Tumbledown (2 page)

“Oh, you only take her side because she spoils you rotten,” Alex retorted, a little embarrassed to be holding a conversation with a dog. She carefully set Flossie aside and went to make herself a drink.

*

Alex dipped a chunk of chocolate into her coffee, held it there long enough for it to leave a slight film on the surface of the liquid, and then pulled it out and sucked the melted mess into her mouth. It was a disgusting habit that had always appalled Sarah, but Alex figured it was Sarah’s fault for introducing her to Cadbury’s chocolate in the first place. There was only a third remaining of the bar she had just sneaked a piece from, and she made a mental note to e-mail Ash—one of Sarah’s closest friends—to ask her to send over a selection of candy in time for Sarah’s birthday. The thought prompted her to steal a glance at her watch. She told herself she was trying to work out what time it would be for Ash in the UK and absolutely, definitely not checking how long it had been since Sarah phoned with an update. The callout had been to a febrile child who had had a seizure. The mother was distraught, and Sarah was waiting with her until the ambulance arrived. Dispatch had given an ETA of fifty minutes, forty-two and a half minutes ago.

Alex cradled her mug, leaned her head back against the sofa, and stared at the ceiling fan as it slowly rotated. No one knew where she and Sarah were, she reminded herself, something she did so often it had become habitual. The problem was that she never really believed it, no matter how reassuring the updates they received from Mike Castillo, the FBI agent who had taken a personal interest in their well-being, speaking to them at least once a month throughout the two years since she had first met Sarah.

Despite her unease, she found herself smiling at the seeming normality of that phrase, as if they had met in a club, or through a mutual friend or a dull nine-to-five office job. In reality, she had found Sarah terrified and bleeding, hiding in a crevice beneath a rock in the North Cascades as two violent criminals hunted her down. She and Sarah had spent almost a week fighting to stay alive in the wilderness, and they had come out on the other side of that ordeal bruised, battered, and somewhat surprised to find themselves very much in love. For a short while, they had also been five hundred and eighty thousand dollars richer, thanks to money they had been awarded for assisting in the apprehension of an escaped convict and the large-scale disruption of the terrorist group with which he had been operating.

Alex lowered her head, tension giving her an unpleasant ache in the back of her neck. Before she and Sarah had left the hospital, Castillo had given them a warning, and his words always came back to torment her at moments like this: “This group did not go down lightly, and they did not all go down. Do you understand?”

Nicholas Deakin, the late founder of the Church of the Aryan Resistance, had had a tight-knit family and a devoted following. Alex and Sarah had been instrumental in causing his death and primarily responsible for the breakup of his organization. As their statements had also resulted in the incarceration of two of his most trusted lieutenants, Alex had no doubt that she and Sarah were right at the top of the Deakin family shit list.

The coffee had gone cold, but she gulped it regardless, to ease the dryness of her mouth. She knew that, logically, she should feel safer. They had moved to Avery, a tiny town situated deep within Aroostook County, Maine, just over a year ago. It was, as Sarah put it, as far away from the Cascades as they could get without falling off America altogether. Their small log cabin was nestled in thirty acres of forest that sloped gently down toward the shores of Avery Lake, and it took a lot of finding for anyone unfamiliar with the access road. After sticking a pin in a phone directory, they had both changed their surnames to Hayes, and they had repeatedly altered their hairstyles and hair colors. When in company, Sarah—having the more distinctive accent—took pains to temper it, making it less obviously northern English and more regionally indeterminate, and they were cagey about any personal details they gave to their new friends and colleagues. So far, at least, their precautions appeared to have worked; no one seemed the slightest bit aware of what had happened to them during that October storm.

Alex took her mug into the kitchen. The sky was lighter, with another hot day forecast. She flicked the kettle on and spooned coffee into her mug, making it stronger than usual and adding sugar for good measure. She knew she would need the caffeine; her shift started at seven a.m., and there was no way she was going back to sleep.

*

“Here you go, sweetie. You don’t like that, do you? I’m going to take it off now.” Sarah dialed the oxygen cylinder down and lifted the small mask away. Candice Ryman rocked her son gently, her eyes still wide with fear.

