Shadow Creek (34 page)

“They have me on hold.” It was several minutes before he spoke again, and when he did, his voice was barely above a whisper. “Everything’s going to be all right, Brianne,” he began, lowering the phone to his side. “I don’t want you to go getting all upset …”

“Has something happened to my mother? Has she been hurt?” Brianne tried getting to her feet, but it was almost as if weights had been attached to her ankles, and she fell back against the pillows, unable to stand.

“Your mother’s fine.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

A slight pause before he spoke, then, “Apparently she and her friends checked out of the campground an hour ago.”

“What do you mean, they ‘checked out’?”

“They left first thing this morning, said they were going home early. The director said they seemed very angry …”

“I don’t care how angry they were,” Brianne protested. “They wouldn’t just leave me.”

“I’m really sorry. It looks as if that’s exactly what they did.”

“What? No. There’s been a mistake. They probably just went back to the lodge to wait for my father.”

“Do you want me to call the lodge?” Henry immediately punched in another series of numbers without waiting for her response.

Brianne tried to tell herself that it wasn’t unusual for a park ranger to know the telephone number for the Lodge at Shadow Creek by heart, just as she tried to tell herself that he hadn’t flinched when Nikki had said the cottage belonged to her grandmother, and that there wasn’t something very strange about this girl in her too-big dress and her bitter-tasting tea. She tried to tell herself that her head was spinning because she was so tired, and nothing more. She tried to tell herself she was indeed hallucinating.

“The manager at the lodge says he hasn’t seen or heard anything from your mother since she left the premises yesterday,” Henry was saying in a voice that floated in and out of Brianne’s consciousness in waves.

“So what do I do now?” Brianne asked. She barely recognized her voice. Her eyes were fighting to stay open.

“First, you’re going to have a little nap. Then you’re going to take a shower, fix your hair, and brush your teeth. Make yourself
nice and presentable for Mommy. Then Nikki and I will drive you back into the city.”

“Couldn’t we just go now?”

“No, you’re way too tired for that,” Henry was saying, drawing closer, until she felt his breath warm against her lips. “Brianne,” he whispered as her eyes fluttered to a close. “Brianne, can you hear me?”

Brianne opened her mouth to speak, but no sounds emerged.

And then she saw and heard nothing.

V
AL WAS THINKING OF her mother. Not the woman she was now, broken and befuddled by too many bottles of booze, and not the confused and unsure woman from her teenage years, when her self-confidence was being pummeled by her husband’s ceaseless womanizing and her own ceaseless rationalizations, but the strong and resilient mother of her childhood, the woman who’d taught her to follow her instincts and stand on her own two feet.

“I don’t want to go to school today, Mommy,” she recalled telling her mother when she was four years old and enrolled in the nursery school at the local Y.

“Why don’t you want to go, sweetie?”

“There’s a boy who’s mean to me.”

“How is he mean to you?”

Little Valerie had straightened her back and puffed out her chest. “He says I’m a stupid little girl,” she’d announced, her tiny voice resonating with indignation. “I’m not stupid, am I?”

“You certainly are not.”

“Will you come with me and tell him not to call me a stupid little girl anymore?” she’d asked.

“Oh, I think you’re smart enough to handle him all by yourself,” her mother had said.

And handle him she had, returning to the school that afternoon and punching the little boy smack in the mouth the second the word
stupid
left his lips.

“They’re having a ‘Swim for Your Life’ meet at school next month,” eight-year-old Valerie had announced to her parents some four years later. “It’s to raise money for charity, and I need lots of sponsors. You make money for how many lengths you swim, and I’m going to swim the most lengths and raise the most money.”

“Put me down for a dollar a length,” her father had offered from behind the newspaper he was reading.

“How about ten?” her mother had countered. Then, with a wink in Valerie’s direction, “If you don’t ask, you don’t get, sweetheart. You have to speak up in this life.”

