Copper Lake Confidential (17 page)

“I’m not normally forgetful.”

He curled his fingers around hers. “But this isn’t a normal time for you, is it?”

“No,” she agreed with another weak smile.

Stephen couldn’t help but wonder why the incident troubled her more than he understood. But if there was a subtle way to ask, he couldn’t think of it, so he just went with straightforward. “Tell me why it bothers you so much.”

Her gaze drifted away—not an obvious shift, as if she didn’t want him to see her eyes, just sort of moving off toward the square, but he would bet his first-ever book tour, if it ever materialized, hiding was exactly the reason.

“You’ll think I’m crazy. The hell of it is, I might be.”

His natural snort faded away. She wasn’t laughing, wasn’t teasing. The smile was just barely there, wobbling, and even with her head turned away, he could see the heat in her cheeks and the glistening in her eyes. He tightened his grip on her hand, not too tight, just letting her know he was there. No matter what.

A long time passed before she looked at him again. “You had a front-row seat for the intruder-in-the-guesthouse show. The night we went to Fair Winds, when I got home, I couldn’t find the contract I’d left in the living room. It finally turned up in Mark’s office. A day or two later, I threw a bottle of his cologne into the trash, and it reappeared in his closet, where he’d always kept it. Then my keys...”

So that was all it was. Worry over incidents that probably wouldn’t mean anything if they’d happened anywhere else. But to happen in the house she’d shared with her suicidal husband, while trying to deal with closing that part of her life and opening a new one...

“A couple of incidents don’t make you unbalanced, Macy. Stress manifests itself in strange ways. You probably just forgot because you need to forget. That’s part of what this trip is about for you.” He snorted self-deprecatingly. “I’m not a people doctor, but I’m happy to diagnose and give advice.”

“I’d be happy to accept your diagnosis and advice, except...” She glanced at Clary leaning against the wall, Scooter’s head in her lap, and the tears glistened again. “This is a really bad time to have this conversation.”

“Want to drop her off at home?” Because he really didn’t want to put it off. These kinds of confidences didn’t come easy, and he didn’t want to give her a chance to reassess and decide she didn’t trust him enough to share. He wanted her trust. He needed it.

His mother hadn’t raised him and Marnie in church, but he believed in God, miracles, divine intervention. At that moment it came in the form of Anamaria Calloway and her two children, waving from across the street. “Hey Doc! Hey Doc!” Will called while his younger sister vacillated. “Scooter! Doc!”

Despite the seriousness of the conversation a few seconds ago, Stephen couldn’t have stopped the smile crossing his face if he wanted to. Will and Gloriana, and their mother and father, were among his favorite people in town, and their yellow Labs, Lucky and Ducky, yes, named by the kids, were two of the biggest characters in his practice.

“Will thinks my name is Hey Doc,” he said quietly to Macy as the Calloways started across the street, “and Gloriana couldn’t care less what it is as long as Scooter’s around.” His smile broadened as they stepped onto the curb, released their mother’s hands and rushed over for a hug. “Hey, guys, how are you?”

Gloriana returned his hug, then immediately turned to Scooter and Clary. “I know you. You’re
her
little girl.” She pointed at Macy.

“Who are you?” Clary asked.

“I’m
her
little girl.” Now her finger turned to Anamaria.

Fidgeting in front of Stephen, Will claimed his attention. “Hey Doc, guess what? Mama let us skip the boring part of church. She made Daddy stay, though. Said he needed it more.”

From what Stephen had heard about Robbie Calloway’s life pre-Anamaria, that was probably true.

“We’re not being total heathens,” Anamaria said. “We’re having Robbie’s birthday dinner this afternoon, so we’re down here to pick up the cake from Ellie’s. Just the very immediate family, and I think it’s going to be twenty-some people.”

“Sounds like fun. Tell Robbie happy birthday.”

“I will.” Anamaria rested her hand on Macy’s shoulder, studying her intently. People said the woman was a psychic, and Stephen figured it wasn’t his place to say yes or no. There were more mysteries in the world, blah blah. After a moment, she bent to hug Macy. “We have a few minutes before the cake’s ready. Can we borrow Clary and Scooter for a little play in the square?”

