CHAPTER 37
Mike Ferguson wasn’t about to wait around for his
dickhead of a brother to grow a pair. Not when Justice friggin’
Turnbull was on the loose. He lay on his bed and tossed a tennis
ball upward, seeing how close he could come without actually
hitting the ceiling and catching it, only to toss it
again.
How cool would it be if he could get a
picture of the psycho? Or grab some kind of memento from one of his
lairs? Or even help bring the bastard down?
He snapped the ball from the air, then
let it drop as he rolled over and hopped off the bed to look at the
wall over his desk. He had cut out articles about Justice Turnbull
and had pictures tacked to the wall. Justice Turnbull’s mug shot, a
picture of the shabby old motel where he’d nearly killed his
mother, and the lighthouse perched on the island known as Serpent’s
Eye.
Man, would he love to go there. Just to
look around. Maybe climb the steps to the top and look out to sea .
. . and take some pictures, of course. He could do it easily on his
iPhone.
He’d impress a lot of kids at school
then.
Maybe even James.
The jerk.
Mike kinda knew that he was suffering
from what James had called “nerdy delusions of grandeur,” which
said something as those were pretty big words for James’s
vocabulary. But Mike wasn’t about to be thwarted. His parents would
be returning home over the weekend, and then the opportunity to go
to the coast would be over. No way would they let James drive over
to Deception Bay for a day.
If only he had his license. He wouldn’t
wuss out like James.
He could steal the keys, he supposed,
while James was sleeping, but he’d eventually be caught, and it
wasn’t like he had a driver’s license or even a learner’s permit.
But really, how hard could it be to drive? Stick in the key, twist
on the ignition, find the right radio station, and put the car into
the gear. Then all you had to do was hit the gas,
right?
His mother did it while on the phone
and eating a snack bar, so Mikey figured he could handle
it.
But he’d rather not add grand theft
auto or anything near it to his growing list of sins. His mom would
kill him.
No, the best thing to do would be to
try and convince James that the trip was necessary, but James had
been in a real bad mood the last few days. Still, Mike tried again,
walking into his brother’s bedroom and finding James lying on his
bed, flipping through channels on the televison while playing a
game on his iPhone.
“No!” James said before even looking up
at Mike in the doorway.
“You don’t know what I’m gonna
ask.”
“Sure I do. You wanna go to the coast
and me to drive you. Well, forget it.” He frowned as he stared at
the phone in his hand.
“I already told you how cool it would
be. And we have to go right away. In two days the tide is going to
be the lowest of the year.”
“So what?”
“So then it’s easier to get to Justice
Turnbull’s lighthouse. We can walk across the rocks,
maybe.”
“How do you know all this crap?” James
grumbled. “And why do you care? Oh, I forgot. Cuz you’re an
obsessed freak.”
“I’m not—”
“Are you kiddin’ me? Listen to
yourself. You want to wade out in the ocean to go to an abandoned
lighthouse where a serial killer used to live. Wait, no, make that
a serial killer who’s currently on the loose again and killing
people.” James rolled over onto his back. “Do you know how nuts
that is?”
“He won’t go there. The cops will be
all over it.”
“Then the cops’ll catch
you!”
“They won’t be looking for
me.”
“You’re a moron, you know that?” James
threw his brother a look of pure disgust. “I said, ‘No way,’ so
leave me the hell alone.”
“But—”
“Look, dickwad, it’s not gonna happen.”
His phone must’ve vibrated, because he picked up the call and got
caught up in it.
Mike took the hint and headed back to
his bedroom. If James wouldn’t drive him, he’d find another way. In
fact, he was already making a plan. “You’re just scared,” he called
over his shoulder.
“You’re just a dumb shit.” A football
rocketed out the door, and Mike dived to the floor. The ball
smacked against the hallway wall, leaving a mark. Mom would be
pissed. But then she was gonna be really mad, anyway, if she ever
figured out that Mike intended to hitchhike to the
beach.
Catherine stood at the bedroom window
on the west end of the lodge. From her vantage point on the second
floor, she was able to see through the trees to the ocean,
glittering in the afternoon sun. Far off, on the horizon, a
stubborn bank of clouds threatened to roll inland, bringing with it
drizzle and fog, staving off summer for a few more
days.
Things had become complicated again,
perhaps more complicated than before. There was the visit from
Becca and Lorelei; that in and of itself was disturbing. And
Catherine had witnessed the expressions on the rest of her charges,
especially Ravinia, who was forever stroking her long blond hair.
She’d glowered a bit, and Catherine sensed she was readying to
leave. Cassandra had warned her, and Catherine could see the
rebellion in Ravinia’s expression, the way she’d listened hungrily
to Becca and Laura. With Ravinia, who had always been disobedient
and questioning, it was only a matter of time before she bolted.
Catherine wouldn’t be able to stop her.
Ophelia had appeared a little wary, but
then that was her nature.
