or whoever, plans ahead, knows my comings and goings.”

  “Let me check out your house. It’s unlikely I’ll find anything, but we’ll both sleep better if we know for sure no one’s hiding in a closet. It’ll take a few minutes.”

  “I’ll help—”

  “You’ll make a cup of tea and sit in the kitchen and drink it.”

  “Madison’s due back any minute.”

  “If I hear her, I’ll leave. I don’t think your kids need to know I’m in Vermont.”

  Lucy ran a hand through her damp hair. “I hate this.”

  “I know,” he said, then scooped up the dead bat with the tennis racket, checked under her bed, checked her closet and went into the hall.

  She followed him. “What are you going to do if you find someone, beat him over the head with the tennis racket?”

  He pulled open the hall closet. She had to remember he knew his way around this house, but found she couldn’t picture him as a twelve-year-old like J.T., digging worms in the backyard. He glanced at her. “I could shove the bat down his throat.”

  “Do you think it died of natural causes?”

  He moved down the hall in the opposite direction from the kitchen, where she was supposed to go and have tea as if nothing had happened. “I’m not planning to autopsy the damn thing,” he said.

  “I’d hate to think of someone deliberately killing a bat just to terrorize me.”

  He stopped. “Then don’t.”

  “Am I distracting you?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She’d meant by talking. He clearly meant something else. She motioned vaguely toward the kitchen. “I’ll make myself that cup of tea. You can finish up.”

  He went without a word.

  When he returned to the kitchen ten minutes later, he didn’t linger. “Place is clean.” He pulled open the back door. “I’ll get rid of the bat and leave the tennis racket on the back steps.”

  Lucy was at the table with a cup of untouched chamomile tea. She hadn’t been able to drink. She kept thinking about the dead bat, about kissing Sebastian. Neither induced calm. “That’s fine. Thanks.”

  He looked at her. In the waning evening light, the soft gray of his eyes was even more unusual, as if warning her he didn’t belong here. “Colin was a damn fool for ever sending you to me.”

  “He made me promise,” she said.

  “I know.” He started out the screen door, stared out at the darkening Vermont sky. “Lucy, you don’t have to worry. I won’t touch you again.”

  She smiled and echoed him. “It takes two.”

  He didn’t glance back, just left with her dead bat.

  There was an unexpected flash of lightning, a rumble of thunder, and a few minutes later, another downpour. Lucy thought Sebastian might come back in out of the rain, but he didn’t.

  She ran outside onto the back steps. In seconds, the rain drenched her gown. She could see her nipples outlined against the silky black fabric.

  How had he disappeared so fast?

  She returned inside, dumped out her tea and walked back to her bedroom. She changed into a prosaic nightgown and jumped into bed with a book, but she couldn’t concentrate enough to read.

  A few minutes later, a car sounded in her driveway, and Madison dashed in through the back door. “Hi, Mom, I’m home,” she called from the kitchen. “Hey—who left the tennis racket out?”

  Lucy didn’t breathe. Sebastian must have seen her on the back steps, her dressing gown clinging to her against the kitchen light. “It was me.” She almost couldn’t get the words out.

  Madison appeared in her bedroom doorway, and Lucy managed a smile. She would do anything, she thought, to protect her children—even let Sebastian skulk around her woods.

  She smiled at her daughter. “So, how was the movie?”

  The bat hadn’t died of natural causes. Sebastian was no expert on dead bats, but that much was obvious.

  And tossing its carcass into the woods in no way made up for kissing Lucy when she was in shock.

  “That was pretty goddamn low,” he said under his breath as he locked himself into his motel room. He had considered, and dismissed, the necessity of keeping watch on her all night. The bat-depositor had accomplished his—or her—mission for the day. Sebastian had no real sense of who was behind the nasty little deeds—ma
n, woman, coconspirators. He was now inclined to eliminate kids as a possibility.

  He wasn’t sure if Lucy had initiated the kiss, or if he had. He knew for damn sure she’d wanted it. But that didn’t matter. She’d just found a dead bat in her bed, and he shouldn’t have taken advantage of the situation.

  On the other hand, he really didn’t have any regrets. All right, he was low. But he’d imagined kissing Lucy for close to twenty years, and now that he had, he felt better.

  He kicked off his hiking boots and flopped on his bed.

  Who the hell was he kidding? He didn’t feel better. Kissing Lucy hadn’t helped.

