“Lin, don’t do this. You’ve got to let go, for your sake and mine.”
“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love you. There’s never been anyone else.”
“That’s not true.”
She raised her head to meet his eyes. Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Yeah, I’ve seen other guys, even slept with some of them. There’s a guy in Roanoke who wants to marry me, believe it or not.”
“Maybe you ought to think about saying yes.”
“Tommy, I don’t love him! I’ve never loved anybody but you. I always thought we’d end up together. That was my dream from the time we were teenagers, marrying you and having three or four kids. But then you just walked away, moved to Richmond without me, and next thing I knew, you were engaged to somebody else. You broke my heart, Tommy. I almost didn’t survive that.”
The sight of her in tears because of him caught at his heart and shamed him. “Come on, Lin, what’s the point of rehashing it now? It’s late, it’s been a long day and we’re both exhausted. My head feels like somebody’s beating on it with a tire iron. I want you to leave now.”
She continued as if Tom hadn’t spoken. “After your parents and Chris and Carol died in the accident, I heard about you breaking up with that woman because she wouldn’t come and live out here in the sticks. Then you came back to me, and I thought you’d finally realized we belonged together. We’d get married and have a family. I waited years for you to ask me, but you wouldn’t even talk about it. You were just using me till somebody better came along. Rachel took you away from me before I even knew she existed.”
Tears poured down her cheeks. Tom knew he was making a mistake, but he went to her. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it into her hand. As she wiped her face and blew her nose, he said, “I’m sorry I hurt you. I don’t blame you if you hate me.”
“I wish I could hate you.” She gave a sad little laugh. “But I can’t, that’s my problem. I just go right on loving you no matter what you do to me.”
“Aw, god, Lindsay—”
Then she was wrapping her arms around his neck, pressing her body against his. “Tommy,” she whispered, her breath warm in the hollow of his throat, “I need you. I feel so lost and alone without you.”
“Lindsay, don’t—”
She drew his head down to hers. Alarm bells clanged in his head, but his body responded to her touch, to her soft kisses on his neck. She lifted her head, murmured against his lips, “I’m so in love with you, Tommy. I’ll always love you.”
She pressed her lips to his as her warm fingers caressed the back of his neck. A soft moan escaped her, and he felt her tongue in his mouth, stroking his.
Something in him snapped. This is insane.
He pulled her arms from his neck and pushed her away. “We’re not doing this. I want you to leave right now.”
The kiss had banished Lindsay’s tears and erased the sadness from her face, and she looked back at him with a gleam of triumph in her eyes. Her voice was soft, gently teasing. “Do you think I can’t tell when you want me? I know you, Tommy. I know your body as well as I know my own. You want me as much as I want you.”
The rain was only a soft tap-tap against the window now. He had pushed Lindsay out of his arms, but he couldn’t shut out the memories of the two of them together in his bed upstairs, in her bed in Roanoke, her legs wrapped around him as they moved in a long-familiar rhythm. An image of Rachel rose in his mind too, not the warm, beautiful woman he loved but the cold, judgmental stranger who had lashed out at him in Ben Hern’s living room.
“Tommy,” Lindsay said, “can you look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love me at all anymore? Can you tell me to my face that you don’t want me anymore?”
Chapter Thirty-seven
Unable to sleep, replaying the whole disastrous evening in her mind, Rachel sat cross-legged on her bed at three in the morning and wondered if she could repair the damage Lindsay had done to her life in the last few days.
The woman’s malignant maneuvering had turned Tom against her with breathtaking speed. When Rachel thought of Tom, a bottomless hole opened up inside her, and she ached with a sorrow that felt like grief. At the same time, she was angry at him and at herself. Why do I want a man who’s that weak, that easily manipulated? If Tom had loved her, Lindsay couldn’t have come between them. If he didn’t love her, she would only humiliate herself by fighting for him.
Now Lindsay, not content to take Tom away from her, was spreading around a twisted version of what she’d learned so far about Rachel and her family. Hearing Beck Rasey, a virtual stranger, say anything at all about her mother would have been shocking enough, and Rachel was horrified to have her private pain dragged into the open for a hostile crowd to gape at.
Maybe she should cut her losses and get out of Mason County. She would never fit in here.
If Lindsay got her obvious wish and married Tom, she would always see Rachel as a threat and wouldn’t stop until she drove her away. If she probed deeply enough into the Goddard family’s background, she could do extraordinary damage. Rachel wanted above all else to protect her younger sister Michelle from Lindsay’s prying.
She had moved to Mason County because she’d wanted to be among strangers and have the freedom to ignore the past. But ignoring it didn’t erase it.
She longed to see her sister, hear her voice, but Michelle was with her husband, many miles away in a Washington suburb. Rachel didn’t want to call in the middle of the night and scare Michelle out of her wits.
Suddenly she thought of the photo album filled with all the pictures their mother had taken of her and Michelle over the years. The album was the only thing Rachel had kept from their family home when it was emptied and sold. During her first months in Mason County, when she’d felt lonely and cut off from everything familiar, she’d browsed through the pictures almost every day, often smiling with tears in her eyes as she remembered when each one was taken. She’d been drawn back to the album less and less in the last few months, because she’d been happy with Tom and her life here and hadn’t felt the need to look backward.