Lillibeth was the most troubling, as
the girl, confined as she was to her chair, desperately wanted her
freedom, yet she was slow to develop, filled with innocence and
naïveté, the kind the outside world took advantage of. Still, she
knew there was something out there beyond the walls of Siren Song,
and she was chafing at the bit, expecting a world of joy,
excitement, and answers, perhaps even help for her condition. She
had no knowledge of society’s cruelty, how even in times when
people were supposed to be “enlightened” and “politically correct,”
there was still so much hatred, hostility, and
distrust.
And then there was the very real, very
physical threat of Justice Turnbull.
Catherine, though sometimes considered
a jailer, was a pacifist. The old shotgun hidden in the attic had
been left there for years; now, however, she’d gone so far as to
clean and polish the gun and kept it ready at her bedside. She also
had a smaller weapon, garnered from one of Mary’s lovers, and she’d
placed that handgun in the cabinet in the dining room, hidden
behind the silver platter that was used only on special occasions.
It was loaded and ready. Pacifist or no, if Justice came for them,
she wouldn’t think twice about blowing the bastard
away.
Anyone who intended to harm any of the
women she cared for would have to go through her to get to them.
That was just the way it was.
Or had been.
She sensed the life she’d carved out
for herself, for the others, was about to change. She only hoped
all the girls would be able to adapt to life outside these
carefully tended walls when the time came.
Most of the girls were in their rooms
now, before dinner. Studying or reading, talking to each other, but
observing the quiet time Catherine had insisted upon since she’d
been in charge. She took advantage of this time now to hurry down
the stairs and outside.
Into the forest she walked. Briskly
through the thick ferns and clumps of salal, past berry vines that
stretched forward with their thorny vines and under the looming,
mossy firs, their branches spreading wide, squirrels scolding from
the branches.
Earlier she’d seen Becca and Lorelei
walk this same path to the cemetery, watched as they’d huddled over
Mary’s grave.
Oh, Lord.
That was the trouble with lies,
Catherine thought as she passed through the gate and into the small
cemetery. If one began to unravel, the whole fabric would soon fray
and the ugly truth would be revealed. She eased around some of the
plots, images of those who had died sliding behind her eyes, then
stopped at the spot where Mary’s grave was marked, where once,
years before, the earth had been turned and a coffin lowered into a
dark hole.
Though some of her children might have
been too young to remember the lowering of the ornate pine box, or
dropping flowers onto the glossy lid as rain began to fall from the
sky, they had stood and watched the loamy earth and sand being
shoveled over the coffin.
Catherine remembered.
Once again she felt that old animosity,
that depth of fury boiling through her blood, as she thought of her
sister’s callousness, her disregard for those children she had
brought into the world.
Mary, in her own way, had been a
monster.
And so, Catherine had killed her. Oh,
not physically, of course. Killed her memory. And that was when the
lying had begun, here, in this forgotten graveyard where Mary’s
casket now rotted, nothing inside it but stones.
Mary, or what was left of the woman
whose mind had slowly soured upon her, was still very much
alive.
In exile.
Trapped on a solitary little island
beyond the rocky dot of land known as Serpent’s Eye, where the
lighthouse stood. Mary’s island was just as small and even harder
to reach, so no one ever bothered but Catherine, in Earl’s
boat.
Mary lived there in a life of solitude,
and none of her daughters knew it.
Now Catherine peered through the
surrounding stands of fir and hemlock, to the peekaboo view of the
ocean. Here, where large rocks, capricious winds, and high tides
made travel difficult at best, it had been easy enough to get rid
of her sister. Her gaze centered on her sister’s island, the one
that had been named Echo Island by the locals for the way the sound
refracted off the island’s sharply planed rock walls. Earl, who had
worked for the Colony most of his life, had been there the most
recently to drop off supplies.
Catherine couldn’t remember the last
time she’d seen Mary.
“Dear God,” she whispered, closing her
eyes and praying that none of Mary’s daughters ever learned of what
she’d done.
The first cramp cut through Laura’s
abdomen as she stood in line at the deli counter of the Drift In
Market, the store where she’d worked as a teenager. One second she
was peering through the glass case in the deli department and
trying to decide between the turkey on sourdough or the ham on rye
sandwich, and the next a dull, swift pain was searing through
her.
“No,” she said aloud, and the girl
behind the counter glanced up, her knife poised over the hero she
was about to halve.
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing.” Laura held up a hand and
made her way to the restroom near the back of the market.
Fortunately it was free. She bolted the lock and tried to convince
herself that she was wrong, that she hadn’t felt the contraction,
that she wasn’t miscarrying . . . but the evidence was
there.
She was spotting.
Oh, please . . . no . .
.
The sharp pains, cramping as if from a
heavy period, slicing through her lower torso weren’t a good sign.
She knew what was happening, and she also knew it wasn’t uncommon
to miscarry within the first two months of pregnancy. Still, it
shocked her just the same, and she wanted to deny it, to fix
whatever was broken inside her, to save the precious life that had
barely begun to form.
But there was too much blood. She
waited as long as she could, buying supplies inside the bathroom,
crying silently. Empty and alone, she experienced a piercing grief
to the point that she couldn’t move for almost an hour. People
jiggled the door handle but she didn’t answer.
