by B. T. Lord
She narrowed her eyes at him. “A little late for that, isn’t it?”
“Better late than never.”
She shook her head. “That doesn’t wash. There’s no way I’m going to believe that after fifteen years, you suddenly woke up one morning and thought, “Oh my God, I do give a shit about Cammie Farnsworth and Twin Ponds and Coach McIntyre. Puh-lease.”
He smiled ruefully. “Actually, something like that did happen. Look, I admit that for thirteen of those fifteen years, I was consumed with my career. All I did was eat, breath and live hockey. When my knees finally gave out and I had to retire, I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. I got to thinking. A lot. About Coach. About Twin Ponds. About you.”
As he spoke, he slowly moved towards her. Cammie instinctively moved away.
“Do you know what I did yesterday?” he said. “I took a stroll down by Waban Pond and watched the kids play hockey. It brought back all kinds of memories. Remember how much fun we used to have? We couldn’t wait to get out of school so we could lace up and bang the puck around. We’d play until our hands were so frozen we couldn’t hold our sticks anymore. But we kept playing because we loved it.” He shook his head as if in amazement. “We played for the sheer love of the game.”
We played because it was our escape from the real world, she almost said. Of distant fathers and disillusioned mothers who tried their best, but didn’t understand.
“We were happy then, weren’t we?” he continued. “We had everything ahead of us. Nothing could keep us down. The world was ours. All we had to do was grab it.”
“Which you did. With both hands. And with no backward glance to us. To me.”
To her horror, she saw tears pooling in Eli’s eyes. Whether they were real or not, it was too much. She felt the cords wrapped around her emotions slipping out of her control.
As he moved towards her, she backed up until she collided against the wall. She had nowhere to run and watched helplessly as he placed his hands on her arms.
“I’m so, so sorry for all the pain I caused you. Believe me Cam, if I could go back and change everything, I would.” His grip tightened. “There are some things that don’t change though. Life bounced us both around, but all roads led back to Twin Ponds. To here. To this moment. To you and me.” He pulled her to him. “I love you, Cammie. I never stopped loving you.”
He bent down and kissed her.
Cammie couldn’t think. Couldn’t catch her breath. With Eli’s lips pressed against hers, she was frozen in time. Back to when they were seventeen and his kiss promised delights and pleasures she’d never found anywhere else until. . .
Jace!
Cammie roughly broke away, the box of notes flying from her hands and littering the floor. “I won’t do this. I won’t fall for your bullshit again.”
She pushed him aside and raced down the corridor. With shaking hands, she managed to fling open the front door and run towards the Explorer. Behind her, she heard Eli yelling at her to stop. But that was the last thing she wanted to do. It had been a mistake to stay. Instead of clearing the air, it had only complicated things.
She clambered into the Explorer, locked the doors and desperately tried to stop her hand from shaking enough to stick the key in the ignition.
“Cammie! Stop!” Eli yelled as he came up to her window and began pounding on it with his fists. “Don’t go! I promise I won’t touch you again! Just don’t go!”
After what seemed like an eternity, she finally got the key into the ignition and slammed the vehicle into reverse. Eli jumped back and she had the sense of him slipping on the icy walkway as she fishtailed her way out of the driveway and onto the main road. She didn’t dare look into the rearview mirror, but she knew he’d run out onto the road, still yelling at her to come back.
Instead, she smashed down on the gas and willed herself to stop shaking.
A light snow was falling, its hush surrounding the speeding Explorer. She tried to keep her mind on the increasingly slippery road, but it proved impossible. Eli’s words, his soft touch, his electrifying kiss kept replaying themselves over and over again until she wanted to scream.
“God damn you, Eli,” she muttered aloud as hot tears stung her eyes.
She suddenly slammed on the brakes, sending the Explorer sliding across the road. She barely managed to avoid going into a snow bank as she twisted the steering wheel back and forth until the SUV finally shuddered to a stop.
Her heart thundered and her hands quivered as she realized how close she’d come to smashing up the Explorer.
