Heartbreaker (5 page)

“Not yet. I thought I’d use it before I went to sleep.” Lynn patted the too-quaint can in her pocket.

“Good idea. The stuff works better than any insect repellent to help ward off the creepy-crawlies.”

“What kind of creepy-crawlies?” The idea of things scuttling around in the dark while she lay sleeping made Lynn uneasy.

“You name it, and it’s probably out here.” Owen grinned. “What’s a camping trip without bugs and spiders and snakes and—”

Lynn held up a hand to shut him up. “I’d love to find out.” She took another drag on her cigarette.

“Can I bum a cigarette off you?”

“You smoke?” Lynn glanced at him in surprise.

“Yeah.” He accepted the cigarette and lighter she held out to him and lit up. “I quit for years. After—a few months ago I started up again. It helps me to relax.”

“Me too.” He passed her lighter back. Lynn dropped it in her pocket with her cigarettes.

“You enjoying the trip so far?”

“Oh, I’m loving every minute of it.”

Owen laughed. “Why do I get the impression that the great outdoors is not your thing?”

“Maybe because it’s not.”

“Jess said you’re on TV. He said you’ve got some kind of real glamorous job.”

Lynn’s eyes narrowed as she slowly exhaled smoke. “I don’t know how Jess would know—oh, Rory, I guess—but I’m an anchorwoman for WMAQ in Chicago. Believe me, it’s not particularly glamorous.”

“You been doing it long?”

“Four years.”

“Oh, yeah? How’d you get a job like that?”

“I majored in communications at Indiana University. While I was still in school I started working as a gopher for a station in Indianapolis. When I graduated I got a job as a reporter for a station in Evansville. From there I went to Peoria as a weekend anchor, and from there I went to Chicago to work for WMAQ. Voilà.” It was an oft-asked question. Lynn’s bare-bones response had been whittled down over years of answering.

“Impressive.”

“Yeah.” Lynn took another drag on her cigarette. To outsiders, being an anchorwoman sounded like a dream job. Only someone in the business knew how stressful and uncertain a career it was. Gain ten pounds, develop a few crow’s-feet, and it was over.

Then what?

That was the fear that nibbled constantly at the edges of her mind. She was thirty-five—and she feared it was starting to show. How much longer did she have?

“Owen, Tim needs to see you. Something about tomorrow’s schedule.” The voice behind them that materialized out of the darkness belonged to Jess. Lynn tensed.

“Can’t you handle it?” Owen swiveled around to look at his brother.

“Nope.”

Concentrating on her cigarette, Lynn didn’t look at either man. But she was conscious of something—a small shimmer of wordless communication—in the air between them. It dissolved as Owen turned back around with a disgusted grunt.

“I guess I’d better go, then,” he said to Lynn as he stubbed his cigarette out on the heel of his boot and stuck the butt in his jacket pocket. “Don’t forget to use that liniment.”

“I won’t. Thanks.” Lynn smiled at him. He smiled back at her, stood up, and strode off into the night.

“What liniment?” Jess walked around the bale and sat down in Owen’s place. Pushing his cowboy hat to the back of his head, he leaned his flannel-clad elbows on his knees just as Owen had, and looked sideways at her. His profile was etched in orange against the distant glow of the fire. The ridge of his nose had a bump on it, as if it might have been broken once. His lips were a shade too thin, his chin and forehead a hair too prominent. He was not quite as good-looking as Brad Pitt, Lynn was pleased to decide. And for her, at least, he was totally resistible.

“None of your business,” Lynn said, glancing away and blowing a cloud of smoke into the cold night air. “Go away.”

“You seemed ready enough to talk to my brother.”

“I like him. I don’t like you.”

“Now why is that, I wonder? Most people like me fine.”

Lynn slanted him a glance of disdain. “People? Or women?”

“Either. Both.”

“In that case maybe you should start a fan club.”

“Maybe I will. Wanna join?”

“In your dreams.”

Jess laughed. “I guess that means you don’t want me to rub that liniment on for you.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“You’ll be sorry in the morning. The second day is a whole lot worse than the first when it comes to being saddle sore.”

“I’ll live.”

