Whispers (15 page)

He remembered my name, though my mother had only said it once. For a moment this distracted me. He’d remembered my name. But I remembered why I wanted him dead.

“
You murderer! They were good people,” I shouted. “You killed them. You killed them as they ran.” I was shrieking, but I couldn’t stop. I screamed at him again and again. “Murderer.”

He wrestled the knife from my hand, easily twisting it out of my grip as I cried out with rage. He sat astraddle my pinned body, looking at the long wicked blade I’d nearly skewered him with. His expression crossed between disbelief and anger. I waited for him to bury it to the hilt in my heart—I welcomed it. He looked at me, those muddy eyes cold, and then he backed off and stood. I flipped over and took off running. I heard him curse again, and the others scream in surprise. I hiked up my skirt and ran for all I was worth. I didn’t know if he was following me or not until he tackled me, sending me sprawling on the ground, my mouth full of leaves and dirt.

He roughly turned me, lying on me to keep me pinned to the ground. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he shouted at me, his face inches from mine. He was hurting me.

“
My parents,” I shouted back. “My brother. My grandmother. Why? They were leaving. They were leaving.”

I was sobbing, hysterical with fear and anger and hurt.

“
Go ahead and do it,” I told him. “Spill my blood like you did theirs.”

“
Who are they? Your parents? Who were they?”

The correction caught and silenced me. “My father was Conrad Beck.”

Sawyer knew the name. I saw it in his face. I waited for him to deny it, though, expecting only lies from the likes of him.

“
I don’t ride with Smith anymore. Not for almost a year.” He stood up and reached down to offer me a hand. “I didn’t kill your family.”

I didn’t believe him. I’d heard Lonnie sit on the witness stand and swear he hadn’t touched Louise Franklin, even though more than five witnesses saw him rape her before he’d murdered her. I hadn’t believed him either. Just because I didn’t see him do it, didn’t make him innocent.

I didn’t take Sawyer’s hand. I stayed where I was, glaring my hate. He stared back at me for a moment and then daringly turned his back and walked away. He had my knife, but my rage was far from gone.

“
Get the hell out of here,” he said over his shoulder.

That stopped me. I looked around at the same desolate nowhere I’d journeyed through for days without seeing another sign of life. I didn’t know where I was now any more than I had last night when I’d stumbled over the women. Where would I go? What were the odds of me finding another camp, another living soul who would help me? My father had taught me enough about gambling to know they weren’t good.

Sawyer didn’t wait to see what I would do. He showed me his back, which I thought both brave and foolhardy considering I still wanted to kill him. When he reached the camp, the women fussed around him, tending to his wounded arm and bringing him food.

I put my face in my scraped and bloody hands, wanting to sob until all the pain inside had come out. But what good would that do me? I wouldn’t stay out here like a hungry dog waiting for scraps. I wouldn’t let him see that he’d broken me. Wincing, I pushed to my feet. My knees were as skinned and torn as my hands and my ribs felt bruised and battered. But my anger fueled my steps. I followed the stream that I’d found last night with a determination rooted deep in my desperation.

The long steps between afternoon and twilight gave me too much time to think. Sawyer’s words played through my mind, keeping time with my progress. He said he hadn’t ridden with the Smiths for over a year. Was it true? I hadn’t actually seen him among the riders who had killed my family. Nor were the murderers with him now. And the women ... they’d been genuine in their surprise when I’d asked about the Smith brothers.

Sawyer had ridden with them once, though. And if not a murderer, it at least made him a thief. An outlaw, all the same.

The tears I’d refused earlier would be denied no longer. They burned my eyes and slid down my cheeks but they did not slow my steps. I didn’t know what I would do now, but somehow quitting would mean that I’d failed my family even worse than when I’d let them die. My mother had always said I possessed an inner strength that would keep me going when times were hard. I hadn’t believed her, but now I felt her whisper to my heart, “You can do it, Ella.”

The words of encouragement didn’t slow my tears, but my steps became more certain. Maybe I
could
survive this. But all around me only open terrain and encroaching darkness waited. I was scared. I couldn’t pretend otherwise.

I let myself cry as I followed the widening stream to nowhere. Huge, quaking sobs shook my shoulders and made me stumble. I howled with grief and moaned with heartache as I plowed determinedly forward. I cried so loudly that at first I didn’t even hear the hoof beats of the approaching horse. It was not until the animal came to a stop abreast of me that I noticed it. Although it was full night now and only the black silhouette showed, I knew who the rider was. Sawyer McCready. Captain McCready.

I slowed to a stop, staring at the powerful man and horse. My face was wet with tears, my shoulders still shaking with my anguish. But I managed to hold my head up and glare at him.

“
I hope you brought my gun and knife since you’ve sent me out here to fend for myself,” I said.

His mouth dropped open with shock. The reaction brought me a flush of satisfaction. Then he said,
“
You
attacked
me
.
”

“
I was just protecting myself.”

“
Yeah? So was I.”

I heard him click his tongue and the horse came closer. He stopped beside me and looked down.

“
You’re going to get yourself killed out here,” he said, his voice dark as whiskey.

“
Why should you care?”

In the silence that followed, I bit my tongue. He was right—I
was
going to get myself killed. If a bear or mountain lion didn’t decide to make a snack of me, then perhaps Indians or even the Smith brothers would see me dead. But I’d go down fighting, as my daddy used to say.

“
I didn’t murder your family, Ella, and I’ll be damned if I’ll have you out here dead weighing on me. I’ll take you back to camp. Tomorrow we’ll be moving on and when we get to a town, you can find your way home from there.”

