The Glass Butterfly (8 page)

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Authors: Louise Marley

Tags: #Romance

BOOK: The Glass Butterfly
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By the time full darkness settled over the house, Jack began to wish he had accepted Kate's invitation after all. He didn't want company, exactly, but the house seemed to echo with emptiness. Tory disliked drapes that might block her view of the woods, so the big picture window in the living room and the sliding glass door to her office were uncurtained. With the lights on, the glass was black and reflective. He saw his every movement, his mussed-up hair, his ragged Red Sox sweatshirt. He felt exposed to the night.
He went around the house, checking that the front and back doors and the office entrance were locked. He peeked in the utility room, where the washer and dryer were now clean and empty. There had been a few things in the washer, a pair of jeans, sneakers, a shirt. He had dried them and put them away. The ironing board—as always—was folded up into its frame. He had never seen it out, and he didn't know why they even had one. If there was an iron in the house, he didn't know where. Tory had a thing about ironing.
He turned out the lights in the living room and in her office, and confined himself to the kitchen, where he could draw the curtains over the sink and close out the darkness. He could watch the small television Tory kept under the cabinet while he made himself dinner.
At first he had avoided the TV. The news endlessly replayed the photos of the Escalade at the bottom of the ravine, its doors open like empty arms that had dropped their burden. But now, it seemed, with nothing new to report, everyone had lost interest. There had been blood on the upholstery of the car, but it had been Tory's, and there hadn't been much of it. The Escalade appeared to have some damage to its rear bumper, but no one knew how long that might have been there. There was no explanation for why Tory might have driven into the woods instead of down her driveway, but the police seemed to think that wasn't particularly suspicious.
Father Wilburton had explained all of this to Jack in a gingerly fashion, as if the twenty-year-old young man in front of him might break down or fly into hysterics. Jack listened, his head down, his teeth clenched. There had been so little blood, the priest said. Not enough to prove that—
Jack had thrown up his hand, made him stop talking about blood.
Misunderstanding, Father Wilburton had changed the subject. He went on to speak gently about sorrow, support groups, the comforts of faith. Jack had listened to his little homily in polite silence.
Jack switched on the television, but he kept the volume low, letting the news drone softly while he pulled one of Kate's casseroles out of the fridge. She had taped instructions to the lid. He pulled those off, set the oven temperature, and slid the dish onto the top rack. While the oven ticked, warming, he looked through the kitchen cupboards for things he should give away or throw out before he went back to school. He found the knife block in a lower cupboard, and gazed at it for a moment. Hadn't it been full? His mother liked CUTCO knives, and he remembered her saving up for a set, filling every slot in the knife block. One of the slots was empty now. It was a small thing. He doubted anyone who didn't know Tory would even notice. It probably didn't mean anything. He'd find the knife somewhere else, or perhaps she had sent it in to be sharpened or something.
In the pantry he gazed at the shelves full of coffee and sugar and pasta and cereal. He carried a bag of steel-cut oatmeal back into the kitchen. He was trying to judge from the label how long it would keep when he heard the sound.
He reached out to flick off the television. He listened, hard.
It came again, a click, as of glass on metal, a subtle sound that might have been the click of the furnace going off, or the house settling, or the oven still preheating.
Jack's skin prickled with sudden goose bumps. It wasn't the furnace. It wasn't the oven, either.
Okay, big guy,
he told himself silently.
You said you'd be okay. Prove it.
With a grimace, he took the marble rolling pin out of its holder, and hefted it in his hand. It wasn't much, but it was something. He crossed the kitchen, opened the swinging door, and sidled through, letting it shut soundlessly behind him.
He stood for a breathless moment in the darkened hallway. For long seconds he heard nothing. The rolling pin was cold and heavy in his hand, and he thought how foolish he was going to feel when he put it back—
There it was again. It was louder this time, a lot louder. It came from Tory's office, and it was followed by the unmistakable sound of the glass door sliding open.
Jack drew a quick, shivery breath, and lunged for the door to the office. He banged it open, and palmed the light switch, the rolling pin at the ready and his heart hammering beneath his sweatshirt.
