Indelible (11 page)

“Oh, it was pretty clear.”

He popped the vertebrae in his neck with a twist. “Can we at least get in my car?”

“You saved my nephew, Trevor. I’m forever grateful.”

“But …”

She blinked her own car lights with the remote. “Let’s just leave it.”

“You saw something I don’t show people.”

“You showed me. And you made me show you.”

“I realize that.” He leaned his arm on the outer wall. “I just didn’t expect it.”

He should have. She’d revealed more of herself to him since they’d met than most people saw in her whole life. She shivered. He started to take off his coat.

“No.” It came out sharply. “We can get in the car.”

“Mine’s still warm.”

His engine started with a heat blast that felt good but didn’t take away the chill. The dome light faded and died, leaving blue console lights illuminating words with no meaning in this moment, fuel, speed, and music settings. The stars outside were brilliant, cold white sparks, together but untouching in a blackened sky where she fixed her eyes to avoid the ghostly planes of his face.

“I tried to call.”

“I didn’t recognize the number.”

“I went by the house, but you weren’t there, so I came here.”

The corner of a receipt was pinched in the glove compartment flap, out of place in the otherwise orderly vehicle. “You went to a lot of trouble to say something you still haven’t said.”

He rested his forearms on the wheel. “Watching you sculpt me was like seeing my life there in the clay.”

“I don’t know anything, Trevor. You have the context. I just saw the effect.”

“I know. There’s just stuff I don’t talk about, stuff that’s not part of now.”

“Everything is part of now.”

“I don’t let it be.”

“Then what are we doing?”

He tucked his chin and sat there. She reached for the door.

“No, wait. Just listen a minute, okay?”

She settled back, feeling the stitches of the leather seat with one hand.

“I like you, Nattie. You’re different.”

“Big surprise.”

“That’s not criticism. You think what you have is a problem for us, and, yeah, it looked that way the other night.”

“Looked that way?”

He expelled a breath. “The issue isn’t you. I felt … exposed.”

“I can’t stop seeing the way I see, but I don’t show the models, and I don’t know anything. It’s expressions, not voodoo. If you think—”

“I don’t. But I’ve been in the spotlight, had my life open to paparazzi, media, reporters like Jaz who keep digging and digging. I thought I’d learned to hide what I didn’t want to show, then you shattered that belief.”

“You just spent days in the news.”

“For something I did. Not who I am.”

“That’s who you are. Why do you keep—”

“It’s not the whole story.”

She flicked a glance.

“If you give me some time …”

She shook her head. “You don’t owe me an explanation. You of all people.”

“Inviting you into my hot tub was a bigger deal than I realized.” The timbre of his voice paled with that admission. “It’s where I let down my guard.” He swallowed. “In the heat and the jets, I admit my body hurts, and more than my body.”

“Then why were you surprised by what I saw?”

He smiled grimly. “I thought I had it under control.”

Of course he did. This man had snatched Cody from the lion’s jaws. He had assembled her furniture and unpacked her things, stepping in again with the deliveries. He had taken her climbing, then shut her out. Made her see him, then walked away.

“Trevor, what you did for Cody had a strong impact on both of us. If that hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t be here.”

“So? Everyone meets somehow.”

“He needed saving. I don’t.”

“You think I’m saving you?”

“I think it’s what you do.”

He didn’t argue.

“You challenged a mountain lion for a child you’d never seen. I can’t imagine what that takes. You know how grateful I am, but I have to wonder what could drive you to face danger like that.”

“In search and rescue—”

“Whit would have stopped. You didn’t. Either the danger didn’t matter or you thrive on it.” A slinky coyote trotted past their doors, cast them a glow-eyed stare, and disappeared along the creek.

He said, “It isn’t that.”

“Then what?”

He spread his hands. “Things aren’t dangerous if you know what you’re doing.”

“Like the cougar?”

“I was armed.”

“What?”

“I had a gun. I’d have used it.”

She looked up, confused. “But you didn’t.”

“I was after your nephew, not the cat.”

“You threw a rock instead of drawing the weapon.”

“The rock was a threat it could see. Animals can’t comprehend a bullet.”

If he’d killed the cougar, would they have saved Cody’s arm?

“With the speed and terrain of the chase, I might have hit Cody. Even with a clean shot, the cat could have fallen on him.”

She held back the desire to scream, “Why didn’t you try!” even though what he said made sense. “So you were calculating everything.”

“I wouldn’t have reached the top of my sport if I couldn’t plot my line.”

“Skiing is hardly the same.”

“Well, one accident can end it all.”

A bad thought, given Aaron’s injury. She pressed her palms to her eyes. “Do you ever just watch a movie?”

“I play Monopoly with Whit and Sara.”

That caught a laugh from her. “People still play that?”

“Sara wasn’t allowed video games. She has every board game ever made.”

“Do you win?”

“Sara, inevitably.”

“Do you let her?”

He cocked his head. “Why would you think that?”

“Just curious about the dynamics.” How aggressive was he with his friends? Did he ever let down?

“The dynamic is Sara wins and Whit and I act like we care. She’s a blond Hermione Granger, always right, always better, but true blue and pretty handy to have around.”

“You’ve read Harry Potter?”

“And seen the movies. Younger brothers, you remember.”

“Are you Harry or Ron?” Though she knew the answer.

“The analogy ends with Sara.” He shifted uncomfortably.

