The Reckoning Stones: A Novel of Suspense (6 page)

eight

jolene

Jolene set down the
phone with a shaking hand, and returned to the piano. The news that Mercy was back unsettled her even more than her father-in-law’s unexpected awakening. Matthew waking up was startling; Mercy reappearing was like a ghost materializing, a fictional character taking on corporeal form and interacting with readers. Hamlet’s father or Banquo’s ghost. She sifted through the sheet music she was considering purchasing for the choir, but couldn’t distract herself from the news about Mercy. Why come back after all this time? She must have heard about Pastor Matt waking up; otherwise, the timing was too coincidental.

“Who was that, Mom?”

A
aron slouched into the living room, lean and almost frail looking in jeans and a University of Colorado at Colorado Springs T-shirt. His hair was a darker blond than his sister’s, brushing his collar in the back and falling over hazel eyes. A scruff of goatee softened the strong chin that was so very Brozek. Zach, his father, and even his sister had that same square jaw. Aaron’s fingers trilled the top two keys on the Baldwin upright and Jolene made a mental note to call the tuner.

“Your aunt.”

“What’d she want?” Aaron’s voice had tightened; he was ready to take issue with pretty much anything Esther had said. Since declaring himself an agnostic during his freshman semester at UCCS, he had gotten into it more than once with Esther, who defended God and the Community with a zeal that would do an Old Testament prophet proud. For some reason, Aaron didn’t often argue with his father, who had taken over pastorship of the Community ten years ago, but Esther’s pronouncements about God’s will and his revelations to the Community acted on Aaron like a red cape on a bull.

“To let me know she’d seen an old friend of mine.”

“Who?”

“Mercy Asher.”

Aaron stared at her. “Asher? As in—”

Jolene nodded. “As in.”

“Did I know he had a daughter?”

“Maybe not. She left the year before you were born. I haven’t heard from her since …”
Since the punishment. Since she ran away. Since the spring that changed all our lives.

nine

jolene

Twenty-Three Years Ago

That spring, Jolene Farraday
fell in love twice, with Zachary Brozek and Shakespeare, not necessarily in that order. She’d never heard of Zach, and had never read any Shakespeare when her family moved from Ohio to Colorado three years earlier; now, they were the center of her life. Getting off the high school’s activity bus which dropped her a mile from Lone Pine, still high from play practice, she whispered her lines as she started down the path through the close-packed lodgepole pines. Birds twittered, seemingly entranced by her performance.

“‘Things base and vile, holding no quantity, love can transpose to form and dignity. Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.’” She recited all of Helena’s monologue on the walk home several times, shifting the accent to different words and infusing varying degrees of dolor and frustration into the lines, but remained unsatisfied. During rehearsal, she’d asked the drama teacher why Helena would try to help the man she loved, Demetrius, hook up with another girl.

“Helena’s a dumbshit,” Noah Asher, the play’s Lysander, said in an undertone heard only by the students grouped loosely on the stage. “She should give the dude a BJ that pops his eyeballs and he wouldn’t be chasing that Hermia anymore.” He exchanged high fives with a hooting senior who played Theseus.

Jolene heaved a sigh, wondering how her best friend’s brother could be such a moron. Mrs. Asher would have a coronary if she heard him talking about blowjobs. She looked forward to sharing the incident with Mercy and wished they could walk home together, but play practice kept her late and Mercy was helping with something at the church that ate up a lot of her time. Mrs. Asher was pleased that Mercy was devoting more of her time and talent to the Community instead of doing extra-curriculars at the high school.

Thank heaven her own parents weren’t quite so into the Community as Mercy’s. They’d moved from Ohio to become part of the Community, drawn by Pastor Matt’s charisma and a religious philosophy that revolved around simplicity, service, and living Biblically, but her mom worked for the utility company—the only woman in the Community who worked outside her home. She insisted on the modest dress the Community prescribed, but she let
Jolene wear a little makeup and didn’t object to her being involved in the high school plays, as long as they weren’t anything lewd. Jolene sometimes wondered if it was her mother’s job that allowed her to be more … independent-thinking than most of the Community’s women, to not kow-tow to Pastor Matt quite as much as Mercy’s mom, for instance.

