Echoes (16 page)

"She used to, but then we moved."

"There's no boyfriend here?"

Caitlin clutched Purcy a little tighter and shook her head.

"You can tell me if there is. Your mommy trusts me."

"She never said she liked someone here," Caitlin said.

"Was this other boyfriend in Los Angeles or Salt Lake?"

"
Los Angeles. I didn't know him though. She said he was a secret."

A secret. Married, maybe? It wouldn't be the first vows Tori had trampled on if he was. "Do you know why she kept him a secret?"

"You know how Mommy talks, Aunt Tess." She gave a deep sigh and stared down at her shoes. "She talks like she's crazy." She looked up and in her round blue eyes Tess saw all of her own fears hovering there. "Is she?"

Tess didn't know the answer to her question, but she knew how it hurt to ask. Right or wrong, Tess couldn't let her bear that pain right now. "No, Caitlin. She might be confused sometimes. Or maybe she knows something we don't. But I don't think she's crazy."

Caitlin's tension held tight to the breath she released, making it wheeze as it escaped. This poor kid was going through hell and there was nothing Tess could do about it.

Reluctantly, Tess searched for a way to ask her next question, trying to pose it in a manner that wouldn't sound threatening. "Caity, does your mommy ever see people who... who you don't see?"

She'd worded it awkwardly, but Caitlin didn't look confused as she shrugged, only weighted with anxiety. "Sometimes I guess."

"Do you think maybe she started seeing them when she came here?" Tess asked.

Another shrug, this one smaller, defenseless. Her silence was hurt and frightened, her psyche overloaded by everything that had happened.

"Okay, sweetheart, no more questions. I'm going to bring in some more wood from outside, then we'll just relax, okay?"

Caitlin held the flashlight at the door while Tess hurried outside to grab an armload of wood. After she'd added some to the fire, they snuggled into a blanket bed Tess made on the floor. Together they clasped their hands and prayed.

Now I lay me down to sleep...

Surprisingly, they both seemed to feel better as they said Amen and closed their eyes.

It must have been hours later that Tess awoke with a start. The rain had stopped and the wind quieted to a soundless resonance. Caitlin had kicked off her covers, but still she slept peacefully beside her.

Only the glowing ash in the banked fire lit the room and Tess thought about adding more wood, but without the storm howling outside, it didn't seem an urgent need. It would be morning soon, anyway. She settled back into her pillow in the thick quiet, wondering as she began to drift off again, what had woken her up. It must have been a dream or the—

She sat bolt upright. What was that?

She strained, listening to the dark until her ears rang. There was no rain, no wind. No movement in the thick silence.

She stood, reaching for the flashlight but leaving the beam off as she tiptoed to the front window and moved the edge of the curtains aside. Staring out at blackness so deep it absorbed all sound, all movement, she frowned. What had she heard? A branch thumping the house? But there was no wind.

Behind her, a floorboard creaked. She spun to face the gaping rooms that reached into the gloom. The house seemed to take a breath and hold it. She peered from left to right, trying to see everything at once. The eyes on the portrait of Jesus seemed to glow.

She was being ridiculous. Of course she was. And who could blame her? Alone with a child, in the middle of nowhere? It was dark and spooky and—

Another sound from the back of the house. Footsteps? Was someone on the back porch? In the kitchen?

Do you have the key? Doesn't matter, back door doesn't latch.
The memory of Grant Weston's words traveled on the nonexistent wind.

She looked around for something she could use as a weapon. The fireplace tools had a lethal look to them and she knew there were knives in the kitchen. But the thought of using either one was almost as frightening as what she might use it against. She grabbed the poker from the set on the hearth. Quietly, she tiptoed to the kitchen.

The wall blocked off the dim light from the fireplace, yet when she turned the corner, the kitchen seemed to glow. She inched forward, poker thrust out in front of her. Her head swiveled from side to side, her body braced for an attack. Frantic thoughts babbled in her head.

The shadows in the kitchen flickered and shifted. Patterns danced on the ceiling and cupboards. She stared at the back door. She'd tried to lock it earlier, but Grant was right. It wouldn't latch all the way. Who else in town knew that? Everyone? What about Tori? It could be her out there.

I swear to God, Tori, if it’s you I’m going to clobber you for doing this to me….

The yellow curtains covering the window in the back door had worn to paper-thin sheers. They ruffled slightly in the draft from the ill-fitted frame. And they glowed.

Sidestepping, she tightened her grip on the poker and crept forward. Her hand shook as she reached for the curtains and pulled them aside.

What she saw numbed her. She wasn't aware that she'd opened the door until the cold air rushed against her overheated skin and her bare feet moved across the rough planks of the porch.

She'd seen the black kettle barbeque earlier when she'd arrived. Then, it had been pushed to the side of the house like forgotten junk. Now it stood on the porch, the lid off and to the side. Inside, wood smoked and sputtered and burned. Hot flames leaped up toward the rafters of the porch covering. They licked at the crisp air and hissed at the black night. In the midst of the blaze, something gold, then white, shiny, then blackened, glowed.

Tess held the poker at attack, inching forward. The whisper of breeze tortured her nerve ends, taunting her with the chill of dread. In her head, a voice screamed,
“Get back in the house! Close the door!”

But the door didn't lock. And she'd been brought up to never show fear.

A step closer, a look behind, ahead, to the side. Another step. She realized she was holding her breath. She let it out all at once. The fire heated her icy skin, but what lay nestled in its hot arms froze her to the core.

It was the photograph of Tess and Tori. The last time she'd seen it, it was sitting on the coffee table, not three feet from where she'd been sleeping soundly beside Caitlin.

