Chill Waters (29 page)

TV cameras were on the scene of the fire.

Rachael felt sick about Nate Prichard, unpleasant a man as he might have been.

He wasn’t last night’s only victim. In other news, an unidentified man was found in his car, unconscious and bleeding, by a passing motorist. The knife used on him was still buried in his side. The man who found him blurted this latter chilling detail to the reporter interviewing him.

The policeman standing nearby looked visibly annoyed at the release of information that was probably important to the investigation. The victim was in critical condition, the reporter said.

At least he was still alive. Poor Nate Prichard. Such a horrible way to die. She hoped he’d died of smoke inhalation before the flames could reach him.

It was dawn when Rachael dressed and left the house. Smoke drifted above the trees, grey smudges against the lighter grey of the morning sky. Stepping off the porch step, her eye caught bits of red on the ground. Petals. Like drops of blood on snow. She picked them up. And stood in the quiet of this Sunday morning, with its tragic message written in the smell of smoke, puzzling over the three rose petals curled in the palm of her hand.

Shrugging, she set them down almost reverently on the bottom step. Minutes later, she drew up in front of what used to be Nate Prichard’s Welding Shop, but was now smoldering ruins. The branches of nearby trees were blackened, their stark, tortured limbs seeming to claw at the sky.

Aside from the dozen or so firefighters still on the scene, their faces solemn, exhausted, blackened with soot, only a handful of people were milling about. The TV people had gone. Two police cars were parked near the rubble, lights flashing, implying urgency where there was none.

She spotted Peter just inside the charred structure, standing with his arm around Tommy’s shoulders. As if sensing her there, Peter turned around. Saying something to Tommy, to which the boy nodded dispiritedly, he came over to the car. He leaned in her open window. She noticed the smear of soot on his forehead. The network of fine lines at the corners of his eyes seemed more deeply etched this morning. Not so surprising.

“Hi.”

“Hi, yourself. Thanks for calling me, Peter. How is he?”

“Pretty shaken up. No matter that Nate was a bastard, he was still his father. And it’s a hell of a way to go. I’m going to take him back to the apartment, put him to bed.”

“Good. You try to get some sleep, too. You look beat. You’ve been here all night, haven’t you?”

“We both have. They just took Nate out a little while ago. What there was of him.” He sighed heavily, massaged the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. “You know, I think I will take your advice and hit the sack. I’ll call you later if that’s okay.” It was more than okay.

On the drive back Rachael thought of the check Martin said he’d left on the table in the cabin. Remembering that Martin wasn’t the only one who’d spent time in the cabin, she decided she'd better pick up the check before someone else did. She didn’t let herself think too hard on the fact that she also wanted to get a look inside.

The path leading up to the cabin was narrow. As she walked, the smell of smoke mingled with the scent of pine. Strangely, it made her think of her livingroom that night after the second rock came crashing through the window, landing in the fireplace. Of the cold rain coming in the window. The newspaper hanging there limp and sodden. Of Betty in her boots stomping out the live sparks on the carpet.

The woods were cool and silent. Eerily silent, she thought, and unconsciously hugged herself in her jacket. Odd that Martin didn’t just tack the check to the note. As she approached the cabin, she grew more acutely aware of the deepening silence around her. A hush. No birdsong here. No rustle of undergrowth or snap of a twig caused by some scurrying creature.

Rachael turned the knob. The door swung open. She hesitated, then stepped across the threshold into the room. The first thing that struck her was how clean and neat everything was, though sparsely furnished. A small-unpainted table stood in the middle of the floor flanked by two hard-backed chairs. Against the left wall, the cot was made up, covered with a grey army blanket, drawn taut, smoothed. Her eye went to the pot-bellied stove in the corner. To the round-nose shovel leaning against the unfinished wall. To the shoeprints on the floor.