There it was again, his wall. What was so hard about admitting what everyone else saw? “You’re Harry. The besieged hero, standing between evil and innocence.”

“If you’re talking about Cody, I was only doing my job.”

His dogged insistence wore thin.

“Look, I just meant to apologize and make sure you’re okay.” His tone shut the door on that subject.

Fine. He could keep his secrets. She’d already told him that much. “I’m okay. Thanks.” She opened the door and climbed out.

Trevor clenched his teeth in frustration as Natalie got into her car and drove off. At least she didn’t go inside to purge him from her sight, probably because she hadn’t once looked at him directly. His hands gripped the steering wheel.

It was not how he meant to end this. He’d wanted to ask her out, have a nice time together, good conversation, food, wine, whatever she liked—if she would just stop pushing the hero thing. But she wouldn’t. She had to know what drove him. Shaking his head, he put the car in gear.

He didn’t need this hassle. He’d gotten his life right where he wanted it. A thriving business with his closest friends, the opportunity to use his skills—not the ones he really wanted to, but close enough. A great place to live and the sense to appreciate it. He was satisfied with that. No matter what Natalie saw in unguarded moments.

Besieged hero?
All he was trying to do was help where he could. If
Natalie didn’t want it, fine. But she needed what else he’d planned, whether she’d admit it or not.

His phone bleeped a low battery warning. Having forgotten to plug it in last night, he’d brought the charger to the office and still forgot to charge up—an indication things were getting complicated. He killed the engine.

After unlocking and opening the office door, he saw something on the all-terrain carpet. He flicked on the light and picked up the envelope addressed to the store, tossed it on his desk, and plugged in his phone. No sense going home. Might as well handle loose ends.

He slit open the envelope and took out a photo.

A boy, five or six years old. Dark hair, heavyset. His face contorted, mouth so wide the sound coming out must be caterwauling. Understandable, in that he sat in a splintery skiff sitting low in swampy water with ominous, sequential bumps and jagged teeth protruding.

Trevor frowned. He knew people found this kind of gag photo comical, but it wasn’t. He flipped it over. No note. He tossed it in the trash, unplugged his charger, and decided to go home after all.

“Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,”
Said then the lost Archangel, “this the seat
That we must change for Heaven?—this mournful gloom
For that celestial light?”

H
e had not prepared Act Two, neither setting nor subject. It came to him—like cancer.

The baby-sitter, cell phone still caught between rapidly texting thumbs, had finally realized the giant, red plastic car-shaped shopping cart held animal crackers, milk, Oreos, and a squeezable bath toy, but no dimpled, drooling tot. Panic catching her like an electric current, she bolted around the end cap, scanning one aisle and the next, then ran for the doors and for the vested employee who might have—must have—seen her charge.

“Have you seen a two-year-old? He’s blond … A … a red hoodie, blue jeans. Please, I can’t find him.” Spinning, staring back inside the store. “He was in that cart.” In plain view of the doors.

The employee alerted another to start looking at the far end. A manager, sensing a shift in the normal commerce, turned her attention outward, over the parking lot with scattered vehicles clustered more densely near the entrance, to the street, to the screech of brakes.

Hands pressed to his ears could not block the screeching, screeching in his head. He cried and beat his chest, the pain, exquisite, excruciating. Their failure a knife edge of despair. Past and present merged. He writhed.

No light. No air. Hungry. Scared. A shudder rippled through him. He despised the hushed and weeping crowd. How could they be so blind? self-absorbed? dull-hearted? Fools. Beasts! Bathed in blue and blood-red lights, he left them, bearing witness in the camera he clutched.

Seven

F
leur stood beside Natalie, her fingers once again tracing the artist’s model of her face. She had no illusions of creating anything so fine and perfect, but Natalie had suggested she try sculpting a self-portrait, so here she was. She puffed out her lips with a breath.

People might think that, since she was blind, she didn’t care how she looked, but it wasn’t true. Her retinas were useless, but once the infection had passed, her eyes looked like everyone else’s. To keep the muscles functional she tracked toward sounds, especially voices, to act as much like a sighted person as she used to.

She took care with her appearance. Her naturally thick, dark lashes required no mascara, but she moisturized and applied a soft blush and lip glosses of various colors. Her hair was always clean and brushed. She dressed with care, trusting companions to choose items that fit her style when they took her shopping. Piper was especially wonderful for that.

Outwardly, she was chic and composed and capable, and people marveled at her amazing adjustment, her healthy acceptance. They didn’t recognize her need to be what she’d been, what they were, didn’t know the terror that seized her sometimes when she was alone. Helplessness that paralyzed.

Natalie gently positioned her hands on a fresh mound of clay, the earthy scent of it ripe and elemental. “I’ve wedged the air out. It’s all ready.”

“But am I?”

“Only if you want to.”

Fleur felt the clay. Natalie had already formed the rudimentary shape of a head, neck, and shoulders. All she needed to do was make her face. How hard could that be? She drew a breath and nodded. “Here goes nothing.”

“I’ll be out front if you need anything.”

“Okay.” Hearing the door close, Fleur pressed the clay to test resistance. She’d never excelled in three dimensions, had not worked in it very
much at all. Awkwardly, she started, working the far side of the sphere as she would touch her real face. The cold clay made a deathly flesh, but it warmed with friction and her body heat.