Penumbra (15 page)

Frank didn’t believe that, but he had no desire to redirect the officer’s thinking. “Could be,” he said. “Did you check the bathroom?”

“Not yet.”

“I’ll take a look.”

“I’ll check out the spare bedroom,” Hafner said.

Frank let Hafner brush past him before he walked down the narrow hallway to the powder blue bathroom. There were traces of dark hair stuck to the sink where someone, presumably Hubbard, had been shaving. Two towels were on the floor. The bathtub faucet leaked one drop at a time. Frank opened the medicine cabinet. Two prescription bottles were on one shelf along with a bottle of aspirin.

“Nothing back here,” Hafner said. “You got anything?”

Frank picked up a half-full prescription bottle for phenobarbitone. The label showed it was ordered by Dr. Willard Herron and filled at Hardy Street Pharmacy only a month ago. He slipped it into his pocket with the picture of Marlena. He closed the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet. “Nothing. I think we’re done here,” he said to Hafner.

J
ade sat at her kitchen table, a glass of water in front of her, untouched. She stared at the water, forcing her gaze away from the clock, which showed seven-thirty-four. Night had settled over the woods and the cicadas were singing. She’d called Frank’s house six times and hadn’t gotten an answer. She was desperate to talk to him, to tell him that Marlena was awake. In keeping with Marlena’s wishes, she hadn’t told anyone else, not even her father. She’d given Marlena her word.

She sipped the water and put the glass back. Scraping the chair across the linoleum, she got up and paced the room. The dress she’d chosen to wear was the exact color of her eyes, and a rich brocade. The low-cut V neckline swooped up to off-the-shoulder cap sleeves. It was a flattering design for her full breasts and creamy skin. Jade had bought the dress in New Orleans, and she’d never had occasion to wear it in Drexel. The full petticoat, stiffened with Niagra starch, crinkled whenever she moved. The sound annoyed her as she sat back down in the chair. When she finally heard a car coming up to the house, she thought anticipation was going to disable her. She stood up and gained control of her limbs as she went to the door and waited for Frank’s knock.

The sight of him made her breathless. They stood, gazing at each other, until he cleared his throat and apologized for being late. He was tense and exhausted. She saw so much in the lines of his face.

“Marlena is awake,” she said. “She doesn’t want anyone else to know, but I told her I had to tell you.”

The news stunned him. She saw it in his eyes. “She’s going to be okay?” he asked.

Jade hesitated. Marlena would never be okay again. She would live, and she would cling to some type of life, but that was far from okay. “There’s no brain damage. The physical wounds should heal.”

Frank grabbed her hands. “That’s good news. Did she say anything about Suzanna?”

“She doesn’t remember much.” Jade felt the burden of her half-sister’s secrets. “She was with a man. His first name is Johnny, but she didn’t say more. She doesn’t believe he had anything to do with Suzanna’s abduction.” Jade dropped her gaze. “He didn’t try to help her when the men attacked. She said he ran away.” She lifted her gaze. Instead of the pity she expected to see, she found anger in Frank’s eyes.

“The bastard left her there to be beaten and raped?” “Yes.” Jade put her hand on his arm, a gentling gesture. Frank paced down the length of the porch and came back to her. “I need to talk to Marlena. Tonight.” “I tried to call you and tell you.”

“I just got back from Hattiesburg.” He put his hands on her shoulders, and she felt his strength. “I came here first. I wanted to see you.”

“We can have dinner another night,” she said.

His hands tightened. “No,” he said. “I can’t tell you the last time I wanted something as much as I want to have dinner with you.” His left hand moved from her shoulder to her neck. His finger traced a line along her jaw. “When I was in that German prison, I made myself a promise that I’d never deny myself anything I really wanted. We’ll have dinner tonight.”

“How about if I drive myself,” Jade said. “I can finish getting ready, and you can go by the hospital and see Marlena. If she remembers something, though—”

“I’ll call you.” He glanced at his watch. “Half an hour, then?”

She nodded. “I’ll be there.”

He started off the porch and stopped on the second step. “You could come with me,” he said.

He was telling her that he wasn’t going to hide his feelings for her. She felt a heady rush of pleasure, but shook her head. “Half an hour. At your place.”

The August night had come down soft, the sky a milky black with a million stars scattered through it. Under other circumstances, it would be a beautiful night. Dotty swatted at a mosquito that hummed in the car. The damn thing had bitten her twice already. By tomorrow she’d have big, ugly welts on her calves. If the fucking mosquito landed on her one more time, she was going to obliterate it. She felt a tickle on her ankle and swatted with a viciousness that made her yelp. The drone of the mosquito continued, mocking her and the ridiculous situation she found herself in.

