The Summer Bones (7 page)

Victoria got out of her car and looked down the silent street before glancing at the equally silent house in front of her. Nothing moved anywhere in her line of vision, giving a spooky aura to the lovely glory of a hot, still summer day. It was as if this were a place held captive by the ebb and flow of the working day, the citizens banished to the world of office machines and high-rise buildings until the sun began to sink. Not a single child rode their bicycle on the street or played on the trim grass. Somewhere, day-care centers were jammed full.

Straightening her shoulders, Victoria slammed her car door shut with a startling bang and walked deliberately toward the front door. She put her thumb on the button of the doorbell and pushed, hearing the echo roll hollowly inside the closed house.

The sun shone hard on the clean street. The houses sat and watched quietly.

Nothing.

Her mother claimed that Ronald said he hadn't left the house since Emily's disappearance. Victoria didn't know if that was truth or dramatics, but Ronald did have his studio in the house and she had expected him to be home.
Maybe I should have called,
she thought
,
standing ineffectually by the elegant front door. But the decision to visit her brother-in-law had been spur of the moment. She wasn't even sure what Ronald could tell her that she didn't already know about her sister's absence, but sitting at the farm and waiting, amid her grandmother's vague affection and Rachel's sly companionship, was out of the question.

She had to
do
something.

Maybe Ronald is working
. She leaned on the bell again, waiting hopefully, knowing his studio was in a second-story bedroom that had been converted to skylights and pale walls.

No response.

After a long pause, Victoria sighed and shoved the hair off her forehead in frustration.
If Ronald
is
really that worried about his wife, you would think he would answer the door. Unless he isn't home.

Hell
.

She turned away from the door and was actually about halfway down the walk when the door slowly opened.

“Emily?” said a hoarse voice.

She'd never meant to give him hope that she was Emily, safely and blithely returning to her distraught husband, never thought of it. Swinging around, Victoria tried to smile, standing still as the sunlight touched her face and explained her identity better than she could herself. Her hair was longer than Emily's, and Emily preferred stylish dresses and bright colors. Victoria's casual jean shorts and pale yellow sleeveless blouse should have been a dead giveaway.

Ronald Sims blinked from the shadow of the doorway. Behind him, the house was dark, as if every drape was pulled tightly shut against the daylight. “Emily?” he said again, shakily.

“No … Ronald, sorry.” Then, sympathetically, Victoria added, “Hi.”

“Victoria.” He blinked again, swaying slightly.

His appearance was somewhat of a shock. Ronald was normally well groomed, with thick blond hair springing off a gently receding forehead. He had hazel eyes, a thin mouth, and an aggressive chin. His manner could be described as something between haughty and condescending on a typical day; Victoria wavered from tolerating his arrogance to loathing it. Emily had explained more than once that artists needed that brand of self-confidence or else they collapsed like punctured balloons.

The man standing in the doorway bore very little resemblance to the usual Ronald Sims. Haggard eyes stared out of a face that was as crumpled and lifeless as a discarded heap of old rags. His superior air was gone like a puff of distant smoke.

“Can I come in?” Victoria almost hesitated to ask. Her brother-in-law didn't look ready for company. He didn't even look like himself. He was staring with a sort of disconcerting fascination at her face.

“Ronald?”

“Yes.” He nodded slowly and stepped back to let her enter.

The house was a reflection of Ronald. Usually clean, fashionable, and polished, now it stood in disarray, with papers scattered across the hallway floor as if he'd unrolled the morning paper and tossed the debris at random. There was a smell, too, a musty odor of closed windows and doors and rank garbage. Victoria felt a growing dismay as she stood in the gloom, wrinkling her nose in disgust. She pushed the door shut behind her with reluctance.

“Let's go into the kitchen,” Ronald suggested, lurching off in that direction.

She went, unwillingly now that she was inside.

The kitchen was worse. Dried food spotted the counters. An empty scotch bottle sat by the sink, giving a clue to Ronald's slurred speech and weaving walk. The heaping trash can reeked to high heaven at close proximity, and a pale thrall of cigarette smoke hung in the air like ghostly fog.

