The Glass Butterfly (13 page)

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Authors: Louise Marley

Tags: #Romance

BOOK: The Glass Butterfly
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And with that stabbing premonition, a sharp and unforgiving certainty, Tory knew it was true. Ellice would do just as she said.
She—Tory—was in real trouble.
Tory's arm felt small and thin under those strong fingers, but she had her own wiry strength. She pulled back, ripping herself free with the suddenness of her gesture. Now she did roll the chair between them, putting herself within reach of the telephone on her desk. “Ellice, please sit down, and let's—”
Before she could finish her thought, Ellice reached across the desk and ripped the telephone cord out of its jack. Tory jumped away from her, abandoning all pretense of calm, and dashed across the office toward the safety of the kitchen and the lock on its inside door. That lock was her protection. It was the escape route every therapist was supposed to have, but she saw now how paltry it was, how little defense it would give her. She was too late, and the door lock too little, but she tried anyway. She grasped the doorknob and pulled the door open.
Ellice came close behind, her long, strong arm stretching past Tory's head to slam the open door hard against its stop on the outer wall. The bang of wood against rubber made Tory's nerves jump. “Give me the key, Tory!” she commanded.
Tory crossed the kitchen, rounding the island, and pressed her back against the refrigerator. “You don't want to do this,” she said.
“Just give me the goddamn key,” Ellice said. She reached Tory in two strides. Her arm went around Tory's neck, pulling her off balance as she groped in her pocket with her other hand. Tory, with the strength of a woman used to wrestling cords of wood, wrenched herself free. She spun away from Ellice and dashed toward the garage door. There was no outer lock on it, but her Escalade was there, and if she could get in, lock the doors—but she wasn't fast enough.
Ellice, with a motion so smooth and efficient it was as if she had planned it, snaked a knife from the pine block beside the sink, and came after her.
The whole scene was so humiliating that now, huddled beneath a boulder on the Oregon coast, Tory could hardly bear recalling it. Ellice had held the knife to her throat, then wrested the key from her jeans pocket through the sheer muscular force of her big hands and long arms. In the struggle, the knife had sliced Tory's forearm, the blade cold as it cut through her flesh, but leaving a burning slash of pain behind it. Ellice, the knife in one hand and the key in the other, tried to drag her back into the office. Tory needed no intuition to know that if Ellice succeeded in getting the gun from the file drawer before she could get away, she would never survive.
Blood soaked the sleeve of her sweater as she dropped and twisted. With a groan of effort, she kicked herself free of Ellice's grasp. The momentum sent her flying across the kitchen floor. She scrambled the rest of the way, leaping to her feet just as she reached the garage door. She blasted through it, jumped into the driver's seat of the Escalade, and hit the electronic lock a heartbeat before Ellice caught up with her. Ellice stopped where she was, assessing the situation in a flash, then whirled to go back into the kitchen. It would take her only seconds to reach the office, unlock the file drawer, and retrieve her weapon.
Tory hardly breathed, waiting for the garage door to open, winding up on its pulley at what seemed an agonizingly slow pace. Before it was fully up, she gunned the motor. Her muscles trembled with adrenaline. Every second seemed to last a minute, every minute an hour as she backed out of the garage, tires spitting gravel every which way. Ellice's patrol car blocked the driveway, and the trees on either side grew too closely for her to fit past. She cranked the wheel, and sped off in the other direction, around the side of the house, past the garden shed, out to the dirt lane used by plows and tractors. She meant to wheel around to the road from there, but before she could reach the lane, the patrol car caught her. It was more powerful even than the Escalade, and Ellice had no fear of using its weight and momentum. She drove the patrol car right up behind the Escalade, striking its bumper with hers. She forced Tory across the dirt lane and down the slope of the hill toward the Winooski River.
Tory tried to stop above the riverbank. She even set the emergency brake, but it did no good. The patrol car struck the back of the Escalade again, hard. It was terrifying, a blow neither measured nor restrained. It felt to Tory as if Ellice meant to go over with her, to careen both vehicles down the bank and into the river.
Time slowed down even further for Tory. Her car tilted, leaning forward in a dream motion, listing, sliding, falling. She barely heard the screech of metal on rock, of bursting glass, of her own harsh breathing. She saw the water rising toward her at a speed so stately she could distinguish the crevices in the boulders rising to catch her, appreciate the spray of water shining in the cool sunshine, pick out the colors of the gravel below the clear water where the hard surface of the riverbed waited to jolt her into unconsciousness. She had all the time she needed to slide to her right, to release the door lock. She had more than enough time—three seconds, five, which passed so slowly she could have divided them into milliseconds—to shove the door open with her foot. Without haste, she judged the moment when her car would hit the rocks, and at the perfect instant she threw herself out the side door and into the waist-deep water. She splashed through the water to hide herself behind the boulder.
At the touch of the frigid water of the river, time sped again to its normal pace, and she hunched down, wet to her hips, holding her arms above her head as if that would help protect her.
She heard the patrol car brake in the dirt and leaves above the bank, and she heard its door open and close. She couldn't see Ellice, but she could
feel
her, her sluggish fey engaged at last, fully focused on someone who wanted to hurt her. Who meant to kill her.
 
