Ashes To Ashes

by Gwen Hunter

  I survived the tongue lashing, and endured the Patrons’ Party, for Jasmine and the plaque she wanted me to bring home. Nothing else could have pulled me through the polite torment. Toward eleven, I managed to elude my mother yet again, an accomplishment growing more difficult by the hour. I realized she was no longer wearing her glasses or contacts, that her once blurry vision and designer lenses had been replaced by 20/20 perfection, the result of a laser, her latest foray into the world of surgery. Mother was determined to be faultless, at least physically. With Daddy’s money, she might be someday.

  I had also lost the senator, Monica, and my father, who felt I had slighted my mama by riding to the party with Alan. Daddy had never let anyone get away with hurting his wife’s feelings, though he allowed her to ride roughshod over the rest of the world with abandon.

  Alone for the moment, I wandered out through the Florida Room, full of the hot house orchids Emory cultivated in his semi-retirement from the world of big business. The party had moved out here, and I slipped unnoticed past several couples talking about the weather, and out to the screened porch. It was empty, the breeze damp and warm as another of the contradictory fronts moved through the state. This one came out of the Atlantic, an early tropical storm that never quite grew into a hurricane before it slammed into the coast and moved north.

  In the distance, highlighting the Charlotte cityscape of skyscrapers and twinkling lights, the storm still battered at the earth. Lightning brightened the frothing clouds again and again. Thunder rumbled, the sound muted by the miles. Separated from the city proper by acres of upscale housing and the ancient oaks for which the city was famous, it was still. Almost quiet. An occasional voice reached me from inside. The gutters lining the house gurgled softly. Raindrops trickled, collected in the curve of oak leaves, grew heavy, and fell in odd little splatters. Far off, a dog barked. Traffic sounds intruded sporadically.

  As a full moon danced through fitful clouds, a gazebo appeared. It was painted white, a gingerbread toy, covered with an immense climbing rose bush, heavy with blooms. Inside, hidden from the world, was a swing, suspended from the overhead beams.

  Pushing open the screened door, I went out into the porch and the garden beyond, up the steps to the gazebo. Amazingly, the swing was still dry. The scent of roses surrounded me, sweet and warm as the rose perfume Nana wore to church on Sunday, as the rose in my hair. I sat and pushed the swing into motion, rested my head against the wooden back and closed my eyes. The swing made a soft little squeak with each forward movement, the tiny little sound adding to the restfulness of the moment.

  I don’t know how long I sat there, swinging. I don’t know when the peace began to fade. Nor when the apprehension first touched me. It was the unexpected chill of the party, and earlier at the symphony. The same urgent fear that made me turn and search the crowd for an enemy. I sat up quickly, eyes straining into the night.

  The scent of roses was overpowering. A suffocating fragrance that seemed to close me off from the rest of the world. The darkness was heavy, a wet warmth, muffling all sound, closing out the world. I was alone.

  Quickly, I stood. Moved for the house.

  "Not just yet, lady." Whispered words.

  A hand gripped me from behind. Jerked me back. Turned my wrist up behind me. It was a familiar move. I recognized it instantly from the Soiled Utility Room.

  My breath shot out. My shoulder shrieked in agony, a burning pain. I gasped, my knees buckling. He dragged me back up, the torment of my arm a lever to his will. The hot scent of his foul breath blanked out the roses, surrounded me with the smell of decayed meat. Choking me.

  He chuckled. "Lucky me. Finding you out here, all alone. Jazzy was worried you’d do this. Go off by yourself and grieve." He smeared out the last word, making it sound dirty and foolish. And then it hit me. Jazzy.

  "What have you done with my daughter?" I ground out.

  "Nothing yet, lady. Just sat behind her and that nigger cousin of hers at the movies. Listened in while they talked. I always did like ’em young. Course, older and experienced ain’t bad either." He reached around me and squeezed my breast.

  He wasn’t holding a knife. His hands were free. I sucked in a breath. Opened my mouth.

  "You scream, and I’ll get little Jazzy tonight. I can do it, you know. I can find you and her anytime. Any place." He whispered the last word, a sibilant softness against my ear. I released the breath. Exhaled the scream silently. "Better. Much better." His hand moved across my body, the intimate touch of a stranger. I shivered in the wet heat. My right arm had gone numb.

