He led her out into the damp night, closing the door of the house behind him and double locking the door. He’d left no lights on—he was religious about saving electricity. “And what you are is perfect,” he said. “Do you mind us taking your car? Mine still smells from that run-in with a dead deer.”
“Of course. Do you want me to take your car and get it washed tomorrow?”
He shook his head. “You know how silly I am…It’s my baby, and I hate to have anyone else touch it, even you, darling. I’ll see to it. I can use the Range Rover until then.”
David loved his Range Rover with an Anglophile’s passion, and it seldom saw the light of day. It usually sat in state in David’s immaculate garage.
She said nothing. David had his life arranged to perfection, and who was she to argue? So she merely smiled indulgently, tucked her perfect little evening bag under her perfect arm, and got in the car with her perfect husband. It was going to be a long night.
Caleb Middleton ducked beneath the tarp that covered what should have been the hallway in his house and headed into the half-finished bathroom. He expected that the plumbing would have died, but he turned the faucet and rust-colored water dribbled out, slowly at first, then turning into a steady stream. He turned on the shower—no hot water, of course, but the gravity-fed pump was working—and he stripped off his muddy clothes and shoes and stepped in.
He didn’t close his eyes. He could still see her body, trapped in the branches. He’d called the police, anonymously, but Maggie Bannister wouldn’t have any trouble tracking his cell phone. And then the questions would begin, and he’d lie, and no one would believe him. Maggie had always kept a distrustful eye on him when she was a simple beat cop—now that she was the sheriff she’d be even more likely to think the worst of him.
There was even a musty towel in the open shelves under the sink. He pulled it out, to find that something had eaten a large hole in it. It didn’t matter. He dried himself and pulled on clean clothes, then picked up the muddy ones and wrapped them in the towel. If it ever stopped raining long enough he’d burn them. Otherwise he’d bury them and forget about it. If he could.
In the years he’d been gone his half-finished house hadn’t been abandoned—there was a pile of firewood and kindling by the woodstove, dozens of empty beer bottles and an ashtray full of roaches. Teenagers must have used the place for a makeout spot. He didn’t mind—he would have done the same. Had done the same.
He walked across the rough floors to the front of the living room and looked down over the town of Silver Falls. The clouds hung low, but he could see the outlines of the college campus where his brother and father worked, the streets of the small town laid out in perfect order. The waterfall was up behind him, and he could hear it roaring down over the steady sound of rain. After years in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan he should have welcomed the rain.
It smelled like death to him. Death and decay and despair. They were part of his everyday life, and yet here, in a peaceful little town, death was stronger than in the war zones where he worked.
He was here to face death, and the questions that had always plagued him, questions that he’d avoided finding the answers to. But that had changed—he couldn’t hide from the ugly truth any more. Starting with the dead woman caught in the branches at the bottom of the falls.
Maybe he shouldn’t have called the cops, but he couldn’t just leave her there. He stared out at the curtain of rain that separated his half-finished house from the rest of the world. He’d need to get his generator up and running, he’d need to replace the wind-shredded tarp that flapped in the wind. He’d need to do any number of things before he headed back down the mountain to find his father and brother.
And this time he wasn’t going to leave until he found the truth. Even if it was as bad as it could possibly be, as horrifying as he’d always feared, he’d face it. You could only run for so long, and now that there was a new member in his happy little family, he couldn’t wait any longer. David had done the unthinkable and gotten married. His father had written him in one of his cryptic letters.
And Caleb could no longer pretend that something very bad wasn’t going on in this gloomy, tight-assed little town.
Sophie Chapman shoved her blond hair back and made a face at her best friend Kristen. At least there were a few good things about this rain-soaked, godforsaken place, and Kristen was right there at the top of the list. In her thirteen years, Sophie had been in more countries than most people saw in a lifetime, and she had an easy time of making friends. She and Kristen had been soul mates from the moment they met at Silver Falls Union High School, and they’d been almost inseparable ever since. Sophie was the math whiz, Kristen was the brilliant writer—they complemented each other’s skills perfectly. Kristen’s mother, the sheriff of this gloomy town, was down-to-earth, no-nonsense and surprisingly easygoing, and she got along very well with Sophie’s mother. If not for Maggie, all Rachel would have was David, and a little bit of him went a long way.
She loved her mother, but sometimes she was just particularly brainless, like when it came to choosing a husband. Yes, losing Tessa had been hard. Sophie still missed her, still grieved for her and the awful way she’d died, but she was far too practical to let it turn her into a drama queen. Bad things happened, bad people existed. You just had to do your best to avoid both of them.
It was getting a little harder to avoid her stepfather. Not that he was evil, of course. He went out of his way to dote on her, giving her little presents that she really didn’t want. She was very good at sussing people out, though, and there was some thing about him that didn’t compute.
She didn’t waste time thinking about it. He made her mother happy, gave her the normal life that she must have always wanted. For some reason Sophie had thought they were having a wonderful time, traveling the world, getting by on the money Rachel made from her photographs. Some times, when she sold stuff to a travel magazine, they could stay in nice hotels and eat steak. Some times it was youth hostels and granola. It didn’t matter—it was all a grand adventure, and Sophie had loved it.
