Her Mother's Shadow (32 page)

N
ever, never cut glass when you're upset.

Tom had told her that a dozen times and yet Lacey needed to lose herself in something, and working on a stained glass project had always been her release. But she was making a shambles of things in the sunroom. She cut pieces too big or too small. She cracked one of the most expensive pieces of glass she owned, and got a sliver of glass caught in her forearm where she rested it on the table.

She'd hoped that the work might drive the previous night's incident at Rick's cottage from her mind, but that did not seem possible. When she'd arrived home the night before, she'd found Gina, Clay and Bobby in the living room, watching a movie on the VCR, and for once she was glad that Mackenzie preferred the company of her computer to that of the adults in the house, because she'd needed to fall apart and didn't want to do it in front of her.

She'd been calmer than she'd expected to be, sitting on the sofa as she simply told them the facts, trying not to embellish them with her emotions. Clay, though, was livid.

“He hung around this house like he thought he belonged here, manipulating all of us,” he'd said. He was on his feet, pacing, the way their father did when he was upset over something. “Give me the directions to his cottage, Lacey,” he said. “I'm going over there.”

It took both her and Gina to calm him down. “He's with his mother right now,” Lacey said. “It's not the time.”

“Did he sleep with you?” Clay asked with such righteous fury that she loved him for it. Especially since he'd asked if Rick had slept with her rather than the question that would be, to her ears, at least, more accusatory: “Did you sleep with him?” She assured him that she had not. She didn't bother to tell them that he was gay.

Bobby said very little while she spoke, and she avoided his eyes as much as she could, afraid that something in her face might give away their altered relationship to Gina and Clay.

Later, when she was alone in the kitchen pouring herself a glass of lemonade, Bobby came into the room and put his arms around her. She waited for him to mock her, however gently. After all, she'd told him that she was afraid of him, but not of Rick. That she thought Rick would be good for her. Bobby would be perfectly justified in taunting her with her words. But he said nothing of the sort.

“I'm sorry” was all he said, before squeezing her shoulders and leaving the room, and she had the feeling that he meant it from his soul.

She stopped in Mackenzie's room on her way to bed to tell her good-night, then climbed into her own bed with her notepad. She'd planned to pour her fury into the victim's impact statement, only to find that the words still eluded her. If she couldn't write the statement when she had her anger to propel her, she was never going to be able to write it. She
gave up after ten minutes, then tried to sleep, but the evening at Rick's played over and over in her mind. Finally, she got up and knocked on Bobby's door. He was still awake, and when he opened his door his expression was one of frank curiosity at finding her there.

“I was wondering if you had anything to help me sleep?” she asked, speaking quickly to prevent him from thinking she might be there for something more.

He shook his head. “Sorry, Lace,” he said. “The only drug I take these days is aspirin.”

She'd nodded and took a step out of his room.

“Lacey?”

She turned to look at him.

“Do you want to talk?”

She shook her head. “Thanks,” she said. “Not now.” Talking to Bobby, in his room, in the middle of the night, when she was feeling so fragile, could only lead to trouble. Plus, she felt a strong need to be by herself. She was the only person she knew she could trust—and, occasionally, even she was suspect.

 

Lacey finally managed to score a piece of glass cleanly and was congratulating herself when she heard the screen door creak open and closed. In a moment, Mackenzie was in the doorway of the sunroom, Sasha next to her. Lacey knew she'd been outside, walking around the perimeter of the house with the dog, trying to find the best reception for her cell phone. It was not working well inside the house today.

“Did you get your phone to work?” Lacey asked, slipping her safety glasses from her face to the top of her head.

Mackenzie nodded. “I talked to everyone,” she said.

“That must have felt good.”

Mackenzie sat down at the second worktable in the chair Bobby usually used and began to swivel it back and forth. “I think they're all forgetting about me,” she said.

“No,” Lacey said with sympathy. Sasha walked over to her chair and she ran her hand over the dog's shiny black fur. “They might be getting involved in activities you're not a part of, but they're never going to forget about you.”

Mackenzie sighed.

“You're missing them, huh?” Lacey asked.

