Dark Waters (3 page)

Kenny Hickman turned the chair opposite Ethan’s and straddled it. “I came by your office, and Ambika said I’d find you here. I think she’s starting to like me; she only rolled her eyes at me once.”

“She’s actually very nice. She’s just protective.”

“Like a mama wolverine. So what’s been happening?”

Ethan had known Hickman long enough to trust his discretion. “Apparently I just won the contract for a new lakeside community center on the site of the old Parkside Mental Hospital.”

“ ‘Apparently’?”

“I didn’t even know it was on the drawing board, or that I was in the running for it. I’m still not sure it’s for real.”

“How long has that place been sitting empty anyway?”

“Years. They don’t even have flea markets in it anymore. I’ll have to check to see if an asbestos crew needs to clean it up first.”

“And who’s behind this pleasant surprise?”

“Garrett Bloom.”

“Wow,” Hickman deadpanned. “Did he let you feel the holes where the crucifixion nails went in?”

“What?”

“He’s got a savior complex. Or a martyr one.”

“You don’t believe somebody can just
care
about other people and want to help them?”

“No.”

“Well, I do. Besides, I’m just tearing down one building and putting another one in the same place. I don’t even think the zoning needs to change.”

“Just don’t sign anything without reading it,” Hickman said.

“I never do.”

Their discussion turned to sports, then inevitably to women. After Hickman left, Ethan got online again and read through the critics of Bloom’s methods. Yet they were overwhelmed by his seriously high-profile supporters, from Wisconsin’s most liberal senator to that great beacon of hope and justice, Angelina Jolie. And his projects had ushered in a new era of environmentally friendly building that truthfully had bedeviled Ethan ever since he started his own business.

He switched back to the
Lady of the Lakes
blog and read through the latest posts. Minor scandals, a reported series of burglaries, nothing he couldn’t also find in the newspaper or other legitimate sources. Had Madison simply calmed down in the last two months since the Korbus affair, or had the Lady’s thumb slipped from the isthmus’s pulse?

And then, unbidden as always, came thoughts of Rachel Matre. His body responded to her memory as it always did, and he had to uncross his legs to stay comfortable. His torrid encounter with her seemed as fresh and vivid as if it had happened last night, not two months ago. Her mouth, her breasts, the soft curls between her thighs, all filled his senses with desire and longing more intense than any he’d ever felt before. Worse still were the emotions they wrought—feelings that he could neither express nor endure.

And yet he’d promised to stay away. She needed time, she said, to recover from the awful things Arlin Korbus had put her through. And Ethan had agreed, because he imagined it would take weeks, not months. Now he had to face the very real possibility that she might never call, and he would never again be allowed to touch her.

And for some reason, that made his belly knot up with anxiety harder than even the worst firefight he’d experienced in Iraq.

CHAPTER THREE

F
OR THE FIRST
time since she’d been abducted and forcibly tattooed two months earlier, Rachel got through a whole breakfast shift without catching anyone staring at her.

When she first came back to the diner after being released from the hospital, the scrutiny had been startling. She knew there would be some interest: She’d been on television, in the papers, and on the Internet. It wasn’t every day a mere diner owner, let alone a female one, single-handedly killed the man who’d terrorized the city with his kidnapping spree. It made sense that people would want to look her over.

And look they did. The diner was packed for that first week, with people lined up outside the door, waiting for seats. The regulars, deprived of their usual positions at the counter or tables, simply stopped showing up. The very faces that would’ve comforted her most were replaced by strangers, most of them from the university, and all of them with the social skills prevalent in the Internet age. They stared and talked about her as if she couldn’t hear them, the way they would’ve if she’d been a video on YouTube.

This gave the diner a brief economic boom. Helena had hired a new waitress named Clara while Rachel recuperated in the hospital; the surge of business upon Rachel’s return forced them to bring in another, a tall, dark-skinned girl named Roya. Jimmy the cook dragged in a friend, a fellow recovering addict who rose to the challenge and kept the food coming. They found their rhythm quickly, and for a blissful fortnight the diner ran at the absolute limit of its capacity.

During that time the patrons treated Rachel like radioactive porcelain. No one wanted to “bother” her with requests for food or drink, or “trouble” her with the questions they were dying to have answered. Often they
did
ask them, of one another, while she was within hearing distance. Did she still have nightmares? Had she been raped? Was she post-traumatic?
Yes, no
, and
a little
were the answers, but she never got to utter them because no one questioned her directly. This meant the rest of the waitstaff had even more work, and eventually even they grew resentful of the whole china-doll approach.

Finally, Clara snapped.

“Look,” she announced to the full dining room, her apron covered with freshly spilled coffee. She and Rachel were on duty, but since no one wanted to bother Rachel, Clara covered the whole floor, both the counter and the tables. “I’m just one woman, with two hands and two legs. And one last nerve, which
all
of you are now on. If you want me to wait on every single one of you, I will, but it’ll take a while and I won’t be too damn happy about it. Rachel is
fine
. Just watch.”

