A Deadly Cliche (33 page)

Settling herself in a ladder-back chair in front of the room’s other window, Olivia stared at her father. He looked the same as he had before she left to shower, but his breath sounded raspier. She listened to the harsh rattles emitting from between his lips for several minutes. Without taking her eyes off her father’s face, she began to talk.

Telling Kim, Betty, and Hudson about the Donalds gave Olivia a measure of closure. The narrative had a beginning and a middle and an ending in which justice prevailed.

When she was finished, her audience was kind enough not to pepper her with questions. The three of them sat quietly, absorbing the unbelievable tale, until Betty’s needles ceasing moving. “So what happened to their folks? What did their kids do as payback for making them go through childhood with twisted tongues?”

Abashed, Olivia realized she hadn’t given a second thought to Mr. and Mrs. Donald’s fate. She’d concentrated solely on reaching Okracoke and had left her friends, her business, and several unanswered questions behind.

“I don’t know, but this article is quite long. Perhaps it will tell us.” She unfolded the paper and found the story on the Cliché Killers quickly. When she was done reading it to herself, she returned her gaze to her father’s pallid face.

“The parents were injured, but are recovering in the hospital. The paper doesn’t give any more specifics other than to say that their injuries were inflicted by Ellen and Rutherford.” She handed the newspaper to Kim. “Are there any photographs of my father and his life in this room?”

Kim and Betty exchanged nervous glances.

“I’ve got a couple,” Hudson mumbled. “But he didn’t like for people to take pictures of him.”

That came as no surprise to Olivia. “What of Meg? What happened to her?”

Moving closer to her husband, Kim leaned against his thick arm. “She died of a brain aneurism,” she whispered. “It was very sudden.”

“What about children?” Olivia asked. “I’m assuming they had none.”

At that moment, Caitlyn entered the room. Her eyes fixed on the figure in the bed; she stepped across the floor on her tiptoes like a prima donna ballerina. Her movements were so quiet and unobtrusive that it was clear she was accustomed to avoiding attention, but it was impossible not to take note of her grace. Without looking at any of the adults, she knelt by the bed and took the sick man’s hand in her own.

Seeing the little girl’s tender affection ruptured something in Olivia’s heart. She could feel tears burning in her eyes and excused herself, murmuring something about having to take Haviland outside for a spell.

She headed for the water, but her customary source of solace failed to bring her peace. For the first time since she’d fled The Boot Top, she wondered how her friends were faring.

Brushing away her tears, she opened her purse and checked the messages on her cell phone. There were over a dozen. All of the Bayside Book Writers had called and she recognized both Flynn’s and Michel’s number as well. There were also several voice mails from local television and radio stations, but Olivia deleted these without bothering to listen to them.

Olivia was torn. She wanted to check on her friends but didn’t feel like talking about what she was going through in Okracoke. Paging through the names on her list of recent calls, she highlighted Millay’s number and dialed.

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” she said when Millay answered.

There was a pause. “You’re worried
about that?
What the hell, Olivia? You bolted without saying a word to anyone!”

So much for avoiding explanations,
Olivia thought. “I can’t go into that now, but I will tell you when I get back. I called to see if the case is really closed and when the media vultures might be moving on.”

“Tied up like a Christmas gift,” Millay assured her. “There’s an extra creep factor to the whole thing though. Did you hear about the parents?”

“Just that they were injured.”

Millay made a choking noise. “That’s PC code for ‘their tongues were cut out by their own children.’ Then they tied their parents to chairs and left them to bleed to death.”

Olivia drew in a sharp breath. “My God.”

“Exactly. A total horror show. If the chief hadn’t sent men over there when he did, those people would be dead. Laurel’s been to the hospital. She was the only member of the press the Donalds would see.” Millay spoke the latter phrase with pride. “A surgeon is going to try to reconstruct their tongues, but even if the surgery is a success, that couple is going to talk funny for the rest of their lives.” She hesitated. “We can mull over the irony of
that
little detail later. First, I want to e-mail you the photo Laurel took at the hospital. You will
not
believe what it shows.”