The relief that washed through him left him weak in the knees. He was sure his face was white, and he had drawn a deep breath, prepared to shout at someone. Instead, what came out was scratchy and thin, more breath than sound. “Dammit! You scared the shit out of me!”
It was the woman from the memorial service, the sheriff's deputy. She was in uniform, her wide-brimmed hat pulled over her forehead, her gun belt drooping around her waist. She carried some sort of tool in her hand. She had one foot inside the sliding glass door, and her hand still rested on the latch. Her eyes widened, the pupils expanding in surprise. “Jack!” she exclaimed. “What the—I thought you were back at school!”
She swiftly tucked the tool, a sort of flat metal thing, into her shirt pocket, then turned her back on him to shut the glass door.
He let the rolling pin hang by his side. It felt huge and embarrassing, evidence of his nervousness. “You—what are you doing here?” he asked. His voice sounded high and childish.
She turned back with deliberation, and it crossed his mind that she was choosing her words. The back of his neck tingled.
“You should be careful about locking this door,” she said.
He made sure his voice dropped to the proper register. “I did lock it.”
She shrugged her wide shoulders. “It was open.”
It was an impasse. He repeated, “What are you doing here, officer?” He hadn't spoken to a lot of cops, but he was pretty sure that was the right way to address her.
She grinned now, and took off the hat, revealing short, brushy hair. “You can call me Ellice,” she said. “My name's Ellice Gordon.” She took a look around the office, her glance pausing at the open file drawer, then resolutely continuing its circuit. “I just came up to make sure everything was okay here. I, uh, I saw the light from the road.”
“I didn't hear your car.”
Ellice shrugged again. “I hiked up. It's good to get out from behind the wheel sometimes.” She took a step farther into the office. Her hand, with the hat in it, dangled beside her thigh, the same side as her holstered weapon. She had pale eyes, with light, reddish lashes. She gazed at the upholstered chair where the clients sat with something like nostalgia.
“Were you one of Mom's clients?” Jack asked, and then wished he hadn't. It was probably violating her privacy or something. He never met his mother's clients. Client privacy was one of the reasons she had a side entrance to her office.
Ellice Gordon didn't seem to care. She nodded, without looking at him. “Yes,” she said. “For quite some time. She was—” She gave a shake of her head, and looked up at him again. Her eyes were oddly flat, though their color was so light. “She was great,” she finished. “But you're her kid. You know that.”
“Yeah.”
The officer's gaze swept him in what felt like a professional way. She grinned when her eyes fell on the rolling pin. “Weapon?” she said.
“I thought someone was breaking in.”
“I'm sorry about that. I would have rung the bell if I knew you were here.” She tilted her head toward him. “Scared, up here by yourself?”
“No. No, I'm not.” The rolling pin felt like it had grown three sizes in his hand. He wriggled it self-consciously against his thigh. “I'm good.”
“So I see.” Pointedly, she dropped her gaze to the rolling pin again, then returned to his face. “Well, be careful to lock up next time, okay?”
“Sure.” Jack thought he should probably say something else, but he didn't know what. The officer gave another look around the office, her eyes lingering on the open file drawer, before she took a step back toward the door.
She jerked a thumb back toward the desk, and the drawer. “You need some help with your mom's files?”
“No. Thanks.”
“But the client files, and so forth . . .”
“Those are gone. The lawyer has them.”
Her sandy eyebrows lifted. “Gone?”
“Yeah. First, I guess the cops looked at them—oh, sorry. Do you hate that word?”
She grinned again, freckled cheeks creasing. “We're used to it.”
“Yeah.” Jack shifted his weight so he could lean against the doorjamb. He would have liked to put down the rolling pin, but he was stuck with it now. He tucked it under his arm in what he hoped was a casual manner. “Yeah, so the cops went through them and then they went to the lawyer's office. I guess in case someone wants to take over the practice.”
She nodded, and put her hand on the latch. “Okay, then. We're keeping an eye on the place for you. You'll be glad about that, I imagine.”
“Thanks, officer.”
“Ellice.”
