by Edie Claire
"I’ll be about fifteen minutes," she said, keeping her voice strong as she stepped out of the car. "You can wait here or you can drive around, whatever you want to do." Just don’t follow me. All right?
Adam stood up and shut the car door behind him. He removed his sunglasses, then wiped his brow with the back of his wrist. "You were right. It is hot down here."
She smiled a little. "This is nothing. It’s still morning."
He looked at her, but didn’t smile back. "If you’re sure you want to be alone, I think I’ll take a walk around. But don’t worry about me. Take all the time you need."
She assured him that she would, he replaced his sunglasses, and they parted company.
She ambled a bit, avoiding the actual plot in question until he was a distance away. It was silly, she supposed, but she didn’t want him anywhere near her family’s resting place. It was one thing to lie to a person as you rode along in a rental car. It was another to do it while standing over your mother’s grave.
As the double-wide, gray granite headstone came into view, she held her breath. But as soon as she neared it enough to confirm the presence of a vase of flowers at its base, she exhaled with relief.
Her parents’ plot was well tended. The grass was cut, no weeds were growing, and the headstone hadn’t been chipped. The flowers she had paid for in January were holding up well, and there were no signs of vandalism. She walked up to the stone, placed a hand on its sun-warmed surface, and smiled.
Beth and Stephen Landers would be pleased. They hadn’t wanted anything fancy, just dignified. They had died unexpectedly in their prime, but Sarah had always taken comfort in knowing that their lives to that point had been full. Both had been respected in their fields and well liked by their students, and one university association, after raising a significant amount of money in their honor, had even named a scholarship after them. They had died doing what they loved, and they had lived with no regrets.
Perhaps that was why, whenever she visited their grave, her sadness was tempered by a sense of peace.
She lifted her eyes, and her stomach roiled. She put a hand to it and turned.
Dee’s grave was not directly beside their parents’. It was ten yards or so away, beneath a tree. Sarah began to walk toward it. Her limbs felt heavy, and her mind began to race.
Be calm, she ordered herself. You’re not a teenager anymore.
She reached the smaller, heart-shaped stone and stopped her feet before it as abruptly as a soldier. Deanna Elaine Landers. Born March 11, 1983. Died May 23, 2002. A spray of purple silk orchids adorned the stone’s base, just as requested. The burial plot, too, was perfectly tended. But this time, Sarah didn’t smile.
Her sister’s grave would never bring her peace.
Unlike the death of their parents, Dee’s passing had been no accident. Dee had killed herself because she didn’t think she could trust her sister, and that was something Sarah could never forget. It was also something she couldn’t easily forgive.
She bent down and adjusted the flowers. Purple orchids had been her sister’s favorite. A macabre choice for a girl, but that was Dee. Always wanting to shock people, shake things up. It had been a tough job with parents as liberal as theirs, but somehow Dee had always managed. Like when she had painted the walls of her room with alternating black, green, and magenta stripes. Like when she had refused to go to college. Like when she had turned down a decent-paying clerical job with the university to work the counter at Hardees.
Like when she had started dating him.
A flash of light on metal arose in Sarah’s mind, forcing its way in as if thrown like a javelin. Smooth, shiny chrome. The glint of moonlight. Wheels in mud. Dee’s ragged, heavy breathing. His cruel, twisted face.
Sarah jerked upright. She opened her eyes wide and scanned the cemetery, forcibly replacing the images with real ones. Sunshine. Green grass. Headstones. Her pulse pounded in her ears.
It’s not then, it’s now. Cut it out.
A motor revved on the road nearby. She shuddered.
That’s not him.
She whirled around, looking for any reassurance of where she was, who she was. But all that surrounded her were graves.
"I’m sorry, Dee," she said out loud, casting a cursory glance back at her sister’s headstone. "I can’t stay here any longer. I’m sorry."
Her feet headed toward the car in double time. She stumbled over a foot stone.
Maybe he’s behind you.
