Mercy (14 page)

93

was on Loch Leven, which had always felt like home, a small boat rocking be neath him with the currents that hid both the char and the kelpies.

"Where are you?" Allie said.

He blinked his eyes. She was smiling at him, and he was surprised that she could read him so well.

Cam shook his head. "Your turn," he said, holding out the rod. She moved into the circle of his arms. Cam came close behind her, tucking th e rod under the band of her watch. "There," he said, fitting her hand over t he cork grip. "Now you won't bend your wrist." He began to move her arm back

, watching the line overhead, then pushed her arm forward. "You don't want t o hear the line snap. When you backcast, watch the line come out. It'll unro ll and you'll see this loop unfolding itself. . . when it hangs like that, s ee? That's when you bring it forward."

Allie felt her shoulder pressing against his chest, his fingers closing over hers. He arced her arm in a slow and gliding pendulum, lending her the grac e she had witnessed in him moments before. She closed her eyes, beginning to feel that this was simply Cam's way of asking her to dance. Back, two, three, front, two, three. Back, two, three, front, two, three. A llie saw herself whirling about a glittering columned ballroom, Cam's cutaw ay evening attire smooth and fine beneath her hands. There was a moment whe n she could smell the winter coming and sense the heaviness of the air and feel her blood running and knew, at the same time, that she and Cam were in perfect rhythm. Oh, yes, she thought, this is lovely.

"Now you do it," Cam said, stepping away, and Allie awkwardly found herself standing alone. She lifted the fly rod, trying to listen to Cam's senseless comments about lifting at ten o'clock, lifting at one o'clock, keeping her w rist straight and presenting the line. She tried to keep up the rhythm by hu mming music, but she could only focus on the fact that Cam was watching the twist and furl of her body as she had watched his. Her cheeks flushed, and s he wished that he'd hold her close again.

I

t was afternoon before Cam pronounced Allie proficient enough to hold his sacred fly rod on Wee Loch, the lake for which the

Jodi Picoult

town had been settled. Cam tied the Old Town canoe onto the roof of Allie's c ar and drove to the boat launch. Then he settled Allie in the front of it and paddled to the far shore of the lake, where they were likely to find bass.

"Okay," Cam said finally. "This is the magic place." Allie glanced around at the lily pads and stumps that dotted the little cove Cam had rowed into. Th en Cam reached across the boat. The canoe tipped gently from side to side to balance itself, and Allie clutched at the gunwale, her face whitening. "Cam

," she choked out, "please don't."

Cam was casually tying a fly onto the leader of the fishing rod when she f elt composed enough to turn around. "Don't what? Use the dry fly?" He frow ned down at his hands. "Maybe you're right. Maybe a nymph ..."

"Cam," Allie began again, "I hate boats." That was an understatement. She truly disliked the sensation of having the world move beneath her feet, but she wasn't fond of anything outdoors. Whil e Cam had spent the pleasant journey across the lake pointing out the diffe rent kinds of birds and trees in passing, Allie had been counting the mosqu ito bites on her arms. She did not much like the wilds of nature, but she k new that it was the only setting that did not dwarf Cam or seem to leash hi s energy, and she never missed the opportunity to watch him in his element.

"Allie." Cam tugged on the leader to test it. "You're in six feet of water. T

here's nothing to worry about." He smiled at her, and handed her the fly rod.

"Go ahead," he said.

He knew that Allie did not like to spend time outside. Hell, her chosen pr ofession involved cutting down the most beautiful ornaments nature had mad e and arranging them to look good on a dining room table. It was gorgeous out; the sun was high and bright and dancing on the loch, th e greenheads were gone, the mountains in the distance looked too lovely to b e real. Cam glanced at Allie, who was carefully tangling the line around her forefinger like he'd shown her. If she spent more time doing things like th is, she'd fall in love with it too. It was simply a matter of exposure. He absently watched Allie begin to cast again, coming uncom-95

fortably close to a tangle of branches, and fantasized about taking her wit h him when he went duck hunting, ice-fishing, hiking over the Wheelock Pass

. He pictured her legs getting strong and suntanned, her features lit by th e jumping glare of a campfire. He wondered how long it would take from that point to get her to want to see Madagascar, or Crete, or the Rockies. He c onsidered why he didn't just plan a trip--Allie would go if he asked her, h e knew that--but he realized he did not want to see her staring out a tiny fogged airplane window and wishing she were somewhere else. He wondered if it bothered her to see him look like that, every day of his life

.