“It was so sudden,” she said tonelessly. “He was fine going to bed, but he woke me up crying and then he just…and with Grant at work…” She shook her head.

“I know. It must have been horrible for you.” Sarah leaned Grant Jr. forward and slipped his pajama top over his head. “Can we get him stripped down to his nappy—” She corrected herself immediately. “Sorry, diaper? It’ll help cool him down.”

Candice managed a weak smile at Sarah’s mistake and cooed at Grant Jr. as he began to move more purposefully. Her own demeanor relaxed as he slowly recovered, and she helped Sarah to undress him.

“I like your accent,” she said once he was settled again. “It’s quite unusual. You’re British, aren’t you?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Sarah said, relieved when Candice nodded vaguely and didn’t press for specifics.

“And you live with Officer Hayes now?”

“I do.” Although she answered casually, she felt anxiety of a different sort twisting like a knot in her stomach. Avery was a very small town, and she was never sure whether her relationship with Alex would prove to be an issue for its residents. The fact that Alex worked for the local police force and Sarah volunteered as an emergency medical responder certainly hadn’t hindered their acceptance into the community, but she was always wary of that initial awkward contact with strangers.

“Margot St. Clare said you were studying to be an EMT.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “And Margot St. Clare would know.”

Her comment broke the ice, and Candice gave a surprisingly girlish giggle. Margot St. Clare ran the post office and was a legendary distributor of gossip.

“She’s wicked, isn’t she?” Candice had lowered her voice as if her postictal son might somehow feed her opinion back to the woman in question. “I thought she was going to explode when she heard about you and Officer Hayes buying the old Gardner place, but I guess she underestimated most folks’ inclination to live and let live ’round here.”

Sarah nodded, catching hold of a chubby hand as Grant Jr. rediscovered his curiosity and reached out to her. “I think he’s feeling a bit brighter,” she said. She took the bottle of children’s Tylenol from the coffee table and measured out a dose. “Okay, young man. Come on. Down the hatch.”

It was a messy business, but the pink goop was eventually swallowed down and showed no sign of being returned with interest. Sarah accepted Candice’s offer of peppermint tea and found that she was able to relax slightly. She had only been a first responder for six months. This was the first febrile seizure she had attended, and although the seizure had stopped by the time she arrived, being confronted with a pale, unresponsive infant had been almost as frightening for her as it had undoubtedly been for his mother. The nearest ambulance was based in neighboring Ruby, a good fifty-minute journey away, and that was only if its crew wasn’t tied up on another call. Although there was always the option of LifeFlight, she knew from firsthand experience that the chopper needed to be reserved for the direst of emergencies.

“You said yes to honey, right?” Candice’s question cut into Sarah’s thoughts, and she murmured her confirmation. She would have paid quite a lot of money right then for a proper cup of English tea, the sort that was strong enough to stand the spoon up in, but she took the proffered mug and made space beside herself on the sofa. Candice lifted her son onto her knee and held up a bottle of juice from which he slurped noisily.

“Are you going to the potluck picnic on Saturday?” she asked, unconsciously stroking her son’s cheek.

“Um, I’m not sure. Alex mentioned it, but we hadn’t decided.”

The potluck picnic was an annual event held at the lake where Sarah had recently started up her own swimming classes. The lessons were already popular enough that she was able to meet her half of the household bills, something which her own sense of pride demanded, and which Alex knew better than to argue about. Sarah had inherited a considerable amount of money when her mother died, but it was tied up in investments back in England, and she and Alex had donated most of their FBI reward to the groups and individuals who had helped save their lives. They had kept just enough to fund a year of traveling and to buy their cabin. She knew that most people would think them stupid, but she didn’t care; she preferred to be able to sleep at night. If nothing else, going along to the picnic would be a good way to network for new students.

She looked up from staring at the thin green murk in her mug when she realized that Candice was still talking about the picnic. She took a sip of tea to cover for her silence.

“You should go,” Candice insisted. “Everyone’ll be there, and we have some real good cooks in this town. You could make something English and exotic.”

