The Jennifer McMahon E-Book Bundle (72 page)

W
HEN
T
ESS WAKES UP
, the first thing she thinks is that she never finished her story for Claire. She never got the chance to say how things ended. How they watched Henry drag Suz, snarling and twisting, into the lake that night and how, when he let go of her, he started to cry.

“What, aren’t you going to drown me?” she said, treading water as he swam away, back toward shore. “What’s the matter, Henry? Did you really believe I was pregnant? No such luck, babycakes. Poor, poor Henry. In love with the wrong girl. But it’s okay. We’ve gone beyond that, haven’t we? We’ve dismantled relationships. Love and sex. We’ve moved above it. Beyond it. Don’t you see? We can leave here now and go off and lead our pathetic little lives changing diapers and being married to the wrong person, but we’ll always have this summer to remember. To come back to. Part of us will always be here.”

And that’s when Tess threw the rock. She’d picked it up when Suz and Henry were struggling for the gun and had been holding it tightly in her hand. She hadn’t intended to throw it. It wasn’t a premeditated act, as they say in all those television courtroom
dramas. She felt as if she was throwing the rock straight into the future that Suz was describing; that the future was this horrible, senseless world encased in a delicate glass globe and all she wanted was to shatter it before it ever had a chance of coming to be.

The rock was the size of a grapefruit and smooth. It flew from her hand like a perfect pitch in the final inning, right into the strike zone. She never knew she had such a good aim.

Tess watched in what felt like slow motion as it sailed out over the water and caught Suz on the left temple. There was a loud cracking sound, then Suz slipped under, silently.

Tess stood frozen, arm extended, fingers open, as if she was expecting the rock to come back.

Winnie screamed. Spencer said, “Jesus!”

Henry, who had reached the beach by then, ran back into the water and dove in. It took him several long minutes to find her and when he did, he grabbed her, swam back, and carried her in his arms to the beach where he laid her down in the sand. Her face was covered in blood from the deep gash on her temple.

“I don’t think she’s breathing,” Henry said.

“Do something!” Winnie wailed.

“Does anyone know CPR?” Spencer asked.

Henry crouched down, pounded Suz on the chest, and gave her three quick breaths on the mouth. It didn’t look quite right to Tess, but what did she know? Just what she’d seen in movies. Henry did it again—pound-breathe-breathe-breathe, pound-breathe-breathe-breathe—and again for what seemed like a long time. Tess looked on expectantly, waiting for the part where Suz’s chest would convulse, and she would puke up lake water, look around, dazed, maybe even say, “What happened?” But the minutes passed and Suz lay limp and pale in the moonlight. Henry felt both wrists for a pulse.

“I think she’s dead,” he pronounced. He said it so calmly, so matter-of-factly that Tess didn’t believe he could possibly be serious.

Winnie wailed. Spencer wrapped his arms around her, and held her tight while she fought against him. Spencer, who should have been gone, who should have taken off running after the shot was fired, but for some reason hadn’t.

“We have to get help,” Tess said. She was sure that if she could just get to a phone, someone would come, some miracle man with medicine, bandages, and electric paddles would bring Suz back to them and they’d all laugh later about what a close call it had been. They’d say Suz had dismantled death.

Tess started walking back toward the path. She would go to the cabin, get in the van, and go to the store. There was a phone there. She’d dial 911. Tell them there’d been an accident.

“Tess,” Henry was holding her arm, gripping it so tightly she’d be black and blue for a week, pulling her back to the beach. “Stop. We have to think this through.” His breath was fiery and tequila scented. He looked at her as if she was a stranger.

“You killed her!” Winnie screamed, and Spencer held tight to her, whispered
Shhh
into her hair as if she was a child who’d just woken up from a terrible nightmare.

“I…,” Tess began, “I didn’t mean to.”

This was not happening. It could not be happening. Her arm was hurting where Henry’s hand clenched it, and she tried to break away.

“I didn’t mean it,” Tess said again quietly. She didn’t know who she was talking to.

“This is totally fucked up,” Spencer said.

“Everyone just
shut up
and let me think!” Henry barked. He let go of Tess and went to sit on the big flat rock in the center of the beach. The sacrificial stone, Suz always called it. Tess stood over Suz’s body, watching for a sign of life, some inkling that Henry had been wrong. She kneeled down in the sand, put her ear against Suz’s chest, listening for a heartbeat. All she heard was Spencer behind her, trying to get his lighter to work, flicking it
with his thumb over and over without getting a spark. Tess moved her head up, put her cheek above Suz’s mouth, feeling for breath. Suz’s lips were cold, bluish in the moonlight.