My nose was running and I had no handkerchief. Feeling foolish, I lifted my skirt and wiped it. I thought I saw a flash of a smile, but it was gone so fast, I might have imagined it.

“
Why would you help me?”

He looked down, shook his head, then met my eyes again. “Because I’m a damn fool. Because I know what Lonnie and Jake are and you shouldn’t never have had to see it.”

The truth of his words made me want to start crying fresh tears, but I bit my lip and nodded.

“
You got nothin’ to fear from me,” he said. “But I ain’t going to sit out here all night trying to talk sense into you.”

That made me want to snarl back, but for once I managed to hold my tongue. I looked around at the clustered darkness, the black woods in the distance, the deep valleys between the foothills. Swallowing, I looked back to his shadowed face, wishing I could read him. Wishing I knew what to do. How could I trust this man? How could I not?

“
Come on, Ella. It’s late.”

He kicked his foot free of the stirrup and reached down a hand. With a deep breath, I took it.

Chapter Fourteen

THE storm rose up like an angry beast and consumed Diablo Springs. At least that’s how it felt, driving through the flooded streets to her grandmother’s house. Or perhaps the storm was inside Gracie, swamping her hopes and dreams for her daughter, dredging the past from the valleys of her mind, and floating it to the surface.

In the backseat, squished in with the dogs, Analise huddled against the door, and Brendan, looking confused and somehow innocent, sat directly behind Gracie. She wondered at Analise’s distance from Brendan. Had the dogs forced her away, or was there trouble in paradise?

She met Brendan’s eyes in the rearview mirror, but they revealed nothing of what was going on in his mind. She wanted to hate him, to throw him out of the car, to call him names. But like the storm, her anger simply roiled and ebbed in torrents, bogging her down with indecision and frustration. By the time she reached the house, her nerves were stretched beyond endurance.

They raced through the onslaught of wind and rain to the shelter of the porch. There, they found Reilly sitting quietly, a notebook opened to a blank page on the bench beside him. He looked from one drawn face to another, but didn’t ask any questions.

“
Go gather your stuff,” Gracie told Analise. “We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.” To Brendan she said, “You can wait out here.”

Brendan nodded and sat down opposite Reilly.

The house was extremely quiet when she entered, no far-off rustling sounds. No voices coming from the other room. The stillness was both complete and unnerving. Where was everyone?

She followed Analise up the stairs, stepping into the arctic cold of Grandma Beck’s room with more reluctance than she could control. She couldn’t wait to get out of here. Unresolved or not, she wanted to leave Grandma Beck and her godforsaken home behind.

She was glad now that she’d been too tired to unpack last night. It took her only a few moments to gather her things and zip up her bag. Juliet kept watching the same corner she’d guarded last night, but today there were no warning growls to add to Gracie’s anxiety. As Gracie turned to pull her bag off the bed, Analise stepped into the room.

They stared at each other in a pained silence. Gracie didn’t know whether to shake her or wrap her arms around her daughter. It hurt to think of her pregnant. She hadn’t even realized Analise was having sex, though they’d talked about it a hundred times or more. She’d always told Analise that if she reached that point, no questions asked, Gracie would get her on birth control. Analise had dutifully nodded and mouthed words that Gracie had wanted to hear. Not even thinking about it, Mom. Saving myself for marriage. I promise I’ll tell you.

Lies. All of it lies. How many other lies had she told? How many other nights had she not been with a girlfriend? Rage welled up inside Gracie. If Brendan had been foolish enough to follow them up, she would have slapped him. How dare he ruin Analise’s life this way? She’d been an honor student, scholarship bound. Now she was a teenage statistic.

“
Mom,” Analise said, her voice breaking. She looked at the floor and then back up. Her round wet eyes could have been staring out of the face she’d had at two, when she’d skinned her knees or gotten a splinter. She was a baby herself—how could she be approaching motherhood?

“
I’m sorry, Mommy,” Analise said.

Gracie’s bottom lip began to tremble as she stared at the dejected form her daughter made.

“
I know.”

Gracie opened her arms and Analise stepped into them. Her hot tears slid down her cheeks to mingle with Gracie’s as she rocked her back and forth.

“
When we get home, ” Gracie said, pulling back. “We’ll talk about it. You have options, Ana.”

Analise nodded, but what she said was, “Brendan and I have already worked everything out. We’re going to get married.”

Married?
Gracie pulled in some air as dots swam behind her eyes.
Married?
“Analise, you know I think Brendan is a nice boy. But you’re too young to get married.”

“
I’m too young to have a baby too, Mom. But I’m doing it anyway.”

She said it with a finality that let Gracie know adulthood was perhaps not so far away. Still, she’d chain herself to the chapel door before she’d let Analise sashay through it in a wedding dress at
sixteen.
The baby she couldn’t change, but if it took the last breath in her body, she wouldn’t let Analise compound it with an even bigger mistake.

“
We’ll talk about it when we get home. Okay?”

Analise nodded, but the determination in her eyes didn’t waver. Gracie’s footsteps felt heavy as, bags in hand, she led them back down the stairs and onto the porch.

“
You’re leaving,” Reilly said when they came out.

“
Yes. As soon as I stop at the mortuary.”

Like Dr. Graebel’s clinic, the Diablo Springs mortuary was actually little more than a converted section of the undertaker’s home. She’d tried calling, but got a strange ring that made her think his phone line was down.

“
You’re going to Digger Young’s?” Reilly asked, frowning.

She nodded once.

“
You’re taking them?” he asked, looking at Brendan and Analise.

“
Yes.”

“
You sure you want to do that?”

“
For God’s sake, Reilly, no, of course I don’t want to. But he’s got Grandma Beck’s body and I want things settled. I want to go home.”