The Rivals

by Joan Johnston

  “Where’s the Scotch tape?” Ryan asked, searching around the desk Nate used to do his homework.

  “What do you need tape for?” Nate said.

  Ryan held up his flashlight and a roll of red plastic kitchen wrap he’d been using to make a school project. “I need to tape some of this stuff—”

  “That’s stupid,” Nate said.

  “No, it’s not,” Brooke countered. “That red plastic wrap will cut the light.” She crossed to the desk and searched through the center drawer until she found a roll of Scotch tape. While Nate shoved his feet into Sorel boots, she taped the filmy plastic to Ryan’s flashlight.

  “You’ll drown if you go overboard in those,” Brooke said, pointing at Nate’s heavy winter boots.

  “You know my feet get cold. I’ll take my chances.”

  When she saw her brothers were dressed, Brooke crossed to the door and silently eased it open, looking down the hall toward her mother’s room. Light seeped from the crack under the door, and she could hear CNN coverage of the murder on Bear Island on the TV. She turned to face her brothers and put her fingers to her lips, then slipped into the hallway and headed for the kitchen.

  Ryan tripped on the rug and the flashlight banged on the wall.

  Brooke’s heart skipped a beat, and she stared down the hall at her mother’s closed door.

  “What was that?” her mother called from her room. Brooke cleared her throat and said, “I was getting a glass of water and I tripped on the rug.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, Mom,” Brooke said, shoving the boys past her into the kitchen. She ran the water at the kitchen sink as though filling a glass, then set a glass down on the counter loudly. “Good night, Mom,” she said.

  “Good night, Brooke.”

  Brooke followed Nate and Ryan down the street to Nate’s friend Clive’s house, where they got into the truck and closed the doors with barely a click behind them.

  “Where are we going?” Nate asked as he started the truck.

  “I have a friend who lives at John Dodge,” Brooke said, naming an expensive neighborhood across the river from Bear Island. Every home in John Dodge had a pedestrian walkout to the Snake River. The wide dike that kept the river from overflowing was open to the public. “I saw a canoe beached near their boathouse the last time I visited. We can borrow that.”

  “How big is this canoe?” Nate asked. “Are we going to be able to get it into the water?”

  “Big enough for the three of us,” Brooke said. “You and I should be able to carry it.”

  “Your friend’s not going to notice anyone stealing a canoe from their backyard?” Nate said skeptically.

  “Their backyard goes back about three acres, so no, they’re not going to hear or see a thing,” Brooke said.

  “Are you sure they’re not around?”

  “Pretty sure,” Brooke said, biting her lip nervously.

  “Where do we park Mom’s truck?”

  “There’s a back road that leads to their place. We can park it there.”

  Nate met Brooke’s gaze, glanced down at Ryan, who sat between them, then back at her and said, “What happens if we do find Dad’s…I mean, what if we do?”

  Brooke felt her stomach churn. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  Nate followed Brooke’s directions and finally cut the engine on the pickup at the end of a long drive that was bordered by naked birches and tall cypress. “How much snow do you think there is built up on the ground out here?” he asked.

  “Not more than two or three inches,” Brooke said. “We shouldn’t have any problem.”

  She and Nate each took one of Ryan’s hands to help him through the snow. The canoe was where Brooke remembered it being, turned upside down on an open wood frame that was sheltered by a pitched wooden roof. “There it is,” she said. It was smaller than she remembered.

  “That’s barely big enough for two,” Nate muttered.

  Brooke had remembered the canoe as being bigger than she now realized it was. “It’ll be easier for the two of us to maneuver,” she said.

  “Where do you suppose they keep the paddles?” Nate said as he lifted the canoe by himself.

  Brooke looked around and realized the paddles weren’t with the canoe. She turned to stare at the house and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw no lights were on. “They probably keep them in the garage,” she said. “I’ll go get them.”

  “It’s going to be locked,” Nate said. “And there’s going to be an alarm system.”