“The way I see it, we have two choices,” Henry said at last, sounding altogether too sober. “We can go call the police and explain what happened. In this scenario, Tess would probably go to jail and maybe the rest of us too. Once they started their investigation and found out about some of the stuff we’ve done, we’d all be in some pretty deep shit. The Compassionate Dismantlers would be put under a microscope and I don’t think any of us want that. Suz wouldn’t have wanted that.

“Choice number two is that we put her in the lake. We weight her down and swim her out to the middle.”

“We can’t just sink her in the lake!” Winnie shrieked. “People will ask where she went. You can’t just make someone disappear like that! We can’t do that to her!”

“No one will come looking,” Henry said. “Shit, all she’s got is that one aunt who couldn’t even bother coming to graduation. It’s not like Suz kept in touch with anyone. We’re the only family she’s got. If anyone ever asks, we say she took off hitchhiking to California. Besides, I think this is what she would want. Think of how much she loves this place. Now she’ll be a part of it forever.”

Henry began picking up stones from the beach, filling Suz’s clothes with them, and since no one stopped him, he continued.

“Do you have to do that?” Winnie asked, sobbing.

“We’ve got to weight her down. So she won’t float.”

Tess fell to her knees then, twisting her right hand with her left, feeling the sand and grit the rock had left on her palm.

Slowly, Henry carried Suz into the water, then swam on his back, her body resting on his chest and belly, out to the middle of the lake. They looked like two lovers doing the backstroke on a moonlit night. Suz’s head bobbed on Henry’s shoulder. It looked
to Tess, squinting out at them, as if when Henry let Suz go, she went down smiling.

T
HE FIRST THING
T
ESS
thinks of when she wakes up is the story she never finished. The next thing she thinks is that she smells gasoline. And she can’t breathe. Slowly it dawns on her that her mouth is taped closed. Arms and legs tied. It’s dark. She’s wrapped up tight in some sort of shroudlike sheet. And she’s on the water. Floating. Bobbing up and down in some kind of boat. She’s just cargo.

She remembers drinking the wine Claire gave her. And then Suz stepped into the room. Or someone dressed as Suz.

She has a very fuzzy memory of waking up again in a different room, hearing voices. Or one voice. The voice getting louder.

“She’s waking up,” it had said. Tess had forced her eyes open and saw Suz leaning down with a needle, felt a stinging in her arm.

Tess hears voices again now. They are muffled but recognizable. It’s Henry and a woman. What are they saying? Something about dismantling love? But no, that was a conversation years ago. A conversation with Suz.

Tess starts to scream against the tape, but it only comes out as a sad little moan. And she thinks of that stupid riddle the moose told Spencer all those years ago. The riddle her daughter just re-told her. You’re in a cement room with no windows or door. All you have is a table and mirror. How do you get out?

She wonders where her table and mirror are. How she’s going to make a hole to crawl through.

“S
UZ
?”
HE’S SQUINTING AT
her, not quite believing. This isn’t the Suz he remembers: the one in the photos, the one Winnie has been running all over town dressed as. Her face is different, cheekbones more pronounced, nose slightly smaller.

“The new and improved, babycakes!” she says.

And yes, it
is
her. He’d know that voice anywhere, lilting, teasing.

“But I don’t…I mean, I can’t…,” he stammers.

She laughs. It’s that throaty, seductive Suz laugh he’s remembered each night in his dreams. His nightmares.

“My greatest accomplishment—I dismantled myself. Let Suz Pierce die that night and started over. It’s amazing what a little cosmetic surgery can do, isn’t it? Colored contacts, some hair dye, capped teeth.”

“How?” Henry gasps. “You were dead.”

She shakes her head. “No, Henry. Just unconscious. A little sluggish from the Vicodin Tess dumped in my drink. Mix that shit with booze and it’s pretty much roll over and play dead—slows your heart and breathing way the fuck down. I came to as I was
sinking, and started swimming underwater, pulling these fucking rocks out of my clothes—nice touch, Henry—as I went. When I couldn’t hold my breath another second, I surfaced and was clear on the other side of the lake, away from you idiots.”

Henry stares at her in disbelief, remembering how he had searched for a pulse on her wrist, her neck. Her skin was damp and cold. Frog skin. Her chest did not rise and fall.

“I thought I was all done with this place, but a couple weeks back, I got this postcard. My cousin Nancy forwarded it to me from my aunt’s. She called me a week later to tell me about Spencer. Icing on the fucking cake, right?”

“You didn’t send the postcards?” Henry asks.

Suz shakes her head.

“Well, who did?” he asks.

She shrugs. “You got me, babycakes. I thought maybe it was you. But it doesn’t matter now. The way I see it, whoever sent them did me a favor. They gave me the perfect opportunity to come back for one final act of dismantling.”

Henry’s head is spinning. He’s trying to focus on her words, to connect the dots to see the full picture at last.

“You
left the notes for Winnie in her journal. Gave her the clothes and wig. You wanted us all to think it was her.”