Jack didn't answer. Ellice pulled on her hat again, adjusted her belt, and slid the door open. She said, “Bye,” closed the door, and was gone.
He waited where he was for a full minute before he crossed to the sliding door to check the latch. He knew, somehow, that he would find it broken. It was a simple hook latch, the hook bent now into uselessness.
“What the fuck?” he muttered. It could have already been broken, but he didn't think so. He had locked the door, tested it with his hand. He remembered doing it.
But maybe he was wrong. Maybe, with the police in and out of the house, someone had broken it, and not thought to tell him. Maybe it broke while he was at school. He could have latched the door, tried it with his hand, and just thought it was secure.
He couldn't convince himself. He wished the officer had stayed away from the place. He didn't like her. He didn't like her at all.
He stood there, debating himself. He could call the Binghams. Chet would come and get him, but he'd have to explain this. After his bravado earlier, that was embarrassing.
He thought of his sports equipment, stacked in his bedroom closet. He ran up the stairs, opened the closet door, and found his old baseball bat standing in the corner. He ran down again, a little breathless with hurrying, and dropped the bat lengthwise into the base of the sliding glass door. It fit as if it had been designed for the purpose.
That would stop her, he thought.
But stop her from what? He wished he knew.
8
Si, mi chiamano Mimì, ma il mio nome è Lucia.
 
Yes, they call me Mimì, but my name is Lucia.
 
—Mimì,
La Bohème,
Act One
“I
guess you haven't gotten around to opening that bank account,” Iris said. She stood in the doorway of her pretty Cape Cod house, her arms folded, her gray gaze bright and piercing.
Tory held out the envelope with the cash in it for her second month's rent. “No,” she said, a little huskily. “Not yet.”
Iris accepted the envelope, but her eyes never left Tory's face. “That's a lot of cash to have lying around.”
“I know. That's why I brought it over, instead of mailing it.”
“I haven't seen you in town at all.”
“Oh,” Tory said, striving for an offhand tone, “I've been around. The market, you know. The library.” At least she had gotten a library card. And with that and her rental agreement, a driver's license.
Iris nodded. “It's small, our library, but I like it.”
It was tiny, in truth, a building of weathered wood nestled in a grove of trees. Tory had stocked her cottage with books from the Friends of the Library sale, most costing no more than a quarter. There had been CDs, too, but she hadn't bought any. She had nothing to play them on. “It's very nice,” she said now, a little stiffly. She found, suddenly, that she wanted to get away from the piercing gaze, get back to her cottage and her view of the wintry ocean. It had surprised her, this morning, to hear the date on the radio. She had vanished herself more than a month ago.
Jack's fall quarter would be almost over, a time she had always looked forward to. Strained as their relationship was, she loved having him home for vacations. Even though he spent most of his time with his friends, it had been a comfort to her to know he was in the house, was up in his room dropping clothes on the floor and leaving his bureau open with T-shirts and socks hanging out of the drawers. She had learned not to touch any of those things while he was still home, but to wait until he had gone again to put things to rights.
She wondered where he would go now. And if Ellice knew that, too.
These thoughts rushed through her mind all at once, a little tide of them, and she blinked to push them away.
Iris misunderstood the blink for tears. Tory could tell by her voice when Iris said, “Paulette. Are you all right?”
“Yes! Yes, I'm quite all right. Thanks.” Tory's voice sounded tight in her own ears, even angry. She hadn't intended that. She took a step back, down the first stair, and turned toward the driveway where the yellow Beetle waited, a spot of color against the green and gray landscape.
“Wait, Paulette.” Iris came out of the doorway, pulling her worn cardigan closer against the sharp wind from the ocean. Her house was several blocks from the beach, about a half mile north of the cottage, but she had a good view of the water and even a glimpse of Haystack Rock. The rock dominated everything in the town. From Iris's porch, the rugged tip of it was easily visible, and with that access came the wind, straight off the water. Tory felt it on her neck and nipping at her ankles. Iris's gray hair spun in lank strands in front of her eyes. “Wait a moment. Come in and have a cup of coffee with me.”
