What the River Knows (23 page)

“Oh, sir, the dinner’s already paid for.” She nodded toward Rica’s empty chair. “By the lady.”

“Okay.” It was all he could say. When the woman moved on, he pulled a ten from his wallet, stuck it under his plate and managed to stand. Trying to avoid the stares of those around him, he followed Rica’s path out of the restaurant.

His gaze roamed the parking lot, hopeful he would find her waiting in her car, but two sweeps of the lot showed her gone. Pulling his keys from his pocket, he stumbled toward his pickup, stepping right into the path of an Envoy. The SUV rocked as the driver slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting Scott. He nodded at the driver and ambled on. If he couldn’t pull his act together, he’d make Rica a widow before they could get to court.

Without further mishap, he got to his pickup. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it on the passenger seat before he slid behind the wheel. He didn’t start the truck, but tugged at the tie until he got it loose enough to get out of it. Then he unbuttoned his collar and cuffs. He rolled up his sleeves and then placed his hands on the steering wheel. He leaned his head on the wheel between them. There, on the back row of Dominique’s parking lot, where he hoped to God no one could see him, he could no longer hold back the sobs that now shook him. He let the tears fall—had no power to stop them anyway—until he felt as dry as corn stalks in winter.

Finally, when there wasn’t enough moisture left in his eyes to let him blink, when his throat was so dry he couldn’t swallow, he sat up and stared out the windshield. If anyone saw him, he didn’t notice. Rubbing his hands over his face, he started the truck. He remembered putting it in gear, but when he pulled into his parking space at the apartment, he honestly could not recall what route he had taken to get there.

Like a robot, he shut off and locked his truck, then trudged up the stairs to their—his—apartment. He dropped the keys on the table by the door, then felt tears start again, from a well deeper than he imagined he could hold. He fell onto the couch and waited until the well ran dry again. Then he chugged a glass of water and changed into running shorts. Maybe the endorphins from runner’s euphoria would make him feel better—feel anything—again.

Chapter 50

Charlotte bent forward, wrapping her hands around her calves to hold the stretch.

“Nice ass.” The guy she thought of as “Blond Abs” offered the compliment as he jogged past her at the entrance to the trail that followed the drainage ditch to the park.

“Nice abs.” They had been passing each other on the trail for nearly a year now, usually with the same greeting. Smiling, she straightened then reached upward into a yoga sun salute. She bent again to touch her toes, aware of the admiring glances of the two men jogging north past her. No jogging for her; had to keep her breasts firm, didn’t want them bouncing. She wanted to protect her investment. After a couple of side stretches, she walked briskly south.

She used to walk the southern end that started near the trailer park where Devlyn had lived. In fact, hers and Devlyn’s paths first crossed on the trail, but they didn’t realize it until months later, just before she moved in with Devlyn. But no more, not since—since Delia’s death. Now she stayed on the north end of the path. It was closer to home and work, she would tell anyone who asked.

She picked up her pace and swung her two-pound hand weights with each stride. She felt the blood coursing through her veins.

“Hey, cutie.” She looked up to see a new guy she’d never seen before jogging toward her, almost even with her now. She swung her head around to watch him run past her. He had a nice ass. Great hair, too. He looked back at her and smiled, as he trotted on.

A couple of women she encountered often on the trail approached, power walking and swinging weights. “Howdy.”

She nodded to them. Right now, on the trail, life was good. No worries beyond keeping her stride smooth, her arms pumping. The people who regularly walked the trail formed a community of sorts, one where she was accepted. No one dug deep; they simply nodded and smiled. And by not walking the south end of the trail, she could avoid any sights that might trigger the memories that forced their way to the surface if she got too close to the spot where Delia’s body was found.

With the rhythm of her stride automatic, she allowed her mind to wander through memories, both near and distant.

High school had been torture for her. Only Mags—Delia—had accepted her just as she was, despite her awkwardness. The rest either shunned her out of fear or made fun of her, probably also from fear. For two years, she had leaned on Mags to protect her, to listen, to entertain. Other girls had sleepovers, but Charlotte was never allowed to stay. Still, she and Mags spent hours in Mags’ room or down by the stream, talking about the future they’d have once they escaped Homedale.

