Echoes (28 page)

She thanked Karen for her help and left the library feeling more confused than she had when she'd arrived. Outside, the sun made one last valiant effort to redeem itself. The air held the softness of coming spring. She stood on the sidewalk like an animal sniffing the air for predators. The feeling of being watched was gone.

Overwhelmed with relief, she looked around, letting her eyes adjust to the brightness and her lungs to the freshness. In the distance, brilliant orange poppies grew wild on the mountainside, joined by a riot of sage that clustered about the boulders and scented the air. Around her old buildings stood solid and proud, looking as if they'd guarded the sidewalks for over a hundred years. Through the peaked rooftops she caught sight of a white cross, perched atop a spire. As she climbed into her car, it occurred to her that churches burned down, but cemeteries generally did not.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Using the steeple as a guide, Tess drove up a winding road to the church grounds. She parked in a lot next to the quaint chapel and climbed the grassy hill to the side of it. Wearily, she made her way to a bench under an enormous, gnarled maple tree and with a wince, sat down in the cool shade.

Every muscle in her body felt as if it had been jerked and torn. She knew that if she were to strip down in front of a mirror she would find bruises and gashes on her arms and legs where the river had flung her against the hurling branches and hidden rocks. Just like before. That first time—in Tori's front yard—when she'd seen Molly, Rosie and Arlie at the banks of a swollen river. Now she knew where it was and what had happened—why she'd had bruises afterwards. Somehow the memory of the crossing had come to her out of sequence, confusing and terrifying to the point that she'd blocked it from her consciousness. But the bruises had been there, silent testament to the experience.

She sighed, remembering her horror as she'd looked at her reflection, relieved that there were no mirrors to look in now. She was afraid of what else she might see, afraid that her eyes might have made that subtle shift from blue to green. Afraid that Molly might have followed her back to wait on the periphery for the chance to take Tess over completely.

A shudder went through her. The peacefulness of her surroundings added to the feeling of being out-of-sync with time and place. Around her, marble crosses, arced headstones and carved statues marked off the graves of row after row of Mountain Bend's dead. The cemetery had an "other worldliness" that transcended the calendar and defied the passage of years. Kind of like herself, she thought with a grim smile.

She stood, staring down at the granite boulder and engraved plaque that shared the maple tree's shade with her. The monument was dedicated to the seventeen women, eight men and four children who lost their lives in the fire that had burned Mountain Bend's first church to the ground twenty-five years ago. A poem followed the somber list of names, recounting the bravery of the citizens who'd died trying to save the others who were trapped inside. Most of the children had been rescued, but only a few of the women and men present at Sunday's service made it out alive. The community would have been devastated by such a loss. Any community would.

The name Ellen Weston was on the list of victims from the fire. Was her death the tragedy that drove the family apart? Or was there something else?

Her cell phone rang as she sorted through the possible answers. She looked at her purse, momentarily confused. As both
Lydia and Craig had pointed out, signals were few and far between in Mountain Bend. Up here on the hilltop must be the exception. She fumbled the phone from her purse and answered.

"Tess? You never answer your phone."

"Sara." It felt so strange to hear her voice.

"What's going on? Is your sister back?"

"No, she's not."

Taking a deep breath, Tess told Sara what had been happening since she arrived, beginning with Caitlin pulling the key from her pocket and ending with the visit from the sheriff that morning. Sara's exclamations, curses and noises of disbelief would have been comical had the subject matter not been so serious.

"Sheriff Smith said they'd found her car parked at the bus station," Tess concluded. "One of the ticket sellers recognized her. And a woman here remembered Tori used the phone outside her coffee shop and she'd been upset that morning before she disappeared."

Tess had been bothered when the sheriff told her
Lydia saw Tori and then forgot. As she told Sara about it, she was even more disturbed. Too many things didn't make sense. First, Lydia's claim that she was so busy at the time contradicted the many comments Tess had heard about how the town was drying up. She'd hardly seen another soul when she was "downtown." So where had all that business come from? And then there was the news that Tori had been a regular customer. House Blend, every morning. And yet Tori didn't have a single genuine coffee bean in her house?

"None of it makes sense," Tess finished.

"No shit," Sara answered. "I mean, well Holy Hell. What do you think is going on? Who could Tori have been calling?"

"Anyone. Me, even. I just don't know."

"Could have been the baby's father."

"Unless he's Frank Weston. Why would she phone him? She saw him every day and presumably she was on her way to the ranch that morning."

"My money's on the L.A. secret. Who did she work for there?"

"I don't know. Sara, I have a hard enough time keeping track of where she lives. I gave up on the other details years ago." Tess paused as something occurred to her. "Last night when Grant was at the house, he said she'd been referred by a friend. Today he mentioned that he only had a few friends left in the business. One is a producer..." Tess searched for the name. "Forsythe. Brandon Forsythe."

Sara whistled. "He knows how to pick his friends. So what do you think the chances are of you getting to talk to Mr. Forsythe?"

"Probably less than zero."

"You're going to try, though."

"It's a good idea." Tess felt better for the plan, even if it led to nothing.

"So what's going on with you and gorgeous Grant Weston?"

"What do you mean?"

Sara laughed. "Come on, Tess. This is me you're talking to. Your voice gets all husky when you talk about him."

Alone on the bench, Tess could feel herself blushing. "I don't trust him," she said.

"But...?"

"It's complicated."

"Complicated good or complicated bad?"

