by Sandra Brown
“Nobody. I chop it myself.”
“You go into the woods and cut down trees?”
“People do, you know.”
No one she knew did. They bought firewood from someone who delivered it to their house and stacked it, or they picked up a small bundle at the supermarket along with their bread and milk.
Satisfied that the new logs were catching, he returned to the table, picked up her sunglasses, and passed them to her. “Glue dried. I think it’ll hold.”
She tested the strength of the repair. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Your hands seem too large to work on something so small and delicate. I wouldn’t think you could be that dexterous.”
“I can be dexterous when dexterity is called for.”
She could tell he was amused by the unwitting setup she’d given him and self-satisfied with his suggestive comeback. Turning away from him, she slipped the glasses into the shirt pocket. He sat down at the table and resumed fiddling with the toaster, seeming to be perfectly content. She felt like her skin had shrunk.
“Doesn’t it drive you crazy?”
“What?”
“The silence. The loneliness.”
“I have music on my laptop.”
“Can we play some music?”
“Nice try, but no soap, Doc.”
She paced the width of the room and back. “Doesn’t the boredom drive you to distraction?”
“I’m never bored.”
“How could you not be? What do you do all day? That is, when you’re not repairing small appliances.”
She had meant the remark as a putdown, but he took no offense. “Projects.”
“Like what?”
“I’m building a shed for my pickup.”
“By yourself?”
“It’s not hard, but I’m particular, which makes it time-consuming. I had hoped to finish it before winter set in.” He glanced toward the window. “Didn’t quite make it.”
“What else?”
“I built the bookshelves.”
“That’s it? That’s all you do? Putter around here making home improvements?”
“I’ve hunted. Not much, though. I fish occasionally.”
“When you get tired of venison.”
“No, I don’t like fish, so I always throw my catches back. I hike. Gorgeous scenery up here. Sometimes I camp, but I prefer my bed to a sleeping bag on the ground.”
“So you’re not completely opposed to creature comfort.”
He gave a half grin. “No. I prefer my showers and my coffee hot.”
She looked around, trying to gauge the sparse square footage in which he lived. “I can’t imagine being cooped up in here with nothing to do.”
“I’ve got something to do. I’m doing it.”
“Repairing an old toaster?”
This time he did respond to the putdown. He sat back in the chair and stared at her thoughtfully while tapping a small screwdriver against his palm. “There are other things that need fixing.”
“And what happens when they run out?”
“I don’t see that happening.”
More than a little subdued by his “do not trespass” tone, she made a circuit of the room, went to one of the windows, and moved aside the curtain so she could look out again. The snowfall was thicker than earlier. “How far are we from Drakeland?”
“Farther than a marathon, if you had in mind to run all the way.”
“I spent Friday night there. I didn’t see much of the town, though. Is it nice?”
“It’s almost civilized. Has a Wendy’s, a Walmart, a multiscreen movie theater.”
She ignored his sarcasm. “How often do you go?”
“To the movies?”
“To town.”
“When I need something. When I feel like going.”
“Do you see friends?”
“The lady at Dunkin’ Donuts always speaks. She knows my face.”
“But not your name.”
He didn’t say anything.
“No friends. No…” At a loss for words, she went to the hearth and sat down. “How do you make your living? What do you do for money?”
“I get by.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I keep myself clothed and fed, but I don’t have gobs of money.” He paused, then added, “Not like you.”
“I don’t have gobs of money.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Wealth is relative,” she said irritably. “Besides, how do you—” She stopped and looked over at the laptop on the end table beneath the lamp. “You looked me up?”
“The afternoon I brought you here.”
“You got my name off my driver’s license.”
“The rest was easy. A few keystrokes. Charbonneau Oil and Gas popped up. You’re an heiress.”
She wasn’t prepared to talk about anything this personal with him. Yet she heard herself say, “I hate that word.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because it means that my parents are dead. I guess you read about that.”
He set down the screwdriver and gave her his undivided attention. “Your dad’s friend was flying the plane.”
“He was an experienced pilot, had flown his own plane thousands of miles. The two couples—best friends forever—were on their way to Oklahoma for an LSU football game. Tigers versus Sooners.” She picked at the cuff button on his flannel shirt, which she’d put on over her running clothes for an additional layer. “They didn’t make the kickoff.”
Behind her, the fire blazed, warming her back, but not reaching the cold void caused by the reminder of the sudden loss of her parents. “For a long time, I was in a really bad place. I prayed to God and cursed him, sometimes in the same breath. I exhausted myself with weeping. In a fit of anger, I chopped off all my hair. Grief was an illness with me. Unfortunately it’s incurable. I’ve just learned to live with it.” When she realized how silent the room had become, she turned her head and pulled him into focus.
He was sitting perfectly still, watching her intently. “No other immediate family?”