She remembered one hot September afternoon in their freshman year, after school, in Mags’ bedroom. Charlotte, dropping her shoes on the fluffy rug beside the bed, settled on the bed, her legs pulled up before her. “I just can’t take it anymore, Mags.” She dropped her head to her knees, and let the hot tears fall.

Maggie slipped onto the bed beside her and wrapped her arms around her. “Sure you can.” She hugged Charlotte, her ripening breasts pressed tight against Charlotte’s back. “If we stick together, watch each other’s backs, in three years we can blow this taco stand.”

Charlotte stopped crying and let herself absorb the love she felt in Maggie’s arms and voice. “Yeah, I know.” She sighed a ragged breath. “On to the university, where our brilliance will be appreciated.” She stroked Maggie’s hair. “Then after graduation, I’ll be a famous artist and you’ll be a Nobel prize-winning psychologist.”

“We will be!” The fervor of her belief in herself made Maggie radiate her passion. “I know they don’t understand us here—it’s like they want to keep us in a cage to protect us from them and them from us, but there’s a bigger world out there that isn’t so stifled.”

“But Mags, sometimes I feel like a moth trying to break out of its chrysalis, and if I don’t get free and have the chance to spread my wings, they’ll be forever stunted and deformed.”

“Not a moth, dear, a butterfly.” Maggie ran her hands up Charlotte’s back. “And you’ll fly free one day.”

Charlotte studied Maggie’s glowing face. Even behind the huge glasses, Maggie’s blue eyes sparkled like sapphires, her full lips moved in an impassioned speech. Charlotte didn’t hear the words, but the sound of that musical voice and the sight of those lips were enough to soothe her anguish and dry her tears until the next time.

But then, Charlotte had indeed escaped her cocoon and flown free, while Maggie lost her dream somewhere. Their meeting again had seemed to bring peace to both of them for a few precious weeks. And then—

A man approaching her from the south on the trail brought her out of the past. In this heat, he was running far too fast to keep up the pace for long. Sweat had soaked almost all of the gray T-shirt he wore, and dripped from his face. Damn fool was working up a heat stroke. Though he was cute enough that mouth-to-mouth would be fun if he needed it. Or stripping off his shirt to cool him down. At his pace, he was almost abreast of her before she took a good look at his face.

The cop. Handsy. Aylward, was that the name on the business card he gave her? She had thrown it away, lest Devlyn find it. The cop swept past her, not looking at her or anyone else he passed.

She stopped walking to watch him travel on. He looked like he was running from a ghost. If he collapsed on the trail, someone else would have to take care of him, no matter how good-looking he was. She couldn’t afford the questions.

She focused on the trail ahead of her. She had almost reached the spot where she turned around. She shivered despite the heat. Turning around now threatened her grasp on peace. Going forward would force her into memories she wanted to forget; going back to the trailhead might cross her path with Handsy and force her into questions she didn’t want to answer. Trembling, she stepped off the path to sit on a stone bench in the shade of a cedar tree. She pulled her legs up before her, dropped her head to her knees and let the tears come.

Chapter 51

Scott crept into the office six minutes past eight, an extra-large Sonic coffee in his hand. Bates raised his head from studying his computer. “You look like hell, Scott,” he boomed. “Happy Monday morning.”

The greeting reverberated inside Scott’s skull. “Happy fuckin’ Monday to you, too.” With his hearing impaired from years of shooting without ear protection, Bates couldn’t hear him.

“Huh?” Bates stood, coffee cup in hand.

“I said happy Monday to you, too.”

Bates took a sip of coffee, frowned, and dumped the contents of the cup in the peace lily. “I thought it was something like that.” He turned to the coffee pot behind him and poured another cup.

The phone on Scott’s desk rang. He grabbed the receiver before it could clang again, as much to silence it as to find out who was on the other end. “Aylward.”

“This is Debbie from Judge Morton’s office,” a brisk voice responded. “We have the subpoena you requested for records from Homedale High School.”

Thanks.” Scott sipped from the coffee. The caffeine began to soothe the pounding in his head. “I’ll be right down there.”