She made an elaborate show of poking Rachel in the shoulder.

“See?” Clara continued. “She won’t break. She can pour coffee, and write down orders, and walk and talk at the same time. So how about some of you letting her wait on you, okay?
Okay?
”

It didn’t help Rachel’s sense of being conspicuous when the local community radio station, WART, began playing a tribute song by fellow kidnappee Patty Patilia. Patty certainly intended no harm, but the insanely catchy chorus rapidly became the bane of Rachel’s existence:

And on the date you’ll
See your Fate bring you Rachel
You’ll know just how late you’ll
Be to your own funeral …

She finally had to ask—beg, really—Patty not to perform the song. She even offered to buy the rights so she could refuse them to anyone else, forever. Patty said she understood, although Rachel saw the hurt in her eyes; it was intended as a tribute, after all. Patty certainly had talent, and even the lake spirits said one day her music might change the world. But surely not “Fate Brings You Rachel.”

But now, with the tattoo magically gone, the worst was over. She was close to being just plain old Rachel Matre again, head cook and bottle washer of Rachel’s diner. And that should have made her very happy indeed.

But she still couldn’t bring herself to call Ethan Walker.

THE MORNING AFTER
Rachel’s reunion with the lake spirits, Patty Patilia bounded into the diner, giggling like a little girl with a secret supply of candy. She propped her guitar case against the counter, sat on her favorite stool, and waved to Rachel and Helena. “Hi, ladies. Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

When Rachel arrived with water and silverware, Patty added, “And how are you this fine morning?”

Rachel smiled as she arranged the fork, spoon, and knife. At last, this was the Patty she’d first met after the concert at Father Thyme’s, bright and open and seeing only the good in the world. She smiled and said, “Not as good as you, apparently.”

“That’s because … well, I can’t tell you about it here. Can we go somewhere private?”

Rachel looked at Helena, who nodded. Rachel said, “Sure. Let’s step outside.”

Practically bouncing with eagerness, Patty followed Rachel out into the parking lot. They stood in the shade beneath one of the trees. “So what’s up?” Rachel asked.

Patty sighed. “Last night I met a boy.”

“Really?”

“Yes. He heard me playing my guitar and asked if we could jam. And we did.” She leaned close and whispered, “In every sense. It was amazing. And—” She stopped and blushed.

Rachel grinned.
Her need shall be answered
, they’d promised. “What?”

“Well, he saw my … tattoo. The one you and I both got. Did I ever tell you about why I turned it down when he first showed it to me?”

Rachel shook her head.

“It wasn’t that I hated the design. I didn’t. I simply couldn’t afford it, and I was too ashamed to say so. So I pretended not to like it.” She looked down at her shoe scuffing in the dirt.

Rachel reassuringly touched her shoulder.

“Anyway, Dewey saw it. And he said it was beautiful. That it suited me.”

“Did he know how you got it?”

“He didn’t mention it, but it made me think. And I’ve decided I’m going to keep it. And have it finished. That way, it won’t feel so much like a mark of violation anymore. It’ll feel … like
me
.”

“So when do I get to meet this Dewey?”

“Never, I’m afraid. It was his last night in town before he headed off to do charity work in Africa or something. I probably won’t ever see him again. But that’s okay, you know? Ever since the whole kidnapping thing, I’ve been … skittish. But he showed me that I didn’t have to be. Just because one man was a psychopath doesn’t mean they all are. Right?”

Rachel laughed and put her arm across Patty’s shoulders. “I’m very happy for you.”

“I’m happy for me too. Before, it was like I was inside Tupperware looking out. Now …” She giggled. “Somebody popped the lid.”

Rachel kissed the top of Patty’s head. She deserved to know.… Didn’t she? Maybe not the explicit truth about her miraculous one-night stand but definitely about the spirits that brought him to her. Rachel was their avatar, but they called Patty their
treasure
. If anyone should know about them, it was her.

And wouldn’t it be wonderful to finally have someone, a friend and a sister, to share this secret with?

She said to Patty, “Let’s take a walk, okay?”

Patty shrugged and smiled. “Sure.”

After alerting Helena and Clara, Rachel and Patty walked in silence down to Hudson Park. Rachel led her carefully around the effigy mound, not wanting to disrespect it, to the big gray rocks at the water’s edge. They sat.

After a long moment gazing out at the sun-sparkling waters of Lake Mendota, Patty said, “That’s weird.”

“What?”

“The smell. That watery pond smell. I didn’t notice it at the time, but that’s what Dewey smelled like.”

Rachel nodded and asked, “Do you know what lives in this lake, Patty?”

“Fish, I guess. Frogs, snakes. Those little lobster-looking things, what are they called—crayfish? Why?”

Rachel looked around to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard. It was a hot summer day, and the lakefront houses on the opposite shore shimmered slightly in the haze. In the distance, a Jet Ski bounced along the waves. Children played out of sight in a nearby backyard, and an old man in black socks mowed the grass around his flower beds.