She switched on a lamp, causing Frank to raise his head from his resting spot at the foot of the bed. He blinked twice, then settled back into sleep.
Rachel opened the closet and reached up to the shelf, where she kept the album. But all she found were the winter blankets, folded and stacked. Where was it? She groped around, shifted the blankets and a couple of sweaters, thinking the album had somehow been pushed to the back. She couldn’t find it.
It was gone.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Dennis rose from his desk and handed Tom the autopsy report on Meredith Taylor. “Just came in. I looked it over. I don’t think there’s anything in it we don’t already know.”
“I’ll read it later,” Tom said, glancing at the cover sheet of the faxed report. “I want to get through the rest of her manuscript before Ragsdale’s bail hearing.”
“You still think you’re gonna find something in that book that’ll make a difference?”
“I’ve about given up hope,” Tom said, “but I want to finish it.”
“Good story?” Dennis asked with a grin.
“It’s pretty sad. Those kids were so naïve I keep wanting to shake some sense into them. I guess idealism has its place, but it won’t get you far in the real world.”
“You’re a hard man, Tom Bridger.”
Tom retrieved Meredith’s CD from the evidence room and took it to his office. He tossed the autopsy report on his desk and sat down at the computer. Waiting for the machine to boot up, he stretched and yawned. God, what a night. He’d slept a total of about an hour. But maybe his haggard appearance, added to the bruises around his eye and nose, would help persuade the judge that Scotty Ragsdale was too dangerous to release on bail.
He slid Meredith’s CD into the computer and found the spot where he’d left off last time.
Meredith had been merciless in detailing the humiliation endured by her alter ego in the book out of love for Chad. Watching Chad with Donna, the character who represented Scotty Ragsdale’s older sister Denise, the Meredith character put her emotions through some pathetic contortions in an effort to see Chad as the innocent object of Donna’s obsession.
Tom read on:
Chad was so patient with her. She was a simple mountain girl and needed a tremendous amount of help if she were ever going to develop the confidence to perform onstage before an audience. He spent hours with her, coaching her on how to speak lines naturally. She threw herself at him, and he used her adoration for the good of the project. She was so completely besotted with him that she would do anything he asked her to and was willing to take his criticism and work hard to please him.
But as the weeks passed, Meredith couldn’t keep up the pretense.
He had spent the previous night with me, in my house, but he told me he couldn’t come over that night. Too much to do, he said, without sharing any details. When I saw him drive off around seven o’clock, I almost followed him, but I resisted the urge. If I spied on him, what would that say about the level of trust between us? I believed he loved me and wouldn’t lie to me. If he said he had work to do, I believed him.
Snow had started falling, adding to the several inches already on the ground. My little house was frigid, despite the coal fire in the potbellied stove. I had on my coat and gloves, but I still shivered as I stood by the window, watching and waiting for him to return.
I stood there for an hour, waiting. When I saw headlights approaching, my heartbeat quickened. The car turned into the yard of Chad’s house, a hundred feet away. I smiled and tugged my scarf tight around my neck, preparing to run over and join him.
Then I saw her. Chad parked, and when he opened his door the dome light went on and I saw he wasn’t alone. Donna opened the passenger door and got out. By then Chad had walked around to her side. In the dim glow through the open passenger door, I saw him slide his arms around her. They were locked together for what seemed a lifetime, while I stood rooted at my window, unable to tear my eyes away.
***
The narrative went on to describe her vigil, the shadowy movements she saw behind the curtains of Chad’s one-room shack, the long evening that ended when he drove his visitor away and returned alone. Meredith didn’t confront him. Instead, she asked herself what the other girl was giving him that he wasn’t getting from her.
Reading that, Tom felt a clutch of guilt because he realized Lindsay had been asking herself the same question about him and Rachel. But he had no reason to feel guilty. He hadn’t lied to Lindsay. He’d broken off with her months before he and Rachel became seriously involved.
He shook off thoughts of his own screwed-up life and concentrated on the story unspooling on his computer screen.
***
When she and Holly left for work, Rachel was still seething about the photo album’s disappearance, but she tried to hide her anger from Holly.
She was sure Lindsay had taken the album. Who else would want it?
She felt as if Lindsay had stolen her memories when she took the only remaining link to Rachel’s childhood. What did Lindsay plan to do with the pictures? Rachel didn’t even want to imagine.
If she forced a confrontation, Lindsay would deny everything, claim Rachel was persecuting her while she was going through a personal crisis. Rachel couldn’t tell Tom that Lindsay had stolen something from her, not without proof. And Rachel’s accusation might spur Lindsay on to even more devious and destructive actions.
That lying little bitch, Rachel thought, her hands tightening on the steering wheel. She was furious at Tom for being so gullible, for buying into Lindsay’s act. His seven-year-old nephew could see behind Lindsay’s mask. Why couldn’t Tom?