Psychic, intuitive or just an insightful woman—Stephen didn’t care. At that moment he adored her.

Macy hesitated until the kids, including her own, started clamoring. Finally she nodded. He thought her reluctance might have as much to do with the conversation that awaited them as it did with letting Clary go off.

Linking hands, the kids headed off with Anamaria, Scooter trotting alongside with his leash in both girls’ hands. Stephen watched until they were in the square proper then turned his gaze to Macy. “You can see her and make sure she’s safe, and she can’t overhear a thing. You believe in fate?”

“I guess I do.” She shifted in the chair then folded her hands together. It took her a long time to start, but he didn’t push. Skittish creatures tended to push back or flee entirely.

“I told you last night that I—I lost the baby I was carrying when Mark died.”

He didn’t need to be particularly insightful to know she’d said those words to very few people. They were still difficult for her. They still tore at the raw place in her heart.

“I also, in a sense, lost Clary. I was hugely depressed. I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning, not even to feed or dress my daughter. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t feel. I didn’t care if I lived or died. The only times I wasn’t depressed, I was in a constant panic, almost manic in my behavior. I would get up at two in the morning and scrub the bricks in the fireplace because if I didn’t keep busy, I felt like I would explode out of my skin.” She gazed at her hands as if searching for telltale signs of that frantic scrubbing, grimaced, then went on.

“I couldn’t sit still. I couldn’t stop imagining horrible things happening to Clary, to my family. I tried to anticipate every disaster, every tiny little mistake. I couldn’t bear to let her out of my sight. Then the anxiety would fade—though it never went away—and the depression would come back. I wouldn’t bathe, wouldn’t eat. It was too much effort to even open my eyes most of the time, but even then, there was a little voice in my head, warning me of all the ways I could lose Clary. I didn’t have the ability to act on it, but it wouldn’t leave me alone.” Her voice trembled, her breath catching. Across the street, Clary called to her, and she looked up, smiling tightly, waving to her daughter.

“Finally, in a rare lucid moment, I asked my parents to hospitalize me, so they did. They committed me to a psychiatric hospital in Columbia.”

Stephen wanted to look away, to close his eyes, to take some time to process her bleak words, but he kept his gaze on hers. The shadows in her eyes were haunted, sad enough to make him need to gather her into his arms and never let go. He settled for tightening his fingers around hers.

“You’d been through a lot, Macy. Your husband’s suicide, losing your baby, Miss Willa’s death, all in a month. It’s no wonder your brain shut down for a while. You needed time to deal with it.”

“I wanted so badly to just go back a few months, a year. To wake up and find myself back in Copper Lake, still happily married to the man I knew in college, because he was definitely not that man at the end. But instead the doctors forced me to move forward—and Clary. She was a powerful incentive. I got out of bed for her. I took medications for her. I sat through hundreds of hours of therapy for her. I knew by then that she might not need me, but I damn well needed her.”

He wanted to argue the statement that Clary didn’t need her. She was her mother; she adored her; of course Clary needed her. But the girl had been barely one and a half when her father died, when Macy was hospitalized. She would have adapted to being raised by her grandparents, or to being Brent and Anne’s daughter.

Watching Macy stare into her coffee cup, he tried the whole scenario on in his mind. Macy, suffering such cripplingly severe depression and anxiety. On the one hand, it wasn’t such a surprise. Millions of people relied on antidepressants to get through the day. He could rattle off a dozen names of family or people he worked with in a dozen seconds.

On the other hand, the profound depression and anxiety she described... He looked at her and couldn’t quite imagine it. She struck him as gentle, yes. A little insecure. Maybe even a bit fragile. But he also thought she seemed strong, capable, on an even keel most of the time. Wasn’t that the best any of them could claim? That they were okay most of the time?

He glanced up as a couple of his clients, dressed for church in summer-weight suits, said hello, then went inside the coffee shop, and he wondered if they, like Will Calloway, had skipped out on the boring part of the sermon. When the door swung shut behind them, he said, “I’m really sorry for everything that happened, Macy. The words don’t do justice to the way I feel. I am overwhelmed and so very sorry you had to go through this, and I think the way you’ve come out of it is amazing. But just for the record, you’re not losing it again. You’re not crazy. Being back in that house, doing what you’re doing, is enough to give the most analytical person in the world the creeps.”

