Whispers (26 page)

The wistful throb in her voice struck Reilly deep. Hadn’t he tried to forget Diablo Springs in the same way? Hadn’t he found a way to survive by wiping his memory of everything that had happened prior to his leaving here? It wasn’t that he forgot; it was that he didn’t choose to remember. And being back now was like peeling the scab off a festered wound.

Chloe said, “When he came and raped your Gracie, I knew I could not pretend any longer.”

“
I hate to burst your bubble there, Chloe. But your ghost didn’t touch Gracie. Someone else did.”

Chloe’s face filled with pity, and Reilly had the uncomfortable suspicion that she was feeling sorry for him. He stared back with neutral eyes.

“
I think even Carolina sensed it was going to happen. When I came to warn her again, she was waiting for me. But she refused to hear me and she refused to heed my warning.”

“
Do you have any idea how crazy you sound?” he asked.

“
Believe me or don’t believe me, Nathan. The truth is that I saw it. I felt it. He covered his face to hide his shame, but he couldn’t hide it. I know because I saw it. I still see it. And I live with the knowledge that I might have changed it.”

She stared into his eyes, refusing to let him look away.

“
Chloe, you are so far off-base that I don’t even know what game you’re playing. You asked about my brother, so I know you have some knowledge of what he did. He raped Gracie. I know it, she knows it, and God help him, he knew it. I’m willing to accept that maybe you’re for real. Maybe you have visions. Maybe you see the future or the past or whatever. But I don’t get why you’d bring this up when you know what really happened.”

“
I know you do not understand me, Nathan, but make no mistake, I understand you.”

“
Which means?”

“
That you will not believe until you see it with your own eyes. And even then you will doubt.”

He didn’t say anything to that. What could he say? “You asked me to help you, Chloe. Help you do what?”

“
Three months ago my mother came to me in a vision.”

She watched him closely, watched a reaction he couldn’t stop sweep across his face. Three months ago Matt had died.

“
Every night since she has come. Last night she was joined by Carolina Beck. Nathan, your Gracie and her daughter are both in danger.”

“
Because of your visions?”

Chloe sighed, as if the frustration of communicating with him were too taxing to endure.

“
I warned Carolina that her granddaughter would be raped. The next night it happened. Now I ask you again, when did the changes begin in your brother?”

Reilly didn’t have to think about it. He knew. The night his father had beaten his mother to death. The night Matt had returned the favor.

“
You took him to the springs,” Chloe said. Her voice seemed distant. As if she were watching his memory, watching as he pulled Matt off his father’s bloody, broken body. They’d taken their dad up to Dead Lights Road and rigged his car to drive off it. As long as he lived, Reilly would remember the sight of the old Buick breaking through the railing and arcing across the pitch-black sky into the caverns that still surrounded the old springs. The car had hit with a boom that should have been much louder. Reilly had looked into his brother’s face then and he’d seen it. He’d seen the change.

Reilly shoved his hands into his pockets and looked away. He knew what came next. He knew he wouldn’t be able to stop Chloe from prying deeper any more than he could have stopped that night from happening. He strode over to the window and stared out at the storm.

He said, “Yeah, Matt changed after that. So what? Who wouldn’t change after what we saw, what we lived through?”

“
You didn’t.”

“
How do you know?”

She stood, bracing herself against the back of a chair as she faced him. “I know what’s in your heart, Nathan. I know you yearn to remember your brother as a good man. You don’t blame him for your father’s death. The law was willing to believe your story; this town was willing to turn a blind eye to what was obvious because they knew about him and they’d done nothing to help you boys or your mother against him. But after that. . . after that, Matt changed. ... He wasn’t a monster before, but he became one. Wouldn’t you like to know why? Wouldn’t you like to release his spirit from the guilt of this world? Wouldn’t you like to release yourself from the feelings of failing him?”

Reilly swallowed around a lump of emotion. He didn’t answer. He didn’t move a muscle. He couldn’t.

“
I want to do a séance, Nathan. Tonight. I need Gracie and Analise in my circle. And you. We are all connected in ways I don’t understand. My mother, your brother, Gracie, and now Analise. I have to know what happened. I need to see the past so I can protect against the future.”

“
Look, you may have a few of the facts right, but that doesn’t mean I believe a goddamned thing you’ve said. I think you’re spouting so much mumbo jumbo you actually think it’s all true. But it’s not. Yeah, my brother changed. And goddamn him, he raped Gracie. But it’s not connected to anything that happened to you fifty, sixty years ago. And even if it was, Gracie’s never going to go for a séance. Not with you, not with anyone.”

“
She will if you ask her.”

“
There’s a lot of history between me and Gracie, Chloe. None of it inspires the kind of faith in me you’re imagining.”

“
Yes, history,” she said, missing the rest of his point. “The history between you is what will make her see reason.”

“
You think a séance is reason? I think it’s lunacy. I’m going to pass on this, Chloe. Gracie’s got enough on her plate without you adding a séance to the mix.”

“
You heard her say it today, Nathan. Why will you not believe? What sent Carolina to the springs to search for her missing daughter and granddaughter? It was I. I saw it before it happened. From hundreds of miles away, I saw it. And though I couldn’t prevent it, I led Carolina to her daughter’s body.”

He couldn’t keep himself from asking, “So you’re saying you know
what
happened to Gracie’s mother?”

Chloe nodded. She looked back at the picture of her grandfather standing behind the four women. But when she answered, it was with another question.

“
Do you know why your father beat your mother?”

“
Because he could.”

“
Yes, because he owned her. And nothing in this world would ever change that. If she’d left him, he’d have followed. No matter where she went, he would have found her.”

