The River Is Dark

by Joe Hart

  “Why? Because the department ruled it an accident, a righteous shooting? Because they closed the book on it? Ho-hum, let’s move on with life. Sorry, Liam, but you just need to hoist yourself back up and continue on!” His voice rose, and he stood, shaking. “They’re not the ones who can’t sleep at night without drinking half a bottle of booze! They’re not the ones who wish for death and then deprive themselves of it! They’re not the ones who made the mistake!” He thrust a quaking fist into his chest. “It was me . . . it was me.”

  Sobs rolled through him, unbidden and unlike anything he’d ever felt before. His emotions lay exposed, skinned and bleeding for anyone to see, but there was only this woman, who stood from the bed and came to him.

  He jerked back at her first touch, not because he wanted to get away from it but because he longed to collapse into it. Dani’s fingers grazed his neck and caressed his wet cheek. He felt her come closer, her body only inches away from his. He turned his head away, and her gentle hands guided his face back. He vibrated with the urge to pull her close but kept his arms at his sides as she looked up at him, her breath hot on his face. Her perfume was everything; it surrounded him, and now he remembered why it was so familiar. There was a lilac bush that bloomed white petals every spring beside his porch, the warm scent like sugar in the air. He held on for one second longer, one beat, and then broke.

  His lips found hers, barely touching at first; the subtle glide of her lipstick sending a tremble through him. Instantly he was transported back to Allen and Suzie’s wedding night, his arms around Dani, their kiss bridging the years between then and now. She moaned as he drew her close, her body sealing to his, without even air between them. His hands found the back of her head, releasing her hair so that it fell onto her shoulders, as he pressed his lips harder against hers. Their clothes were only burdens, and he undressed them both with a fluidity that seemed dreamlike. He laid her gently on the bed and covered her with himself, a blanket of flesh, and caresses that he couldn’t stop, nor did he want to. Then they were one, moving together, the force restrained before now locking them in union. Everything was sound and flesh and a burning pleasure that rose from his depths until time meant nothing and an undeniable heat blossomed in both of them, shuddering, shaking with the power of it as she cried out and arched against him.

  They floated flat on the bed, neither moving, only holding each other and whispering not to let go.

  After a time, they slid beneath the covers and lay still, his heart a bass drum beating in slow motion. Liam felt her face against his chest as he breathed, letting the sensation of liquid sunlight coast through every inch of him. He tried to say something but couldn’t, so he relented and closed his eyes to the dark room as Dani rubbed his chest with one hand.

  Immediately, the panic began to grow as sleep tried to pull him down. His breathing quickened and he spasmed, the potential anxiety building within him. Not now, not after this. He tried to move away from her heat, but she grasped him and rubbed the side of his neck.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay.” Her voice was serene and comforting. The anxiety tried to ratchet up a notch, but lost its grip on him as Dani kissed his shoulder, still stroking his neck. “You’re okay.”

  Liam closed his eyes again, waiting for the accustomed relapse into the memory, but it didn’t come. His breathing slowed, his heartbeat returning to normal as the room melted around him in a soft darkness that enveloped everything with the smell of lilac.

  CHAPTER 18

  Liam woke to dancing reflections of sunlight from the river on the ceiling above him and the sound of the shower running.

  He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and yawned, his jaw cracking with the effort. His body felt wonderful save the snagging pain in his back. Sitting up, the sheets slid against his skin and he realized he was naked. The previous night came back to him in freeze-framed shots of anguish and pleasure alike. Had it all really happened?

  Looking around the room, he saw the bedside clock—it was past eight in the morning. He stared at the time, letting the reality of it soak into him.

  He’d slept for more than ten hours.

  He laughed.

  It slipped out accidentally. A sense of restfulness that he hadn’t known in almost a year tightened his muscles and made every thought clear. He felt reborn.