Little Valerie had repaid her mother’s confidence—and shocked the entire school—by swimming an astonishing seventy-four lengths. Her mother had stood by proudly as her father grudgingly wrote out a check for $740.

Serves you right, Val thought now. You never believed I could do it. You never even paid attention.

Even now she could see the look of boredom stamped across her father’s face, how after the first couple of lengths, he’d lost interest and drifted over to where Ava McAllister’s attractive, young mother was standing with a few of her equally young,
attractive friends, and how they’d all spent the balance of the swim meet engaged in flirty banter. Only occasionally had he glanced over at the pool where his daughter continued to swim length after length, determined not to come up for air until she had her father’s full and undivided attention. She’d stopped—exhausted and on the verge of total collapse—only when she finally caught him looking her way, although when she replayed the scene later in her mind, she realized he’d probably just been stealing a glance at the clock on the far wall. She also understood, with a child’s instinctive grasp, that she was no match for any of these other women, no matter what she accomplished, no matter how many lengths she swam. She simply wasn’t interesting enough to merit his attention. She was just a stupid little girl. That boy in her nursery school class had been right.

They’d gone out for dinner that night to celebrate her success, and her father had spent most of the night talking to the waitress. “Really, Jack,” Val could still hear her mother admonish as they left the restaurant, “do you have to be so obvious, especially in front of the children?” At the time, she didn’t know what her mother was talking about. Nor did she remember her father’s response. She did remember waking up that night to her mother’s soft cries, and coming into the kitchen to find her sitting alone at the kitchen table, her gaze loose and unfocused.

“What’s wrong, Mommy?”

“Nothing, sweetheart. Go back to bed. It’s very late. You have school tomorrow.”

“Are you sad?”

“No, sweetheart. Why would I be sad? My daughter just swam the most lengths and raised the most money in the entire history of John Fisher Public School. I’m proud as punch,”
she’d said with a smile, swiping at her tears with the back of her hand.

“Proud I’m such a good swimmer?”

“Proud you’re such a good
you
. I want to be just like you when I grow up.”

Little Valerie giggled. “You’re silly.”

“I adore you,” her mother said.

“I adore
you
.”

“Then go to bed. Get some sleep.”

“Aren’t you going to bed?”

“In a little while.”

Valerie suddenly became aware of the bottle on the table and her mother’s half-empty glass. “What’s that?”

“Just a little something to help me sleep.”

“Can I have some?”

“No. You don’t need this stuff, Valerie. You’re a strong girl. Strong enough to swim seventy-four lengths. You’re going to rule the world.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. And I’m going to watch you.”

So when had her mother stopped watching? When Val was ten, thirteen, fifteen, twenty-one? When had a little something to help her sleep become a little something to help her through the day, then something more, and something more again, until it was everything? When had she started sleeping until three o’clock each afternoon, and slurring her words, and tripping over her own feet when she was awake? When had she started falling down, and worse, staying down?

“Please, Mom. You need to see a doctor,” Val had insisted when she was still denying the obvious, even making the appointment herself when her mother refused, then making another one when she failed to show up for the first. “I think
maybe she might have a brain tumor,” she’d told her father, freshly returned from honeymooning with his new wife.

“She doesn’t have a brain tumor,” her father had said, laughing dismissively. “She has a hangover.”

“What are you talking about? She doesn’t drink that much.”

“Open your eyes,” her father said, effectively ending the discussion and leaving her standing at the front door.

“Well, you shouldn’t have just shown up like that,” her sister had argued when Val filled her in later on what happened. “You should have called him first.”

“Why should I have to call him? He’s our father.”

“You know he doesn’t like surprises.”

“I think you’re missing the point here, Allison.”

“The point being …?”

“Dad is implying our mother is an alcoholic.”

“I don’t think he’s implying anything. I think he’s saying it outright.”

“And you’re saying … what? That you agree with him?”

Allison met Val’s question with a shrug and a defeated shake of her head.

“He didn’t even invite me into the house,” Val said. “Told me they were in the middle of dinner.”

