Final Scream (27 page)

“What? No.” What was he talking about? Why the sudden shift in conversation? She felt a sudden sense of foreboding. It was odd, she thought, but then she and her father weren’t particularly close. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a conversation, just the two of them.

“Good. That’s good.” He spoke softly as he stared out the window, past the pool, to a distance that only he could see.

“Do you, Dad?” Where was
this
leading?

“Of course,” he said without even a second’s hesitation. “And I think I’ve been cursed for a long, long time. I only wish it didn’t involve you or your brother or your mother. It was bad enough that it destroyed Angie and Lucretia.”

“What—what are you talking about?” she asked, and wondered if she really wanted to know. There were secrets in the Buchanan house. They all had them, and she sensed her father was about to share his.

“I think it’s time you knew a few things about me.”

Oh, God, she was right! Rex wanted to make a confession. A dull roar seemed to build in her ears.

“Oh, God,” he whispered, almost as if it were a prayer. “I don’t really know how to say this, but…” His fingers gripped his empty glass so hard his hand shook. “It’s my fault they died, you know. All my fault.” He blinked rapidly, fighting the urge to break down.

“You didn’t kill them,” she said, hardly daring to breathe. Surely he wasn’t saying…

“Not intentionally, no. But I destroyed them; as surely as if I’d turned the ignition in Lucretia’s car or struck a match to the old gristmill.” Tears glistened in his eyes.

“But how? Dad, this is crazy talk.”

“By not being faithful. A man should always be faithful.”

The grandfather clock in the den began to chime. Rex glanced at his watch and seemed to pull himself together. “Jesus, look at the time. I guess we’d better go visit Chase.”

“Wait a minute,” she said. “What do you mean that you weren’t faithful? You can’t make a statement like that and just leave, Dad.” She was angry, afraid of what she was about to hear.

“I suppose not.” His features grim, he closed his eyes. “It’s simple, Cassidy. I cheated on Lucretia. There were other women. One who I really cared about—not like Lucretia, you understand; I didn’t love the women, but I did care about this one.”

“You mean Mom?” Cassidy’s stomach quivered.

He closed his eyes, and his lips moved silently as if he were sending up a prayer. “No,” he admitted, his jaw sliding to one side.

Cassidy’s fingers clenched around the edge of the counter. “Then who?”

“It’s ironic, really,” Rex admitted, dropping his empty glass onto the table. “The woman I cared about—the one I went to when I was lonely—was Sunny McKenzie.”

The sky was the color of slate—thick clouds covered the sun, the sultry heat oppressive. Cassidy drove as if her life depended upon it; as if putting distance between herself and her father would keep her from believing anything she’d heard.

The inside of the Jeep was warm, the summer air muggy with the threat of rain. Humidity made her sweat; disgust and disbelief kept her heart thumping wildly. Her mind was racing a million miles a minute to dark, suppressed corners she didn’t dare peer into too closely.

The first splat of raindrops drizzled down the windshield, causing winding rivulets on the dusty glass. She didn’t bother with the wipers, barely noticed the thin stream of traffic on the winding county road.

Her father had an affair with Sunny? Chase and Brig’s mother—a woman whose husband left her because he questioned the paternity of her children.
It’s only rumors. Just gossip. Just because Rex Buchanan slept with Sunny didn’t mean that he fathered…oh God!
Her mouth went dry, the taste of stomach acid rising in the back of her throat.

For years she’d trained herself to be unemotional, to look at each news report, no matter how sordid, no matter how violent, no matter how depressing, with professional and uninvolved eyes. Though she’d had sympathy for the victims of crimes or accidents, she’d been able to report each story objectively. Afterward, late at night at home, she could confide in Chase, let her emotions pour out, but while she was on camera or writing her story, she kept her outrage or sorrow at bay.

But when it came to her own family, she couldn’t find that inner thread of steel that kept her emotions under wraps. She’d been speechless when her father had admitted his affair with Sunny, and though she’d tried to question him further, he’d clammed up, as if he instantly regretted confessing to her. He’d made an excuse to go upstairs and look in on her mother. As if he cared!

Maybe it was just the booze talking
. For years she’d suspected her father relied on alcohol to numb him; to help him cope with problems he’d rather not face. He’d used Scotch or brandy to soak his brain as he’d relied upon the confessional to assuage whatever guilt he bore for his sins.

Other dark thoughts coiled through her mind—ideas that slithered like poisonous snakes she couldn’t outrun.

If Rex had engaged in a long-term affair with Sunny during his first marriage, wasn’t it possible that he could have fathered Chase? Or Brig? The thought made the contents of her stomach turn sour. Her fingers gripped the wheel and she eased up on the accelerator as she approached a curve in the road. Surely if he’d sired Chase, Rex would have confided in his daughter—insisted she stop seeing a man who could be her half brother.

For the love of God. Her half brother!

Maybe Rex didn’t know. Maybe he really believed Frank McKenzie was Chase’s father.