His parka hung on a nail, on the wall, his camera slung over it. She frowned. Why would he leave these things behind? Some bit of important information tugged at her consciousness. She looked back at the table. No check. She looked more closely at the shoeprints, at their distinctive pattern of circles and half-moons. She had seen them before. Where? Of courseembedded in wet sand, leading out of the water.

Something else caught her attention then. Something black peeking out from beneath the pillow on the cot. Her heart skipped in her chest like a stone tossed into a pond, sending ripples of shock through her body. Barely conscious of moving, she crossed the room and slid the missing gloves from beneath the pillow. The gloves Susan had given her.

Holding them in her hands, she stared at them. Felt their buttery softness, like silk, against her palms. How did they get here?

How do you think? He let himself into your home when you were out, went into your bedroom and took the gloves from your drawer.

But why? What would Martin want with her gloves? An obscene thought struck her and she dropped the gloves as if they’d suddenly turned into slithery vermin. Revulsed, she absently wiped her hands on her jacket. He didn’t forget his things. He’s still here. He hasn’t left at all. “…
Get out! Get out now … run
…”

Rachael tried not to hear the voice as she looked around, so stunned at the revelations of the last few minutes she could not quite process all the information. But it didn’t surprise her to see no typewriter or battery-operated laptop, no pencil or notebooks to show that a writer/photographer lived and worked here.

Again, she looked at the camera hanging over his parka on the wall, and guessed that if she were to open it she would find no film inside. She would have been right.

She moved robot-like to the window. From here she could see her own house through the now leafless trees. Had he watched her comings and goings from here? Her every move? Why?

Because he’s sick, that’s why.

Sicker than you know, Rachael.

There were three more doors in the room. One leading out back, a window beside it. She opened the door to her right, which revealed a washroom, consisting of a toilet and small, chipped sink with an attached handpump. The third door opened into a broom closet. About to close it, to heed the voice inside her head telling her to flee this place, she spied a single, high, green rubber-boot lying on its side on the floorthe kind of boot Mr. McLeod wore. The voice was shrieking at her now, “Get out …go … run…!" Thoughts tumbled about in her mind like a foul-smelling avalanche. Thoughts of Mr. McLeod and what had happened to him. And the seagull, and Martin showing up at the door at exactly the right moment. The phone suddenly not working, then fine after he left. All coincidence?

Other darker possibilities rushed to the forefront of her mind. While those boys were less than model teenagers, she doubted they ever saw the inside of this cabin, let alone stayed here. Derek Chesley had been telling her the truth.

The roaring in her ears was not so loud she didn’t hear the soft creak of the door opening behind her. Terror seized her, clawed at her throat. And for an instant blinded her.

He had lured her here. And she had taken the bait. She should have listened to the voice. Too late.

Too late now.

Thirty-Six

“I’ve been waiting for you, Marie.”

Easy. Stay calm. Don’t let him see your fear. She turned slowly, heart pounding so hard she was sure he could hear it. She tried to smile as if being here was the most natural thing in the world. Why shouldn’t she be here? She had every right. This was her cabin, on her own property.

“Martin, you frightened me. I didn’t expect you to be here. Your note said you’d gone. You also said the check was on the table, but I don’t see…”

Marie. He had called her Marie.
As Rachael continued to study his face, the contours and angles, coarsened by time and circumstance, her eye, like a sculptor’s tool, chiseled away the hint of jowl, exposing the more refined face of the younger man in the photograph that Iris had shown her. His hair was longer now, lighter in color, his brow and jaw heavier, body muscles he hadn’t possessed as a young man. But it was the same man. Why hadn’t she seen it before?

His gaze flicked indifferently from her to the gloves, no longer beneath the pillow, but on the floor. “You betrayed me Marie,” he said simply.

