The Waterfall

by Carla Neggers

  “You can stay here tonight,” she said. “I’ll throw your clothes in the wash. The kids and I can run out to your motel room tomorrow and fetch anything else you need.”

  “I can drive myself back to my motel.”

  “Don’t argue with me. I’m not in the mood.”

  He gave her a ghostly smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

  This wasn’t a man who took easily to injury and incapacity, Lucy thought. “Sit down before you fall down.” She tore open the closet door, pulled out a shoe box that contained her medical supplies. “Do you need help getting your pants off?”

  “No. No help required.”

  Something in his voice caused heat to surge up her spine. But she concentrated on the task at hand, rummaging in the shoe box. Her work required first aid training. Rob had full wilderness EMT qualifications, but she’d sent him home. She’d have to make do.

  She grabbed antibiotic ointment and her wilderness medicine manual, leaving the rest for now.

  Sebastian had crawled under the wedding-ring quilt his grandmother had made. His jeans were neatly hung over the foot post. He pointed to them. “They can dry right there. I’m not giving up my damn pants.”

  “I can run them through the wash in no time—”

  “Not without a backup pair, you’re not. I don’t see anyone in this house who’d wear my size.”

  Lucy shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  “What’s the book?”

  “My wilderness medicine manual. I want to double-check and make sure I’m treating you properly.”

  “Lucy.” His look was dark. “You’re not treating me at all.”

  She ignored him and turned to the page that described falls on rocks. She didn’t think she needed to bother with the stuff on near drownings. “First we have to make sure the bleeding’s stopped and you don’t have any broken bones.”

  “Done. Next?”

  “Your head. It’s possible you have a concussion.”

  “If I do, it’s mild and there’s nothing to be done about it. So.” He shifted position, wincing. “That’s it. You can scoot.”

  Her eyes pinned him down. “I could have left you to the mosquitoes.”

  “And you think that would have been worse?”

  “Your bravado must be exhausting. Why don’t you just shut up and let me do this? I have basic first aid training. Except for minor scrapes and bee stings, I’ve never really had to use it. Rob has more experience.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “Are you sure you don’t want me to have him take a look at you?”

  “Speed counts, Lucy.”

  She laid her manual on the bedside stand, open to the appropriate page. “You’re sure you didn’t puncture a lung or break a couple of ribs?”

  “Ribs’re fine,” he said. “Lungs’re fine.”

  As annoying as he was, she could see that talking was an effort for him. She examined the nastiest gash, the one above his eye. “It probably could use a couple of stitches.” But he didn’t answer, and she assumed any discussion of stitches was over. “I’ll need to clean your wounds.”

  “Brook did that.”

  “Brook water is not a proper disinfectant.”

  His eyes darkened, their many shades of gray helping to communicate in no uncertain terms the low ebb of his patience. This was not a man who liked being at anyone’s mercy.

  Lucy decided to trust him on the ribs and lungs. “Let me get a few more supplies. I’ll only be a second.”

  She was all of half a minute looking through her shoebox, but when she turned back to him, he was asleep. Or unconscious. “Sebastian?”

  She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned close. His breathing seemed normal enough. She decided he’d dozed off. Just as well. Trying to be as efficient as possible, she quickly dipped sterile gauze into disinfectant and cleaned the gash and the worst of his scrapes, leaving the more minor injuries. She dabbed on antibiotic ointment. The gash on his head had to be bandaged. She was as gentle as possible, touching him only where she absolutely had to.

  When she finished, he opened one eye. “Nurse Lucy.”

  “You were awake?”

  “I figured pretending to be asleep would make it easier on both of us. You wouldn’t be so nervous, and I wouldn’t have to sit here forever.”

  She stiffened. “You don’t make me nervous, Redwing.”

  That amused him. “Sure.”

  “Well, I see the fall didn’t knock the jackass out of you.” She slid off the bed. “Should I give you a couple of Tylenol or let you macho out the night in pain?”

  “So long as I can see Tylenol clearly written on the tablets.”

  They were extra-strength capsules, and he checked.