Her mouth filled with saliva. She cranked on the wheel and pulled over. The belly of the Jeep was brushed by long, dry grass. Wheels squealed in the gravel of the shoulder, and the Jeep jolted to a stop. Throwing open the door, Cassidy jumped to the ground and ran to the ditch, where she retched violently, the contents of her stomach splattering in the weeds and litter of the dry gutter. “Please, God, don’t let it be true,” she whispered and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Dropping to her knees, she felt fat drops of rain plop against the back of her neck and shoulders.

Maybe not Chase. Maybe, if Rex fathered any of the McKenzie boys, it had been Brig
. Hadn’t Frank McKenzie left Sunny only days after Brig had been born? Hadn’t there been rumors of Sunny’s lover siring her infant son? And hadn’t Rex bent over backward giving Brig every chance possible, hiring him when other men wouldn’t give the black sheep of the McKenzie brood the time of day?

Saliva formed in her mouth and she spat before vomiting again.
Not Brig! Please, please, not Brig!
But if he had fathered Brig, didn’t Rex deserve to know that his son was lying near death in the hospital? Didn’t Sunny have the right to visit him one last time?

Leaning forward, she dry-heaved until tears ran down her face. Her entire life had shattered. Even if neither Brig nor Chase was Rex’s son, she’d never feel the same. Still kneeling, she leaned backward so that her rump hit her heels and the rain fell on her upturned face. Her father and Angie? Her father and Sunny? The world began to spin and she shook. The corners of her eyes were shadowed as if she would faint before her stomach revolted again and she hung her head over the dry grass and weeds. No! No! No!

Tears burned her eyes and she ran the back of her hand under her nose when the retching ended. Slowly, she rose to her feet. “Get a grip,” she told herself as she wiped her hand over her lips and spat into the ground. “This isn’t the end of the world.” But of course, it was.

It was cold—so cold. Impossible to get warm. Sunny shivered. Because of the boys. Her boys. Images of them as toddlers, youths and young men danced in her head. Handsome. Strapping. Full of promise.

It had been years since she’d seen Brig, even longer since she’d reluctantly given Buddy away, and Chase—how long had it been since he’d come to visit? She’d counted on Chase, knowing deep in her heart that one day he would turn his back on her. Long ago, she’d seen into his soul. She tried not to be bitter. It was only right for a son to leave his mother and take a wife.

She rubbed her hands over the thin cotton of her sleeves, hoping to infuse some heat in her body. She’d been a foolish woman, she knew, trusting some of the wrong people. Even when she’d looked into their eyes and seen their true spirits.

Rex Buchanan had been a mistake. She’d been young and dazzled, the wife of Frank McKenzie, a good, decent man who wanted nothing more than his meal on the table when he got off work, and peace and quiet so that he could watch television. His eyes had been clear and blue; honest mirrors. He didn’t make excessive demands upon her, never raised his fist to her, never so much as yelled at her, but he’d had a violent streak, one he’d kept dutifully under wraps. Until he drank. Then Frank transformed from an easygoing millwright to a hostile being with a chip stuck solidly on one brawny shoulder.

He’d gamble then. Find a cockfight or a dogfight and wager part of his pay on the bloody outcome. That was the only time when they would argue; when Frank would come back from the pits, smelling of smoke and sawdust and blood, a gleam in his eye when he won, disappointment bitterly etched into the lines around his mouth when he lost. Those few-and-far-between times were the worst, for then Frank seemed to become the embodiment of evil, the same hateful kind of man her father had been.

Sunny despised Frank’s weakness. She believed in the sanctity of life for all creatures and refused to be silent after his drinking, wagering, and watching animals trained to kill and disembowel each other. The only time she raised her voice to her husband was when he’d been to the pits. The animal fights were not only inhumane but illegal, and Sunny had called the authorities more than once; each time the pits had been closed, but within weeks a new location was found in the wooded hollows and old barns that dotted the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.

She’d never meant to be unfaithful. Though she was not a religious woman, her wedding vows were sacred to her and meant to be revered. She hadn’t planned on falling in love with Rex Buchanan, nor he with her. But it had happened. Violently. Passionately. Sinfully. In lust she’d borne him a son. Because of that lust, her marriage had ended.

She’d always considered it fate that they’d found each other, their destiny. He never would have known her, never crossed that forbidden line, if not for circumstance.

As a joke for his thirty-fifth birthday, some of Rex’s employees had given him a gift certificate to have his palm read and his fortune told by Sunny McKenzie. Sunny had known the certificate, which she’d made out of posterboard and colored markers, had only been for sport, that she was being made fun of, that Rex Buchanan, lord of all that was Prosperity, Oregon, would never deign to show his face in her little trailer rusting on the shores of Lost Dog Creek. But she needed the business, and she’d gone along with the group of five or six blowhards from the mill and placed the certificate in an envelope sealed with purple wax. When Rex had sheepishly knocked on her door two months later, she’d been surprised and pleased, welcoming him inside and taking his strong hand in hers.