  “I know where they keep a key hidden,” Brooke said. Nate raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as Brooke headed for the house. The family vacationed in Jackson a couple of weeks in the summer and sometimes came to ski for a week in the winter. Otherwise, the house was vacant. Brooke had met the girl who lived here when she’d come last year to ski. They’d spent an afternoon talking at the Mangy Moose, after which the girl had invited Brooke back here.

  As a policewoman’s daughter, Brooke couldn’t believe the girl had been so incautious as to retrieve a key from a “rock safe” lying on the ground near the back door when Brooke was watching, especially when they’d only known each other for an afternoon. Brooke had never taken advantage of the girl’s naïveté—until now.

  She looked for the rock safe where it had been, but it wasn’t there. She felt a moment of panic, then saw the rock that held a key inside had been moved to the other side of the back door. She retrieved the rock, and sure enough, the key was inside.

  Brooke breathed a sigh of relief and used the key on the kitchen door. She remembered the girl saying they didn’t have an alarm system because there was nothing in the house worth stealing. What she meant, of course, was that they had enough money to replace the very expensive furnishings if they were stolen. Brooke had often wondered what it would be like to be rich.

  For a moment she allowed herself to imagine what her life might be like if her mother married someone as wealthy as Drew DeWitt. She cut off the fantasy as quickly as it began. What she wanted was her father back…alive. She just didn’t think that was going to happen.

  Brooke would never believe that her father had walked out on them. She was as certain that he loved her as she was that the sun would rise in the morning. He never would have stayed away if he could’ve come home. Which meant that something bad had happened to him.

  She didn’t want him to be dead and buried on Bear Island. But she would rather know the truth than live in limbo. If he was there, she planned to find him.

  Brooke headed straight for the door that led to the garage from the kitchen. The aluminum paddles were hanging in plain sight on the garage wall a little above her head. She rose on tiptoe to get them but lost her balance, and one of them hit her hard on the head as it came down.

  She stood back, stunned, and let them both clatter to the cement floor. She put her hand gently to her head, expecting it to come away bloody, but all she felt was a patch of rough skin where the paddle had skimmed her forehead on its way down.

  She breathed an inward sigh of relief. Her head hurt, but so long as there was no blood, she was fine. When she bent to retrieve the paddles, she lost her balance and had to grab onto the workbench along the wall.

  She reached up to her head again, wondering if she was hurt worse than she’d thought. She let go of the bench and waited to see if the spurt of dizziness would return. When it didn’t, she pulled her wool cap down carefully to hide the spot where she’d been hit, then squatted, rather than bending, and retrieved the paddles.

  Her forehead throbbed when the cold air hit her face as she left the house, but she figured her bop on the head was a small price to pay. It could have been a lot worse. Like if there had been blood. “Got ’em,” she told Nate, as she met him at the edge of the river.

  He had the canoe in the water, attached by a rope tied off on a wooden stake. Ryan was already sitting in it.

  “You get in and sit in the fr
ont,” he said.

  Once Brooke was setted, Nate handed her a paddle, then untied the canoe, got in himself and shoved off with the other paddle. If Nate hadn’t built so many muscles kayaking on the Snake last summer, they would have been swept downstream.

  “The water’s moving really fast,” Brooke said as she paddled hard upstream.

  “What did you expect?” Nate said. “I told you this was a crazy idea.”

  “Just keep paddling!” Brooke said.

  “I want to paddle,” Ryan said.

  “The current’s too fast,” Brooke replied.

  “I want to help,” he persisted.

  “If you want to help, turn on your flashlight and aim it at the shore,” Brooke said.

  With the red plastic wrap on it, the light didn’t carry far. “Did you bring another flashlight?” Brooke asked Nate.

  “Actually, yeah, I did,” Nate said.

  He pulled a large flashlight out of the depths of his winter coat and handed it over.

  “Give it to Ryan,” Brooke said.

  “Ryan, shine it toward the shore.”