Now, weeks later, she was huddled in the same position. Her knees were in sand instead of the icy water of the Winooski River. She was many, many miles away from the crashed Escalade.
But still hiding from Ellice Gordon. It was for Jack, of course, but she was still hiding.
Why did she think now of her dreams, and the black-eyed tormentor who dominated them? What was her fey trying to tell her?
11
Vengono a darmi aiuto?
 
Are they coming to help me?
 
—Minnie,
La Fanciulla del West
, Act Two
“P
aulette?”
Tory startled from her reverie. She jumped up, knocking over her half-full coffee mug so that the chilled coffee soaked into the sand. The wind struck her face as she straightened, and she turned her back to it. “Iris?”
Her landlady, with strands of long gray hair whipping around her narrow face, was coming down the beach. She wore a red plaid parka, far too large for her lean form, and a dilapidated wool cap pulled down over her forehead. When she reached Tory, she smiled. “Bit chilly for meditating on the beach, isn't it?”
Tory hadn't noticed she was shivering. When she looked down to shake out the last of her wasted coffee, she saw that her knuckles were scarlet with cold. She gave a diffident laugh. “Yes, I guess it is. I just like the water at this time of day.”
“That shutter looks great, Paulette. And the gate, too. You've been busy.”
“Thanks,” Tory said. Her teeth began to chatter, and she clenched her jaw to stop them.
Iris encircled Tory with her arm. The familiar gesture made her stiffen, but there was a look of real concern on the older woman's face. “Come on,” Iris said. “Let's get you inside and warmed up.”
By the time they had trudged up the beach and gone into the cottage, Tory's hands were so stiff she could barely unzip her coat. She went into the kitchen to fill the teakettle, rubbing her fingers to warm them. Iris, seeming perfectly at ease, took the stool on the other side of the short counter. “What are your plans, Paulette?” she said.
“Plans?”
“For today, I mean. For dinner.”
Tory frowned at her over the teakettle. “Dinner—?”
Iris clicked her tongue, and pulled off her battered cap. She twisted her gray hair back with both hands and contained it with a silver clip. “It's Thanksgiving,” she said.
Tory put the kettle down slowly. Her fingers had begun to sting as they thawed. She looked past Iris, out to the tossing ocean beyond the picture window. “It can't be,” she said, her voice cracking. Thanksgiving. She had been gone . . . nearly two months. Thanksgiving! Her heart cried,
Oh, Jack
.
“You didn't realize,” Iris said.
Tory made herself breathe, made herself speak as normally as she could through her chilled lips. “No. No, I didn't realize. Time just—just slipped away from me.”
“Well.” Iris smiled, but Tory could see she wasn't going anywhere. She said, “I'll wait while you bathe. You're coming to my place.”
The refusal was on Tory's lips, but somehow she couldn't speak it. Iris looked across the counter at her, and though she grinned, her eyes pierced Tory's as if they could see past eyelashes, through pupil and retina, right into her mind. “Come on,” she said, with what, for Iris, was a gentle tone. “Only four of us—including you. Don't be alone today.”
Without quite knowing how it happened, Tory found herself in the bathtub. The hot water stung her cold skin at first, and then felt wonderfully soothing. She soaked as long as she dared without being rude, and washed her hair. She toweled her hair dry, and pulled on clean jeans and a sweater and her usual sneakers. She eyed herself in the bathroom mirror, thinking of the photograph on her therapist's license picture, her hair styled, her eyes done up with mascara and shadow, her lips tinged pink. She didn't look anything like that now. Luckily, she had re-dyed her hair yesterday. No one could possibly recognize her, even if they'd studied her picture.
“I don't have dress-up clothes,” she said to Iris as she emerged from the bedroom.
“You're just fine,” Iris said.
“I can bring wine, at least.”
“Good. Always welcome.”
As if in a dream, as if none of it were her own doing, Tory got into Iris's car, the bottle of wine in her lap. “I could drive—” she began, but Iris shook her head.