  "They need something you got, Ashlee. And it ain’t this," he said, touching me again. "It’s all them papers on Davenport Hills. Them files and permits." I gagged as his hand slipped into my clothes, touching my flesh. The rank scent of the man, rancid and sour, touched me everywhere, overpowering and foul. He laughed again.

  "This is just fun. It only gets rough if you keep the stuff they want. And they’s determined to have it all. Especially since you gone and hired that evil man. The little black guy. So, see can you remember. They want the papers, the file, the permits, and oh, yeah . . ." He pinched my nipple, pulling hard on the tender flesh. I bit my lips together to keep from crying out. "The original report. You remember all that, okay? Next time we talk, you’ll give it all to me. Right?"

  I nodded my head, a shaky motion, out of control.

  "Good. You do all that, and I’ll leave little Jazzy out of it. It’ll stay just between us. You screw around with me, you try and keep something back, and I’ll visit your little girl. I’ll give her a night to remember. And while I’m doing her, I’ll be sure to tell her how it’s all because you wouldn’t cooperate. How you hired some evil man to look into things you shouldn’t. And how you could have protected her and didn’t. And how her Daddy knew all about me killing a man for his business, and didn’t do nothing about it. By the time I’m finished with your little girl, she’ll know everything. And she’ll hate your guts," he said, running his hand over my torso and down between my legs.

  Hate your guts. A child’s threat, made personal and violent.

  He gripped my tunic; curled his fist into the fabric. Jerked. The silk tore. One long ripping sound, sharp on the night. I shuddered, my knees giving way. My hand, pulled up behind me, popped as my body slipped. There was no pain in my numb hand. Just the almost inaudible pop as bone separated from bone within a joint. "Next time—"

  "Ashlee? Ash, are you out here?" Alan’s voice. I shuddered again.

  "Shit!" he said beside my ear, his breath strong and vile. And he dropped me.

  I landed with a soft thud, a crumpled heap of nerveless, boneless flesh. Rose petals fluttered down from my hair. Soft footsteps beat against the gazebo floor, splashed once in the garden. He was gone. I sobbed.

  "Ash?" Alan’s voice came from the blackness outside. I took a breath. A breeze brushed my face. Rose-scented and fresh. No scent of putrid flesh. No sick scent rotten gums. He was gone. I lifted myself from the painted wood of the gazebo floor with my left arm. My right was useless, the nerves zinging with heat and electricity as feeling tried to restore itself.

  "Alan? Help."

  And suddenly he was there, a rush of dark cloth against my face. Smooth satin and rich summer-weight wool. Fine weaves. The fainter scent of aftershave as he settled beside me and lifted me close. "Ash? My God. Did you fall?"

  I reached for him, clutching his lapel with my good hand. "A man . . . attacked me," I said, my voice quavering, tinged with near madness. He was gone. I was safe.

  "Ash. Did . . . Did he . . ."

  "No. He heard you call and he dropped me."

  Alan closed his arms around me and pulled me against him, his jaw close to my temple. "Thank God. No one knew where you were and I thought you might have . . ." He stopped. I heard him swallow and take a ragged breath. Felt him look around in the darkness. "Ash, let’s get you inside. I—" His hand touched bare flesh at my waist. He jerked back. "Ash
?"

  "He tore my clothes but he didn’t . . . didn’t rape me." Tears started as I said the word. The hateful, evil thing my attacker had intended.

  Jas, my mind whispered. I have to call Jas. Warn her . . .

  Alan moved in the darkness, his face patterned by moonlight peering in through the roses overhead. Silk slipped around me, warm from his body heat. "Take my jacket. We’ll go in by the back way. Come on." Alan lifted me, leaning into his cane as my weight fell against him. I caught the turned post of the gazebo entrance and righted myself; heard Alan grunt softly with relief as I stood unsupported. His cane skittered across the floor with the hollow sound of a bass drum as he dropped it and picked it up.

  A floodlight perched on the side of the house came on, a blinding illumination that exposed the damage to my right hand. My thumb was bent back across my knuckles, dislocated by my own weight. I stared at my hand as tingles like electrical shocks became sharper and more insistent, running through my flesh from shoulder to fingertips. Beside me, Alan sucked in a breath. "Shit, Ash. What did he do to you? It’s broken."