“That's the weird thing,” she said. “I feel like I
should
be missing them, but I don't so much anymore.” Mackenzie ran her fingertip over a small piece of ivory lying on the worktable. “Like, I talked to Sherry about Wolf and everything, but she doesn't even like dogs, so she wasn't really interested. And all Marissa talks about is this boy I don't even know at her swim club, and she doesn't get why I'd want to hide in the woods waiting for a dog to find me. And the most annoying part is she keeps saying ‘tight.'”

“Tight?”

“Yeah, it's like this new word that's supposed to be cool or something. The boy she likes is
tight.
She thinks the new store at the mall is
tight.
Doesn't that sound stupid?”

Lacey had to laugh, the warmth she felt for Mackenzie pushing the venom from her heart. “You are so cute, you know that?” she asked.

Mackenzie nodded, smiling herself. “Yeah,” she said. She peered out the windows, then leaned forward, her elbows resting on the worktable as she pressed her cheek against the glass. “You can't see the kennel from here,” she said.

“No.”

“Do you know when Clay's coming home?” Mackenzie sat down again.

Lacey shook her head. “I don't know.” As they often did on the weekends, Gina and Clay had taken Rani to Shorty's Grill to entertain Henry and Walter and the other regulars. She wasn't sure where Bobby was, but she guessed he was at a meeting. “Were you supposed to do some training with Clay today?”

“No, but Wolf's bone is stuck behind his doghouse and he's going crazy trying to get it out,” Mackenzie said. “I went over to the kennel when I was out there and he was, like,
crying
trying to get at it. I felt so bad for him.”

“He'll be okay,” Lacey said. She gave Sasha a dismissive pat on the head, and, with a heavy sigh, the dog lay down next to her worktable.

“Don't you think I could go in and get it for him?” Mackenzie asked. “He loves me.”

“Clay said no one should go into his kennel except him.”

“That was a while ago, though,” Mackenzie protested. “Wolf
loves
me now.”

“Yes, he does.” Lacey smiled. “But you know what Clay said.”

“Well,” Mackenzie stood up. “Maybe I can use a stick or something to reach through the fence and try to get the bone unstuck for him.”

“That's a good idea,” Lacey said. “Just be careful.”

The phone rang the moment Mackenzie left the room, and Lacey checked the caller ID display: Rick, for the third time that morning. She was not ready to talk to him, and was not sure she ever would be. She lowered her glasses over her eyes and thought once more about the statement she needed to write. What if she simply avoided any discussion of her mother's character? All the other statements would be addressing how wonderful and generous Saint Anne had been. But none of them could describe her murder with the sort
of detail Lacey could provide. It seemed like a brilliant idea and she wondered why she hadn't thought of it before. She would write the facts about what had happened that evening in the battered women's shelter. She didn't need to pass judgment on her mother's morality.

She was setting her glass cutter to a piece of cobalt glass when she heard a scream that made Sasha spring to his feet.
Mackenzie.
Releasing the glass cutter, she jumped out of her chair and ran from the room, tearing off her glasses and dropping them to the floor. The screams were unceasing. She pictured Wolf, having somehow climbed over the six-foot-high kennel fence, chasing Mackenzie around the yard. But that was not the scene that greeted her when she pushed open the screen door and ran onto the porch.

Mackenzie was lying on the ground inside the kennel, the German shepherd standing above her, snarling and growling and tearing at her clothing or—God forbid—her flesh. From this distance, Lacey could not tell which. The dog shook his head as though he was trying to kill whatever prey he had caught in his mouth. Mackenzie's screams pierced the air, and Lacey heard the terror in them.

“I'm coming!” Lacey called as she jumped off the porch and raced toward the kennel, sand flying behind her. Sasha was far ahead of her, barking and growling himself. Lacey waved her arms in the air. “Get off her! Get off her!” she screamed. She could see blood on Mackenzie's leg, blood on the sand.
God, please let her be all right!

She reached the kennel and pounded her fists against the fence. “Get away from her!” But the dog might have been deaf for all the attention he paid her. Lacey watched him take a mouthful of Mackenzie's long hair and lift her head a few inches from the ground, dragging her over the sand while the girl tried to beat him away with her fists. He was going to
kill her, Lacey thought, but she wasn't going to let that happen.