Apparently Rachel hadn’t. David Middleton had shown up a few weeks after Tessa was found, and her mother had fallen for him like a stone. Rachel, who usually kept her distance from men on the make, had dropped all her usual defenses and jumped straight into marriage with a stranger.
She’d always loved her mother’s impulsiveness—now she wasn’t so sure. There was no way she could tell her mother she found David a little creepy. He watched her too much, paid too much attention to her, trying to be her friend. The last person she wanted to be friends with was the man who slept with her mother. Rachel was so certain this was the answer to all their problems: a safe life in a sweet little town in the Pacific Northwest—what could be better?
Sophie could think of a number of places, but she’d taken one look at her mother’s face and kept her mouth shut. Besides, it was natural that she’d be jealous of the first real rival for her mother’s attention, according to the guidance counselor.
So here she was, making the best of things, and Kristen was definitely one of the best.
“You want to see if my mother will give us a ride to the mall?” Kristen suggested lazily, stretched out on her bedroom floor. “She should be off-duty soon, and we’ve done our homework.”
Sophie had never been particularly fond of malls, and Silver Falls’s pathetic version of it was even less enticing. However, Kristen looked hopeful, so she nodded, agreeable as always. “As long as we don’t have to meet any boys.”
“You are such a party pooper,” Kristen said cheerfully. “I think Crash has got a game tonight.”
Crash being Kristen’s current crush, a singularly thickheaded soccer player on the junior varsity. Sophie wasn’t particularly impressed with the crop of young men Silver Falls had produced. But then, she wasn’t interested in falling in love, not yet. Not until she was sure her mother had made the right decision.
“Kristen?” Sheriff Bannister’s voice called from the kitchen. “I need you girls to come down here.”
Sophie knew that tone of voice. She’d heard it before, when Tessa had died, and she recognized it now with a certain sick dread. For a moment she froze.
“I wonder what’s up with Mom?” Kristen said, clueless. “She doesn’t sound like she’s going to want to take us to the mall.”
“If I were you I wouldn’t even ask,” Sophie said, climbing off the bed and following her friend down the stairs in the shabby old split level.
Mrs. Bannister had a grim look on her face, and she was still wearing her uniform, and Sophie knew what was coming before she even opened her mouth. “Girls, there’s been a murder.”
And Sophie had the feeling that things weren’t going to be right again for a long time.
Stephen Henry Middleton was being called upon to read. The old ham never missed an opportunity, Rachel thought, scooping up a tray of empty glasses and heading for the kitchen. The only way she survived these cocktail parties was to make herself busy—drinking wasn’t an option. She had too great a tendency to say what she really thought when she had a drink, and being honest in the sacred halls of Silver Falls College was definitely frowned upon.
She put her butt against the swinging door into the kitchen and backed out of the room before David could see her. Stephen Henry wouldn’t notice. Stephen Henry never noticed anyone but himself.
Sure enough, his sonorous tones began to spread throughout the downstairs of the old house, and Rachel set the tray down, then made a dash for the porch door. The rain had stopped for the moment, the air was cool and damp, and she slipped outside, closing the door behind her very quietly. A little fresh air would do wonders, and this party, in honor of Stephen Henry’s fifteenth collection of self-published poems, would go on until the old man had read every single last one to his adoring crowd. No one would notice she was missing.
Her stomach rumbled. She was on a diet—hell, she was always on a diet. With her bone structure she didn’t dare eat as much as she wanted, and she’d gotten through the day with a green salad with lemon juice, a fat-free yogurt, and a thin slice of gluten-free bread. A healthy mind in a healthy body, David used to say, but right then Rachel didn’t feel like either. She felt like pancakes and bacon and scrambled eggs and real maple syrup. She’d sell her soul for an IHOP.
The polite smattering of applause drifted out from the house, followed by the faint sounds of Stephen Henry. Even from a wheelchair he managed to project, and the occasional word would leak into the night outside. She was going to have to study her inscribed copy “—to darling Rachel, the loveliest daughter-in-law a poet could ever have—” because Stephen Henry was bound to quiz her, and a simple “I loved all of it” would never work.
Maybe she had time to drive out to the interstate for a Happy Meal or something, she thought, leaning against the damp brick and breathing in the cool night air. She wasn’t eating enough to keep a bird alive, though David would smell a Big Mac on her breath and look troubled. David was a strict vegetarian, so strict he wouldn’t even kiss her when she ate meat. And she’d been eating a lot of meat lately. Maybe Stephen Henry had something fattening in his kitchen cabinets, though she doubted it. Maybe…
“What are you doing, skulking around in the dark?”
The voice came out of nowhere, and she barely managed to stifle a shriek as a tall figure emerged from the shadows. She hadn’t bothered to turn on the porch light, and she couldn’t see him clearly—she only knew she’d never met him before.