She sat still, catching her breath, forcing her body to relax. Looking out through the windshield at the shadows of the surrounding forest, she noticed green lights playing against the snow illuminated in her headlights. She glanced up and saw, to her surprise, the northern lights filtering in the sky. Not as common a sight in Maine as it was in Alaska, there were occasions when the northern skies lit up with the vivid pinks, greens and yellows of the aurora borealis.
The sight of the lights triggered another memory. Of two teenagers huddled together on a snowy night, braving the eeriness of Crow Mountain to watch the show above them. Making plans for a future that would never materialize.
Was that why he had come back to Twin Ponds? To apologize to her? No. She wasn’t that much of an egotist to fully accept that. But something had changed him. Deeply. Profoundly. He’d never begged for anything in his life, yet he’d begged her to stay. His need had been so stark, so naked that just the memory of it threatened to crush the breath from her lungs. What made her misery worse was the realization that despite all that happened between them, all the baggage that still existed, deep within the recesses of her soul, there were still remnants of the love she’d borne him so long ago. God help her, but she couldn’t run away from that reality anymore. They may have been tangled and chewed up and way too complicated to try and unravel, but they were there. Deep in her being. Where they would remain. The truth was, Eli belonged to her past. Jace was her present and her future.
She turned towards Twin Ponds, suddenly desperate to see Jace. To hold him. To feel that everything was going to be alright.
But it wasn’t. When she walked into Zee’s, she found the rotund man alone in the restaurant. Waiting for her. With a glass of scotch. He handed it to her, made her drink it before telling her about Jace. And Carolyn. And apologized. Twice. For being so busy he hadn’t noticed they were leaving until it was too late. But she didn’t hear him. She heard nothing except Jace and Carolyn in the same sentence. And somewhere inside, a piece of her shriveled and died.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“You look like shit.”
“Good morning to you too.”
It was the next morning and Rick and Cammie were on their way to Eli’s house to retrieve the notes. And, in Cammie’s guilty conscience, to make sure he was okay.
Looking back, she realized she should have secured Eli’s safety before dashing out into the night. There was no excuse for her unprofessionalism, despite what happened between them. As it was, she’d given Rick the bare facts from the evening before, making sure to leave out all the emotional sturm and drang. She was especially careful to omit any reference to Jace and Carolyn. It would get around town soon enough.
She’d spent what was left of the night sitting in front of her cabin's picture window, watching the snow fall. She felt hollowed out, as if all her insides had been scrapped away and replaced with a nothingness that seemed endless. She tried not to watch the clock, but as the hands drew closer to 4 am, 5 am, 6 am and there was still no sign of Jace, the emptiness fell in on itself, leaving her numb.
She finally roused herself when she realized she’d left the notes at Eli’s. Crap. She was going to have to get them, but she’d be damned if she went there alone. She was in no state to deal with Eli. Especially after that kiss. So she recruited Rick to accompany her with the excuse that she wanted a report on the accident up on Berk’s Bluff.
She
did a good show of listening. Rick was an excellent deputy who knew exactly what needed to be done. While he filled her in on the accident’s details, she geared herself to see Eli again. Not only because of the emotional drama of the night before, but because of Jace. He’d betrayed her so deeply, she wasn’t sure how she’d react to Eli. It was safer to have Rick along.
Nearing Eli’s house, Cammie slowed down the Explorer as both she and Rick stared open mouthed out the front windshield.
“What the hell? Isn’t that Carolyn Haskell’s new Dodge Durango? Damn, that woman doesn’t let the grass grow under her feet,” Rick remarked in a voice that was almost admiring.
Cammie pursed her lips. Jesus, was Carolyn that insatiable? Or was Jace too drunk and she decided to sate her desires with Eli?
Was Eli’s display of remorse just another one of his pretenses? Since he couldn’t coerce Cammie into his bed, had he turned back to Carolyn?
The white Durango was parked sideways across the driveway behind Eli’s Navigator. It looked as though she’d driven up in a hurry, hit a snowbank, slid across the driveway and left the vehicle where it stopped. With the driver door wide open.