She pulled open the wire door of the enclosure and ran inside, heading toward the opposite end of the kennel, knowing that Wolf would turn on her in a heartbeat. Sasha followed her in, but gentle dog that he was, he only stood by helplessly, barking in distress. Sure enough Wolf let go of Mackenzie's hair and turned to glare at Lacey, his lips curled up, every inch of his body letting her know that she was his next victim. “Get out, Mackenzie!” she called as the girl struggled to her knees. “Get out!”

Blood dripping down her leg, Mackenzie half hobbled, half crawled, toward the exit. Mackenzie forgotten, Wolf ran toward Lacey, his teeth huge, sharp daggers in his mouth, and although she raised her arms high above her head, trying to appear to be bigger than she was, and although she shouted and screamed in an attempt to frighten him away from her, he didn't hesitate. She pressed her back against the chain-link fence and watched him open his jaws wide as he dived for her thigh. Excruciating pain shot through her leg as the dog dug his teeth deep into her muscle and dragged her to the ground, and her only prayer was that someone would arrive soon to help Mackenzie, because she would not be able to do it herself. She was going to die.

S
omeone was holding her hand. Whispering her name. Lacey struggled to lift her eyelids, then quickly let them fall shut again. The light in the room was too bright.

“That's it, Lacey,” a male voice said. “Come on out of it.”

She forced her eyes open and saw Tom, his wiry blond ponytail hanging over his shoulder, his face close to hers, and she thought she must be lying on the floor of the studio she shared with him.

He smiled. “You're back, sugar,” he said. There were tears in his eyes. She felt his hand on her head, smoothing her hair.

Then she remembered Wolf's mouth coming at her. She couldn't see the dog's face at all; he was one gigantic cavern filled with teeth, and the memory made her wince. She heard a whimper and it took her a few seconds to realize that she was the person producing it.

“Is this…studio?” she whispered to Tom.

“The studio? Oh, no, baby. No.” He smoothed his big rough hand over her temple and onto her hair again. She'd
known Tom was her father for more than a decade, but she had never felt his fatherliness more than at that moment, when he was stroking her hair and blinking back tears. “You're in the hospital, honey,” he said. “That dog gave you a couple of bites.”

It had been more than a couple, she was certain of that. Her body ached and burned. It felt as though someone was twisting a vise around her limbs tight enough to break the skin. “Pain,” she whispered.

He nodded. “I'll call the nurse.” He started to stand up, but she reached out to grab him, catching the shoulder of his T-shirt in her right hand.

“Don't go,” she said, frightened. Her head was so foggy. If he left, she was afraid she would slip back into the strange dark world from which she'd just emerged.

“Okay,” he said, sitting down again.

She remembered Mackenzie, remembered the blood on the sand.

“Mackenzie?” she asked. She felt unable to produce more than one or two words at a time.

“You saved her life.” Tom grinned. “Baby, you were so brave. I always knew you were a remarkable kid, but I didn't know you had that in you. I couldn't have done it.”

Not even for me?
she wanted to ask him, but it was too many words, and she knew the answer, anyway. He would have done it. He would do anything for her.

“There was blood…sand.” She struggled to get the words out, to make her mind and her mouth work together. “Mackenzie.”

“She got a good bite on her leg,” Tom said, “and a few bruises. But she didn't even have to spend the night in the hospital.”

“Do I?” she asked, and he grinned at her again.

“You've already been here a couple of days, sugar,” he said. “We've all been taking turns sitting with you—Alec and Olivia and Gina and Clay and Bobby—and I'm the lucky one who gets to be here when you wake up.”

“Couple days?” she asked. How had she lost a couple of days?

“They think you must have hit your head on a corner of the doghouse or something,” Tom said. “Knocked yourself out. Which maybe was for the best, Lacey, so you didn't have to know what that frigging dog was doing to you.”

That explained the knifelike pain in the back of her head.

“He didn't kill me,” she said, amazed and a little euphoric.

“He would have if Bobby hadn't gotten home when he did,” Tom said.

“How many bites…really?” she asked.

Tom looked hesitant, then obviously decided on the truth. “Nine,” he said. “Nine really good ones, and a few less serious.”

