Dark Waters (14 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY

A
RT WAVES OCCUPIED
a building not unlike the one that housed Rachel’s diner. It was a freestanding two-story brick structure with the business on the ground floor and what looked like living quarters above. Nestled among the tiny houses along Atwood Avenue, it looked more like a spooky fortune-teller’s grotto than anything. The windows were heavily curtained, and shelves between the fabric and the glass displayed odd, vaguely unsettling objets d’art.

Rachel stood indecisively on the sidewalk, debating whether or not to go through with this. The street was completely deserted; it wasn’t yet dark, but none of the houses—mostly old ones divided into student apartments—showed any signs of life. She’d brought an umbrella, since the weatherman predicted the occasional thunderstorm, but the sky was clear at the moment. The sunset cast a red glow over everything.

There was a Closed sign tucked in one corner of the front window. But she was expected, so she took a deep breath and tried the door. It opened.

Cool air hit her, and a little chime sounded somewhere in the back. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior. Finally she began to make out shelves and tables of elaborate pieces, as well as huge canvases covering the walls.

She yelped as light flooded the room. Track lighting carefully illuminated each painting, and the first thing that registered was an enormous oil canvas directly in front of her. Its colors were primarily blue, green, and black, with hints of yellow for texture. This limited palette made it hard to decipher, but she picked out a human form emerging from what appeared to be a whirlpool. The figure was clearly male.
Uncomfortably
male, Rachel noticed, and tried not to blush.

A voice behind her said, “Charismatic, isn’t he?”

Rachel again jumped in surprise. Betty McNally chuckled and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be dramatic.”

This almost made Rachel laugh. Betty wore a strapless sundress with little, if anything, beneath it. Around her neck was a choker with a drop in a shape that was familiar but that Rachel couldn’t quite place.

Betty stood with her hands on her hips. The pose was provocative yet at the same time defensive. She added, “That’s a self-portrait. If I were a man.”

Rachel’s eyebrows rose. “Interesting.”

Betty gestured to herself. “I’m quite voluptuous as a woman. If I were a man, how would the same level of masculinity manifest?”

“That’s one way,” Rachel agreed, increasingly questioning her decision to come here.

Betty moved closer, invading Rachel’s personal space. The air between them seemed to quiver. “So you came,” she said firmly. “You want to know what
I
know about … 
them
.”

“I’m curious as to what you meant, yes.”

Betty smiled. “I’ll be blunt, then. I meant that I know about the spirits that live in the lakes, who fuck you when you swim with them and keep you tied to them with sexual bondage.”

“I’m not tied to anything,” Rachel said, and took a step back.

Betty smiled knowingly. “How many human men have made you come, eh? You don’t have to hide the truth from me.”

Rachel glanced at the door, wondering if she could get to it and escape before Betty did … what? Besides, Rachel was here to find out what Betty knew, and playing dumb would just prolong things. She chewed her lip thoughtfully, then said, “Okay, yeah.”

“I’m right?”

“Yeah. You’re right. They …”

“Own you?”

“I prefer to think we have an arrangement.”

Betty nodded, then went behind the counter and produced a bottle. She poured red wine into two waiting glasses. “Then that makes us sisters.”

“How so?” Rachel said.

Betty laughed and handed her a glass. “I’ve been taken by the spirits too. Do you recognize this?” She held out the necklace that had looked so familiar.

Rachel leaned close, then caught herself staring not at the drop but at the woman’s neck. There was an odd tension between them. It wasn’t
sexual
, the way women occasionally hit on Rachel when she was out with Helena. But it spoke of skin, and sweat, and things done urgently in the dark. And it gave Rachel a serious case of the creeps. “No,” she said at last. “I don’t recognize it.”

“It’s one of the lakes,” Betty said.

Wingra
, Rachel suddenly realized. It was the outline of tiny Lake Wingra, the smallest of the three lakes inside the city limits. A lake that she avoided, that always gave her the willies, and that seemed to carry an evil reputation. “You swam in Lake Wingra, then?”

