Miracle in the Mist (18 page)

***

After Irma disappeared and Alvin found himself back in the forest above the village, he remained seated on the tree trunk for a long time, thinking about Irma's parting advice. He absently twirled the orchid between his thumb and forefinger. What had the police told him that night that could possibly make his guilt go away? Over and over, he ran their words through his head. And over and over he found nothing that would change his thinking. He still believed that if he'd gone home instead of staying for the business meeting, he would have been able to save Alice. But Irma had seemed so sure. Had he forgotten something the police had said? Was it something that could change his mind? So what had the police said that would change that?

Maybe Irma was mistaken. Yet he'd never known Irma to be wrong, so Alvin had to be missing something. But what?

Once more, he played the detective's words through his mind.

The robbery and murder took place sometime around three in the morning
.

So what significance did that have? Knowing Irma, it had to mean something. Alvin played the words again and again through his mind. And then it struck him.

His original flight from Los Angeles to New York had been a 12:15 a.m. red-eye. At 3:00 a.m. he would probably have been changing planes at O'Hare. Even if he had not stayed the extra day and he had taken the flight he'd planned to be on, he wouldn't have been home in time to do anything to prevent the crime. He
couldn't
have saved Alice.

With that realization, he felt as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. For the first time in a very long time, Alvin stood straight and inhaled fresh air untainted by the coppery smell of Alice's blood.

All this time, he'd had the answer right there in his head, but he hadn't been able to see past the guilt to find it. He looked down at the orchid. Was Frank doing the same thing? Was he so mired in the fog of blaming himself that he couldn't see where the true fault lay?

Below him in the village, a woman walked slowly down the path toward her cottage near the footbridge.
Ellie
. Her white blond hair lay on her shoulders like freshly fallen snow. His heart swelled, and he knew that now he'd finally be able to tell her what he'd kept hidden in his heart for so long.

But first, he had to see Frank.

Chapter 15

"You can't stay here forever."

Frank pulled Carrie closer to the protection of his body. Then he jerked his head toward the voice. Relief washed over him when Alvin stepped from the bushes and into Clara's garden.

Even taking into consideration the orchid clutched in Alvin's huge hands, the rugged woodsman looked different, happier. He seemed to stand straighter, and a soft smile curved his normally set mouth just slightly. Frank couldn't help but wonder what had happened that had changed him. But right now, he had more important things on his mind, like what Alvin had just said.

"Why can't we?"

Alvin walked to where Frank and Carrie sat huddled together on the grass. He folded his long legs beneath him and sat opposite them.

"Because once you're ready, you have to leave to confront whatever sent you here to begin with."

Frank was again struck by the change in Alvin. His voice was soft and considerate and lacked the edge it had had the last time they'd talked. Then Alvin's words sank in. They'd have to face whatever sent them there in the first place. Carrie would have to face this bastard who was trying to kill her?

Frank stiffened. "What if we refuse to leave the village?"

"You won't have a choice. The mist will gather, and the village will enter its Transition stage and disappear. You'll find yourself on the banks of the Hudson River in a glen filled with snow in the Hudson Highlands."

"But—"

Alvin held up his hand. "There are no buts, Frank. That's the way it is. Once you've left the village and faced your problems, then you can return as a Guide, but only as a Guide and only after you've made peace with yourself."

Carrie stirred in Frank's arms and sat up. She turned to face him, her expression resigned. "He's right. What kind of life could we have with your problems and mine hanging over our heads?" She looked down at her hands. "Besides, we can't have a life anyway until I find out what these dreams mean and who the faceless man is. If he's my husband, then I can't be with you." But regardless of whether or not she was married or engaged to the dream man, she couldn't be with Frank anyway. The dream man was a brutal monster who would not stop short of killing both of them, and she couldn't put Frank in that kind of danger. She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Either way, hiding from my problems is not the answer."