  He pictured her standing on her porch steps in her rain-soaked gown. She was smart and daring, and he didn’t know why the hell he’d fallen for her, a woman he couldn’t have—a woman he shouldn’t have.

  He called Happy Ford in Washington. Nothing yet on Darren Mowery. “I’m chasing down a few leads,” she said.

  “Be careful.”

  “Always.”

  Sebastian unwrapped the tuna sandwich he’d picked up en route back to his motel. He turned on the television. He hadn’t watched TV in months. He found a rerun of Gilligan’s Island and sat on his bed, watching Gilligan and the Skipper and the gang try to get home. There’s no going back, he wanted to tell them. Walking above Daisy’s house the past two days, that simple, terrible truth had etched itself on his soul. No going back.

  He shut off the television.

  Was Mowery in Vermont? Was Sebastian’s coming here playing into his hands? Would he use a young widow to lure Sebastian east?

  He knew to keep speculation and facts separate. Darren Mowery’s reappearance in Washington, DC, might have nothing to do with the dead bat tonight on Lucy’s bed in Vermont.

  “Don’t start a job you don’t mean to finish,” Daisy had liked to tell him.

  When he’d gone after Mowery last year, Sebastian had meant to finish the job. But he hadn’t, and now he had to make sure no one but he paid for his mistake.

  Six

  The house was perfect.

  Barbara stood on its rear deck above Joshua Brook. She loved being right. She’d known she’d find something close to Lucy. It was the last house on the dirt road above the stupid twit’s house. Barbara had rented it on the spot. Jack would be pleased.

  The house had two bedrooms, a living room with a fireplace, a full kitchen, a study and lots of glass. There was a screened porch in case of rain or too many mosquitoes. The furnishings were contemporary country, suitable should an emergency press conference be required. The landscaping needed work—it was a little woodsy for Barbara’s taste.

  The brook was visible through a steep bank of hemlocks and pine, its clear, ice-cold water washing over silvery-gray rocks. She closed her eyes, letting the rhythm of the water absorb her. She could feel a slight breeze on her face.

  Darren doesn’t know I’m here. Should I tell him?

  The thought was an unpleasant intrusion. It was almost as if he’d beamed it to her, just when she was about to relax and attempt to forget she’d colluded with a dangerous man in a scheme to blackmail a senator, the man she’d loved for twenty years.

  What if Darren were out there in the woods, watching her?

  She shuddered. He couldn’t possibly know about her longtime obsession with Lucy. If he did, he’d have killed her by now.

  “Just do your job and let me do mine,” he’d told her. “You screw this up, you’ll answer to me.”

  She’d intended to leave Lucy alone. But she hadn’t, she couldn’t—and she didn’t understand why. Barbara was a woman of great strength and willpower. She wasn’t stupid or weak. She didn’t lack self-discipline.

  She dropped onto an Adirondack chair. It was Lucy’s fault she was even here. If Lucy had stayed in Washington where she belonged, Jack wouldn’t have had to send his personal assistant to Vermont to rent a house so he could see his grandchildren. Barbara wouldn’t have been tempted to leave a dead bat for his ungrateful wretch of a daughter-in-law to find. She and Lucy might even have become friends.

  Her cell phone trilled.

  “The money’s in the bank,” Darren said without preamble. “We’re on our way. How’s Vermont?”

  “How do you know I—”

  “Barbara.”

  She licked her lips. “Jack sent me. He asked me to rent a house for him for August recess. He wants to spend time with Lucy and his grandchildren.”

  “Blackmail’ll do that to a guy.”

  “He suggested I stay an extra day or two.”

  “Of course he did. Come on, Barbie. Can’t you feel the noose dropping around your neck? He’s easing you out. You won’t even know what hit you.” Darren laughed. “Wishing you hadn’t thrown yourself at him after all, aren’t you?”

  “You’re disgusting, and Jack isn’t easing me out. This is my job.” She drew on her strength of character—no one intimidated her. “I don’t want you to call me again.”

  “I don’t care what you want, Barbie. Just keep your nose clean. I’ll be in touch.”

  He disconnected.

  Barbara slid the cell phone back into its designated slot in her tote bag. She could handle Darren Mowery. He just liked to play games with her to show her how smart he was. Well, she was smarter—

  “Barbara? It is you!” Madison Swift suddenly appeared, running up the steep bank from the brook. “I can’t believe it! My friend Cindy said her mother showed this place to someone from Washington, and I was hoping—” The girl laughed, delighted. “Barbara, it’s me. Madison Swift. Senator Swift’s granddaughter.”