Sarah coughed a little on her mouthful; the terms “English” and “exotic” seemed mutually exclusive when applied to her national cuisine.

“I make a mean lamb hotpot and jam roly-poly,” she said, “but they’re winter comfort foods. We’re not exactly famed for our balmy summer climate.” She racked her brain but failed to think of anything remotely suited to hot weather. “Maybe I could do a curry and everyone could just drink plenty of cold beer with it. That combination is practically the national dish.”

“Sounds great, I love—” Candice held her hand up in apology as someone knocked on the door. “Excuse me.”

Sarah looked expectantly toward the hallway, where she could already hear a familiar voice raised in cheerful greeting. She smiled when Lyssa Mardell poked her head around the door.

“Hallo, hallo,” Lyssa said, blithely massacring an English accent. “What brings you out of bed at this ridiculous hour?”

Sarah indicated the toddler now dozing on the sofa cushions. She handed over as much information as she could to Lyssa and her partner and then stepped aside to watch the two paramedics assess Grant Jr.’s vitals.

“He’s still a little warm. Breathing and pulse are elevated,” Lyssa told Candice when she had finished. “Probably just a viral infection, but with him having the seizure, we’ll run him in to Cary.”

Somewhat forgotten in Candice’s rush to gather things for the trip to the hospital, Sarah stooped to pack her kit back into her response bag. Lyssa crouched beside her and offered her a fresh oxygen mask to replace the one she had used.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. You did a really great job here, Sarah.”

“I was shitting myself,” Sarah admitted quietly.

“Yeah, but”―Lyssa nodded toward Candice―“she didn’t suspect a thing, which is half the battle.” She patted Sarah on the shoulder. “You get those exam results yet?”

“No, not yet.”

“Same time on Friday for study club?”

“That’d be great, if it’s no trouble.”

They stood together and ushered Candice ahead of them.

“Bake me something chocolaty and it’s no trouble at all.” Lyssa grinned and opened the rear door of the ambulance. “You get back to bed, hon.”

Sarah watched the ambulance as it pulled away and slowly negotiated the uneven track that led out to the main road. Birds were just beginning to chirp in the branches overhead, and she could see the light changing over the distant hills, faint traces of orange eating into the blackness. A yawn caught her unawares. She hefted her bag onto her shoulder and pulled out her cell phone. Her call was answered on the second ring.

“Hey, sweetheart,” she said. “Everything’s fine. I’m coming home.”

The town of Avery comprised a main street, a tiny schoolhouse, an even tinier station house, and a neat white church that seemed unusually happy to accommodate disparate denominations. The shops and buildings lining Main Street were mostly constructed from local timber, their facades faded but neat, their signage swinging gently in the breeze. A floral competition with the two neighboring towns had seen the locals decorating every conceivable free space with brightly planted ceramic pots, and the warm summer days had made for a spectacular display.

A creek meandered alongside Main Street as it led down to the lake, neatly bisecting the town, so that people described themselves as living in either East Creek or West Creek. In winter, East played West at hockey; in summer there were rival softball and soccer teams. Agriculture was the main source of income for most families, while pretty much everyone else worked shifts at the lumber factory on the back road. By the time they hit their teens, the majority of the local kids were looking to leave, to move to Boston or New York or anywhere with a population numbering more than two thousand eight hundred and three. More often than not, though, they returned to Avery to settle and raise their own children, only appreciating what they’d had once they’d given it up.

Alex waved at Jo and Syd Bair as she drove toward the station house. Jo, heavily pregnant and already looking uncomfortably hot, waved back and then appeared to berate her husband for not paying attention. Through her rearview mirror, Alex saw him raise his hand in a belated greeting. She drove carefully, keeping well below the already cautious speed limit. Three times in the last two weeks, a moose had wandered casually across Main Street and caused minor traffic collisions, escaping on each occasion unscathed and ignorant of the chaos it had wrought. She harbored a sneaking suspicion that Chief Quinn was hatching a grand scheme to shoot it in time for Saturday’s potluck spectacular.