On Blue Falls Pond (22 page)

Even so, that didn’t change the facts of the fire. And would he have pushed Glory harder to remember considering her condition and the available evidence? Andrew’s body had been burned in his bed—after the carbon monoxide had killed him. Glory had been beside the back door. It didn’t take a fire investigator to see what that indicated. If Glory knew he suspected something other than an accidental fire, would she make the same conjecture? What would that do to her?

Why couldn’t she just let the past go and move toward the future? Nothing was going to undo the tragic outcome of that night. It wasn’t going to serve any good purpose to drag all of the hurt and suspicion back out into the light when, short of a confession by an arsonist, there could be no other ruling on the cause.

He thought of the two accusatory messages Glory had received. Someone else out there had similar thoughts and wanted Glory . . . what, upset? To leave Dawson? To confess to arson and murder?

Or was there something more dangerous lurking in someone’s mind. Was there someone out there who wanted to cause Glory physical harm? He shook his head. Then why all of the warnings? That didn’t make sense. This was a psychological battle being waged.

How much pain could one woman take without breaking? When he’d seen her today at the ruins of her old home, he’d wanted to take her in his arms and protect her from all of the pain of the past. But there was no way to block that from her. He knew Glory was a strong woman, stronger than even she suspected. She didn’t really
need
his protection, no matter how much he wanted her to.

He didn’t want to wait until Sunday to see her again. He wished he hadn’t agreed to the picnic with Jill tomorrow; Scott probably wouldn’t like all of the commotion of the park on a busy Saturday afternoon. But Eric didn’t want to set Jill at odds with him again. Scott needed to get to a doctor who could help him—the sooner the better. And it was going to take her full cooperation to ensure that a treatment plan was followed through. If that meant a semimiserable afternoon in the park, so be it.

He’d like to drive out to the hollow right now. But Glory didn’t need Tula asking if there was something going on between him and Glory. So instead of taking Glory on a long sultry walk before the storm, he paced.

He meant what he’d told her; he didn’t want to make her life more complicated. But it appeared the only way he could be
in
her life was going to cause serious complications.

Like an irresponsible child, he wanted all of this just to go away and leave him and Glory alone to discover each other fully. He could love her; it would be so easy—if only the rest of the world would stop erecting roadblocks.

Glory stuffed the T-shirt in the trunk of her car, fearing Granny might find it. Then she went inside and locked all of the doors and closed the first-floor windows. She shut off all of the downstairs lights and turned on both the front and back porch lights. For several minutes she prowled from window to window, trying to see if there was anything moving near the house.

Once she felt sure there weren’t immediate dangers lurking in the bushes, she fought the urge to call Eric. In fact, she had the phone in her hand more than once. But she told herself that she had to stop expecting him to hold her hand every time she suffered a fresh blow.

She made the rounds of all the windows again. Nothing stirred in the shadowy yard.

Maybe she’d call Eric just to hear his voice. She wouldn’t tell him about her visit with Walt and Ovella, or her unsettling conversation with Jill, or this latest message. It would calm her just to speak with him.

Who was she kidding? The second she heard his voice her emotions would shine through.

That’s it. She was going to bed—as far away from Granny’s kitchen telephone as possible.

Before she went upstairs, she checked on Lady and the puppies. When Glory entered the room, Lady lifted her head but didn’t get up from where her pups slept jumbled together, pressed close to her body. The little ones were indistinguishable, just one mass of lumpy tan fur. All except for the dark one, the runt, a male Glory had taken a particular liking to. He always stuck out in the pile.

She whispered, “It’s all right, girl. Just checking.”

Lady laid her head back on her paws and closed her eyes, issuing a sigh that clearly said motherhood was exhausting.

Glory got quietly ready for bed by the glow of the night-light in the bathroom. She was too spooked to turn on lights; unable to shake the feeling of being watched.

She lay there in the sticky heat, watching the ceiling flash bright white in the intermittent lightning, hearing the storm inch slowly eastward, with her thoughts in a turmoil.