Tory hesitated, searching for a polite way to demur. There would be questions, not just about the cash, but everything else. The only way she knew to be safe was to be solitary. To be silent.
She had tried, once, to do something about Ellice. It had been bad, standing in a pay phone box on the main street of town, where anyone could see her and wonder why she didn't use her own telephone. She had leafed through the pages of the phone book until she found the government listings. She chose the FBI. Who else could she call?
The woman who answered wouldn't take her report. “Just give me your name,” she kept saying, until a rush of anxiety stilled Tory's voice and made her slam the receiver down. Now, with Iris's curious gaze on her, her throat closed again.
“Come on,” Iris repeated, and Tory knew she had waited too long. Iris put out her hand. She touched Tory's arm, but briefly. “Cold out here,” she said. “I'm ready for another cup.”
Tory found herself, a moment later, stepping over an enormous gray cat just inside Iris's door. She let her black coat slip from her shoulders as Iris reached for it. Iris hung it on a vintage mirrored coatrack, and gestured with her thin arm toward the kitchen. Tory, feeling tense and defensive, walked through a living room furnished with a deep gold sofa and a mahogany armoire into a kitchen shining with hanging copper pans and sparkling glassware on open shelves. A bird feeder in colored glass, empty now, hung just outside the window above a big stainless-steel sink. All of it reminded her, painfully, of her own modern kitchen and carefully designed living room. She could see why Iris preferred to rent the rustic cottage and have a more formal home for herself.
Iris waved her to a stool at a long granite-topped island. As Tory slid onto the stool, her hands swept over the cool stone, and a wave of nostalgia made her blink again.
This time, Iris was busy with the coffeepot and didn't notice. Tory cleared her throat. “Your house is beautiful,” she said.
“Thanks,” Iris said. “Cream?” She turned, a vintage pottery creamer already in her hand.
Tory had to smile at the creamer. It was made in the shape of a dairy cow, black-and-white spotted, with exaggerated eyelashes and full red lips.
“There, now,” Iris said in her dry voice. “You look better when you smile.”
Tory looked down at her linked fingers on the speckled granite. “I'm sorry if I seem unfriendly,” she said. “I haven't had much to smile about lately.”
“I guessed that.”
Tory braced herself, sure that the questions were now to come, but her landlady brought down coffee cups, took spoons from a drawer, set four homemade cookies on a saucer, and laid out napkins. She braced her hip against the counter while the coffeemaker gurgled, and looked out her kitchen window at the branches of a spruce tossing in the wind. Light refracted through the glass bird feeder cast red and yellow spangles on the angles of her face. “Big storm coming,” she said. “I think I'll send Jimmy Wurtel over to repair the broken shutter on the front window of your cottage. I should have done it earlier, but our weather's been so mild. The shutters help to block the worst of the storms, keep a bit of heat in. You'll be glad to be able to close them.”
Tory said, “Iris, I can fix a broken shutter. Do you know what it needs?”
“Not really. I just noticed it was hanging loose when I met you there.”
“I can figure it out. Let me do it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I'm used to repairing things.”
The corners of Iris's mouth lifted a bit, and Tory was tempted to tell her she, too, looked better when she smiled. “I'll bet you can do it yourself, at that,” Iris said. “You look the type to do your own chores.”
“I'll just need some tools. Maybe some nails, or screws if that's what's broken.”
“Everything's in that little shed in the backyard. Tools are on the wall, and hardware is in the drawer of the workbench.”
Tory, thinking about shutters, had a sudden vision of the house in her dream. It blocked out Iris's bright kitchen, and she saw, as if she were sitting in the little garden, the painted shutters and the iron-framed entryway baking in the summer heat. She had forgotten that image until just this moment, but now it was so vivid she could almost feel the sun burning her shoulders. It was so
real
. For one disorienting moment, it seemed more real than the cozy kitchen she was sitting in.
“Too strong?”
Tory, startled, looked up at Iris's raised eyebrows. “Sorry?”
“Your coffee. Is it too strong?”
Bemused, Tory made herself lift the cup, taste the brew. “No, it's delicious. Thanks.”
