The Bone House (27 page)

    Hilary
drove to school in Terri's Taurus. Mark drove to Cana.

    He
realized he was hungry. He'd packed a lunch in his backpack. He covered up his
canvas and carried his materials up the beach to the open lawn surrounding the
lighthouse. It was immediately much quieter and warmer in the sun. He sat on a
red picnic bench on the far side of the lawn, where he took out a turkey
sandwich and a bag of grapes. He put up his canvas near the bench and studied
his latest painting as he ate.

    His
sandwich was almost gone when a shadow fell across the brown grass from the
trail that led to the causeway. He turned and saw a teenage girl watching him.

    It
was Tresa Fischer.

    Mark
tensed. 'Tresa, you shouldn't be here.'

    'I
know.'

    The
girl came closer anyway. The bench faced the lighthouse tower, and she sat down
on the same side, inches away from him. She rubbed the red paint on the bench
nervously with the pads of her fingers. She wore a loose-fitting purple
sweatshirt over her skinny frame, and her wrists looked like matchsticks
jutting out of the cuffs. Her shiny red hair covered most of her face in
profile.

    'No
one's around,' she murmured. 'It's just us.'

    Mark
felt a cloud of mixed emotions. Part of him wanted to get up and leave. Part of
him wanted to be angry, but he had no anger against this girl. They'd barely
spoken a word to each other since the previous year, when Delia Fischer had
forbidden her daughter from seeing him. The most he'd heard from Tresa was an
apology by phone, and he'd told her what he felt - that she had no reason to
apologize.

    He
really liked her. So did Hilary. She was a sweet, smart, sensitive, lonely
girl. It was just complicated to realize that she'd done so much to destroy his
life. She was still toxic to him, still a danger.

    'I'm
sorry, Tresa, I have to go,' he said.

    She
turned toward him urgently. Her blue eyes were frantic. She reached out her hands
toward him and pulled them back. It was obvious that she was still in love with
him, which made it even more important for him to walk away.

    'Please.
Don't go. I'm not going to cause any trouble for you.'

    'What
do you want?' he asked her.

    Tresa
stuttered. 'I don't know. I heard what happened last night. I'm so glad you
guys are OK. It made me feel like - I mean, I just needed to see you, you know?
With everything going on.'

    'I
know.'

    'I
told the police in Florida they were wrong. I said you could never, ever hurt
Glory. Not you.'

    'Thanks.'

    'I'm
not sure they believed me. It's like last year. No one believes me.'

    'It
doesn't matter.'

    'You
must really hate me,' Tresa said.

    'I don't
hate you. You shouldn't ever think that, because it's not true.' His instinct
was to reach out and touch her, but he didn't. He added, 'How are you? This
must be a terrible time. I'm sorry.'

    'Yeah,
Mom's a wreck. Me, I don't know. Sometimes I cry, and sometimes I get pissed
off at Glory.' She ducked her head and changed the subject, as if she couldn't
bear to talk about her sister. 'I like coming out to the lighthouse. It's cool
when there's nobody around.'

    'Me,
too.'

    'Do
you ever wonder what it was like?' Tresa pointed at the home attached to the
lighthouse tower. 'The keeper and his wife and their kids all alone out here. I
think I would have liked it.'

    'It
was a hard life.'

    'Yeah,
but you always said alone could be a good thing.'

    'Sometimes,
sure.'

    'It
would have been romantic. Sort of like you and Hilary on the island.'

    She
was still an idealistic teenager, and Mark liked that about Tresa. He didn't want
to tell her the truth. Reality had a way of eroding romance day by day, and if
you wanted to keep it, you had to cling to it with your fingernails and put on
blinders to the tragedy of life.

    'I
really need to go,' he said.

    Tresa
reached out and covered his hand. Her skin was warm. 'Please, not yet.'

    He
gently took his hand away. 'Tresa.'

    'I
know.' She twisted strands of her red hair between her fingers and pulled them
through her lips. She pointed at his painting. 'I like that one.'

    'Thanks.'

    'One
of the angels, the one near the tower, she looks really, really sad.'

    'I
think you're right,' he said.

    'I
wish I could paint like that.'

    'You're
a writer. I wish I could write like you.'

    Her
face brightened. 'Really?'

    'Yes.
You're very talented. You have a great future.'

    'Wow.
That's really nice.' She stared at the bench and murmured, 'But those things I
wrote about us.'

    'Let's
not talk about it.'

    Tresa
nodded and didn't look at him. 'Can I ask you something?'

    'Sure.'

    'You
never slept with Glory, did you?'

    Mark
recoiled. 'No.'

    'Good,'
she said, looking satisfied. 'I didn't think you would, but I know how she
could be. Glory had a way of getting what she wanted. She read my diary, and I
thought she'd want you just because I wanted you. I'm glad you didn't.'

    He
wanted to steer her far away from the subject of her diary. The explicit
descriptions were still vivid, erotic, and horrifying in his mind. 'Why did you
never tell me about the fire?' he asked.

    Tresa
cringed. 'The fire? I don't know. I wanted to forget it. We all acted as if it
never happened.'

    'You
can't forget things like that.'