She shifted in the car seat, trying to decide what to do. She was parked down an old logging trail across the road from the Bramlett house. Her plan had been to sneak through the woods and spy on Lucas, see if he had another woman there with him. If he was alone, she intended to go up to the door and knock. She had news he might be interested in hearing. Marlena’s own mother thought Marlena was screwing around on Lucas, meeting some man in the woods. That’s why Lucille had grilled her—to find out what she knew.

Dotty stretched her legs out along the seat, wondering what Lucas would make of this information. Surely he’d reward her somehow, show his gratitude because she was looking out for him. She’d put on jeans rolled up to show her pretty calves, bobby socks, saddle oxfords, and a blue-checkered shirt tied below her breasts, which exposed her excellent figure and gave her the illusion of youth. She had the curves of a real woman, and once Lucas caught sight of her, he wasn’t going to send her home. They could have the whole night together. She pressed a hand to her pubis in anticipation of what he would do to her. She needed to be conquered, dominated, made to do things that were dirty. All she had to do was walk across the road, sneak through the woods, and make sure Lucas was alone.

She reached for the door handle but hesitated. Her nerve had given out. Lucas wouldn’t appreciate anyone poking into his business. If he caught her, she’d be dead in the water. He might not give her a chance to tell her big news. He might be with someone else. That would be the worst, to discover that she’d been thrown over before she even had a chance to show him all her tricks. The idea that he had some other woman bent over the dining table was like lye on her skin. The not knowing gnawed at her, but fear of what she might learn held her in place. Doubt, like the mosquito that hummed around her ear, bit and sucked at her contentment. Two whole days had passed and she hadn’t heard a word from him. Most men, once they got a taste of her, couldn’t leave it alone. The only reason Dotty could come up with to explain Lucas’s behavior involved another woman. He was getting his pud pounded by someone else. She had to take action.

She got out of the car and walked the fifteen yards to the highway where she could see Lucas’s driveway across the road. The metal gate was open. Probably because he was expecting company. Dotty stepped onto the asphalt, got halfway across, and then hesitated. Headlights topped the hill to her east, and she bolted across the road and tumbled into the ditch by Lucas’s gate, lying flat in the thick grass. The last thing she needed was for someone to see her. She’d be the laughingstock of the town. The car slowed, and Dotty held her breath, hoping they hadn’t caught a flash of her moving into the ditch.

When the vehicle turned down Lucas’s drive, she covered her head with her hands until she heard it pass. She sat up quickly and caught a glimpse of Junior’s beat-up old Ford pickup. Someone was in the passenger seat, but Dotty couldn’t make out who it was. She got up, dusted the dirt off her jeans, and looked up the driveway. Curiosity was stronger than fear. She darted up the driveway, staying just in the edge of the woods. If Lucas was entertaining Junior on a Saturday evening, she wanted to know why.

By the time she got to the house, Junior’s truck was parked in the circle driveway and there was no sign of him or his passenger. They’d gone inside. She waited in the protection of the trees, listening. The mosquito had followed her from the car and brought several friends. Dotty slapped at her neck, bringing her hand away with blood all over it. At least she’d gotten one. Another insect bit her ankle above the sock. She slapped there. With every bite, she became angrier. Lucas didn’t have time to call her, but he had time for Junior Clements, the town loser. Now she was stuck hiding out in the woods like some kind of lovesick teenager or Russian spy, except she wouldn’t be anything but a bloodless corpse in another ten minutes, and all because Lucas treated her like some common tramp. She stepped out of the woods. He wasn’t going to get away with treating her like that.

She circled around the truck, intending to go right to the front door and knock. The truck windows were down, and Dotty peered in, making a face at the empty beer bottles and trash on the floorboard. Something else caught her eye. The cloth was rough and printed with a faint pattern like a flour sack. Curiosity won out over disgust at the filth in the truck, and she reached in and picked up the material. She held it up, the air slipping out of her lungs as she saw the eye holes and a mouth cut into the flour sack. A brown stain was strung across it. She dropped it on the seat and backed away from the truck. She caught her breath, turned into the thick woods, and started to run.

For a long moment, Frank stood in the doorway of Marlena’s hospital room. The light above the head of her bed was on, but otherwise the room was in darkness. Her face was turned to the window, which gave a view of blackness. In the soft glow of the light, Frank could make out her cheek and jawline, and he realized that from that angle, Marlena looked a lot like Jade. He cleared his throat, but Marlena didn’t stir.