When she could, she walked numbly out
of the store, lunch forgotten, and drove straight to her house
without consciously being aware of the other cars and bicyclists
traveling along the road.
All her thoughts were concentrated on
the tiny life that she’d so desperately wanted. But it was too late
. . . too late. . . .
Harrison had just finished with the
lock on the back door, and the new window was in place when she
arrived. She managed a weak smile for him but dodged a longer
embrace. “Give me a sec,” she said, then grabbed some clean clothes
from her closet and locked herself in her bathroom, where the signs
of her miscarriage continued.
She’d lost the baby.
Tears filled her eyes and her throat
swelled shut.
Sadness clamped around her
soul.
She’d only known she was pregnant for a
week, and yet she’d felt such a bond with this baby, such hope for
their future.
Twisting on the handles on the shower,
she bit back her sobs. Stripping out of her clothes, she stepped
under the needles of hot water; then, once the water was loud
enough to muffle her voice, she let go, crying softly as the warm
spray washed over her muscles.
No! No!
No!
This can’t be
happening!
Please, God, spare this
poor little innocent!
Her shoulders shook with her
sobs.
With everything that had happened to
her in the last week, losing the baby was, by far, the worst. She’d
wanted a child for years, and even though she and Byron were
divorced and she would have to raise the little girl alone, she
hadn’t cared. But . . . oh, dear God . . . She leaned against the
tiles and felt the water ease her muscles. A part of her wanted to
deny what was happening, but she couldn’t.
She wasn’t just spotting; she was
having a full-blown heavy period.
There was nothing to be done but accept
her loss.
It would take time.
A lot of time.
She slid down the wall and sat, arms
over her knees, on the floor of the tub as the water ran over
her.
“You bastard,” she said, as if Justice
could hear her. “You damned son of a bitching bastard!” Her fist
curled and she called to him again. Using all her strength, she
closed her eyes and sent out the warning.
Come and get me, you
freak. Just try to come and get me!
And then, spent, she shut him out. If
it weren’t for him, chasing her down the hill, terrifying her in
her own home, sending out his hate-filled, hissing messages, she
might not have lost the baby.
Fury and grief twisting her insides,
she turned off the taps and, shivering, wrapped herself in a huge
towel.
Bastard! Bastard!
Bastard!
The mirror over the sink was fogged
from the steam in the bathroom. Even so, she saw her reflection
through the mist. Wan skin, eyes that were puffy and red, a mouth
that was a line of sadness, grief etched in the small lines of her
face—and something more. Something deeper and darker than her
sadness was the fierce determination to destroy the monster who had
tried to ruin her life, the maniac who had taunted her for almost a
week.
No
more!
Never
again!
Placing her hands on the sink’s rim,
she forced herself to take in deep breaths as water from her wet
hair dripped into the basin.
She heard a tap on the door. “Hey,”
Harrison said, his voice filled with concern. “Are you
okay?”
“Fine,” she lied, loud enough that he
could hear her. “I’ll—I’ll be out in a second.”
Pull it together,
Lorelei. You have to pull it together. No matter what. She
squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to think of the little life
that hadn’t made it, and as she did, the fury, in a full-blown
blood red cloud, filled her mind.
“Okay,” he said uncertainly, and she
felt a fresh onslaught of hot tears burning the back of her
eyelids. She fought them off as she dried off and stepped into
fresh clothes. New underwear, jeans, and a V-necked sweater. She
wiped the condensation from the mirror so that she could better
view the damage, then pulled her hair into a ponytail, slapped on
lipstick, and tried to hide the damage tears had done to her eyes
with liner and mascara. She knew she should probably contact her
doctor, but what was there to be done, really? Her body had done
its part. It was over.
Eventually, she pulled herself together
and walked out of the bathroom to find Harrison seated on her
couch, his laptop open on the coffee table.
“Big story?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’ve almost made it to another
level of backgammon.” He cracked a smile, and she forced one in
return but turned away, not ready for his scrutiny. There was a
part of her that wanted to tumble into his arms and cling to him,
to blurt out the truth, to tell him of her pain, but she had to
hold back. She hadn’t told him about the baby when she’d thought
she’d be a mother; there just was no reason to bring it up now. One
question would lead to another, and another, and eventually they
would end up discussing her ex-husband and how she’d gotten
pregnant.
“Hungry?” he asked, climbing to his
feet.
“Starved,” she lied.
“Me, too.” He glanced around the house.
“Maybe you should pack some things. I changed the lock and the
window’s back in the door, but until Turnbull is caught, this place
isn’t secure.”
“It is my home.” She looked at the
living room with its worn matching chairs and couch with sagging
pillows. Books lined the shelves around the fireplace, a few pieces
of abstract art splashed color on the walls, and the faded rug
covering the hardwood floors gave the place what she thought of as
eclectic chic.
“I know, but if you insist on staying
here, I’m moving in.”
“Okay,” she said. He was clearly
surprised by her rapid capitulation, so she said, “Justice tried to
contact me earlier, while I was with Becca in the graveyard. I shut
him out. But today I called to him.”
“What? Without me?”
“I’m tired of running, Harrison. Let’s
face the bastard. I’m ready.”