“You’re wasting time, you know.” The words were soft, provocative.

Lynn took a final drag on her cigarette, dropped it, and ground it out with the toe of her boot as she exhaled.

“You lost me. I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” she said.

“We’ve only got eight days left for that vacation fling.” He grinned at her as she stiffened with outrage, then warded off any reply she might have made by bending to retrieve the butt she had discarded. “By the way, you don’t want to leave that cigarette on the ground. It might spark up again, start a fire.”

Lynn’s lips tightened as she watched him stash the butt in the pocket of his denim jacket. He was right, she knew; she should have remembered how careful Owen had been.

“I’ll remember that.” The words were abrupt. She stood up, wincing as her sore muscles shrieked a protest. “I think I’ll go check on Rory.” It was all she could do not to rub her thighs, her knees, her butt. God, she ached.

“Give the kid some space, why don’t you?” Jess stood too, looking down at her. Like his brother, he was tall. Lynn felt more vertically challenged than usual in her flat riding boots. At work, and nearly everywhere else as well, she always wore three-inch heels.

“I don’t need your advice about my daughter. All I want you to do is stay away from her.”

“You’ve got a dirty mind, you know that?” His voice was almost a drawl.

“Only when it’s warranted.”

“And you think it’s warranted with me?”

“Lynn, there you are!” Pat materialized out of the darkness before Lynn could reply. She looked from one to the other of them, beaming, completely oblivious to the atmosphere. “And Jess too! That’s perfect! We’re dividing into groups to sing in rounds. Come on, we need you!”

“Count me out,” Jess said with a shake of his head, his expression relaxing into an easy smile. “I’ve got the singing voice of a frog. And I’ve got chores to do too, if you ladies want to make it to Mount Lovenia tomorrow.”

“Oh, I can’t wait! I’ve got my camera in my saddlebag, in case we see an eagle!” Pat sounded ecstatic at the prospect.

“Believe me, we will, sooner or later. Excuse me.” With a smile and a nod for Pat and an unreadable glance for Lynn, Jess took off. Lynn found herself being dragged toward the campfire by Pat.

“I have to tell you, I watch you on the news every night. You are so good at what you do! And Katie is so envious of Rory for having a mother who’s on TV,” Pat said, her hand curled around Lynn’s arm so that there was no evading her.

“Is she?” Lynn gave up on trying to get away. Obviously, if Pat wanted her to join the group, she was going to join the group. Without resorting to outright rudeness there was no hope of escape. “Believe me, Rory is envious of Katie for having a mom who stays home all the time.”

“Kids.” Pat shook her head, her smile rueful. “Isn’t that the way of it? With them the grass is always greener.”

It was a moment of connection, mother to mother. Lynn found herself liking Pat, and she smiled back at her even as she was pushed down on a hay bale in the midst of the assembled group. It was nice to know that Katie didn’t think her mother was so perfect either.

It was almost an hour later when Lynn finally managed to creep away. The strains of “This Old Man,” sung in rounds, followed her as she fled.

You’ll enjoy sing-alongs by the campfire.…

Remembering the wording in the brochure was starting to drive Lynn nuts. How could anything sound so much better in print than it was in reality?

A high-domed tent, positioned a short distance from the others, had been set up as the women’s shower. Extracting her towel and the sweat suit she meant to sleep in from the rest of her gear, Lynn emerged from her tent and headed toward the shower, careful to skirt the firelight. They had moved on to telling ghost stories now, and she had no wish to be roped in.

Rory, though, looked rapt, probably because she had taken advantage of her mother’s absence to move. Whereas before she, Jenny, and Melody had perched together on a burlap sack, she now leaned against a tree at the edge of the crowd, talking to Jess Feldman as he hoisted something high into its branches.

Lynn took a deep breath, fighting the urge to march over there and drag her daughter away. It would be useless anyway. Rory in her growing truculence would in all likelihood refuse to come with her, and Lynn didn’t think she could physically force her daughter, even if she wanted to. Which she didn’t. Violence had never been part of their relationship. She had never even spanked the child. Maybe, Lynn reflected, that was precisely the problem. Maybe she should have.