"I've got something," Allie said, her voice leaping with the gentle sway of th e canoe. "I think I saw it."

Cam watched the splash of the surface as the bass moved away with her line. He coached Allie in a low, firm voice, telling her when to let the fish run and when to pull gently in on the reel. As the bass became visible through t he dull brown layers of the water, Cam sat forward and pulled the net from h is belt.

"Now lean back," he told Allie, pushing her away and holding her wrist up hig h to bring the fish closer. He leaned in the opposite direction, over the gun wale of the boat. He scooped the net halfway in the water, watching the fish'

s tail beat frenetically against the nylon ropes. "What a beautiful fish," he said, hoping to excite Allie. "This is one of the biggest bass I've seen com e out of this lake."

"Really?" Allie crowed. She relaxed her hold on the fishing rod and scooted to the same side of the canoe as Cam, peeking into the net to see her prize.

"Look at its eyes," she said, reaching to brush its scaly head, and that wa s when the canoe flipped.

Allie popped up instantly, gasping and treading water and thinking of all th e slimy things that lived on the bottom of a choked lake like this one. To h er surprise, everything was black, and she wondered for a moment if she'd hi t her head and lost her vision, when suddenly she realized that she'd come u p beneath the overturned canoe.

She was about to duck beneath and resurface to find Cam, when she heard hi m laughing. Not just a chuckle, a how could this have happened to us? kind of laugh, but a gut-busting guffaw that

i Jodi Picoult

Allie knew could only be at her own expense. He was laughing at her eagern ess and stupidity, which had tipped the canoe. Raising one eyebrow, she gr ipped the gunwale of the canoe and floated. She took calm, deep breaths. L

et him stew, she thought.

Cam did think it was hilarious. Oh, she'd be pissed; hissing and shaking like a wet cat, he imagined. But if she'd only seen her own face seconds before s he realized she was going to hit the water . . . He wiped his eyes and tried to swallow his laughter and realized that Allie had not surfaced.

"Allie," he called, spinning around 360 degrees to see if he'd missed her. "A llie!" His eyes took in the several stumps lying to the side of the boat, the side that Allie had fallen on, as well as the tangle of lily pads whose root s, he knew, could catch your leg and drag you down.

Cam's pulse began to pound in time with the throb of his head. She was a g ood swimmer, but that didn't count when you were knocked unconscious. "All ie!" he screamed, his voice carrying on the smooth surface of the water an d sounding like nothing he'd ever heard before. "Allie!" He ducked beneath the water and opened his eyes to the grimy underworld but he could not see more than five inches in front of him. He began to feel aro und the bottom of the lake with his feet, hoping to brush something he could dive for. His teeth began to chatter and his heart had frozen in his chest. Allie popped up not two feet away.

"Jesus Christ," he exploded. "Jesus fucking Christ!" He took one long swi mming stroke toward her and crushed her against him, half dragging and ha lf swimming her toward the shore where they could both stand. When he set her on her feet, he was still shaking. He grabbed her so tightly he could feel the ridges of her ribs against his skin. "You scared the hell out of me," he said roughly, shocked at the vehemence of his own reaction a nd the strength of his need. "You scared me to death." He held her away from him, touching her forehead, which was ringed with silt; and her hair, still tangled with wet leaves and one of his flies. He tilted her chin up to his face. "Don't ever do that," he murmured. She had wanted to tell him it was all a joke, that she hadn't liked him laugh ing at her, but Cam was holding her close and staring at her as if he had to memorize her features, as if he had just seen the yawn and chasm of a life th at did not include her.

Jamie MacDonald's words flew into her mind: Seventy-thirty. Cam was looking at her, she realized, the way she always looked at him. Fasc inated, she touched her hand to his cheek, and felt him shiver. "I won't," s he promised, and she clenched her fists tight into Cam's soaking shirt in an effort to hold on to the moment.