Her fingers squeezed his just slightly, and her wan smile reappeared for a moment. “Thank you for the vote of confidence, Stephen, but you’ve haven’t heard the rest of the story.”

Chapter 10

M
ost people had a
rest of the story.
Macy’s was a
worst of the story.
What she’d said already had been hard enough. She didn’t know if she had the courage to tell the worst. But the emotions on Stephen’s handsome face were in her favor: sympathy, sadness, sorrow. No sign of dismay that she had been, at one time, mentally defective. No revulsion. No horror. No hint of
She was broken once; what if she breaks again?

But that was why the rest of her story was the worst.

She sighed. It was a beautiful sunny day. Foot traffic was picking up a little, along with the cars. Church bells tolled nearby, and she imagined the big broad doors opening, kids spilling out first, followed by mothers who had pot roasts in the slow cooker or hungry folks wanting to reach the restaurants before everybody else.

She and Mark had always been slow to reach the parking lot. He’d greeted everyone he’d felt worthy, exchanging small talk, and she’d said hello to friends and acquaintances and people like Louise Wetherby. It had been part of their routine: Clary dressed like a little angel, Mark in his custom-tailored suits, Macy in dresses or skirts. No pants in church for her
ever.
They hadn’t had to hurry to dinner because Mark had a standing reservation at the country club—the best table, the best server and tips well worth the inconvenience of holding the table.

She sighed again. It was a beautiful sunny day, and if she couldn’t tell Stephen the worst of the story now, when could she? No one was close enough to listen. Her daughter was in Anamaria’s perfectly responsible care, playing with kids her age and loving it. And Stephen was waiting patiently, not pressing her. She could say,
I can’t talk about it,
and he would accept it.

She really didn’t know if she
could
talk about it. Outside of therapy, she’d never tried. But there was a first time for everything.

“Mark’s suicide was a huge shock to everyone. He was happy. He had a very strong sense of entitlement, of ego. He was quite convinced that he truly was one of the reasons all this existed—for his satisfaction, his pleasure.” She indicated the town with a wave of her hand. “But for all that, he was a decent man. People liked him. They were happy to call him their friend. Clary and I adored him.”

Stephen’s expression was open, nonjudgmental, though there was a flash of something at her last sentence that looked like envy. By the time she was done with this story, he would know beyond a doubt that her one-time feelings for Mark were no threat to him.

“His cousin Reece had come to town that October. I never got to meet her until...after. She and Mark were never close. The one summer they’d spent together, he’d tormented her regularly.” Long story that Stephen could learn later, if he was interested. If he was still around. “That day, he took Miss Willa and me to lunch at the country club, then she went to a meeting with me. He was supposed to be playing golf, but instead he went out to Fair Winds, and he—he—”

A customer went into the coffee shop. Two came out. Two more passed on their way down the block. When the sidewalk was clear in every direction, she blurted it out. “He tried to kill Reece and her boyfriend.”

That knocked the calm, studied look right off Stephen’s face. How many people outside law enforcement ever knew a murderer? How many lived next door to one, went to church with him, played golf with him?

How many had babies with him and slept in his bed every night without even the faintest hint of a clue?

“Oh, my God, Macy.” He barely breathed the words.

Her smile trembled, and her vision got blurry. Allergies, with all the newly bloomed flowers around. “You haven’t heard the worst of the story yet.” She checked their surroundings once again, noted Clary and Gloriana seated primly on the gazebo steps with Anamaria while Will and Scooter performed tricks in front of them.

“You see, the reason Reece and Mark were never close was because he’d tried to kill her once before when they were kids. The last time, she and Jones had dug up a bone from a grave on the front lawn at Fair Winds, and Mark had no intention of letting them call the authorities because either Mark or his grandfather had murdered the man. He couldn’t be sure which, since there were more than forty graves on that front lawn. It had been their hobby, the pastime that bonded them. No one knows exactly when Arthur started killing, but Mark was fourteen. He killed one of the two boys who saved Reece from him. The other boy was Jones, now Reece’s husband.”

