Chasing Darkness (25 page)

The
article mentioned that Eva’s daughter’s body had also been found in the
apartment, though it appeared to authorities that she’d been dead for some
time. It was like someone on the force had written it. Only the recent news of
Sam Chase’s apparent guilt went unmentioned.

Slapping
the paper down, he put the car back in gear and drove toward Sam’s. Rob picked
it up and read in silence. Nick didn’t stop him. The boys would inevitably hear
about it in school, since both his name and Sam’s were included in the text.

He
parked in front of Sam’s house, and Rob folded the newspaper and handed it to
him. He wondered if Sam had seen it yet. Better to hear the news from Nick than
from Corona. She’d be getting bad enough news from Corona. He paused before
getting out of the car, preparing himself to hold back what he knew. He thought
about what would happen if the situation were reversed. Would Sam tell him? He
clenched his fists and banished the thought from his head. This was his job. He
would do everything he could to protect Sam, but he couldn’t lose his job. He
could do both. He and Sam had plans to be together tonight anyway. He would
watch her. Probably he wouldn’t be able to keep his eyes off her and then he
could prove to Cintrello that he was dead wrong.

Rob
opened the door and stepped inside, calling out to Sam. When no one answered,
he shrugged.

Nick
frowned. Her car was in front. “Maybe she went for a run?”

Just
then, he heard Derek’s voice, screaming. “You bitch! How could you do that to
my mother?”

Nick
stiffened. “Stay here,” he told Rob, motioning to the kitchen. Nick moved
toward the noise. He heard a low level of conversation, but he didn’t recognize
the other voice.

Pushing
open the door to Sam’s bedroom, he saw her hunched over on the floor. Derek was
standing over her, glaring as he waved a fistful of papers at her.

A
cardboard box on the floor was empty and turned on its side.

“What’s
going on?” he asked.

Sam
looked up, and Nick saw the agony on her tear-streaked face. “Please, don’t.”

“Tell
him what’s going on, Sam,” Derek hissed. “Tell him what you did.”

Sam
swiped at her face and pulled herself to her feet, erasing the image of any
weakness as quickly as possible. Lifting her chin, she spoke in a firm voice.
“Stop it, Derek. This doesn’t involve Nick.”

“Maybe
it should,” Derek snapped.

Sam
walked to the bed, sank down and rubbed her eyes.

Nick
stepped forward. He’d never seen Derek act out like this. Rob was the one who
tended to fly off the handle. Nick wondered what had set Derek off.

“Please
don’t,” she said again, looking back at Nick. “Please go.”

“No,
he deserves to know,” Derek yelled. “You’re involved with him. He should know
what kind of a person you are.”

“Derek,
don’t talk to your aunt that way,” Nick said. Closing the distance between
them, he touched Sam’s shoulder. “Tell me what’s going on.”

She
looked up at him and then at Derek and shook her head.

“Fine,
she won’t tell you, then I will.” Derek handed the papers he was holding to
Nick, who glanced down at the large, cursive writing, still baffled.

“What—”

“Those
are letters from my mother,” Derek said. He motioned between himself and Rob,
who was still lurking at the edge of the room, looking confused. “Our mother.”

Nick
frowned. So what?

Derek
pointed back at Sam. “Unopened letters. She’s had some of them for sixteen
years and she never read them. I came in here to ask for money for the movies
and I found one open on her bed. There was a whole box of them—a whole box of
unopened letters. They’re all about us—me and Rob and our dad. My mom asked Sam
to come home. Begged her to come back and help her,” he spat.

“Help
her with what?”

“With
us,” Derek said. “We were poor and our dad was—” He stopped and stared at Rob.

Rob’s
eyes widened, but he didn’t speak.

“He
was drunk. He didn’t work. Mom asked Sam to come back and help her move, to get
a new start. All of us but Dad. And our wonderful Aunt Sam didn’t even open the
damn letters. She didn’t even care enough about us to read the letters.”

Sam’s
shoulders drooped and Nick could see she was crying. He touched her, but she
flinched. He didn’t let up. “Sam, talk to us. What happened?”

She
didn’t respond.