Driving past the barn and stables, Rachel murmured noncommittal answers to Holly’s chatter about the clear, cool morning ushered in by last night’s rain. She hadn’t told Holly what happened at the meeting, and she wouldn’t tell her if she could avoid it.
They were approaching Joanna’s house when Joanna ran to the edge of the farm road and waved her arms, signaling Rachel to stop. Noting Lindsay’s car in the driveway, Rachel braked in the middle of the road instead of pulling over, and as soon as the window on the passenger side was down she leaned around Holly and called out, “We don’t have time to come in.”
Joanna waved that aside and hustled around to Rachel’s window. “A friend of mine just called and told me what happened at that awful meeting last night. Honey, I am so sorry. I’m going to give Lindsay a piece of my mind.”
“What do you mean?” Holly asked. “What happened at the meeting?”
Oh, great. Now she’d have to give Holly every revolting detail, and the girl’s sensitive nature would have her fretting for days over it. “I’ll explain later,” Rachel told Holly. To Joanna, she said, “Don’t worry about me.”
“Well, I think it’s unforgivable, and I’m sure Lindsay’s to blame. I sympathize with her for losing both her parents, but that doesn’t give her the right—”
“Let it go, Joanna. Please.”
Joanna shook her head. “No. She has to answer for this. In fact, I’m not going to wait for her to get up. I’m going to wake her up and tell her what I think.”
Rachel sighed. If Lindsay got a tongue-lashing from Joanna, she would take out her resentment on Rachel.
Joanna went on, “I’ll bet she didn’t come back last night because she was afraid I’d already heard and she didn’t want to face me. So she snuck back in the house during the wee hours of the morning, probably thinking I wouldn’t hear her.”
The wee hours of the morning? Where had Lindsay been all that time? With Tom? An image of the two of them together popped up in Rachel’s mind, and she felt breathless, lightheaded and sick.
“I hope she’ll go back to Roanoke after the funeral,” Joanna was saying.
Rachel pulled herself back to the here and now. “When is the funeral?”
“She told me yesterday the bodies are being released today, so it shouldn’t be long now. She has an appointment at one o’clock to make arrangements with the funeral home. Unfortunately, that leaves me to deal with those damn goats. I’ve found somebody to take them, but he wants me to deliver them, so I have to spend my afternoon wrestling them onto a truck.”
“Oh? What time will you be taking them?” Rachel asked.
“Well, right after lunch is what I’m planning on. Twelve-thirty, one. Why? You want to come and help?”
“Sorry, I’ll be too busy in the middle of the day,” Rachel said, her mind already skipping ahead. If she rearranged her afternoon schedule, she could clear an hour, get back here while both Lindsay and Joanna were away from the farm, and search Lindsay’s room for the photo album.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Tom glanced at his watch. Ragsdale’s bail hearing was set for 1 p.m. A dozen minor things had interrupted his reading, but he could get through the rest of Meredith’s book by then if he skimmed.
He doubted this was a finished manuscript, because some of the latest pages he’d read seemed hurried and sketchy, as if she meant to go back and fill them out in another draft. Those pages were also boring as hell, because they concentrated on the VISTA campaign to force the county to send snow plows up every narrow road, paved or unpaved, in every hollow in Rocky Branch District.
Tapping the mouse button with one finger, Tom moved through all that material with
out reading it closely. He slowed when the story became personal again. On the night of a heavy snowfall, Meredith and Celia/Karen met with Chad at his house to discuss new developments in their plans for the Melungeon play. But VISTAs weren’t the only people present. Chad had brought Donna, the local girl, home with him again, and Meredith wasn’t happy about it.
The story continued:
How much more was I expected to endure? Why didn’t Chad see that he was tearing me apart? Donna touched him, leaned against him, and when he sat on the bed she sat next to him and glued her hip and leg to his. I waited for him to push her away, but he didn’t. She complained about being cold, and snuggled closer to him.
I was standing by the stove with Celia, watching Chad and Donna. I couldn’t help saying to Donna, “If you’re cold, you should come over here by the stove. Or put your coat back on.”
She gave me a self-satisfied little smile. “I’m nice and cozy now, thanks.”
Chad laughed.
Then he delivered the final blow to my dignity. Donna had to go home early so she could finish a paper for school the next day. She expected Chad to drive her. But he said he had to stay and iron out a few details about the play with Celia.
Donna pouted. She acted like a little girl who’s been told she can’t have a treat. “Cha-a-a-d,” she whined, clutching his arm and leaning against him, “can’t you spare just a few little minutes for me? How am I going to get home?”
Chad looked at me. “You can drive her.”
A terrible sense of betrayal overwhelmed me when I realized he knew exactly how much he was hurting me. He was trying to prove that he could make me do anything he told me to do, and that included providing taxi service for the girl he’d been sleeping with behind my back.
I don’t know where I found the nerve, and the truth is I was shaking inside, but I looked him in the eyes and said the one word he’d never heard from me before. “No.”
Broken Places Page 23