Sleeping in Eden (19 page)

Since Meg was taking an accelerated humanities track, she had second-period English with Dylan, even though he was a junior and she a lowly sophomore. She usually looked forward to seeing him for at least a portion of her day, but after Jess gave her hand a little squeeze in the hallway and strode away after the first bell, she dreaded seeing Dylan with a sober shame that seemed ridiculously out of proportion to the harmless incident that had caused it. Though it had taken a combination of Jess's inexplicable, early-morning appearance on their doorstep and Meg's own thinly disguised discomfort for her parents to connect the dots between their daughter and her brand-new
boyfriend, Meg knew that Dylan wouldn't need any such numbered puzzle to put the pieces together. He knew her. That was all there was to it.

She was right.

When she walked in to English a few seconds before the bell, Meg couldn't stop herself from glancing across the row at Dylan. His desk was one seat behind hers and to the left, and while she hated herself for casting a furtive look in his direction, catching his eye was as much a part of her daily routine as brushing her teeth. It had to be done. She tried to be discreet, but Dylan was waiting for her silent hello, and the cool discretion she had practiced melted away under the force of his eyes. Her face was a study in regret; she could feel it.

I wanted it to be you, she thought, her words fine and insubstantial, evaporating even as she dared to think them.

Dylan blinked. Looked away.

It was the lack of expression that told Meg his cryptic caution in the garage had been about the very thing she had let happen.

She sat through English in a thickening fog of discontent. As her teacher droned on about pathetic fallacy in Shakespeare's tragedies, Meg's misplaced disgrace at kissing a boy she had never hoped to kiss slowly transformed into a tough knot of anger. She directed her fury at Dylan, and the list of his transgressions unwound to become long and multifaceted. From yanking her down behind the raspberry bush that summer to shooting her a pat glance that she was now convinced bordered on disdainful, Meg built a case against Dylan that was so solid, she determined to confront him the moment the bell rang.

Nearly an hour later it did, and she all but flew out of her seat, ready to race after him if he cut a hasty retreat. But Dylan was standing beside his desk, backpack clutched loosely in one hand and an indecipherable half smile on his face. The fact that he was waiting for her, that he was capable of pretending everything was okay, only made Meg more upset.

“Did you have a good time last night?” Dylan asked as their classmates filed out around them. His smile could only be interpreted as a smirk.

Meg glowered. “You left me there alone.”

“Well, you seemed . . . entranced.”

The tone of his voice was enough to make Meg long to hit him, but someone pushed past her just then and she stumbled a little. It was a small thing, but it jostled her willpower. “That's not fair,” she managed.

“It's a free world, Meg.” He started walking toward the back of the emptying classroom and she followed him as if they were connected, as if she had no choice but to fall in step.

“You were my friend,” she whispered through clenched teeth, her breath hissing over his shoulder.

Dylan stopped just outside the classroom door and tucked in close to the wall. The hallway pulsed with teenagers rushing to their next class, and though Meg should have felt conspicuous about their public tête-à-tête, it seemed as if they were utterly alone. No one existed for her but Dylan, and she pulled her bag against her chest to shield the place where he could inflict the most damage.

“What do you mean I
was
your friend?” Dylan asked.

Meg was surprised to see something real in his eyes, but it only fueled her fury. “Come on,” she snorted. “Don't act all wounded. We fell apart and you know it.”

The door that he had momentarily left open for her slammed closed; his look turned glassy, cool. “Meg, you're overreacting. I didn't take you for the soap opera sort, but this is downright
Days of Our Light. Guiding Lives
? Whatever.”

She stared at him for a long moment, realizing for the first time that she had never stopped to imagine life without him. Dylan was family. He was friend, constant, brother. Any distance between them had felt like only that—a little space, amendable by a few steps, a bit of give and take. Until now. “You're overreacting,” he said as if all that had transpired between them was only the variable relationship of the young,
those who claimed a different friend every week, sometimes every day.

We're more than that, Meg wanted to say. But if he didn't already know that, it wouldn't do any good at all to tell him so.

“Okay,” she said instead. Just okay, as if he had made good sense and she accepted it at face value. Okay, I understand your easy answer, your casual dismissal of me. Of us.

Though she believed it was what he wanted to hear, Dylan seemed taken aback by her compliance. Meg couldn't stand it; she couldn't take the dumb look on his face. Don't cheapen it, she thought. Don't cheapen everything.

“Okay what?” he asked hesitantly. “I don't know what okay means.”

Suddenly she realized that for once she held the cards. This was going to end, and it was going to end on her terms. No matter how bad it hurt. Meg fit a tight smile on her face and dropped her backpack. She wasn't completely naive, and she knew that there was something in her, about her, that most guys found attractive. Might as well make use of it.

Meg took a deliberate step toward Dylan and put her arms around his neck, tucking herself against him. He went rigid for a second, then seemed to remember how it was done and slipped his arms around her, too.

She had hugged him before, but this felt different. He was a stranger, and she thrilled to the lingering hint of soap and the delicate trace of fabric softener woven through the cotton of his T-shirt. But this wasn't about falling for him all over again. It was about saying good-bye. When she couldn't hold him a second longer, she turned her face into his neck, brushing the tip of her nose against the hollow beneath his chin for a brief instant. Then she backed away, feeling his arms slide off her with what she hoped was reluctance, and picked up her bag.