Who had put that shirt in her car? Someone who knew she had a . . . connection . . . with Eric. Rumors did fly in a small town. She and Eric had been seen together plenty; on his motorcycle, at the hospital, at the body shop, even at the doctor’s office. She supposed someone might have seen her car parked in front of his house night before last. Too bad there were so many varied opportunities that it didn’t really narrow the field of suspects.

Three. Now there had been three taunting messages, each one becoming more specific, more hateful.

“Glory?” Granny called from down the hallway.

She got up and hurried to Granny’s room. Gran met her at the doorway.

They both said at the same time, “You all right?”

Then they both answered, “Yes.”

This brought a chuckle from both women. Then Granny said, “I just got this peculiar feelin’.”

“It’s the storm coming, Gran. You always said it had an effect on you.”

“Reckon it could be. It’s hotter’n Hades, ain’t it?”

“It’ll be cooler by morning. The storm can’t be that far off now.”

“Count between the flash and the thunder like I taught you, and you’ll know for sure.” Granny smiled and headed back to her bed.

Glory watched her for a moment from the doorway, realizing just how much of her life had been influenced by this extraordinary woman. “’Night, Gran.”

“If’n you get scairt when the storm hits, you can come and get in bed with me,” Granny said lightly. Many a summer night when sleeping over at Granny’s, Glory had come running into this room and climbed into bed between Granny and Pap.

How could she tell her grandmother that she was scared, but not of the storm? And Glory didn’t think hiding in bed next to her 110-pound grandmother was going to save her this time.

“Okay, thanks.” With effort, she matched Granny’s tone. “’Night, Gran. Love you.”

“Love you, too, Mornin’ Glory.”

When Glory got back in bed, she was nearly afraid to allow her thoughts to return to her problems; Granny was so sensitive to Glory’s moods and all. But if she didn’t try to figure out where the notes were coming from, she’d think about Eric. And she wasn’t prepared to delve into that particular dilemma right now.

So she thought about the exposure her car had had today; where and when that shirt could have been put inside it. She had the only recent-model Volvo in town, so it was easy for anyone to spot. She’d never locked her car doors in Dawson, even when Andrew had been alive to chastise her. Besides, it had been so hot today that she’d also left the windows partially open.

The car had been parked on the square for over an hour.

She’d stopped at the gas station at the edge of town before she’d gone to the cemetery. They didn’t have pay-at-the-pump, so she’d had to go inside.

At the cemetery her car had always been within her sight. Then it had been safely in the Harrisons’ drive. After that on the dead-end road where she used to live.

It boiled down to the fact that anyone could have put the shirt in there, at almost any time. It could even have been put there the night she’d gone to Eric’s. She normally just reached behind the seat to drop or retrieve her purse. It was a fluke that she opened the back door tonight.

Could someone have slipped it inside while the car was parked here?

That thought made the creepy feeling that she was being watched come back.

The heat in the house served to make her frustration worse. If only that storm would hit and stir up the air. Glory flopped her damp body from one side to the other, kicking off the sheet.

She was just going to have to be ultra-aware of everything around her from now on. Be vigilant. That was the only way she’d ever be able to narrow down who was doing this to her. The question of why would have to wait until she found out who.

You know why. You started that fire.

“No.” She pulled her pillow over her ears, even though the accusing voice came from inside her head.

At some point she finally began to relax. She hung in that place between true sleep and awareness, the place where the body is quiet but the mind as active as a beehive. Where near dreams mix with reality in odd and sometimes uncanny ways.

She was back at the cemetery. Suddenly hundreds and hundreds of flowers began to fall from the sky, a blizzard of color and fragrance. Glory had to bat them away in order to see. When she looked down to where they were accumulating on the ground, she saw they’d been drawn like a magnet to Andrew’s grave, mounding nearly waist high. But not a single petal rested on baby Clarice’s grave.