Betty laughed. “ ‘Swam’? No, honey, I took off my clothes and let the spirits in the lake wring me out, just like you do. I fought and struggled and screamed, and they just wouldn’t stop. Each time I swore I’d never go back, but when it’s the only way you can have an orgasm, ‘never’ doesn’t last too long.”

“It’s different for me,” Rachel said, recalling the gentle caresses, the supple manipulations, and above all, the kindness shown even during the wildest moments.

Betty shrugged. “I’m sure it is. But my spirits haven’t touched me in years. And do you know why?”

Rachel shook her head.

“Because of
him
. That man who came from the lake that day in the park. He came to me as well, many years ago. He looked exactly the same too. He seduced me, then left me alone. After that, my spirits wouldn’t have me.”

Something nagged at Rachel’s memory. In her vision, the Lo-Stahzi medicine woman had claimed that Kyle Stillwater was possessed by a Wingra spirit. Yet that couldn’t be right if Betty was telling the truth.…

Betty’s voice grew distant as she continued. “I’ve thought about it over the years, and I don’t think it was because I made love to him. I think it was because I
wanted
him in the first place. The lake spirits are jealous.”

Rachel could barely breathe. “But … what does that have to do with me?”

Betty stepped close, and again there was that weird moment of connection. “He’ll come to you, Rachel. He’ll say what you want to hear, and you’ll respond. But you
can’t give in
. You can’t
want
him. The moment you do, your spirits will no longer want
you
.”

Rachel couldn’t breathe. “That’s crazy.”

Betty shrugged. “So is having lake spirits as your lover. But we both know that happens.”

Rachel licked her lips. “If … If I do … give in to him … how can I fix it?”

Betty looked at her. “You can’t. I’ve already tried everything. I’ve begged, pleaded, made sacrifices, and cast spells. I’ve tried to reclaim my sexuality. Men, women, singles, groups, devices … I tried them all. Each time I got close, the feeling just … stayed. Hovering there, just out of reach. I even spent time in a mental hospital, for God’s sake. They diagnosed me as ‘sexually maladjusted, likely due to childhood trauma.’ They thought I’d been molested and blocked it out—the whole ‘repressed memory’ thing.”

Rachel turned away but found herself facing the huge painting of Betty McNally as a man. Her knees wobbled, and she had to lean on the wall.

“I’ve come to believe only one thing can end my torment, and the torment of anyone else unfortunate enough to fall victim to the same thing,” Betty continued.

“What?” Rachel said, eyes closed, trying not to pass out.

“We must summon Kyle Stillwater on our own terms. And make him do our bidding.”

MARTY WALKER HAD
parked on the street outside the police building instead of in the garage. He was tired, and his head hurt. He did not relish the arrest he’d have to make tomorrow, but the district attorney insisted the voice mail was an indictable threat. Marty’s instincts told him differently, but those carried no weight with the D.A. He was about to open his car door when a voice said, “Fancy running into you here.”

He turned to confront the speaker and stopped dead. Amy Vannoy, in a tight black dress cut low in front and high on her thigh, stood with a cardboard box under one bare arm. Her black hair was done up formally, and she wore restrained but perfect makeup.

“I’m speechless,” he said honestly.

She held out the box. “I have something here I want to show you. I called ahead and asked the desk sergeant if you were around. Looks like I got here just in time.”

“Did you dress up to come see me?”

She laughed. “No, I was at a faculty dinner when I had a brainstorm. I slipped out between speeches.”

Marty took the box, and they went back into the station. The desk sergeant stared as Amy passed, and she rewarded him with a wink as the elevator doors closed.

At Marty’s desk, Amy opened the box and pulled out a small clay bowl. Clearly of Native American design, it was missing a large section of its lip. “We had this in the museum on campus.”

“What is it?”

“A Karlamik bowl. Probably four hundred years old.”

“Should you be toting it around?”

“I’m being careful. But I want to show you something. Like I said, I was at this faculty function in the museum and saw this on display. It made me think of the fragments from the construction site. I still had them in my Jeep.” She held up a plastic bag. “I suspected from the moment I saw these that they were the same type of pottery. But there’s something more to it.”