She nods. “Now you’re catching on. And playing Claire Novak was just too much fun.”

“Who?” Henry asks.

“The woman your wife’s been having an affair with. Or didn’t you know?” She laughs.

Henry remembers the conversation he overheard on the phone: Tess saying, “I’ll do it,” and a woman with an accent answering, “I knew you would.” It was Suz.

Of course she’d target Tess. Tess would have been the first person she went after.

But where
is
Tess?

Frantic voices float across the lake.
It’s Suz!

“Care to do the honors?” Suz asks, pulling a book of matches from her pocket, holding it out to him. He shakes his head.

“Suit yourself,” she says. “Maybe you’re still too spooked after that fire burned down poor Tess’s studio. A terrible thing, wasn’t it? Funny how much damage a single candle and a few cans of turpentine can do.” She strikes a match, her face glowing like an orange demon behind it, eyes glistening as she holds the match to the antlers of the gas-soaked wooden moose.

“It was you,” Henry said, deflated.

The flames jump over the moose’s ears, down his head and neck.

Suz stands, perching at the bow of the canoe, says, “Henry, you poor fool, it’s always been me,” then dives into the water, smooth and graceful, as if she and the lake are one.

E
MMA’S MOVING FAST THROUGH
the water, her cadence perfect. She’s almost to them, though she doesn’t know what she’ll do when she gets there.

She knows only that she has to save Danner and Francis.

Back on the shore, a man and woman are screaming something about Suz.

It’s Suz!

What is?

Maybe Daddy and Winnie know.

Emma remembers the photo of the four of them: her parents young and in love; the girl giving the finger; the other, dark-haired girl holding the gun. The Compassionate Dismantlers.

Emma wishes she could loop back in time to the morning she and Mel searched her dad’s studio. She’d put that photo back in the toolbox with the heavy black journal, lock it all up tight. Tell Mel to forget all about Operation Reunite.

Some things are better left alone.

Emma’s almost to the canoe when Winnie rises, lights a match, holds it to her face.

But this is all wrong. The woman in the boat doesn’t look like Winnie. Not now that her face is lit up.

Emma’s skin prickles.

They’ll burn.

The match hits Francis’s antlers, and the flames race over his head, following a trail down his great neck, over his shoulders, spreading across his wide back.

Winnie (or the person dressed up like Winnie) dives from the front of the canoe, making the whole thing rock; Francis the moose sways, dancing in the flames. Emma’s father clings to the sides, then lowers himself carefully into the water, like a stiff old man, one leg at a time. Her father, who never swims, who is petrified of bathtubs even, is soon kicking, thrashing his arms in a blind panic. He’s like a man who’s never learned to swim.

“Emma?” her dad says, then, just as she’s about to answer—to say,
Yes, Daddy, it’s me
—he goes under.

W
HEN
S
UZ DIVES OFF
the front, it makes the canoe rock, nearly tipping. Henry drops the paddle, grips both sides of the canoe in a desperate attempt to stay upright.

What are his options? Swim or be burned alive.

He feels the heat as the moose’s head is engulfed in flames. The smoke blows back, hitting him like a wall, choking him, making his eyes burn. Slowly, carefully, he lifts himself out the canoe and slips into the inky water.

The panic he feels is incredible. He’s fighting with the water, flailing uselessly, exhausting himself. Then, he sees her.

There, just in front of him, is his daughter, exactly as she appears in his dreams. Emma, his Emma, is sinking down, her hair and clothing full of pondweed—a little girl playing dress up, with a necklace, boa, and tiara of slimy green stems, brown algae-covered leaves.

“Emma,” he calls, the word a desperate sigh.

He holds his breath and goes after her.

He swims blindly down, reaching out with his hands, not seeing anything.

Down, down, down he swims, sure he’ll touch bottom at any minute. He’s holding his breath, but his eyes are open. He sees his own arms, glowing and pale, moving in front of him; disembodied, creatures all their own.

Hands are grabbing the back of his shirt. He’s being pulled up.

No!
he wants to scream.
My little girl is down here!

He struggles against the hands, but he needs a breath, just one sucking gulp of precious air, then he can go under again.

He fights his way to the top, his rescuer still holding tight to his shirt. He surfaces, gasping for air, and hears Emma’s voice.

“Daddy!”

He turns, sees that it’s Emma clutching his shirt.

“But you went under,” he says, coughing and sputtering, reaching out to take her in his shaking arms.

“I thought you were drowning,” she says, gasping herself.

No. It was you. You were drowning.

He holds her against him, both of them treading water and shivering. Emma’s in shorts and a T-shirt. No flowing clothing. No long fronds of pondweed draped around her neck and woven through her hair.