“We like it strong here,” Iris said. “Something about the cold and damp, I think.”
Tory bit her lip to try to ground herself in the moment. Cold and damp. That was real. The burning sun of her dream wasn't, but it felt—she felt—
She shook her head sharply, and put down the cup with a bump. It didn't break, but coffee slopped over the edge onto the speckled granite. She dabbed at it with her napkin.
This shouldn't be happening. She had done so well, kept it all at arm's length, but now these dreams—they shouldn't be troubling her waking hours, too. She dropped the napkin, and pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “Sorry, Iris,” she said again. “I think I may be coming down with something.”
“I think you came with something, honey. Something you already had when you arrived in Cannon Beach.”
Tory looked up at her. Her mouth opened, her lips parted to speak a denial, but the remark was so unexpectedly cogent that she couldn't find the words.
Iris, sipping from her coffee cup, lowered it and gazed at Tory with her sharp gray eyes.
Tory wondered fleetingly if she had looked that way when she sat behind her desk and watched her clients, listening to them, listening to her fey. She felt a prickle of alarm in her chest. She swallowed, and said faintly, “I—well, I—”
Iris put up a narrow hand. “It's okay, Paulette,” she said. “None of my business. I just wanted to give you coffee, honest.”
Tory said, with a rueful twist of her mouth, “I like the coffee.”
“Better have a cookie with it.” Iris pushed the cookie plate toward Tory with one finger. “You don't look like you've eaten much this month.”
“Well—no, not a lot.” Tory obediently took one cookie, and bit into it. It was perfect, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, soft and crunchy at the same time. Her mouth suddenly watered, and she ate the rest in two big, swift bites.
Iris took one herself and nibbled at the edge. “Our storms can be exciting,” she said casually. “High winds, a lot of rain, sometimes thunder and lightning. But not to worry. If it were something big—tsunami or something—there's a warning system. You'd know.”
“Tsunami?” Tory brushed crumbs of sugar from her sweater, and took another cookie. “That sounds dramatic.”
“Would be, if we ever had one.”
“You haven't, then?”
“Not since seventeen hundred.” Iris got up to pour more coffee. “And despite what you may think, I was
not
around then.”
Tory chuckled, and bit into the second cookie. She felt, for a moment, almost normal. The moment of danger had passed, and the richness of the cookies felt good in her stomach, the sugar soothing the raw edges of her nerves. “Seventeen hundred—there wasn't anybody around here then, was there?”
“Natives. Stories of a whole tribe being wiped out. Tree rings fixed the date.”
“Well, I'm not worried about a tsunami. But I'll do the shutter today, just the same.”
“Great. Saves me having to pay Jimmy. I appreciate it.”
“That's okay. I don't have much to do right now.” Iris fixed her clear gaze on her again, and Tory wished instantly she could call the words back. It wasn't smart, surely, to imply—to reveal—that she was used to being busy. She remembered Iris saying she thought she must be a nurse, or a librarian—
Had the news from Vermont reached here? Was anyone looking for her?
Jack . . .
Tory's sense of feeling normal subsided, and the cookies that had tasted so good suddenly felt like stones in her belly. It felt more normal, more usual, to be tense and withdrawn.
Jack—oh, no. This isn't safe.
Tory got to her feet, and carried her cup to the sink to rinse it. Over her shoulder she said, “I'll get to the shutter now, Iris, before the storm reaches us. Thanks again for the coffee.”
“Any time.” Tory wasn't sure how she managed to get back to the hall, retrieve her coat, say good-bye, and make her way out to the Beetle. She hoped she had been polite. Iris hadn't done anything, really, but give her coffee and chat with her a little. She was friendly, that was all. And she really hadn't pressed her for more information.
Tory gunned the noisy motor of the Beetle as she drove back to her cottage, fighting a mixed reaction of remorse and embarrassment at how she had behaved in Iris's kitchen.
At least she could do a really, really good job on the shutter.
 
She had been hammering nails when she and Jack had their first real falling out. As she chose some small nails to repair the crosspiece of the broken shutter on the cottage, the details of that day came back to her in all their unpleasantness.

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