Reilly swallowed, staring at a point over her shoulder, fighting to keep the tide of emotion within him from spilling over. Spilling out.

“
My grandfather felt the same about these women,” she said, gesturing to the picture again. “He still does. You’ve recognized the woman in the middle, haven’t you? You see the resemblance between her and Gracie. She’s Gracie’s great-grandmother, Ella.”

“
If you say so.”

“
She’s the one he wants.”

“
Well, that should make it easy then. She’s dead, he’s dead. Let him have her.”

The look on Chloe’s face made him regret the words as soon as they were spoken. “Would you condemn your
brother’s
soul to hell so easily?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. He supposed his expression was answer enough. If he could save Matt’s soul, he’d do whatever it took.

“
There are only women in the Beck family. You’ve noted this, I’m sure.”

Yeah, he’d noted it.

“
Each generation is another chance for my grandfather to have his precious Ella.”

For a moment, something like hatred flashed across her face. Before he could fully understand it, Chloe said, “He lured Gracie’s mother to the springs.”

“
How?”

“
He can make himself seen.”

“
That’s bullshit.”

“
Ask your Gracie. She’s seen him.”

Reilly shook his head, but then he thought of last night. Her scream. Her pale and frightened face. The way she kept glancing at the corner by the window. Had she seen something? Someone? Was it possible that Chloe was telling the truth?

He paused, the answer to the question clear in his mind. No. It wasn’t. Because there were no ghosts. Granted the Diablo had a lot of weird shit happening in it, but ghosts that could materialize? That could lure someone to plunge to their death in the deep caverns of the springs? No way. Chloe didn’t know any more than anyone else about what happened to Gracie’s mother. She’d fallen and broken her back, but why she was out there in the first place .. .

“
For the sake of argument, let’s say it’s all true,” he said. “Your grandfather is a ghost who’s out to get the Becks. That still doesn’t tell me why you are here. And why you wanted me along.”

“
I wondered when you’d ask. I told you last night,
you
are part of the story. And I gave you the excuse you needed to come. I’m here to end the cycle, Nathan. I’m here to send my grandfather to the other side.”

‘‘
Oo-kay,’` he said. “And how are you going to do that?”

“
There are two reasons why he won’t leave. The first, as I’ve told you, is Ella and her lineage. He considers the Beck women his possessions. He wants them back.”

“
And the second reason?”

“
He is searching for something. Something lost. Again, something he believes belongs to him.”

“
And what is that?”

She looked guarded for a moment. “I don’t know.”

“
I think you do.”

“
That is because you don’t believe what I’m telling you. You’re looking for a concrete
thing
that will explain it all in a tidy way.”

Fair enough. “So how do you plan to accomplish the ending of this cycle?”

She sighed impatiently. “I’ve told you already. I want to do a séance.”

Reilly shook his head. “You almost had me, Chloe.”

Chloe’s smile was resigned. She shook her head and took a step away. Like magic, Bill chose that moment to appear. She leaned heavily on him as he led her to the stairway.

“
You don’t have to believe me, Reilly, but think about the séance. If I’m right, it could bring closure to years of pain. And if I’m wrong . . .” She shrugged. “Think how good it would be in your new book. The atmosphere alone would be mesmerizing. And should I prove true and raise a spirit or two, my, my, wouldn’t that be something.”

Oh, she was manipulative. She cast that hook effortlessly and snagged him with her sly bait. But he didn’t bite. Chloe stared at him for a moment, surprise widening her eyes just a little. She thought she’d have him that easily. What made him angry, though, was the desire to sink his teeth into her hook. She was right. Without him even being aware, the structure of a story had been building and linking in his head and now he saw it, standing like the plywood framework of a house, waiting for the walls, the windows, the paint. It was huge and precise. And if she delivered on a séance tonight, and he could capture that in words and mood . . .

“
You’ve let her down before, Nathan,” she said, the eyes now sparkling with an inner knowledge he resented more than he could say. “What if I’m right? What if this time you could help?”

“
You’ve been listening to your own crazy stories for too long, Chloe. You’re not right. I won’t play your game.”

She nodded and the sparkle dimmed. But the tiny smile tilting her lips didn’t waver. She thought she knew him better than he knew himself. Well, she was wrong.

“
I don’t think so,” she said, answering his thought. And then she let Bill lead her up the stairs.

Angry, Reilly turned and moved away. His steps took him back to the mantel and the picture. He stared at it, seeing more than he had before. From the start, there’d been no missing the resemblance of Gracie to the woman seated in the center of the picture. That alone had dominated his attention. Now the tidy man in the background became a young, pasty version of the woman who’d just left. But as he stared from one face to another, he saw more. Beside the pinstriped suit was another man, one nearly concealed by the shadows and the smoke. Reilly moved closer, staring into the man’s face, prying his features from the faded picture. Like an optical illusion where the image is hidden until you stare at it long enough, the man’s face jumped into focus. Reilly took a step back. Then another. But now that he’d seen it, he couldn’t ignore what his eyes told him. Couldn’t believe it, couldn’t dismiss it.

The man looked like Reilly.

Chapter Twenty-Two

May 1896

I stared at Lonnie Smith’s face and I was struck still by the rush of my hate. There was no questioning what he had or hadn’t done. I’d seen it with my own eyes. Seen him laugh as he murdered my father in cold blood. Seen him slaughter my little brother and then calmly sit down to eat my mother’s stew. I felt as if time slowed to an unbearable measure. I saw a spark pop from the fire and hover in the air. Beside me, Sawyer had stood alert but still.