  Lucy stared at him. “You don’t think I pelted you with rocks and pitched you over the falls, do you?”

  He didn’t answer. She told herself it was because of his injuries. Even a man whose professional life could reasonably make him cynical and paranoid couldn’t think she was capable of injuring or killing anyone.

  She felt the blood draining out of her, shock settling now that the immediate crisis was over. “Do you really think this wasn’t an accident?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you don’t know. It could have been kids messing around, or a spontaneous landslide—”

  “Could have.”

  But Lucy saw that wasn’t what he believed. Of course, he wouldn’t. His life and the work he did had conditioned him to believe the worst. “Do you think whoever did this wanted you dead?”

  “I don’t think it mattered.”

  He drifted off. Either he was asleep, or too out of it to talk. Lucy stood at his bedside. Bruises were forming, and there was swelling, although nothing looked alarming. He was in no position to stop her from calling the police.

  She turned on the fan and went into the hall, shutting the door behind her. She listened at the door, just to make sure he hadn’t stirred. If he tried to get up and collapsed again, she’d have to leave him on the floor. She didn’t have enough strength left to get him back in her bed.

  She bit her lip at the rush of heat she felt, remembering last night’s searing kiss. Well, that was over. The man couldn’t even stand up tonight.

  She headed upstairs. Madison and J.T. had the twin bed in the guest room made up with one of Daisy’s ubiquitous quilts. It was a small room with simple furnishings and a dormer window overlooking the front yard.

  “How’s Sebastian?” Madison asked.

  “He’ll be fine. He really took a nasty fall.” She pulled out a painted yellow chair at Daisy’s old pedal-operated sewing machine and sat down. Her legs were twitchy from exertion and nerves. “Madison, when you were up in the woods this afternoon…did you see anyone?”

  Madison shook her head. “No.”

  Lucy went very still, her parental instincts telling her that her daughter was hiding something. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course, I’m sure.”

  “Not even the summer people?”

  “I saw the optometrist in his car.” A Boston optometrist owned one of the vacation homes on the dirt road up on the ridge. “I thought you meant while I was out walking—”

  “I did.” J.T. jumped up from the bed. “Me and Georgie saw a truck turn around in the driveway.”

  Lucy stayed focused on her daughter. “If you remember seeing anyone else, let me know.”

  Madison nodded. No argument. No sarcasm. No impatience with her mother for interrogating her. This struck Lucy as suspicious. Either she looked more done in than she realized and Madison was giving her a break—or her daughter wasn’t telling the truth.

  “Listen a minute,” Lucy said, “both of you. I’ve got a lot on my mind, and I need you both to cooperate. Sebastian got hurt in a landslide up at the falls. I don’t want you two going out in the woods alone until further notice.”

  “Mom, I’m fifteen—”

  “That’s the way it is, Madison.”

  Lucy debated telling t
hem about the strange incidents, but she knew it would frighten them. This was her burden, not theirs. She needed to tell them enough to keep them safe, not paralyze them with fear.

  J.T. gave her a hug. “Do you like Sebastian?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. He got hurt, and I’m trying to help out.” She patted her son’s back; he was sweaty from volleyball, but still, at twelve, a little boy. “I guess he’s okay.”

  “Is he doing his Clint Eastwood act?” Madison asked.

  “I don’t think it was an act. Anyway, he’s not wearing his cowboy hat and boots.”

  J.T. untangled himself from her. “Can I see him?”

  “In the morning.” Lucy got to her feet. “Now, I think showers are in order. I’ll go first. Find a good book to read. Relax. Okay?”

  She hugged and kissed them both, then, in spite of her own fatigue, went back downstairs to check on Sebastian. “Are you asleep?” she whispered from the door.

  “No.”

  “Is there anything I can get you?”

  She could feel his eyes on her. He was half sitting up, his face lost in the shifting shadows of the encroaching night. The fan whirred. “Your instincts were right. Something’s going on around here.” He fell back against his pillow. “You should call Plato.”

  “What can he do that you can’t? I told you, I don’t want to call in the cavalry if I don’t have to.”

