Dark Water (6 page)

“I needed you, Mother. You shouldn't have left me.” The lettering on the tombstone began to blur as Sarah drew a deep breath. “I'm not like you. I don't quit. I don't ever quit.”

Then she lifted her head and walked away.

“W
here did Moira Blake go?” Sarah asked as she slid into the seat.

Tony could tell that the last thing Sarah cared about was the whereabouts of Moira Blake. However, he was willing to adhere to the change of subject to allow her time to regain her composure.

“She went home, but she did invite us to dinner one night this week. I told her we'd let her know.”

Sarah leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes without commenting on the invitation.

She looked so vulnerable and so lost. He wanted to hold her but knew she would not welcome the familiarity.

“Where to next?” he asked.

“Into town, please.”

“To the sheriff's office?”

“Eventually,” Sarah said, and then looked at Tony. “Do you remember where I used to live?”

He nodded.

“Is it still there…the house, I mean?”

“Yes, but the last time I drove by, it wasn't in very good condition. In fact, I think it was empty and up for sale.”

“Even better,” Sarah muttered. “I want to go there next, please.”

He started to ask why, then changed his mind and put the car in gear. He would find out soon enough.

Sarah rode into Marmet without further conversation, unaware that her fingers had curled into fists. The only things of which she was cognizant were the irregular thump of her heart and the constant fear that she was going to throw up.

If anyone had asked her a month ago how she felt about Marmet, Maine, she would have sworn she had few, if any, memories. But from the moment she'd gotten off the plane in Portland, dread had been growing. Now it had all but consumed her, and it wasn't just because she'd learned her father had been murdered. She was remembering the way she and her mother had been ostracized.

She took a deep breath and unconsciously lifted her chin. If they tried anything like that again, they were in for a big surprise. She wasn't a little girl anymore, and, unlike her mother, she wasn't the kind of woman to quit. She was a fighter, and she wouldn't be denied the chance to redeem her family's name.

“We're here,” Tony said.

Sarah took a deep breath and turned her head. If he hadn't told her where they were, she wouldn't have recognized the house. The wide front porch she'd played on so often was gone. In its place was a small, wrought-iron stoop and a pair of rusting decorative lions. The concrete walk that led to the house was cracked and overgrown with weeds, and the big oak tree where her swing used to hang appeared to be dead.

“Are you sure this is it?” Sarah asked.

Tony pointed to the house number at the curb.

Sarah sighed. “Lord.”

“You don't have to do this.”

Sarah sat without moving, her gaze fixed on the house. Finally she sighed, as if in defeat.

“Yes. Yes, I do,” she said. She had started to open the door when Tony grabbed her hand.

“You don't have to do all this by yourself.”

The gentleness in his voice was almost her undoing.

“I know, and I appreciate all you're doing.”

“Why do I feel like there's a ‘but' in there?”

She managed a small smile. “I suppose because there is.”

“So you're telling me you don't want any company?”

“I'll be fine. Besides, it's still drizzling. All you'll do is get wetter than you already are.”

“And you won't?”

There was no need to comment on the obvious. Of course she was going to get wetter—and colder—but then, so had her father.

“I won't be long,” Sarah said, and got out of the car before she could change her mind and beg him to come with her. It was getting harder and harder to face her ghosts alone.

The ankle-high grass in the yard was dead and brown, compliments of an early frost over a month ago. The ground was wet and spongy. Sarah dodged a couple of holes, seeing them just in time to keep from falling, and guessed that a neighborhood dog must have had a field day here, burying bones. She wouldn't let herself look at the house again. It was too sad and too depressing to see what time had done to it.

But when Aunt Lorett had taken her away all those years ago, she'd left something behind. Something that had, at the time, been very important to a ten-year-old. From the way things looked, there was every reason to believe it would no longer be here, but she'd come this far. There was no harm in looking.

She circled the house, shivering slightly as the wind hit her square in the face. Between the cold and the rain, she was all but asking to get sick, but coming to Marmet without doing this was impossible. She'd been thinking of her secret place and the little treasure chest she'd left behind ever since she'd boarded the plane in New Orleans. In a few minutes her questions would be answered. Either it was here or it wasn't. Suddenly anxious to be gone from this place, she hastened her steps.

The backyard looked smaller than she remembered, but she supposed that was normal, because she was bigger. It happened that way, all things being relative. The back porch was still there, although a bit decrepit. She ran to the east side of the steps and knelt, running her fingers along the old brick foundation. From the bottom step, she counted ten bricks to her right and then two bricks up. Now that she was here, she stopped and rocked back on her heels.

What am I doing…crawling around in the mud and the rain like a madwoman? Lord…Sarah Jane…don't you have enough to worry about without searching for a childhood pot of gold?

She stared at the brick, telling herself that if it was gone, it wouldn't matter. But she knew, as she pushed her palm against the rough surface of the brick, that it
did
matter, more than she ever would have believed.

At first the brick didn't budge, and it occurred to her that someone could have reset it years ago. She pushed even harder. After this many years, it was bound to be somewhat stuck. Just while she was convincing herself it was hopeless, it suddenly gave.

She shot forward as her hand slipped through, taking no small amount of hide from the back of her arm when she fell. But the pain was soon forgotten as she began feeling around in the space behind, searching for the little bit of herself she'd left behind.

A couple of moments passed without any luck, and then suddenly she felt something small and solid and square. She leaned forward, resting her forehead against the side of the house, and tried not to cry.