She took out an irregular fragment and matched it to the missing part of the pot. The edges fit perfectly.

“It’s not just from the same culture, it’s from the exact same pot. Now that’s either a coincidence or a clue.”

Marty frowned. “I’ll say. What does it mean?”

“I did some checking on this pot’s provenance. Everything that’s tied to a Native American tribe nowadays is scrutinized very carefully, to make sure it wasn’t stolen. This wasn’t; it was donated.”

“By whom?”

“A Mr. James Red Bird of the Karlamik tribe.”

Marty’s eyes widened. “Aha.”

“You know him?”

“His name has come up.”

She carefully returned the pot to the box. “Then I helped?”

“Definitely. Thank you.”

She picked up the box, but he put his hand on it. “I’m afraid this now counts as evidence.”

She looked appalled. “But I can’t leave this here. I’m not even supposed to
have
it. I could lose my job.”

“And a murderer might go free if I lose this.”

“Oh, come on, detective, seriously. It’s in a locked case at the museum, and only a few people have a key.”

“That’s a few too many.” But when he saw how distraught she was, he smiled. “All right, I’ll tell you what. Is your party still going on?”

She checked her watch. “Probably.”

“Then let’s you and I go back to the museum now, and I’ll pretend to make a brilliant deduction. That way you’re off the hook, I have my evidence, and the bad guys don’t get away.”

She looked so relieved he almost laughed. “
Thank
you, officer.”

“Please, call me Marty.”

“Thank you, Marty.”

IT WAS FULLY
dark by the time Rachel returned home. The wind brought distant rumbles of thunder as a storm approached from the west. She numbly let herself into the closed diner, ascended the stairs to her apartment, and then locked the door behind her. She leaned back against it, and only then did she begin to shake. Her breathing accelerated, and she found herself on the verge of hyperventilating.

At last she regained control and went into the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of wine, drank it quickly, then topped off her glass and drank even more. By the time her face began to tingle from the alcohol, she saw that her fingers no longer trembled.

Ethan. I have to suck it up and call Ethan. He’s the only one who’ll understand
.

She went to her cellphone and opened it. She had told Ethan she would contact him when she’d worked through the trauma of her abduction, when she could see him without also seeing the sweaty, scowling face of Arlin Korbus. She hadn’t done that. It was time to grow up and face her fears.

She found his number in her missed-calls list. He’d tried to reach her in the middle of the night, just as she was falling under Kyle Stillwater’s spell. Cosmic coincidence, or her spirits trying to keep her from making a horrible mistake? And why hadn’t she called him back,
really
? What in the sonofabitching goddamned hell
was
she afraid of?

She hit the dial button. It felt like calling the first boy she ever had a crush on. The line rang several times. Then his voice said, “Hi, you’ve reached Ethan Walker of Walker Construction. I can’t take your call right now.…”

She closed her phone. She understood now why he hadn’t left a message. What kind of message could either of them possibly leave?

She drank some more wine. First things first. There was only one way to know the truth of Betty McNally’s warning. And it was too early in the evening for that yet.

Big raindrops splattered against the window.

“YOU AGAIN,” A
female voice said.

Ethan looked up from the weight bench, where he lay on his back with seventy-five pounds across his chest. A smiling redhead with freckles on every inch of exposed skin looked down at him.

“Cindy,” he said, instantly recalling her name.

“Very good,” she replied.

He pushed the bar up and away from his chest, trying to make it look easy despite the protest in his shoulder. He was used to heavier weights, but the change in the weather had made his weakened shoulder ache, and he’d learned the hard way to give it a break at times like this. “Did you have another late meeting?” he asked as he sat up.

She tossed him one of the small white towels the gym provided. “Actually, yes. And it was about to start raining, so I knew that if I didn’t work out now, I’d talk myself out of it.”

He wiped his face and neck. He’d first met Cindy just before the whole Rachel Matre experience, and while she was definitely a stunner as well as being quick-witted, he’d brushed her off as politely as possible. Now, though, he’d accepted that Rachel would never call.