  “Plato isn’t rusty. I am. He still carries a weapon.” He paused, and his voice lowered. “I don’t.”

  “Sebastian, if we’re to the point you’re worried about having to shoot someone, I’ll call the police. I won’t hesitate.”

  “I’m through with violence, Lucy.”

  She stared at him. “What?”

  “Last year I had to shoot a man I once considered a friend. I intended to kill him—I thought I had.”

  “Jesus,” Lucy breathed.

  “I turned Redwing Associates over to Plato and quit the business.” His gaze seemed to bore into her. “I came out of retirement for you, but I won’t kill again.”

  Lucy straightened, trying to shake off a sudden sense of gloom. “Good heavens, Madison’s right. You are like Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven.”

  She thought she saw a small smile, but with the fading light, she couldn’t be sure. “I was never a drunk.”

  “Rest. We’ll talk in the morning. I don’t want you to kill anyone. Although,” she added with a smile, “you could wing the bastard.”

  Jack Swift typed in the information on the card Mowery had given him at lunch. It was late, quiet in his second-floor study. Only the brass lamp on his desk was lit. With Sidney attending a function at the Kennedy Center, he was alone.

  He waited for the images to download. His computer was old and slow, but he was from a generation that didn’t “upgrade” until something stopped working, whether it was a toaster or a damn computer. He thought he was doing well having one in his house at all.

  The images slowly appeared on his screen. He braced himself. He expected illicit, pornographic pictures of his dead son and another woman.

  Lucy.

  Jack sat up straight, pain shooting through his chest. “Dear God,” he whispered.

  She was standing in front of the barn at her house in Vermont. She wore shorts and a T-shirt; flowers bloomed in a nearby garden. The picture had been taken recently.

  The next pictures formed. Madison. J.T. His grandchildren together with their mother. All could have been taken last week.

  “Bastard,” Jack said, clutching his chest. “Bastard.”

  At the bottom of the screen, in big, black, easy-to-read letters were the words “The lovely family of United States Senator Jack Swift.”

  The pictures were Mowery’s way of proving he could reach Jack’s family. Of proving he had reached them.

  Jack shut off the computer. He waited a few seconds for the pain in his chest to subside. If he dropped dead of a heart attack, would Mowery stop? Would he go after Lucy and the kids, anyway, out of frustration and vengeance?

  He couldn’t call the Capitol Police. It was too late now for official channels. For doing what he should have done in the first place.

  Calming himself, Jack reached for his Rolodex. He flipped to a card, dialed the number scrawled on it. His instructions had been to call anytime, day or night.

  “Redwing Associates.”

  “Yes,” he said in his best senatorial voice. “This is Jack Swift. I’d like to speak to Sebastian Redwing.”

  Eight

  Barbara was sick with fear and disgust.

  Sebastian Redwing hadn’t seen her. She was sure of it. But if he hadn’t lost his balance—if he hadn’t gone into the falls—he would have come after her. As it was, she’d had to pelt additional rocks at him to get him into the water.

  A close call. Too close.

  Thank God for her instincts. They’d warned her someone was nearby, and she’d ducked off the path and spotted him at the falls. Otherwise, she’d have bumped into him. She’d have had to scramble for an explanation.

  He was still thrashing about in the water when she’d heard Lucy, the children and their low-life friends at the bottom of the falls. Barbara had crouched in the brush and ferns, itching and sweating as she’d waited, motionless, before finally creeping back up to the dirt road.

  A very close call, indeed.

  Now, pacing on the deck of the house she’d rented for the senator, she couldn’t believe the risks she’d taken. She was calculating and intelligent, not one to succumb to impulse. If her friends and colleagues in Washington learned of this obsession of hers, these risky escapades, they would be shocked. They wouldn’t understand. She didn’t understand. She imagined what a bulimic girl must feel like, eating away at dinner, then throwing up in secret—the satisfaction, the disgust, the inability to stop herself.

  Except she didn’t have a disorder, Barbara thought. She could stop herself, if only she would.