  The door opened to the bathroom, and Dani emerged in a wash of steam, dressed in khaki shorts and a light T-shirt. Her hair hung in auburn ripples, and he had to restrain himself from going to her just to run his fingers through it.

  “You’re awake.” She smiled at him and came to the side of the bed.

  “Yeah, can’t believe I slept that long.”

  Her face lost some of its brightness. “How long’s it been since you got a full night’s sleep?”

  “I don’t remember. A long time.” He smiled at her. “Last night was . . .” He shook his head.

  “It was great,” Dani said, leaning toward him.

  Liam felt the dampness of her hair on his face as she kissed him. Instantly he was aroused, and he didn’t break away from her until a thump issued from the door.

  He got out of bed and slid on a pair of boxers before opening the door. The hall was empty, but when he looked down, he saw a rolled-up newspaper near his feet. A similar roll rested in front of every room. Liam picked up the newspaper and returned to the bed, unfolding it as he went. Trepidation of what the headline might be crept into his chest. Did someone die last night?

  Nut’s photo headlined the top of the page. “ ‘Suspect arrested for recent slayings,’ ” Liam read. He shook his head and scanned the articles below it. “ ‘Council moves forward with plans to vote tomorrow in light of arrest.’ ”

  “Well, we already knew they were going ahead with it, right?” Dani asked.

  “Yeah, but this was just about the worst thing they could do,” he said, flicking the paper with a forefinger.

  “What’s that?”

  “Announce it like this.” Liam dropped his head and leaned his elbows against his knees. “They’re asking for another murder.” He wanted to break something. How could everyone be so nearsighted? “If it wasn’t for Nut, I’d leave right now, let them deal with it on their own and be a hundred miles away when the next killing happened.”

  “You couldn’t do that,” Dani said.

  He glanced at her and then looked at the wall. “No, I couldn’t. I’m just pissed off.” He thought for a moment before grabbing his cell phone from the table.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Grace. I’m just hoping she’s still willing to go out on a limb for me.”

  As he found her number and dialed, his doubts increased. The final ring went unanswered, and Grace’s voice mail picked up. “Grace, it’s Liam. I’m sorry for how things went yesterday at the meeting. Not everything that reporter said is true. I’ve been cleared of all charges for the shooting, and I wasn’t drunk when I got attacked. She’s just angry because I wouldn’t give her an interview.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “Grace, I still need your help. Please, please trust me.”

  He ended the call and sat back, looking at Dani. “That’s all we can do for now.”

  The phone rang in his hand, startling him. Without waiting for the caller ID to come up, he answered. “Grace?”

  “No, it’s Barnes,” the sheriff’s voice growled from the other end.

  Liam frowned. “Yeah?”

  “Listen, Liam, I’m sorry for the other day. I heard about what happened up at your brother’s place.”

  “So you believe me?”

  “Yes.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “Look, I don’t know how you’re handling this. I’ve heard a lot of rumors flying around this morning about a scene at the meeting yesterday. Sounded like that blond reporter shouted your business to everyone.”

/>   Liam stood and paced to the window. “Yeah, that’s about it.”

  “Like I said, I don’t know what your plan is, but something just came up and I thought you should know.”

  Liam’s guts constricted. There was a killing last night, it was just too soon for the papers to report it. “What is it?”

  “It’s the Shevlin kid.”

  “God, did he die?”

  The sheriff paused. “No, he woke up late last night.”

  The drive to Fairview Hospital in the neighboring town of Dayton was mercifully short, and Liam was glad because the air-conditioning in the Chevy couldn’t keep up with the mugginess of the morning. The miles flew by outside the window, as the land smoothed out and became flat fields lined with green rows of waving corn and endless bushels of wheat.

  “So what did the sheriff say about us visiting the boy in the hospital?” Dani asked as the first signs of Dayton came into view on the horizon.

  “Just that the BCA questioned him earlier this morning and then left, so we shouldn’t bump into them,” Liam said, wiping a bead of sweat from his temple. “Apparently, they showed him a picture of Nut and he told them that Nut hadn’t been the one in the house that night.”