  “Aren’t you worried about someone seeing us?” Nate asked.

  “So far, except for ‘borrowing’ this canoe, we haven’t done anything wrong,” Brooke said.

  “What about breaking and entering to get the paddles?” Nate said.

  “I didn’t break in,” Brooke countered. “I used a key.”

  Nate snickered. “I’m sure Mom will see it that way.”

  “Mom will understand,” Brooke said. “If there’s any chance at all we can find Dad—“

  “Watch out!” Ryan called.

  His warning came too late. The small canoe had hit something submerged in the water. It tipped wildly and began filling up fast with water.

  “We’re sinking!” Ryan cried.

  “Push us free!” Brooke yelled at Nate.

  “I’m trying! It’s not working!”

  “Don’t lose the flashlights,” Brooke said. “We’re going to need them when we get to the island.”

  “How are we going to—” Nate railed.

  “We’ll have to swim,” Brooke interrupted.

  “I’ll sink with these boots on,” Nate said.

  “Take them off,” Brook said briskly. “Your coat, too. Tie the strings of your shoes together and loop them around your neck.”

  “There’s no time. We’re sinking!” Nate protested.

  “Do it!” Brooke was yanking her winter hiking boots off, tying the strings together, then slipping them around her neck and removing her coat, which she dropped on the floor of the canoe. Then she did the same for Ryan. “Nate, you’re going to have to help Ryan. Ready, Ryan?”

  “I’m scared,” Ryan said.

  “Don’t worry,” Brooke said. “Nate’s a strong swimmer, and so am I. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “The shore looks a long way off,” Ryan said.

  “It’s not as far as it looks,” Brooke said.

  “Shit, shit, shit! This water’s cold as a witch’s tit,” Nate complained as he eased into the water.

  “Suck it up and swim,” Brooke shot back as the canoe slid away into the icy depths. Nate was older, but Brooke believed she had a lot more common sense than her brother. She understood how dangerous their situation truly was. She’d seen Titanic enough times to know that you could freeze to death pretty quickly in water this cold.

  She kicked as hard as she could for shore, urging Ryan to kick, too. Nate swam with Ryan secured in a rescuer’s grasp, but the current quickly swept them downstream. Fortunately, they were caught in an eddy that was carrying them toward shore.

  “I’m cold, Brooke,” her younger brother gasped.

  “Keep swimming!” she said. “Don’t you dare stop. And hang onto those flashlights!”

  They were still twenty feet from shore when Brooke realized she probably wasn’t going to make it. She could barely lift her arms.

  “Keep going,” she told Nate.

  “Let’s stay together,” Nate said.

  “I can’t keep up with you,” she told Nate. She met his gaze in the moonlight and saw the despair there. She could hear his teeth chattering. “Please. Go,” she told him. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  “I’ll come back for you as soon as I get Ryan to dry land,” Nate promised.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” she lied. “Head straight across Bear Island for one of the houses. They can call Mom to come get you.”

  “To come get us ,” Nate corrected. “Don’t give up, Brooke. I’ll be right back. I promise.”

  She could hear him swimming, but with the moonlit shadows on the water, she wasn’t sure where he was. She thought about yelling for help, but there was no one to hear. Then she realized she would feel pretty dumb if it turned out there was somebody there to rescue her, and she hadn’t opened her mouth to make a sound. She could no longer lift her arms out of the water, and her feet felt like they weighed a hundred pounds.

  Brooke took a deep breath and shouted, “Help! Somebody. Anybody! I’m here in the water. Help me, please!” She started sinking and choked on a swallow of icy water.

  “I’m drowning!” she cried, terrified. “Heellllp!”

  But no one answered. Not even Nate or Ryan.

  13

  Drew felt his gut churning as he drove away from Sarah’s house. He must be pretty desperate to suggest Sarah’s missing husband was buried on Bear Island. With the mountains and valleys and forests around Jackson Hole, there were a million better places to hide a body. The girl whose body had been found had been buried a long way from town.