Immediately, she’d seen his spirit. Sometimes a spirit would hide beneath layers of well-developed personality, but not so Rex’s. His hand had been warm, his grip strong, his fingers capable of violence or tenderness. As she’d stared into his mesmerizing blue eyes, she’d looked into his soul and witnessed his sorrow, known instantly that his wife was cold and unloving. “You are not happy,” she’d said.

“I don’t believe in this.”

“I know.”

He’d tried to ease his hand away from hers, but she’d held on fiercely, full of wonder about this powerful man. “But you’re not happy.”

“Of course I’m happy. Why wouldn’t I be?”

She released his fingers. “You love your wife and son, but you’re not happy.” She saw his eyes narrow and color climb angrily up his neck. “You haven’t been happy in a long, long while.”

“You don’t know a thing about me.”

“I feel sorrow and suspicion.”

“Who set this up? Roy? No, Harold. I bet it was Harold, wasn’t it?” he demanded, then when she didn’t respond, he grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her backward, shaking her a little. “It was Harold Curtain, wasn’t it? That idiot! God damn that pompous bastard. I should have him fired—”

“He has nothing to do with the words I speak. I only tell the truth, from my heart.”

“Then you’re crazy.”

“You came to me,” she said simply, and his fingers, digging deep into the flesh of her shoulders, loosened. “You came here because you are unhappy. Because you want to find a way to fix things with your wife, so that she will love you and trust you and sleep with you.”

He sucked in his breath, and his fists clenched. For over a minute he said nothing and the air in the trailer seemed charged. “You don’t know—”

“I know of your guilt. For the wedding night and…and the fire…the burned dress.”

“God in heaven,” he whispered, his face suddenly white as death. “But no one knows—” He glanced nervously around the small room as if afraid they could be overheard. The blood pounded in the pulse at his neck, and his lips barely moved as he spoke. “Lucretia’s been here,” he said. “My God, she’s been confiding in you.”

“I’ve never spoken with your wife.”

“But she promised, made me swear I’d never say a word—”

“I see your pain in your eyes, Rex Buchanan. I feel it in your hands.”

“For Christ’s sake, what is this?” He stumbled backward, knocking over a chair, his faith in God shaken.

“Do you want to know the future?”

He’d hesitated. “I told you. I don’t believe in any of this hocus-pocus. It’s all…all just a pile of crap. I go to mass every week,” he said, his voice rising in near hysteria, his face suffusing with color again. He hooked a thumb at his chest. “I believe in God.”

“I know you do. I see in your eyes that you’re a faithful man. What I do has nothing to do with God, nor with Satan. The dark one, he’s who you really fear, and Lucifer is not here. I’m not a witch.”

“I should hope not!”

“I can’t even explain what I see,” she said with a shrug. “If you want your money back—”

“No, keep it. It wasn’t mine anyway. This was just a couple of guys’ idea of a joke. A bad one.”

“So you’ve paid. Why not glimpse into the future?” She managed a reassuring smile for this wealthy man with his superstitions and guilt woven so tightly around his neck they were choking the life from him. “It might ease your mind.”

She saw the sweat forming above his brow and felt his fear—for that was what it was. “If you don’t believe, certainly it won’t hurt to listen to me. After all, it’s only a joke, right? Innocent enough.”

His gaze locked with hers, and she saw his hesitation, watched as he challenged whatever demons had a stranglehold on his heart. He straightened, then righted the chair. Again he was in control, a wealthy man who knew his own power. With a confident grin, he said, “Sure. Why not? Should be a kick.” He sat down again, stuck out his hand defiantly and Sunny wrapped her fingers around his palm. She felt his heat even then, the restless energy that pulsed through his blood, fed by his guilt and the temptation to cross the line between good and evil.

His pain was all-consuming. She saw through it as clearly as if it had been mere ripples on water and she felt his sadness. “Your wife doesn’t love you,” she said simply, hurting for him.

He started to pull away, but didn’t. “That’s a lie.”

“She cared for you once, but something happened on your wedding night.” Sunny saw the stark images—fire and white satin, flowers and blood, a rumpled bed and heart-shaped bathtub. And she witnessed his guilt, a dark ugly veil surrounding the past, as surely as if she’d been in the hotel with him on his wedding night. “You did something—”

His throat worked. “Never. She—”

“You think she turned you away, because of…” She cringed as she saw it then, the violent, one-sided coupling, Rex drunk, Lucretia young and frightened. And then, in the intervening years, the cold shell Lucretia had built around her heart.

“Oh, you’ve tried to atone,” Sunny whispered, wishing she could ease his agony and knowing even then that no one could, “but she won’t let you; she enjoys having power over you.”

“It’s not like that!”

Sunny didn’t argue, didn’t tell him that she saw the private torture in his soul, the bruises on his heart because his wife had rejected him, refused to love him. And beneath the hard muscles, fierce pride, rapier tongue, she glimpsed another man, a gentler man, a man who only wanted love. A wounded, misunderstood soul, not unlike herself. Sunny lifted her eyes to his, and their gazes mingled in the stillness of the hot trailer. She felt him tremble, felt her own suddenly frantic heartbeat.