Is it possible, Henry wonders, that your fears can take on a life of their own? Is this what ghosts are—things worried into existence, frantic energy manifesting itself in an almost physical way?

Suz, like a buoyant otter, is swimming playful circles around Henry and Emma.

“Thought we lost you there,” Suz says. “What happened, Henry? You used to be a great swimmer. Pretty sad. Having to be rescued by a little girl.”

Behind them the moose crackles and snaps as the flames spread.

But beyond the noise of the fire, there is another sound, a low howl, as if the moose is crying out in pain.

It’s almost human—buzzing and frantic: the static noise.

Treading water, Henry remembers the weight and heft of the Danner doll. The way she was laid out in his studio, waiting for him like some kind of sacrifice.

“Daddy!” Emma cries, nearly to him now. “You’ve got to put out Francis! Hurry! You’ve got to save Danner.”

Another humming groan from inside the moose.

Tess was the one who threw the rock that night. The one who’d drugged Suz’s drink. It was Henry who stuffed her clothing full of rocks and dragged her out into the middle of the lake, but it had been Tess who killed her.

He begins paddling madly toward the blazing moose carcass. Henry’s battling with the water, struggling to stay afloat and move forward. His face keeps bobbing under. He swallows great gulps of lake water, coughs and sputters.

“Danner!” Emma screams, swimming toward the burning moose at a steady clip.

Henry’s swimming muscles are stiff and out of practice, but soon he hits his stride, stops taking gulps of water. His body remembers and takes over, overpowering the crushing fear in his mind. He was always a strong swimmer. The strongest and fastest of the bunch.

“You’re too late, Henry,” Suz calls. She’s treading water behind him. “You’re fucking pathetic!”

The moose is throwing off too much heat. Its antlers have collapsed; its head is teetering forward, hanging by a thread. Flames have covered its back. The tail is nothing but crisp carbon and ash.

“A crime of passion,” Suz says. “You discovered your wife was having an affair with another woman and you snapped. So tragic! So sick and titillating and tragic! Gonna be on Court TV for sure!”

Henry swims closer to the moose, the truth moving through
him like its own sort of fire. He turns back to Suz. “What have you done?”

Suz laughs. “Oh, Henry. The question is, what have
you
done?”

Emma is beside him now. “Danner, Daddy!” she squeals.

“Stay back!” he yells at Emma. And then, he holds his breath and goes under.

Eyes open. Black water. He dives down and forward, reaches ahead and up, grasping blindly until he feels the wooden hull. He’s under the boat now, and brings his hands up, grabs the edge of the canoe, fingers screaming from the heat, and yanks down with all his might. The canoe teeters, then flips. He slides through the water and comes up for air on the other side.

His lungs clog with the thick smoke. Pieces of burning moose have floated away from the smoldering carcass and sail like a tiny flaming regatta. The body of the moose, what’s left of it, is quickly sinking.

“Hurry, Daddy!” Emma yelps. She’s treading water near the sinking moose. He scans the wreckage, sees the moose is door side down. He grabs hold of it, the charred wood is hot but the flames are out. He’s trying to flip it over, to keep it from going down. With his left hand, he finds the door underwater. He takes a scorching breath and dives under, pulling at it. Then Emma is beside him, reaching for the door in the moose’s chest. The door that has jammed, won’t open. They’re both feeling along the edges, scrabbling and pounding. Henry has to rise to the surface for a breath, but Emma, Emma can stay underwater forever, she’s got gills, their daughter, and by the time Henry takes a stabbing breath and dives back under, he finds that Em’s got the door open. Now it’s her turn to go up for air.

The figure wrapped in rope is thrashing, fighting against him as he pulls it out of the skeletal wreckage of the moose. He loses his grip, the body slips away, sinking down. He dives deeper, groping
in the dark water and grabs it again, yellow rope looped around his hands as they struggle to the surface where his lungs scream for air.

With Emma helping him, treading water, they awkwardly unravel the waterlogged rope mummy to reveal Emma’s doll. Henry rips at the cloth face, the terrible eyes stitched on, ink running like tears down the pillowcase face.

“Dad! No!” Emma shouts, but then she sees what’s underneath.

Tess is inside, her own eyes wide with panic, mouth duct-taped closed.

“Mom?” Emma says. “You’re Danner?”

Henry and Emma free her from the remaining rope and Danner doll suit, pull the tape from her mouth. She gulps at the air, coughing and retching.

“Henry,” she whispers at last. She’s naked against him. Shivering, but okay. She’s going to be okay.

She gives a little shriek.

“Shhh,” he says. “You’re okay. It’s okay now.”

“Suz,” Tess gasps as she looks out across the water. “She went under. She’s gone.”

And they all look to the place where Suz just was, scan the surface of the water for bubbles, ripples, anything, but she’s slipped away. All that’s left is the blond wig, floating.