“My legs?” Her legs were on fire, and Tom nodded.

“Your legs. Your butt. Your left arm. But your beautiful face is just fine.”

“Put the dog down?” she asked.

“It's already been done,” Tom said bluntly. “They did an autopsy. The dog had some…I don't know…some kind of epilepsy or something. Your dad's kicking himself for not pulling strings to get him that neurological exam sooner. They might have been able to help him, then.”

She shut her eyes at that news. “Poor dog,” she said.

“You know what?” It was clear that Tom wanted to change the subject.

She looked at him, too tired to ask “What?”

“I think Bobby has a thing for you,” he said. “A big thing. He's practically been living here since they brought you in.”

She tried to smile, but was not sure she succeeded.

“Is it mutual?” Tom asked.

“I'm…” She licked her lips. They were very dry. “I'm fighting it,” she said.

“Why, sugar?”

“Lot of reasons,” she said. She wanted to tell him about Bobby handing a wad of bills to the skinny blonde in the parking lot, but knew she could not possibly string all those words together.

“Hey.” The voice came from somewhere else in the room, and Lacey turned her head to see her father standing in the doorway, a smile on his face.

“Hey, Alec,” Tom said, standing up and taking a few steps away from the bed to make room for the man who was, in all ways but one, her father.

Her father leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I am so glad to see you awake,” he said. “You had all of us pretty shaken up.”

Tom rested his hand on Alec's shoulder. “I'll take off now,” he said, and Lacey was quite certain he didn't want to go, but felt he needed to give her some time alone with her father.

“I'm glad you were here,” her father said to Tom, and the two men shook hands.

“Bye, Tom,” she said, touched by the careful cordiality between the two of them. She knew how hard the last decade had been for them both, how they had each struggled with their own demons, doing their best not to put her in the middle. And she knew that each man's love for her mother had been pure, even if Annie's love for them had been tainted by her lies.

Her father didn't immediately sit down in the chair Tom had vacated. Instead, he lifted the covers from her legs and
checked her bandages, then did the same to her left arm. She shut her eyes, not yet ready to see her body.

“You're going to have some scars, honey, but the docs don't think you'll loose any functioning, and that's great news. You were very lucky. The one bite came too close for comfort to your femoral artery. Speaking of which, how's the pain?”

“Sucks,” she said, and he smiled.

He touched the bag hanging on the pole next to her bed, studying whatever it said on the label. “I'll go talk to the nurse and see what she can do for you,” he said.

“Not yet.” She was afraid the drugs would knock her out, and she wasn't yet ready to slip away again. If she was in pain, at least she knew she was alive.

“Tom said you put Wolf down,” she said.

Alec shook his head, finally sitting down in the chair next to her bed. “I didn't have to,” he said. “Bobby took care of that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tom didn't tell you?”

She struggled to remember the conversation with Tom, but it was already muddy in her mind. “Tell me what?” she asked.

“Bobby pulled into the Kiss River parking lot while Wolf was attacking you,” her father said. “He ran into the kennel, grabbed the dog by the collar, lifted him up, and threw him against the doghouse. The dog's neck was broken. He died instantly.”

“Oh, my God.” Lacey covered her mouth with her hand. “I'd be dead if he didn't get there when he did.”

“I don't want to think about it,” her father said, “but I admit I'm pretty grateful to him.
You're
the local hero, though. You saved Mackenzie's life, running into the kennel like you did. There's no doubt about that.”

“It's the kind of thing Mom would have done, huh,” she said.

He leaned away from the bed, folding his arms across his chest. “Your Mom wasn't either all good or all evil, Lacey,” he said. “You've tried to get rid of her good qualities along with the bad. Ever since the day she died, you've scrutinized every move you made to see how it compared to what your mother would have done. First, you tried to be Saint Lacey. Then when you found out about…her indiscretions, you tried to be as unlike her as you could be.”

“I know,” she whispered.

Her father leaned forward, his faded blue eyes filled with love for her. “This is your second chance, Lace,” he said. “Forget about what your mother would or wouldn't have done in a given situation. All anyone wants from you is to just be Lacey.”