She had reached the house-sized boulder that crowded the path where it turned and sloped toward the Community. It had landed there two years earlier when a minor earthquake triggered a landslide that sent thousands of tons of rock thundering from the far side of the canyon, filling the ravine and creating a bridge of sorts from the Lone Pine side to the north rim. The tumbling boulders had uprooted whole trees, some of which had adapted to their new locations and now grew there, lonely bursts of green in the rocky landscape. Her gaze settled on the small white cross a third of the way up the slide and she said a prayer for Penelope. She was thinking ahead to the evening’s homework and chores when a scraping sound gave her a moment’s warning. Still, she gasped when Zach dropped off the boulder onto the path in front of her. He grabbed her and tried to kiss her.

She pushed him away. “You’ll break your leg one of these times.”

“You were daydreaming again.” His blue eyes, so like his father’s, smiled down into hers. He leaned in to kiss her again and this time she let him. After long moments, she turned her head, breaking the kiss to look past his shoulder. “We shouldn’t.”

“There’s no one to see.” His hands caressed her back, pulling her tightly against him, and her body reacted to the proof of his arousal pressed against her.

“Your dad would say that’s not the point. In last week’s sermon he said chasteness—”

“But we love each other.” Zach’s hands roamed her body and he drew her off the path. Within feet, the trees embraced them and the path disappeared. A breeze stirred the pines and their scent filled Jolene’s nostrils, blending with Zach’s soap and perspiration smell to make her dizzy. His lips found hers again and she moaned as he sucked her bottom lip into his mouth. Her backpack thudded to the forest floor and Zach’s nimble fingers popped the buttons on her blouse, then slid under the fabric of her bra. She arched against him, the sensations he roused overwhelming her.

“Your parents won’t be home for an hour,” he mumbled against her ear, his warm breath making her shiver.

The implication thrilled and scared her. Was she ready? “I’ve got … geometry homework,” she said between kisses.

“I love you, Jolene.”

He’d said the words first, last week, and they still made her catch her breath. She brushed a leaf from his collar. “I wish we didn’t have to hide our … us. I hate it.”

“Me, too, but not near as much as we’d hate having everyone spying on us, snitching to my dad if we kissed or held hands or disappeared at the same time for a couple of hours, whether or not we were together. Dad’s given me and Esther the speech about how everything we do reflects on him and his fitness for ‘shepherding the sheep’ so many times, I could puke.” He mimed the action.

“Romantic,” Jolene observed drily.

“Let me come over and I’ll show you romantic.” Zach grabbed for her, tickling, and she giggled.

“Okay, okay!”

“Okay?” Zach quit tickling and studied her face.

“Yes. Really okay.” Feeling shy suddenly, she peeped at him through her lashes.

His face lighting up, Zach seized her hand. She pulled it away. “No. I’ll go home like usual. Alone. You come around through the woods”—she traced an arc in the air with her finger that indicated the path he should follow behind the Community’s homes—“and I’ll let you in the back.”

“Ten minutes.” Zach pressed a quick kiss on her lips and jogged away, disappearing almost immediately in the trees.

Jolene waited a long moment, filled with expectancy and fear, a sense of life plunging off in a whole new direction, and then started down the path to Lone Pine, no longer feeling the weight of her backpack as she hurried toward Zach.

ten

iris

Exiting the hospital, Iris
grimaced as a radio talk show yammered out of a van idling near the door. Her rental car, nondescript and anonymous as it was, seemed like a haven and she settled into the driver’s seat and relaxed her head against the headrest. Matthew Brozek might have awakened, but he couldn’t communicate, probably wouldn’t know who she was. The lights were on, but no one was home. He was a cup and saucer shy of a place setting, two knights short of a crusade. Iris grunted a humorless laugh. Her chest muscles constricted, like someone had dropped a lariat over her torso and jerked sharply and she breathed deeply to dispel the tightness. All for nothing. She’d lost her one and only chance to force Matthew Brozek to hear her, to acknowledge what he’d done twenty-three years ago.
No.
She refused to believe that. If it were true, she might never get past the block that was keeping her from designing and making jewelry. She’d come back and look him in the eye and search for a flicker of consciousness, of shame.

