Still Waters (18 page)

With a lift of her heart, Hannah pulled out her keys. She’d forgotten she’d stuffed them in there after finding the bikes yesterday. She twisted the tiny aluminum flashlight—the same one Colin had used to see into the shed—until a fitful beam speared the darkness in front of her.

Hannah played the light on the trees. Brief glimpses showed up—tree trunk, branch, tree trunk, grass. She stepped forward,
deeper into the darkness, resisting the urge to run back toward the house, cower in the cab of the truck until morning. But Colin could have retrieved the keys from the ignition where she’d left them. Even if she locked herself in, he could get her out in a second. She forced herself another few feet. She needed to get to the main road, get a ride, and get to a phone. But he could find her on the path from the cabin. She’d have to stay in the woods.

She kept stumbling forward. She didn’t have much time before Colin realized she was gone and came looking for her. Or until her flashlight battery died out and she was left in utter darkness. She wouldn’t be able to see Colin until he had her.

A twig snapped sharply to her right. Hannah jumped, biting back a scream. Without thinking, she turned and fled, fear momentarily overcoming her, turning her insensible as she crashed blindly past the hulking trees, branches tearing at her T-shirt, scratching her arms and face, every touch like Colin’s hand grabbing her.

Her breath sobbed in and out of her open mouth. She heard someone whispering as she ran and only after she slowed did she realize it was herself moaning “Oh, please, oh please, oh please” over and over.

Gradually, fatigue overtook her, dispelling some of the unthinking terror, and she slowed from a blundering run to a trot, and then to a walk, leaning over, grasping her side where a stitch had sunk its teeth deeply. The darkness seemed a little fainter to her right. She realized she was walking parallel to the path that led from the house to the road.

Hannah walked on for what seemed like a long time, the endless undergrowth ripping at her ankles. She tried to listen for any footsteps on the road to her right, but she grew too tired to listen very carefully. How long had she been going? An hour? The adrenaline that had buoyed her earlier was gone.

But in spite of her exhaustion, her mind still churned. Colin … maybe at his core, he wasn’t who she thought he was. She shuddered at the idea that she’d been dating a stranger for the last year. But no, that couldn’t be it. He was sick. He wasn’t in his right mind. Maybe he was somehow driven to despair by her inability to admit she loved him? Maybe if she’d said it earlier, he would’ve been soothed somehow. And Pine House itself.
She’d
wanted to come up here, she thought, guilt flooding her. He’d resisted from the start.
Face it, Hannah. You basically dragged him up. You pushed him over the edge.

But I didn’t even know he had an edge,
Hannah argued with herself. Once they’d arrived, he seemed fine. Until the night of the storm, when he’d found those papers. Hannah thought again of the soggy clips of newsprint in Colin’s hands, the glimpse she’d caught of a dark-eyed, shaggy-browed boy.

Suddenly up ahead the darkness grew fainter. A glimmer of something yellow shone through the trees, along with another glimmer above it, this one very bright. Hannah walked more swiftly, her heart beating fast with anticipation. The road. She’d reached the main road, with a streetlight shining on the reflective dotted yellow line in the center. Thank God, oh thank God. She felt like crying as she stepped out of the woods and onto the
unmowed grass that lined the berm. In front of her stretched the flat gray asphalt, empty.

Hannah hopped awkwardly over the drainage ditch, just managing to avoid cutting her leg on the sharp edge of the ridged pipe that stuck out of the grass. The heat from the day radiated from the asphalt up through the soles of her sneakers. She walked to the center of the road and looked up and down. No cars and only a faint streetlight every fifty yards or so to break the darkness. Woods on one side, and empty fields on another.

Some of Hannah’s euphoria floated away. But at least she was out of the woods and away from the house, and that was all that mattered. She could see better out here too. She started walking toward town, matching her strides to the edge of the worn asphalt, which crumbled away into the dry grass lining the road.

The wind blew thinly, whistling in the trees. Moisture rose from the ground, coating her skin. Hannah shivered. She wished for a jacket, a cell phone, a cup of coffee, her mother—anything but this desolate road, the empty pastures, and the endless woods on the other side. She shuddered as she looked across at the mass of dark trees. No way was she going back in there.

She strained her eyes for the lights of town ahead. But there was nothing. She knew it was no use looking. Town was miles away. It would take her hours. No farmhouse yet either. But she was bound to see one with lights on soon. Or a car would come along. She’d take either at this point.