Frank felt as if he'd taken a sucker punch to the gut. He wanted to scream and rage about the injustice of it all, but there was no one to scream and rage at. He didn't care that Carrie might be married. If the faceless man haunting her dreams was her husband, then the bastard should be locked up somewhere in a prison for hurting her.

But even if they could get past that, Carrie was right about one thing—his emotional baggage. He couldn't ask her to share a life with him while he was being dragged down with his own problems. It would destroy anything they could ever have together. His hands balled into impotent fists of frustration.

Carrie laid her hand on his. "I know we can figure this out. We just need time."

Frank gave a short, humorless laugh. "We've had weeks. You're still having indecipherable dreams, and I'm no closer to an answer than I was when I walked in here. How much time is it going to take?"

"Time is relative," Alvin said.

Carrie squeezed Frank's fingers. "We can do this."

Frank looked into her eyes. She had such faith that this place would heal all wounds, answer all their problems. She reminded him a lot of Meghan and Steve and their unshakable faith in Renaissance. He just wished he could share her certainty. "And in the meantime—"

She shook her head. "We can't go on the same way." Then she locked her gaze with his. "Will you continue to be my friend?"

He forced a smile he was far from feeling. "Always." And he meant it, with all his heart.

Frank glanced at Alvin. "What now?"

Alvin pushed his burly body to his feet. "You and I talk."

***

Carrie stood beside the stream and watched Frank and Alvin make their way down the path toward Alvin's cottage. They made an odd-looking pair. Frank was not a short man by any means, but Alvin's extraordinarily towering frame dwarfed Frank's. The woodsman's shoulders were twice as wide as his companion's, and his stride equaled two of Frank's steps. Yet there was something about him that bespoke gentleness and kindness, something that made Carrie smile. She prayed that Alvin would be able to help Frank to lift his burden and finally free his soul.

But when they disappeared into the cottage, Carrie was once more faced with her own dilemma. She sank to the grass again, this time staying away from the edge of the stream. She had no desire to repeat her near-drowning experience.

Over the last few days, there had been no more nightmares, and she'd thought herself free of them at last. But then this…

When she recalled the suffocating feeling of being beneath the water and not being able to breathe, Carrie shuddered. What in God's name did it all mean? Was it her fears, or had those things actually happened to her? Not knowing was driving her crazy.

Suddenly, she thought about the blood that had been spattered all over her the night she'd found herself wandering the streets of a strange town. Had it been his? Had she… killed him—the man who could be her husband—for his cruelty?

Oh, God.
A murderess
? Her knees went weak, and she wobbled. Could she really be a murderess?

***

Frank sank onto the chair at the table in Alvin's keeping room. He studied the rugged man as he made a pot of coffee, then freshened the fire in the hearth. His shoulders seemed straighter. His face less lined. Even his lips hinted at a smile. What had happened to change Alvin from the man who would go to any lengths to avoid his houseguest into a man who sought Frank out to talk to him?

Frank eyed the orchid Alvin had placed gently on the table. Orchids didn't grow here, so how had he gotten this exotic flower? Then he chided himself. This was Renaissance. The place where anything was possible, or so they told him. Anything except finding a way to banish Carrie's nightmares and to ease Frank's guilt.

As long as his guilt hung around his neck like a dead albatross, Frank could never go to Carrie, even if she were free to start a new life with him. And he wanted that desperately. Since she'd been avoiding him, he'd come to realize that what had started as a need to protect and care for her had turned to love. That he could feel this way about a woman after having loved and lost Sandy took him completely off guard. Sandy had been the center of his life, and because of that, he had never expected to be able to feel the same way about anyone else.

But Carrie had proved him wrong. She'd snuck beneath his emotional shield and buried herself deep in his heart.

If he was to be able to love her freely and without conditions, he would have to make peace with himself and lighten this millstone he'd been carrying for far too long. To do that, he would have to do what Alvin was urging him to do—talk about a night he'd done his best to forget for a very long time.

"Alvin?"

The woodsman turned from his chore and looked at Frank. He gave a faint nod. "You're ready." It was more a statement than a question.

