I Will Come for You (22 page)

Winter was the off season as far as tourism was concerned, and Natalie had the sidewalk to herself. Across the street a brilliant neon sign boasted the name of a popular grocery
chain and next to it an art gallery with paintings hanging in the windows. Natalie didn’t recognize either place. She was trying to jar her memory with each encounter, but there was so much new here, the library seemed the only constant.

Its building was one-story, limestone with a peaked r
oof and was surrounded by a quarter acre of thick, green grass. She remembered wood benches, and bronze statues--one of native tribesmen, the other a large, open book surrounded by a group of children. Coniferous trees and flowering shrubs were scattered throughout the grounds--white, coral and red would come to bloom in the garden plots. Of course, now the buds were closed, the trees bare.

She turned up the stone walkway and then stopped and stared at the arched windows and the ambient glow of light within. She had come to the library on several occasions with her mother. Inside it would smell slightly damp, as though it was impossible to keep the island mist from rolling past the window panes and settling upon the books. Long wood tables, the finish worn by use and slightly scarred, metal shelving and suspended fluorescent lighting awaited her.

Natalie pushed through the glass doors and was greeted by a clerk behind the circulation desk. She was a middle-aged woman with salted brown hair and rimless glasses that settled below her arched brows. She looked startled, though Natalie thought it was probably the structure of her face, the way her glasses were too small, that caused the expression and not a reaction to Natalie’s sudden appearance.

The library seemed deserted.

“Are you open?”

“Ten sharp Monday through Saturday,” the librarian confirmed.

“Great.” Natalie smiled and moved closer to the desk.

“Is there something particular you’re looking for?”

“Old news,” Natalie admitted. “I’m hoping you keep back copies of the
Gazette
on hand.”

“How far back?”

“Sixteen years.”

“We have those on microfiche. We didn’t go computer until four years ago and then we only scanned the past decade into its memory.”

The librarian moved to the end of the desk and pulled a piece of paper from a stack. She offered it to Natalie.

“This is a request form. If you fill out the date or subject, I can pull the reels you need and have them ready for you in about twenty minutes.”

Natalie took the paper and wrote her name in the space next to patron. The date: August 10th, 1997. The day Steven was murdered. Her hand shook slightly as she wrote it and she caught a glimpse of Steven’s blond hair, the slope of his cheek and the dimple that danced there, in her memory. This time she didn’t shy away from the pain thoughts of Steven usually brought. She welcomed him. She knew where he was--on the sandy beach of the inlet, below the bluffs where he was later murdered. It was the summer of 1996. He was nine years old and still carried a little of the boyish roundness in his face. She followed him with her eyes until he faded. When her vision cleared and the form came back into view, Natalie added a request for all the reels available the year following Steven’s murder, then she passed it back to the woman.

“You want a year’s worth of the paper?”

Her arched brows receded behind her hairline, but it didn’t deter Natalie.

“Yes.
And maybe more.”

“Is there a subject matter you’re trying to follow?” Suspicion made the woman’s voice sharp. She pushed her glasses to the bridge of her nose and stared at Natalie without blinking.

“Yes.” Natalie paused and felt the air thicken in her lungs. When she spoke again, her voice was raspy, “The death of Steven Forrester.”

The woman’s face bunched into a frown and she pounced on Natalie, “You’re a reporter. We knew you’d be coming back, what with the latest tragedy. We held an emergency town meeting yesterday and decided we wouldn’t be helping you this time.” She folded Natalie’s request in half, and then again. “I can’t keep
you from using the library, after all it is
public
, but you’re on your own here.”

The woman stepped back and would have pitched Natalie’s request into the metal trash can behind the desk, but Natalie stopped her.

“Wait. I’m not a reporter. Not at all.”

“Really?
Then who are you? I don’t recognize you.” Her gray eyes flickered over Natalie. Her round face filled out with the aggressive cheeks of a boxer. “You’ve never been in here before.”

“I have been, the last time was sixteen years ago. My name is Natalie Forrester. Steven was my brother.”

The woman continued to regard Natalie with suspicion. She raised her arms and crossed them over her torso, clearly prepared to wait out the moment, to watch Natalie’s back all the way out the door.

“I can show you my driver’s license,” Natalie offered.

Her California driver’s license, some damp and crumpled dollar bills, which had been her change after paying for the ferry ride, and a tube of pink lipstick was all Natalie had left of her belongings. She had stashed them in her jeans pocket before the ferry sank. She pulled her driver’s license from her jacket pocket and handed it to the librarian.

“I’m sorry,” the librarian said, after looking at Natalie’s
identification. “It’s just. . .the last time, we were flooded with reporters. They weren’t very nice.”

“Could you tell me about the last time?” Natalie probed and then stuttered into an explanation, “I’m trying to make sense of Steven’s death. Find answers. . .”

“The King’s Ferry Killer,” the librarian said and then her shoulders shook. “He never went away. Not really. For a few years, after the boys were killed, it looked like he would never turn up. But then he came back. Many more times. And now the school teacher was murdered night before last. I turned on the TV this morning and the police were out at Callen’s Cross. All of them. I think there’s a second victim. That’s happened before. Well, you know that ...”

“The man who killed my brother killed the others.” Natalie needed to hear herself say the words. She needed to test their reliability and her response to them. It didn’t feel wrong. It didn’t bring any further memories up from the abyss, either.