Just then she heard the most wonderful sound in the world—the soft roar of an engine and the rumble of tires. Her heart jumped in her chest. Turning around, she saw headlights appear as pinpricks down the road, growing rapidly.

Panicking suddenly that the car would go by without stopping, Hannah almost leaped into the middle of the road, waving her arms. “Stop, stop!” she yelled. “I need help!”

The headlights loomed in front of her larger and larger, until she actually thought the car was not going to stop. Hannah lifted her hand up and squinted against the blinding white lights, which blotted out everything around her. The car screeched to a halt only a few feet from her legs, and she heaved a huge sigh of relief. Someone—anyone—was here, and she was going to get help.

Hannah ran around to the side of what she now realized was a pickup truck—not a car—pulled the door open, and slid into the front seat in one motion, slamming the door behind her. “Thanks,” she breathed. “I really need—” She looked over at the driver and froze, her words shriveling in her mouth. Colin gazed back steadily at her from his seat behind the wheel.

Colin’s eyes were empty, like dark pits. His face was slack, and his hands were tight on the wheel. Hannah could feel the blood draining from her face. Her body was icy cold. All her muscles felt loose and useless.

Colin threw the truck into reverse. “I knew I’d find you out here,” he said, backing rapidly.

Hannah started. Colin’s voice was pitched an entire octave deeper than usual. He sounded like a completely different person. Fear clutched at her throat. She shrank back against the door, feeling behind her for the handle. Could she make it if she jumped?

As if reading her thoughts, Colin casually hit a small button next to his steering wheel. He didn’t look at her, but Hannah knew he’d just activated the child locks. She was trapped.

Colin put the truck in drive and accelerated back down the road. He drove with both hands on the wheel, staring straight out
at the twin beams of the headlights cutting through the night.

Reason with him,
Hannah told herself.
See if you can break through this shell. It’s your only choice at this point
. She had a strong feeling he was taking her back to the lake house, but she didn’t want to think about that. She took a deep breath. “So, where are we going?” she asked. She tried to make her voice sound easy and confident. She almost didn’t expect him to answer.

“Back to Pine House,” he said without looking around.

Hannah started again at his deep, gravelly monotone. They were driving very fast. The trees flashed by outside. She knew they only had a few minutes before the turnoff into the woods. She forced herself to lean forward. “Colin, hey, look at me. It’s me, Hannah. Colin, please.” She could hear the tears in her voice. “Colin, you’re scaring me so bad. Please stop. Whatever this is, please stop.”

Colin turned to face her, and the truck was still speeding through the night. She recoiled at the cold rage on his face. “You want
me
to stop?
Me?
After everything you’ve done to me this summer?” he spat. “Just shut the hell up, Tamar.”

“Tamar?” Hannah whispered. “Oh my God, Colin, please, who’s Tamar? Who’s Tamar?” Her voice rose behind the tears. He was hallucinating and in his own world, and Hannah felt consumed by a tide of helplessness. The strength she’d managed to summon in the woods threatened to crumble. She couldn’t talk to him because he wasn’t hearing her, and she couldn’t reason with him. She didn’t even know who this girl was—Tamar. An ex she’d never heard about? Just then she caught a glimpse of one
of the streetlight poles, dangerously near, as the truck drifted to the right. “Colin!” she screamed.

He looked forward and swerved away an instant before they would have slammed into the pole. Hannah sagged against the seat. Colin swung the wheel hard to the left and the truck bumped off the pavement and onto the rutted path to Pine House.

In what seemed like seconds, they were pulling up to the house. Hannah poised herself as Colin turned off the engine. When he opened her door, she was going to run for it. Straight into the woods with no light, and hide flat in the underbrush until morning. She tensed her muscles as Colin opened his door and deliberately walked around to her side. His figure loomed outside her window. He turned the key in the lock and opened her door. He was blocking the way, but Hannah launched herself off the seat, trying to hit him hard enough so that he’d fall to the ground.

But before she’d barely moved, Colin’s hand shot out and clamped down on her arm. He forced her from the truck. Hannah could hear his breath coming fast. She stumbled over the gravel, the long grass ensnaring her ankles, struggling to keep fear from overwhelming her mind. This wasn’t him. Colin was gone. This wasn’t her sweet, gentle boyfriend. This was a stranger with hard, rough hands.