"Stop it!" she snapped, whispering through clenched teeth. "You’re fine. Just fine."
She reached the car and pulled the door handle with a jerk. A hot blast of air struck her full in the face—the result of a mere ten minutes of baking in the Alabama sun. She leaned in and looked for the keys. She didn’t see any.
"Adam!" she called, straightening for a look around. "Adam?"
He was nowhere in sight.
She cursed under her breath. It might have been nine years, but nothing in the cemetery had changed. It looked exactly the same. The stones, the sun, even the houses that bordered it were no different than they had been on the days of the funerals. The whole purpose of bringing another person along was to make sure that what was happening to her now wouldn’t happen. She would not relive that time again. She would not allow the images to pop up unbidden, overtaking her conscious mind. She would not.
She leaned against the closed car door. The side-view mirror gleamed in the sun.
Chrome fender. Moonlight.
"Adam!"
"I’m here." His calm, deep voice floated over from just behind the car. "I was taking a break in the shade." He gestured to a clump of trees nearby. "But frankly, the shade doesn’t help much. Are you ready to leave?"
She looked into his friendly, sweating, Pittsburgh-origin, present-day face, and the frantic beating of her heart began to ease. "Yes," she answered. "Let’s go."
Chapter 12
Adam turned on the car’s air conditioner full blast, adjusted the vent toward his face, and leaned in for extra oxygen. The humidity was oppressive. He'd seen cooler days in Ghana.
He studied his passenger as surreptitiously as he could, concerned. Her reaction to the cemetery was unexpected. Visiting a loved one’s grave could be a somber occasion, but somber hardly described Sarah’s reaction. When she called his name she had sounded frightened, and he had sprung up half expecting to see someone confronting her. But she had been alone. Alone and terrified.
"This seems like a well-kept cemetery," he commented as they pulled out. "Was everything all right?"
"Everything was fine," she said sharply, looking away from him.
Adam squelched a sigh. It was incredibly frustrating that Sarah was still as likely to consider his concern for her a threat as she was to be comforted by it. Every time he thought they were getting closer, she would slam the door in his face again.
He had to be patient.
"So, where to now?" he asked, making an effort to keep his voice casual.
She paused before answering. "When you visit a new city, what do you do? Do you make up an itinerary, or do you prefer to just drive around and see what’s there?"
The question surprised him. "I like to just drive around."
She seemed relieved. "Well, why don’t you do that, then? I’m not quite ready to go to the house yet."
His eyebrows rose. "You got it. Sounds like fun."
Touring the small town of Auburn was indeed fun. He drove through Toomer’s corner with its stately live oak trees, explored the quaint downtown and picturesque campus, and tooled around Jordan Hare stadium to catch a glimpse of the War Eagle. Then he swung about the town’s outskirts for a view of the poultry farm, pig farm, veterinary school, and rodeo ring. He would have liked to have gotten out and walked some, but Sarah, who sat stiffly in her seat hardly paying attention, didn’t seem amenable. He could have left her in the car, but since he didn’t entirely trust her not to drive off with it, he decided to stay in the air
conditioning. If he was going to be moving boxes in the heat of the day, he might as well preserve his strength.
"Would you like to stop and get something to drink?" he asked finally, spying a commercial area with plenty of options. He was parched.
Sarah looked around. "All this is new," she announced with more cheer. "A lot of things have changed since I lived here, but this is all new even since the last time I visited. Sure. Let’s stop."
He pulled into a mom-and-pop chicken outfit, and they both ordered pink lemonade. Once inside the nearly deserted building, Sarah seemed more comfortable. She told him how much of what they had seen was new and explained a little of the university’s history. But her narrative was oddly devoid of any personal references¾no people she cared about, no places for which she felt sentimental.
He listened with a practiced ear. Sarah's low-pitched, musical voice was pleasant to hear no matter what she was saying, and when she was relaxed and confident, her clear blue eyes were equally captivating. But he knew darn well she'd been lying to him.