In the midst of Cammie’s turmoil, a memory resurrected itself. Suddenly her insides went cold as she recalled the bruises on Eli’s knuckles.
What if Carolyn wasn’t driving the Durango? What if--?
Eli. Jace.
Dear God.
Gripping the steering wheel to keep her hands from trembling, she pulled into the driveway and turned off the Explorer.
“I’ve got to make a quick phone call. Why don’t you go in and I’ll be right there?”
She waited until Rick was well away from the Explorer before flipping open her cell phone. She hit the automatic dial button to Jace’s cell. It immediately went to voice mail. She then tried the garage.
“Sorry Sheriff, but I haven’t seen him this morning,” Nathaniel answered. “Do you want me to tell him you called?”
She mumbled something unintelligible and hung up. Now she really felt as though she wanted to throw up.
Eli. Jace.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.
She pushed the horrifying fear away and forced herself to assume the professional face of Sheriff Farnsworth. It was the only way she was going to get through whatever lay behind Eli’s front door.
Climbing out of her vehicle, she immediately noticed that Eli’s Navigator was parked exactly where she’d seen it last night. Although there was snow on it from the light snowfall of the night before, it was still possible he’d gone out after she’d left. However, once she bent down and studied the tire treads, she realized that unless Eli had meticulously parked the vehicle back over his original tire tracks, he hadn’t left the house. Nor could he have left after Carolyn’s arrival without crashing into her Durango parked inches from his bumper.
She saw Rick emerge from the backyard and head towards her.
“Hey, didn’t you say there was a dead animal on Eli’s back step?” Cammie nodded. “It’s not there now. Bet you a coyote took it.”
Thank God she’d thought to take a picture of it.
“By the way,” Rick continued as he came up to her. “All the doors are locked. Guess Eli’s been away from Twin Ponds so long, he’s forgotten that no one locks their doors around here.”
Cammie shook her head as once again her insides contracted. “His slider was unlocked last night when I got here.”
“What do you think it means?”
“I don’t know.” She looked at Rick. “But I don’t like it.”
She jogged up to the front door and began banging on it. “Eli, it’s Sheriff Farnsworth. Open the door.”
“I already rang the doorbell and pounded on the back slider,” Rick pointed out.
“You don’t happen to have Eli’s phone number, do you?”
He shook his head. Cammie debated her next action, then hurried to the Explorer’s back door. Flinging it open, she withdrew two pairs of latex gloves and a small box that she kept shoved under the front seat. She started to turn away when her gut screamed to grab a couple of evidence bags. Her head said no, her instincts said yes.
Instincts won. She shoved them into her pocket and turned to find Rick at her elbow.
“You know, Cam, maybe Carolyn and Eli are doing the horizontal. They may have locked the doors so no one would interrupt. I mean, if I was Eli and I was doing the deed with Carolyn and I heard you banging on the door, I’d hide under the bed and wait for you to go away.”
“Why do you say that?”
He gave her the kind of look one would give someone who’s slow. Or a complete idiot. “Because you’re the only person in Twin Ponds who hasn’t realized he’s still in love with you.”
The deep hollowness once more crushed her heart. She quickly shook the pain off.
“I don’t care if he’s sleeping with every woman in Twin Ponds. Something about this whole scene just doesn’t feel right.”
“Are you basing that on your police instincts? Or your woman’s instincts?” Cammie scowled at him and he quickly backed away. “Okay, okay, I shouldn’t have said that. If you say this whole situation stinks, then it does.” He glanced back at the house. “How are we going to get in?”
“Watch me and find out.”
Trudging through the snow towards the front door, she was filled with doubt. Maybe Rick was right. Maybe Carolyn was in there after all. Maybe they were doing the horizontal, or the deed, or one of a thousand descriptions for intercourse that Rick had at his verbal disposal. Maybe she was completely over-reacting. Maybe Jace was at one of his teammate’s houses, sleeping off all the beers he’d drunk the night before. There were a dozen maybes.