  Barbara had recognized the girl immediately. She just needed a moment to recover from the shock. Surely Madison was too polite to eavesdrop—she couldn’t have overheard Barbara’s conversation with Darren. The girl bounded onto the deck. She had grass stains on her knees, briar tracks on her shins. Her pretty face was freckled from the sun. Her dark, copper hair was in a messy, unfashionable single braid down her back.

  She was so like Colin, Barbara thought. Cleaned up and raised properly, Madison Swift would be an asset to Jack, a tribute to his son’s memory.

  Now, she was a reminder that Barbara’s campaign against Lucy was the right thing to do. It had nothing to do with her alliance with Darren Mowery and her frustration with Jack’s denial of his love for her. It was an act of courage and self-sacrifice on her part. Someone had to wake Lucy up. Someone had to force her to take responsibility for her children.

  Barbara smiled at the excited girl. “Of course, it’s you, Madison, Senator Swift’s granddaughter. How are you, sweetie?”

  “Bored out of my mind,” she said cheerfully. “That’s okay, I’m used to it. Is Grandpa coming up this summer?”

  “You’re a sly one, Madison. This is supposed to be a secret. Your grandfather doesn’t want to create a circus for him or your mom.”

  “Does she know?”

  Barbara shook her head. “He wanted to make sure he had a house before he told her. He wouldn’t want to disappoint you all.” The words almost made her sick. Madison and J.T. would have been disappointed if their grandfather had to cancel his visit, but not Lucy. Lucy Swift didn’t care if she ever saw her father-in-law again. “He really should be the one to tell you.”

  Madison crossed her fingers and pressed them to her lips. Her vivid blue eyes sparkled. “Mum’s the word.”

  “What do you think of the house he’s rented?” Barbara asked, gesturing. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

  “This is my favorite house up here.”

  “It’s a beautiful setting.”

  The girl shrugged. “I guess. Most of Vermont’s beautiful. I don’t know how much ‘beautiful’ I can take.”

  Barbara laughed. “Well, well. Now there’s an attitude.”

  Madison scooted up onto the rail, paying no heed to the long drop. “I’d rather go to Washington to see Grandpa than have him come here. I’m going for a long weekend this fall, but it’s not enough.
”

  “Aha. You’re one who’d like to have your cake and eat it, too.”

  “Yep.” She grinned. “Aren’t you?”

  “Of course.” Barbara glanced around at the wooded, isolated landscape. “You’re alone? J.T. didn’t come with you?”

  “No, I’m escaping him. He and his friend want me to take them fishing. I refuse. I hate worms. I liked them when I was twelve, but not anymore.”

  “Not a country girl, are you?”

  She seemed to take that as a compliment. “It’s not that I hate Vermont—I just prefer the city.” She jumped off the rail, a bundle of restless energy. “How long are you staying?”

  “A few days. I’m taking a bit of a vacation and making sure everything’s set for your grandfather. I’ll stock the pantry, lay in some reading material, that sort of thing.”

  “He could stay with us at the house,” Madison said.

  And feel about as welcome as a roach. Lucy no longer thought of herself as a Swift—that much was obvious. But her children were Swifts, and there was no changing that fact, much as it might annoy her.

  “This will work out beautifully,” Barbara said neutrally. “Would you mind not mentioning to your mother and brother that I’m here? I hate to ask you to keep anything from them, but they’d put two and two together.”

  “J.T. wouldn’t. Mom would, though.”

  With the memory of the dead bat fresh in her mind, Lucy might start asking the wrong questions and jumping to dangerous conclusions. As much as Barbara hated to ask a child to keep secrets from her mother, under the circumstances it was the only practical option.

  The girl laughed. “This’ll be great. Of course, I won’t tell anyone about you. I wouldn’t want to get you into trouble with Grandpa.”

  “Oh, no, that’s not your concern. I just don’t want to spoil his surprise.”

  Madison nodded. “He’s always liked to surprise us.”

  She swung around, asking abruptly, “Have you seen the falls yet?”

  Yes, on her illicit visit last week, Barbara thought. She shook her head.

  “Oh, you have to see them. They’re not far. Do you have time? I can show you. It won’t take long.”