Olivia imagined Laurel using her new camera, fearful of being alone in the room with the wounded couple, yet determined to complete her assignment and pursue a career in journalism despite the many obstacles she faced.

“File’s been sent,” Millay said. After a hesitation, she asked, “Did you skip town because of that blood test?”

“Yes, but I did not test positive for a disease nor am I pregnant,” Olivia answered tersely. “I will tell you everything during our next meeting.”

Millay grunted in disbelief. “Just call Laurel. She was freaking out over having to see the Donalds without you.”

Smiling, Olivia promised to phone her friend. “Laurel needs to discover that she’s perfectly capable of doing this job without me or Steve or her in-laws giving her their blessing. Are you doing okay?”

“Yeah. Harris is dragging me to look at the house he wants to buy. He wants me there to see if my BS meter goes off while the Realtor gives him a tour. And before you lecture me on being careful with him, you don’t need to worry. He’s dating that bimbo we met at the Regatta.”

Olivia detected a note of jealously in Millay’s voice. “Let’s not forget that he built a giant gryphon boat in your honor. And he’s looking to you, not Estelle, to help him choose his first house. Just make sure to tell Harris not to sign any papers until I can have one of my contractors inspect every inch of that place.”

After giving her promise, Millay rang off.

It took a moment for Olivia to open the e-mail attachment on her phone, and when she saw Laurel’s photograph, her eyes widened. “I shouldn’t have jested about her winning the Pulitzer.”

Laurel had captured Mr. and Mrs. Donald lying in twin hospital beds. Their room held no flowers, no balloons, or any other tokens from well-wishers. The couple looked alike. Short, gray hair, lined faces, pale skin, and gauze bandages protruding from their mouths.

They stared at the camera with fierce conviction, their dark eyes daring the viewer to hold their gaze.

Olivia couldn’t look away.

Each of them held out a piece of white paper. On hers Mrs. Donald had written,
LOVE IS FORGIVENESS
in bold, block letters.

Mr. Donald’s was shorter. It simply read,
Forgive
.

The photograph was alive with the emotions of the injured parents. Despite their wounds, what radiated from the Donalds’ faces was not anger or regret, but a blend of sorrow and defiance. Despite everything that had happened, it was clear by their expressions that they would not be changed by what they’d gone through. No matter what their children had done, Mr. and Mrs. Donald would stand by their parenting decisions. In a sense, they were almost as creepy as Ellen and Rutherford.

It was a powerfully disconcerting image.

Olivia was grateful when Haviland brought her a tennis ball that he’d unearthed beneath a nearby bush. She put her phone in her pocket and tossed the ball away from the docks onto a stretch of grass.

Summer had bleached the color from most of the island’s vegetation, but the local shopkeepers had filled wooden boxes and ceramic planters with an abundance of fall annuals so that the subdued colors of the village were punctuated with bright gold and crimson hues.

Olivia had just thrown the ball for Haviland again when Caitlyn came running toward her. “He’s trying to talk!” she cried urgently.

The child didn’t need to say anything else. Olivia raced back into the house and up the stairs.

In the sick room, Hudson was leaning over the bed. Her father’s eyes were blinking rapidly and his mouth opened and closed like a fish on a boat deck. He twisted his head to the left and right, searching.

“Dad!” Olivia cried and grabbed his hand, heedless of the IV wires or the presence of the other people in the room.

Her voice seemed to puncture the film over his eyes and he found her face, seeing her clearly for the first time in thirty years.

“Livie.” It was a whisper, the faintest breath of air.

She’d never expected her name to pass over his lips again and to hear it spoken so softly, so unlike her memories of his constant angry shouting, that she smiled down on him.

His tongue poked from his mouth in an attempt to moisten his lips. Betty dribbled some water from a washcloth over the chapped skin. He shook his head, signaling for her to let him be. “Missed. You. Livie.” He swallowed, coughed weakly. Olivia wanted to send her breaths into his body, to give him this chance to say what needed to be said. He struggled, but managed to push out a few more words. “So many mistakes . . . I’m sorry, my girl.”