“I'm going to be late for class,” she said, trying to be flippant, light. “See you around, Dylan.”

It was as good as good-bye.

“S
he did what?” Alex gave a long, low whistle that let Lucas know exactly what he thought of Angela's masked flirtations. “You're a stronger man than me.”

“Give me a break,” Lucas complained, trying to drive with his knee as he flicked on the blinker with his free hand. He swerved a little and reconsidered his stance on cell phones and driving. “You're crazy about your wife,” he said, coming back to the conversation. “You'd never cheat on her.”

Alex's laughter made Lucas pull the phone away from his ear. “You thought I was talking about cheating? I meant, I would have thrown her out of the house. Wearing my shirt like some B-movie seductress . . . Snuggling up to me when my wife is gone . . .”

Lucas recoiled at the exchange. Though no one knew about Angela's kiss all those years ago, he felt like his momentary lapse was written across his forehead. “She's . . . not well,” Lucas said quietly. He hated talking to Alex on the phone; it was impossible to know if his friend was joking or serious. “And I wouldn't cheat either.”

“I know,” Alex assured him. “Wasn't insinuating that.”

“You heading over to the house?”

“Yeah, Miss Sparks and I have a lot of catching up to do. One of the DCI guys is coming with me. I'd like an outsider's perspective on our little Lolita.”

“She's not so little anymore,” Lucas muttered.

Alex laughed. “All the same, I'm hoping to catch her a bit off guard.”

“It's not like you to use intimidation techniques.”

“I've never investigated a homicide before.”

And there it was. The undeniable truth. The body in the barn wasn't Angela Sparks. Lucas thought about his scrawled list, his carefully documented allegations against Jim. He mentally added one word: murderer. The only question now was, who? Who? Lucas's heart banged an extra beat against his chest at the implications of Angela's reappearance. He touched his palm to the outside of his pocket and felt the loop of the ring hiding there. Maybe it wasn't Angela's. Maybe it was
hers
. But he couldn't think about that right now.

“Look, I gotta go. I'm sitting in the parking lot and if I don't get moving I'm going to be late.”

“Don't let Mandy catch you doing that now.”

“Nope.”

“Keep me updated.”

“Will do.”

Alex had never held with formal greetings or farewells, and Lucas clicked his phone shut without saying good-bye. He slid it into the leather case at his waist, wrestling with the wish that he had never called Alex at all. Instead of making him feel better, his friend had only compounded his confusion.

Once in the office, a quick glance at Mandy told Lucas that she was in one of her effervescent moods. More than that, she was poised to kid around, to rib him about walking in the door late again, even if it was only by a minute or two. Her smile was impish and dimpled on one side, and though it was a source of no-strings-attached joy in Lucas's life, he didn't hesitate this morning to wipe it off her face with a gruff hello that left no room for cheerful banter.

“Uh, hi, Dr. Hudson,” Mandy said, a blank look quickly replacing the lively sparkle that had greeted him. “Your first appointment is already here. Mrs. Van Egdom. I put her in room four.”

Lucas took the proffered file but didn't even stop to glance at it. “More banana bread?” he quipped, feeling guilty for dampening her sunny humor. But instead of sounding lighthearted and funny, his comment came off just plain mean. Mandy seemed shocked, but Lucas was too weary to defend himself, so he slunk away to his office without another word.

Shrugging off his jacket, he tossed it over the back of his desk chair. His lab coat was hanging dejectedly from a hook on the back of his office door, and Lucas animated the crisp, white fabric by thrusting his arms into the sleeves. His stethoscope coiled around his neck like an aged pet settling into a beloved position close to his heart, and the digital watch in the pocket of his coat fit snug and perfect around his left wrist. The transformation was quick and complete. Suddenly Lucas felt ancient, as if he had been doing this for centuries instead of a mere decade.

The body in the barn wasn't Angela.

The truth was a hot stone in the pit of Lucas's stomach.

There were patients waiting for him, but Lucas didn't care. He bent over his desk and flicked the computer mouse so that his monitor sprang to life. Clicking on the Internet icon, he quickly found a search engine and typed: missing women in Iowa. More than 43 million results. His chest seized. What had Alex said? The time range could be anywhere between five and ten years? Lucas created a custom range for his search, and the results dropped to about 900,000. The first hit was a forum. Melissa Anne. Crystal. Andrea. Regina Sue. Missy. Their names went on and on.

Woman reported missing. Described as white, 5 foot 3, 120 pounds, with brown eyes and light brown hair. Last seen wearing blue jeans, a white tank top, and leather sandals.

Missing woman. Blond hair, blue eyes. Approximately five and a half feet tall. Last seen exiting Dahl's Foods on Ingersoll Avenue.

It has been one year since a Bettendorf, Iowa, woman went missing, and her family is still searching for answers about her disappearance.

Lucas pressed his fists against his closed eyes until fireworks sparked behind his eyelids. There were so many of them. So very many missing women. And if the woman buried beneath Jim's body wasn't Angela, who was she?