And she still had the appointment to visit her father at the prison. That wasn’t until tomorrow … what should she do now? She could drop in on her mother …
Right. If I’m in the mood for an emotional milkshake of guilt, resentment, and disdain
. She could check into a hotel, or cruise through the Community to assess the changes. Maybe it had a Starbucks now. Iris snorted and pulled out her phone. Dialing Jane’s number, she considered telling her about the run-in with Esther, the frustration of not being able to challenge Pastor Matt once she’d worked up the nerve to return, her reluctance to visit the Community and see her mother. Instead, when Jane picked up, Iris asked, “How’s Edgar?”

Jane laughed her throaty laugh. “Hello, Iris. His highness is doing well, thank you, eating his weight in cat food that might as well be caviar and Kobe beef.”

“Good. That’s good.”

Silence fell. Indistinct voices came from Jane’s end of the line and Iris assumed she had customers in the gallery.

“Want to tell me about it?” Jane asked after a long moment.

“I’m at the hospital.”

“And—?”

“And nothing. He wasn’t in his room. Tests.” Why didn’t she tell Jane that seeing Brozek might be pointless? Because it felt, irrationally, like failure.

“Inconsiderate of him,” Jane said. “Excuse me a minute.”

The phone clunked down and a conversation ensued. “… bring my husband back to see the piece,” and “I’ll put a hold on it” filtered through the phone before Jane picked up again and said, “I’m back. Sorry. Customers.”

“We can talk later—” Iris half regretted phoning, not sure what she wanted to tell Jane, if anything.

“So what’s your next step?”

“See my mother.” Iris hadn’t known that’s what she was going to do; the words popped out unbidden in response to Jane’s question. “Then check into a hotel, get a good glass of wine, and …” And a young stud to drive it all from her mind. The memory of Greg’s laugh sounded in her head and she shook it away.

“You’re strong enough to do this, Iris. It’s the right path.”

Iris wasn’t so sure, but Jane’s faith warmed her.

“Say ‘hi’ to your mom for me.” With a laugh, Jane rang off.

Iris turned the key and pointed the car toward Lone Pine before she could change her mind.

Driving fifteen miles into what used to be virtually uninhabited woods, Iris noted how strip malls and housing development had encroached on the Black Forest north and east of Colorado Springs, boxing in the tiny town of Lone Pine. She wondered what the Community thought about no longer being so isolated. Did the elders like the convenience of having a 7-Eleven with gas pumps a couple miles down the road, or did they resent having a tattoo parlor and sports bar within walking distance? She’d bet the latter, would also bet that Lone Pine’s more adventurous youth regularly hiked the distance to the sports bar to buy a soda and watch forbidden TV.

Stopping the car on the verge where the school bus used to pick up and drop off Noah and her, the Brozek kids, Jolene, and a couple of others, Iris got out. A dump truck laden with gravel blasted past, dusting her with dirt and rock bits. She squinched her eyes against the draft and opened them when the truck was safely past to study the path that still bisected the brief apron of meadow before disappearing into the stands of pine and aspen beyond. It was fainter than when she’d lived there. She could just see the outermost boulders of the rockslide. Tempted to walk the mile-long trail into Lone Pine, Iris decided she might want to make a quick getaway and having her car nearby would be handy. Dredging up sentimental memories of giggling her way home from the bus stop with Jolene, or the time she watched bobcat kittens play from atop Big Boulder, was not on the agenda.

Back in the car, she folded her lips in, drove the last half-mile, and made the turn at the 1960s era motor court with the tacky neon sign spelling out
sleepytime motor inn
, with only the SL, the Y and the last N illuminated. Did the Welshes still own it? The road, still unpaved, ambled slightly downhill as she passed the motel. A new sign at the town’s outskirts announced
lone pine, co. pop.
346. So, the Community had almost doubled, despite the scandal and Matthew Brozek’s inability to shepherd his flock. Iris couldn’t count the number of times she’d heard him use that phrase. Who was leading the flock now, or had it dispersed?