He moved closer, and his face came into the light. Not a kind face—it was thin, with sharp cheekbones, hooded eyes and cool twist to the mouth. “You’re not sneaking a cigarette,” he said, “and as far as I can tell I’m the only one out prowling tonight, so you couldn’t be meeting a lover.” He looked at her, a long, assessing stare, and Rachel couldn’t rid herself of the thought that he was sizing her up and decided she wasn’t lover-material. “So why are you lurking outside Stephen Henry’s house? It is still his house, isn’t it?”
“They’ll have to use a crowbar to get him out,” she muttered. Even though the poet laureate of Silver Falls College had retired ten years ago, he always found an excuse not to vacate the impressive faculty housing that had always been his as dean of students. No matter how hard everyone, including his son, tried.
The stranger laughed. “That sounds like him. So why are you hiding out here?”
“He’s doing a reading,” she said gloomily.
He laughed again, and she got the impression he didn’t laugh often. “I don’t blame you. He goes on forever.” He paused, and Stephen Henry’s velvety tones seeped out of the old house. “You must be new here. Who are you, one of the faculty wives?”
“Why wouldn’t I be on the faculty myself?” she shot back, annoyed.
“Because you’re dressed too appropriately. Faculty can do what they want, the wives and husbands have to toe the line.”
“Then who are you? A faculty husband? I’ve never seen you before.”
He just looked at her. “Do I look like the kind of man who toes the line?” he said. He didn’t wait for her answer. “Is your husband in there? He isn’t going to like it that you skipped out on the old man.”
“He’s used to it.” She didn’t bother asking him how he knew she was married. She wore a ring, and he was the kind of man who noticed everything.
She heard the phone ring inside the house, while her father-in-law simply raised his voice to be heard over it. A moment later even Stephen Henry shut up, and there was dead silence, followed by a buzz of conversation.
“Sounds like there’s something more exciting than a poetry reading going on,” the stranger said in a lazy voice. “Don’t you think you ought to go in and find your husband?”
“What’s this obsession with my husband?”
He leaned back against the iron fencing. “What’s this lack of interest in him on your part?” he said. “Why are you trading barbs with a stranger in the dark?”
Because she felt alive for the first time in months. She was annoyed, stimulated, irritated and bizarrely happy. “I’m not,” she said, plastering the good wife smile on her face and turning toward the door. “I’m going to find him.”
The touch of his hand was electrifying. It was light, just a brush against her arm, but the message was clear. “Don’t go back in,” he said. “If he made you wear that dress then he doesn’t deserve you.”
She looked at him as he stood in the shadows, apart from the well-regulated life she’d chosen. Chosen for her daughter, chosen for herself. If she were a different woman, she’d simply go with him, leaving everything behind, the proper black dress, the safe life, the perfect family she’d created. But she was doing this for Sophie, she reminded herself, who’d lived through enough chaos. She didn’t have a choice.
She pulled away from him, more sharply than she needed to. “I think I’d better find out what’s going on. Are you coming in?”
Only the ghost of a smile. “I think I’ll stay here for the time being. I don’t think anyone will be particularly happy to see me.”
She stared at him a moment longer. There was something she was missing, something important….
The kitchen door opened suddenly, and David stood there, looking distressed. “I thought I’d find you out here,” he said. “You need to come in. An other girl’s been murdered.”
She froze, forgetting about the stranger behind her. “Another? David, what are you talking about?
I haven’t heard about any murders.”
He looked nervous, her sensitive husband. “I didn’t see the point of mentioning it, given what you and Sophie had just been through. Anyway, it’s not something we talk about here, particularly since the last one was years ago. We thought…” He peered into the darkness, and his voice sharpened. “Who’s that with you?”
She looked back, and the stranger moved into the bright ligh
t. She couldn’t very well introduce him, since he hadn’t given his name.
“Hello, David,” the man said.
Her husband turned pale. “Shit,” he said. The first time Rachel had ever heard him curse. “What are you doing here?”
“Haven’t you heard the story about the prodigal son?” His face was expressionless. “Is this your wife?”
“It is,” David said, putting a possessive hand on her. Another anomaly—he seldom touched her in front of other people.
“Are you going to introduce us?” There was just the faint taunt in his voice. Whoever the stranger was, David wasn’t happy to see him. And David was always unfailingly polite.
“I don’t think so.”
The man laughed. “You can’t keep her away from me forever. You know that.”
“I can try.”
“What the hell is going on?” Rachel said. “Why are you two having a pissing contest?”
“Old habits die hard,” the stranger murmured. “Are you going to invite me in?”
“Now isn’t a good time, Caleb,” David said stiffly.
“Is it ever?”
The damp night air had turned to rain once more, and Rachel had had enough. “My name is Rachel Chapman,” she said, seriously annoyed. “And of course you’re invited in.”
“Rachel Chapman Middleton,” David corrected her.
The smile the stranger sent David was nothing short of a triumphant smirk, and he moved into the house, pushing David out of the way. David fell back, and there was no reading the strained expression on his face.
“Don’t you think you could give the old man a break?” he said. “Just go away. Go back to whatever disaster zone you’ve been haunting and leave us alone, for God’s sake.”
“Who’s there?” Stephen Henry’s deep voice could be heard through the closed door.
“Might as well face the music, David,” the stranger, Caleb, said. “You want to do it together?”