“Should have called first.”

“Why are you always defending him?”

“Why are you always attacking him?”

“I’m not attacking him.”

“What is it you expect the man to do, Valerie? They’re divorced.”

“Did he divorce us, too?”

“What are you talking about? Don’t be ridiculous. He didn’t leave
us
. He left
her
.”

“
Her
is our mother,” Val reminded her sister.

“Well,
her
has a major drinking problem.”

The words hit Val like a sucker punch to the solar plexus, brought tears to her eyes. “At least she didn’t abandon us.”

“Didn’t she?” Allison asked coldly.

Was that the defining moment, the moment the two sisters could point to later as the precise instant the invisible lines of loyalty were drawn in the sand and the sides were irrevocably chosen, the moment they understood they’d lost not only their parents but each other as well?

What difference did it make? Val wondered now, feeling herself being pulled back into the present. Over the years, nothing had really changed. Allison was still fighting for their father’s approval; Val was still fighting for their mother’s sobriety. Both were losing battles.

“Val?” a voice interjected, sending her fragile family scattering in all directions. “Val, are you okay? What’s happening?”

Val looked toward Jennifer, momentarily surprised to see her behind the wheel of her SUV, then remembered having taken her up on her offer to drive. “Nothing. I’m fine. Just frustrated. I’ll be okay.”

She felt James’s hand on her shoulder. “So, what do we do now?” he asked from the crowded backseat as the SUV pulled into the campground’s parking lot.

“We do what the man said,” Gary answered. “We go to the office, we sit, and we wait.”

“For how long?” Val was restless already. “I can’t just sit here all day and wait for something to happen.”

“I don’t think we have any choice,” Gary said.

“I don’t think you know Val very well,” Melissa said with a smile as they climbed out of the car.

“Maybe Evan’s here.” Jennifer looked hopefully around the parking lot for his black Jaguar, but it was nowhere in evidence.
“I’ll try his lines again,” she said as they entered the office. “I mean, this is crazy. Why isn’t he answering his phone? Why hasn’t he returned my messages?”

Gary held back. “I’m going to go check on Hayden.”

“Of course,” Val said, watching him leave.

Carolyn Murray was standing behind the reception counter in pretty much the same posture and position as when they’d last seen her. The frown on her face hadn’t altered; the coffee stain on her shirt was still there. Only a slight stiffening of her shoulders convinced Val she was real, and not made of wood.

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to impose on your hospitality a little more,” Val began.

“Yes, so I hear. Mike Jones called.”

“Has something happened? Have they found my daughter?”

“Not as far as I know. He said he’d be checking in with you periodically, so you can either wait here or at your tents. I can send someone to get you when he calls.”

“We’ll wait here,” Jennifer said for all of them. It was obvious that the last thing she wanted was to return to those damn tents. “Can I use the phone?” she asked, lifting the receiver of the rotary phone and proceeding to dial Evan’s number without waiting for Carolyn’s okay. Seconds later, she slammed the phone down in disgust. “I got his voice mail again. What do you think it means, that he isn’t answering his phone?”

Val said nothing. She could think of any number of things it might mean but decided it was best to stay silent. Jennifer would no doubt discover those things soon enough without any help from her.

And maybe he
was
really busy, Val thought, trying to give Evan the benefit of the doubt. Maybe his latest deal really had been about to blow sky-high, maybe he really had been working
round the clock to salvage it, and maybe he really was at this very moment driving like a maniac around the twists and turns of Prospect Mountain, the white knight in his black Jaguar, rushing in to save the day, even though that day would likely be over by the time he got here.

Typical, she thought. Hadn’t she been waiting almost two decades for him to rush in? And he still wasn’t here. He was still taking detours.

And she was still waiting.

What’s wrong with me? Val wondered.

You’re just a stupid little girl
, came the familiar taunt.

You certainly are not
, her mother’s voice immediately countered.
You’re a strong girl. Strong enough to swim seventy-four lengths. You’re going to rule the world
.