Indelible (29 page)

“Everyone needs a hand.”

“I need the whole village.” She shook her head. “Trevor, what if I’d been alone with him?”

“You’d find a way, Nattie. That’s what you do.” He looked over her shoulder out the kitchen window.

She turned as the neighbor’s tomcat pushed through the bushes at the gap in her fence, his periscope tail dodging in and out.

Trevor cupped her shoulder. “How are you doing?”

Her throat tightened. “It was awful.”

“But you handled it. Without even sculpting.”

Had she? She wasn’t so sure. “Why are you taking me to Sara’s?”

“So she can meet Cody in case you need a hand.”

She tipped her head, staring at his chin. “Why are you really taking me?”

“So she’ll know you matter.”

“I’m not sure I’m up for that.”

He threaded her fingers with his. “They’re my closest friends. I want you there.”

“Did you do that with Jaz?”

“They spent some time with her.”

“Whit’s not a fan.”

“Neither is Sara.”

She said, “I don’t want my business neighbors as enemies.” That relationship was more intrinsic than they knew—not something she intended to share, but a real concern.

“That’s not going to happen.”

The cat jumped onto her wrought-iron love seat, licked a paw, and rubbed it over his notched ear, an old veteran who probably thought all his fights could be won.

She pressed her hands to her eyes, groaning. “Who was it?”

“That you saw?”

She wondered, but she didn’t want to see it again. “I was at the window looking out. The face was looking in.” Dread penetrated, bruising her. “Why do I feel what I can’t see? It’s never been this way.”

“You said yourself no one knows how it works.”

She’d thought she did. Watching Miles have his hair cut was highly emotional—she’d staggered under it—but still held and transferred the image. This …

From the cabinet, she took out the box of PG Tips tea, scooped and clipped the mesh tea ball, and lit the flame under her kettle. She took down one mug and reached for another. “Would you like some?”

Trevor stroked the back of her hair. “Sure.”

Cody woke up asking for SpaghettiOs, but Trevor scooped him up and said, “How would you like spaghetti in a restaurant?”

Cody blinked. “Long busketti?”

“You know,
Lady and the Tramp
?”

“Yeah! Long busketti.”

“I hope you have someplace in mind.” Natalie slid Cody’s single arm into his coat sleeve, wrapped the rest around, and zipped.

“Of course.”

She looked slightly incredulous when he parked at the Tarleton Hotel restaurant. “Are you sure?”

“Sure.”

“It’s not really for kids.”

“Cody’s not a kid. He’s a rock star.”

The cold wind coming off the mountains smelled of snow. Natalie pulled her collar closed. “Isn’t it soon and early for another storm?”

“There’s no normal to mountain weather.” The more snow they got early, the better the base for the ski resort. A hollow formed in his chest. No point indulging it.

He asked for and got a table near the fireplace, a perk of early dining. Natalie rubbed her hands and basked. “Wasn’t it warm and balmy an hour ago?”

“Practically tropical.”

She smiled. “Well, I know a little monkey who won’t mind more snow.”

Cody made monkey noises. Trevor looked from one to the other, thinking it could be like this, he and Nattie and a little one or two. He didn’t know if it was fear or desire that made his voice husky. “You want something to drink?”

“I’ll just have tea.”

Cody said, “Cocoa!”

Trevor smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”

Spaghetti wasn’t on the menu, but Ann, their server, assured them the chef could make it. Cody got chocolate milk instead of cocoa, and Nattie
transferred it into a child’s cup with a thick bendable straw that he could manage one handed.

“What else do you have in there?” He nodded at her purse.

“Oh, you know, plants, lamp stands.”

His mouth quirked. “Mary Poppins.”

“Practically perfect in every way but … one.” She pulled a self-deprecating smile.

He covered her hand. “That’s one’s supercalifragilistic.”

As Cody tried to repeat it, Trevor noted the scar along his hairline, shiny in the fire’s reflection. The inner scars were not that faint, but he hoped being at Whit and Sara’s they might avoid another meltdown.

“Cody likes the penguins. Aaron and I took him to a special showing of the movie last spring. He laughed and laughed at the penguins. Didn’t you, monkey?”

“I lika penguins. Where’s my busketti?”

“They have to cook it, Cody. Here.” She pulled out a small pad of paper and pencil. “Why don’t you draw pictures?”

“I make a penguin.”

“Yes. Lots of penguins.” She held the pad still while he moved the pencil.

Trevor watched, curiously, but the circles and lines looked just like his little brothers’ drawings. Nothing prodigious there.

Ann came back and offered Cody more milk.