"I don't know. I don't know how to explain it."

"You know I'm not going to hang up until you tell me."

And so she did. Everything. She began with Grant and the way he'd seen inside her. The way his touch had driven all sane thought from her head. Then suddenly she was talking about Molly and Adam. She hadn't planned to tell Sara about the life she lived in seconds or the wrenching loss when she returned, but it spilled out and with it came all the pent up frustration and fear. Sara listened silently this time. Only the sound of her breathing let Tess know she was still there.

"The thing is," Tess finished. "When I was with Grant...I had the feeling that he was part of it all."

"Maybe you should come home Tess."

"You don't believe me."

"Of course I believe you. God, no way would you make that up. But, Tess, you're scaring the hell out of me."

Tess half smiled. "I'm scaring the hell out of myself. When Caitlin drew that picture this morning, I nearly passed out."

"Why do you think—I mean, it's so... Well, there's got to be a reason for this? Right? So what is it?"

Tess stared out at the rows of tombstones as icy fingers toyed with her senses. "Something happened to them, Sara. Until I know what, I'm running blind. I can't come home until I find out. I can't leave until I know where my sister is. Brodie told Molly that Adam found out he wasn't the baby's father. He said Vanessa died right after that. He made it sound..."

"Like Adam killed her?"

"No." The word came low and instinctive, powerful in its certainty.

"Are you in love with him?"

"He's dead."

"True, but not an answer. Are you in love with him?"

"Sara, I don't know what I am."

"How about who you are?"

Sara didn't seem to expect an answer, not that Tess had one to give. Her phone made a warning beep. "My battery is going. I haven't charged it since I got here."

"Okay. But Tess, when are you coming back?"

"I don't know. Not until I find something out about Tori. Will you let work know? Sue left me a voicemail and told me to take as long as I needed, but I haven't called her back yet."

"Don't worry about it. I'll talk to her. Give me your sister's number in case I need it. I was nuts when you wouldn't answer your cell."

Tess gave her the number and thanked her for talking to their boss. Her phone gave another, urgent battery-low warning.

"I'll call you tomorrow, Sara."

"Okay. And listen Tess, don't you disappear too. Do you hear me?"

"I'll be careful."

After she hung up, she remained on the bench, thinking of Sara's questions. Was she in love with Adam? And what about Grant? Where in the crazy mix of emotions did he fit?

The questions circled in her head. Finally she gave up trying to answer them and stood to make her way to the less orderly section of the cemetery at the back of the church. Unlike the brilliant white chapel and the gravestones that stood in its protective shadow, this part of the cemetery was obviously very old. Here the grave markers were weathered or missing altogether, burned to the ground when the roaring inferno had lashed out from the church and incinerated the ancient wooden crosses. Without the records that had also been reduced to ash, numerous graves could not be identified and so remained unmarked, or so another commemorative plaque told her.

Tess traveled up and down the uneven rows, now bright green with a soft, fragrant blanket of grass and fresh spring flowers, before at last she came upon a headstone for Francis A. Weston. It was granite and smooth, looking far too modern for this section of the cemetery. His name stood out in stark relief and below it the words "Rest in Peace" followed by the year eighteen ninety-eight. His date of birth was not listed, nor was there a tiding to indicate if he was a good man, a loved man. A small metal plaque next to it explained that his original marker had been yet another loss to the fire of seventy-eight.

She looked for the headstones of Adam, Brodie, and Arlie but found nothing that bore their names. The same was true for Molly and Rosie. Had their markers been lost in the fire? Or had they ever existed here in the first place?

Tess stood there, feeling an ache she didn't try to explain. Which Weston brother was laid to rest at the foot of the granite headstone?

"And what happened to the rest of us?" she whispered.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

"Tess? Is that you?"

The sound of Craig's voice turned her as she stood blindly in front of the graves. She stared at him for a moment with the eerie sensation that he'd stepped from her thoughts. He could have been Adam, resurrected by the sheer longing she felt to see him.

"What are you doing here?" he asked as he drew closer.

Looking for ghosts, she nearly said.

"Do you know anything about him?" she asked instead.

He stared from her to the marker for Francis A. Weston and back, looking at once perplexed and concerned. "No," he said at last. "I don't. Years ago there were quite a few branches of the family living here, but by the time I was born they'd pretty much spread out over the country. I couldn't hazard a guess on half the Westons buried here—especially in this old part."

He watched her for a moment longer, obviously bewildered by the grief she couldn't manage to hide. She must look like a fool, standing over the grave of man she'd never even known.

"Tess, has something happened?" he asked in a tone that couldn't disguise his unease. "Did you hear something about Tori?"

She shook her head, turning so he couldn't see her face. From the corners of her eyes she saw him reach out to touch her and then pause, unsure, his hand poised halfway between them. She straightened her back, lifted her chin and looked at him again.

"No," she said. "No word on Tori."

He nodded and shoved his hands into his pockets. But he looked as if he expected her to break down at any second and his expression held such compassion that she nearly did. He seemed so strong and sturdy standing there in his conservative khaki trousers and pale green button down shirt. Solid enough to weather the storm of her emotions.

"I keep thinking, today I'll get some answers. But nothing. She's simply vanished into thin air."

"Answers are usually hard to find. You don't even know the questions."

"I know one. What happened to my sister?"

Craig took a deep breath and let it out. "You should leave it to the professionals."

"Like Smith? He's already made up his mind about Tori."