Breaker's Reef (27 page)

But what if she was at the wrong place, wasting time while her children’s lives were ticking away?

There was only one way to know for sure. She had to approach him. And say what? What if Nate was inside, watching through the windows? What if he recognized her as being related to Sadie and Amelia?

It was a chance she had to take. She thought of the story she would tell, about what had brought her here.
My car just broke down, and I was wondering if I could use your phone.
Yes, that might work. If the old man was here alone, then maybe he would believe her.

Slowly, she emerged from the woods.

The old man caught sight of her, and he stopped rocking and stood up.

Sheila’s heart pounded so hard that she thought it might beat through her chest. She froze. “Hello,” she said in a weak voice.

The old man laughed with delight. “Come right on up here, young lady! I been waiting for you! You look purtier’n your mama. Come give your ol’ daddy a hug.”

She stood there a moment as his words sank in. Did he think she was his daughter? Wouldn’t he realize she wasn’t as she got closer?

She forced herself to move and took a few steps toward him. “How are you?”

His eyes glistened as he wobbled toward her, his arms stretched out wide. “Oh, Ruby, you’re just a sight for sore eyes!” He threw his arms around her and laughed as he held her.

He was weak and shaky, and he seemed so certain she was his daughter. She let him hold her and realized it wouldn’t hurt anything if she hugged him back. There was no emptier feeling than hugging someone who stood stone cold, and he didn’t seem the kind of man who deserved that. So she closed her arms around him.

His shoulders shook as he wept, and he pulled back and looked into her face. He would see now that she was not his daughter.

“I got some eggs, Ruby.” His raspy voice lilted with delight. He let her go and clapped his hands. “In here, darlin.’” He opened the door and stepped into the dark house. “Mama! You’ll never guess who come to see us.”

Sheila’s heart raced as she followed him into the dark house. She looked around for some sign of a murdering maniac. Instead, she saw a small living room with threadbare furniture and thick dust floating on the sunlight coming through the windows. The air was thick with the smell of mold and urine. She reached for the light switch, turned it on. One of the four lightbulbs in the overhead fixture worked—the others had all burned out.

His kitchen was covered with old, dirty, crusted-over dishes, but a vase of fresh cut flowers sat among them. She peered up the dark hall, wondering if his wife would come bustling out and scream at the top of her lungs when she saw the stranger standing in her house.

But no one came.

He led her into the filthy kitchen and reached into the refrigerator, but there was little there. “Musta ate them eggs. I’ll have to make a list for Nate. Mama needs some milk, anyways.”

She caught her breath. “Is … is Nate here?”

He didn’t answer, and she realized he was almost deaf. She didn’t want to raise her voice, for fear that Nate slept somewhere in the house.

The old man busied himself moving dishes around, humming a song. He dropped one and it broke on the floor, and he looked rattled as he turned around, clearly looking for a broom.

Sheila backed away and looked up the hall. If she walked through there, looked into the rooms, surely he would think it was a natural thing. Wouldn’t his daughter do that?

“Don’t know where I put that broom. I’d lose my head if it wasn’t nailed on.”

As he muttered, she went up the hall. There were only two bedrooms and a bathroom, and she looked into the first one. The bed was unmade, the sheets were dirty, and a lifetime accumulation of junk was piled high. She went to the next room. A twin bed was pushed against the wall. A man’s clothes lay over a chair and were strewn across the floor, and several pairs of dirty sneakers lay on a round rug. A book lay open on the bed. She closed it, and saw the cover.

In Cold Blood.

The blood drained from her face. She’d read that book in prison. It was full of graphic descriptions of a horrible mass murder by crazed, sociopathic killers. She thought she might faint. She reached out to the dresser to steady herself.
Think. Maybe Sadie was here.

She forced herself to move, to go to the drawers and pull them out one by one. There was nothing there to incriminate Nate. Just that book.

No one else was here. No mama … no Nate.

She went back to the old man as he started to bend over to pick up the pieces of the plate. “Here, let me! I’ll get it.”

“You’re a good girl.”