“The man who killed your brother and the chief’s brother, too. Lance Marquette. They were the first.” The woman reached across the desk and laid a warm hand over Natalie’s. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I remember you, you know. You came in with your mother. You liked those Brown detective novels.” She smiled, sniffed, and pulled a tissue out of the sleeve of her sweater and patted her nose with it. “That was my second year as the librarian. How’s your mother, dear?”

Natalie ignored the question and clung to the subject,
“He’s killed ten times now, hasn’t he?”

Eleven if counting the man in the woods.

“That we know about? Nine. That includes the school teacher, but after this morning, maybe it is ten.”

“All here in King’s Ferry?”

“Yes. The chief said yesterday, at the news conference, that maybe it’s someone from

right
here in King’s Ferry. That it could be a neighbor. A friend.” Her jaw trembled. “He told us to think about anything we’ve seen that didn’t seem right. To tell him about it, even if it’s someone we’ve known all our lives.” She shook her head and stuffed the tissue back into her sleeve. “I don’t like thinking about it. I don’t want to doubt my neighbors, think badly of my friends.”

“I wouldn’t want that, either,” Natalie said.

“But you know the reporters are back. They’re poking around, asking all their questions. We’ll start blaming each other again. Turned us into a town on fire the last time.”

“Well, I’ll try not to ask too many questions,” Natalie said. “And if you’ll get those reels together for me, I can look into my brother’s death without stirring the pot too much.”

“You’ll stir it, Natalie Forrester. It’s human nature to want to get a look at what the killer left behind.”

“What?”

“You’re the only one, you know. The only one he could have killed and didn’t. I wonder why?”

Natalie had trouble swallowing. She knew why. It was somewhere in her psyche, close enough she could almost touch it. Instead, Natalie said, “I wasn’t there. I found my brother and Lance the next day.”

“There are people in King’s Ferry who think you knew exactly where to find them.”

“Gossip,” Natalie protested, though her voice was thin and she could tell by the librarian’s pursed lips, unconvincing.

“My nephew is a police officer,” she said. “They’ve been trying to talk to you about it for

years
.”

“I have no memory of that day.”

She regarded Natalie for a long moment before she nodded. “That’s what they say. I’ll get those reels for you, though I think you’d do better to search up here.” She tapped her head but pushed away from the desk. “Go on through the children’s library to the back stacks and turn right. You’ll see the microfiche machines there.”

Natalie did as she was told, passing a small group of children sitting in a semi-circle around an elderly man reading from a large picture book. She turned right at the sign that read ‘
Film and Imaging
’ and took a seat at the first machine. She checked her purse for change when she noticed a ten cent charge per copy and counted out three dollars in Canadian coins.

She wasn’t alone for long, nor did she expect to be. After her experiences with Michael the day the ferry sank, she knew she would see him again.

“You won’t find what you’re looking for here,” he said.

The boy she knew as Michael stood beside her. She felt the warmth of his body and reached a hand toward his face.

“You can touch me,” he invited.

She cupped his cheek.

“You’re warm,” she said.

“I’m what you need me to be.”

“I need you to be alive.”

“I am, for you.”

“You died on the ferry.”

He shook his head.
“In your arms. But you wouldn’t let me go.”

She felt memory shift in her mind. Saw brief flashes of color.
Of tall grass moving in the wind. Of sunshine glinting off the ocean.

“Yes. You held Steven, too, while he died.”

“I ran away,” she corrected.

“You wanted to.”

“I ran away.”

He shook his head. “You stayed. And
that’s why you’re back.”

She thought about that. Was she a lost spirit, unable to find peace?

“Am I dead? Is that why I can see you?”

“You exist in both worlds.”

“How?”

“Your work here isn’t finished,” he explained.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Listen. Not with your mind. You know, that’s the first thing you leave behind and it makes things a whole lot easier. Think with your heart.”

The librarian came towards her then. She handed her two reels of film.

“This will give you a start,” she said. “Return these and I’ll give you two more.”

“This might be enough for today,” Natalie said, clutching the reels and watching as Michael faded to air beside her.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Monday, 12:20 pm

Natalie emerged from the library and walked along the path that sloped through a small park. Vancouver Island, open to the elements, thrived in shades of green. The sun was burning through the swathes of white fog that had draped the landscape earlier but the mist was heavier, dripped rather than clung to her skin and clothing. Winter on the Island was a perpetual state of wet. She’d read that in a travel book when she was preparing for her trip North.

As she walked past a Bauer vine she let her fingers drift over the leaves. The plant was hardy, with cherry colored trumpet flowers blooming even in the forty degree weather. The color reminded her of the sea glass they had collected on the shores here as children. Her mind was opening, small cracks radiating from a single hit. She caught glimpses of images as they streaked b
y.

Coming to the Island was a good idea.

She remembered this park, that she and Steven had played here among the flowers and statues, benches and lollipop spinners while their mother hovered among the fiction aisles inside, skimming book jackets for a story that appealed to her.

Natalie turned slowly, scanning the landscape. Nothing had changed, really.

Although she didn’t remember the police station being next door. From where she was standing, the neon sign peeked through the foliage and beckoned. Natalie started in that direction.

She noticed that traffic was beginning to build on the main street, cars sliding into spaces in front of the diner and post office. People were emerging from shops and businesses and stopped to talk on the sidewalk. It was lunch time.