Then again, maybe her gut was right.
Only one way to find out.
She knelt down in front of the door, and placed the black case on the ground. She popped it open and took out what looked like a thin crochet hook. Slowly and carefully, she inserted it into the lock.
“Whoa!” Rick exclaimed as he leaned over her shoulder. “You’re picking the lock. That rocks. Where’d you learn to do that?”
“I used to dog sit for a guy in Revere. In exchange for watching his Boston Terrier Otis, he gave me lessons in lock picking. Turns out he was the best lock picker in the Northeast corridor.”
Two twists of her wrist and the door swung open. She carefully put the pick back in the box and shoved it into her parka pocket.
“Whatever you do, don’t touch anything. I don’t know what’s going on, but we can’t take a chance that we’ll contaminate potential evidence.” She swung open the door and she and Rick entered.
“Holy shit,” Rick exclaimed. “Eli missing his expensive saunas? This place is hotter than the Sahara Desert.”
The house was eerily silent. Over the years Cammie had learned that silence had many nuances to it. Some to hide within. Some to cover up. Some to kill. This silence felt – well – too silent. There was an expectancy about it that set Cammie’s instincts screaming.
“Eli!” she called out as they stepped into the living room. No response. Her eyes went involuntarily to the mantelpiece.
“Oh shit,” she muttered.
“What’s the matter?”
She went up the mantel and stared at the spaces where, the night before, the Night Hawks Trophy and the picture of she and Eli had stood.
They were gone.
This wasn’t good.
She poked about the living room, looking in every nook and cranny. But the trophy and picture were nowhere to be found.
“Eli! Carolyn! It’s Sheriff Farnsworth and Deputy Belleveau!” she called out. Once again they were met with a wall of silence. With all senses on alert, Cammie withdrew her revolver. Rick’s eyes widened, but her demeanor made him think twice about questioning her actions. Instead, he too slowly withdrew his revolver and followed her as she slowly and steadily made her way down the corridor towards the kitchen where she’d last seen the
notes.
They cautiously entered the first bedroom which had once belonged to Eli’s parents. It was empty except for a full size bed and an old scratched up dresser. It looked as though it hadn’t been lived in for a long while.
Which left one more bedroom.
She took a deep breath and started towards it when a low moan broke the silence. Cammie and Rick exchanged looks, then, with weapons still drawn, hurried into the bedroom.
Cammie’s knees almost buckled.
“Crap,” she heard Rick murmur from somewhere behind her.
There was another moan. Low, painful.
Beyond the moaning was a body. It was lying on the bed, still, peaceful. And looking very much dead.
“Oh God, my head.”
“Rick, see to him while I secure the rest of the house. And no matter what you do, don’t touch anything.”
Cammie quickly went into the bathroom and kitchen, her stomach falling when she saw no signs of the shoebox that contained the threatening notes. After scouring the rest of the small ranch, she hurried back to the bedroom.
Taking everything in with a practiced eye, she shoved her revolver into her holster and knelt down beside Jace. He was lying on his side, still dressed in his parka. She turned his head towards her and swallowed a gasp when she saw purpling bruises on his cheek, his bottom lip split open and a bulbous slit where his right eye was.
She sucked in her breath as she recalled the bruises on Eli’s knuckles.
“Jesus,” she whispered under her breath. She helped him sit up, her eyes widening when she saw a 38 revolver resting on the rug underneath where he’d been laying. Before she could ask him about it, he turned away and vomited onto the carpet.
“Aw shit,” he mumbled.
“Put these on immediately,” Cammie shouted to Rick as she tossed a set of latex gloves at him while slipping on her own pair.
Jumping up, she jogged into the kitchen. Sliding open the drawers, she found a ball of rubber bands. On her way out, she tore the paper towel roll from its dispenser on the wall and hurried back to Jace. She gingerly took the gun and placed it in one of the evidence bags. With the other two bags, she placed them over both his hands, holding each in place with the rubber band.