“I'll bring you back,” she said. “Just for today—be my guest.”
Tory let her head fall back against the leather headrest, and watched the closed and shuttered houses drift past as Iris drove toward her house. She couldn't think what she was doing here, in this white car, going to a Thanksgiving dinner as if it were a normal thing to do. Something quivered inside her, faintly calling her to step back into the world. To thaw, as she had thawed her icy skin in the bath. She quelled the impulse, pressing her lips together, turning her head as if there were something interesting beyond the passenger window.
She wasn't at all surprised at the preparations she found underway at Iris's house. Thanksgiving dinner was a great American constant, she supposed. A turkey was roasting in the oven under a tent of foil. The table glittered with crystal and silver and china, and tapered candles waited in their holders to be lighted. Pies rested on the lovely old sideboard she had noticed when she was here before. Potatoes were peeled and ready in a big pot of water. It was all very much like—too much like—her own home had always been on this holiday. Could she get through it? She would have to. Then, as soon as she could, she would make her escape, back into her haven of silence and solitude. And she would be very, very careful.
She said, “Can I help?” Another constant. Courtesy. A semblance of participation.
Iris waved a hand. “You could whip cream,” she said. “Or fill the water pitcher.”
“The table is—it's lovely, Iris.”
“You're not surprised?”
Startled, Tory laughed. “No! Surprised? Why would I be?”
“You sound a little surprised.”
“No, not at all. Everything here is lovely.”
Iris had shed her disreputable coat and hat, revealing a vividly printed red silk tunic and narrow black slacks underneath. She looked utterly different, sophisticated and elegant. She tied on a colorful apron before she went to the stove to turn on the gas under the potatoes. “You like things that are beautiful,” she said.
“Doesn't everyone?”
“Oh, no.” The wry smile had begun to feel comfortable to Tory, another danger. “No, some people like things to be sharp, or cozy, or edgy . . . but you listen to classical music, and buy vintage china.”
“How do you know I listen to classical?” Tory asked warily.
“I hear it when I go by. Your radio, I think.”
“That's right. There's a good station out of Portland. I don't have a CD player.” She wondered if listening to classical music set her apart too much, even if it wasn't opera.
The potatoes began to boil, and Iris turned down the gas, then turned her attention to Tory again. “Paulette,” she said quietly. “I won't pry, but it's obvious something's happened to you. You're not the only one. A lot of us who stay here in the winter are like that—refugees.”
Tory couldn't think of a safe way to answer. Her own face, unfamiliar with its shock of red hair, glimmered back at her from the shining surfaces of Iris's kitchen. She looked away, to the bare branches of the trees in the garden.
Refugee.
It was a good word.
“Take me, for example,” Iris said. She started spooning flour into a cruet, adding water and seasoning, shaking it.
It was the way Tory always made gravy, and she watched, bemused by the simple, familiar process. Automatically, not really expecting an answer, she asked, “You?”
“Yes,” Iris said. She set the cruet down. “I told you I came here with my parents when I was a girl. But I married someone they disapproved of—with good reason, as it turned out—and we were estranged for the rest of their lives. My husband left me when they died. It looked as if I hadn't inherited anything after all, and apparently that was what he was waiting for.”
“But you did inherit the cottage.”
Iris's narrow lips twisted. “The cottage, and what there was of their estate. I lied to him. I'd figured it out by then. I knew he was no good, and that there was nothing to be salvaged of our marriage. I waited too long, of course, because my parents died before I could admit to them they'd been right all along. It was too late to make amends, and I'd lost contact with all my friends in Portland. I came here, and had to start all over.”
“I'm sorry.”
Iris shrugged. “Just telling you so you'll understand. We all have a story.”