Emily, who had whitewashed the walls, carefully designed the custom cabinets, and ordered the specially made appliances, would have been appalled. Victoria was pretty appalled herself.

The first thing she did was remove the stinking trash can, putting it out the back door while she fought the wave of sickness that threatened to crawl up her throat.

Ronald waved a lethargic hand in thanks and sank down in a carved wooden chair by the kitchen table. His face was very gray, with sagging skin under hollow cheekbones and several days' stubble in an unhealthy fuzz across his chin.

Turning from the back door, Victoria made a small involuntary sound of concern.

“I just need a drink,” Ronald mumbled. “Pretty bad, if you must know. There's a bottle in the cupboard … would you mind?”

She wasn't precisely his keeper. Hesitating, she stood, viewing the wreckage, both human and of the room itself, wondering what to do. If he wanted a drink, really wanted one, she could hardly stop him. At any rate, it wasn't going to help matters if she argued the point.

Shrugging, Victoria fumbled in the cupboard under the sink and found the bottle, bringing it over to plop it on the table in front of him. She watched critically as he sloshed the pale gold liquid into a juice glass, filling it almost to the rim. It was hard to tell if this was a reaction to the news of Emily's abandoned car, or if he had been drinking steadily since her disappearance.

The condition of the house supported the latter theory. Obviously, there had been a certain distraction from the ordinary routines of life. Like flushing toilets and taking out the garbage.

“That stuff won't help this situation,” she said with as little inflection as possible.

“Good advice,” Ronald said sardonically as he lifted the glass to his lips with shaking fingers. Some of the booze spilled past the edge of the glass and dripped off his chin as he drank two generous gulps. “What would help, Vicky? Huh?” He blinked over the rim of the glass. “Tell me what would help.”

“I simply meant that—”

“I know what you meant,” he said rudely, slapping the glass down on the table. “The poor, abandoned asshole of a husband shouldn't be pissing away the day by cuddling up with a bottle. He should be out there, looking for his wife. Or else, what are you thinking? Pining by the telephone might help? Pestering the police for the latest?”

“It wouldn't hurt at least to be conscious.” She refused to be bullied, though she took one small step backward. His anger was understandable, expected even. And Ronald being Ronald, he was going to give voice to whatever he was feeling.

“I am conscious.” His tone was vicious. “I'm so damned conscious that it makes me sick.” A bead of liquid hung perilously off his chin. “Not that that bitch cares. She's probably enjoying herself.”

His words were like a flying banner, announcing how Ronald interpreted the current situation.

“I'm sorry,” she murmured, slow heat rising in her face. Emily's faults always seemed to reflect on them both. A lifetime of making excuses and quietly accepting a share of the blame was not forgotten easily. Whether it was a broken cup, a bad spelling grade, or a childhood squabble, she had always sided with her sister. Adulthood had changed nothing.

Ronald lifted dull, reddened eyes. “Sorry? If you're sorry, then tell me where she is. Tell me where she went, and who she's with.”

Victoria said slowly, “Are you so sure she was having an affair?”

“I'm sure.”

“Why?”

His gaze slid away. He lifted the glass again.

“Was it someone from her office? A client?”

“I don't know.”

“Then how can you be sure?” It was a strain to keep her voice pleasant and level. Even Ronald wouldn't be so hostile if there wasn't some basis for his suspicions.

“Where else would she go? Tell me that.” He asked the question flatly.

“I'm telling you the truth, Ronald. I don't know. I didn't know when you called me in Chicago, and I still don't.”

“You wouldn't tell me if you did.” His voice was slurred, stubborn, suddenly fraught with insistent self-pity. Shoulders slumped, he hung over his glass, his face green and empty. A cigarette smoldered, forgotten in an ashtray on the table. At least this slide into misery was less threatening.

Victoria took a chair at the opposite side of the table and sat down. “Don't you see, even if I did know, even if she coerced me into lying to you—”

“Which she could.” He said it contemptuously.