“Marlena, Jade told me you were conscious.”

She didn’t react, but her voice floated back to him. “She said she had to tell you, but no one else.”

Marlena spoke without moving her jaw, and Frank remembered that it was wired shut to help the damage to her face heal. “She’s keeping her word. We have to find Suzanna.”

He entered the room and went to stand by the bed. When she finally turned to look at him, he had to steel himself against flinching. Her beautiful face had been destroyed.

“Suzanna is dead,” Marlena said.

“Are you certain?”

“She’s dead.”

“We still have to find her.” Frank wondered how much of what Marlena believed was reality and how much fantasy or wishful thinking. No one who’d been through the abuse Marlena had received would want her daughter, helpless, in the hands of the men who’d hurt her so badly.

“The big man had her over his shoulder. He threw her on the ground and she didn’t make a sound. She didn’t move.” She took a deep breath, then another. “Her feet were bare. She had sand on the bottoms. She didn’t move, and she wasn’t breathing.”

“Are you certain?” Frank saw how hard she fought to hold onto her emotions. He wanted to touch her, the way he’d touched men dying on the battlefield, just the comfort of contact. He thought better of it, though. Marlena might not view a man’s touch as any kind of comfort.

“Yes,” she said. “I tried to forget what I’d seen. I tried to hide from it, but I couldn’t. Jade called me back. I wish I could just stop breathing and die.”

“You won’t ever forget, Marlena, but time has a way of taking the edge off the memory.” It was beyond him to lie, but he gave her what comfort he could. “Tell me what happened from the beginning.” His hand went to the pocket where he still kept her photo. If he had to, he would show it to her. She had to tell him everything.

“Suzanna was fishing. I’d set up the picnic about fifty yards from where she was, on a level place with some grass.” She tilted her chin up and swallowed, and Frank saw the marks along her throat where fingers had choked her. He gritted his teeth against the anger that swept over him. When he found the men who’d done this, he was going to make them understand the meaning of suffering. He’d learned things in the war, things that no man should know about pain.

“Go on,” he said. “Where was John Hubbard?” he asked, before she went too far with her lie.

“How did you find out his name?” she asked.

“We found his car parked on the road. A two-tone Chevy. I got the registration, and then I found those potato chips around the picnic area.”

“Does Lucas know?”

“I haven’t told him, and I don’t think Huey has figured anything out.”

“Tell him. Maybe he’ll come here and kill me.”

“Go on with what happened, Marlena. Maybe Suzanna was just unconscious.”

She sighed. “Johnny and I were making out on the picnic cloth while Suzanna was fishing. She knew not to come back where we were. We told her we wouldn’t bring her with us if she disobeyed.” She took another breath. “I’m not a bad mother. I love Suzanna, but I had to take her with me. Lucas would never let me leave the house alone. Suzanna never saw anything. She never suspected. She could mind when she had to.”

Frank thought about the headstrong little girl and understood how much she must have wanted to be with her mother to concede to a rule, any rule. In his past experience with Suzanna, he’d come to believe she deliberately set out to break any limits imposed on her.

“Did you hear anyone come up?” he asked.

“No.” She hesitated. “Johnny was kissing me. He’d do things to me that Lucas wouldn’t. He gave me pleasure. For the first time in my life, it was about what I liked and wanted.” Her chin trembled, but she didn’t cry. “What a fool I’ve been. I married a man more suited to be a prison warden than a husband, and I fell in love with a man who betrayed me in the worst way.”

Frank did put his hand on her arm, gently. “You don’t have to explain it to me.”

“I have to explain it to myself,” she said. “I have to understand how I could lose my daughter like I did.”

“No one could anticipate being attacked the way you were, Marlena. That’s out of the normal ken of anyone.”

“I was her mother. I should have protected her.”

“Tell me exactly how it happened,” he said, knowing that he couldn’t give her the absolution she sought.

“Johnny heard something in the bushes. We thought Suzanna had sneaked up and was trying to watch us. He got up. I remember, he said he was going to give her the spanking she deserved.” Her voice broke, and she turned her face away for a moment. When she looked back at Frank, she was crying. “The next thing I knew, this man with a sack on his head came at me. He kicked me in the ribs. I didn’t know what was going on. I screamed and tried to roll away. I was naked, and he was staring at me. He was yelling names at me, calling me filthy things. Then the other one came, and he had Suzanna over his shoulder with a sack tied on her head. He threw Suzanna down and he said, ‘Let’s give this whore of Babylon what she deserves.’”