“Where’s my busketti?”

“Good question. Want to watch them make it?” With a glance for permission, Ann lifted him from the chair and carried him away.

Trevor leaned toward Natalie who looked a little teary. “Told you he’s a rock star.”

When Ann brought their salads, Cody wasn’t with her. “Chef’s got him,” she said. “He’s having a tour of the kitchen.”

Natalie laughed. “I’m beating myself up for being temporarily out of commission and he’s getting the grand chef tour.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Nat. You’re the best he has.”

Waiting at Whit and Sara’s door, Natalie chewed her lip. “Sara definitely knows I’m coming?”

“Whit’s told her.” Trevor shifted Cody’s weight and knocked.

“That’s what all the coded language was in the store? You and Whit?”

Trevor smiled.

Covering her ears in the snowy wind, she wondered why he didn’t walk in like the last time. Subconsciously separating?

“So.” Her breath came out in a cloud. “Will Sara win Pictionary too?”

“Pictionary’s anybody’s game. You’re only as good as your team, you know.”

She did. “How do you play it with three?”

“Sara plays for both teams. Guessing and drawing. But tonight we’re even.”

She shrugged. “Depends how we divide. If it’s women against men …”

He cocked his head. “Did you just challenge me?”

“Just saying.”

The door opened.

Trevor turned his head from her to Sara. “Nattie informs me, if you and she take on us guys, you’ll be ruling and we’ll be drooling.”

Sara’s face lit. “It would be diabolically unfair.” A glimpse showed she clearly loved it.

Natalie drew her first easy breath. Feeding Sara’s competitive spirit might just be the evening’s saving grace.

Thither full fraught with mischievous revenge,
Accursed, and in a cursed hour, he hies.

S
een! The shock reverberated. She had looked through his scars to the agony and through the agony to the void, recoiling at his dark and terrible power. No one ever had cast eyes on him as she—blind mice the rest, seeing only his affliction. But not this one. Looking deep into the soul, she measured him and left him stripped.

Trembling, he moved in darkness, a milieu he knew and dreaded. More time. He’d wanted more time! But now he must act, in haste and possibly error. A show of power—no handshake but a gauntlet thrown.

He left the car and strode, chilled by wind and spitting snow. No careful choosing of subject or setting—no chance for that! He would take what came, one careless step, one foolish choice. No stage, no camera. No pageant this, but a joust with sharpened lance.

In the shadows he moved, watching, seeking. Hither to and fro …

And there. Her head bowed in baleful retching. Caught unawares. He grabbed and lifted her.

Eighteen

L
ying with his wife’s head cradled in his arm, his hand resting on her belly, Jonah felt amazingly at one with her and with the life they’d created inside her. He had ached for so long to make right what he’d wrecked, and now it seemed—

His phone rang, and he reached automatically, rolling and shielding his mouth to speak. “Yeah, Moser.”

“Sorry to bother you, Chief, but it seems we might have a missing teenager. Might be a mistake, but given the weather, I don’t like taking a chance.”

If the wind howling off the mountains carried the predicted snow, it meant blizzard conditions. “Hold on.”

Tia raised her head as he mouthed, “Sorry.” She rested her palm in the warm spot he left and closed her eyes. Out in the darkened room by the fireplace where coals throbbed purplish red, Enola raised her head to study him, Scout, snoozing by her side.

“Talk to me.”

“You know Randy Weller’s daughter, Michaela?”

That caught him by surprise.

“She was here at the Summit.”

“Underage?”

“Lucas served her Coke. Someone else made it flammable.”

Still the Summit’s responsibility, though less realistic if the place was hopping. Lucas could mostly be counted on there.

“The ladies’ was in use, so she went out back to void her stomach.”

Anyone but Moser would say vomit.

“Her friends thought it hilarious, until she didn’t come back in. They went looking, but she was nowhere to be found. They called home, thinking her parents came and picked her up, but the folks haven’t seen or heard a word. They’re here now, but no one seems to know anything.”

“Michaela’s not wild or foolish. I don’t think she’d upset everyone for fun.”

“Could have gotten a ride from someone else.”

“Or she’s wandered off and lost her bearings, maybe passed out somewhere in the storm. What’s it doing over there?”

“Blowing.”

True to its name, the Summit perched at the top of the street and backed onto open mountainside. Having spewed out there himself, back in the day, Jonah pictured it all with clarity. “Get someone calling all her friends. Don’t let her parents go off and get themselves lost. I’ll call the sheriff to organize a search.”

“I hope it’s for nothing.”

They could always hope.