Her explanation of the situation that had brought her here didn't add up. If her mother "never could stand" this maligned uncle, why had she left him legal control over her property? Wouldn't his guardianship have ended when Sarah turned eighteen? And if selling the house truly had been Sarah’s goal, why would she have protested the county's buying it?
The particular issues at stake were, quite obviously, none of his business. And yet, he couldn't help but wonder why she was trying so hard to mislead him.
"It must have been interesting going to high school in a small town swarming with college students," he said casually, content for now just to keep her talking. He didn't like being lied to, and the deception stung a little. But he'd never been one to take offense easily, and in this case he was willing to give Sarah the benefit of the doubt. She wasn't trying to hurt him; she meant only to protect her privacy. He could hardly blame her for that.
In the meantime, the lemonade was excellent and the aroma of frying chicken was making his mouth water, even if it was only midmorning. "Easy for a teenager to get into trouble, I bet," he teased.
She smiled a little. "It would have been much more tempting if my parents hadn’t expected us to misbehave. My form of rebellion was choosing to be a bookish, tee-totaling square. Dee had it tougher."
Adam started at the name.
Sarah continued, not noticing. "The straight-laced routine wasn’t for her, and since my parents were full-fledged hippies, she couldn’t do that either. So she set her sights on ‘trailer trash.’ She was very intelligent, but she pretended no interest in anything even halfway intellectual."
"Your sister’s name was Dee?" Adam asked before he could stop himself.
Sarah snapped to attention. "Yes. It was Deanna. Why?"
Adam's mind replayed the unpleasant image of Sarah lying flat on her driveway, the blood just beginning to trickle through her dark hair. Stop hitting me! Dee, where are you?
"Adam," Sarah insisted, "Why are you staring like that? What’s the deal with my sister’s name?"
His mind raced. He took a deep breath.
Dee. He had assumed that the assault Sarah had been reliving was a recent event. But her sister had been dead for nine years.
"You said her name before," he explained carefully. "After you passed out and hurt your head. You asked for her like you were looking for her, and you seemed to think that someone was hitting you."
The blood drained from Sarah’s face. "I was delirious," she said defensively. "Who knows what I was saying?" She took a sip of lemonade, but her complexion hadn’t half the color of the liquid in her straw. "I do still dream about my sister occasionally. I’m not surprised her name would pop up."
Adam let out a breath. Despite the bravado in Sarah’s voice, the hand that held her straw was trembling. She was like a china doll¾a beautiful, yet rock-hard shell teetering gradually toward the edge of a curio shelf, boldly facing obliteration below. Every fiber of his body wanted to scoot back both their chairs, sweep her up in his arms, and hold her until the trembling stopped. But he knew he couldn’t touch her.
Not unless she wanted him to.
"Sarah," he said, quietly but firmly, catching her eyes. "Please tell me what you’re so afraid of."
She held his gaze for only a split second. Then she straightened her back, tossed her long hair over her shoulders, and folded her hands in front of her.
"I’m not afraid of anything," she announced coolly. She was obviously fighting to appear self-assured, but her efforts were wasted on Adam. Her words meant nothing when he could see raw terror swimming behind her eyes. "I just don’t like being here. My parents died while I was living here, and my sister killed herself in the very house we’re about to visit. You expect me to be having a great time? To be enjoying this?"
The attempt to make him feel guilty missed its mark. She hadn’t started shaking because she missed her family.
"I know someone hurt you," he pressed, trying his best to sound supportive rather than threatening. "I could tell by the way you acted that day—and I don’t just mean what you said. You were afraid of me, and everyone knows I’m a pushover. I’m telling you this because I can see that you’re spending a lot of energy trying to cover it up, and there’s no reason for you to do that. If you want to tell me about it, fine. If you don’t, you don’t have to. It’s up to you."
Her eyes held his for several seconds—appraising, watchful, keen. Behind their brilliant blue irises, her mind seemed to be turning cartwheels. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer.