“No. Just me. We were well known in Baton Rouge. I couldn’t go anywhere without running into someone who wanted to talk about Mom and Dad and extend condolences. The reminders got hard to take. It seemed that my survival depended on leaving, starting fresh somewhere else. So, after finishing my residency, I sold the family home, my shares in the company, and relocated. New city. New state.” She slapped her thighs, ran her palms up and down them. “There you have it. Did I leave out anything?”
“How you met your husband.”
“A mutual friend set us up.”
“Love at first sight?”
She came to her feet. “All you need to know about Jeff is how frantically worried he is right now.”
“How long have you been married?”
“Three years plus a few months.”
“Have they been happy years?”
“Yes.”
“Does your scalp hurt?”
“What?” Then, realizing she’d been rubbing the wound, she lowered her hand. “No. The bump has gone down. The cut itches.”
“Means it’s healing.”
“It means I need to wash my hair.”
“Why don’t you use the shower?”
“Why do you think?”
“Because you don’t want to get naked.”
His definitive answer didn’t call for elaboration.
He gave one last turn of the screwdriver, then set the toaster upright in the center of the table and tested the ejection lever several times. It was no longer sticking. He got up and carried it to the counter, replacing it in its spot. He returned the screwdriver to a drawer.
“What about you?” she asked.
“I don’t mind being naked.”
“That’s not what I was talking about.”
He braced his hands on the counter behind him and crossed his ankles wi
th more languor than she would have thought a man his size could achieve. He looked supremely at ease with himself and his surroundings, with the bizarre situation, with everything that was driving her mad, especially the mystery that was him.
“Then what were you talking about, Doc?”
“Family. Do you have a wife stashed somewhere?”
Last night his expression had practically dared her to pry. His hard gaze had warned her to proceed at her own risk. He was looking at her that same way now. “No.”
“Ever?”
“No bride. No wife. Not ever.” He let several seconds lapse, then said, “Anything else?”
Yes. A hundred things, but she shook her head.
“Then excuse me, please.” He walked past her and went into the bathroom.
The conversation had left her feeling more disturbed than ever. She had bared her soul about the tragic death of her parents and its effect on her, a topic she was usually reticent about because it was so painful.
He had continued to dodge questions that could have been easily answered with one or two words. Instead, he was keeping her in the dark, and it was a shadowy unknown that made her uneasy.
Feeling chilled again, she wandered over to the fireplace. The logs recently added had burned quickly. She moved aside the fire screen, took one of the smaller logs from the box, and carefully placed it on top of those aflame, then reached for another. As she pulled it out, others shifted, revealing something at the bottom of the box.
It was a brown paper bag, larger than a lunch sack, but not as large as a grocery bag. Curious, she worked it out from beneath the logs, which took an effort because it was heavy.
To keep the sack closed, several folds had been made in the top of it. She unrolled them and opened it.
Inside was a rock, eight inches in diameter at its widest point, with jagged points that formed a miniature mountain range across the top of it. Those peaks were stained dark red with blood. It had run into the network of minuscule crevasses like a macabre lava flow. Stuck in the dried blood were several strands of hair, exactly the length and color of hers.
She gave a sharp cry of realization just as hands, which she had noticed specifically for their size and strength, caught her upper arms from behind, spun her around, and yanked the sack away from her.
“You weren’t supposed to see that.”
Chapter 8
FBI Special Agent Jack Connell climbed the steps of the brownstone, checked the box at the door, and pressed the button beside the name Gaskin. She was expecting him and answered almost immediately. “Mr. Connell?”
“Here.”
She buzzed him in. He opened the main door and stepped into a small vestibule, then went through another door with etched-glass panels set in heavy, carved wood. She had warned him that the building hadn’t been modernized to include an elevator, but fortunately her apartment was on the second floor.
He rounded the elaborately carved newel post at the landing. Eleanor Gaskin was standing in an open door, through which she extended him her right hand. “You haven’t changed.”
“Can’t say the same for you.”
She laughed with good nature and patted her distended tummy. “Well, there is that.”
Now in her early thirties, she was striking, with widely set brown eyes and straight black hair worn almost in 1920s flapper style. She had on black leggings, ballet flats, and an oversized shirt to accommodate her pregnancy. There was no artifice in her smile. After shaking hands, she moved aside and motioned him in.
“Thank you for calling me,” he said. “We leave our cards with people but rarely expect to hear back from anybody. Especially not after so much time.”
“Four years, if I’m not mistaken.”
It had been four years since the mass shooting in Westboro, Virginia. He’d interviewed this young woman two months after that dreadful day but hadn’t spoken to her again until her unexpected call last night.
“Have a seat,” she said. “Can I get you anything?”
“No thanks.”
He sat down on the sofa indicated. The room was awash with sunlight coming in through the bay window that overlooked the street. It was a tree-lined, strictly residential block, situated between two of the busy boulevards of New York’s Upper West Side.
“Nice building,” he said. Apartments like this, which seemed to encompass the entire second floor of the brownstone, came with a hefty price tag.