“Then
she got stuck with us,” Derek continued, his face red, the veins in his neck
bright blue and bulging. “That must’ve really sucked for you, huh, Sam? Did you
try to get out of it? Did you tell them you didn’t want us? Why didn’t you send
us somewhere else?”

“No,”
Sam whispered. “That’s not true.”

“It’s
crap, all of it.”

“You
don’t know what was happening with her, Derek,” Nick said. But he couldn’t
figure out why on earth she wouldn’t have read letters from her sister. And
why, if she hadn’t read them, had she bothered to keep them?

“Why
doesn’t she tell us, then?” Derek said, his anger still at the boiling point.

Nick
waited, trying to think of a reason.

Sam
didn’t speak.

Derek
jumped on the silence. “See, she doesn’t have a reason.”

“You
don’t know that,” Rob countered. “She had to have a reason. Sam?”

Shaking,
Sam looked up. “I was going through my divorce.”

The
boys were silent, but Nick felt like he’d been hit in the gut. His own divorce
had been terrible, but it had never driven him away from his family. He didn’t
know the circumstances for Sam, he told himself. He didn’t know anything about
it. But he found himself jumping to conclusions anyway. And then he wondered if
it was even his place to speak. He didn’t belong there. Did she want him to
leave? He watched her, the tight line of her lips, the pain in her eyes. He
couldn’t help himself. “Maybe your mom and Sam had a big falling-out before she
left Mississippi.”

“Mom
always talked about how great Aunt Sam was,” Rob said from the doorway. His
frame slouched, he seemed smaller suddenly. Sinking to the floor, he put his
head in his hands.

“Sam,
were there problems between you and your sister?” Nick asked.

She
shook her head.

“She
hates us. She never wanted us here,” Derek said, his voice cracking.

“That’s
not true,” Sam said, moving to him.

Derek
pushed her away.

She
stood and straightened her back, though Nick could see the weight of the
situation in her slumped shoulders. “Sure, I was surprised when I got the call
about you boys. But I love you guys. You’re like my own children.” She tried to
touch Derek again, but he turned his back. Then she turned to Rob, but he
wouldn’t look at her either. In the end she sat down on the bed again. “I
didn’t realize that Polly needed my help. She always seemed so self-sufficient.
I had no idea.”

“Why
didn’t you read the letters, then?” Rob asked, his voice quiet, almost hollow.

Her
gaze met Nick’s, but he couldn’t find it in himself to comfort her. He didn’t
understand how she could turn her back on her sister.

“The
divorce was terrible,” she whispered to Nick.

He
nodded. “I’ve been divorced, remember?”

Her
eyes sparked with anger. “Don’t you dare judge me based on what you think I
went through. You have no idea.”

Nick
found himself angry too, and he fought to suppress his reaction. “Then explain
it.”

She
looked at the boys. “It was just terrible.”

“Why?”
Nick pressed. “What was so terrible?”

Sam
sat in silence, her hands gripped together as though she was gathering her
strength to speak. “Brent was a doctor,” she said finally.

The
boys looked at her. No one spoke.

“We
got married when I was so young. He was eight years older—twenty-nine to my
twenty-one. He thought I was a perfect Southern girl. I didn’t date in college.
There wasn’t time.” She paused. “And I wasn’t interested. We’d met through his
younger sister. She was my roommate.

“After
we were married a year, he wanted to have kids, so we started trying.” She
shook her head, and Nick watched a tear fall down her cheek. “We couldn’t get
pregnant.” She looked at Derek and then Rob. “He couldn’t understand why not.
He insisted we have all sorts of tests—both of us.” She pressed her hand to her
belly. “I thought I knew. I wasn’t sure, so I went through with the tests.”

She
looked at Nick, tears streaming down her face. “I couldn’t have kids. It was
me.” She brushed a hand across her cheek. “I tried to talk to him, to explain,
but he refused to listen. As soon as he found out, he called me all sorts of
terrible things. He didn’t come home that night.

“The
next day when I got home from work, he was gone—no note, nothing. He had cleared
out the accounts, the furniture, everything. I had a week to find a new place
to live. When I finally reached him and asked how I was supposed to live, he
told me, ‘A dirty whore could go back to the streets.’ The day after that, I
got papers—divorce papers and a letter drafted by his attorney. He had itemized
what things I could have from the apartment—my clothes, pictures, almost
nothing else. He refused alimony or any support and warned me not to touch the
bank accounts. He said if I tried legal grounds, he’d have me proved a slut in
court. And he said I should keep away from all of our friends. If I didn’t do
as he said, he’d tell everyone why I couldn’t have kids.”