"Someone did hurt me," she said quietly. "But it was a long time ago. I suppose it’s possible I flashed back to that after I fell. Both times I had head injuries, so it wouldn’t be surprising."
She took another sip of lemonade. Adam said nothing.
"It happened when I was fifteen. Dee and I were at a pub she liked to go to—the grill made great burgers, so a lot of high school kids ate there. But the night I got hurt, a few twenty-something locals got really drunk. When the manager asked them to leave, they got belligerent. Dee and I decided to take off, but we never made it to the door. Somebody slugged somebody, and then it was chaos. One of the drunks was staggering around, swinging his beer mug and yelling, and he hit me with it. I really don’t think he meant to hit me; I just happened to be there. But it was a dead-on hit to the side of my face, and I wound up with a fractured jaw. It took a long time to heal."
She stopped and took a breath. She studied Adam again. "Last week, when I came to in my driveway, my head throbbed. It felt like someone was pounding on my skull with a hammer. I was confused; I thought maybe you had knocked me out. I know that sounds paranoid now, but it was just a gut reaction."
Adam listened carefully, his breath measured. She’d come up with a darn good explanation for what she’d said in the driveway, he had to give her that. But she was lying again. No way was the terror he kept seeing in her, the near-panic he had just witnessed at the cemetery, caused by an accidental injury she’d received more than a decade ago. There was something else. And whatever it was, she still wasn’t comfortable sharing it.
"So there’s nothing here, in Auburn, now," he asked, "that you’re afraid of?"
Alarm flickered in her eyes even as her face remained impassive. "Of course not. What gave you that idea? I told you, I have some unpleasant memories here, that’s all. Surely you can understand."
Adam didn’t think he understood much of anything. But he had forced the issue as much as he could. For now.
"I’m sorry about what happened," he offered. "I can see how a memory like that might pop up under those circumstances." He polished off his lemonade and threw both empty cups away. "So," he said with forced cheerfulness, "what do we do now? Were you going to rent a trailer, or do you think the trunk of the car will do?"
Sarah stood. Her complexion had still not regained its full color, but her expression was resolute. "I’m not sure. I thought we
might go to the house first and have a look around. Then I can decide what we’ll need."
"Sounds fine," he said agreeably, smiling with a lightheartedness he didn't feel. Sarah was not the first badly traumatized person he had ever met; nor the first he'd tried to help. He was a professional counselor of sorts, after all. He had been trained in how to deal with others’ grief and suffering, how to empathize without taking the pain on himself. He had gotten pretty good at it, actually.
But with Sarah, none of his usual tricks were working. Every time he looked at the woman, her pain gnawed at his very bones.
She slipped out from the behind the table and walked toward the door. He hesitated. Then he followed her.
Chapter 13
"Turn here."
Sarah held the aged leather key chain in her lap. She was aware that she was fidgeting, pressing each of the keys hard between her fingers, first in turn, then together. But she had to vent her anxiety somehow.
Adam had tried to talk to her on the drive out, but she supposed she hadn’t been cooperative. He had seemed fascinated with the scenery—field after field of rolling hills; large, modern brick homes interspersed with aged wooden ones and trailers of every description. The pastures in which beef cattle grazed seemed particularly interesting to him, and he had marveled at the one-room shacks whose skeletons stood in their midst, crumbling and long abandoned, except by the occasional cow.
The car turned. Her muscles went taut.
The house’s long, winding lane loomed before her. A shudder wracked her spine.
You are NOT going to react this way, she ordered herself.
"Looks like my uncle is a little behind with the bush hog," she commented, watching as weeds higher than her head engulfed them. And not just weeds. There were bushes in the yard. Saplings. The drive itself was peppered with so much breakthrough flora that in places the gravel beneath was obscured. Adam moved the car ahead slowly, the taller weeds between tire paths bowing to its fender, then scratching along its underbelly.