She picked up the pieces of the crusty dish, knowing that it hardly made a difference with the sticky film of filth on the floor. But it seemed to satisfy him. She raised up and looked around for a garbage can. It was overflowing, so she just placed the pile against the wall. “Where is Nate?”

“At school, I reckon.”

School? How old was he?

“Has he been here lately? In the last few days, I mean. Has he brought anyone here with him?”

“He’s gettin’ so big now. School bus drops him off sometimes, and he comes to see his ol’ grandpa. Come over here and I’ll make you some eggs.”

He went to the refrigerator again, just as he had done before, and as he opened it, he simply stared inside, as if lost in thought. She went to stand beside him and looked at his wizened old face. His mouth hung open, and his eyes looked blank. He’d clearly forgotten what he was doing.

“Sir?”

He looked at her then, confusion clear on his face, and this time there was no recognition, no delight, no awareness at all.

It reminded her of one of her cell mates in prison—Liza, who’d later been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She would have moments of lucidity, but more moments of confusion. She remembered her childhood but nothing of today, and each time she saw Sheila or the other inmates, she called them by different names.

Maybe this man had Alzheimer’s too. Sheila took his arm and closed the refrigerator, then escorted him over to a chair. He lowered to it, that blank look making his eyes look more shadowed, his skin more pale.

She took the opportunity to look around the room. A picture of a boy—about ten years old—sat on the table. She picked it up and took it to the old man, stooped down in front of him.

“Sir.” Maybe she could shake him back into whatever fantasy world he’d just come out of. “Sir, who is this?”

He stared down at the picture for a long moment, then whispered, “My boy. Finer grandson nobody ever had. Nate.”

Nate. She studied his young face, trying to figure out what he might look like now.

She saw another picture of the boy, but he was older in this one. He looked dirty and greasy and had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

She stood up, her eyes fixed on the face of the man she was certain had taken her daughters. He was about twenty in the
picture, with an unshaven face and stringy hair. His eyes had that hungover, secretive, dangerous look—eyes just like Jack Dent’s, Caleb’s father. It was a deadly look, a look that said he had much to hide, a look that dared anyone to cross him.

“Is this Nate too?”

He smiled. “He’s a good boy.”

She put the picture back and stooped in front of the old man again. “I need you to listen to me.” His eyes fastened on her, and she thought for a moment that he might actually be listening. “Has Nate brought anyone here with him? A pretty blonde girl?”

That vacant look almost sent her over the edge. “Nate’s a good boy.”

“Listen to me! I need you to think. There are two girls, blondes, and I think he brought them here! Where are they?”

He didn’t answer, so she framed his face in her trembling hands. “Where are they? Please, answer me!”

He opened his mouth to speak, and she waited, breath held.

“I’ll make some eggs,” he muttered.

She started to cry then and got up, looking down at him. How did he manage here alone, completely out of his mind? He needed twenty-four-hour care, someone to keep him company. Someone to watch over him.

Nate could have brought anyone here, kicking and screaming, bleeding, maybe even dead, and the old man wouldn’t remember.

She heard a car coming up the driveway, the rocks crackling beneath its tires. She ran to the window and looked out. The car stopped, and she saw the same greasy-haired man get out.
Nate!
She was certain it was him.

She had to get out of there before he came into the house, so she slipped out the back door and hid until she heard the man get out of the car and go inside. Even if his grandfather remembered she’d been there, Nate wouldn’t believe him. The old man’s dementia was too pronounced, and Nate probably heard nonsense from him all the time.

She dashed across the yard and went to the barn. Quietly, she opened the creaking door and slipped inside. The only light
coming through was the daylight through a window, so she went to the string hanging from the lightbulb and turned it on.

The hay smelled putrid. She walked from stall to stall, searching for her daughters, but no one was here. She looked around at all the farming implements, rusty and covered with cobwebs, leaning against the wall. No, it didn’t look like anyone had been here in quite some time.

She abandoned the building through the back way and went into the thick woods behind it. Cutting through the bushes was a beaten path. There were footsteps on it, big ones and small ones. Could they be Sadie’s? Amelia’s? Sheila’s heart hammered hard as she followed the tracks, certain she was getting closer to finding her girls. They could both be dead out here, buried in a shallow grave, and she would stumble on their bodies. If she did, she would want to lie down with them.