Now the horror was in Stephen’s eyes. She made her fingers go slack around his so he could pull away if he wanted. She breathed out a sigh because the day was still beautiful and sunny, and she
could
talk outside of therapy about the evil she’d lived with and slept with and gotten pregnant with.

What would Stephen do now? Flee? Suddenly find excuses to avoid seeing her? Immerse himself in work and his real life and push her into a dark corner of his mind where, thank God, he didn’t often have to go?

She waited, feeling oddly calm. She’d told the worst of the story, and she’d survived the telling. Her palms were sweaty. Her chest was tight. But she hadn’t cried. She hadn’t shattered into a million pieces. She hadn’t lost control. And she felt...

Freer. Cleaner. Less tainted.

Seconds ticked past. Ten, fifteen, twenty. He was shell-shocked. Apparently, he didn’t know what to say or what to do, and so he said nothing, did nothing. Somewhere after thirty seconds, he released her hand, and her gut tightened. Disappointment tasted raw and sour in her stomach, rising up her throat.

Then he stood, pulled her from the chair, wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. His cheek rested against her hair and his soft words hovered over her ear. “You’re an amazing woman, Macy.”

It was the same day as thirty minutes, thirty seconds, ago, but somehow it seemed more beautiful, the sun brighter and warmer and full of healing light. For the first time since finding out she’d married a psychopathic killer, surely for the first time since she’d lost the baby she carried, she knew she was a lucky woman.

Because everything was going to be all right.

* * *

Stephen had been speechless plenty of times in his life—practically any interaction involving nongeeks when he was a teenager—but usually he recovered his ability of speech quickly enough. Beyond those five words, though, he had trouble settling his mind on any single aspect of Macy’s tale.

She’d been married to a serial killer.

Spent months in a hospital to treat severe vegetative depression.

Had a daughter with and been pregnant again by a man who killed to let off steam.

A serial killer who, along with his partner, had killed more than forty victims.

And Macy and baby Clary had had no clue.

God, no wonder she didn’t want to move back to Copper Lake.

No wonder being in the house freaked her out.

No wonder she had difficulty trusting.

But she’d trusted
him.
She’d trusted him enough to tell him everything. To tell him nightmares she’d never shared outside of her family and the hospital where she’d been committed.

Committed.

God, he still couldn’t completely grasp it. These sorts of things just didn’t happen to normal people, and those were the only kind of people he knew. Everyday normal, worked for a living, loved their families, worried about jobs and crime and keeping their kids out of trouble.
Those
were the kind of people he dealt with.

But he was falling in love with a woman who was as different as they came.

Not true, he immediately denied. Macy loved her family. She worried about her daughter. So she had money, didn’t need a job, had no concerns on that angle. She’d been married to a serial killer so crime had struck closer to home for her than most.

She was as everyday normal as anyone could be.

And she felt so damned good in his arms.

Barely audible over the mingled sounds of their breathing, she whispered, “If you want to walk away and forget you ever met me, I’ll understand.”

She would regret it, the quick tightening of her hands against his back suggested, but she would understand.

“Hey,” he said gently. “I’m a geek. I’m fashion-challenged. I’m a vet. I’m a midlist fantasy author. Obviously, I’m not easily deterred.”

Her hands tightened again, and she rested her cheek against his chest. After a moment of simply breathing, she finally lifted her head. “I suppose we should reclaim my child from Anamaria before she begs to go home with them. She’s a sucker for birthday cake.”

“So am I.” Releasing her, he took the coffee mugs and cloth napkins inside, then came back. She automatically tucked her hand inside his, and they crossed the street to the square.

“Mama, guess what?” Clary jumped up to meet them. “It’s Gloriana and Will’s daddy’s birthday. Isn’t that cool?” Without pause, she scrunched up her face. “I don’t have a daddy. But that’s okay. I got a grandpa and an Uncle Brent and Dr. Stephen.”

The kid knew how to wrap her little fingers around a man’s heart. He felt as if he’d been bestowed a great honor.

Macy reached for Anamaria’s hand and squeezed it. “Thank you.”