  "No. Only dislocated." But a bad dislocation, which I left out of my explanation. With my good left hand, I gripped the damaged thumb, pulled it away from the joint and back into place, pressing down onto the injured joint with the ball of my left thumb until it popped into place.

  Ordinarily I wouldn’t have had the strength to reset a dislocated thumb. But I had to warn Jas. I had things to do. I didn’t have time for the dislocation, or the pain that enveloped me with the repair of the joint. Pain, more intense and powerful than the scent of the man. I sagged against the turned post, cradling my injured arm. So much for super-mom strength. Vomit rose in the back of my throat.

  "You fixed it?"

  "I think so," I said, swallowing down the pain, sucking in a deep breath, and taking a strange kind of comfort in the purely professional. "I have to have X-rays, though. I might have a nerve or a blood vessel trapped in the joint. But first, get me inside, please. I have to call my daughter. He said he was going after her."

  "Your daughter? Damn, Ash. What kind of sick person did this?" Alan asked as he slipped an arm around me, supporting me down the two steps to the path.

  With each step, the pain in my arm grew, collecting and amplifying like a powerful engine accelerating under strain. "Someone who’s been stalking me," I answered, finding it hard to breathe. "He followed Jas and Topaz to the movies tonight and then . . . found me here."

  Alan opened the screened door and moved me through the porch and the Florida Room into the kitchen and up the back stairs to the family quarters. Monica met us in the hallway, her hand pressed against her bosom. Typical Monica, pointing to cleavage.

  Emory appeared in the hallway behind her. "My God, Ashlee," he said. "What—"

  "A man attacked her out in your gazebo. Call the police, Emory."

  "No. Let me have the phone first," I said.

  "Right. Your daughter," Alan said.

  "What—"

  "Not now, Monica," Alan said, reaching behind my friend for the phone and putting me in a chair all in one motion. "What’s the number?"

  I gave it to him, and as he dialed, Alan continued to give orders. "Emory, go to another line and call 911. Make sure all the other guests are safe and don’t let anyone out of the house until the police get here. Move it, Monica." He placed the phone in my hand as Emory and Monica left their bedroom like well trained servants.

  I was crying now, from pain and delayed shock and from relief. It felt so good to be taken care of, to be pampered and protected like Jack used to do. Jack who had caused all this.

  The phone rang twice. Then Jasmine’s voice, full of laughter. "What now, Mom?" she asked, trying to be cute in that know-it-all way of teenagers. I was about to frighten her. But it was necessary, to keep her safe.

  "Jas, listen carefully. When you were in the movies, did a man sit behind you and Topaz? A man with . . . A man who had terrible breath, like the smell of rotten meat?"

  "How did you know that? Jeez that man stank."

  "Listen to me, Jasmine Leah. He followed you. And he attacked me just now, out in the garden at Monica’s. Whoever killed our dogs is a sick person," I said, tying in the two attacks, knowing for certain now that they were connected. "Do you understand what I just said?"

  "Yes, ma’am." The laughter was gone from my daughter’s voice. Jas was still and intent, focused on my words with all the fervor and passion of her youth. The man had killed her dogs. Instinctively, I had wielded the right weapon. Perhaps I had more of my mother’s genes in me than I realized. "Did he hurt you?" she demanded.

  "I’m okay. He dislocated my right thumb, but other than that, I’m fine. Another guest interrupted him before he could do worse. Jasmine, do you have your gun?’

  "In my hand," she said, not commenting on my changed attitude toward guns.

  "Don’t try to drive with it," I warned, "but don’t pull over or slow down, either. Not even for stoplights unless you get pulled by a marked car with a blue light. Go straight home. Do you hear me?’

  "Yes ma’am."

  "I’ll call Nana and have her waiting at the I-77 turnoff. She’ll call on your cell."

  "How will you get home?’

  That thought hadn’t occurred to me, but before I could think of a reply, Alan said, "I’ll drive you to the hospital and then home, Ash. It’s the least I can do." He sat on the edge of Monica’s bed and stretched out his bad leg, the crease of his pants razor sharp in the lamplight.