“I would hardly let the police launch an investigation into her disappearance. Give me that much credit.” Victoria staunchly ignored his rude comment. “And if I don't know anything, then we should both be worried, shouldn't we?”

A missing woman. An abandoned car. No word for eight days. Worse, there was the possibility that Emily was not the first to vanish. According to the paper, a sixteen-year-old girl, Hallie Helms, had disappeared from Mayville three months before and there were no leads in her case.

Ronald mumbled, “I don't know. I just don't know.”

God knew she felt some pity for him—just as she felt pity for her worried, warring parents, and for her fragile grandparents.

But she remembered Emily's bruises.

She hadn't suspected a thing when her unpredictable twin had shown up in Chicago back in April. Emily had appeared on her doorstep, hair damp from the inevitable spring rain, muttering about the ruin of her expensive Italian shoes. Victoria had simply opened the door with resignation and canceled her own plans to make way for her sister's arrival. Michael had been wonderful, graciously staying away, relinquishing his spot in her life for those five days.

Emily hadn't ever offered an explanation for the unusual visit and Victoria hadn't asked. And then, that one morning when she'd needed her hairbrush, she'd simply walked into the bathroom without knocking. After all, they'd shared a room for eighteen years at home, shared a bathroom, shared their clothes. Privacy hadn't ever been an issue between them.

Em had been in the shower. She was still dripping, naked, reaching for the towel on the rack. The bruises on her slim thighs had shown like blackish bands on the pale, wet skin. Matching bruises marked her upper arms and there was a shadowy mark on the side of her neck. Victoria had stopped, horrified, as her sister had whipped the towel in front of her and furiously ordered her out of the room.

“Who?” Victoria had demanded, standing her ground with wooden legs. “Did Ron do that, Em? Does he hit you, Em?” A pool of dread had settled into her stomach and the suspicions exploded out of her mouth in outraged speech.

“No,” Em had denied.

“Leave him,” she'd said. “Leave him.”

“Shut up,” Emily had said. “It's not your business. Don't you dare say a word about my husband or my marriage!”

“One hell of a marriage,” Victoria had countered, “with him knocking you around. With a little luck maybe you and Ronald could end up hating each other as much as Mom and Dad.”

Em had left that day—packed up and walked out and not said good-bye with an air of half-ashamed, half-defiant outrage—never having explained why she came in the first place and leaving Victoria both puzzled and angry.

Maybe Ronald didn't deserve pity. He hulked at the table, gaunt and unshaven, with dabs of spittle at the corners of his mouth and his paint-stained fingers twitching convulsively on his glass. Victoria could smell the noxious excess of alcohol drift past with every exhale, mixing with a good dose of male sweat.

A bright patch of sunlight fell squarely on the floor at her feet and there was the dull sound of a fly somewhere droning at a window. The cigarette was nearly nothing now, the ember gnawing at the filter and the smoke slowly dying away.

“Have the police called again?” she asked determinedly, breaking the silence. If she'd come, she might as well ask what questions she could—hear his side of it out of fairness.

A shake of his head.

“And Gail? Any word from Emily at the office?”

His eyes closed. “No word.”

She slogged on. “She took nothing? Not her makeup or any clothes?”

“I've told the police everything.”

Not me
, she thought hollowly.
I don't know everything. And I need to understand this.

To her horror, Ronald laid his head on the table and began to sob.

* * * *

Emily's bedroom was silent, drifting in tones of cool greens and blues. Plantation shutters let in slivers of bright sunshine at the window. The huge bed was smoothly made and immaculate, proving that Ronald, at least, had not slept there in his wife's absence. A carved armoire sat against one wall, and an open doorway showed the gleam of the shining clean bathroom.

Stealthily, Victoria moved toward the closet. She wasn't quite cut out for breaking and entering, she decided guiltily as she eased open the louvered doors. Of course, she wasn't breaking exactly, just entering; just prying into her sister's private belongings. It was Ronald's fault, she hedged silently as she fingered a row of hanging dresses, for so conveniently passing out at the kitchen table.