She stared, gripping the poker with fingers that turned white from the pressure. The flames slithered beneath the glass and curled the edges of the picture into black ash. The glass cracked with a pop that made her cry out. Now the flames moved greedily, eating away her smile, Tori's eyes, poking up between them and devouring everything they were.

As she watched their faces vanish, it felt as if the world zeroed in to the tiny point she made in the universe. Nothing existed but Tess and the fire and the inconceivable realization that whoever had stolen this picture, had stood over her and Caitlin while they slept.

This was personal. The thought formed with the wisps of smoke and surrounded her. This was not Tori running off on a whim. This was not Tori broken down, hitch-hiking home. This was a message. A threat. A warning.

Tess turned in place, searching the shifting layers of black for the gleam of watching eyes. Because every cell in her body sensed that whoever had left this message was still out there, making sure it was received.

Oh I get it, Tess thought. You bet I get it.

Slowly she lifted the lid of the barbeque and deliberately she placed it over the flames. The metal clanged then sealed. She switched on the flashlight and aimed it out, sweeping the penetrating light across the pines and oleander. A rustle came high in the tree branches, a scuttle low from the brush. A bat screeched in protest and took flight. The beam slashed back and forth, searching for the source of each whisper, finding nothing but shivering leaves and quivering treetops.

She was shaking. Every inch of her trembling. And over and over the horrifying realization looped. Someone had plucked that picture from the table while she and Caitlin slept a few feet away…unaware. The vivid image of it filled her head like the smoke that streamed from the vents in the barbeque lid.

She tried to deny it. Someone could have taken the picture earlier—she couldn't remember seeing it on the table when they'd returned from dinner. And then Grant Weston had come over. He'd been down stairs alone while she and Caitlin were changing….

She poked the light defiantly into the shadows. "You'll have to do better than that," she shouted. Or tried to shout. The words caught somewhere between her terror and the night. They came out choked and husky, trailing off into a whisper.

As if in answer the rumble of an engine gunning in the distance slid across the night. In an instant the sound flared and then began a retreat. Tess scanned east to west and back for headlights, taillights, anything—but nothing glimmered beyond the black.

She glared at the withdrawing sound of the engine. Tori would have been able to tell the make of vehicle by the rumble it made, but Tess couldn't distinguish a VW from a Mercedes.

She eased her grip on the poker and the flashlight. The crippling terror eased too, but in its place a wild rage rose up. She stared at the smoking barbeque, angrier than she'd ever been in her life. Furious. Spitting mad, her mother would have called it.

How dared they, whoever
they
were.

She strode in the house and slammed the door behind her, forgetting for a moment that Caitlin still slept in the other room. The girl rolled over and continued to sleep, but suddenly the echo of the slamming door took life, reverberating in Tess's head, becoming a crack of sound that split open reality.

The plunging temperature, the plunging sensation. She felt them coming on like a tidal wave that built as it moved, gaining speed and power until it crashed down and obliterated everything in its wake. She braced herself, resisting with every instinct. She heard another crack, recognized that it wasn't coming from here, from the house, from Mountain Bend.

She turned her head and watched the room blur into sepia hues of gray and brown, shadows and gloom. The hole her flashlight beam made in it felt like the center of her being. She couldn't look away from it. It became a white moon in a starless sky and like the tide, it pulled her forward.

No, she shouted silently. No, not again… But it was already too late, and she knew it.

Chapter Seventeen

Molly awoke in a thick layer of dark to shadows and the unfamiliar sounds of the others sleeping. She'd been dreaming about rivers…terrifying, engorged, rampant rivers. There'd be many to cross between Ohio and California. She shuddered at the thought.

Beside her Rosie mumbled and rolled over in her sleep. Next to her, Arlie slept with the wild abandon to which only young children will succumb. Two other indistinct lumps and shadows marked the bedrolls of Adam and Brodie. With the furniture gone, it had seemed logical that they all pile their blankets in the front room for their last night in the house. The mood had been quite festive as they'd blown out the candles in their communal bedchamber.

Had he known, the Reverend would have been scandalized by such arrangements. But of course he didn't know, would never know anything else about his daughter. That Chapter had closed and a new one opened.

Sighing, she kicked at the hot weight of her blanket. There were hours still before the Weston family would all be awake and eager to set off. Off to see the elephant, as the travelers before them had named the arduous journey westward. And Molly would go with them.

No wonder she'd had nightmares.

Wide awake now even though exhaustion had shut her eyes at sundown, Molly quietly got to her feet in the still dark. Her white shift stuck to her damp skin in most inappropriate ways, but the thought of pulling her dress on over it was decidedly unappealing. With a last glance at the sleeping Weston clan, she silently opened the door and slipped outside to the velvet cold of early spring.

The brisk air rushed at her overheated skin, frosting the dampness into a clammy chill. She shivered, but at least for the moment the cold felt good.

"Can't sleep?" Adam's deep voice asked from the edge of the porch.

Molly whirled around in surprise. He sat on the steps, casually lounging against the railing as if it were noon instead of the middle of the night. One hand hung loosely between his knees, the other idly stroked the fur on top of the black and white dog's head. The little pooch actually belonged to Brodie, who'd found it stray, but she seemed to prefer the company of Adam and was rarely far from his side. No one had given her a name yet, which Molly discovered was not an uncommon oversight among the Weston's animals. Molly called the dog Lady. So far, Lady hadn't objected.

"Something must have woken me," she murmured. "You?"

He shrugged, picking up a small object and a thin bladed knife that flashed silver in the dark. "Too much on my mind to sleep."

She nodded, excessively conscious of her inadequate attire. As if to add to her discomfort, her bare arms puckered with gooseflesh and her breasts peaked into hard little knots that no doubt showed prominently through the lightweight shift.