  I knew that "the least I can do" referred to my rescue of him following his accident. I should have refused, as the rescue had been my job, but I was too battered in body and spirit to do the right thing and beg a ride from my mama and daddy. I nodded my thanks. "I have a ride, Jas," I said as pain shot up my arm—damaged flesh, shrieking in agony.

  "A safe one?"

  I smiled, pulling my arm in close. My flesh was warm to the touch, which was a good sign, though I couldn’t find a pulse in my thumb and it was starting to swell. "I think so. You remember the man from the accident at Magnet Hole Creek and Trash Pile Curve? Well, I ran into him at the symphony and he’s willing to bring me home."

  "The guy with the roses?"

  "Yes."

  "He got a crush on you?"

  "Jasmine!" I said. I didn’t have time for all this again. She was in danger and here she was worried about my virtue.

  "Cause if he does, he’ll take better care of you."

  Her words stopped me. "I wouldn’t know. And I certainly wouldn’t ask," I added before she could suggest it.

  Jasmine laughed. I realized I was on speaker phone when Topaz joined in, the sound full of static and white noise. "Go get him, Mamash," she said.

  I decided to ignore the comment. "How long before you reach the turnoff, so I can tell Nana."

  "Better say forty minutes. The fog’s getting thick and traffic’s slowing down in town. If it’s like this on the interstate, I’ll stay slow."

  "Good girl. Be safe, Jas."

  "You too. And Mama?"

  "Yes?"

  "I love you."

  "I love you too, Jasmine." Alan took the phone from my hand as I wiped away tears. I would have to tell Jasmine something about the danger we faced. Soon. Tonight, if possible. If I could find the words. I could procrastinate no longer, even if it meant admitting that Jack had been unethical. Jasmine’s safety was more important than her vision of her father.

  "Next number," Alan prompted. I gave him the numbers and he dialed.

  Monica came in and placed a pill in my hand and a glass on the table beside me. "Tylenol. Take it, Ashlee. Your hand is bruising and it looks really painful."

  "It’s ringing, Ash," Alan said.

  Monica acting as concerned friend set off all kinds of alarms in my mind, but the pain in my body overrode them. The pain medication I was taking for my shoulder was hours old. With no internal debate at all, I tossed back the pill and downed the wate
r. Which wasn’t water. It was liquid fire, burning all the way down and back up again as I gasped. Tears fell from my eyes.

  "Vodka. The good stuff," Monica said. Her voice wasn’t even smug. She was just informing me. I gasped again and gripped the phone. A delicious warmth shot through me. The phone reached my ear, propelled there by Alan’s hand on mine. Nana had already answered.

  "Nana?"

  "Speaking."

  "It’s Ash."

  "What’s the matter, my girl."

  A breathy laugh escaped me in a little puff of air and sound. That was Nana. Right to the point and all business. "Pretty much everything." As succinctly as possible, I told her what had happened and that Jas was on the way. Without comment, she listened until I finished with, "I need someone to meet Jas at the I-77 turnoff. A Chadwick. Someone we can trust."

  "I’ll handle it, my girl. I’ll call Jas on her cell and set it up. And I’ll stay with her until you get home. But she’ll ask questions, you know that. What do you want me to tell her?"

  "About Jack? As little as possible." The incredible warmth had reached my tongue, making it thick and suddenly unmanageable. It kept wanting to stick to the roof of my mouth. "I told her we had a crazy man following us. That should do for tonight."

  Nana sighed, disagreeing, but not ready to debate my claim. Maybe she could tell that I wasn’t exactly myself at the moment.

  "How do you plan to get home? I know my dithering daughter isn’t with you, because there aren’t any hysterics in the background."

  "Not quite. Alan’s bringing me home."

  "Alan?"

  "Alan Mathison," I said, smiling up at him. His hand still held mine, keeping the phone against my ear. He smiled back, curling up those lips. My eyes fastened on them. His smile widened.

  "Are you sure you trust him?"

  "Oh yes. We’ve spent a great deal of time lately rescuing one another."

  "Beg pardon? You want to explain that one?"

  "Not really, Nana. My face feels slightly . . . um . . . numb." I blinked, and when I opened my eyes again, Alan was standing over me, no longer smiling.