But maybe they were alive, waiting to be found. Maybe it wouldn’t be too late.

Suddenly she saw it. A trap door in the ground that looked like it could be a tornado shelter, and a rope ladder pulled out of the hole, lying wadded on the dirt.

She went to the door, struggled to get it open, but it was heavy. Pulling with all her might, she managed to pull it up. She looked down into the large dark pit, and shivered with anticipation.

“Sadie?” Her voice came out choked and too loud. “Sadie, are you there?”

“Mom?”

Sadie’s voice. She was alive! Sheila almost collapsed with relief. Closing her eyes, she whispered, “Thank You, God.” She gathered herself and leaned over the hole, trying to see in. “Honey, you’re alive! Are you all right?”

“Yes, Mom! Hurry, put the ladder down!”

Sheila reached for the ladder, then froze as she heard something moving behind her. She started to turn, when pain cracked across the back of her skull …

And Sheila fell forward.

S
adie and Amelia screamed as their mother plummeted through the hole and dropped flat on the dirt floor.

Sadie scrambled to her mother, who lay facedown in her own blood. “Mom! Mom, wake up, please wake up, please!”

Sheila didn’t move, so Sadie turned her over. Her head lolled back, her face scraped and bleeding from the impact. Sadie looked up at the open door, saw Nate’s silhouette. “She’s dying! She needs an ambulance!”

He just laughed.

“Please! Please, just come and get her, take her to the hospital. You can leave us here. Just get her help, please!” There was no answer, so her screams went up an octave. “You
monster!
You help her! Come and help her now.” At his continued laughter, her screams turned into sobs. She closed her eyes and wailed. “Please, I’m begging you. She didn’t do anything to you.”

He kept laughing—a hard, brittle laugh that chilled her bones. He dropped the door shut above them, and
Sadie knew he was going to let her mother die, right here in this rat hole, and there wasn’t a thing in the world that she and Amelia could do.

She felt Amelia’s hands on her shoulders, heard her own anguished crying. She tried to pull herself together. “We have to help her. We have to save her somehow.”

“She’s breathing.” Amelia’s wet, streaked face was hopeful as she went to touch Sheila’s wrist. “She has a pulse, Sadie!”

Blood ran from her mother’s nose and mouth, and Sadie tried to see if it was from some internal bleeding or from the impact of her face on the floor. She was bleeding from the back of her skull too, where she’d clearly been hit. How could anyone survive a sixteen-foot fall onto her face?

Amelia’s hands were covered with blood as she tried to stop the bleeding on the back of her mother’s head. “Her arm looks broken.”

Sadie turned her attention to Sheila’s arm. It was strangely bent from the elbow, and beneath the skin, she could see the end of the bone. Her leg was unnaturally bent, as well. Had she broken it too?

Sadie went back to her mother’s face, held it in both hands. “Mom! Please wake up, Mom. Please tell me you’re all right.”

There was no answer. Her mother’s eyes were closed, her bloody mouth hanging open.

“How did she find us?” Amelia said. “How did she know where we were?”

Sadie looked up at her, her eyes wildly hopeful. “Maybe someone came with her.”

“Then where are they?”

She looked up at the door again, praying for help. But she feared there was none.

She touched her mother’s good arm, stroking it as she wept over her. She bumped something in Sheila’s pocket, and reached in to see what it was. Slowly, she pulled out a gun.

Sadie caught her breath. “It’s a miracle.”

“Is it loaded?”

Sadie checked. “Yes. Where did she get this?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s here now. He doesn’t know she has it, or he wouldn’t have thrown her down here with it. We can use it.”

Sadie nodded. She could almost imagine it—Nate opening that door, putting that rope ladder down. As he descended to terrorize them, completely unaware, she would raise it in the darkness. He wouldn’t see it as his eyes adjusted to the light, and he would walk into the trap.

She wiped her face on her shirtsleeve. “I want to do it.” “You don’t have to,” Amelia said. “I’m not afraid to.” Sadie sucked in a shaky sob and looked down at her mother.