Frank sighed heavily. "No, not really, but it's way past time."

Throwing one more log onto the fire, Alvin turned, brushed his hands off, and then sat across from Frank. "Then let's do it."

Gripping his hands together tightly in front of him and then taking a deep breath, Frank started talking.

"It was late in November, the week after Thanksgiving. Sandy wanted to start shopping for the holidays. When we left the house, the sky was clear, full of stars." Frank laughed. "Sandy said they looked like an angel had broken her necklace, and the tiny crystal beads had been scattered over the heavens. She loved angels. We had an entire bookcase filled with her angel collection."

He cleared his throat of the choking emotion and went on. "We drove into the city and hit a few stores, then stopped at our favorite restaurant for Italian food. After dinner, we made our way home. But by that time a nasty snowstorm had blown in off Long Island Sound, and the traffic was crawling out of the city. The farther north we went toward our home in Westchester, the heavier the snow got. By the time we were about ten miles from our house, it was nearly a blizzard. I couldn't see more than a few feet in front of the car."

Frank looked at Alvin. He nodded. "I've seen those whiteouts. I've driven through them, too."

Alvin rose and stirred the fire, rearranging a few of the logs. The logs crackled loudly and threw sparks up the chimney like a miniature fireworks display.

Alvin, Frank decided, was using the time to allow Frank to collect his thoughts and diffuse some of the emotion building in his voice. Before returning to the table, Alvin got them both a cup of coffee from the pot he'd put on to brew when they'd first come home.

Frank stirred sugar into his cup. The
clankety clank
of the spoon hitting the sides of the cup and the crackling of the new logs Alvin had added to the fire filled the tense silence that had taken over the room. When he finally stopped stirring, he played with the spoon for a moment before placing it on the table and then going on.

"The plows hadn't come through yet, so distinguishing the road from the shoulder was somewhere between difficult and impossible. We came upon a steep rise in the road. I was afraid we wouldn't make it, so I tapped the gas to give us a head start. We made it up the hill okay, but at the peak of the rise, we hit a patch of ice. The car skidded down the other side, gathering speed as it went. It zigzagged crazily from one side of the road to the other. I kept steering into the skid, but nothing worked. The car just continued on its crazy path. I couldn't control it."

Frank stopped and ran his hand through his hair. He could feel tears running down his cheeks, but he made no effort to suppress them or to wipe them away.

A large hand covered his. He looked up to see Alvin smiling at him. "Go on. Get it all out. Once you do, then we can look at it with unblemished eyes and start you on the road to healing."

He knew Alvin was right, but every word he spoke felt like he was tearing off his flesh one piece at a time, leaving his heart raw and bleeding.

"A car was coming the other way. I tried to swerve to miss it, but I still couldn't steer. Finally the tires caught, but I had the wheel turned too far, and we headed into the oncoming car's path. I jerked the wheel, and the back end fishtailed. We missed the oncoming car, but by then, we were heading for a big oak tree. I tried to turn away, but it was as if someone else had control. The car just kept hurtling toward the tree. Then Sandy screamed and then there was the crunch of metal." He took a deep, shuddering breath.

Frank clamped his hands over his ears to shut out the echo of the smashing metal as they collided with the immovable tree trunk, and then the shattering of glass. And then her terrified voice. Then silence. God, the silence. The never-ending, deafening silence.

With an almost inhuman effort and eager now to get it all out and over with, he pulled himself together and began again, his voice flat and lifeless.

"I looked over at Sandy. She wasn't moving. Her head was covered in so much blood I couldn't see her face or where the blood was coming from. There was a big hole in the windshield where I assumed she'd hit her head. I tried to get to her, to help her, but I was trapped behind the steering wheel. The impact had pushed the engine back and pinned my legs against the seat. I couldn't move." His voice broke. "All I could do was sit there helplessly and look at my dead wife, aware all the time that I had done this to her, and then I blacked out."