“What would you say,” she began carefully, “if I told you there were also spirits living in the lake?”

Patty turned toward the mound behind them. “That’s what those effigies are meant to represent, isn’t it? Water spirits?”

Rachel nodded. “But I mean there are spirits in the lake
now
, as we speak. And they …” She trailed off, suddenly afraid, worried about how the words would sound. It was one thing to tell her lover in the dark, after sexual intimacy connected them, as she had done with Ethan Walker. To tell a girl who was to all intents and purposes still a stranger seemed impossibly daunting.

For twenty years Rachel had kept her relationship with the lake spirits a careful, deep secret. Now she’d told two strangers about it. Or at least that would be true if she went ahead with this conversation.

Twenty years
. Almost as long as Patty had been alive.

“And they what?” Patty prompted, all wide eyes and encouraging smiles, bringing Rachel back to the moment.

Rachel took a deep breath. “Let me tell this all the way through before you say anything or ask any questions, okay?”

“Okay.”

“There
are
spirits in the lake. They’re related to the effigy mounds, but I’m not sure how, and I’m not sure if they’re ghosts or have
ever
been human. When I was fourteen they saved me from drowning. They also became my first … lovers. I don’t know who they are, or how it works, but when I’m underwater with them I don’t need to breathe, and they treat me the way I want to be treated. As a woman, I mean. They connect with me … sexually.”

She paused. Patty’s expression hadn’t changed: She was still open, waiting, sincerely accepting.

Rachel plunged ahead. “The water that seeped into the basement where Korbus had us all tied up? It was lake water, and by doing what I did”—
I masturbated in front of three other women
, she thought, and felt herself blush—“I was able to contact the spirits, and they passed the message on to Ethan.”

“Ethan was the big man with the police when they broke in?”

Rachel nodded.

They sat without speaking for a long moment. The sounds of waves, wind, and traffic enveloped them. Rachel couldn’t look at the girl, and couldn’t believe she’d actually told her this story. Next she might as well post it to the
Lady of the Lakes
blog.

At last Patty said, “It does sound a little crazy, but I believe you.”

Rachel laughed. “Is that right? Why?”

“Because you used it to save my life.”

“A crazy woman could still be in the right place at the right time to be a hero.”

“But I already believe in spirits, and faeries, and an unseen world. I believe I have a muse, and she sings to me when I can quiet my mind. Spirits are not strangers to me, so I have no problem accepting yours as real.”

Rachel smiled at the girl’s sincerity. “And you’ll keep this to yourself? Not tell your friends, or my friends, or anyone?”

“Of course.” She made a sign of locking her lips and throwing away the key. “Magic is supposed to be secret, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Rachel agreed. “It is.”

She was about to reveal her request to the spirits on Patty’s behalf when the girl said, “Can I ask you something about them, though?”

“Sure.”

“Have you ever felt like they meant you harm?”

“No, never. Why?”

“In all my reading about nature spirits, they all harm people. They don’t always mean to, it’s just that their priorities are so different from ours.” She looked out at the lake, and then indicated the chemical foam that edged the shore. “We haven’t treated their home very well. They have every reason not to like us.”

“I’ve never felt any danger from them,” Rachel said with certainty.

“That’s good. I’d be too scared, I think, to let them do that to me.”

Not if it was the only way you could have an orgasm
, Rachel thought. She looked back at the water; where her eyes fell, the surface suddenly swirled, for an instant creating the illusion of a face gazing up from beneath. Then it was gone.

The moment must’ve been longer than she thought, because Patty said tentatively, “Is there anything else?”

Rachel smiled. “No, that’s all,” she said ironically. It wasn’t, of course. But no one else,
no
one, knew that diner owner Rachel Matre, who claimed she didn’t even own a computer, was secretly behind the gossipy and notorious
Lady of the Lakes
blog, where she passed on the secrets given to her by the lake spirits by hiding them among tidbits gleaned from conversations at the diner. And no one else ever
would
know.

As they walked back to the diner, Patty said, “I have some more good news. I have a gig this weekend. A
paying
one.”

“Congratulations. Where?”

“I’m part of an all-star lineup of people you’ve never heard of.” She giggled at her own joke.

“Is it time for the Atwood Street Festival again?”

“Nope, this is a one-off at Olbrich Park. Some kind of civic thing they want to be fun instead of boring. I’m right after the opening speaker, so I don’t have to stick around all day. You want to come with me?”

“I’ll have to check the schedule. Our weekends are pretty busy. But if it’s at Olbrich, it may draw off a lot of our traffic. But only if you promise not to play that song about me.”

Patty raised her hand and said, mock-seriously, “Musician’s honor.”

“Musicians have no honor,” Rachel teased.

“Okay, Girl Scout’s honor, then.”

Rachel was about to ask if Patty had ever really been a Girl Scout but caught herself. Of course she had. That insane optimism would’ve made her perfect for it. “Then sure, I’ll go. But I get a lifetime supply of free cookies if you’re yanking my chain. Thin Mints.”