SIX

Tamie MacDonald was on the lookout for angels. He had spent / yesterday wan dering through a card shop, picking up the Victori-ana to stare at fat-face d cupids and ethereal silver-haired girls in pleated Corinthian dresses. He examined these closely, looking for a sign, but he did not see in them any trace of Maggie.

He knew she was going to come to him. He knew this as surely as he knew tha t he would wait, if necessary, forever. Sometimes he would close his eyes a nd smell on the air the lily-of-the-valley smell that had threaded Maggie's clothes; the clean, honey scent of her hair. He'd picture her wearing a wh ite turtleneck and a swingy white skirt, downy feathers brushing her should ers and sweeping her back.

He was waiting for Graham MacPhee to come out of his goddamned office. It wasn't like the man had any other clients, so he did not understand why he was being made to wait. He cast a glance at Allie, his unofficial chap eron in town, who was calmly reading a Good Housekeeping magazine with mo st of the recipes cut out.

She seemed to feel him looking at her, and lifted her head. Giving him a nod of support, she smiled.

Allie had taken him to the post office, the minimart, the dry cleaners. She had paved the way for him to enter the video rental establishment and the barbershop, both of which were run by men

who made no effort to hide the fact that they considered Jamie a blight on d ecent society. She had gone out of her way to steer him toward the one telle r at the bank who had gazed at Jamie with moon eyes and told him he was a sa int; to the waitress at the coffee shop who kissed his cheek and said he had brought back her faith in true love.

Twice now at noon, when Jamie went to the police station to check in with Cameron MacDonald as per the conditions of his bail, Allie had gone too, h er arm firmly locked through his. Cam had yet to do more than grunt at him and wave him away, but he did not do anything worse, either. And this, Ja mie knew, he owed directly to Cam's wife.

He stared at her now from his perch by the faux fireplace. She was not a co nventional beauty, but she was pretty enough, with her whiskey-colored eyes and shiny, straight hair. She looked about as substantial as a twig, but J

amie had learned differently. Whether Allie MacDonald chose to admit it or not, she had an overwhelming depth of strength. Twig, maybe, but made of wi llow--able to bend and twist and give way, rather than break. Maggie would have loved her.

With that thought, Jamie swung his head to the fireplace again. For the firs t time, he noticed that the bas-relief carved into the mantel was a pastoral scene: Shepherds and cows and milkmaids scampered across the line of the fi replace, and overhead were clouds and angels. He stared into the white faces of each one, burning to see the curve of Maggie's eyebrow or the ordinary j ut of her chin.

Allie put her hand on his shoulder as he stood clutching the mantel. "Jami e," she murmured, "why don't you come sit down?" He spun toward her with tears in his eyes. "I can't find her," he said.

"You will," she assured him, leading him to the facing chair. She sat across from him and patted his knee. As he ran his hands through his hair, Allie s tood and walked over to the secretary. "Really, we've been waiting a very lo ng time."

As if she had summoned him, Graham MacPhee appeared from the hall. He was springy and lively and his hair was damp and combed back, although it wa s after one o'clock. "Jamie, Allie," he

said, running their names together as if they were one. "The time got away from me."

He waved them down the hall to the conference room, where a file stood open

, its contents knocked haphazardly across the table. Allie took a seat, but Jamie remained standing just inside the door. "The paperwork's all drawn u p for Techcellence," Graham said. Jamie had opted to transfer temporary con trol of his company to Rod and Flanders. "I still don't like the idea of no t specifying how long that interim time should be," Graham added, frowning.

"You can change your mind, and set a limit."

Jamie shook his head. "Let's just say I'm not quite the optimist you are." Graham cleared his throat, then fixed a smile on his face. "The preliminary hearing is next Wednesday," he said brightly, as if this were good news. Allie glanced at Jamie, but he was staring out the window at the dull traffi c of Main Street, his face closed and inscrutable. She licked her lips and l eaned forward, crossing her legs. "Which means?" Graham shrugged, making a trickle of water from his hair run over the collar of his olive herringbone suit. "It's a formality. We go back to court and t he DA tells a judge they've got a body, and then they'll make Cam get up on the stand and connect Jamie's confession to the evidence, and the judge deci des there's probable cause and we all go home."

Allie shook her head. "What about Jamie? Why can't he give his side of the story?"