    'You
can try,' Tresa said. 'Sometimes you just have to put on blinders, you know? Everybody
lost things that day, but nobody ever cared what I lost. I know that sounds
selfish.'

    'What
did you lose?' Mark asked.

    'You
name it. Glory was never the same. Mom kept trying to rescue her, so she forgot
about me. Mr Hoffman shipped Jen out to live with his daughter in Minneapolis,
so I lost my best friend. I never really had anybody again. Not until you and
Hilary showed up here. Then I went and screwed that up too.' Tresa blinked and
wiped tears away from her eyes.

    'I'm
sorry.'

    'It's
not your fault.'

    'It
must have been a bad night,' he said.

    'Oh,
yeah. We didn't know Glory was there until Sheriff Reich came and told us. Mom
freaked. Glory was just - well, in the hospital, she was all confused, thinking
it was
our
house that had burned down, wanting to make sure we were all
OK. She blocked it out, but my mom never forgot.'

    'And
your friend Jen lost her family.'

    Tresa
looked away, as if the pain was fresh. 'Yeah.'

    'Did
she hate her father?'

    'Jen?
I think it was harder to lose Mr Bone the way she did. She loved him. I know
that sounds crazy, but the boys sided with their mom, and she always sided with
her dad.'

    'Except
if she'd been home, she would have been killed too,' Mark reminded her.

    'No,
Mr Bone would never hurt Jen,' Tresa insisted. 'He knew she was staying with us
that night. He talked to my mom.'

    'Harris
talked to Delia?' Mark asked.

    'Yes,
he was over at our place all the time. I think he wanted to get away from home.
You don't know what that family was like. You don't know how bad it was in
their house.'

    'It
sounds like you knew him pretty well,' Mark said.

    'Yeah,
I guess.'

    'Did
Glory?'

    'Sure.'

    Mark
hesitated. 'Do you think she'd know Harris if she saw him today?'

    Tresa
cocked her head in confusion. 'What are you saying?' Then she almost leaped
across the bench, taking Mark's shoulders. He winced at the pressure. 'Oh, my
God, do you think he could have been there?'

    Mark
watched her hopeful blue eyes. It was as if she was looking for an answer, an
explanation, anything to replace the doubt in her brain. He understood. Even
Tresa wondered if he'd killed her sister. No matter how much she loved him, or
how much she defended him, her heart of hearts told her that he was guilty.

    'What
would Glory have done if she'd seen him?' he asked.

    Tresa
bit her lip. 'I'm not sure. Wow, I don't know.'

    'Did
you
see anyone in Florida who might have been Harris Bone?'

    'No, no,
I would have said something. I hung out by myself a lot. I'm not sure I would
have seen anybody at all.' 'OK.'

    'I'm
going to tell my mom. She's got it in her head that it was you, but you're
right. Maybe it was Harris. Maybe he was there.'

    'Don't
tell Delia you saw me,' Mark advised her. 'That won't help either one of us.'

    The
girl nodded. 'I understand.'

    'You
should go, Tresa.'

    'Yeah.
OK.'

    As if
swept up by an impulse she couldn't resist, Tresa wrapped her skinny arms
around Mark's chest. Her cheek and red hair rested against his face, and her
body pressed against him. She held him there longer than she should have, and
he had to push her away. Her face glowed with passion.

    'I
can still taste your lips,' she whispered to him. 'Even after all this time.'

    At the
end of the school day, Hilary drove north along County Road 42 in the Ford
Taurus she'd borrowed from Terri Duecker. She'd popped Advil like candy, but
her body still ached. All she wanted to do was take the ferry back to the
island and slip into a hot bubble bath and stay there for about three hours.

    As
she neared the Northport ferry terminal, she remembered that she needed to make
one stop before going home. She checked her watch and saw that she still had
one more chance to cross the passage that evening if she missed the next ferry.
She turned off the highway and backtracked along Port des Morts Drive. At the
end of the road, in a turnaround protected by giant evergreens, she parked
outside the home of Peter Hoffman.

    Hilary
wasn't sure if he would talk to her. She knew the rumors about Mark and Glory
had made their way through the county grapevine, and Hoffman was close to Delia
Fischer. Then again, if there was anyone who had reason to hate Harris Bone and
want to see him found, it was the father and grandfather of the people Harris
had killed.

    She
got out of the Taurus and made her way down the muddy driveway. As she
approached Hoffman's A-frame home, she saw an older man at work on the wide
front porch. She smelled freshly cut wood, and she heard the banging of his
hammer. He was on his knees, and he looked up when she reached the steps. He
appeared to be nearly seventy years old, although his hair was jet black and
appeared even blacker against his pale, deeply lined face. He got up slowly,
favoring one leg. He wore a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up and black
cargo pants with years of paint stains on the fabric. His eyes were suspicious.

    'Mr
Hoffman?' she asked. 'My name is—'

    'I
know who you are,' he interrupted her. 'What do you want, Mrs Bradley?'

    'I'd
like to talk to you.'

    Hoffman's
face tightened with discomfort. He sucked in a breath and straightened his
back. He was a tall man. 'About Harris and the fire?'

    'That's
right.'

    'There's
nothing I can tell you,' he said.

    'That
may be true, but I'd really appreciate five minutes.'