As though reading his mind, she said, “My husband inherited it from his grandmother. She’d lived here for over forty years. We had to update it, of course. New baths, new kitchen. Best of all, it had a spare room for the nursery.”
“First child?”
“Yes. It’s a girl.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you. We’re excited.”
They exchanged the smile of polite strangers who had something important but uncomfortable to discuss. She launched the conversation. “Did you watch the video I e-mailed you?”
“No fewer than a dozen times. But I’d like to watch it with you to verify that I’m looking at the right woman.”
She went over to a cabinet that housed a stack of audiovisual components. She turned on the necessary ones, and a recording began playing on the flat screen TV mounted on the wall above the fireplace. She stood just to the side of it, remote control in hand. The call letters of a TV station were superimposed at the bottom of the picture.
“I’ve got it cued, so it will be coming up…there.” She paused the video and pointed out to him a woman, a face in a crowd. It had been a national news story, broadcast last evening. Protestors in Olympia, Washington, had marched on the state capitol building over the repeal of a gun law. The woman in question carried a picket sign.
“That’s who I thought you meant,” he said. “She looks somewhat like Rebecca Watson, but…I’m not a hundred percent.” Jack walked over to the TV to take a closer look. He studied the face, which was in the midst of dozens. “You picked her out of this?”
“The instant I saw her.”
He regarded her doubtfully.
“I knew Rebecca well. I moved to the city straight out of college, wet behind the ears. She took a chance on me. People don’t forget their first employer. We’d worked together at Macy’s for almost five years before the incident in Westboro, and not just as casual acquaintances. I was her right-hand assistant.
“We spent hours of each workday together. I was single then. She was recently divorced. Sometimes we’d go to her place after the regular business day and continue working, then share a bottle of wine. We were friends.”
She was repeating what she had told him four years earlier, when Rebecca Watson had gone missing and he’d questioned Eleanor about her friend’s sudden disappearance. The young woman had been upset and concerned. And truthful. He would stake his career on her veracity. But she’d had nothing useful to tell him then. He’d left her his card and asked that if she ever saw or heard from Rebecca Watson again to please contact him immediately.
Last night, she had. But he wouldn’t allow himself to get too excited over this development. Yet. For four years he’d followed leads that had looked promising. All had met with nothing but dead ends.
“She’s changed,” he remarked. Four years ago, he’d also spent time with Rebecca Watson, but they’d never split a bottle of wine. Their exchanges had been contentious. He’d questioned her at length. For hours. Days. She had told him from the very start that she would never give up her brother’s whereabouts to him, and she hadn’t.
“Her hair is different,” Eleanor Gaskin conceded. “But that’s easily changed.”
“She wore glasses then.”
“Large, horn-rimmed ones.” She smiled. “She thought they made her look more businesslike and gave her an advantage when driving a hard bargain. And, believe me, she could drive a bargain.”
“I believe you,” he said, remembering Rebecca Watson’s stubborn silence on the subjec
t of her brother. Jack had never worn her down, and that failure still rankled. “I know we covered this territory back then, but maybe I missed something. Would you mind refreshing me?”
They returned to their seats and, with a gesture, Eleanor invited him to ask away.
“Did Rebecca talk to you about him, Mrs. Gaskin?”
“Her brother, you mean.”
Jack nodded.
“She talked about him a lot. Their parents had died, so there were just the two of them. I was almost as worried as she that he would be wounded or killed in Afghanistan. I didn’t think she could bear losing him. They were that devoted.
“When he got home, Rebecca was relieved, overjoyed. They had some really good times together. He doted on Sarah, sort of stepped in as a father figure. She adored her uncle. Then…” She looked at him ruefully and raised her shoulder.
“Westboro.”
“Yes.”
Jack remembered the date of the deadly event. It was stamped on his memory as indelibly as the name of the man he still sought. Then, fifty-five days after the shooting, his sister also had disappeared.
Jack had spent the past four years exploring every possible avenue in trying to locate Rebecca. Because, as Eleanor had said, the siblings were devoted. Finding Rebecca would bring him one step closer to finding her brother. Unfortunately, each seemed to possess an uncanny talent for vanishing.
Rebecca had been a buyer of housewares for Macy’s, a well-paying position with incentive bonuses. Without giving notice, not even so much as a voice message, she had abandoned her job. She had vacated her apartment overnight, leaving a check in the super’s mailbox that bought out her lease. That was the last check she’d written on the account. As of today, it still had over two thousand dollars in it. She had taken her daughter and pulled a David Copperfield, proving herself to be as elusive as her brother.
“She didn’t show up for work one day,” Eleanor said in sad reflection. “I called her all day, left messages that went unanswered. I thought maybe Sarah was sick.”
Following her divorce, Rebecca Watson had retained full custody of her daughter. After their disappearance, the ex-husband had made some noise, put out feelers of his own, but he gave up the search after only a few months. In Jack’s opinion he hadn’t tried all that hard. By then he’d remarried. His new wife was pregnant. He had other priorities.