  But a grown man’s dead weight was a lot heavier to cart around. Maybe whoever was running this blackmail and murder scheme had buried Tom Barndollar’s body in the most convenient spot, knowing that if other bodies were discovered far away, no one would ever think to look on Bear Island.

  The problem was Tom’s missing truck. Men had left home with less. The missing truck gave Tom mobility. The missing truck meant Tom might not be dead, that, despite having a wife and kids he supposedly loved, he’d flown into the wind.

  Which made Drew’s proposed moonlight venture seem all the more absurd.

  Drew snorted in disgust. Talk about a fool for love. Here he was making up scenarios that would free Sarah for a real relationship with him, when he knew damn well he wasn’t going to commit himself to someone who had three kids. Hell, one kid would have been too many. He knew better than to think he could be a good parent. He didn’t have a role model for the job, and at thirty-five, he was too old to learn.

  He found himself turning left instead of right, heading down the road that led home, instead of the road that led to Bear Island. He couldn’t help thinking, as he rode down what was normally a pitch-black road, that the moon was certainly right for a nighttime adventure. It was bright enough that he could see the rolled bales of hay in the field beneath a shallow layer of snow.

  As he pulled his Porsche into the four-car garage, he noticed the small fishing boat on its trailer at the far end of the garage. Next to it sat his repaired pickup.

  Drew lingered in his Porsche long enough for the garage lights to go out automatically. He fought a battle with himself in the dark. It was a wild-goose chase, plain and simple, just as Sarah had said. It was no more than forty degrees out there, although that was warmer than it sounded, since there was little or no humidity in Jackson.

  How did he expect to find anything, anyway, when the island was a morass of vegetation? He was going to spend a lot of time and energy tramping around in the cold and the dark and feel like a prize idiot when he was done.

  Drew got out of his Porsche and headed into the darkened house. He made straight for the living room without turning on a light in the kitchen. He turned on a lamp with an antler base near a modern wet bar, then proceeded to fix himself a drink. He found some aged scotch, poured it into a crystal tumbler along with some ice, and crossed to the chair by t
he fireplace.

  The housekeeper had removed the ashes and laid a new fire, and Drew struck a match to the kindling before settling into the studded leather chair that was a part of his family history. It sagged in the seat where so many of his powerful forebears had sat their rumps. Drew had known for many years that no descendant of his was going to occupy this chair.

  Not that he hadn’t imagined what it might be like to have kids of his own. The problem was, a man needed a woman to bear his children. But he’d seen what an angry, unhappy, discontented woman could do to innocent kids. He wasn’t going to subject any child of his to that kind of hell.

  An image formed in his mind of Ryan reaching out to Sarah, who picked him up, despite the fact he was too heavy for her. Of Sarah rescuing Nate from jail and hugging him to her, before she meted out punishment that was neither cruel nor abusive.

  Drew was much more familiar with scenes like the one with Brooke curved protectively around her younger brother on the couch, waiting for a parent who was late coming home. But Sarah’s appearance hadn’t been the cause of even more fear. Brooke had seemed relieved to see her mother.

  Drew realized suddenly that what he’d feared for so many years was not his own ability to love his children, but that the woman he chose to love might not love his children.

  Sarah would love any child of hers…and yours.

  So maybe there were some women who could love their children—any children—wholeheartedly. Maybe there were some women it was safe to love.

  The sound of the phone ringing startled him. Who could be calling him? Sarah?

  Drew leapt for the phone, aware of the surge in his pulse at the thought that Sarah might be on the other end of the line. He didn’t want to care for her, didn’t want to find himself falling down that well of vulnerability. But he couldn’t seem to stop himself. He picked up the phone, his heart pounding in his chest, but before he could say a word, he heard Jackson Blackthorne on the line.

  “I just got a call from a friend of mine,” Blackjack said. “Is it true? Was Clay found in bed with a young woman who’d been strangled?”