He spoke softly and Rachael thought of how she had rather liked his soft-spokenness. Now his voice coiled serpent-like around her throat, squeezing ever so gently. It was hard to breathe. Looking into his eyes, she could see a darkness at their depths. Danger. She had seen the danger once before, just a glimpse when she rebuffed his attentions. He had wanted to hurt her then. She had felt the hatred coming off him like heat waves off a furnace. For an instant, his mask had slipped away. So fleeting she told herself she had imagined it. Had she been going around in a daze? She, who had always told her kids to listen to their own inner voice.

The awful silence compelled her to fill it with words. “Youyou’re right, Martin, it really is quite comfortable here.” She made a silly gesture with her hand as though to compliment a girlfriend on the décor of her apartment. “It’srustic. I’m glad you decided to keep the check, Martin. You certainly earned it. Well, I’ll just get out of here and let you pack up your things.” She literally had to clamp her lips shut to halt the babbling coming out of her mouth. She made a move toward the door and he stepped in front of her
. You are in big trouble here, Rachael.

He was not an exceptionally large man, but she had already born witness to his frightening strength. He had seemed such a pleasant, gentle man. You really are a lousy judge of character, Rachael. Or maybe she was being too hard on herself. Maybe he was just a very good actor. No. There’d been signs along the way that should have alerted her. The way his limp came and went, especially if he thought he wasn’t being observed. Those innocent brushes against her when they passed in the hallwayweren’t so innocent. An accident, she’d told herself. But she knew now that MartinCharlie wasn’t innocent. He didn’t have accidents. His every move was carefully calculated.

“You wanted me gone,” he said. “Just like mother wanted me gone, like I was a bad smell she couldn’t get rid of. Flaunting yourself, then pushing me away. “Stop it, Charlie. Don’t Charlie,” he whined in girlish falsetto, mocking what she knew was his dead sister’s voice. A chilling sound. “You always thought you were too good for me. Thought I was scum, just like she did. I thought you’d changed. I wanted us to have another chance. Wasn’t I respectful enough? Didn’t I bring you wine and flowers, Marie?”

She spoke calmly through her fear. “I’m not Marie. My name is Rachael.
In some part of himself he knows I’m not her.

“Believe me this is not how I planned for things to end, Marie,” he said, as if she had not spoken. “You brought it on yourself.” She could sense the animal tension in him, smell it as if she’d stumbled unwittingly into the lair of a beast. Well, hadn’t she? But she also sensed he was in no big hurry to go in for the kill. His prey cornered, he was savoring the moment of triumph, his time of vengeance against some long ago injustice, as he perceived it.

It was hard to think above the drumming of her heart, the wild din of panic in her mind. It was his eyes that frightened her mostnot what she saw in them, but what she didn’t seethe abyss within. If he ever had a soul, it had long since withered and died. But maybe not. Maybe there was some semblance of good in him, of reason, that she could still reach.

“Mart…” Her mouth and throat were dry as dust. “Charlie, you have me confused with someone else. I told you, my name is not Marie. It’s Rachael. It’s always been Rachael.”

“Let it go,” he said quietly, almost regretfully. “There is no point in your carrying on with your charade. I gave you every chance and you failed. Again, you failed. How do you think I felt watching you drive away with him last night? Seeing you smile at him?”

Not one of those stingy, guarded smiles she reserved for him, but warm, inviting. He’d felt her coldness when she opened the door to him yesterday morning, had braced himself for what he knew was coming. His services were no longer needed. He was no longer needed. When she gave him that check he’d wanted to make her eat it. Maybe he still would. “No answer to that, have you?”

“I’mI’m sorry. I didn’t…” I have to make him understand that I am not Marie. Iris had seen the resemblance. Why didn’t I? Keep him talking. Hadn’t she seen the ploy used in any number of TV shows? Read it in novels? Did it ever work? She couldn’t remember.

“Someone must have hurt you ever much, Mar … Charlie. Maybe I can help…”

His mouth twisted in amused contempt. “You’re wasting your time. You must know that I’ve been psychoanalyzed by the best of them.”

Yes, of course you have.