Colin shoved her around the side of the house, almost lifting her off her feet, down through the weedy side yard, and around to the beach.

“Get in the boat,” he said, still in that same gravelly voice. “You want to, don’t you? Now’s your chance.”

“The b-boat?” Hannah stammered. “Colin, no, I’m not getting into that—”

He shoved her arm painfully up her back, and she stumbled forward with a cry, her shins colliding with the side of the boat. The black water lapped at her knees. Colin didn’t seem to notice.

“Get in.” His voice was cold and dead.

The boat rocked in the water as Hannah climbed awkwardly aboard. Colin climbed in after her and, grasping both oars, leaned back. The boat floated away from the shore.

Hannah huddled in the damp bottom with the spray from the oars catching her face. She had to escape—she had to. She pushed away the thought of what Colin—or what used to be Colin—intended to do out here in the water and tried to calculate her chances of making it to shore if she jumped. Colin pulled steadily at the oars. All around them, the water spread like ink. The clouds had lifted and now a half-moon glittered on the surface of the water. The only sounds were the soft
plash
of the oars and the little laps of the water against the boat as Colin rowed smoothly. Hannah didn’t dare try to reason with him. Her arm still stung from where he’d grabbed it by the truck—she didn’t want to provoke him more.

They’d almost reached the center of the lake.
Now—do it now!
She had to jump before they got any farther from shore. Hannah poised her muscles. She gripped the splintery sides of the boat tightly and stared down at the undulating surface of the water.

Suddenly a large, hard pair of hands grabbed her and flipped her over the side of the boat. Water flooded over her. She scrabbled at the outside of the boat and dug her fingers into the soft splintery wood, ripping off one of her nails. A searing pain shot up her arm. Colin—Colin had dumped her out, her mind screamed. He was going to kill her, oh Jesus, he was trying to drown her.

She floundered in the water, gulping its fishy taste. Colin loomed over her, leaning dangerously on the side of the boat. She saw his hands come up, then down. “No,” she managed to gasp before the water closed over the top of her head, shutting out the ragged sound of her own breath and leaving her suspended in a soundless darkness. The pressure on her head was relentless as Colin held her under. She fought wildly, like a fish on a line, thrashing harder than she ever thought she could, her muscles fueled by adrenaline, her lungs screaming and aching. She twisted wildly. For one instant his hands slipped off her wet head. She broke the surface long enough to pull a single breath.

Above her, Colin’s face was twisted with fury, unrecognizable. Standing in the boat, he raised an oar over his head as if to smash her back into the water with it. But when the oar came down, Hannah ducked to the right fast, grabbing his arm and pulling at the same time.

Yanked off balance by her grip, Colin stumbled forward, rocking the boat. His shins collided with the edge, and he somersaulted into the water, sending the empty rowboat seesawing wildly. He disappeared under the water, resurfacing an instant later. At the same time Hannah heard a loud hollow
crack
, and
Colin began sinking again. Hannah dimly realized he had hit his head on the underside of the boat as he surfaced and knocked himself unconscious.

Colin’s white face was receding rapidly beneath the black surface of the water. With the boat’s rocking threatening to throw off her tenuous grip, Hannah gasped out, “No!” She reached out and grabbed Colin, hauling him up. His eyes were closed—he was still unconscious. His head, wet hair plastered like weeds to his forehead, lolled on his shoulder. A giant blue-black welt was rising on one temple. She tried to hold him more tightly under the arm, while treading water and gripping the boat with her other arm. She couldn’t hold on much longer. Already, her arm and shoulder were on fire. Her muscles shook uncontrollably. She was going to have to let him go—or go under herself.

Her breath sobbed in and out of her throat. Colin, this was Colin. He was sick, and he needed help. If she could just get him to shore before he woke up. Before he tried to hurt her again. She could leave him on the beach and take the truck for help. But she could feel her fingers slipping from the edge of the boat. She gasped and hung on tighter. Her finger throbbed like a cancer. Colin’s eyes were delicately closed, and his perfect lips and nose were cut as if from marble. Hannah sobbed. “Colin …,” she whispered. “Please, Colin, please….” What she was pleading for, she didn’t know, but at that moment, as she leaned forward, his eyelids flew up like window shades, looking directly into hers.