The sun, sinking toward the west, was just high enough to illuminate the town, like a spotlight on a set. Iris tried to view it with as much detachment as she would a movie. Still vaguely horseshoe-shaped and hemmed in by high forest walls, the town now bulged to the south. Most of the houses were simple ranches, but several had brick or stone facades, or doors painted aubergine or garnet. Chicken coops squatted in many yards, and a field on the north held containers Iris thought might be beehives with a small barn or shed beyond them. The spring-fed pond, almost lake-sized, glinted bluely from the field’s far end. What wasn’t there was just as telling: no satellite dishes clinging to the eaves like fungi, no fences between the houses, no RVs or boats or third cars parked alongside the houses.

The downtown area—Iris didn’t know how else to refer to it, even though that gave it more importance than it merited—looked busier, with more storefronts than she remembered, in addition to the café and the tiny library/post office. Four-way stop signs at the intersection near the general store testified to increased traffic. Center Street still dead-ended at the church of God’s Community of Believers and Disciples, set at the closed end of the horseshoe, and the low building gleamed whitely from a cocoon of barbered shrubs and yellowing tulip leaves. Iris struggled to identify the feeling that itched at her and realized sheepishly that she was affronted that the town had apparently grown and flourished in her absence. It had had the temerity to change. Well, so had she.

Iris angled into a parking spot in front of what had been the general store. Her mouth felt dry; she’d get another bottled water in the store before seeking her mother. As she mounted the two plank steps, a sleek tourist-type bus rumbled out from behind the store and paused, belching diesel fumes. Middle-aged and elderly women and a few men jostled Iris as they streamed out of the store. Almost all of them carried bags marked “Lone Pine Traditional Crafts” in coral on a pale blue background. Hunching her shoulders inward to let the horde pass, Iris raised her brows at what appeared to be an organized shopping expedition, maybe for a senior’s center. She helped one frail woman down the shallow steps and saw a cranberry wool sweater peeping from a nest of tissue paper in her shopping bag.
What in the world—?

Crossing the store’s threshold, Iris found herself in an unfamiliar space. Gone were the chest-high shelves that held cans of Campbell’s soup, Wonder bread, Kotex, and matches. Gone were the sputtering fluorescent light fixtures, the whirring fan on the counter, the air of homey shabbiness. In their place was a stylish sales space with upscale lighting glowing on stacks of sweaters, racks of scarves and hats, and baskets of yarn advertised as “Organic Alpaca Wool.” Shallow refrigerator chests on the far end of the store featured local cheeses. Pyramids of honey, candles, and other beeswax products gave off a pleasant, waxy scent. Iris’s eyes got round. She spotted a salesgirl behind a counter, her fingers skimming through the contents of a wallet, like she was looking for a stamp or receipt.

“Hi,” Iris said.

The girl’s head came up and she dropped her wallet. “Oh! I didn’t hear you come in. Welcome.” She stooped for the wallet, tucked it behind the counter, and came around to greet Iris.

Iris was ready to ask what had happened to the general store, whose brainchild this crafts boutique was, but choked on the words when she got a good look at the blond girl standing in front of her. Jolene! A lump lodged in her throat and she swallowed hard. A mere second’s thought made her realize it couldn’t be Jolene; Jolene was approaching forty, just like she was, and this girl was no more than sixteen. Jolene was still here, then. She hadn’t escaped. Sadness—no, something more like regret—sifted through Iris as her fantasy of Jolene playing Nora or Major Barbara off-Broadway evaporated. This girl was a Jolene clone: petite, blond, hazel-eyed, with the same uptilting eyebrows and slightly sticking out ears. She wore a calf-length skirt and Peter Pan-collared blouse, the kind Iris had eschewed ever since leaving the Community. Something about the girl’s posture told Iris she hid a pair of jeans in her backpack and put them on in the high school restroom, probably topping them with a cami or T-shirt the Community’s elders would condemn as immodest. A tag clipped to her collar said “Rachel.”