She
looked up and sucked in a deep breath. “I got the first letter from Polly that
same day. I had a hundred and twelve dollars in cash and that was it. No car—it
had been in Brent’s name—no savings, nowhere to stay. In that letter, Polly was
so happy, I couldn’t . . .” She stopped and dropped her hands.
“I couldn’t take it. I’d never felt so alone.”

Rob
moved toward her and Derek sat down on the floor.

Nick
felt a terrible pit in his stomach.

“I
started to drink too much, I almost lost my job, and by the time I got her
second letter, I was ready to kill myself.” She pulled in another raspy breath.
“I couldn’t handle hearing how good things were for her, hearing about her
babies.” She motioned to the boys. “I was so jealous of what I thought she
had.” She took Rob’s hand and knelt in front of Derek. “I thought things were
great for her. I had no idea.” She reached for Derek’s hand. “I should’ve read
those other letters, but after hearing how happy she was in the first one, the
thought of her happiness was just too painful. I’m sorry. It was selfish.”

Derek
nodded.

Sam
sat down and pulled Derek to her chest.

Rob
moved closer, too.

Nick
ached to join them, but he didn’t move.

“Why
couldn’t you have kids?” Rob asked.

Nick
looked down and met Sam’s pleading gaze. He knew. It made sense. Her
guardedness, her inability to express herself, it was all fear. He moved to the
floor with them, grasped her knee, and nodded. “Tell them.”

She
squeezed his hand and then turned back to the boys, still holding his fingers.
With a deep breath, the tears still falling down her cheeks, she said, “I was
abused.” The sentence shot from her lips. Slowing down, she said it again. “I
was abused.” She looked at Rob and then at Derek. “My father abused me.”

“How?”
Derek said, his mouth open, his voice a hoarse whisper.

She
held tight to Nick’s hand but didn’t falter. “Sexually,” she whispered. “He
abused me sexually. From the time I was about three, I think.”

She
looked at Nick. “That night you were here and I got that call—”

He
nodded without speaking, worried that any sound might stop her.

“It
was my brother. He called to let me know that my father was dead. Despite all
he had done to me, I was still shaken. Still miserable that I’d never gotten to
say good-bye to him.”

With
the words finally out, she turned to Nick and began to sob. He pulled Rob and
Derek close as Sam’s head dropped onto his chest. He held her, rubbed her back,
and rocked her tenderly. Let it all out, he thought. She had needed this for so
long. Rob put his arms around her too. Derek started to cry.

She
had felt she would never have a family, Nick thought, but there they were,
loving her. He only wished he could keep them there, comfort her.

He
held her tight and prayed for them all.

Whitney
sat crouched beside the house with the mirror and lipstick she had taken from
her mother’s drawer. Holding her hand steady, she drew her lips red just like
her mother did. Her hand slipped and the red slid down her chin. She frowned
and looked around for something to wipe it off with. She tried using one of the
branches from the big bush in front, but it was prickly and scratched her skin.
She looked down at her pink T-shirt. It wasn’t as dark as the lipstick, but
they sort of matched. Plus, she had Jell-O stains on this one already. She
pulled up the corner of the shirt and wiped the lipstick on it. When she was
done, though, the shirt had a big mark. Whitney picked at it with her finger,
but it was still there.

“Whitney,”
her mother called. Whitney jumped and dropped the shirt, staring down at the
lipstick and mirror she’d taken. She thought about her mouth. She couldn’t go
in now.

“Whitney,
it’s time to take a bath,” her mother called again, and Whitney could tell she
was in the back. She’d be coming out front next.

Whitney
shoved the lipstick and mirror into the prickly bush and ran down to the
street. She turned the corner, toward school, and ran smack into a leg.

“Oh,
my, someone’s in a hurry.”

Whitney
backpedaled and looked over her shoulder, but she didn’t see her mom. She
looked up at the man, who was watching her curiously, and frowned.