  She leaned against the deck rail, listening to the brook, the cool early-morning breeze gusting in the woods. Such a peaceful, beautiful spot. She’d chosen well. Jack would enjoy his time here, even if he should be seeing to his constituents in Rhode Island.

  What if you’d killed Sebastian Redwing?

  Once she’d spotted him lurking in the woods, she’d known Lucy had contacted him on her trip to Wyoming. Lucy had gone crying to him about the few little things that had happened to her over the previous week. Barbara hated whiners. And Sebastian was Colin’s friend, not Lucy’s. Lucy had no right.

  Now Barbara had to worry Darren would find out. “God damn you, Lucy.”

  Well, Sebastian Redwing had survived. Lucy had helped him down to her house. Barbara had seen them as she’d hid in the woods like a madwoman.

  Would Madison tell her mother—and Sebastian—about their visit yesterday?

  It didn’t matter. No one would make the connection between Sebastian’s accident at the falls and Barbara’s presence in Vermont. She breathed deeply, reminding herself she was the only one who knew—who could even imagine—she could do such a thing. To everyone else, she was the competent, professional, longtime personal assistant to a United States senator.

  She sighed, feeling better, calmer. Sebastian Redwing was here in Vermont, and maybe she should tell Darren—but she wouldn’t.

  Sebastian awoke to a pounding head and the sounds of J.T. and his buddy playing Star Wars outside his window. He moaned, not moving, not even opening his eyes. “I hate kids.”

  The boys were throwing things—his guess, green tomatoes—and pretending they were bombs exploding on impact, with appropriate sound effects. Sebastian remembered playing similar games with his grandmother’s green tomatoes.

  “Boys!” Lucy yelled, probably from the back steps. “Those are my tomatoes!”

  Explanations followed. They were the knobby tomatoes. They’d fallen off the vine. It was good to weed out the weaker tomatoes so the strong could get
big and ripen.

  Lucy wasn’t buying. “Stay out of the tomatoes. Why don’t you go pick blackberries? I’ll make a cobbler.”

  “What’s a cobbler?” J.T. asked. Apparently his mother didn’t make too many cobblers.

  She threatened to put them to work in the barn sorting mail. They grabbed cans from the recycling bin and vanished. Welcome silence followed.

  Sebastian carefully rolled out of bed. It had been a hellish night. The pain and humiliation of falling into the water. Thoughts of kissing Lucy. And memories. So damn many memories. At fourteen, in shock from his parents’ sudden deaths, he’d never wanted to leave here.

  He reeled, reaching out for a bedpost to steady himself.

  “Mom! Sebastian’s dying!”

  Two boys’ faces popped into the window screen facing the backyard. The little bastards were spying on him. He banged on the screen as if they were a couple of pesky moths, and they gasped and cleared out.

  Lucy burst in. Her mistake. He was hanging on to the bedpost in his shorts. “Oh,” she said, grinding to a halt in the doorway. “I thought—J.T. said—”

  He grinned. It was a damned nasty thing to do, but he felt like it. “Be glad I still have my shorts on. Those kids need to learn some manners.”

  “They know their manners. They just don’t always employ them.” She had a portable phone in one hand. “I should have remembered to pull the shades.”

  “Should have thought of it myself.”

  “You’re all right?”

  “A pot of coffee and a bottle of aspirin would help.”

  She nodded and retreated, shutting the door behind her. Sebastian sank onto the bed. He wasn’t up to catching bad guys today. He was sore as hell with a mood to match.

  He reached for his pants on the footboard, and realized instantly they’d been washed. His shirt was folded next to them. Lucy had managed to sneak in and out of his room at least twice—once to get his clothes, again to return them freshly laundered. He hadn’t known. This did not improve his mood.

  He got dressed and found his way to the bathroom. Except for fresh paint and towels in bright, vibrant colors, it hadn’t changed since Daisy’s day. A look in the mirror told him why J.T. and his friend thought he was dying—and why they’d run off when he’d growled at them. Dried blood, raw scrapes, purple and yellow bruises.