“Thank you, Lord,” she said softly, and pulled out a small plastic box, the box that held the treasures of a childhood.

It seemed to be intact, although it was covered in a thick layer of dirt. She set it down in front of her and took a tissue from her coat pocket, wiping the blood off the back of her arm before swiping it across the box. As she did, a small streak of green was revealed. Her heart skipped a beat, and she began scrubbing at the lid with frantic motions.

With each swipe, more and more of the true color of the small plastic box began to show through. Finally she tossed the tissues aside and pulled on the lid. Like the bricks behind which it had been hidden, it stuck. But Sarah kept pulling, and suddenly it came off in her hands, revealing an old photo. The image of her father's face was smiling up at her from the picture. Breath caught in the back of her throat as a quick film of tears blurred her vision. At the same moment, she realized that the contents of the box were going to get wet. In a panic, she slammed the lid back in place and jumped to her feet. Without looking back, she began to run, clutching the box to her breasts as if it were a baby.

Tony looked up just in time to see her come running from behind the house. The expression on her face was somewhere between shock and panic. Thinking that she was being chased, he jumped out of the car and ran toward her.

“What's wrong?”

“I need to get inside,” she muttered, and bolted past him without further explanation.

He stood for a moment, half expecting to see someone behind her, but when no one appeared, he backtracked, following her to the car. He slid in behind the wheel, took one look at her wet hair and clothes, and then upped the heat a notch. He could see she was holding something in her lap, but it concerned him less than the blood running down the back of her hand.

“What the hell happened to your hand?”

Sarah jumped. The anger in his voice was startling. She looked down and shrugged.

“It's nothing. I just skinned my arm.”

“You're bleeding. I'm taking you to the doctor.”

“No,” Sarah muttered, refusing to meet his gaze. “Just take me home.”

“I thought you wanted to see the sheriff.”

“Not today. Not today,” she said softly, and curled her fingers around the small square box. “Just home.” She looked at him then, putting everything she had into one word. “Please.”

Tony cursed silently as he put the car in gear and spun away from the curb. Within minutes they were out of Marmet and speeding back toward the lake.

 

By the time they got to Tony's house, Sarah was shaking. When he pulled up beneath the carport and parked, it was all she could do to get out of the car on her own. Clutching the little green box against her chest, she let him lead her inside, then up the stairs to her room. The warmth of the house slowly seeped through her wet hair and clothing, leaving her in an even more weakened state. As they walked into her room, he turned to her.

“You need to get out of those wet clothes.”

“I will, as soon as I—”

He gripped her shoulders, his nostrils flaring with anger.

“Either you strip now, or I'll do it for you.”

There was a look in his eyes that Sarah had never seen before, a promise of something she didn't have the guts to pursue.

“I'll do it myself,” she said. “But not until you're gone.”

He nodded once, then headed for her bathroom.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Running a hot bath for you.”

“Oh. Thank you,” she added, but the sarcasm was lost on him.

She looked down at the box she was holding, then at the doorway through which he had disappeared. She heard water starting to flow and knew he was doing what he'd said he would do. She suspected he was capable of following through on the rest of his promises, too. The thought of his hands on her body, taking off her clothes piece by piece, made her weak in the knees. She stumbled to a chair and sat down with a plop, then set the little green box on the table beside her and began removing her shoes and coat. She was trying to unbuckle her belt when Tony came out of the bathroom, but her chilled fingers wouldn't cooperate.

“God, Sarah, I should have had my head examined for letting you out in this weather.”

“You're not my keeper. I make my own decisions and—”

“Then you needed to make some better ones than you did today,” he said shortly, then moved her hands from the belt buckle and undid it for her.

Before she could argue, he popped the top snap of her jeans and pulled her shirt out of the waistband.

“Can you handle it from here?”

She clutched at the collar of her shirt, as if afraid he was going to reach for it next.

“Yes, I'm fine.”

“Yeah, right,” he said, and walked out of the room.

He stomped downstairs, his hands doubled into fists. It wasn't until he reached the bottom that he began to question his anger. It made no sense to be angry with Sarah. She was going through a bad time. There wasn't a goddamned thing about this mess that could be considered positive. So what if she was reacting in negative ways.

He turned around and looked back up the stairs, imagining her stepping into the hot, steaming bath—picturing the water lapping at her knees, then her hips, then finally her breasts as she lowered herself into the heat. The picture in his mind was so vivid that a part of him wanted to go back just to see if his imagination was anywhere near correct. And as he stood there, it hit him why he'd been so angry with her. He'd come all this way to help her through this tragedy, but she wouldn't let him. She didn't trust him, and it hurt him in a way he would never have believed.

He turned away, his shoulders slumping in defeat as he headed for the kitchen to heat up some soup. It shouldn't matter whether she liked him or not. He owed the success he now enjoyed to Franklin Whitman. It shouldn't matter what his daughter thought of him.

A few minutes later he was emptying a couple of cans of soup into a pan when he finally admitted he was lying to himself. He'd reached the age of thirty-six without ever having had a serious emotional attachment. But he knew that Sarah Whitman could change all that. It mattered what she thought of him. He cared whether she trusted him or not. He wanted to help her, to know that she needed him, because he liked her. He admired her courage and her toughness. He liked the woman she'd become, but if that feeling was never returned, their relationship, such as it was, began and ended here. That was why he was angry. He didn't want it to be over.