The implication, Tory feared, was that she should now share hers. She was relieved when the doorbell rang. The arrival of the other guests meant she didn't have to respond to Iris's gentle challenge.
Both of the others were men, gray-haired and quiet. They greeted Tory without curiosity, and she couldn't help, from her professional perspective, but notice that Iris was right. These men were as much refugees as she was. She didn't want to know what their secrets were. Perhaps she would never again be able to take on other people's secrets, to help to carry their weight—or to be responsible for them. Perhaps she should never have done it in the first place.
They all drank from the bottle of pinot noir Tory had brought as they made casual conversation. Jazz played softly, masked by the clink of glassware and china and the occasional sizzle of cooking. They talked about the wine, about slow business in the wintertime, about the storm the night before. No one asked anything personal beyond the “When did you come to Cannon Beach?” sort of thing. When Iris called them to the table, everyone rose to help carry dishes, a cutting board, a pitcher of water.
The turkey was perfect, stuffed with apples and lemons and a bundle of fresh thyme. “You make this just the way—the way I do,” Tory said.
The way Jack likes it.
“Oh, good,” Iris said easily. She lifted her wineglass in Tory's direction. “We're more alike than you think, Paulette.”
Tory hesitated, searching for a polite response, but one of the other guests chuckled. “No point in arguing,” he said. “If Iris says it, it's true.”
Tory felt a flush creep over her face. Iris grinned.
Only later, after the other guests had left and she was helping with the dishwashing, did Tory have the courage to ask about it. She was a bit drunk on red wine and pumpkin pie with Grand Marnier–laced whipped cream, and more relaxed than she had been in weeks. “Iris,” she said, swabbing a pie plate with a sponge, “why did you say we're alike?”
Iris was laying neat slices of white turkey meat into a casserole dish. She didn't look up from her task. “I shouldn't have said it.” Tory, watching her, saw one corner of her mouth twist.
“I don't mind that you did,” Tory said. She rinsed the pie plate, and set it in the rack, careful of her wet fingers and the slippery glass. “But you don't really know anything about me.”
“Well.” Iris shrugged. “Maybe I'm wrong.”
Tory turned back to the sink. She felt a bit confused, as if she didn't know where the conversation had gone. She told herself to stop talking. Silence was safer.
Iris snapped a plastic cover over the casserole. “Some leftovers for you,” she said.
“Thanks. The dinner was delicious.”
“It was, wasn't it? It's so good to see people eat around my table—I love that.”
Tory had a brief flash of Jack at her table, tall and thin and always hungry. “I always did, too,” she said softly.
Iris paused, her hand flat on the covered casserole. “I'm a lot older than you, Paulette,” she said. “And I've learned it gets better. Whatever it is.”
Tory had said those same words to so many clients. The realization made her stomach contract. She gave a small, convulsive sigh, and reached for a dish towel. “I know, Iris.”
“But you can't see it right now.”
Tory pleated the snowy dish towel between her fingers. “No,” she said. She felt suddenly dull and tired, her defenses down. “No, right now it seems pretty grim.”
Iris stacked the casserole with a plastic container of pie and one of cranberry sauce. “Do me a favor, will you, Paulette?”
Tory looked up, into Iris's cool gray eyes. Iris gave her a half smile, and Tory read sorrow and understanding and kindness in it. “Just promise me,” Iris said. “That if it gets too bad—you'll call.”
Tory couldn't think, at first, just what Iris meant. That was foolish, of course, and she realized it a heartbeat later. When she had said those words to her most troubled clients, she had meant them—she had meant them with all her heart.
She dropped her eyes again to the towel in her hands. “It won't get that bad,” she said, but she knew she sounded unconvincing. It wasn't fair to Iris, who was trying so hard.

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