Motherhood, Lynn decided with a sigh, was not a job for sissies.

At least she had warned Jess Feldman. Unless and until matters escalated, that would have to do.

Even as she watched, he finished his task and, with a hand on Rory’s elbow, strolled with her back to the group. They sat down side by side on a burlap sack.

Lynn had just decided that, counterproductive or not, she was going to have to dump rain on her daughter’s parade, when Jess stood up. The assembly was looking at him, clapping. With a grin and a bow he headed toward the front of the group and seated himself on a bale of hay. Once there, he waited for the clapping to die down and then started to talk.

Lynn presumed he was telling a ghost story, though she was too far away to be sure.

At least he was no longer alone with Rory.

Uprooting herself, Lynn resumed her pilgrimage to the shower tent, her thoughts grim. The question ran through her mind again, unbidden: Was she having fun yet?

Not!

Fortunately she and Rory slept in the same tent, so she’d be able to monitor her daughter’s whereabouts at night. Each woman had been placed with four girls. Lynn’s group included Rory, Jenny, Melody, and Lisa Hind, a newcomer to the school.

Of course the other three girls, fast friends, excluded Lisa. Lynn had already had a chat with them about that.

Not that talking seemed to do much good. To any of them. About anything.

Lynn sighed.
This
was a vacation? Give her work any day.

Ducking inside the shower tent, Lynn was grateful for her lack of height for one of the few times in her life. She could stand upright with several inches to spare. Something brushed the top of her head. Lynn reached up to discover a lantern flashlight hooked over a tent pole, obviously put there to provide illumination. Turning it on, Lynn eyed the facilities. Primitive, but adequate. A showerhead attached to a hose dangled through a hole in the roof. Lynn presumed it was connected to a water tank set up outside.

With a quick glance around to make sure her shadow wouldn’t be thrown on a nylon wall for the world to view, Lynn stripped out of her clothes and fumbled, shivering, with the valve that controlled the flow of water.

A hot shower was just what she needed to soothe her aches and pains and wash away the grit, horse smell, and insect repellent, which, combined, made for a pungent eau de trail.

The valve proved resistant. Lynn took hold of the hose to steady it, grasped the cold metal handle in her other hand, gritted her teeth, and twisted. Success! She could hear the water coming, creaking and gurgling as it rushed through the narrow channel.

Releasing the valve, she stepped back and turned up her face in anticipation.

Water gushed forth, cascading with surprising power over her face and hair and down her body.

Ice
water.

Gasping, Lynn jumped back out of the stream. For a moment she stared, naked and shivering, at the pouring water as realization slowly dawned: Arctic was as warm as it was going to get. There was no hot water.

Even as you experience the wilderness you will be provided with every amenity, including showers
.

The word hot had not been mentioned.

When she got back to civilization, Lynn vowed, whoever had written that freaking brochure was going to get sued.

June 20, 1996
10
P.M
.

M
ICHAEL
S
TEWART WAS HOME
. Her brothers Thomas and James would be with him. From her hiding place in the root cellar Theresa heard the braying of the burros they used to haul gear from the camp to where the truck was kept, out near the gravel road some five miles away. For the first time since the nightmare had begun, she felt a glimmer of hope.

Daddy would save them. He would work a miracle, as he always did.

A miracle was what it would take to defeat the demons in the cabin, Theresa knew.

But miracles were what Daddy was all about.

Elijah whimpered, squirming in his nest of old clothes that were being stored until they could be turned into rugs or quilts or something useful.

“Don’t cry, baby. Please don’t cry.”

Theresa found him by touch and picked him up with a hand over his mouth, thrusting her little finger between his lips to pacify him as she felt around for the nurser she had jury-rigged out of a plastic water bottle and a rubber glove.

The root cellar was so dark that she could see next to nothing. It was small and cramped, hardly more than a crawl space, gouged out of the dirt and rock under a portion of the cabin more than a century before. The storage-room floor was its ceiling. The only entry was a trapdoor behind the washtub.

So far the demons hadn’t found the trapdoor. They had entered the storage room only once, for what seemed like a cursory look around, and left again.

Hearing their footsteps directly overhead, Theresa thought her heart would stop.