Bates looked up from his computer, eyebrows asking questions.

“Subpoena for Homedale High School came through.” He gathered his notebook from the desk. “I’m on my way to get it.”

“Want some company?”

That was the last thing Scott wanted, someone to make small talk on the hour drive to a town he once considered next door to hell. “No, thanks. Because I know the families around there, it won’t take me as long to go through the records as it would to explain what to look for.” Especially since he didn’t really know himself what he hoped to find.

Bates opened his mouth as if to ask a question. Then he pointed to his computer screen. “Well, I think I found one of the stolen plates on E-Bay, so I’ll just keep following up on that.” He glanced back at the screen. “Maybe by the time you finish up at Homedale, I’ll have enough for a warrant here.”

“Sounds good.” Scott hustled out of the office before Bates could ask further questions. He’d grab the paperwork, then check out a car and maybe be back before the chief could get bent out of shape.

Scott hadn’t realized until he and Rica hit the rough patch just how many songs on the radio were love songs. Or love gone wrong songs. He couldn’t handle how close so many of them came to his own life, didn’t want to let classical music soothe him enough to doze off while driving, and was not in a mood to listen to NPR or a preacher. So he punched off the radio and listened instead to the hum of the tires against the pavement. He had never noticed what different sounds they made depending on the type of pavement. Such information might be useful if he were ever kidnapped and blindfolded. “We drove 3.2 miles on aggregate surface, then 2.1 on concrete and 5.7 on new asphalt,” he could hear himself saying as the FBI questioned him. A smile tugged at his lips, the first one in days. Even “Saturday Night Live” had left him mirthless. What circumstance could possibly lead to him needing to identify a road surface by sound?

His mind turned instead to what he hoped to find in the school records. Forwarding addresses for Kyle Dane and the foster girls. He had a feeling all of them knew Margaret better than any of the other students or the teachers. Maybe he could find if any of the other students attended the same college as Margaret, in the same degree program. He could track down to see if any had lived in the same dorm or apartment. He glanced out the window at the fields sliding by. Most of the wheat stubble had been plowed under, and the milo was growing slowly in the drought.

He neared the river bridge, but did not stop, though he could see that the water was as low here as in the city. Rain had not come much this summer. Most of the state was caught in a drought cycle, had been for the past five years. Here, the mighty river trickled in narrow individual streams less than a foot deep in most places. Except for the occasional treacherous pool or the constantly shifting sand, it could be waded easily.

His phone vibrated. He grabbed it; it could be Rica, ready to change her mind. “Hello.”

“Scott, it’s Al.”

“Oh, hi, Al.” He hoped Al couldn’t read the disappointment in his voice.

“I was wondering if you had that subpoena yet.”

“Just got it this morning, Al. I’m on my way to Homedale to look at the records.” Al couldn’t accompany him to see them.

“Why don’t we meet for lunch at the Diner? I’ve turned up a little background that might mean more to you than it does to me.”

He hadn’t wanted to stay in Homedale that long. “Okay. I’ll call you if I get done with the records before lunchtime.”

“Deal.”

Scott slowed as he neared Homedale. It looked like the Brown farmstead had been abandoned. He studied the boarded up house. He and his brothers had spent many afternoons at that house playing with the boys and their sister, while his dad and Mr. Brown worked fields or repaired equipment together, and his mother and Mrs. Brown canned the bounty of their gardens. He wondered if the boys had sold the place or just rented out the fields.

And then he was in Homedale, driving down the main street that might as well be named Memory Lane. In fact, one of the streets in the “subdivision” carried that name. He reached for his coffee, but it was nearly gone and now cold. He drove to the west end of town to the Co-op Quick Shop. He needed a tea or something to drink to get through the records. He parked the patrol car and strolled from the bright sunlight into the cool interior of the convenience store. From the mechanic’s bay that shared a wall with the store, he heard the buzz of a torque wrench. The co-op had always done a brisk business in tires.

“Hello, Scott.” Ed McBeal leaned against the checkout counter with a donut in one hand and coffee in the other. He put down the coffee as Scott approached and thrust out his hand.

“Hey, Mac.” Scott took the hand.