He sank deeper into the pillows. He’d given everything to tell her of his regret. There was nothing left.

Olivia wasn’t ready for him to go. There were things she wanted him to hear now. “You can’t leave yet!” she yelled, the sound reverberating too loudly in a room where death hovered, filling every space. “You can’t leave me alone again!”

There was a tremor from the hand she held. “Not. Alone.” He did not open his eyes. The words were barely audible. Olivia leaned in, smelling the rotten odor of his spent body. In one last whisper, an exhalation actually, Olivia’s father said the word, “Brother.”

And then he died.

Olivia thought something in the room would change, that she’d feel her father’s spirit as it left the confines of his body, but there wasn’t even a stirring of the air. All was silent except for a sniffle, which came from Kim.

The noise reminded Olivia of the presence of the other people in the room and she swiveled with agonizing slowness to look at Hudson.

How did I not see it before?
she thought, taking in the dark, unreadable eyes, the square jaw line, the handsome, rugged features. Hudson was bulkier than Willie Wade had been, but he had the Wade family’s height and the scattering of freckles across the nose and cheeks. There was no doubt he was Willie’s son.

And Olivia’s half brother.

Releasing her father’s hand, Olivia stood up and crossed the room. She drew close to Hudson, waiting for some feeling of instant affection to sweep over her, but there was already too much churning inside for her to connect with him at this moment. Shock, grief, disbelief, and a thousand questions crowded her mind.

Hudson’s eyes were moist with tears. He glanced at the form in the bed and then at Olivia and bit the edge of his lip.

This small movement gave him the appearance of a little boy, unsure of himself and his future, and Olivia recognized in him the same fears and struggles she’d known as a child.

They were connected after all.

She reached out and brushed the back of his hand with her fingertips before leaving the room, her father’s words reverberating in her mind.

Olivia spent an hour sitting on the dock, stroking Haviland’s black curls and watching the harbor traffic. A flock of Canadian geese flew overhead and she tracked their flight until their V was just a dark smudge on the horizon.

Later, once her father’s body had been collected by the funeral home, Olivia, Kim, and Hudson sat in the garden together. They drank coffee laced with spiced rum and went over the burial details. After that, Kim left the siblings in order to prepare to open the restaurant. Olivia didn’t see anything strange in the Salters working that night. She hated the thought of spending her night in idleness. She didn’t want to lay herself open to the full force of her grief.

Hudson asked her to stay for supper, his pleading eyes belying his gruff manner. She agreed and was surprised by Hudson’s skill in the kitchen.

“It must have been a big shock to you, to learn that you had a half sister,” she said as he poured oil into a frying pan.

His mouth curved into the ghost of a grin. “I’d have thought it was a joke coming from another man, but Dad wasn’t much for telling jokes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me when I first got here?”

He shrugged. “He wanted to be the one to do it. I almost told you when you first came in, but it seemed real important to him.”

Olivia nodded. She liked that Hudson could hold things close to his chest.

“Have you ever thought of living elsewhere?” she asked him after finishing a delicious dinner of grilled grouper and homemade hush puppies.

He nodded as he plated steamed muscles and handed them off to Kim. “All the time. I want my kids to have more than I had growing up here.”

Olivia watched Kim pass through the swing door, a heavy platter in each hand. “And your wife?”

“She doesn’t have it easy, but it’s all we’ve got.”

Olivia poured Hudson a shot of whiskey and handed him a glass. Raising her own she said, “Perhaps we can change that. Together. I’m turning an old warehouse into the Bayside Crab House. My problem is that I don’t have anyone to run the place. Do you think you’d be interested?”

Hudson stared at her and then he grinned. “Hell, yeah, I’d be interested.”

“Then let’s toast to our father with his favorite drink and after this shot, we don’t have to look back ever again. We can start over. All of us.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

“To the future,” Olivia said.