Eric arrived at Jill’s at twelve on the nose. In his pocket he had several typed pages of information on doctors and clinics they needed to discuss. As he approached the door, he had such a dichotomy of feelings that he was nearly ashamed of himself. On one hand, this was the opportunity he’d been seeking for weeks; they were finally going to take steps to discover what their son needed. Yet, he couldn’t help but feel slightly resentful of Jill’s manipulation. They had never taken Scott to the park; they rarely did more together with him than hand him from one to the other. That realization made him feel even guiltier. Maybe Jill had a point; Scott needed more of a sense of security and family than they were giving him.

He rang the doorbell.

She opened the door with a smile. “Hi, come on in. We’re not quite ready.”

He wanted to tell her to hurry the hell up. The longer it took them to get to the park, the later it would be when they got back. Although it was Saturday, he had hoped to make a few inquiries and phone calls after they decided which doctor they were going to start with. It seemed each day of delay was a day that they would have to overcome later.

Jill disappeared into the kitchen. “I just have a couple of things to finish up, then we can go. Scottie’s been such a good boy this morning. He’s been playing and watching cartoons, letting Mommy get things ready.”

Eric didn’t respond.

Scott sat in front of the television, which was tuned to Bugs Bunny. Jill was deluding herself thinking he was actually watching it. It was as clear as day to Eric that Scott was focused on circling his pirate boat, not even looking up when there was a boom or a crash on the TV.

Eric knelt beside his son, hoping to see that little glimmer of response he’d experienced yesterday. “Hi, buddy.”

Scott just spun the boat.

Autism.
Eric finally put a name to his fear. There were so many signs; still, he hoped against hope that the ultimate diagnosis would be different.

He picked up his son. Scott kept the boat in his hand and nestled his face in the curve of Eric’s neck. Eric’s thoughts moved away from denial; there were new treatments and therapies, so much more hope than ever before for children with autism.

“We’re gonna get you some help, buddy. Things are going to be better.”

It was nearly twenty minutes later when they got to the park and began to unload all of the paraphernalia Jill insisted they needed for their picnic. What Eric had thought would be a quick brown-bag lunch at one of the park tables was turning out to be an “event,” complete with linen napkins, real silverware, flowers, and enough chilled drinks in the cooler to last all afternoon. When she pulled the food out of the picnic hamper, it wasn’t ham sandwiches and chips; Jill had prepared an elegant meal, complete with shrimp cocktail.

“I just thought we should do something nice,” she said when Eric eyed the spread. “This should be a new beginning for the three of us.”

A warning shimmered beneath Eric’s skin. Taken with her announcement that she wasn’t seeing Jason any longer, that comment worried him. But it made no sense at all that Jill was insinuating they get back together—she’d shot down every attempt he’d made to save their marriage. It was far too late.

He pulled out his paper with the list of doctors. “I’ve done some research. This is the list of doctors that I think would be best for evaluating Scott. I’ll just tell you a little about what I know of each of them, then we can decide where to begin. Of course, some of these evaluations take several days, so you might need to arrange time away from wo—”

She brushed the paper away, pushing it back toward him. “Let’s just have a nice lunch first. Scottie’s PBB sandwich is in that Tupperware.” She pointed toward the basket. “Can you get it out for him? He’s probably getting hungry.”

Eric wanted to say,
The fact that our near three-year-old son can’t tell us he’s hungry tells me we don’t have time to waste eating grapes and fancy cheese and shrimp cocktail
. But he held his tongue.

“Here’s your sandwich, buddy.” Scott didn’t pick it up. “Aren’t you hungry?” Eric prompted.

“He’ll eat in a few minutes. I’m sure he’s excited,” Jill said cheerily. “This is our first picnic in the park, after all.”

Again, Eric bit his tongue and just put a comforting hand on his son’s back.

She laid out the food in what must have been an attractive display. Eric was too preoccupied watching Scott for signs of distress to enjoy the taste of anything—or join in the small talk Jill was attempting.

After twenty minutes, Scott still hadn’t touched his food. When Eric leaned closer, that growling purr was coming from deep in his son’s throat.

Eric was about to comment on it and segue into the topic that had brought him here when Jill said, “I finally saw Glory out at Tula’s last night.” She popped a grape into her mouth. “She was a total mess.”