As Iris hesitated, unsure what to say, Rachel broke into a rehearsed spiel: “Lone Pine Traditional Crafts is a cooperative that celebrates the arts that made our pioneers self-sufficient. We have wool from alpacas raised in this community, and wool products hand-spun and knit by award-winning local artists. The cheeses are made by our citizens from goats and cows never treated with hormones of any kind. The honey comes from our hives. Here.” The girl handed Iris a tri-fold brochure with a photo of alpacas grazing in front of the church.

Iris slid her fingers across the slick paper. “How long has the store been … like this?”

“We’ve been open eight years,” Rachel said, apparently happy to have someone to chat with since the shoppers had left. “The Community has always been big on being self-sustaining”—she said it with a sniff, like having a Walmart down the block beat self-sustaining every day of the week—“and eight years ago, our elders decided we should share our bounty with others.”

Rake in some tourist bucks
,
you mean
, Iris thought, but didn’t say. She wondered whose brainchild the store really was, unable to imagine the stodgy group of elders she had known, all middle-aged men, coming up with a concept like this.

“You work here?” Iris groaned inwardly at the stupidity of her question.

“We all do,” Rachel said. “We have to. It’s part of our service to God and the Community.”

Iris suppressed a smile at the resentment lurking in Rachel’s voice. Clearly, the girl would rather be stalking boys at the mall with her friends, or working some place a bit more happening than this senior citizen shopping Mecca in the woods. The phone rang and Iris examined some hand-drawn note cards on a revolving carrel as Rachel answered it.

A door opened somewhere in the rear of the shop and a young man appeared behind the counter, bringing the scent of outdoors with him. With collar-scraping light brown hair, a willowy build, and finely drawn features, he seemed almost delicate, a little like the blond elf in
Lord of the Rings
. At first, Iris thought he might be Rachel’s boyfriend, even though he looked too old for her, but his tone dispelled that idea.

“Chloe’s sick and can’t work her shift today,” he told Rachel when she hung up. “Mom says you have to stay until six tonight and close up.”

Rachel flushed angrily. “Abby and I are … we have plans.”

“Not any more you don’t.”

Her tone turned pleading. “Aaron, you could do it. It’ll be quiet …
you could get some studying done.”

“Not happening. I’m meeting friends at The Thirsty Parrot.”

The revolving stand creaked as Iris turned it and the man noticed her for the first time. “I didn’t see—. Sorry.” He smiled apologetically. “I didn’t know we had customers.”

“No problem.” Iris realized that Aaron must be Jolene’s son, even though he didn’t much resemble her. If he was as old as he looked—twenty-two or -three—Jolene must have had him within a year of Iris leaving the Community. She hadn’t even been dating anyone, as far as Iris knew, so who was his father? She studied him, trying to think who he reminded her of.

“Do I have a smudge on my face?”

He sounded half-prickly, prepared to take affront, and Iris gave him the slow smile that rarely failed to win men over. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. It’s just that you remind me of someone.”

Aaron’s stiffness melted under her smile and he asked, “Who?”

Iris started to shake her head, but then said, “Orlando Bloom.”

Aaron looked pleased and Rachel snorted. “Shakespeare’s Orlando, maybe, mooning through the woods after Rosalind.”

Iris arched her brows.

Correctly interpreting her expression, Aaron said, “Our mom teaches Shakespeare.”

“Ah.” The idea of Jolene teaching took a minute to sink in. Iris had been so sure she’d follow her passion for performing. Aaron, she thought. His birth had trapped her here. Iris eyed him, surprised to find she was half angry with him on Jolene’s behalf. She shook off the feeling.

“I’m Aaron, by the way,” Jolene’s son said, gazing at Iris with more interest now that his sister had moved away to swipe a sleeve over a smudgy handprint on the refrigeration unit. He reached over the counter to shake hands.

“Iris. Do you live here?”

Aaron shook his head. “My folks do. I’ve got an apartment near UCCS. I’m working on my psych master’s. How’d you find us, anyway?”