  “So are they going to release him?”

  “No, they think that the kid’s still in shock and doesn’t remember. They’re going to try to hang this whole thing around Nut’s neck.”

  Dani unfolded a mid-sized notebook she’d grabbed from the desk in his room, and scribbled a little at its top with a pencil. “Describe the guy that attacked you in the garage.”

  Liam shot her a glance, and when he saw she was serious, he began to speak. Racking his brain, he strained to recall every detail that he saw in the bright flash of the muzzle. When he looked at Dani’s sketchpad, he was surprised to see a lifelike drawing taking shape on the paper. She worked with short, precise movements, accented with long, wide shading as she laid the pencil on its side. By the time he guided the truck past the first stoplight in Dayton, the picture was nearly done.

  “Wow, are you sure this is what he looked like?” Dani asked, holding up the pad.

  Liam looked at it and then back at the road before nodding. “Yes, more or less, that’s about it.”

  Dani lowered the sketch to her lap and stared at the deformed face she’d drawn. “But what would cause someone to look like this?”

  He shrugged, searching the left side of the street for the three-story building that the sheriff had described to him. “I don’t know, an accident possibly? Some sort of chemical?”

  Dani continued to work on the drawing, and he finally spotted the hospital, its awning supporting the rounded letters of its name. He found a parking spot amongst the crowded lot, and they stepped out into the heaviness of the day.

  The air-conditioning inside Fairview put the Chevy’s to shame, and Liam felt the accumulated sweat on his body cool in an instant. An elderly woman wearing a green vest with the words Fairview Volunteer stitched in black thread on the left breast sat behind a reception desk a few yards opposite the entrance. When Liam stepped up to the counter, she smiled, her face wrinkling.

  “Hello, how can I help you?”

  “We’re here to see Eric Shevlin,” Liam said. “Can you tell us which floor he’s on?”

  The woman picked up a phone from the desk and dialed a number, still smiling as she said something into the receiver. After a moment, she pulled the phone away from her mouth, her eyes narrower than before.

  “Are you law enforcement?”

  “No, we’re friends of the family,” Liam said. Dani caught his eye, and he gave her a little nod. She smiled at the woman behind the desk.

  “Okay, let me check,” the receptionist said, and turned away from them. Finally, she set the phone back in its cradle. “He’s on the third floor, but he may be sleeping. Check with the nurses’ station when you get there—it’ll be straight ahead from the elevators.” She pointed with a bony arm at a bank of silver elevator doors on the left wall of the lobby.

  “Thank you,” Liam said, moving away from the desk.

  “How are we going to pull this off? We’re not friends of the family,” Dani said as soon as the elevator doors shut.

  “I’m his godfather’s brother, that’s got to count for something,” Liam said as he punched the button marked 3 on the panel.

  The doors slid open a minute later, revealing a rounded counter staffed by three women in multicolored scrubs. A hallway ran straight past the nurses’ station and to the left, opening every few feet in wide doorways. A nurse holding a chart in one hand and a Styrofoam cup in the other smiled at them as they approached.

  “We’re looking for Eric Shevlin’s room,” Liam said.

  The nurse eyed them. “I’m not sure if he’s awake, and I don’t know if the officer guarding the door will let you in.”

  “We just want to talk with him for a minute. My brother was his godfather.”

  The nurse shifted her gaze between them and then nodded. “His room is down the hall at the very end,” she said, pointing directly ahead.

  “Thanks so much,” Liam said, moving past the desk. He could feel the nurse’s eyes on his back as they walked away, but he focused on the officer sitting in a chair outside a closed door at the end of the corridor. The cop sat with his legs wide apart, his cell phone held before his face. He looked to be about twenty-five, with two days’ growth of stubble on his cheeks. When they were still a few steps away, he looked up and then stood, tucking his phone out of sight.

  “What can I do for you folks?”