Anamaria might be psychic, but she hadn’t expected the touch. The surprise showed in her dark eyes and the deep relief of her smile. “You’re welcome. We’d love to have Clary over for a playdate this week. When my two get tired of playing with each other, it becomes more like combat. ‘Oops, I didn’t mean to hit you with the bat.’ ‘Sorry I tore your doll’s head off, and oh, gosh, there goes her leg.’ They would be thrilled with the distraction of Clary.”

“That sounds wonderful. She’s been here less than two days and already she’s
booored.
”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Anamaria said. She rose gracefully from the steps, the very essence of beauty and serenity, and called to her kids. Before walking away, though, she faced Macy head-on. “Remember what I told you your first day back?”

Macy nodded.

“That hasn’t changed.” Moving away from her, Anamaria patted Stephen’s arm reassuringly. “It’s good to see you.”

After Anamaria and her children crossed the street, Stephen glanced at Macy, who was watching them. “What did she tell you?”

She looked at him and smiled. “Just something that I really needed to hear. And now something that I really need to say—it’s time to head home. We’ve left Brent and Anne to work long enough.”

“Mama!” Clary stomped one foot and somehow managed to collapse in on herself while remaining standing, then huffed and straightened. “Oh, all right. I wish Grandma and Grandpa weren’t off on that stupid trip. I bet Grandpa would take me to the beach, and then to a movie, and he’d buy me a giant popcorn and pop and would read me stories when we got home. He wouldn’t just put stupid things in stupid boxes...”

Tuning out the rest, Stephen met Macy’s gaze and at the same time they rolled their eyes.

When they returned to the big house that, knowing what he now knew, kind of freaked out Stephen, too, Brent and Anne were working in the library. About a third of the shelves had been emptied, and a small mountain of book-packing cartons were stacked in the hallway. They were both pink-cheeked and looked in need of a break.

Stephen picked up a leather-bound volume and turned it carefully. “You do have an inventory of all these titles, don’t you?”

Anne’s eyes doubled in size. “We were supposed to be inventorying them?” With a pointed look at the boxes already sealed, she sank into a chair.

“I’m sure there’s one...somewhere.” Macy didn’t say more, but Stephen figured they all understood where: in Mark’s office. “Besides, I don’t need an inventory to give them away.”

“What about the tax deduction?” Brent asked.

“Don’t care.” Dismissively she assembled a box on one of the tables and taped the bottom seam with a loud rip of the dispenser.

Exchanging shrugs, Brent and Anne went back to work, and Stephen did what he did best: began moving the boxes from the hallway to the garage. Any library in the country would be thrilled to receive this donation, but particularly one in the South, given the number of Southern histories and biographies he’d seen on his first time in the room. The collection was probably worth a not-so-small fortune, but Macy couldn’t wait to see the last of it.

Now he understood why.

Clary was fussy by the time he finished moving the boxes, so he led her to the table holding the jade figurines. “Would you like to help me wrap these in a box so your mom can send them to your...”

“To Grandmother Lorna,” Macy supplied from her position on a ladder handing books down to Brent.

“Are we gonna wrap them like presents?” Clary’s eyes lit up. “Like birthday presents?”

“Well, sort of, but in plain paper.”

“Okay.”

He gave her two of the carvings to carry, cautioning her to be careful, then filled his hands, and they went into the kitchen. After two more trips, he lifted Clary onto a stool at the island, assembled a box and got a new package of paper from the garage.

“Are these toys, Dr. Stephen?” she asked, clutching one in her pudgy fingers and looking at it from all angles.

“No, honey. They’re just carvings for people to look at.” He laid out a few sheets of paper, showed her where to place the piece in one corner, then rolled it into a chunky package.

“I’d rather have toys. Who are they a present for?”

“Your mother’s sending them to your grandmother. They used to belong to your grandfather.”

“I don’t know them,” she said casually. “Do you have a daddy?”

“You bet. His name is Dave, and he lives in California.”

“Are you divorced from him? We learned about divorce in preschool. That’s why some kids don’t have daddies. Grandma says my daddy is just gone, and Grandpa says good riddance, and Mama says he’s dead.”

Stephen watched as she picked up a piece of jade that might have been a dragon or a tree with flowing branches. It was hard to say. “Do you know what
dead
means, Clary?”