  “Hi, we’re here to see Eric. Is he awake?”

  The officer shot the nurses’ station a look before focusing again on Liam. “Uh, did they say it was okay at the desk?”

  Liam nodded. “Yeah, they said if he was awake, it would be fine.”

  “How do you know him?” the cop asked, still not moving from in front of the door.

  “My brother was his godfather. I just wanted to say hi to the kid, let him know someone’s thinking about him.” In the back of his mind, he cursed himself for not picking up a stuffed bear to bring with him; it would have been more convincing.

  “You two have ID on you?” the officer asked.

  “Sure,” Liam said, and motioned to Dani, who drew out her billfold from her purse. They held up their licenses as the cop inspected them. After a second, he nodded.

  “I’ll have to pat you down, and miss, you’ll have to leave your purse out here with me.”

  “That’s fine,” Liam said.

  The officer ran his hands around Liam’s waist, and he was infinitely thankful that he left his gun and razor at the hotel room. After swiping down his pant legs, the cop stood and motioned them forward as he opened the door to the room.

  A few windows in the far wall were covered by thick sets of blinds that all but blocked out the glow from outside. Electronic whirs and beeps filled the room with their soft noise, and after a moment of letting his eyes adjust, Liam made out the bed and its occupant in the center of the room.

  Eric Shevlin lay propped on three or four pillows, his lower half beneath several blankets. His upper body looked small in a blue gown that he swam in. His hair was dark and hung toward his eyes, which were barely open. Liam glanced at the boy’s right arm, which ended just before the elbow in a wrap of bandages.

  “I’m going to leave the door open,” the officer said behind them. Liam nodded and walked to the side of the bed.

  The boy’s eyes opened a bit more, and Liam saw a slight glaze of drugs on their surfaces that Eric struggled to see through. “Who are you?” he asked after looking at both Dani and Liam. His voice was rough, as if he had a sore throat, and Liam realized it was from barely speaking for almost two weeks.

  Liam leaned forward, keeping the distance between them small so he could lo
wer his voice. “My name is Liam. I’m Dr. Dempsey’s brother.”

  Eric’s gaze ran from Liam’s forehead down to his chin and back again. “You look like him,” he said at last.

  Liam smiled. “This is Dani. We both came to see how you were doing.”

  Eric raised his remaining hand off the bed in an attempt to wave at Dani, but the IV inserted in his arm and the blood-pressure cuff prevented him from moving more than a few inches.

  “Hi, Eric,” Dani said, stepping closer to the bed. “How are you feeling?”

  Eric tried to shrug. “Like I’ve been asleep too long.” He swallowed and turned his head to the right. “Could you open my blinds just a little?”

  Liam walked to the other side of the bed and twisted a hanging plastic rod until the shades yawned wide enough for a few shafts of sunlight to fall onto the bed. “That okay?” Liam asked, returning to his position. Eric nodded and began to flick at a tag on one of the blankets with his fingertips.

  “Do they have good food here?” Liam asked.

  Eric shifted his gaze to Liam’s face and then back to the tag. “Not really. I had a feeding tube until last night when I woke up.” A stricken look crossed his young features.

  “Do you remember why you’re here?” Liam said as gently as he could. Eric nodded, his hair scratching against the pillow behind him. “Do you want to talk to me about it?”

  Eric bit his lower lip and looked toward the window, a slat of light coating his face. “They didn’t believe me,” he said after a while.

  “Who didn’t?”

  “The guys who were here this morning. They asked me all kinds of questions, and when I told them, I could see they thought I was lying or something.”

  Liam came closer and placed his hand on Eric’s exposed bicep, where there were no tubes or needles. “I’ll believe you.” The boy turned his head and studied Liam’s face, as if searching for a hidden joke there.

  “My mom and dad are dead.” It was a statement, and Liam was grateful it wasn’t a question. “I remember almost everything from that night, but it’s kind of like a dream too.”